by Neal Asher
“If you answer my question I promise I will not kill you.” I was thinking Kephis could do the job just as well. “If you do not answer the question I will torture you until you do, then kill you. You have a simple choice to make.”
“I might lie.”
That was it. I’d had enough. I reached forward to get hold of his arm and pull him to his feet.
“RUN!!” It was Kephis bellowing as he went past me like a projectile. I looked behind him and saw the reason: a matriarch had found what the Protestanti had done to one of her family group. She was not happy. I ran.
My body is nigh indestructible, but a thirty ton mammoth foot-press would do it no good. In a moment I was atop one of the worn boulders and looking down on the scene in the grove. Kephis had made it to one of the baobabs and as I watched he went up it like a gibbon. The matriarch stopped below the tree and looked up at him, showing the whites of her eyes, then she snorted contemptuously and turned away. I realised she must have been with the other when it was killed and have run off. She knew Kephis was not one of the killers, else that baobab would have been flattened, and Kephis with it. I looked to see what had happened to the Protestanti and could see him nowhere. The matriarch had an excellent sense of smell, and on turning immediately charged a patch of thorny scrub, bringing her tusks down in a scoop. There was a castrato yodelling and the Protestanti shot ten metres into the air trailing a length of intestine like a kite string. He hit the ground to one side of the scrub and made feeble scrabbling motions. She was on him in a moment, and she stamped him into a slushy puddle. So much for my saving him for questioning.
Kephis tried to get higher into the baobab when the matriarch came to have another look at him, which was difficult, as it went no higher. Again she snorted and turned away. His crime had not been so heinous as the Protestanti’s. She sniffed the air then, but I was not worried. She was too short-sighted to see me, and she would not smell me. After a moment she walked over to the body by the fire and absent-mindedly stepped on it a couple of times. Then she went to the body of the slaughtered mammoth and began to tear up scrub and the occasional tree to throw over it. This was just the start of her grieving. I gave her a decent spell at doing this then I unhitched one of the APWs.
My first shot blew a smoking crater in the ground just behind her. She trumpeted and lumbered round, holding an acacia tree above her head. I adjusted the beam width and cut away half of the tree. She dropped the rest and began to charge at the baobab, an easy mistake to make. Quickly I upped the power and beam width and blew a hole in front of her. She stumbled in the smoking crater and backed off. Two more shots and she was on her way to the east, bellowing as she charged off through the elephant grass, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
Kephis took a long time getting to the ground, when he got there I saw why.
“You’re shaking, Kephis,” I observed.
“You play strange games, Collector,” he said.
“There was no need to kill her,” I said.
He looked towards the retreating figure. “Perhaps not, from where you were standing.”
I allowed myself a grin, then I unhitched one of the APWs and handed it to him. “There, you can defend yourself, but please try not to kill any mammoth, unnecessarily.”
“Unnecessarily, yes... “
He took the rifle and slung it over his shoulder.
“What... now?” he asked.
“Now I guess we continue to head north. That seems to be the direction they were heading so perhaps the rest went that way. Hopefully tonight Spitfire will turn up and tell us if we are going wrong. Do you still want to come?”
“I must kill the Protestanti who killed my friends, or see them dead.”
I nodded. “There are six more of them and the Silver One apparently.”
As we started walking he asked, “How do you know this . . . that there are six more of these devils?”
“I had a chat with one of them in the river valley then gave him to the resident crocodile.”
“The Old Man?”
I turned and looked at him. “He was an old crocodile.”
“That is right and just. I wish we could give them all to him.”
“Sipana told me there were crocodiles downstream. She said nothing about this Old Man.”
“We do not like to talk of him. He is the spirit of the tribe. He is our icon.”
Religion again. I asked no more.
We were walking for perhaps two hours when Kephis pointed out tracks in the dirt. There I saw the birdlike footprint of my wife. We moved with greater alacrity then, jogging along at Kephis’s fast pace rather than walking. Following the trail where we could. It went mostly north.
The day dragged on and on and still there was no sign of our quarry. A couple of times I considered abandoning my tall companion, as there was more at stake here than vengeance, but each time I relented. He might come in fairly handy when it came to the crunch. At least that is what I told myself. Sometimes I do not like to look too closely at my motivations. I do not like to be reminded of how human I am.
At midday we stopped and I showed Kephis how to roast the mammoth flesh he had taken with a low setting of his APW. He ate his fill, then paused to drink some water and smoke a foul-smelling reefer. When he had finished we moved on and did not stop until darkness. Then we found a suitable tree, built a fire, and I waited while he slept.
Soon Spitfire flapped in to land by the fire. She was about to speak, but I put my finger to my lips and pointed at Kephis, who was snoring gently. I thought it best to let him have his sleep. He’d gone through a trying day. We walked a short distance from the fire.
“The matriarch came,” was the first thing Spitfire said.
“Yes, and she nearly did for Kephis. I had to drive her away.”
“She knows you were not the killers. She will forgive you.”
Anthropomorphism again: a common fault with those who got religion. I wondered where that put me in the Pykani pantheon. I had, after all, resurrected the mammoth. I am legend, soon to be deified. That was all I needed.
“Whatever,” I said. “Have you any news of the other Protestanti... the Silver One?”
Spitfire shook her head slowly. “I have not seen them. Last night I watched the two who are now dead. This night I dare not fly too high. He is abroad.”
I did not have to ask who He was. The GAV was down from the ice again. I think it was more of a tradition than a fear, that they left the night sky to him when he hunted. He had not, as yet, killed any Pykani. Perhaps they wanted to keep it that way. I nodded my head and looked towards Kephis, who was now sitting upright. We began to walk back towards the fire.
“In the morning we’ll continue north. It seems the most likely direction,” I said, for the benefit of both Spitfire and Kephis. Kephis lay back down. Spitfire squatted by the fire and it almost seemed as if the light of it showed her bones, shadowlike, through her flesh. She looked thin and fey to me. I wondered if the death of Hurricane would be the death of her. I looked thoughtfully to the flames of the fire.
“You say the GAV is in the area?” I asked.
Spitfire nodded. Kephis was abruptly sitting upright again. He was looking up at the night sky dubiously. I went on.
“Then perhaps he will pay us a visit, and we can ask him if he has seen anything,” I said.
Without a word Kephis stood up and moved closer to the fire, then he sat cross-legged with his back to it and his APW across his lap. Spitfire looked from him to me then back into the flames of the fire. She did not seem too bothered.
I said, “If he comes, Kephis, do not shoot at him unless he attacks you.”
He just nodded.
It was an hour, perhaps more, before I saw in infrared the red bat-shape occlude the stars. He circled us then abruptly dropped for a run. I had seen this sort of thing many years before. I had seen how a GAV could snatch a man from a camp before anyone had time to react. This was why I had considered the P
rotestanti’s confidence in their weapons to be misplaced. Kephis had not seen him, I noticed, but Spitfire had. She hunched lower to the ground and watched him. I stood up and fired into the air with my handgun. The purple flash ignited the night. The GAV broke off his attack run and continued to circle.
“I would speak with you, vampire!” I shouted.
Kephis was on his feet with his APW held ready. He was trying to see what Spitfire and I could see, and failing. I watched as the GAV circled once more then moved in closer. I put my gun away and turned to Kephis.
“Put your rifle on the ground.”
He looked for a moment as if he was going to rebel. Then he did as I wished and stood ready to spring in any direction. Only when the vampire landed did he see him clearly, and he nearly stepped back into the fire.
“Machine,” said the GAV as he folded closed wings that filled half the night. I noted then he was not so much bigger than Kephis, only a foot or so.
“There’s blood on your chin,” I observed.
“Holy water,” said he, and I suddenly realised he had a sense of humour.
“How many?”
“Two of the white robes.”
He turned his head slightly and fixed his febrile ruby eyes on Kephis. Had Kephis not been so black he would have turned white. As it was he took a step back and eyed his APW.
“I would take your head before you reached it, Kiphani.”
I said, “There’s no need for that. You’ve fed tonight and these two are under my protection.”
His head swivelled again and he seemed to notice Spitfire for the first time. When he spoke again he seemed to be directing his words at her.
“I have mated with human women. My mate has a human man in her nest. She will drink of him when he is done.”
I found I was not anxious for Kephis to hear about this. I moved closer to him, ready to stop him if he made a grab for his APW. As I made that move I saw Spitfire was rigid as a statue, her eyes wide open. She seemed mesmerized by the GAV. Abruptly the GAV turned his attention back to me. Spitfire gave a shudder and shook her head.
“You wanted to speak with me, machine. Speak with me.”
“The Protestanti you killed. Did they have weapons like ours? Were they with the Silver One?”
“Give me the Pykani and I will tell you.”
“She is not mine to give. Why do you want her?” I already had my suspicions.
“Diversity,” he replied, and turned his attention back to Spitfire. She began to shiver. My suspicions were proved correct.
He said to her, “Fly with me, little sister.”
An unlikely match I thought. He was so big and she was so tiny. There was also the memory of Hurricane to take into account. I was just about to tell the GAV to back off when Spitfire stopped shivering and gave out a strange abandoned laugh. She spoke to him then in a tone of voice that told all she just did not care.
“I will come with you, vampire. I will fly with you. You may love me or kill me ... Tell the Collector what he wants to know. I will come. Mammoth will be saved and deaths avenged.”
The GAV looked at me. “Northeast of here were six white robes with weapons like that one.” He pointed a long clawed finger at Kephis’s APW. “I took the two who guarded. Should you leave now you will come on them in darkness. Before I saw them I saw the Silver One walking from the camp. I was curious and asked questions before I killed. I was told she travels quickly to the Family complexes. I do not go there.”
The Family complexes? Did she really intend to lead the Brethren against them as she said? I doubted it. Death. Power. The endless catharsis of hate. They were answer enough.
“I thank you, vampire, and I ask, when you come to the sky, that you do not kill this Pykani.”
I put as much threat in the plea as I could. It was wasted. The GAV and Spitfire were staring at each other with heated intensity. Spitfire walked forward to stand at his side. She put her hand on his thigh. The difference in size was even more evident then. But other things were evident as well. She was as small as a child, but sexually she was an adult. The hand she rested on him seemed to be a claim of possession. Chemistry? Madness? Lust? Genetic imperatives? I do not claim to know. I think it was for Spitfire and the GAV to know.
“I will mate with her. As you suggested I will spread my seed and renew the GAVs. Why should I kill a mother?”
With that the two of them launched into the sky.
I was only just quick enough. It was good I had moved closer to him. Kephis had the APW up before him, but his finger had not reached the firing button before I knocked it out of his hands. He swore and struck me across the face. I caught hold of his wrist and the back of his neck and held him while the GAV and Spitfire flew out of sight. He struggled violently at first. When he realised struggle was no use he desisted.
“You told him ... spread his seed ... amongst our women?”
I said, “He is partially human and can father children on human or Pykani women.”
“Why!? More of them will kill more of us!”
I looked at him. “More of you, you mean. Why should I choose the survival of his kind over the survival of yours?”
“Because you were human!”
It was his best argument. I released him.
“Would you kill all tigers because tigers eat men?”
He looked at his APW and rubbed his wrist before replying. “A tiger does not only eat men.”
“Exactly. What do you think a GAV crossed with a man or a Pykani will eat? I think in such a case human flesh and blood will lose some of its exclusivity... Are you following me?”
“You tricked him.”
“No, I gave him the only course to the survival of his genes he could accept. He will have grandchildren. He may not like them. But he will have them.”
He sounded less sure of himself now. “But he is taking and raping women ...”
“Would you prefer him to go back to the way he was? Better a raped woman than a headless one. Or do you think death preferable? That is often the case with those who don’t do the dying.”
Slowly he turned and walked to his APW. He looked thoughtful. I expected him to pick it up casually, then as quickly as he could, turn it on me and burn me to slag. He did not. He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.
“I asked myself about my sister . . . There is a point where pride ceases to be useful... We have Protestanti to kill.”
He moved to pack his blanket. I eased my grip on the atomic shear in my pocket. A flick of a button and a twitch of my wrist and he would have fallen in half. I was glad he had not tried anything. Wisdom is a survival trait as well.
Two hours of journeying brought us to a place where a pack of hyenas was bickering over the remains of a headless Protestanti—one of the ones the GAV had dropped after feeding on it. Half an hour after that we found the head caught in acacia scrub with its nose gnawed away and a black rat sitting on it like the King of the Hill. Obviously we were heading in the right direction. Half an hour more and we came in sight of the fire. It had been built up very high—an acacia tree had been chopped into logs to feed it. The four remaining Protestanti sat around with their weapons held ready. They’d had a bad night. It was going to get worse.
“How do you want to do this? They’re yours,” I said.
Kephis tested the weight of his assegai. “I want them away from the fire, in the darkness.” He looked at me. “You drive them out into thenight, Collector. I will do the rest.” And with that he stooped down into the elephant grass and was gone.
I gradually worked my way closer to the fire, close enough to see that all four were armed with APWs. The ones the GAV had grabbed must have dropped their weapons. I imagined that some of this four had atomic shears as well. I set my APW at about medium and aimed at the centre of the fire. My shot ignited the night and I saw embers flying into the air before I got down and crawled away as quick as I could. There were two more flashes and the grass was burning
behind me. Another glance showed them on their feet moving away from the fire. I hit it again and watched them diving for cover, shooting wildly in every direction as they went. I got my head down and slowly worked my way forwards. I was about ten metres from the fire when I heard the first scream.
It was the drawn-out and girlish scream of somebody discovering something extremely unpleasant and painful has happened to them. There had been no shots.
“Kenda! Kenda!” someone shouted. There was the crack of an Optek and the horrible smacking sound of a bullet hitting flesh. I heard a rushing sound in the grass. Someone was moaning.
“Christa! Over there!”
Purple flashes brought weird daylight and there was an explosive conflagration. I worked my way in that direction. Hopefully I was behind them now.
As I crawled the moaning became a babbled plea then a scream. Again there was APW fire.
“Chakaree?”
I do not think Chakaree and Kenda were capable of answering. I crawled on, and eventually came across the body of one of them. He had been shot in the arm and then opened from crotch to chest and was trying to say something. Every time he tried he made a sibilant bubbling sound. As I moved past him there was another scream.
“Chakaree?... Kenda?... Evan?”
I presumed the one calling out the names was Christa. Silence fell. I could hear nothing at the normal level. I juiced up my hearing and listened to Christa’s breathing. Even then I could only just hear Kephis crawling through the grass. I waited. Suddenly Christa let out a yell of fright. There was an actinic flash, burning grass, and he was running towards me. I stood up with my APW in my hand, but because of my augmented hearing I had misjudged how close he was. I had assumed he was further away than I discovered him to be. He had his APW in one hand and something else in his other hand. To my right I saw grass falling as if after the sweep of a very sharp scythe. Something tugged at my right arm and I looked down to see my right hand holding my APW fall to the ground. Then Christa was past me. I swore. Something of moonlight and razored silver flashed past me. It made not a whisper as it hit his back and pierced him. He fell forwards with a metre-and-a-half of assegai protruding from his chest. The point of the assegai stuck in the ground and held him at forty-five degrees for a moment. Then he slithered down it with a choked retching and to lay flat on his face in the grass, bleeding’and dying. I turned to the source of the throw and Kephis was before me, starlight glinting off the sweat on his ebony skin. His APW was pointed at me.
