“Some piece of planetary destruction,” Ancil said, eyes wide as he drank in the sight. “That hole is deep, chief; crazy deep. Usually the horizon is only a few miles away at sea level but this monster gap cuts right through it, goes on for hundreds of miles.”
“What the frack could do something like this?” Pyke said.
“Burrowing munitions,” said Ancil. “Combine a thermonuke with a gravity disruptor, send a few of them a coupla hundred miles down beneath the bedrock and set them off. The merged shockwave would damn near tear a planet open to the outer core. In fact, if the attackers were hunting for AIs I bet there are a few more of these megarifts dotted around.”
Pyke nodded thoughtfully. “Hell’s gnashers, they wanted them machines badly… but a planet as badly damaged as this would become unstable, surely.”
“It’s the subspace forcefield structures of the megasystem,” said Ancil. “They hold every single world in place, even a wrecked one like Gatuzna.” He gazed out at the hazy abyss. “Don’t know if any civilisation could have survived this.”
“Okay, astrophysics lesson over,” Pyke said. “Do these tracks come up to the cliff edge, Ans?”
“They certainly do, chief, along a bit where there’s a notch in the brink and a path that leads down to a wide ledge right under where we’re standing.”
“Okay, let’s keep our wits about us,” said Pyke, who then turned to Kref. “Here, can ye hang this over yer back? It’s really starting to get on my nerves!”
He handed the wrapped portal device over to the big Henkayan, who pulled the carrying strap over his head. “No problem, Captain, carry it as long as you like.” He then lightly tossed the bundle over his shoulder where it struck his spine with a thud. Pyke winced.
“Careful, Kref–that might be our only way off this dead rock!”
Ancil led the descent. The ledge was over a yard wide and had a foot-worn path down the middle of it, which immediately put them on their guard. The pathway had been disused, littered with fallen stones and obscured here and there by black sand when it passed between rocks that sheltered it from the ever-present warm breeze. The quarry’s fresh tracks continued, though, changing from drag marks partially obscuring one set of footprints to two sets of footprints. Pyke frowned when Ancil pointed this out, guessing that Akreen must have regained consciousness and was now walking along with Khorr aiming that big gun at him.
As they trudged down the path Pyke–glancing at the huge clouds of brown and grey that hung and shifted and eddied forth in slow swirls when the occasional gust of air dipped down from above–could feel the immensity of that murky void. Once, the dismal clouds parted and he saw a far-off portion of bleak clifftop, only there was a cleft running right down the middle of it and a waterfall pouring over the edge, disappearing into the depths. Quickly he pointed it out to the others, who paused to snatch a glimpse before the clouds closed up.
“An amazing sight,” said Punzho. “And such a beautiful waterfall.”
“Don’t think that was a waterfall,” said Ancil.
Pyke gave him a puzzled look. “You sure about that? It looked like one to me.”
Ancil shrugged. “Sorry, chief–what you saw was tons of pulverised rock, grit and pebbles falling in a haze of stone dust. That vertical cleft is a fracture where one immense shard of the planet’s surface–well, immense to us–is grinding against the rest. Which is why there were rocks and boulders falling among all the grit and dust.”
“I didn’t see that,” Pyke said, turning to Mojag. “Did you?”
“I thought that was a blurring shadowy effect.”
“Nope, trust me, boulders and rocks,” said Ancil.
“Ancil is quite correct, Captain,” said Punzho. “It is falling debris.”
“Er, Captain,” said Kref.
“Hmm, I don’t know,” said Pyke. “It’s a long way off, that cliff…”
“Captain, er…” Kref said, louder this time.
“What’s up, Kref? Can’t ye see that we’re having a fine old barney about…?”
His voice trailed off as he turned and saw what the big Henkayan was pointing at. The sheer wall on the path’s left side was uneven and ridged, frequently revealing layers of sedimentary rock which weathering had eroded into shelves and strange holes in the rock face. It was on one of those shelves that a hand-sized spidery bot, or more probably a remote, sat watching him with a small cluster of shiny lenses, in the middle of which shone a blue dot.
“Welcome to Gatuzna, Captain,” it said in a tinny cheery voice. “And welcome to your valiant crew, too, naturally. Apologies for the decrepit surroundings–they really have seen better days. We thought it only right to—”
“And you are?” Pyke said. “Didn’t catch your name, there.”
“Ah yes–we are the Inheritors.”
Pyke was caught between smiling and frowning. “Interesting use of the word ‘we’, eh?”
“Yes, this is one of the problems of being a distributed ultracognition–it’s easier to adapt the collective ‘we’ rather than concoct a taxonomy of groupings, subgroups and solitaries.”
“Well, you sound to me like a very knowledgeable kind of machine, Mr Inheritor,” Pyke said. “So perhaps you might know where we can find an associate of ours, tall feller, silvery skin, very serious disposition.”
The spider-bot shifted position slightly, pointy legs ticking on stone.
“Ah, you mean the Zavri First Blade, Akreen? He did indeed pass this way but as a prisoner, we are saddened to report.”
“Yes, it’s his captor we’d really like to have a word with.” Pyke studied the remote. “Actually, the First Blade told us that he was expecting to meet an ally here–that wouldn’t be you, would it?”
“Ally, hmm–we might have used the word ‘intermediary’.”
“So you’re neutral.”
“Oh no, we do have an objective–it’s just the planning in between now and the end which is presenting… complications.”
“Plans are fine things–I wake up with a new one in mind every day!” Pyke clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “We’ll be off now but I imagine that we’ll be seeing each other again before long—”
“Be careful while following your friend, Captain Pyke–his captor’s weapon is deadly to all sentients, be they flesh or metal. We were going to try to dissuade you from this foolish pursuit but we all know how little use that would have been. So, see you later–perhaps.”
With that the Inheritor bot folded up into a fist-sized spheroid which rolled away into a small round hole that Pyke hadn’t noticed before.
“What was all that about… really?” said Ancil.
Pyke grunted. “Not sure but there was definitely a bit of the old brain-baffling going on.”
Ancil wore an analytical frown. “I’m sure I remember someone somewhere saying that these Ashen Worlds were where the last battles of a huge war took place. I wonder whose world this was…”
“The Apparatarch,” said Mojag, who was staring off at the distant broken horizon.
Ancil frowned. “Was that who we were just talking to?”
“Don’t know,” Pyke said, straightening. “And right this very second I don’t care, ’cos while we’re standing here, bashing our gums, Khorr and Akreen are getting further away. So let’s move.”
The crew resumed their descent with Ancil back in the lead, almost half crouching to study the tracks in the windblown sand. At first the air had been warm and faintly humid but the deeper they went the cooler and danker it became. Then the ledge came to where a flat boulder sat across the path, beyond which there was a six-foot drop, with a few worn hand- and footholds. At the bottom, the path led straight to the entrance to a tunnel, a rough, lightless opening. Pyke peered into the inky darkness and swore.
“Anyone got a torch or the like?” he said.
There were doleful headshakes all round, except for Punzho.
“Egetsi eyesight is more sensitive than th
at of Humans,” he said, striding a few paces into the dark tunnel. “I can just make out…”
“Hang on, Punzho,” said Pyke, pointing at a glimmer of light which had just appeared. “Carry on in there a little ways…”
Punzho did so, coming to a halt in surprise when a yellow glow bloomed from a knobbly, vaguely organic-looking protuberance high up on the left wall.
“That’s convenient,” Pyke said. “On we go.”
For a stretch the tunnel was rough-hewed with an uneven, sandy floor, and the glowing nodules gave off enough light for Ancil still to discern the tracks. Then the tunnel narrowed and a few large rocks meant they had to clamber and squeeze along it before coming out in a dark dilapidated corridor. Ancient wall facings and ceiling panels had given way, dumping heaps of pebbly soil and rubble on the cracked floor decking. A few glowing nodules provided a path through the shadows. Ancil picked up the trail again, steering the crew past side passages and around gaping holes. Until they reached a T-junction, where he stopped, peered closely at the marks on the dirty, gritty floor, went to the right a few paces then to the left–and threw up his hands.
“Tracks seem to go both ways,” he said. “But hard to say–looks as if something’s tried to brush away any clues.”
“Well, there’s only two choices,” Pyke said, turning left at the junction into a dark stretch of passage that remained unlit as he walked along it. Then he stumbled on rocks or some debris–by the weak light from around the corner he could just make out a slope of rubble blocking the way.
“There’s been a cave-in,” he said, retracing his steps. “Has to be the other way.”
Gunless, Pyke had armed himself with a length of metal strut wrenched from a jagged hole in the corridor wall not far back. The other arm of the T-junction curved left then reached a sharp right corner. The others hung back while Pyke strode along by himself, illuminated by a small glowing nodule as he turned the corner…
And had to stop quickly as the floor, the walls and the corridor abruptly ran out and he found himself just a step away from a drop into emptiness.
“Now there’s a sight,” he muttered, steadying himself against the wall.
It was as if a massive wedge had been clinically removed from the substratum, extending up and down. Directly above was a straight-edged slice of gloomy sky; below, a shadowy gulf of nothing. On the sheer face on the other side, a wide expanse of smashed and ripped corridor openings gaped darkly, an exposed cliff of civilisational ruins.
“I ain’t going near that edge,” said Ancil.
Pyke grimaced in frustration. “Akreen and Khorr must either have gone along the other turn-off, and that cave-in is new–or they doubled back.” He glared round at Ancil. “What d’ye reckon?”
And just then all the nodule lights went out and Pyke felt the floor tilt underfoot, pitching him out into the abyss. There was an infuriating slowness to it as he bellowed a long, drawn-out string of curses, while hearing the others shouting his name in panic and feeling the blast of air as he plunged headfirst into black oblivion.
Which took on a cushioned firmness as an unseen safety net gently caught him and slowed his fall. Gradually he slipped into a lying position, bizarrely looking up at the long slice of gloomy grey sky.
“Calm yourself, Captain Pyke, you are in no danger.”
“And I should believe you… because?”
A tiny bright blue light winked on in the rushing darkness, revealing the spidery bot from before, hanging just over his head. Then he noticed a second identical one near his feet and guessed that between them they had to be generating some kind of cradling forcefield.
“Genuinely, there is nothing to worry about, Captain–we like to take care of our valued guests!”
I’ll bet you do, he thought. Any more reassurance and I’ll have to get cracking on my will!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On its reaction drives, the Scarabus flew through the empty space outwith the Warcage, thereby avoiding the omnipresent autodefences which, according to Toolbearer Hechec, resided in hyperspace and could be projected with impunity against any intruder. Sam was sure that Rensik could have confirmed or denied such a bizarre claim but still there had been no contact, no message from the Construct drone.
Sam was on the bridge, sitting at the command console, idly paging through an epedia about 4th Modynel trade agreements while keeping an eye on the update subscreen. G’Brozen Mav was slumped in one of the workstation couches while the hooded display before him showed the ship’s course and speed against a graphic of the Warcage megasystem–he had been there since they departed Armag, a sombre presence, scarcely uttering so much as a single word for the best part of six hours. Toolbearer Hechec, unable to obtain more than a few monosyllabic replies for the last two hours, had retreated to Engineering from where he occasionally queried Sam on G’Brozen Mav’s demeanour. She had been tempted to go and join him but a certain stubbornness kept her at her work station, monitoring Chainer reports, just in case anything surfaced that might tell her where the Construct was.
The Scarabus was on a curved trajectory towards Nagolger, a planet roughly halfway round the Warcage world array, with roughly eight hours of flight-time still to go. Armag was now nearly three hours behind them, and those visions of fiery destruction were still fresh in Sam’s mind. The escape from that inferno and the warship that unleashed it had turned into a nerve-wracking getaway under fire when that same vessel began launching salvos of missiles at them. But the Scarabus’s AI had put on a display of white-knuckle dodges and feints and split-microsecond timing, even as it powered its way up and out of the atmosphere. Of course, then there was another Shuskar warship up there in orbit to be evaded–a staggered pattern of mini-munitions with emitter payloads created an anti-sensor veil behind which the Scarabus made a brief dive back into the planet’s upper atmosphere.
Once they were in the clear on the other side of the planet, the ship AI opened up the main thrusters and they made a dash for open space beyond the Warcage. At which point Toolbearer Hechec had begun scanning for news from military and civilian sources while trying to make contact with various Chainer bases and cadres. Pieces of information filtered through and a picture began to come together, a vile, horrific picture. When Hechec sat G’Brozen Mav down on the bridge and gave him a summary of the situation, the Chainer leader had gone pale and drawn. He leaned an elbow on the couch armrest and slowly pushed his fingers up through that dense dark hair.
“Hoykan,” Mav said. “What happened there?”
“Poison gas,” said Hechec. “Cregrin bombers dropped a mix of impact shells, mines and hunter-killer probes. They targeted all five cities–survival percentages are in low single figures.”
“Ventir?”
“The three cities in rebel hands were bombarded with contagion agents. Sujalkan units have ringed them with quarantine fields.”
“Jirorm?”
“Same as Armag City, carpet-bombed with skyfire munitions, by the Yniich. All seven cities badly hit.”
G’Brozen Mav went to ask about another two worlds, Dumaj and Divanda, and the Toolbearer’s answers were uniformly grim. They and the rest were all planets where Chainers had seized control, were openly supported by the authorities, or had bases and well-stocked caches. Responsibility for the attacks had been assigned to the Loyals, the top seven battle-armies of the Grand Escalade, who were always keen to prove their loyalty to their Shuskar masters. Dumaj and Divanda had been punished by the Lorzavel and the Muranzyr respectively: it was now a certainty that it was the Avang who had firebombed Armag City and its environs.
When Hechec finished, G’Brozen Mav sat in silence for some moments.
“So now we know,” he said eventually. “All our planning, all our effort and sacrifice, all our endeavours seem to have been useless.”
“My leader—” the Toolbearer began, but Mav cut him off.
“This is it, the final irrefutable proof!” The Chainer leader was angry a
nd grief stricken. “Proof that any rebellion against the Shuskar will fail. We made the mistake of thinking that the backing of the oppressed was all that was needed, and if we were fighting an enemy that was vaguely our equal it might be enough. But the vile Shuskar control the meshes that bind our lives together, as well as a monopoly on the Warcage’s vast repositories of military might–face them on any battlefield and by sheer weight of brute force they will always triumph.” His brow was furrowed as if in pain, and he shook his head. “We foolishly believed that we could hide away among the populations of those worlds, drawing strength from them, secretly building and training, that we and they would be safe from extreme retaliation. We never imagined, even T’Loskin Rey never really thought, that they would countenance annihilating civilian populations simply to get at us.”
He paused, glanced over at the Toolbearer. “Do you have an estimate on the death toll yet?”
Hechec was grim. “Somewhere between 8.5 and 12 million.”
G’Brozen Mav had a haunted, hollow look. “My old fight trainer once told me that every opponent you meet in the breach teaches you something. If I’d learned this lesson well before now millions might still be alive.”
Studying him, Sam felt some sympathy. But she was still stuck here in this psychotic, self-contained carnival of tyranny, and since the Construct drone was conspicuous by its absence her options were limited and bleak. Was it possible to continue with the mission’s original aim on her own? Or perhaps she was seeing the problem from the wrong angle–if she had greater freedom of movement and resources to draw on then she could carry out a focused search for Rensik. Gaining control of the Scarabus was the obvious solution but she doubted that G’Brozen Mav would be happy to just hand the ship over to her. However, rescuing the Construct drone was vital, so it was time for a game-changer.
“Is that it?” she said. “So the Shuskar bare their teeth and deploy overkill methods just to demonstrate how mercilessly psychopathic they are–but you knew that already. I’m only a newcomer to the Warcage yet it is utterly clear to me that the Shuskar have to be fought with unflinching resolve, fought on various battlefields and in various ways. There can be no negotiation or compromise with enemies like these, no middle ground, no halfway house, because they won’t be satisfied with just half your soul–they want it all.” She sighed. “You have to know this, yet here you are, saying that it’s over.”
Ancestral Machines Page 32
