by Neal Asher
Bloc walked back into his apartment, placed his cup down on a table whose top was made of a polished slice of Prador carapace, and dropped into an armchair beside it. He then picked up the spider thrall he had recently purchased. This was the sort of thing that fascinated him: baroque technologies, grotesqueries, the unusual. He supposed it almost inevitable that his interests had led him to greater and greater involvement with the Cult of Anubis Arisen. But thereby another of his needs was fulfilled: the acquisition of wealth. It was pointless possessing such sophisticated tastes if one could not gratify them. Bloc placed the thrall back down on the table underneath whose surface a six-dimensional shape—following the strictures of the formulae in the sky outside—was trying to turn itself inside out. He smiled again, his foot passing through Calabi-Yau space as he turned to glance to his left. The inversion, folding part of the room into a fifth dimension, impinged on him as little as the formulae in the sky and the shape under the table. Instead it was the two figures now standing in the room that caused him to gasp in shock.
‘How—?’
The one on the right, a mild-looking man dressed in a slightly rumpled disposable suit, raised a short squat gun with a snout like a pepper pot. The weapon thwacked, and something more than the force of the micropellets entering Bloc’s face flung him up out of his seat and across the table. He lay there quivering briefly, then quickly freezing up. The Calabi-Yau shape passed over above him like an interdimensional bat.
Neurotoxin, thought one part of his mind. What the fuck? thought another.
‘Hi there,’ said the mild man, gazing down on him. ‘I’m Aesop, and my partner here is called Bones.’
Bloc’s horror grew. Neither of them had bothered to cover their faces, and now they had revealed their names to him. Both faces and names could of course be false, but there was something else in their attitude. They were undoubtedly here to kill him. Deep inside himself, that other part of him already knew this, and it dreaded the how of it. That part now listened to well-remembered words as Bones, a slim fair-haired youth, dragged him off the table and deposited him in an antique rocking chair.
‘You do of course understand how very annoyed with you are certain parties?’ said Aesop, setting up a little tripod on the table on which in turn he mounted an old-fashioned holocam.
Bloc tried to utter a name, could not even open his mouth. He could, however, just move his eyes, and observed Bones opening a premillennial doctor’s bag. These killers had style and panache but, even though he recognized this, neither that thought nor the neurotoxin prevented his bowel from emptying when Bones began taking out antique stainless steel pliers, forceps, scalpels, electric bone saw and cauterizer.
The holocam now perfectly set up and operational, Aesop took out an anosmic receptor and set that running. This device would continually sample molecules from the air, so that whoever viewed this recording, probably in VR, would miss nothing, not even the odours. Smelling the results of Bloc’s incontinence, Aesop waved a hand under his nose. ‘Playing to your audience, Bloc?’
Bloc managed to make a grunting sound, as the toxin was wearing off. Aesop glanced at his partner, who immediately walked over to the balcony and drew the doors closed, shutting out all sounds of the city beyond.
‘Nicely insulated apartment this. I had considered taking you elsewhere until I studied the building specs. No one will hear you scream here and, of course, my clients want to hear you scream. They want you to suffer a great deal, Taylor Bloc. So, while that toxin wears off, I’ll tell you exactly what we are going to do to you.’
Bloc screamed, his voice echoing off into unknown dimensions of a Calabi-Yau shape stretched as taut as his own skin as Bones peeled that away. He howled as they twisted out his nails and broke each of his finger joints, yet found himself bewildered by formulae writhing through the air behind his tormentors. Every aspect of his agony, every curve and angle of his surroundings, was redolent with mathematical meaning. Every movement and every change generated complex numbers. His skin represented in two dimensions the surface of space, and Bones shoving a finger through it, a gravity well. The bone saw flung up fragments of formulae that coalesced in the air, then spattered the floor as blood and vomit. There was direction to the calculation, as there was direction to Bloc’s torture. Both ended with the enveloping comfort of death, and finally he sighed away into blackness.
Taylor Bloc stood on his apartment balcony gazing out across Haldon, watching the sun rise over the city. He blew on his delicate porcelain cup of tea and took a sip, relishing its tobacco pungency. Part of him, deep inside, began screaming immediately.
No, not again…
Then, almost like a light being turned on, he woke trying to scream, but only a hoarse cawing sound issued from his mouth. Thrashing from side to side, he opened his eyes. The morning sunshine hurt, stabbing sharply into his head, and tears began pouring from his eyes. Where were they? Where were his killers? I escaped? But no, he did not escape—he died a painful undignified death, screaming, then his death continued…
Aesop and Bones… I killed them and now they serve me. Only dreams.
The morning sunshine was glaring through the windows. Bloc felt terrible. His body felt as if it had been beaten from head to foot, his teeth ached, he was cold, and his skin felt so sensitive that every small touch to it was almost a pain.
Then, he suddenly realized: I feel.
A deep shiver of awe ran through him, and he turned his head from side to side, locating himself on one of the restraint tables. He was not restrained, so he withdrew a hand from under the heat-sheet covering him—the thin insulating monomer snaking over his skin in an avalanche of sensation—and held it up before his face. It was baby pink, and as soft. The nails were just small crescents at the quick of each finger.
I’m alive.
With slow careful movements Bloc sat upright, the sheet sliding down his chest. It was almost too much—too much feeling for him to process. He groaned and in an instant Erlin was standing next to him, watching him with careful contempt.
‘You’ll get no nerve-conflict with your cybermotors,’ she said.
‘Keech…’ he managed.
‘Keech was augmented and remained so after his resurrection—that’s where his problems came from. You, however, are not augmented in any way.’
He turned to look at her, and while doing so tried to call up routines and diagnostics, access his control unit, open the channels to Aesop and Bones. Nothing.
‘What have… you done?’ It was a strange experience, breathing and speaking, and trying to arrange the two so they did not conflict.
‘When you downloaded from crystal to your organic brain and it became plain you were going to come out of the tank alive, I used an autodoc on you. It pulled every single power supply you contained, and I also used the doc to remove this.’ She held up something: a grey box that sat easily in the palm of her hand, with a hexagonal box affixed to the side of it, linked by a ring of sealed optics. Bloc recognized his memplant and the attached control unit.
‘What gives you the right to do that?’ he hissed. He was just a living man now.
‘The right?’ she asked, her voice incredulous. She shook her head, pulled a comlink from her belt and spoke into it. ‘You wanted to know—well, he’s awake now.’
From the link Ron’s voice replied, ‘Perfect timing.’
As Erlin returned the link to her belt, Forlam came over. He tossed a disposable coverall in Bloc’s lap. ‘Get dressed.’
‘You can’t give me orders. This is my ship. You are under my command; your Captain is employed by me.’
Forlam shrugged. ‘Naked or otherwise—don’t bother me.’
What are they going to do?
Bloc slid the heat-sheet all the way off him and stared down at his body. He looked perfect: no scars, just pink skin. His pubic hair was just a shadow above his genitals, and while staring at what Bones had once cut from him—an event all too clear in his mind aft
er repetition—he felt a sudden surge of sexual feeling. He dressed, quickly, the coverall cold and textured against his aching skin. Finally clothed, he looked over to Erlin again.
‘I did this,’ he said. ‘It was because of me this ship was built. It is because of me that reifications will live. I own this ship and it is under my command.’
Erlin shook her head. ‘Let me bring you up to date and back to reality. Windcheater has imposed a large fine for the use of this ship’s engines, which in turn has caused a cost overrun on this voyage. Apparently, by your original agreement, Lineworld Developments now own this ship—not that it will profit them much.’
Bloc felt a tightness in his throat, and his eyes were watering again. Then a hand that felt as if made of rock closed on his biceps. Forlam marched him forwards.
‘You can’t do this!’ Bloc found it even hurt to shout. ‘I created all this! I did this! I am bringing my people to the Little Flint!’
Walking behind them, Erlin continued, ‘Most of your people are either in tanks or have shut themselves down. They don’t much like the odds, since successful resurrections are only one in seven thus far. Many of them are likely to end up like Bones, and the true cultists among them are angry at what you have brought them to.’
Bloc fell silent then, and allowed Forlam to lead him out on deck. They might think they had won, but they did not know him well enough. They would pay for this. How he would make them pay.
* * * *
It was a long fall to the bottom and, heavy now, the giant whelk had landed hard. She gazed up at the shapes hovering on the ocean surface and felt an immediate protective fear. Large predators up there ready to attack her? She needed to get back to shallows where she could protect the mass inside her, and where food creatures were small enough to easily subdue. She began dragging herself along the bottom, heading instinctively upslope to shallower waters. Momentarily she felt a strange disquiet. She vaguely recalled there had been an easier way of travelling than this, and something important she had to do. But that thought faded under the exigencies of the present.
The slope ahead was scattered with broken shells and black rhinoworm bones. Wherever she disturbed the bottom, white chalky clouds gusted up around her. This was good, so she deliberately stirred up more for concealment. At one point she heaved herself over an outcrop of dark rock, which splintered into sharp fiat flakes under her grip. The higher she got, the steeper became the gradient and the more such outcrops she encountered. On one of them she encountered a flock of hammer whelks, and instantly began snatching them up to smash their shells against the dark stone and chomp them down. She devoured half of them before the rest slid out of reach, but did not pursue. Higher still, and frog whelks diverged from her path, bounding downhill in slow motion.
There were more leeches evident here, and any that came close she snatched up and consumed. While thus engaged she spotted a line trailing from one of her tentacles, which stirred some memory but not enough to bring it into focus. In irritation she caught the line with another tentacle and tried to tear it free. The fact that this hurt only made her angrier. Eventually she succeeded in tearing the hook from her flesh, then watched the discarded tangle drift off and sink from view. There was some emotion then—some feeling of loss—but she resolutely turned away.
Now only hard dark flint lay before her—a cliff rising steeply from the slope. She hesitated as another vague memory hinted that this might not lead to island shallows, but instinct drove her on. She climbed, finding plenty of easy tentacle holds on chalky nodules or in dark crevices. If this turned out not to be the kind of place she wanted, then she would move on—her drive to do so was imperative.
* * * *
Drawn out rattling crashes jerked Janer from uneasy slumber.
Anchor chains.
He sat upright and looked around blearily. Stumbling from his bed he then collected clean clothing from his pack and headed for the showers. Upon his return he stared at the stasis case still exposed in the top of his pack, took it out, hinged it open and pressed his fingertip to the touch-plate beside the reservoir. This opened, releasing two hornets into the air. Inured to the creatures now, he ignored their angry buzzing while pulling their carry case from his ash-stained trousers. Once it was in place on his shoulder the hornets landed beside it and crawled inside. Janer placed the hivelink in his ear-lobe.
‘The ancient hive mind is dead,’ the hive mind told him, then demanded, ‘What is happening here?’
‘I would guess the Sable Keech has just anchored by the Little Flint,’ Janer replied.
‘Tell me what has happened while I have been out of contact.’
Janer considered the events of the voyage past, and knew he would be talking for quite some time. He also considered simply putting the hivelink back in his pocket, but then with a sigh stepped out of his cabin and began to relate the story. By the time he was halfway up a stairwell accessing the main deck, the hive mind interrupted to inform him, ‘Vrell’s ship has been destroyed and the other Prador ship is now departing. The Warden has now also informed me of the events at Olian Tay’s bank.’
Janer paused and peered at the two hornets. ‘Did you want me to tell this or not?’
‘Please proceed.’
‘Oh, and knowing the events at Olian’s you have of course authorized my bonus?’
‘Proceed with the story.’
‘Okay, but I’ll be checking that later.’ Janer continued upwards. ‘Just as it seemed we might be getting things under control, Vrell moved his father’s ship right up underneath us…’
The sun beaming on the deck, Janer observed that the anchors were indeed lowered but, by the noise of the chains being fed in and out of their lockers and by the intermittent sounds coming from the engines, he guessed the ship’s position was being carefully adjusted. He glanced over the rail and saw they were in fact right next to the Little Flint—that place made holy by Sable Keech.
The hive mind once again interrupted his monologue. ‘Windcheater warned of further punitive costs should the Little Flint be damaged in any way.’
‘He probably hoped they would crash into it then,’ Janer muttered.
‘Now, from your point of view, tell me what happened when you reached Olian‘s.’
Janer pointed along the deck to the crowd of Hoopers and reifications gathered amidships. ‘You’ll have to wait. Others will want to hear this.’
Keech had once told Janer that, to his recollection, his time here on the Little Flint had been no religious experience. Instead he’d had visions of some very human devils, tried to survive, then escaped from here to end up in a makeshift tank built by Janer, whilst Erlin had performed the midwife’s task of delivering Keech into a new life.
Keech now stood back from the main crowd with Ron and Erlin. Janer approached them.
‘What’s happening?’ Janer asked them.
‘This is what this voyage was all about, apparently,’ said Keech.
Erlin interjected, looking angry, ‘Those reifs still standing want to see the place—along with seven others who’ve survived the resurrection process.’
Ron turned and peered at the hornets on Janer’s shoulder. ‘That sail? Isis Wade?’ he asked him.
‘First I’ll have to tell you who they were,’ said Janer. He ignored the harrumph of protest from the hive mind and filled them in on that story, before proceeding to its ultimate outcome.
‘Kill Death?’ Shaking his head, Ron tapped his temple. ‘That sail was all at sea without sails…’
‘But Isis Wade has survived, I gather,’ said Erlin. ‘I’m glad about that.’
Ron took out his comlink and announced, ‘All right boys; let it go.’
The deck began thrumming from the vibration of massive hydraulics, and Janer wondered for a moment what exactly was happening. He saw the nearby rail moving away from him, and the crowd back away from it as the movable section of the ship’s hull began to fold down towards the sea, extending down w
ith it the collapsible stair from under the main deck. Placing his comlink back into his belt Ron glanced round to where Forlam was escorting Bloc along the deck.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ Janer asked, expecting something nasty.
Ron merely shrugged, and gestured towards Keech.
Keech explained, ‘He gets to walk on the Little Flint just this once, then I take him back to the Polity. Windcheater decided it would be better that way—for good relations.’
‘You’re not going to throw him in for a swim, then?’
‘It would seem not.’ Ron looked disgruntled.
The hull section slapped down onto the sea beside the Little Flint, the stair from the main deck now fully extended. Hoopers scrambled down this to push out walkways leading onto that lonely piece of stone. After securing these, the Hoopers returned, and then the seven resurrectees walked down.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Keech, moving up beside Ron.
‘Seems only fair to let him set foot on the place,’ replied the Captain. ‘Why are you worried? You get him afterwards.’
‘Still…’ Keech looked round as Bloc finally approached.
Now, Janer spotted Captains Drum and Ambel stepping out from the nearby mainmast stairwell, propelling Aesop and Bones before them. When the four of them reached the edge of the ship, Ambel gazed over to eye his own ship, still trailing on its tow rope behind the Sable Keech.
