The Beauty of Destruction

by Gavin G. Smith

  None of which explained why he was here. He had managed to trace the Basilisk II to a sensor ghost found by a very old defence platform orbiting New Coventry. He had made Patron aware of this and Patron had told him that he would handle it. Now, as far as he could tell, New Coventry no longer existed. It had been removed from the navigation systems connected to his bridge drive. Not that anyone ever went there anyway, though he had done some freelance work for one of the planet’s larger vigilante societies a little over seventy years ago. It was how he had first met Vic and Scab. He had heard rumours of system disappearances before but it was difficult to care if it didn’t directly affect you.

  Without any ’faced instructions Mr Hat brought the Amuser in closer to the flat area, taking the upright squashed spider shape of his ship between the rings of rock. The Amuser made him aware that he had broken some sort of artificial magnetosphere, and that he was in a breathable atmosphere now.

  Mr Hat had two of his automatons with him, one male and one female. The male was pushing the bath chair. Mr Hat was tucked in snugly under the travel blanket. It didn’t stop the feeling of disquiet as he was pushed down the ramp and onto the smooth but porous-looking dark rock.

  The stones in the circle were illuminated from within, as if something bright enough to shine through rock had slid up into them. The light shone through disturbing abstract patterns carved into the stones. He saw a bright, glowing blue light, and expected the sensors on his skin and tongue to warn him of radiation but they didn’t. A display of energy flickered between the stones. For a moment there was a sphere which looked so black it was as though there was less than nothing there. The sphere did odd things to light. Then there was a circle of water, illuminated by the lights of the ship and the stones. The water was so clear that Mr Hat could see the stone bed of the body of liquid as he approached the rings.

  ‘Hurry now,’ the figure with the crystal head filled with liquid software and exotic fighting fish shouted, or rather emitted. The fashion victim, as Mr Hat found himself thinking of the presumably human man with the crystal head, was standing next to the tall, dark, slender form of Patron. As Mr Hat watched, one of the four huge exoskeletons pushed what looked to be an industrial assembler into the water with a splash. It sank to the rock floor, anchored itself and started to push out material. One by one the exoskeletons climbed into the water. Finally two figures appeared from behind one of the rib-like rock rings, one tall and slender carrying some kind of cup – it was difficult to tell through the blue light – the other shorter and more deformed looking. They both leapt into the water. The light went out and Mr Hat was looking at rock again. The stones were no longer glowing internally either. Mr Hat did not want to think about the amount of energy he had just seen being juggled around by what he assumed was ancient S-tech. He did not like that he had been asked here to bear witness to this.

  Patron turned to look at him as his automatons wheeled him over.

  ‘Ah, Mr Hat,’ Patron said. There were another two figures standing further around the circle from them. They looked similarly proportioned, but were dressed very differently to the two human-sized figures he had watched step into the water previously. His eyes and sensors would have magnified and analysed them but he stopped the processes with a thought. He decided the less he knew, the better.

  ‘Patron,’ Mr Hat said, bowing slightly, his huge stovepipe hat bobbing downwards as he did so.

  Patron nodded towards the two figures standing by the edge of the stone circle. ‘Your compatriots.’

  Mr Hat sighed internally. He had already worked out that the deformed-looking one was a bounty killer called Crabber. He ran the less-than-subtle heavy take-down crew that had recently captured General Nix and his arachnid, princess-sect second-in-command, the Widow.

  ‘If you’re looking for me to go through that,’ Mr Hat gestured towards the stone circle, ‘then I am afraid I will have to politely refuse.’ The fashion victim’s carved crystal head turned to look over at Mr Hat. Patron studied him for a moment longer and then turned back to the circle.

  ‘They are clones, as I’m sure you’ve worked out, and where they are going you would not fit in. Would you like to know what I’m doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Attempting to awe me into co-operation,’ Mr Hat said. By awe he meant terrify. ‘Co-operation you most assuredly already have as a result of paying me so well.’

  ‘There are no ideals any more, are there?’ Patron mused.

  Mr Hat was slightly affronted. He had ideals. Admittedly he had chosen them to make himself more interesting, a gimmick for his bounty killing, but then why else would you have them?

  ‘I was hoping to impress upon you the importance of what we are doing. There is a reason for everything.’

  Mr Hat was starting to feel very uncomfortable about this. His neunonics were struggling to analyse Patron’s voice, as they struggled to analyse everything else about the Consortium board member, but Mr Hat was sure there was some fervour in the voice, just a hint of the irrational. Then Mr Hat worked out who the tall figure was standing next to the clone of Crabber was. He had been extensively sculpted but there was no doubt it was him. It was like a cold hand squeezing his heart. His systems automatically administered an internal sedative to deal with the tiniest moment of panic. Mr Hat hoped he hadn’t given himself away but this didn’t make sense.

  ‘The problem is perspective. I have done this so many times and each time I have made things that little bit worse.’

  Mr Hat frowned, he wasn’t sure he was following. ‘Why?’

  ‘An end to pain,’ Patron said. Mr Hat could have sworn he heard just a moment of suppressed desperation in Patron’s voice.

  The stones were starting to glow from within again.

  Mr Hat was trying not to think about what Patron had said. He wanted to leave, complete his job, and hopefully never see Patron ever again, but something had occurred to him, something on the edge of his understanding.

  The ring of blue light, then the sphere again. This close he felt like it was trying to pull him in. The absence of light was so total that he had to neunonically shut down the perceptive part of his real meat brain to stop it from filling in the blanks with disquieting images. It was clear that the ionisation in the air, the lightning display between the stones, was in part the result of a monstrously powerful invisible coherent energy field that was keeping them safe from forces capable of tearing open reality. Mr Hat was of the opinion that soiling himself would have been something of a comfort. Then the sphere was gone. In the stone circle it was night, somewhere. He could see some flat, overgrown stones, arranged roughly in a circle amid woodland that must have cost a fortune in debt relief. Only the truly rich had so much money that they could waste it on something as frivolous as trees.

  ‘If everything gets that little bit worse each time,’ Mr Hat asked, ‘then doesn’t that mean each time, he’s a little bit worse?’

  The two clones stepped through the stones and down into the wooded area.

  The tall, black-skinned man gave Mr Hat’s question some thought. The blue glow faded out, and the wooded area was replaced with the dark stone again. ‘Yes,’ Patron finally said. Mr Hat couldn’t shake the feeling that he looked troubled. ‘Parker has some information for you.’

  The Monk moved forwards and hugged the Dark Mother. Scab knew that she’d had a name, another name, once; the name he had used before they had taken him from this place and cut into his head because they were frightened. He couldn’t remember that name now. That made him sad. He was disappointed that somehow the Monk knew her.

  ‘Churchman …’ the Monk started.

  ‘My brother was always ashamed of me,’ the Dark Mother said. ‘He needed to hide me. We found a way during the war and snuck me in here.’

  ‘I think I worshipped you,’ Scab said, still not entirely sure how he felt about this.

  ‘I’m eminently worshipable,’ the Mother told him. When she talked it looked like her mouth
was full of oil. She turned to Talia. ‘And this must be the young lady that all the excitement is about. Kali?’

  ‘Sorry, I panicked,’ Talia said. She seemed to be blushing furiously. Scab had no idea why. ‘I have a near-overwhelming urge to curtsey.’

  ‘Please try and resist it,’ the Mother suggested. She made what Scab felt was an overly dramatic gesture and chairs started to rise from the floor. Describing them as organic would have done them a disservice. Biomechanical was more accurate; they had ribs. She gestured for them to sit down. Scab was faintly disappointed that Vic looked comfortable. ‘I saw the Consortium ships attack the Church.’

  ‘The Cathedral has fallen,’ the Monk said. She was controlling her emotions but Scab knew how to look for pain.

  ‘Churchman?’ the Mother asked.

  The Monk couldn’t look at her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I see.’

  Scab couldn’t get any reading on the Dark Mother, however. His worship of her had been a moment of weakness. He didn’t like Churchman’s connection to her. Churchman had needed to suffer and die. He was trying to decide if he should transfer this to his apparent sister. In fact he wasn’t sure what to do all round. What Churchman had told him hadn’t satisfied him. The Monk should be dead. Vic should be locked inside a torture immersion on maximum time expansion, and he should have been looking for a way to capitalise on Talia. Despite his poor treatment at their hands he was still finding that there was something compelling about all this. There was something making him stay his hand despite how it lessened him in their eyes. Though that only mattered in as much as they did what he told them to. In short, he was curious.

  Scab was aware of the Monk’s surprise at the Mother’s apparent lack of emotion at the news. She seemed to disapprove. Scab couldn’t prevent the slight smile on his face.

  ‘He sent you here?’ the Mother asked.

  ‘The AI. He uploaded information but …’ The Monk turned to look at him. Scab didn’t want to think about the existence of the AI on his ship. He flooded his system with calming drugs so he didn’t kill anyone.

  ‘Churchman knew that to keep a secret you didn’t tell anyone. Even the most secure system can be hacked.’

  ‘Minds can be hacked,’ Scab said.

  She turned to look at him. ‘I remember you when you were a baby,’ she said, smiling.

  It was strange, her words should have made him angry. They didn’t. He couldn’t really identify how he felt. Like when he saw the ghost, but different. He glanced over at Talia, and the smirk on her face did make him want to hurt something. ‘So the fewer people you tell, the fewer minds to hack.’

  ‘But he told you?’ the Monk asked. Scab was sure he could hear hurt in her voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Vic said. ‘And these seats are lovely, could you download the specs to the Basilisk?’ He was rubbing the multiple armrests.

  ‘Of course, Mr Matto,’ the Mother said.

  ‘But is the Basilisk safe?’ Vic undistracted himself. ‘There are lot of Consortium ships in orbit here.’

  ‘A very faint coherent energy field, Mr Matto. Nothing in, nothing out. They may detect the anomaly but somehow I doubt they’ll try and investigate, or even connect it to you.’

  Scab knew his partner well enough to know that the explanation had disturbed the ’sect as much as it had comforted him.

  ‘Tell me, did you like the things I made for you?’ Scab asked. He thought he saw a change in her expression, just a moment of disgust, gone as quickly as it had come.

  ‘Such devotion. It is as awkward as it is flattering.’

  ‘Did he do something horrible?’ Talia asked.

  ‘He made structures out of skin and bone,’ Vic told her.

  Talia nodded as if it didn’t surprise her. Scab envisaged her being peeled.

  ‘You seem … nice,’ Vic went on.

  ‘Well thank you, Mr Matto,’ the Mother said.

  ‘Now don’t get me wrong, myself and Scab have tracked down some very polite and socially pleasant recreational killers who were capable of the most horrible acts, but I don’t get that vibe from you.’

  ‘Believe me, Mr Matto, I am capable of atrocity on a scale I think you would struggle to quantify,’ she said. It was stated in a matter-of-fact manner, neither a boast nor a threat, but again there had been something there when she had said it. Some emotional response so slight that Scab couldn’t quite decipher it.

  ‘Well, that’s sort of my point,’ Vic said.

  ‘You weren’t a bad person, assuming it’s you,’ the Monk said.

  ‘The Alexia you knew was uploaded into the ancient alien petrol station, if that’s what you mean,’ the Mother said. ‘Time has passed. I shouldn’t take anything for granted.’

  ‘But this place is a place of atrocity and you were …’ The Monk trailed away.

  ‘Shallow, a hedonist?’

  ‘I was going to say a musician,’ the Monk said.

  ‘Oh, I hear music, even here there is beauty,’ she said. Scab had to smile. They never understood that. ‘But I think you mean why is Cyst like it is?’

  The Monk nodded. Scab frowned. He had always assumed that his home just was.

  ‘Cyst is a social experiment and a breeding programme.’

  Vic, Talia and the Monk stared at the Dark Mother. Scab felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. He lit a cigarette.

  ‘One of ours?’ the Monk asked. She didn’t look like she really wanted to hear the answer.

  ‘Not exactly,’ the Mother told them. ‘It’s social modelling for the end of civilisation.’

  ‘We’ve seen this before,’ the Monk said sceptically.

  ‘I can open this chamber up and you can try and survive twenty-six hours out there,’ the Mother suggested. ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘What were you trying to breed?’ Talia asked. Scab could smell her fear. The girl was looking at the walls like a trapped animal.

  ‘Not what, whom. Someone perfectly adapted for such times …’

  ‘Me,’ Scab found himself saying. Surprise was unusual. He tried not to have a facial expression. He mostly succeeded. It went very quiet in the ziggurat chamber.

  It was Talia who broke the silence. ‘At least that goes some way towards explaining why he’s such an enormous bell-end.’

  ‘Talia,’ the Monk said. Warning in her voice. Her sister went quiet.

  ‘Not you specifically, Mr Scab, well perhaps not you, who can be sure, but your bloodline, certainly. You are a bad seed, from a long line of bad seeds. Others may condemn you killing your own offspring. I do not. I see that as an act of social responsibility.’

  ‘Then why make him?’ the Monk demanded. ‘Whose breeding programme is it?’

  Scab could feel his heart speeding, starting to pound. He made physiological changes to slow it, to control his breathing. He wanted to hear this but he wanted to lash out as well. It was sounding too much like he had been manipulated, controlled, from birth.

  ‘Do you know who Patron is?’ the Mother asked.

  ‘We’ve met him,’ Vic said.

  ‘That surprises me.’

  ‘Why did he do this?’ the Monk asked.

  Scab wasn’t sure how much more he could bear. He was gripping the chair’s armrests tightly, trying to dig his fingers into the smart matter, the tip of his cigarette glowing brightly as he inhaled hard. It seemed strange that nobody else could hear the screaming, flailing chaos inside him. And it kept on happening. And it kept on getting worse.

  ‘The Destruction?’ the Mother asked, turning to the Monk. ‘I know you know—’

  ‘We’ve seen it,’ Scab managed through gritted teeth. Now they were looking at him. He could feel veins bulging out of his forehead. He could smell Vic’s pheromonic concern, his fear. Talia shifted in the confines of her chair, trying to move away from him. The Monk tensed.

  ‘Scab … ?’ Vi
c said.

  ‘Control yourself,’ the Mother said quietly. He wanted to but it was a struggle. ‘It is something to do with Patron’s connection to the thing that is trying to consume everything. My … Churchman thought he was breeding a herald for it.’

  ‘What?’ Talia said, confused. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because things need heralds, apparently.’ Scab heard irritation in the Mother’s voice.

  ‘That’s why I was made Elite, after I had proved what I was capable of,’ Scab said. The Mother nodded. ‘But then why did they take that away?’ He could remember so little, but he’d seen a habitat burn, its matter infected as it fell towards the planet, the coldness of vacuum all around him. It had been the closest he had come to peace.

  ‘Because they found a flaw, and I think they have been trying to breed that out of you with each successive generation of clone.’

  ‘What flaw?’ Scab asked.

  ‘You know what you are,’ the Monk said.

  ‘That’s why you want to die,’ Vic added quietly.

  ‘You added this,’ Scab hissed at the Mother. He didn’t think he had felt this betrayed when Vic had turned on him.

  The Mother looked down. Was it shame? Scab wondered.

  ‘Not exactly, Woodbine. I did something worse.’ She looked up at her son. ‘I gave you a choice. I made you self-aware.’ A black tear leaked out of the corner of one eye and made it halfway down her cheek before it was reabsorbed into the oil-like surface. ‘The rest you worked out yourself.’ Nobody seemed to know where to look. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Scab’s skin burned as tears ran through his make-up.

  ‘On the eve of the war we had managed to work out enough about this place. It was simply a fuelling station, we suspect for a mega engineering project that never happened. Any Lloigor AI had long since departed. Patron knew that the abundance of energy and the smart matter could support a population, of a certain type, up to a point. What he didn’t know was the Church had worked out how to upload human consciousness into L-tech.’