by Neal Asher
Pulling free his right hand he reached up and drove it into the woodwork again, then one foot, then the other hand, the other foot. With painful slowness he began working his way out from the keel, across an upcurving ceiling of planking the size of a sports field. The two crewmen rode back along his arm until they were hanging from around his shoulder. Boxies zipped past as the ship accelerated, then a passing turbul closed its jaws on one crewman’s foot and Wade had to drive his fingers deeper into timber to prevent himself being dragged from the hull. The creature finally separated from its prey, though it took the foot with it.
Wade could have moved very much faster without his burden, but even though needing to get aboard the ship with some urgency, he stubbornly held onto the two rescued Hoopers.
Zephyr, wait for me. There’s something more you need to know.
It was a lie, but might be enough to delay the Golem sail, even though the threat of weapons fire from the Prador ship was growing less.
I have seen enough, said Zephyr. Life is at constant warwith Death, and I will strike a blow in that campaign… It is none of your concern.
Wade realized, by that last comment, that Zephyr was also conducting a conversation with the two living sails. Perhaps they would delay the Golem sail. Now reaching the steeper curve up to the side of the ship, Wade observed white water above him. Not far to go now. Then things began bumping against him in the water: reddish-brown, swan-necked, with long flat bodies.
Oh, you have got to be kidding.
One of the leeches attached to his exposed ankle and, with an electric screwdriver sound, reamed out a chunk of his syntheflesh. The predator then fell away, writhing like a blood worm, and spat out the unsavoury mouthful. Others attached to the two crewmen, taking out chunks of them too, but unable to enjoy seconds as the current swept them away. Wade concentrated on the task in hand—talking to Zephyr just slowed him down. If he did not get the pair of them out of the water soon, he would be rescuing nothing more than what the Hoopers called stripped-fish.
Finally reaching the surface he began hauling himself up the sheer face of the hull. Twenty metres up he passed one of the square windows, from which a female reification observed him, perhaps with bemusement—there was no way to tell. He saw her turn away and begin punching touch-plates on her computer’s console. Meanwhile, to his right the remains of a laser turret projecting from the hull kept turning towards him, spraying sparks as if in frustration. Finally, fifteen metres from the rail, a face peered down at him. There came a bellowed ‘Over here!’ and shortly after a rope uncoiled down to him. Once he grabbed it, he and his load were hauled rapidly up the side. His supposition that some kind of winch was in use was proved wrong on discovering Captain Ron at the other end of the rope.
‘That the lot of them?’ The Captain eyed the two figures now lying prostrate on the deck.
‘Four more down in our submersible enclosure,’ Wade informed him.
‘Forlam?’
‘Still aboard the Prador ship, trying to free Orbus and three others.’
Ron winced.
* * * *
‘So how you gonna kill Death, then?’ asked Huff.
‘I told you… none of your concern.’
Zephyr swayed from side to side on the spar, glancing first over to where the Prador ship was surfacing half a kilometre away, then peering down at figures on the deck below. He had to leave soon. It had been a mistake his coming here to learn more about the enemy. What he had seen here only confused the issue, when in the beginning it had been so clear…
‘Death will end,’ said Zephyr firmly.
‘But how?’ Puff asked.
Before Zephyr could formulate a reply, Huff interjected, ‘If nothing dies we’ll be sitting neck-deep in leeches and prill, all eating each other and being eaten.’ Huff shook his crocodilian head. ‘Though admittedly things are not far off that around here.’
Zephyr observed Puff bow forward to catch Huff’s eye, raise a spiderclaw up to the side of her head to scribe a little circle, then shake her muzzle. Zephyr did not recognize what this meant until digging deep into his database.
‘I am not mad!’ he yelled.
‘Okay,’ said Puff. ‘Tell us exactly how you’re gonna “strike a blow in this campaign”. Or are your claims all piss and wind?’
Zephyr suddenly understood. Here he had encountered nothing but killers and the dying, because they were all the same. He had encountered nothing but argument for the same reason: they all served Death. That entity had put them here in his path to prevent him doing what he must do.
‘I will kill sprine,’ announced the Golem sail.
‘What? You can’t do that,’ said Huff. ‘How are you gonna do that?’
‘You won’t stop me, and you won’t change my mind.’ Zephyr began to spread his wings.
‘Wait.’ Huff reached out with his own wing, a few of his spiderclaws grabbing some of Zephyr’s wing bones. ‘You haven’t explained—’
In any war there are casualties—this is unavoidable. Zephyr focused on Huff, his particle cannon coming online easy as blinking. The flash and the subsequent screech negated everything else, and what remained of Huff fell like a smoking comet.
‘Huff! HUFF!’
Puff surged forwards, her jaws open wide, with a snarl beginning deep within her. Another flash, then more long-boned organic wreckage falling to the deck below.
Wings booming open, Zephyr launched himself from the mast. You won’t stop me, he thought, but was unable to articulate more than a scream.
Isis Wade’s words followed him into the sky: ‘What have you done?’
* * * *
The corridor loomed as wide as a hangar and dank as a cave. Stepping out into it, Forlam immediately broke into a run. He glanced back to see Thirteen bobbing behind him, with a flicker of intense lasers all around as the drone attempted to flash out all the cameras around them. This time the drone certainly had no time to subvert them.
Foolish drone, thought Forlam. It should have fled while it had the chance. It could not know how little Forlam cared for his own life just at that moment.
Lice were now scuttling across the floor, probably shaken loose by the vibration of the ship’s turbines. Leaping a pile of human bones, Forlam quickly came to the end of the corridor, blocked by huge sloped gratings. To his left was the door he sought. It was split diagonally and partially open. There came a hammering from inside, and he saw blue fingers tugging at the gap.
‘Back off!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll burn you out!’
‘Whoo-is thaaat?’ came a sibilant hiss from inside.
‘Your rescuer. Move away from the door.’
‘Whois whosss?’
It occurred to Forlam then that opening this door might not be such a bright idea—but, what the hell, he was here now.
‘It’s Forlam, from Captain Ron’s crew.’
‘Forlaam off worldss.’
‘Well, I’m back now. Move away from the door!’
After a moment the fingers retreated and Forlam moved in close. He aimed his carbine waist-height just at the right of the diagonal gap, and fired. The dun metal surface glimmered under the laser, then suddenly grew painfully bright. There followed an intense flash, a smell like molten solder, and a wave of light and heat threw Forlam staggering back and down on his backside.
‘Oh… buggerit,’ was all he could think to say.
‘Prador exotic metal,’ said Thirteen, from somewhere to his side.
Forlam kept blinking, as his vision slowly returned in shades of grey. He finally noticed the drone hovering to one side of the door, its tail plugged into some kind of control pit.
‘Are you really sure you want this door open?’
‘Damnit, yes!’ Forlam scrambled to his feet.
A grinding sound from the wall was followed by a thump, as some sort of hydraulic system caught up with how far the door had already been prised open by those inside. Its two halves then began to revolve away in
to the wall, till the gap was a metre wide. The first figure stepped through, and Forlam recognized Orbus by his bulk and his clothing—but that was all. As the others came out after the Captain, Forlam emitted a nervous giggle. They all looked to be transforming into skinners.
‘Dronsesss!’ Orbus hissed, turning to look down the corridor, then something snapped past through the air between him and Forlam and exploded against the nearby wall. As the blast hurled Forlam to the floor again, he saw Thirteen slam against the far wall. Forlam rolled aside, grabbing for his dropped carbine, but then saw it glow red, and hurled himself away as it exploded. Hot metal spattered his back and he rolled trying to extinguish his burning clothing. Then Orbus came down on him, leech tongue waving.
Oh hell…
Orbus spun him over on his face and pulled something searing from his back, then flipped him over again and, sitting on Forlam’s stomach, held up a fragment of carbine.
‘Theresss.’
The hot metal sizzled in the Captain’s fingers, till after a moment he tossed it aside. Then, extruding his leech tongue again, he returned his attention directly to Forlam.
‘If you’d just like to get off me now?’ Forlam suggested.
There was no need, for another nearby explosion flung Orbus away from him. Forlam scrambled backwards, away from where the floor seemed to be burning. Then came a sound he recognized: the stuttering whoosh of a rail-gun firing. He turned just in time to see a huge Prador drone coming towards him, the space between him and it blackening with lines of projectiles. Then the projectiles struck something, igniting a translucent wall before him, bouncing off it and smashing into the corridor walls, floor and ceiling beyond. When the drone ceased firing, the wall blinked out.
Hard-field?
Forlam glanced behind to see Orbus and his three crewmen together moving crablike over to the corridor wall. Behind them a huge nautiloid drone hung in midair, with Thirteen clutched in one of its minor tentacles. Then it returned fire at the Prador drone.
Forlam just sat there thinking that now he was going to die. Abruptly it occurred to him that though such a process might have some fascination, it was only something you could go through once. He flung himself to the wall.
Another hard-field appeared, but this time the ricochets smashed around on Forlam’s side of it. One projectile fragment just nicked his ear before slamming into the wall beside his head. One of Orbus’s crewmen was flung away from his fellow by three successive hits. Orbus himself negligently pulled a projectile out of his chest and tossed it aside. It seemed a miracle that they had not all been chopped to pieces in this potential meat-grinder, then the firing abruptly ceased.
The safest place, Forlam decided, would be behind one of the drones, preferably the nautiloid one, which was probably Polity. He began edging along the wall in that direction, expecting the shooting between the two drones to start again at any moment. Strangely, nothing happened for long-drawn-out seconds, then suddenly the Prador drone was withdrawing, and a new vibration began shaking the ship.
‘That is the sweet sound of a fusion engine test,’ said the Polity drone. ‘And now the ship’s antigravity is coming online.’
‘Erm,’ was all Forlam managed.
A silver tentacle whipped out, wound around his waist, and hauled him in. He only realized the others had been grabbed when, drawn close to the drone’s cold body, he found himself pressed against someone else’s back. Luckily the woman could not turn her head or extend her tongue far enough, else Forlam felt sure he would have lost an eye to her.
Then the rescuing drone was moving very fast along the ship’s corridors. A door disintegrated before it, another stretch of corridor, another door turned to fragments, then some kind of chamber opening to a triangular patch of sky. They shot out above a waterfall—sea water pouring from that chamber—then over the sea. Forlam glimpsed the Prador ship turning, like a city detached from the ground, till the drone turned sharply and accelerated across the ocean, cutting that view. He now spotted an island and, distantly, the Sable Keech. When the drone dipped down towards the island, Forlam prayed he would not be left there with Orbus and his merry crew. Before he could think to protest, he was released to drop onto a wooden deck. As immediately he scrambled away from the woman’s horrible wriggling tongue, his back came to rest against a pair of solid legs.
‘Well, that’s a bugger—we ain’t got no rope left,’ said a familiar voice.
An equally familiar one added, ‘Nor any harpoons.’
* * * *
The news from one of the passengers, that she had seen some man climbing the side of the hull carrying two blue corpses on his back, had not attracted Janer’s attention so much as watching the Prador ship rise from the ocean. Now the spaceship was just sitting motionless in the sky. It had not reacted to the Golem sail taking wing, nor had it reacted to a human figure with metal hands and feet departing the deck, suspended in an AG harness. Now he had missed out, for after committing murder the Golem sail was gone, and Isis Wade had gone after it.
‘Here we are,’ said Captain Ron, as they entered the submersible enclosure.
Janer stared at the four lying on the floor. Unlike the two he had earlier seen up on deck, these were struggling against their bonds, trying to chew through the cables binding their wrists, when their serpentine tongues did not get in the way. Seeing Janer and Ron with the six accompanying Hoopers, all four of them struggled to their feet and tried to make a break for it, issuing whooping hissing sounds as they ran around the enclosure. Ron stepped back and closed the door, resting his back against it. He folded his arms. ‘Go get ‘em, lads.’
The six Hoopers gave chase, quickly clubbing two of the four to the ground and binding their legs with reels of ducting tape. A third was tackled just before managing to throw himself out through the shimmer-shield. The fourth ran straight into Ron’s fist and sat down abruptly with his eyes crossed. Janer looked down at the gun he had drawn and sighed. Then he looked around, realizing that here was his opportunity, for Wade had told him Zephyr’s intended destination. Janer holstered his weapon.
‘Ron, I have to leave,’ he announced.
The Captain raised an eyebrow as, one-handed, he hoisted the stunned Hooper to his feet. ‘Where?’
‘Places to go, things to do.’ Janer headed for the submersible, climbed the ladder and stepped into the conning tower. ‘This is important. Don’t try to stop me.’
Ron was showing no sign of doing any such thing. He waved a dismissive hand at Janer, then rapped his captive’s head against the wall as the Hooper showed signs of regaining consciousness.
Janer dropped inside the submersible, sat down in the pilot’s seat and studied the controls. Simple really. He turned on the screens giving him an outside view, waited until the Hooper currently between him and the shimmer-shield had dragged his captive aside, then hit the touch-plate labelled launch.
The acceleration flung him hard back into the seat. Then the shield rapidly approached, engulfed the sub, and he was hurtling through white water. He pulled safety straps down and clicked them into place, before taking hold of the joystick. It was standard simple format: you moved the stick in the direction you wanted to go, and the further you moved it in that direction the faster you got there. He pulled the stick up, heard the engine roar behind him, and felt the seat press up against his backside.
‘Whooo! Hoo!’
The sub leapt from the ocean like a dolphin and came down in an explosion of spume. A further tinkering with the controls gave him a positional map. On that he located ‘Olian’s’ clearly marked, experimentally shifted the stick from side to side so the submersible icon on the map turned, then finally got it directed towards that same location. He then pushed the stick forwards and the acceleration forced him back in his seat. Eyeing the many readouts before him, he wondered if he would recognize one warning him that the engine was overheating and burning out. Then he relaxed and thought about what he had learnt: how mistaken had been
the young hive mind, and how more deadly were the intentions of one part of that ancient mind: Zephyr.
Hive minds were now unlikely to send their agents here to obtain sprine. Firstly, because with all that by now was known about this planet’s life forms, right down to their genomes, any focused research would ascertain the poison’s formula offworld. But, secondly and most importantly, because here was the only place it could be used and the Warden would not allow that. No, the agent of one half of the ancient hive mind had not come here for that purpose, since it already possessed the formula.
Wade had explained to him: ‘Each separate part of the mind can work on things without the other parts knowing. On the planet Hive, the Zephyr part of the mind synthesized sprine then, using the advanced genetic manipulation technologies known there, made a virus to destroy it.’
‘But why do that?’ Janer had asked.
‘Because here sprine is Death, and Zephyr wants to kill Death.’
‘You’re saying Zephyr could release that virus at any moment? Do you realize what might happen? We have to stop him now!’
Wade shook his head. ‘The small quantity Zephyr carries would be unlikely to survive long enough in this environment to propagate. Any leech infected by it would quickly die and be destroyed by all the other predators here. In such a situation the chances of it spreading planetwide are less than ten per cent.’
‘Oh, that’s okay then.’
‘It is, admittedly, an appreciable risk.’
‘How does Zephyr intend to up those odds?’
‘The virus needs to be added to a very large quantity of sprine. With a sufficient food supply it can double its mass every few minutes, and it will then spread itself via a form of air- or water-borne sporulation.’
‘A large quantity of sprine?’
Wade had nodded.
‘Olian’s,’ realized Janer.
You waited too long, Wade.
