The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  ‘Men! To me!’ he shouted, and did not need to look round to know his little army was gathering round him and unlimbering their weapons. ‘It is time now for some lessons to be learnt. You,’ he stabbed a finger at Forlam, ‘are an employee, as is your Captain. You will obey me or know the consequences, as will he. I control everything that happens aboard this ship.’

  ‘Like you control Aesop and Bones?’ suggested the male reif.

  Bloc felt something lurch inside him. Was this one of Ellanc Strone’s rebels? He did not know the man.

  ‘Your meaning?’ He continued staring at Forlam.

  The six Hoopers here carried a few weapons, but those were nothing in comparison to the forty or so laser carbines at his back. Thinning out their number might be beneficial, as would destroying any reif who knew too much.

  ‘Prador thrall technology,’ said Styx bluntly.

  ‘Really,’ said Bloc, turning towards him.

  Styx nodded towards Aesop and Bones. ‘I knew it had to be something like that. I researched your background before coming here, and I know where your interests lie. Most of the other passengers do too. It does not really concern us, so long as you bring us to the Little Flint and our chance at resurrection.’ Styx stepped closer, placed a hand against Forlam’s chest and pushed him back. ‘Ellanc Strone and his kind are in the minority.’ Styx turned and looked at Forlam. ‘Bloc is right, don’t you see? Those weapons were no help to the Batians, so even in the hands of Hoopers what good would they do? And Forlam here should perhaps try to show a little self-control.’

  Forlam suddenly looked decidedly uncomfortable. He glanced round at the Hoopers behind him, then forwards at the armed Kladites.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said grudgingly.

  Bloc felt himself growing calm. There was no need here for any demonstrations of power. The Hoopers were needed for repairs and for running this ship, his Kladites were armed, and in time he would gain full control of the hooder.

  He turned to Forlam. ‘The rudder is damaged?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Forlam, eyeing the laser carbines pointed at him.

  Bloc wished he could smile now. ‘Return to Captain Ron, find out what is required, and tell him to get repairs underway.’ He swung towards Styx. ‘All nonessential personnel should return to their cabins for the duration of this crisis.’

  ‘There’s still that nasty bugger down there,’ said Forlam sulkily.

  ‘The hooder, my people have told me,’ said Bloc, ‘is heading towards the bows. It will probably return to the chain lockers where it was hiding earlier.’

  The male reif was the first to turn round and walk away. Forlam and the Hoopers followed.

  * * * *

  The gun, though given a long pompous title by its inventor, holofiction labelled a singun. Very few people believed such a weapon existed, and of those only a small percentage actually knew it existed. It made no sound and there was no kick. Automatically ranging the first solid object at which it was aimed, it caused a mote of quantum foam in that object to begin turning out of phase with reality. This resulted in a hole which in turn generated a powerful singularity with an existence so brief its gravity field did not get a chance to propagate beyond a few metres. Everything within its sphere of influence was subjected to both tidal and crushing forces of the gravitic shell while it revolved out of reality then back into it. The result was inevitably messy.

  The cowl of the hooder—all black and red and glittering razor edges—disappeared and reappeared in an instant too brief to register. There came a whumph, as of a one-tonne melon cast into a giant food processor. The mangled mess of carapace, woody flesh and organic glass cascaded to the floor, leaving the headless body of the monster thrashing in the bilge. Wade walked away from it, back towards Janer.

  ‘An effective weapon,’ said the Golem.

  ‘Certainly is,’ said Janer, gingerly holstering his gun.

  ‘You’re not going to use it on me, then?’ Wade asked.

  ‘Not for the present,’ Janer replied.

  * * * *

  Now, Bloc decided, he would institute a disciplined regime aboard this ship. The Hoopers would make the necessary repairs; the reifications, without Ellanc Strone any longer to act as a rabble rouser, would only come out on deck as per the present rota—except for his Kladites and any other reifs he could persuade to join his army. The Kladites would act as his enforcers, but for any major revolt they might not be able to handle he could use the hooder… as soon as he gained full control of it. Bloc was well satisfied with this night’s work, but his satisfaction lasted only as long as it took Forlam and the others to move out of sight.

  Suddenly, a wave of feedback slammed shrieking into Bloc’s mind through the channel open to the hooder. He felt the linkages to the thralls down below breaking up. The hooder—someone had killed his pet! His mind filled with a morass of pseudo-pain. The third channel continued operating, but flashing through to him cryptic signals from remaining functional thralls. It was all to much. Bloc could feel his grip slipping, and he staggered back, bouncing off Bones, then falling against the nearby wall.

  OUTPARAFUNCT: B.P. LOAD INC. 10%

  How quickly can power dissolve?

  WARN: EXTREMITY PROBES NIL BALM LA71-94

  VIRAL INFECT

  To one side he saw Bones shaking as if electrocuted, then toppling over onto the deck. Through his other channel he sensed Aesop drop as well, but could do nothing about it. Warning messages were scrolling up before his inner vision, one after another, and he seemed unable to shut them down. The next thing he knew he was lying flat on his back, staring through a flood of artificial tears at the starlit sky.

  MEMSPACE: 00024

  ‘Taylor Bloc, sir?’

  Two Kladites were bending over him, reaching to help him up. He pushed their hands away and eventually lurched to his feet by himself. Everything was fizzing in his mind, and he could make no connections. No, he must not lose it now. He pushed the two Kladites back further, straightened up and looked around.

  Bones and Aesop were down. Unbelievably, the hooder was gone. How had Captain Ron just done what the Batians failed to do? Bloc needed time to retrench, but he needed even more to show he was still in control.

  ‘Those two.’ He pointed at Aesop and Bones. ‘Take them to the Tank Rooms and tell Erlin to do what she can for them. I will be in my cabin.’

  He turned and walked away, all effort focused on controlling his limbs.

  13

  Prill:

  this sickle-legged creature is something of an oddity. Below a saucer-shaped carapace its ten legs are spaced evenly, and all hinge in the same concentric direction. These legs are flat and sharp, and in the water act like some strange cross between propellers and paddles. On land, though it can travel forward at great speed, it is constantly revolving. As a consequence, so it can keep its eyes on its destination—usually something to eat—its red eyeballs are not directly attached to its optic nerve, which lies in a band around its very small brain, but are squeezed around a lubricated channel in its carapace rim, constantly focusing light on the band of nerve tissue behind. The mouth is positioned centrally, underneath.

  Prill lay millions of eggs in the ocean currents. Drifting, they hatch out diatomic prill, which make up part of the vicious plankton. Feeding in the ocean currents for some years, until they are about the size of dinner plates, they hitch a ride on larger oceanic carnivores, scavenging scraps from their host’s prey. As they get larger their bodies become more dense, till they eventually sink to the ocean floor, where they continue growing. Eventually internal body growth outpaces carapace growth, so they themselves become prey to the smaller denizens of the deep. Their carapaces and internal chemistry prevent virus infection, so prill will live no longer than a century or so. In this respect their closest relation is the glister—

  Four fusion plants were now running. Two others were possibly salvageable, but one was highly radioactive and beyond repair. Through various ca
meras Vrell watched a dying blank plasma-cutting the supports and pipes around the pill-shaped unrecoverable one. Eventually it was hanging loose, only attached by its S-con cables, with coolant leaking out of a breach in its side. These cables being a nightmare to cut using heat, as they instantly conducted it away, the blank had to cut through with an electric saw, and eventually the two-metre-wide plant dropped to the deck with a crash. Stumbling a little now, the sickly blank attached a cable hook to one of the support lugs on the fallen object’s circumference. Using the electric winch of a rail buggy out in the main corridor, he hauled it out of the fusion room, then up off the floor so that it hung suspended from the buggy, which in turn clung to its ceiling rail. It was a labour-intensive task which would have been greatly simplified by using a mobile gravplate. Except the Warden might detect AG usage and investigate.

  From the control room Vrell set the buggy moving, with the blank walking along behind it. After many laborious interchanges and a nightmarish moment when the rail began to tear away from the side of a down-shaft through which it curved, both blank and plant eventually arrived in the drone cache. There, Vrell’s drone unfolded its new armoured claws, took the weight of the plant and snipped the cable holding it aloft. Vrell closed the door into the cache, then opened the hull door. In flooded the ocean, slamming the blank against the back wall. Vrell relinquished control of the human, then watched the cache fill up and the drone take the fusion plant outside to dump it. Some hours later the drone returned, grabbed the still moving blank and shoved him outside too. Finally Vrell closed the hull door again. Despite being a tough Hooper, the human was dying anyway from the huge radiation dose it had received. Vrell concentrated now on other matters.

  The remaining human blanks were working very well: all automated repair systems were operating at optimum efficiency and, just as fast as they were supplied with materials, the manufactories were turning out missiles, explosives and other components to restock the armouries. There were now enough gravplates operational to waft the ship into orbit. All the steering thrusters were functional, and their tanks a quarter full of deuterium oxide. The main fusion engine was not yet ready but, at the rate his blanks worked, it would be so in a few days. However, even all this activity was but a small percentage of the overall task. There now remained the most complex and bewildering job of all, which, if left undone, meant Vrell would never be leaving this system. And the repair and realignment of the U-space engine was not a task the Prador could delegate.

  The Prador left his sanctum for the first time in many days, making his way towards the ship’s rear. On the way he collected a maglev tool chest and reels of fibre-optics and insulated super-conducting cable. The U-space engine was positioned in a wide chamber just ahead of the main fusion engines. In appearance it was a large torus stretched until the hole in its middle had closed up. It was supported in a scaffold that also carried a fountain of S-con power cables, fibre-optic control and diagnostic feeds. Around the room’s walls were scattered banks of hexagonal screens and pit consoles. Vrell eyed the layer of soot on every surface, the burnt cables and blown U-field monitors. The engine itself bore no exterior signs of physical damage, but until he replaced those burnt-out optics he did not know how it was inside.

  Vrell advanced into the room, the tool chest following him faithfully. He reached out to turn off the chest’s power, and it settled with a crunch on the ashy floor. Rearing up over the engine, he extended his manipulatory hands and detached an optic cable. He then opened the tool chest, used a vibro-sheer to cut an equivalent length from one reel, selected the required fittings from the chest, and sealed them to each end with optical glue. After replacing the cable he marked it with a coloured wire tie. And so it went. Some cables appeared undamaged, but he still replaced them all. Next, using a similar technique, he replaced all the S-con cables. These ail appeared undamaged, but he dared not trust their insulation, as the current they would need to carry was huge, and the slightest short could spell disaster. In a storeroom just off the engine room, he found spare U-field monitors and replaced the damaged ones. Once all this was done, he moved well back, linked in to the ship’s control systems, and switched on the power.

  The whole room seemed to twist slightly, and suddenly the U-space engine appeared to gain greater weight and substance. Vrell moved to a bank of screens and pit controls and initiated the optic aligning program, since it was impossible for each cable to go back precisely in position, for they contained tens of thousands of microscopic individual filaments. While this was running, he headed off to the ship’s larder and fed himself, noting as he did so that supplies of food were getting low. By the time he returned, the program had run its course and he was now getting diagnostic returns. He inspected the screen readouts for a long time, then abruptly turned and knocked the tool chest across the room, to smash into another bank of screens. Then he settled down onto the ashy floor, with a hiss like something deflating.

  * * * *

  Forlam flushed with embarrassment. Styx, himself and just five other Hoopers up against Bloc, Aesop, Bones and a small army of Kladites—what had he been thinking? He could easily have got them all killed. The obvious reason for such rashness was those unhealthy impulses to which Styx had referred earlier.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he muttered.

  ‘No matter,’ said Styx. ‘Just try to control yourself.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  They reached the door to the nearest Mainmast stairwell, and clattered down to the reifications’ deck. Once there, Forlam turned to head for the stern. Captain Ron, in his own calm and lugubrious manner, would have to deal directly with Bloc. Maybe they could open the embarkation stair and lure the hooder there and somehow force it out into the ocean. Maybe Erlin could sort something out, since she was clever…

  Styx abruptly caught hold of his shoulder. ‘Not that way,’ said the reif.

  Forlam stared at him, puzzled.

  ‘Don’t you want to fetch those weapons for your Captain?’ Styx asked him.

  ‘Well… yes.’

  ‘Then follow me.’

  Styx broke into a lope that was surprisingly smooth for a reif, leading the way towards the bows. Some other reifications were crowding the corridor, and from them one female reif approached him.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

  ‘I haven’t the time to explain right now, Santen,’ Styx replied. ‘Suffice to say that I think Bloc has dealt with a particular problem of his in a way that endangers us all.’

  What is he on about? Forlam wondered, as he followed Styx on through the crowd. The female reif hesitated for a moment, then abruptly followed. Shortly they reached the stairwell by the third foremast, which led up eventually to the bridge.

  ‘We have to be quick,’ said Styx. ‘Bloc and the others may be coming back here.’

  Soon they reached the doorway leading through to the staterooms on this level. Styx peered through the porthole in the door. ‘Two Kladites, armed. Deal with them, Forlam.’

  ‘Right.’ Forlam glanced around at his five companions. ‘Come on, lads.’

  Forlam crashed through the door, saw the two guards turning towards him. He launched himself at the nearest one, grabbing the reif’s carbine and driving his head into the guard’s face. Hands slipping from his weapon the guard staggered back against the wall, while Forlam brought its butt up hard into his face. The other guard managed to fire just one blast, then disappeared under three Hoopers. The one Forlam had hit was struggling to get upright again.

  ‘Tie them up,’ said Styx. ‘You won’t be able to knock dead men unconscious.’

  Sufficient belts and straps were found, and shortly the two Kladites were writhing about on the floor, leaking blue balm from their injuries.

  ‘You,’ Styx pointed to one of the Hoopers, ‘go watch the stair.’ He then strode down the corridor, checking each door before halting at one. ‘Forlam, here.’

  Forlam kicked hard, his foot going right throug
h the woodwork. ‘Bugger.’

  Styx relieved him of the carbine, as he struggled to free his leg, and fired into the lock. After Forlam pulled himself free, he slammed his palm against the door above the smoking lock. It swung slowly inwards.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ said Forlam. ‘How did you know?’

  On the big wide bed rested a neat row of Batian projectile weapons, stacks of ammunition, energy canisters and grenades. It was the missile launcher that caught Forlam’s eye, however.

  ‘I knew because I watch and I listen.’ Styx turned to the female reif. ‘It always surprises me how much most people miss.’

  ‘Oh I missed it at first, but not now,’ said Santen Marcollian.

  Styx just stared at her. Forlam knew he was missing something about this exchange between the two, but ignored them to take up the launcher and eye it greedily.

  ‘You be careful with that,’ said Styx.

  The Hoopers collected the weapons, making a bag for them out of bed sheets, and were soon piling out of the room. Forlam shouldered the launcher and watched as Styx walked around the double bed and picked up something that had fallen on the floor. It was a plasmel box, and he opened it. Inside were four divisions, one of them empty. From one of the others he removed an aerosol can of some kind, no label, slightly dented. He sniffed it in a very unreif-like manner.

  ‘This was the stateroom assigned to Aesop,’ he said, ‘though he never uses it. Such luxury is wasted on the dead.’

  ‘Someone coming up!’ came a shout from the Hooper watching the stairwell.

  Styx nodded briefly, led the way out of the room and along to the other stairwell, then down.

  * * * *

  Travelling under the ocean at what would be Mach 1 if airborne, Sniper followed the silt trail for a hundred kilometres before it faded into the normal background micro-debris of the ocean. Shutting off his S-cav drive, he coasted for a time while assessing collected data. Obviously the ocean currents would have shifted the trail, but how far? The war drone overlaid the present silt trail on his internal map of the sea bottom. Then, taking into account the ocean currents and tides, he tracked this trail’s position back day by day. The twisting line deformed, grew wider to account for possible error, but still—at a point in time a few days after the disappearance of the Vignette—it seemed to match some seabed features. Sniper turned, opened up with his drive, and returned with all speed to the spot where the spaceship had originally rested.