by Neal Asher
Vrell was not optimistic.
* * * *
Stalemate. Sniper pulled away from the Prador war drone, and it pulled away from him. Assessing the damage done to him, Sniper was quite impressed. His internal systems were down to 70 per cent, his internal power sources were half depleted and only a few missiles remained in his carousels. Externally, his once bright armour was now battered and black, and he was even missing two tentacles. However, the Prador drone was not in the best of condition either: it was missing one of its claws, radioactive gas was leaking from a crack in its armour, and its shape was no longer entirely spherical.
‘You know, shithead,’ Sniper sent, ‘I’m saving a small imploder missile for that crack in your hide.’ With any luck this would make the Prador drone more protective of that area, perhaps thus leaving it vulnerable elsewhere.
‘My name is not shithead, old drone,’ it replied. ‘And such cheap ploys will not work with me.’
‘Right, gotcha. What’s your name, then?’
‘I am Vrell.’
Interesting.
‘Now that’s an odd coincidence.’
‘There is no coincidence—I am a copy.’
‘I see… I’m Sniper, by the way.’
‘Then know, Sniper, that we are evenly matched, except in one respect: my armour is thicker. Should we have finally depleted our respective armouries, I would have knocked you down onto one of these islands and pounded you into the ground.’
It sure was a lot more talkative than others of its kind that Sniper had met, and destroyed. ‘Would have?’
The Prador drone abruptly turned and opened up with its fusion engines, immediately accelerating away from Sniper.
What now?
Sniper set off in pursuit but, as he did so, he immediately picked up objects hurtling down from the sky above. Suddenly their fight was no longer an even match, for Vrost’s forces were coming to intercede. Sniper suddenly felt a kinship with the fleeing drone.
‘Looks like your relatives have come to finish what we started,’ he sent after his erstwhile opponent.
‘They make clear targets against the sky. I suspect they will not survive beyond another twelve point three kilometres,’ the Vrell drone replied.
Sniper abruptly cut his acceleration. Twelve point three kilometres was a precise figure, and certainly a strange product of bravado. At this elevation, he calculated, as drones and armoured Prador sped past him, that figure would bring them over the horizon and in direct line to the present location, within a permissible error, of Vrell’s spaceship. Using attitude jets, Sniper spun round, and re-engaged his engines to send him in the opposite direction. At three kilometres he observed one of the armoured Prador turning in mid-air as it sped past. It looked something like a gigantic dust mite cast in gold.
‘We will attend to the matter you have left undone,’ it sent contemptuously.
Sniper considered giving these new Prador the courtesy his opponent had just given him, but rejected the idea. Obviously the Vrell drone had felt the same kinship as he had felt for it, though given the opportunity it would still have pounded him into the ground just as he would have gladly given it a missile suppository. But he felt no such kinship with these others. As far as he was concerned, Prador killing Prador could only be a good thing, despite any treaties. Low over the ocean, he turned to observe, right on cue, the flash of particle-cannon impacts, and molten pieces of drone and golden armour raining on the sea.
* * * *
Ambel gazed astern through his binoculars, and frowned. The sea was choppy so it was difficult to tell, but he was sure he had just spotted something in the waves. Not that this was unusual: since all the life forms on Spatterjay were long-lived and difficult to kill, it was inevitable that they swarmed everywhere. And, tacking like this, the Treader was sure to pick up the odd inquisitive monster—perhaps a rhinoworm then, or a big leech.
‘Something up, Captain?’ asked Boris from the helm.
‘I think we might have an unwelcome guest,’ Ambel replied.
‘Not that bloody whelk?’
Ambel shook his head. ‘Unlikely—I reckon that one’s long gone.’ He headed for the ladder, clambered down it to enter his cabin, snatched up the holographic conferencing device, and walked back out on deck. After spending a moment resetting it to voice only, and then connecting to one other such device, he asked, ‘Drum. Drum, are you there, man?’
Drum’s reply was immediate. ‘I wondered when you’d be getting in contact. I’ve been shouting into this thing on and off for a couple of hours.’
‘You’ve seen it then?’
‘Yup, something in our wake. Might be an idea to run with the wind for a while to lose it,’ Drum replied. ‘This blow is starting to shift the way we want to go, anyway.’
‘How long ago did you spot it?’
‘Roach spotted something this morning. No one believed him until our sail confirmed it a few hours ago.’
‘Any idea what it might be?’
‘I dunno—something dangerous by the way Cloudskimmer’s behaving.’
Ambel looked up. ‘Galegrabber! What’s following us?’
The sail lowered its head until it was level with Ambel’s. The creature now wore its new aug, and since donning it had been very silent and introspective. ‘A big swimming whelk. Its tentacle nearly snagged the rudder on that last tack.’
‘Why didn’t you buggering well tell us?’
The sail blinked. ‘The search program I ran revealed that no one has yet been attacked by a swimming whelk.’
‘Erm, and how about your memory?’
The sail looked astern, licking its black tongue around its teeth. ‘My memory is clear. Yes, I do recollect this individual attacking us.’
Ambel sighed. ‘Galegrabber, this is the real world, right here.’ He stabbed a finger at the deck. ‘I know what you see in the AI nets can be astounding, and that the programs you run can reveal all sorts of fascinating facts, but none of that stuff will help you if something tries to eat you here and now.’
‘Aug trance?’ asked Drum over the link.
‘In a big way,’ Ambel replied. ‘I reckon we should do what you said. Boris, turn us into the wind!’ He addressed the sail again. ‘And you.’
Galegrabber stared for a long moment, then abruptly jerked up his head and began to turn both himself and the fabric sails. Boris spun the helm and the Treader heeled over. Across the link, Ambel heard Drum bellowing similar orders, and saw that the Moby was coming about as well.
‘Everyone up on deck, and armed!’ Ambel now called out, then returned to his cabin to inspect a chart spread on the table. If Drum was right, and the wind did shift to take them back on their original course, then in a few days they would be reaching an island which was only a number on this chart. He again considered his earlier thoughts on how to deal with this persistent pursuer. They required a landfall for that, as they stood no chance against such a monster on the open ocean. He just hoped the wind did not die, meanwhile.
Back out on deck he observed such crew as were not moving about assigned tasks all standing armed at the rail, looking astern. He joined them in time to see a huge iridescent shell break the surface, tentacles whipping the waves ahead of it, and two huge eyes extruded on stalks to observe them.
‘How ever did it survive that heirodont?’ Anne asked. ‘And how the hell did it find us again?’
Ambel shrugged. ‘Luck, coincidence, fate?’
As she raised her laser carbine to take a shot at the creature, Ambel stepped over to push the barrel aside with his hand.
‘You’ll only annoy it further,’ he said.
‘Well, it doesn’t seem that likely to calm down and leave us alone.’
‘Save your shots then for when they’ll really count. In the meantime I want you and Peck sharpening all our harpoons and checking their ropes.’
‘You want to catch the damned thing?’
Ambel ignored this and held up his conf
erencing link. ‘Are you listening, Drum?’
‘I’m riveted,’ the other Captain replied.
Ambel then outlined his plan, and observed the looks of dismay from the crewmen surrounding him.
‘Has anyone got any better ideas?’ he asked them.
None was forthcoming.
* * * *
The Golem sail had destroyed all of the autolasers, and was now back up on Mainmast Two, scrambling about as if searching for something while occasionally letting out more of those piercing shrieks. Janer watched it for a moment, then focused on what had just slid over the rail and onto the deck ahead of him. The young rhino-worm resembled a two-metre-long pink newt with a hornless rhinoceros head. It opened its beaklike mouth and hissed, before charging him eagerly. Rather than use his Batian weapon, which would also have smashed the surrounding woodwork, Janer drew his handgun and, with it set only to standard pulse, opened fire. Drawing white lines through the air between himself and the creature, two of his shots burned holes through its head, jerking it up and back. His third shot hit it underneath its head, bursting some organ there. The creature reared up as if electrocuted, then crashed down, thrashing about as it sprayed a sticky yellow mess over the deck and a nearby cabin wall. Before it had even finished its death throes, a shadow loomed as Huff leaned down over the deckhouse side, clamped the rhinoworm in his jaws, then flung the creature out over the rail with a snap of his long neck.
‘Got enough now?’ Janer enquired.
Earlier, he had noticed Huff making a mound of still slowly moving bodies up on the deckhouse roof—those he did not eat, at least. Janer guessed the sail was laying in food stores for himself, but even in that there had to be a limit.
The sail eyed him. ‘I grow sick of the taste.’
‘Understandable.’ Huff’s body was now bloated from his gorging, and Janer suspected he would not be taking wing for some time. Puff, over on the stern deckhouse, had not been quite so greedy for, after feeding only a little while, she had concentrated on picking up the encroaching worms in her jaws and flipping them over the side of the ship.
‘Doesn’t it worry you how Zephyr might react?’ Janer asked.
Huff turned and looked up at the aforementioned sail. ‘Zephyr… is not right. Death is an absence, not a presence.’
So the living sails understood something of their Golem companion’s motivations.
‘He still might take a shot at you, to stop you killing those rhinoworms,’ Janer suggested.
‘He does not kill. He cannot kill.’
Janer did not even bother to dispute that. Instead, he turned and shot a rhinoworm that was sneaking over the rail behind him. By destroying the defensive lasers Zephyr had endangered them all for, had these creatures been less intent on devouring their kin, they could have swamped the ship. He moved up to the rail and peered over, noticing how now there were fewer of the creatures clinging at the waterline. Clumps of them were even drifting away, fighting with each other over the remains of those hit earlier by the now disabled autolasers.
‘Do you know where Isis Wade is?’ he asked over his shoulder. ‘I lost track of him a couple of hours ago.’
‘He is on deck over on the starboard side of the bridge,’ Huff replied, before heaving himself up and back out of sight.
Janer began walking in that direction, his carbine slung from his left shoulder and his handgun in his right hand. Just then the ship lurched as Ron once again started the engines. A grinding vibration shivered up through Janer’s feet, and he felt the ship move this time, if only a little way. Walking on, Janer observed red flashes of carbine fire from a group of Kladites gathered around the bridge on the roof of the staterooms just below it, and smelt wafts of acrid smoke drifting across the ship. They were probably huddling there to protect Bloc. All the hatches were locked down now, all the stairwells bolted shut. Crossing, behind the bridge, over to the starboard side, he spotted a rhinoworm scuttling down the further gangway, and was about to take a shot at it when a pursuing Hooper dived onto the creature and brought it down. It tried to turn on the man, but he grabbed it by the neck and smacked its head against the planking until it desisted, then tossed it over the side.
‘Wade?’ Janer asked him.
The man gestured behind himself with a thumb, then went to retrieve a machete embedded in a nearby wall.
Wade, leaning against the rail, was gazing down. Janer joined him there and also peered over. A number of the worms were still working their way up the hull, but none were yet within easy reach of the rail.
‘Do you note their toes?’ the Golem asked.
Janer saw only that the mentioned items were as flat and round as always. ‘What about them?’
Wade pointed. ‘The hull paint has a very low coefficient of friction—enough to prevent any whelks or leeches climbing it—yet these things still manage to get aboard. Look.’ He reached down and picked up something to show Janer. It was a rhinoworm leg, ripped off at the shoulder. ‘See,’ Wade poked at one of the toes, ‘the structure of these is very like that of an Earth lizard called a gecko.’
‘Your point being?’ Janer asked. Even though he himself had recently been shooting these unwelcome boarders, he could not quite accept the callousness of ripping a leg off one so as to study the toes. That seemed inhuman, which of course it was.
‘Why would sea-going animals develop toes like that? What use do they have for them?’
‘You might well ask the same question about the legs themselves. But don’t you think we’ve got more important concerns?’ Janer gestured up towards Zephyr. ‘Your other half is still rather agitated, and to my mind looks ready to go.’
‘His agitation is a good sign,’ Wade replied. ‘His time as a distinct being is now conflicting with his madness.’
‘So he won’t fly?’
‘I did not say that.’
Janer wondered how he should best assess this Golem before him. Underneath that human exterior and emulation, he was not even a normal AI (if there was such a thing).
‘Are you afraid to make that final decision?’ he asked. ‘I reckon Zephyr is a danger to the entire ecosphere of this planet, not to forget its financial system.’
Another rhinoworm poked its head over the rail, and Wade casually smacked it from view with the leg he still held. Almost as if that one worm had been holding down the entire weight of the Sable Keech, the roar of its engines changed, the grinding sound recommenced and continued, as the ship’s propellers began dragging it back out to sea. They both turned to watch as clumps of battling worms slid past them towards the bows, bobbing up and down in the first waves generated by the shifting hull.
Parting his feet to maintain his balance, Janer said, ‘Perhaps I should make the decision for you?’
‘That will not be necessary.’
‘How can you be so sure? You’re too close to the problem.’
Wade glanced at him. ‘Zephyr will not use the virus… not yet.’
* * * *
A cheer arose, and Ron beamed round at his crew gathered on the bridge.
He slapped Forlam on the shoulder. ‘Keep us on this heading until we’re well clear—a couple of kilometres at least—then take us round and back on course. On the other side of the island we’ll put on sail and shut down the engines.’
‘What do you reckon Windcheater’ll do about this? We have broken his law.’
Ron tapped a finger against the comlink in his belt. ‘I asked him before we started those engines. He won’t do anything drastic—just work out how big a fine the owners of this ship will have to pay. I must go and give Bloc that good news sometime.’
‘Captain Ron, I think we have a problem,’ said John Styx, who was working at a nearby corns console.
Captain Ron turned to him. ‘What is it, a leak?’
‘No, a message from the Warden. I would have found it earlier but I was using this console to break into the ship’s computer system.’ Styx pointed towards the forward bridge wi
ndows. ‘Yes, you can see it now.’ He then pressed a touch-plate on the console, and the Warden’s voice issued forth:
‘Ebulan’s spaceship, controlled by his now-adult first-child Vrell, is heading directly towards you. It is just submerged, and presently being attacked by drones and armoured Prador descending from the upper atmosphere. I do not know Vrell’s intentions, but him being Prador I suspect they are not amicable.’
‘Oh.’ In the distance Ron could see objects silhouetted against the sky, like birds or bees, and amidst them flashes like distant lightning. ‘Forlam, take us to port—quickly now.’
As the Sable Keech turned, Ron noticed dark objects in the sea immediately below the swarm of activity: blockish columns of metal and rounded turrets, all generating wakes as they came towards the island and the ship. Having watched Ebulan’s ship crash, he instantly recognized the upper weapons turrets of the Prador light destroyer. Ron picked up a nearby monocular, held it to an eye and kept knocking up the magnification. What he saw confirmed everything the Warden had told him, but gave him no explanation as to the why of it.
‘Keep us turning. Have we got full power to those engines?’
‘We have, Captain,’ replied the Hooper who was operating the controls.
‘Bugger.’ Ron was still peering at the Prador ship, now very much closer. It was turning as they turned, remaining right on target. He lowered the monocular, no longer needing it. Launched from one of the round turrets, missiles sped up into the sky and detonated high above. EM blast—had to be. He looked around and noted Styx stepping back from the coms console, whose lights and screen had just blinked out. Squinting back at the location of the recent blasts, he saw three objects dropping from the sky: two war drones and one armoured Prador, which he recognized even at this distance. With a bitter taste in his mouth he recollected sights very like this from the first century of his life.
Then, as if in no time at all, weapons turrets were passing on either side of the Sable Keech before slowing, and it was as if a thunderstorm had enveloped the ship. With a screaming crash, turquoise fire slashed up into the sky. Launchers spun on one of the turrets, releasing such a fusillade of missiles that they cut for the horizon in a seemingly solid black line. Something detonated nearby, scattering shrapnel across the ocean, and one large fragment skimmed over the water and into the ship’s side, with a low crump that shuddered through the deck. Then came a detonation above, and a wave of fire rolling across the sky. The ship dipped under the blast, throwing people off their feet. As a brief interval of quiet followed, Ron watched the turrets rising higher out of the sea, and heard that familiar grinding on the hull.
