The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  ‘That is not a leech,’ said the hive mind. ‘I suggest you hide.’

  Janer glanced round. The missile had been fired by Shive or one of his two comrades, who were all now carrying missile launchers. After that initial shot they disappeared off between buildings to the left. The other visible group of mercenaries also headed on out of sight.

  ‘You know I’m not the kind to hide,’ muttered Janer, moving after them.

  ‘That creature is a hooder.’

  Janer paused, having heard of such things. They were no natives of this world, and where they came from they were implanted with locators so people could know when to run. Very tough and difficult to kill, apparently. Janer at once wanted to take a closer look at it. As he advanced, however, something else gave him pause. Bloc’s Kladites—either troops or worshippers, Janer was not sure—had appeared from behind the storehouse. Some of them now entered it and began dragging out heavy crates for others of their number to take away. More weapons, he assumed. Janer moved on.

  Around the corner two Batians were firing repeatedly at the glistening side of the hooder as it hammered between the buildings, lit up with multiple concussions. Janer saw it bow under the impact of them. One of the buildings crashed over, still intact, at an angle, and that nightmare cowled head swung into clear view. The creature paused, its cowl swivelling like a searchlight. Janer took cover behind a stack of plasmel barrels. Something caught his eye and he looked down. Bones. Stripped of flesh but bloody. A head, one side of it stripped clean. Pieces of crabskin armour. Janer ignored the weapon that lay there—it had not done its owner much good.

  The hooder came on over the tilted building and swerved towards the two marksmen. Someone else launched a missile, blowing its front end up off the ground, but still it came on, up over one of the mercenaries, then hard down on him even as he fired up into its hot eyes and surgical cutlery. It reared again, scattering human detritus, then swung sideways, chopping the other man in half with its cowl edge. Janer abruptly realized that no one was firing at it from this side of the enclosure. He moved further back into the shadows and glanced at the gore-bespattered weapon lying in the dust. Fortunately the hooder had turned towards the firing coming from behind it.

  ‘Now would be a good time to hide,’ the hive mind suggested.

  Janer ran from cover, following the creature. In a narrow alley between accommodation units he noted the rips in the nearby walls caused by the passage of hard-edged carapace. Further along it had obviously caught a number of mercenaries, their number Janer could only guess by counting heads. Probably five or six? It was a gory mess, and blood-soaked dust caked his boots as he moved on.

  In the clear central area of the enclosure the hooder was swinging around in an arc. Two mercenaries were crouched behind some crates nearby, tending to one of their fellows on the ground. Janer ran over and saw it was Shive. He was coughing blood while his comrades slapped drug patches on him and hooked an oxygenator into his jugular. The two glanced up at Janer and continued working. He supposed they preferred doing this than being out there in the beast’s path.

  ‘The Kladites are arming themselves,’ Janer said, testingly.

  Shive just exposed bloody teeth then turned his head for the device to be attached to his neck. Returning his attention to the monster, Janer saw it rear up over a small group of Hoopers.

  ‘Oh shit… Ron!’ Janer stood upright.

  The Old Captain stood at the fore, directly facing the hooder, a huge machete held ready to deliver a blow. The hooder came down on him hesitantly, as if it thought there might be some danger here. The Captain struck it hard with his machete, unbelievably hard, for the blade dug well into shell the Batian missiles had only pocked. The monster jerked back, pulling the blade from the Captain’s grasp. The Hoopers behind him began retreating. Perhaps realizing he might have been a tad overconfident, the Old Captain also retreated, but the hooder came down on him like a cat’s paw.

  Janer began running towards the Captain, not knowing what he intended but knowing he must do something. Then the cowl lifted up, higher and higher, Ron heaving himself upright, Herculean, but it slammed down yet again. Then fire ignited the night: a ragged beam of violet energy struck the hooder centrally. Janer went down feeling heat on his face and along one side of his body. For a moment the hooder’s tough carapace resisted the energy directed at it, then it burned like straw in an acetylene flame. Whoever was directing the weapon brought his aim back across, going for the monster’s head, but already the front ten-metre section of the hooder was coiling up and away. It crashed against a house, slid up over it and down the other side. Two more blasts, focusing on the still-thrashing tail of the monster, and two body segments flamed before the fire shut off.

  Stillness now, but for the thrashing of what was left of the beast’s tail. A fog of smoke rolled across the enclosure, and sticky black strands fell through the air. People began calling to each other. Someone was groaning. To one side a reification, missing the lower half of his body, was dragging himself out of a crushed accommodation unit. Janer stood and observed Kladites armed with laser carbines coming in to surround the severed tail, which was now jerking just occasionally.

  ‘Ah, the reinforcements have arrived,’ said Janer sarcastically.

  ‘But for which side?’ the hive mind wondered.

  Janer broke into a trot, heading for where a figure was lying prone. After a moment the man moved, then with a curse heaved himself upright. The skin of his arm had been stripped down, like a sleeve torn off at the shoulder, and was concertinaed around his wrist. He pulled it up again and patted it into place, then frowned at the rips in his clothing. The holes sliced into his body were now visibly closing. There was no blood on him. None at all.

  ‘Now that was a nasty bugger,’ growled Captain Ron.

  6

  Land Leech:

  from a large encystment clinging to the bottom of a clump of sargassum, protected in sprine-laden jelly poisonous to predators, leeches hatch out as globular diatoms with extended plug-cutting mouths already working. They drift in the sea, feeding and growing—forming the largest proportion of what is referred to as Spatterjay’s ‘vicious plankton’. However, they do not have it all their own way, being fed upon by anything large enough to eat them and small enough to gain any benefit from the meal—including their own kind. When they reach the size of a pea, they become somnolent, and it is at this stage the predation upon them is at its greatest. It is estimated that less than one in a million are finally washed ashore. Exposed to higher oxygen levels on the beach, they use stored fat to transform into fingerling leeches, and crawl inland to find a peartrunk tree in which to roost. A symbiotic relationship exists here. When heirodonts strip tree bark from it, the tree shakes, dropping leeches on the grazer to drive it away. But that relationship is simple compared to the relationship between leeches and the Spatterjay virus.

  In prey infected by leech bite, the virus imparts resistance to damage and disease, and huge powers of regeneration. However, the regenerative process uses both the leech genome and fragments of other animal genomes which the virus has acquired over a billion years of evolution. Severely damaged animals can transform entirely into leeches — and other things.

  The mechanism that finally drives leeches back into the ocean is dependent on land food resources and the island leech population. They can enter the sea at any size from that of a human arm up to something weighing many tons. Some never enter the sea, moving inland to deep dingle—becoming tougher-skinned, more tubular and of a reddish colour—where they feed upon larger varieties of land heirodont -

  Captain Orbus was peeved that no one had been in a hurry to join his ship, that in fact three crewmen had abandoned it. Yes, his mate had been murdered and two of the crew executed for the crime, but new recruits would not be in any danger, and anyway Hoopers should not be so choosy or so cowardly. He guessed that what put them off was the atmosphere of despondency and bitterness aboard the Vign
ette, a mood that had better soon disperse or he would want to know the reason why. Even the sail, which had joined them with no knowledge of the events back on Chel, was beginning to get uneasy. Good thing sails now worked under contract. Without that piece of paper, this one would have abandoned them long before.

  As he reclined in his chair on the Captain’s bridge, enjoying the hot morning sun and gazing out across pale green ocean, Orbus knew this was not going to be a particularly enjoyable journey, nor a profitable one. He discounted at once any thoughts of going after sprine. Being short-handed would push such a dangerous venture over the edge into lethality. Orbus did not mind losing the odd man when he had them to spare, but now he did not. It seemed his only option was to do a bit of turbul fishing, if the opportunity arose, on the way to find the particular variety of sargassum that had been the downfall of his mate. Collecting squeaky weed would be the only way to turn a profit, again. And perhaps this time he would not have to push his crew so hard. He would take it easy on them. There would be no keel-hauling on this journey, no thrashings… Yes, he would take it easy. He eyed the desultory way his crew now went about their tasks. At least, no punishments unless they were called for. He heaved himself out of his chair and stood.

  ‘Lannias, have you greased the ratchets?’ he demanded loudly.

  ‘Yes, Cap’n.’

  ‘Drooble, isn’t it time you stowed those ropes?’

  ‘Yeah, probably,’ Drooble replied, leering up at Orbus.

  ‘Do you want to be the first strapped up against the mast, Drooble?’ Orbus asked.

  Still leering up at him, Drooble licked his lips. Abruptly Orbus felt a sudden disquiet. The other Old Captains, though agreeing there could be only one punishment for murder by sprine, had been scathing of his abilities. What was it Captain Drum had said?

  ‘Your crew can leave you at any time, Orbus, and being the bastard you are, do you ever wonder why any of them stay?’

  ‘I am a strict man and Hoopers need the discipline,’ Orbus had protested.

  ‘More like,’ Drum opined, ‘they like the discipline.’

  Orbus was aware that in the eyes of the other Captains he was too strict and too ready with the punishments, and his crew too ready to receive them.

  ‘Get on with you,’ he said to Drooble, and turned away.

  It was then that the sail’s head snapped up to peer at something casting a shadow on the deck. Orbus looked up into sun-reflected glare. For a moment the experience was religious—he felt on the brink of some revelation—then a voice said, ‘Okay, Captain, I’ve distance scanned you, but our quarry might be using chameleonware. I’d like to search your ship.’

  Orbus blinked, and his vision finally resolved the huge gleaming nautiloid drone descending beside the Vignette. There were other shapes higher up he could not discern, and to the right of the big drone was a small iron-coloured one bearing the shape of a scallop, and another fashioned like some mythical fish swimming through the air, its large scales glinting metallic green.

  ‘The Polity has no jurisdiction here,’ said Orbus, still angry because of his previous feelings. ‘Any of you try to enter my ship and you will know the cost. Now bugger off!’

  Orbus had not seen this particular drone before, but the others of the Warden’s drones, he recollected, usually went away if you shouted at them loudly enough. They were all frightened of stepping outside of the complicated charter laid down for them by Earth Central, and they all tried to keep out of trouble that could result in them being subsumed back into the Warden. There had apparently been some changes a number of years back, but Orbus had not been interested enough to find out what they were.

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ asked the big drone.

  The fish drone piped up, ‘Bad move, Captain.’

  The scallop added, ‘A possibly injurious move.’

  Orbus glanced aside and saw that all the remaining twelve members of his crew were out on deck. It seemed it was now a matter of keeping face. He reached over by his chair and picked up the weapon propped there. It had cost him a shipload of squeaky weed to buy this. He flicked a switch on the side of it and the gas-system pulse rifle whined up to charge. As an afterthought he then picked up the glittering coil of his flexal bullwhip. The big drone, he expected he could only drive away, but if he could get a coil of his whip around one of the little shits and pull it close, he knew, with his Old Captain strength, he would be able to tear it apart. He stood silently waiting. In a minute they would decide he was too much trouble and be on their way. And, after that happened, he would go down to the lower deck and wipe that smirk off Drooble’s face.

  The big drone sighed theatrically. ‘You know, while I was the Warden I had access to all the files on the Old Captains and now carry copies of them inside myself. Yours makes interesting reading: a sadist in charge of a crew of masochists. Now my view has always been one of “Live and let live”,’ the big drone paused for a second after a snort issued from the scallop, and Orbus guessed at some quick unheard communication, ‘but what about those Hoopers who joined you out of foolishness or desperation? As far back as your file goes, you’ve had six murders and four suicides aboard your ship, and eight others missing without explanation.’ The drone shrugged in mid-air. ‘What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say bugger off,’ said Orbus. He flipped his whip out behind him and levelled his pulse rifle.

  ‘Oh sod this,’ said the drone.

  Orbus fired. A gleaming tentacle slid out from the drone with deceptive speed. The shots from the rifle just puffed into nacreous clouds on the drone’s skin, as the tentacle wrapped around the Old Captain’s neck and hauled him into the air. Other tentacles sped in, and he felt his whip and rifle snatched from his grasp, then he was upside down, a tentacle around his ankles, being jerked through the air. Next thing he knew he was hanging upside down from a spar of the foremast. He peered up at his ankles and saw them bound to the pearwood with his own whip.

  ‘Search it,’ said the big drone.

  The two other drones zipped down to the deck and hovered over the forward hatch. Drooble ran over to them, stared at them for a moment, then reached down to open it.

  ‘Leave that bloody hatch alone!’ Orbus bellowed.

  Drooble leered, then dragged it open. The drones shot inside.

  ‘Let me down from here!’ Orbus yelled, not liking the way his crew were now grinning up at him. He hauled himself up and tried to undo the whip, but not only had it been knotted around his ankles, the flexal coils had been welded. He dropped back down, to look into the upside-down crocodilian face of the sail.

  ‘Dumb,’ it said. ‘Surprisingly dumb.’

  Shortly the small drones came back out of the hatch.

  ‘Clean as clean can be,’ prattled the fish.

  ‘Not a Golem in sight,’ added the scallop.

  And with a low roar all three of them ascended into the sky.

  ‘Get me down from here!’ Orbus yelled again.

  ‘Minute, Cap’n. I got that rope to stow,’ said Drooble.

  ‘I think I missed one of the ratchets,’ said Lannias.

  Other crewmembers took their lead from those two, and set about their many assigned tasks. All ignored the Captain’s bellowing for the best part of the day. When they finally decided to cut him down, they cut through the spar—it was the only way—and Orbus fell headfirst to the deck. He was very angry when he finally managed to free his ankles. Most of them liked that. Others were terrified.

  * * * *

  There were traps upon traps layered into the programming, their parameters changing over seemingly random time periods. There were so many that Vrell wondered how his father had kept track of them all and not fallen foul of them himself. Like the blast doors Vrell had earlier opened, and jammed by fusing the motors that drove them. For them the input locking codes changed at periods ranging from a few minutes to entire days. But at least this control pit and its array of screens in Father’s sanctum continued
operating once Vrell short-circuited the gene reader with a lump of gristle he’d found attached to a piece of his father’s carapace.

  With increasing bewilderment Vrell worked his way through the programming systems of the ship. He was finding the traps and nullifying them, but knew that at this rate he would not clean the system until some years hence. It made his major ganglion ache and, as he worked, pressure grew inside him. Inevitably there came a dull crunch, and he turned his eye-palps, and what was now his head, to observe another crack in his carapace. Relief was immediate, and with it came sudden inspiration. Of course, there had to be a separate tracking and reformatting program. It was clearly not in the system itself, so Father must have accessed it through one of his control units—one that was still active. And it was even more obvious that his father used the same unit to access the whole system. How could Ebulan have done otherwise? He had no hands. It was so blatantly obvious, why had Vrell not seen this before?

  Vrell spun round and clattered across the room picking up the hexagonal control units once welded to his father’s carapace. Using a remote reader, a second device that mated into the socket in the face of each unit, he tested each one in turn. The first three were dead—obviously linked to the thrall units rendered defunct by the destruction of the blanks they ran—but the fourth was still transmitting. The Prador took it over to Ebulan’s private storage area—now open—went inside, unplugged the reader, then plugged a cable from a diagnostic tester into the same socket. All the control unit required, apparently, was another nanofibre rooting module. He found one of these, removed the old module from the back of the unit, and plugged the new one into place. With another hand he picked up a multihead carapace drill, placed it against his underside and triggered it. A high whine and puff of powder resulted in a neat pepperpot of holes in his undercarapace. He brought the unit up to these and paused.