The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  OUTPARAFUNCT: B.P. PRESSURE INCREASE NOT REQ

  His fight-or-flight reflex, which in his organic body would have caused a surge of adrenalin and consequent increase in his heart rate, caused his internal balm pump to accelerate. That was not supposed to happen.

  INFORM: STABILIZE, he instructed.

  His heart would have been thundering, but now, motionless with its valves open and preserving balm flooding round and through it, it just endured.

  Janer Cord Anders.

  He should have known, since he had long ago formatted his memory so as never to forget a face that might be important to him. Here was the other one they had been searching for—and coming to them of his own free will. It was indeed destiny: further proof that he was the one to lead all reifications to the Little Flint and to resurrection. He felt in that instant the truth of his own status, and knew that in time all reifications would come to understand what he was, and what he was doing for them. Bloc undid his safety straps, jerked himself out of his seat and walked over. As he drew close to Anders, he saw that the box on the man’s shoulder contained hornets.

  Epiphany.

  ‘You are Janer Cord Anders,’ he said, catching hold of the back of the man’s seat.

  Anders looked up. ‘I certainly am.’

  ‘Might I enquire why you are on this flight?’

  ‘I’m here with Ron.’ Anders gestured to the Old Captain. ‘I was hoping for a place on the ship. My friend here,’ he tapped the hornet box, ‘is not so enamoured of the idea, but my remit does allow for a little travelling.’

  ‘Of course you will join the Sable Keech; it is inevitable. I did make an offer on the AI nets for your presence, some years ago. I am trying in my modest way to match many aspects of the Arisen One’s original journey, so I would be glad to have you aboard.’

  OUTPARAFUNCT: YABBER$@~*

  MEMSPACE: 00055

  Bloc tilted his head: another one. It had to be caused by his additional hardware and software, as such code corruptions were usually unheard of in reification software. He ran a high-speed diagnostic of the three open channels from his internal control unit. The results did not make a lot of sense. He tried linking through one channel, briefly saw bony hands sharpening a knife. He realized then that the problem was being caused by feedback from the most recently opened channel: a kind of madness, something waking up. After a second he refocused on the man before him.

  Anders had tilted his head, listening to his hivelink. He frowned, showed a flash of irritation, and said, ‘Then you have me.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m informed that you are Taylor Bloc?’

  ‘I am,’ Bloc replied, a little peeved that Janer had not instantly recognized him.

  ‘You’re part owner of the ship?’ Janer asked.

  Bloc stared at him, for a moment not understanding the question, then he replied, ‘I am the owner.’ The wash of anger and irritation he felt was immediate, almost seemed to come from outside him, but of course it did not show. He was not truly the owner yet, and that would have to soon change. He nodded to Janer jerkily, turned away, and began running inside himself an error-search program that though not correcting whatever the fault was, would at least clear some of the junk out of his mind. Slowly he returned to his seat.

  ‘You’ve recruited him?’ the Kladite asked.

  ‘I… have.’

  ‘He was not already with us?’

  Bloc held up a hand. ‘It was destined.’

  ‘That is good.’

  The Kladite faced forwards again, bearing no expression on his frozen and preserved face, but his mere actions told Bloc enough. He realized that whatever was wrong with himself was showing. This too would have to change.

  * * * *

  The sail finally put Erlin down on top of a small atoll, while its two companions scattered a colony of frog whelks that had been clinging just above the waterline a few metres below her. She could hear the strange squealing of the whelks and the thunderous splashing as they propelled themselves away from the coral face. Glancing aside, she saw one of them smack its fleshy foot down on the water and bounce again. But one of the sails snatched it up on its next bounce. The pair of sails returned with two whelks each, broke open the shells and began to dine on their still living occupants. Erlin eyed their dinner for a moment—not feeling quite the same about whelks any more—then turned her attention to the sail who had carried her. Only then did she finally grasp what some part of her brain had been trying to tell her for some time.

  ‘You’re Golem?’ she asked.

  ‘They are insentient so, essentially, neither truly alive nor truly subject to Death,’ the sail replied.

  Erlin gazed at the Golem sail, then realized it was staring down at the other two sails as they dined. A Golem sail that was squeamish?

  ‘I said you’re Golem,’ Erlin suggested.

  ‘I’m Zephyr,’ the sail replied, its gaze still fixed.

  Erlin stood up, stretched her legs and rubbed her aching shoulders. ‘So, Zephyr, I’d have thought it would be easier for you to take me to Olian’s, or else drop me aboard some ship in that area. But it seems you’ve been taking me away from civilization.’

  Zephyr turned its head towards her, then tossed a harness onto the stone beside her. ‘Put that on.’

  ‘Why?’

  The sail gave a twisted shrug, as if in pain. ‘I can carry you as before, but you might find the journey uncomfortable. There is no risk to your life. Distance… is long.’

  ‘I don’t want to go on a long journey.’

  The Golem sail gave that same distorted shrug and began to extend its wings.

  ‘Wait.’ Erlin stooped and took up the contrivance of plasmesh straps. It was something like a parachute harness but with a grip bar or handle at the back where the parachute should be. She started to don it, but slowly to give herself time.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Mortuary Island.’

  ‘Why there?’ Erlin asked, not wanting to reveal that she had no idea what or where this place was.

  ‘Because that is where the dead live and where we have been paid to take you.’

  ‘You’re kidnapping me?’

  Again the shrug, this time with bowed head. ‘Relocating… you.’ The head came up again. ‘I saved your life. I beat your Death.’

  ‘I’m grateful for that. But now you are taking me somewhere I don’t want to go. That’s kidnapping.’

  ‘There is worse.’

  One of the other sails hawked and coughed up a piece of whelk shell. ‘We could always take her back where we found her, if this gets too messy,’ it suggested.

  ‘Oh, I’ll come,’ Erlin said quickly. ‘I see I haven’t much choice in the matter.’ She finished doing up her straps.

  ‘Should we feed her?’ asked the third sail, nudging the remains of its dinner with a clawed toe.

  ‘Do you require food, Erlin Taser Three Indomial?’

  Erlin eyed the chewed leftovers. ‘Not right now.’

  ‘Then we must go.’

  The Golem sail launched itself, blasting shell fragments from the top of the atoll with the down-draught of its wings. Erlin turned, and it grabbed the handle at her back and pulled her into the sky.

  ‘How far to Mortuary Island?’ she shouted as the other two sails then launched with much noise and flurry.

  ‘It is in the Cable Sea, beyond the Norbic Atolls.’ Erlin swore, and realized that at some point she would need to eat whatever was offered her. That, she knew, was thousands of kilometres away.

  * * * *

  Ambel gazed through his binoculars at the island, inspecting the damage, looking for any sign of Erlin—or maybe bits of Erlin. Judging by the mess he could see, she was probably dead, but he was not feeling that yet. Actually, accepting someone’s death was not a trait to which Old Captains could grow accustomed—most of their own fellows being so long-lived and indestructible.

  ‘Lower the boat,’ he instructed Peck, who as ev
er was hovering at the Captain’s shoulder.

  He glanced round at the rest of the crew, but none of them would meet his gaze. Sprout and Pillow unstrapped the rowing boat from the side of the ship and began feeding rope into pulleys to lower it to the sea. Ambel returned to the outer wall of his cabin, and unhooked from it his blunderbuss and bags of powder and stones. He loaded the weapon, tearing off the end of a paper cartridge and feeding it down the barrel, next shoving in wadding and pouring in some stones, then more wadding. He primed it and pulled back the hammer.

  ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here before we get all morbid,’ he suggested.

  He hung the ‘buss across his back by a strap and scrambled down the ladder. While Peck peered over the side at them, Anne and the juniors—Sprout, Sild and Pillow—followed Ambel down. They were also armed: Anne carried a powerful laser carbine she had found on Skinner’s Island—no longer needed by the Batian mercenaries who had gone there with Rebecca Frisk and run afoul of Hooper vengeance; Sprout carried a machete, and the other two lugged heavy clubs. Once they were all seated in the boat, Ambel took up the reinforced oars and began to row.

  ‘What do you think happened?’ Anne eventually asked.

  Staring straight back at the Treader, Ambel replied, ‘Any number of things spring to mind, but by the look of the wreckage I would guess something from the deeps paid a visit. We’ll know soon enough.’

  Soon they were into shallows and with a glimpse over the side Ambel noted a lack of whelks in the vicinity. He began to feel a heaviness in his chest; the signs were not good. Beaching the boat he gave a further two heaves on the oars to pull it up onto the sand, then climbed out.

  ‘We’ll stick together for the moment,’ he said, all practicality. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here first.’

  Eyeing the wreckage of Erlin’s home, the five advanced. They began to search under its deflated walls, to pick through broken equipment and furniture, and turn over anything large enough to conceal human remains.

  ‘Ambel,’ Anne called him over.

  He came to stand next to her and gazed down at whelkish remains driven into the hard ground. He stooped and rubbed away some of the dirt, to reveal the shell pattern.

  ‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘You collect what’s salvageable and take it back to the ship. Me an’ these lads’ll take a look across the island. Tell Boris to bring the Treader round to the other side to pick us up.’

  ‘Is that such a good plan?’ Anne wondered. ‘Perhaps we should all leave right now.’

  Ambel turned to her. ‘Erlin could be injured and holed up somewhere. I know the chances are remote, but I have to look.’ He glanced back at the waves. Maybe what had done this still lurked there below the surface, but that was a risk he was prepared to take. He still hoped to find some sign, some message… something.

  ‘Come on, lads, we’ll spread out and cover as much ground as we can.’ He turned and began trudging inland, bellowing, ‘Erlin! Are you here, woman!’

  * * * *

  Taylor Bloc eyed the Kladites arrayed in neat ranks before him, unarmed. They all wore cloth or domino masks, grey envirosuits with incorporated breastplates, while skirted helmets hung at their belts. As they raised their hands before them and started chanting ‘Bloc! Bloc! Bloc!’ he strode out onto the ramp waving one hand in greeting. This small army of eighty reifications he had gathered from the remnants of the Cult of Anubis Arisen on Klader, and they had all sworn loyalty to him for his promise to lead them to resurrection. Out of choice they wore a uniform created by one of their number. It was sad, though fortunate for him, Bloc felt, that even amongst the unliving there were those who felt the need to be led.

  A few Hoopers stood to one side, watching the show with bemused expressions. Of the rest of the crowd, the largest proportion consisted of unaligned reifications—merely passengers—but there were others here too.

  Bloc spotted the mercenary he knew only as Shive—an employee of Lineworld Developments. The catadapt was tall, thickly muscled, boosted and, now grinning, his leonine visage exposing curved fangs. Bloc surveyed the gathering, easily picking out the rest of the mercenaries; they wore black crabskin armour and made no pretence at concealment. He repressed his anger; though he had always expected Lineworld Developments to try to take over, it was doubly insulting that they used Batian mercenaries. These were members of an entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon profession. They had also, in the employ of the Eight, spent seven hundred years trying to find and destroy Sable Keech himself.

  The chanting finally came to a halt and, turning up his volume, Bloc began to speak. ‘Kladites, I thank you for your greeting, and your enthusiasm for our great venture. We have come here to walk in the footsteps of Sable Keech, seeking resurrection. It is—’ There came a guffaw from one of the mercenaries. ‘It is a great thing we do, but I will save the speeches for later. Right now there is much work to be done.’

  Spying Aesop and Bones walking up through the ranks, easily recognizable by their hooded green flak jackets, Bloc walked down to join them. His internal search program now nearly clearing the clutter from his mind, he could link to them easily, but chose instead to speak.

  ‘How did they get here?’ he immediately asked.

  ‘They came in the first shuttle, directly from orbit, disguised as reifications,’ Aesop hissed in reply.

  ‘As expected,’ murmured Bloc. ‘And the weapons.’

  ‘They were under guard before we got here. We of course demanded that the chief mercenary, Shive, release them to us, but he refused. He said it was his job to ensure the safety of all, and that a bunch of amateurs running around with laser carbines was something he didn’t consider safe.’

  ‘No matter. How many mercenaries?’

  ‘Only eighteen, but they are all heavily armed.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘As required for their mission: projectile weapons that can destroy reifications and kill Hoopers,’ Aesop replied.

  Bloc nodded creakily. ‘Not nearly enough, then.’

  Eighteen mercenaries so armed was plenty enough against eighty unarmed Kladites. The rest in this crowd were all free citizens, pilgrims come here with one hope. Some of them might have had military or criminal or security backgrounds, but he had no idea of their loyalties, and so for the present discounted them. Unlike Aesop and Bones, they did not belong to him. However, it was all moot.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I have prepared for this. We have the means…’ he said, more confidently than he felt. He glanced around to find six Kladites had moved into a rank behind him, and the rest of the crowd was dispersing. ‘Tell me the rest.’

  ‘The Golem are hard at work and will complete the ship on schedule,’ Aesop replied. ‘All but ten reifs have paid their reservation fees, rental agreements on accommodation and initial bids on tickets for the first voyage. As expected, a lot of them did not bring supplies of an Intertox inhibitor that works in reification balm. Of course, with the journey’s distance and time now extended, those who miss the first voyage will require further supplies and will also have to pay for extended rental agreements. Even before the Sable Keech reaches its destination, Lineworld will already be in profit.’

  ‘Yes, as was always their intention, but all profits are allocated as investment in future voyages, and stand separate from initial investment costs,’ said Bloc. ‘How are we now with that?’

  ‘The cost of transporting materials and passengers has pushed us near to the limit,’ Aesop replied.

  ‘That the mercenaries have made no further move means Lineworld is waiting for us to go over that limit, then they can legally take over. Because they work from within the Polity, their actions here on the Line must have at least the gloss of legality.’ Bloc felt the situation was perhaps the best he could have hoped for. He had expected Lineworld to find some way of pushing up costs, and there were many ways they could have done that. By relocating the enterprise th
ey had untied his hands. There were things he could do now he would not have dared on Chel Island. ‘Take me to the ship now. I want to see.’

  Aesop turned and led the way through the sprawl of Polity accommodation units and a buzz of activity. Bloc noted the fences erected to keep the denizens of the dingle at bay, and some guard towers occupied by Batians. A few stalls and kiosks here were selling food and drink, but most sold various items of Polity technology that reifications might require. This too was part of the enterprise—a hugely profitable part for Lineworld. That organization was also raking in a profit from the currency exchange system he had arranged with Olian’s. Contractually that made no difference to the initial investment, but then Lineworld’s contracts served one purpose: they were the tip of a wedge into profitable enterprises started by others on the edge of the Polity. They invested, then took over—that was their whole ethos.

  They came to a gate leading out of the temporary town warded by two more mercenaries who smilingly opened it for them. The Kladites now drew in closer around Bloc and keenly eyed the dingle either side of the path winding downslope.

  ‘There’s a good view from over here, unless you want to go down?’ Aesop pointed to a narrow side path.

  Bloc waved him on.

  Soon they emerged on an outcrop above a drop, and gazed down at the Sable Keech.

  Only the keel and ribs of the ship were yet in place, resting on the ramp leading down to the sea. Those working on it gleamed brightly, and were as skeletal as what they were constructing. Either side of the construction site, and reaching back to below where Bloc was standing, just about every tree had been felled. A sawmill, open to the air, was in constant operation; clouds of wood dust boiling out from it and turning its surroundings into powdery desert. He observed where the masts were being assembled from bubble-metal sections. He noted stacked crates, some of them the size of houses. These contained bubble-metal gears and trains, electric motors, laminar batteries and solar cells, bearings and all the paraphernalia that would allow three living sails to control the mass of other monofabric sails the masts would carry. The ship, when finished, would be nearly a kilometre long, carry nine huge masts, five hundred kilometres of rigging, square kilometres of sail, and seven hundred passengers and crew (one for each year Sable Keech had been dead). It would be enormous, a triumph and, most importantly for Lineworld, very expensive to travel on.