Void All The Way Down: The Sliding Void Omnibus

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘You’re the boss, skipper,’ sighed Calder.

  ‘Damn straight. I guess you’ve mastered the first rule of sliding void with me, too.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  — Someday a real supernova’s going to come —

  Lana gazed out of the newly refuelled helicopter, seated and belted in one of the passenger seats behind the pilot and gunner’s position. Kien-Yen Leong occupied the gunner’s seat – every time he moved his head, the chain gun on the nose swivelled as it tracked the movement of his eyes. Zeno and Sebba sat alongside Lana. They skimmed low over the jungle, the second helicopter following directly behind, the crew’s voices bouncing beseechingly off the canopy from loudspeakers mounted under its fuselage, calling for the missing woman to fire off flares if she could hear their flight. Both helicopters followed a straight ugly road that had been firebombed out of the wilderness. Calder and Skrat had stayed behind just as she’d ordered – the former, somewhat reluctantly; both crew keeping busy with the work of landing cargo shuttles inside the camp, disgorging crates for robot tractors to pile inside the base’s concrete hangars.

  ‘There it is,’ said Leong, pointing to the slash of a wide, winding river, an azure-coloured snake slipping all the way down from the mountain range. Fast moving and wild, its waters raged powerfully enough to plunge on for thousands of miles across the continent. A pall of surface steam from the river leaked over the jungle – as though the rapids had been poured out of a tipped kettle. The makeshift road they followed ended by a riverbank and Lana noticed a tanker parked below. Nothing out of the ordinary: a long, caterpillar-tracked, double-segmented truck. Up front, the cab wouldn’t have looked out of place on a battlefield – four sets of turrets sporting heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft missiles and recoilless cannons, radar dishes mounted on its sides like steel elephant ears. Suction pipes had been unfurled from a trailer section capable of holding a small lake’s worth of water, hoses left dropped near the river. The drone responsible for handling the pumping gear was standing as inactive as a statue on a step designed for it at the vehicle’s rear. But of the human driver, there was no sign. I wouldn’t want to be lost all the way out here.

  ‘Lento must have exited the cab,’ pronounced Sebba. ‘Despite all instructions to the contrary.’

  ‘If she dismounted, she had a good reason,’ said Leong. ‘Maybe the truck’s robot jammed when it was dragging pipes into the river. The lightning in the world’s gas layer does weird things to the systems down here. Nothing works as it should.’

  ‘Least of all the workers,’ said Sebba, making real labour sound like a dirty word.

  ‘Listen,’ said Leong, ‘if DSD wasn’t so damned cheap, he would have paid for us to be outfitted with mining nano-tech from the start, rather than relying on antique water knife drills and liquid pressure blasting.’

  ‘Doesn’t the driver have an implant you can track?’ asked Lana, eager to turn the conversation back to the practical matter at hand.

  Leong shrugged. ‘Yes, Lento did. But the atmosphere can fry an uplink if you’re caught out in a storm. There have been three storms since she posted missing.’

  Landing skids extended from the helicopter as it settled down next to the abandoned tanker. Leong pulled off his helmet, leaving his seat and throwing the side door open. Nearly bowled over by heat-rush flooding in to fill every inch of the air-conditioned cabin, Lana pushed out after Zeno. The android reached the vehicle’s side first. I surely do wish I had your internal cooling system, Zeno. Above them, the second helicopter circled in low, lazy loops, its rotor’s downdraft clawing blankets of leaves off the nearby jungle. Given what might be lurking out there, Lana would rather have the chopper riding shotgun over them, than not. The sky throbbed a dull red crimson, crackling with forks of energy. It appeared as if the sun was pulsing through the clouds, although that was just an optical illusion. Damn, but the sun looks like it’s bleeding. If you stared up at the bloody orb for long enough, you ended up with one hell of a headache.

  Lana raised her voice to be heard over the whup-whup-whup from the copter hovering above. ‘You haven’t been able to move the truck?’

  Leong shook his head. ‘Its power plant is as dead as a dodo. Don’t know why. I ran system diagnostics using a portable battery pack and there’s no damage I can find inside any of the hauler’s engine systems.’ He pointed up towards the sparking heavens. ‘Just more of that, I reckon.’

  ‘Let me have a try,’ said Zeno, making for the ladder that led up towards the tanker’s cabin. ‘I can tease more out of machines than the average bear.’

  ‘No shizzle’ said Leong.

  ‘It’s a definite talent,’ said Lana, watching him climb. ‘Up on our ship, Zeno rides herd on a couple of thousand robots in chorus.’

  Zeno stopped by the thick steel entry access above. ‘There’s burn damage on the door.’

  ‘That was us,’ Leong called up at the android. ‘We had to cut the lock away when we first turned up here looking for Lento. It was sealed as tight as a coffin.’ His face crinkled. There’s a man immediately regretting his choice of words. If the missing worker was to be found inside any coffin, then Lana reckoned it was the dense red and green variety squatting beyond the tree line.

  ‘Did you check the ammo canisters up top?’ Lana asked.

  The squat man nodded. ‘Did it myself. No shells fired off in the vicinity.’

  Lana caught sight of something slipping along the other side of the riverbank, a pack of six-legged creatures the size of wolves moving slyly through the steam cover, green scales glittering like spilled oil in the burning river moisture. Bizarrely, each of the beasts bore a little saddleless rider, a small sharp-beaked lizard clinging proudly onto horn bones curling from the mount’s head. She was put in mind of alien bikers on the back of a line of motorcycles. Proud-looking little buggers. ‘Company!’

  ‘I see them,’ said Leong.

  Lana watched the aliens studiously ignoring the tanker and helicopters. ‘Are the riders intelligent? They might have something to do with your driver’s disappearance?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Sebba. ‘They’re a symbiotic life form, no tool use or language. Hardly smarter than a terrier.’

  ‘We call them “cowboys”,’ said Leong. ‘One of the few things around here too small to want to bother us. The riders climb up trunks and shake them out to dislodge tree spiders, then their six-legged friends chew through the spider’s armour and share its entrails after a kill.’

  ‘Armour?’

  ‘Yeah, if you’re attacked by something in the jungle, not scrambling up creepers to try to escape would be a top tip.’

  Lana shook her head in disbelief and started to climb after Zeno. The android cycled open the door and disappeared inside, the mining boss and professor following after Lana’s boots. Aliens calls from the jungle depths chased after her. Inside the vehicle is going to be safer than out. Marginally safer. True to what Leong had described, the lights inside the cab weren’t working, but there was enough illumination from the heavily armoured curve of glass beyond the driver’s seat for her to make out the interior. Even easier for the android, whose optical range extended into complete darkness as just another part of his specification. Zeno moved down the back of the cab. There were control panels with built-in stools on either wall for monitoring the gunnery topside. He located the main control computer and broke open its console, pulling out circuitry boards. After a quick manual inspection, Zeno rolled up his ship suit’s sleeve and a section of golden skin rippled back, revealing a physical jack which he plugged into the truck’s systems. A look of concentration settled on Zeno’s face. LEDs began to blink across the exposed machinery. He was juicing the device from the miniature power plant inside his body.

  ‘Ah,’ said Zeno. He slotted back a circuit board hanging from the panel. ‘Now that’s what I’m talking about.’

  ‘You’ve found the truck computer’s logs?’ asked Leong. ‘How about t
he cabin’s interior and external camera feeds?’

  ‘Burnt out,’ said Zeno. ‘But I got me the text entries left in the auto-drive’s log.’

  Sebba arched a supercilious eyebrow. ‘And?’

  ‘The computer shut down,’ said Zeno, ‘and made a pretty good job of trying to erase itself.’

  ‘What the hell?’ spat Leong. ‘You’re talking a hack? Someone down here hacked the truck’s firewall?’

  ‘Nope, best I can tell, the vehicle chose to kill itself. Mainly because the system core’s artificial intelligence was scared.’

  ‘Scared? Scared, my arse. It’s just a machine.’

  ‘I’m a machine.’

  Leong shook his head. ‘No, you’re sentient, android. Our haulers don’t even come close. I’ve got chess software back on base with more personality than this tanker. This is a low-level truck system we’re talking about here.’

  ‘High functioning enough to decide to commit suicide,’ insisted Zeno.

  ‘But that’s not possible,’ said Lana. ‘It’s not even permitted.’

  ‘No,’ said Zeno, sounding curious and oddly wistful at the same time. ‘No it isn’t.’

  Dear God, computer suicide? What could scare a hauler that bad? Lana had a bad feeling that she didn’t want to come close to finding out.

  ‘I think you’re the one with a programming fault, android,’ said Sebba. ‘What you found in the logs was merely a last-second burst of garbage from a dying and very limited AI. How do you explain the drained power on board? Let’s deal with the most likely scenario. There was an atmospheric surge that our weather forecasting failed to predict. It must have knocked out some of the truck’s systems. Lento got out of her cab to attempt to fix the vehicle. Then a second stronger surge killed the tanker and its weapons and locked her out of the protection of her own cabin.’ Sebba pointed to the river before her hand encompassed the thick walls of the jungle. ‘And how many species are there in the vicinity that would look on a stranded worker as a little variety in their usual diet?’

  ‘What if she tried to walk back to the base?’ asked Leong.

  ‘It’s a straight dirt track,’ said Sebba. ‘You might get dragged off it by one of the local beasts, but you tell me how you can get lost on this road? Thirty miles to the base from the river. I could walk that in a day. If Janet Lento’s implant has stopped broadcasting, it’s only because the body it was inserted into has been digested.’

  ‘She could be lying wounded out there,’ protested Leong.

  ‘Wounded for over a week? Eating insects and drinking super-boiled water? You need to face up to reality. This is a highly unfortunate accident, I grant you, but everyone in the team signed on for danger money-plus. This is what it covers. Operations in the mountains are to resume immediately. I need an initial load to transport to DSD’s buyers . . . or the funding for our operation is going to evaporate like a rain puddle in dry season. If you want to keep on combing the badlands of Nambia, you can do it in your own time when you’re off-shift. I’ll even throw in the helicopter fuel for free.’

  ‘Damn straight we’ll keep on with the search,’ snarled Leong.

  ‘I can assist you,’ said Lana. ‘The Gravity Rose has been laying down a satellite network ever since we put into orbit. We’ll have eyes in the sky, soon. We can scan for fires, flares and messages scratched into the dirt . . . whatever it takes.’

  ‘You,’ said Sebba, ‘will be too busy lifting containers into orbit to be distracted by this sideshow.’

  Lana’s eyes narrowed. ‘Here’s how chain of command works on a starship, prof. Above me, there’s only God, and I don’t even answer to him . . . he’s strictly advisory only. Whatever you shovel dirt-side, I’ll ship up-and-out for Dollar-sign, because that’s the deal I’d have shaken on if DSD still had hands worth a damn to press the flesh. You even get to supply the jump co-ordinates, but that’s as near as it comes to giving commands to my crew or me. So, Mister Leong, my satellite net will be at your disposal, just as soon as it’s operational.’ Sebba looked as if she was going to argue further, but Lana raised a finger. ‘Or . . . as mission commander, Sebba, you can tell me to bug out, and I’ll unload what’s in orbit for you, and when I return to the next Edge world that’s actually on the grid, I’ll drop an e-mail to DSD telling him to find another chump to ship out his untaxed, unregulated, environmentally unfriendly, black-market ores to his dodgy buyers. And maybe, if you’re real lucky, said chump’s ship will actually turn up in Abracadabra orbit to haul your containers before your sentry tanks run out of ammo.’

  ‘I can see why DSD chose you,’ said Sebba before she turned to storm out of the cab and back towards her helicopter. ‘You’re not a starship captain . . . you’re a pirate.’

  Not even close. ‘Whatever it takes,’ sighed Lana, watching the irritating blueblood flounce off towards the chopper. She felt a flush of relief at the woman’s departure. The mining chief mouthed a silent thank-you in Lana’s direction, and turned to follow, no doubt trying to placate his hopeless boss.

  ‘She had one thing right,’ said Zeno, shutting the panel on the vehicle’s computer core. ‘Satellite net or no, we ain’t going to find jack out there. That poor unfortunate mope of a driver’s long dead.’

  ‘Leave no crew behind,’ said Lana, dabbing at her sweating brow with the back of her sleeve, finding only a moment’s relief from the refrigerated fibres.

  ‘She ain’t our crew.’

  ‘Part of the mission, anyway, as long as we’re on contract for this fiasco.’

  Zeno stepped behind the stretch of armoured glass at the front of the cab, staring out at the jungle and the baneful crimson sky. ‘Man, there’s nothing good going to come of being on this planet. Look at that wrong sky. A dying world under a dying star. The animals know it. The jungle knows it. Everything alive here knows it’s been born a couple of billion years after a righteous geological era. This place has evil in its bones – just waiting for the day a real supernova’s going to come and wipe the planet clean.’

  Lana was shocked. The android was often cynical, but rarely this bleak. ‘You’re not terrified by a little tropical offworld bush, are you?’

  ‘Sure I am . . . another entry in humanity’s goddamn long list of gifts to me. The glorious joys of sentience.’ Zeno pointed back to the cab’s computer. ‘Even this rat-brained truck was smart enough to fry itself rather than stay driving around here. What’s that tell you?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lana. ‘I guess that it’s business as usual for Fiveworlds Shipping.’

  ‘We are where we are, skipper. File it under spilt milk.’

  ‘If only I hadn’t run into Pitor Skeeg back on the station. I think seeing him running a small flotilla . . . it made me jealous. Made me reckless. I would have taken any damned job DSD offered us.’

  ‘You think Skeeg’s playing in the majors? He’s just a bagman for Hyperfast, now. The best move you ever made was dumping that janky flam artist.’

  Maybe the only good move. ‘As long as it’s been, Pitor still knows how to get to me.’

  Lana felt a chill as she emerged from the truck to descend towards the waiting helicopter, blades beginning to rotate back into life, and it wasn’t just her suit’s thermostat reacting to the wall of heat outside. She’d brought the crew here, against all her best instincts. They were counting on her to keep Fiveworlds Shipping flying, and she’d made her usual level of good decision-making. When was trusting Dollar-sign Dillard ever a smart move? If this had been any kind of cakewalk, the devious sod would’ve chartered his own vessel to fly in, rather than offering us a slice of the action.

  Zeno swung out of the doorway, mounting the side of the truck. ‘You remember after you inherited the Gravity Rose and I agreed to crew for you, what I told you when we first walked onto the bridge?’

  ‘Act like the skipper, act as though you know what you’re doing,’ said Lana, ignoring the burning heat, ‘and everyone’ll work to make your commands come good.’


  ‘Damn straight. This is no time to start second-guessing your decisions. There’s a universe full of might-have-been out there; the Rose’s holds can only store a small percentage of it.’

  Lana sighed and made her way to the waiting helicopter. Zeno was right. But then, the android had a couple of millennia of right trailing behind him. Maybe if I live as long, I’d be as wise – before the event as well as after. ‘Okay, here’s how it is. We’ll unload, hunker down behind the laser fence, wait for that old crone to dig out her first load, and then we’re sliding void away from this damn rock just as fast as Polter can plot a jump.’

  ‘Now that sounds like a plan.’

  Lana stared back at the tanker, imagining the terror she’d feel if she was posted missing, lying in the jungle, wounded and lost. What the hell is so bad that it could scare a low-level truck A.I into erasing itself? Yeah, another lousy day of business as usual.

  As she reached the helicopter, Leong dismounted from the cockpit; his face perplexed. Even more worried than before. He talked quickly into the helmet’s communicator, his hands gesturing urgently but superfluously at whoever was at the other end.

  ‘Mining chief?’ said Lana.

  ‘Another problem,’ said Leong. ‘The crewman you left behind at the camp to help supervise the shuttle landing . . .’

  ‘Calder Durk,’ said Lana, allowing a dagger of anxiety to stab at her.

  ‘He’s disappeared from inside the base.’

  ‘Disappeared? What the hell are you talking about?’ Zeno pulled out his phone, but the communicator just returned a long fizz of static. Polter’s satellite network obviously wasn’t fully inserted yet.

  ‘I mean, he’s totally disappeared,’ said Leong. ‘Your skirl friend, he sent Mister Durk to check on a jammed cargo door on one of your shuttles. After a couple of minutes with no word of a fix, the lizard followed him over, but your guy had vanished into thin air. We’ve searched every inch of the landing field and the base, but there’s no sign of him. None of the gates have been opened; plus, all your shuttles are still on the field. What’s his transponder frequency?’