The Voyage of the Sable Keech s-2

by Neal Asher

  ‘Not so low in the water, now,’ he observed, glancing towards Ron.

  The other Captain nodded, then, thumbing its volume down, held his comlink up against his ear.

  ‘I did this, I brought them here. I brought them here to the Little Flint!’ announced Bloc abruptly, as if that somehow gave him power in this situation.

  The other seven resurrectees seemed bemused, and perhaps slightly disappointed. After wandering around on the surface of the Flint for a short time, they were already returning. Still-mobile reifications were now going down for a look around, too, some of them wearing the distinctive dress of Kladites. A few Hoopers joined them.

  ‘The Little Flint,’ said Bloc, triumphantly.

  Janer eyed Ron, who was now muttering into his comlink. He went up to stand beside the Captain, but only in time to see Ron thumb the link off.

  ‘Y’know,’ said the Captain, ‘Convocation didn’t agree with Windcheater.’

  ‘Ron, what are you—?’

  ‘Everybody get off there; we ain’t got all day!’ Ron bellowed, interrupting him. He turned to Bloc. ‘I guess it’s all right for you to go down for a look.’ Indicating Aesop and Bones he added, ‘Those two as well.’

  * * * *

  Bloc placed his foot down on the Little Flint. He could feel it through the sole of his slipper. With all the obstacles they had thrown in his path, he had yet achieved this—no matter what they might think of him. He stooped down to touch the smooth stone, closed his eyes and absorbed the sensation. Standing up again, he glanced at Aesop and Bones, who had wandered off to the other side of Flint. They were conversing in low voices, and it seemed that, despite them having once been under his control, they now found themselves in the same straits as himself. He would make an alliance here. He straightened up and approached them.

  ‘Aesop,’ he said, ‘Bones.’

  ‘Bloc,’ replied Aesop. Bones just licked out his metallic tongue.

  ‘We’re even now. You two tortured me to death, and I killed you and made you serve me. Perhaps now we should put our relationship on a financial footing.’

  Bones emitted only a hissing titter.

  Aesop remarked, ‘Bones, even without benefit of flesh, is capable of expressing his amusement better than I can. Tell me, Bloc, what do you suggest?’

  Bloc glanced over his shoulder to check the Old Captains and the others were still back by the walkways. He did not know why they had come down to the foot of the stair. Did they expect him to try to escape?

  ‘We have to retake the Sable Keech, More reifications will want to make this voyage here. I can offer you a percentage of the profits.’

  As Aesop made a harsh hacking sound, Bloc realized the reif was trying to laugh.

  ‘Oh Taylor Bloc,’ he eventually said, ‘and how do you think we would fare against three Old Captains? Or against reifications who now hate you because you’ve brought them here to final death? Or against the Hoopers—and against Sable Keech?’

  ‘There is always a way.’

  ‘It’s over, Bloc. You wanted to come here to the Little Flint, because it was your mission, your calling, your destiny… whatever. So enjoy it—and remember it until that moment they wipe your mind.’

  Bloc turned away to study the Old Captains standing on the stairway, along with Erlin, Janer and Keech.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Aesop from behind him, ‘you’re all alive again, and my, don’t you look pink. We might as well have ourselves some fun here, as it’ll make no difference to the sentence we receive back in the Polity. What do you think, Bones?’

  The snicking sound as Bones extruded the blades from his finger ends was all too audible. Bloc turned, shuddering with horror at the memory of sharp blades cutting into his former flesh. He tried to back away, but Aesop’s decaying hand closed firmly on the front of his coverall.

  ‘No no… You don’t understand,’ he stammered.

  ‘Too late now,’ hissed Aesop.

  Bloc heard a shout from behind, and glanced back to see Sable Keech running towards him. It was too late. Too late for all three of them. The other two had not seen the huge iridescent shell rising behind them, nor the dinner-plate eye, nor the enormous tentacles now reaching across the Little Flint.

  * * * *

  Sniper closed his own tentacles around the Prador drone and began decelerating before they both burnt up on reentry. He gripped tightly and kept his weapons systems online, just in case. They descended in a long arc that took them out of night into twilight, then towards daylight. As Sniper brought the drone down on an atoll just catching the rays of the morning sun, he once again opened communication with the Warden.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Thirteen asked meanwhile, detaching itself from Sniper’s armour and swinging in a circuit around the Prador war drone.

  ‘Repaying a favour.’

  ‘And what was so funny earlier?’ asked the little drone.

  ‘You’ve not figured it out?’

  ‘Knowing your humour, I suspect you somehow knew what Vrell intended to do to Vrost’s ship. But how did you know?’

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ the old drone replied. ‘Vrost’s ship is probably very badly damaged, but not enough to leave it unable to jump. I’d guess he’s now recalling all his forces in preparation to pull out of the system.’

  Sniper then concentrated on scanning the Prador drone. Its missile store was thoroughly depleted and its power so low it could not block his scans. Quite possibly the flash-frozen Prador brain inside there had been fried. Sniper began to go to work on the armour, worming his tentacles in through the weapons ports and connecting to some internal systems.

  ‘So?’ asked Thirteen, settling on his tail on top of the Prador drone.

  ‘Was it sufficiently damaged for most of Vrost’s security protocols to be knocked offline, do you think?’ Sniper asked.

  Sniper found the required system, short-circuited it, then injected power down one of his tentacles. A loud crump ensued as a triangular hatch opened in the drone’s side and slowly hinged down, exposing the tightly packed components inside. Sniper noted the captive’s remaining claw moving weakly, as if the drone was trying to reach up and close the hatch again.

  ‘Why is that relevant?’ asked the little drone.

  ‘Tell me, Thirteen, don’t you think Vrell has received rather shoddy treatment from his own kind?’

  ‘This is how Prador generally treat each other. How they ever managed to organize a civilization beats me.’

  ‘But who do you think is the better between Vrost and Vrell?’

  ‘Neither; they’re both monstrous.’

  ‘Then, in conflict, which of them would you prefer to win?’

  ‘Neither, if possible.’

  ‘Please just answer.’

  ‘As the Warden would put it, the one who causes the least collateral damage to Polity citizens.’

  ‘What about internal conflict leading to a weakening of the Third Kingdom? Surely this would be a good thing for the Polity?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Sniper transmitted the latest bit of data he had acquired. Thirteen shut down for a moment to digest it.

  With cables and various components hanging about him like fruit-laden vines. Sniper finally found the main power conduits from the Prador drone’s batteries. Only a trickle of current was getting through and, tracking back, Sniper found that the cables used to top up the batteries from the fusion reactor were severed, as were the cables providing a direct feed from the reactor into the drone’s systems. He cut out some less essential S-con cables and used them to replace those necessary ones, then withdrew. With a cycling whine the drone began to charge up to power again. Eventually it spoke.

  ‘You will get nothing from me,’ announced the Prador war drone that was called Vrell.

  ‘You don’t have any information I want, anyway. I know about your other self’s viral infection and what that infection caused, down to the last detail. I also know about the King’s g
uard, and the orders you were given, and why.’

  The Prador drone now lifted slightly, testing its AG. Sniper backed away and observed it drawing inside itself the components and cables he had pulled out. The drone’s self-repair mechanisms, now under power, were taking over. The hatch closed, but the drone could not yet block any scan, so urgently was it engaged in diverting power to those batteries and accumulators mainly concerned with its energy weapons.

  ‘Then what do you want?’ it asked.

  ‘To repay a favour—to save you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why didn’t you let me fly into your master’s defences?’ Sniper countered.

  ‘Because I was not ordered to.’

  ‘Then the same answer will do. But tell me, what are your orders now?’

  The drone paused, unable to readily supply an answer. It lifted higher into the air.

  Sniper suggested, ‘Your final order should have resulted in your destruction, so I doubt there are any further orders for you to follow.’

  ‘I have no orders. What do I do?’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ Sniper replied.

  The Prador drone dropped back down onto the stone surface. Sniper noted how it had reduced the power feed to its weapons and was now concentrating on self-repair. While it was mulling over its present circumstances, Thirteen came back online, having finished studying the data.

  ‘I see,’ the little drone said. ‘Only one Vrell was aboard—this drone.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you tell the Warden?’

  ‘Probably, but I’m not going to.’

  * * * *

  A snaking tentacle looped around Bones and crushed him like a handful of straws, then discarded him. Aesop had Bloc down on the stone and was pummelling him. It seemed the reif had still not seen what was looming behind. Bloc had seen it, though. He was yelling incoherently and, under the onslaught, trying to crawl towards the walkways. The monstrous whelk finally heaved itself up onto the Little Flint’s rim, as if it was reluctant to emerge fully from the sea.

  Erlin felt an almost drunken hilarity inside her. Ambel rested a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. Then, with Janer and the other Captains, he took off after Keech.

  Reaching the two combatants, Keech caught Aesop hard with a kick under the stomach that lifted him off Bloc, then he drew and aimed a pulse gun. Ron reached them next, just in time for a tentacle to slam him down against the stone. Another tentacle flicked and Drum arced back through the air to land with a crash on the ship’s stair. Erlin considered it a lucky fall—he could have gone into the sea—but Drum seemed in no hurry to get up again. Then she realized that, without thinking, she had moved right out onto one of the walkways.

  Keech meanwhile hauled Bloc upright and began dragging him back towards the ship. As a tentacle poised over him, he turned and fired a constant stream of shots into it. The tentacle was snatched away, feeling the heat. Keech tossed Bloc onto the walkway adjacent to the one Erlin occupied, and she watched the newly alive man scramble back towards the ship. Ambel and Janer were now intent on freeing Ron, and the huge combined strength of the Old Captains was beginning to tell. But there were more tentacles to deal with; one snaked out to enfold Aesop and raise him high. As it flicked down again, Erlin flinched at the heavy thud against the side of the ship, and glimpsed Aesop stuck there for a moment before dropping into the sea. Looking down, she realized she now stood upon the Little Flint itself.

  What the hell am I doing? Stupid question.

  The single dinner-plate eye turned towards her, and the giant whelk rose up, exposing its clacking beak and extending its corkscrew tongue. It recognized her—she knew—and thus focused on her did not notice Janer step back and aim a weapon along the length of tentacle gripping Captain Ron. With a thunderclap, that length of that tentacle disappeared, then as suddenly reappeared in a confetti of white gobbets. The whelk screamed and slammed itself down again. Finally breaking free, Ron heaved himself upright and, leaning on Ambel, stumbled towards the walkways. For a moment the whelk hesitated, thrashing its tentacle stump against the stone, its eye turning to the sea then back towards Erlin, before tentatively stretching another tentacle towards her. Ambel and Ron reached the adjacent walkway, where Ambel paused as Janer moved past him and began helping Ron up the stair.

  ‘Feeling mortal yet?’ Ambel asked her.

  Suddenly Erlin’s body was drenched in cold sweat. Yes, she could walk on the boundary of oblivion, but the moment she stepped over it… nothing. And how easy would it be? If she ended up in the ocean, she could become a stripped-fish. If the whelk held onto her it would eat her alive. She turned and ran.

  ‘Get this fucking ramp up!’ Ron bellowed into his comlink.

  The ramp stair was vibrating underneath Erlin as the tentacle smashed through the walkway behind her. Then the stair was collapsing even as she scrambled up it. Then it was folding back underneath the main deck, as she leapt the gap up onto the planking.

  ‘Aargh, that smarts,’ said Drum, holding his quite obviously broken arms away from his body. He had put them out ahead of him to break his fall—and they had. Erlin supposed she would soon be using one of her Hooper programs in an autodoc.

  ‘Was that all part of some plan?’ Janer asked Ron, still holding his gun as he peered over the rail.

  Straight-faced, Ron replied, ‘Not about that bugger.’ He glanced over to where Keech had Bloc kneeling so as to face a cabin wall, the pulse gun pressed into the back of his neck. ‘We reckoned those other two would do for him.’

  Erlin wondered about that. She knew this ship had the facility to detect something the size of that whelk moving about below. And she remembered Ron’s furtive use of his comlink. The problem was, being an Old Captain, he’d had plenty of time to practise lying, so she would probably never know for sure.

  ‘Hooper justice,’ stated Janer.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ron, then called over to Keech, ‘Why? Why save him?’

  Keech looked round. ‘I adhere to the laws I enforce.’

  ‘You weren’t so pernickity with Jay Hoop’s gang,’ Ron replied.

  Keech grimaced, perhaps remembering his long and bloody pursuit of that gang. He said, ‘Sentence was already passed on them in their absence. It was death in every case.’

  Erlin did not listen to Ron’s reply to that. The giant whelk was now wholly occupying the Little Flint, and she thought it still far too close. That single great eye remained focused on her and occasionally blinked. She wondered if she would have to leave Spatterjay to ever be free of pursuit by this monster.

  ‘Not the right place for it, you see.’ Ambel pointed. ‘Needs island shallows to raise its young.’

  Now, almost with disinterest, the whelk turned its eye away from Erlin and, sliding over the other edge of the Flint, it dropped titanically into the sea—and was gone.

  * * * *

  Aesop made no attempt to swim, his body being so weighed down with internal hardware. Besides, his right arm was shattered, along with many other bones in his body.

  Boxies came first, following the trail of balm he was leaving behind as he sank, then swinging round him in a cubic crowd. Soon they were darting in to snatch away loose flesh from his ruptured arm, and from where other bones protruded.

  WARN: CELLULAR REPAIR REQ. SHUTTING BALM FLOW AB32—46, TORSO 65–70, LT (BOTH) 71–74 -

  Yeah, right.

  Aesop shut off all the error messages, which were irrelevant now that the leeches were approaching.

  The first one, easily the size of a human leg, crunched into his midriff. Then, in a cloud of balm, it rolled away trailing two metres of carefully preserved intestine. Next a whole shoal of its arm-sized fellows began attaching and writhing round him until he could see nothing but feeding leeches. As this shoal began at last to thin out, he held up one hand stripped of flesh—all gleaming bone and nodular joint motors—and then observed the rapidly approaching bottom. H
e landed with a crump on a steep slope, and tumbled down it in a cloud of silt.

  Eventually coming to rest against an outcrop of flint, he looked down at his ravaged body. Leeches writhed between his ribs. He considered pulling them out, but did not see the point. Others would come to finish the job, and he would rather sooner than later that the point be reached where there was no flesh on him to attract them. Standing up, he began making his way round the slope that ascended to the Little Flint. At one point he paused, looking up, and watched the Sable Keech depart. By the time he found what remained of Bones, he was himself as skeletal as his companion had been. Bones, however, was now just a splintered ribcage with neck vertebrae and skull still attached to it.

  Aesop picked him up. Now, where to go? He had no idea where the nearest shore might lie, and his power supply might give out before they reached it. This was, all things considered, the best he could hope for in the circumstances. At least he had a chance…

  * * * *

  There were fires aboard Vrost’s ship. From a distance they looked like small blazes on a floating island, but closer observation showed they burned at the bottom of huge chasms sliced into the very structure of the leviathan vessel. The coil-gun now tilted down against the hull, some missile or massive fragment of Vrell’s vessel having cut through its supporting structure. Exposed girders glowed red, radiating into space. The ship turned as it fell away from Spatterjay, presenting its less damaged flank to the approaching swarm. Hundreds of triangular ports already stood open, into which the war drones zipped like bees returning to the hive. The com traffic was intense, since many safety and security protocols had been overridden to get all the troops back aboard and the ship safely away. Besides smoke from the fires wreathing the vessel, emissions of radioactive gas from fusion engines deliberately burning dirty, their flames shading from white to orange, helped provide it with further cover. Vrost did not want to allow the Warden time or opportunity to scan through damaged screening.

  The Prador—designated by its armour’s CPU as Cverl—had managed to ascertain its destination, even though its com-system had been damaged back on the planet, and it could apparently only send base code to the others. Taking its place in a swirling galaxy of golden-armoured individuals, it fell into line as they descended towards a port. When only two of its fellows were between itself and the opening, it got its first glimpse inside the craft and saw the armoured Prador preceding it land hard on the floor plates as the ship’s gravity dragged it down. The long chamber lying beyond was crowded with others of its kind, since they would not be moving on further into the ship until the atmosphere door could be closed and air pressure restored. Air, of course, was vital, being the required fluid medium.