by Neal Asher
She heard a brittle rattling all around her, and was aware of soft earth against her face, before fragments of memory began to intrude into consciousness. Her body felt numb, and she suddenly remembered the agony of being hit by the stinger, of fighting for breath… Dent casually blown away while he lay on the ground… then Fethan walking towards Proctor Volus, being shot, attacking… Eldene just could not make those last images make sense, and felt a horrible sinking terror when she thought about what she must face when she opened her eyes: it would be the cage, or perfunctory execution.
Upon opening her eyes she only felt confusion at what she was seeing.
Before her, the ground was thick with cobbles of blister moss, the occasional empty tricone, and turgid circular pools reflecting Calypse, the gas giant, so they seemed a scattering of coins made from slices of opal. Raising her head slightly she saw now a stand of flute grass — and it was from this came the brittle rattling as the hollow white stems were disturbed by a breeze. At the foot of this stand the ground was heaving up, and she guessed that a live tricone must be near the surface, feeding on soil rich in organics. What the hell was she doing here? This looked like one of the wild areas she had only ever seen when sent in a work party on clearance duty. Then she felt a sudden dread: of course, as punishment Proctor Volus had dumped her out here where she would die without the supplements that kept her scole attached to her. No doubt the Proctor would manufacture some suitable story to transfer blame for her death from himself…
Metallic sounds, behind her.
For a moment Eldene dared not move, then she felt an anger and determination to survive building up inside herself, and slowly rolled over to see where the noise was coming from. Immediately her confusion returned. Fethan was squatting beside Volus's aerofan, with its control column in pieces while he worked on the complex tech inside. Fethan was alive, so that meant… no, it wasn't possible. All Eldene could assume was that the Proctor had missed, even at that range, and that Fethan had somehow retaliated with a concealed knife. Eldene sat up and the old man glanced at her.
"Feeling a bit more with it now, girl?" said Fethan.
"I've felt better," Eldene replied, her voice catching in her dry throat.
There was something odd about the old man, something out of place. Then Eldene saw that the top of Fethan's coverall did not bulge as it had previously done. His scole was gone! Eldene instantly realized that this was what she could see on the ground beside the pieces of control column. She stared at it in shock, trying to equate its presence there with Fethan's apparently easy breathing — but coming up only with puzzlement. Fethan should be dying. She stared at the old man, hoping for some explanation, but what happened next only increased her perplexity.
"They'll get tracking on this soon," said Fethan, waving at the aerofan with a cylindrical hand tool containing lines of red light. "I want it up in the air by then so that when the hit comes they'll think they got us." With that, the old man glanced at the tool he was holding, then reached down and pressed his finger against the side of his scole, whereupon the baggy insectile thing split and hinged open, revealing itself to be a cleverly camouflaged case. Fethan placed the tool inside and took up another to continue with his work.
"Why are you alive?" Eldene asked.
"Now there's a question that's puzzled philosophers for centuries," quipped Fethan. "Of course, in my case there's many would argue that I ain't."
Eldene contained her annoyance. "Volus shot you twice, and now you do not have a scole." Eldene glanced again at the open case, realizing that Fethan had never possessed a scole. She continued, "You killed him, with your hand… just killed him."
"Well, girl, you're gonna find this hard to take, but everything I told you is true: there is a Human Polity, there is an Underground, and there is hope," Fethan replied.
"That doesn't tell me why you are still alive," Eldene persisted.
"True." Fethan shrugged. "Thing is, I ain't completely human. I'm mostly machine, built long ago in that Polity. Right now I'm here to help you people with your revolution."
"Bullshit," said Eldene, which had often previously been her reply to some of Fethan's more outrageous stories.
Fethan stared at her for a long moment, then reached up to grip one of the steel rails of the aerofan. Still staring at Eldene, he twisted until one end of the rail snapped out of its post, and coiled the metal around his hand as if it were wet clay.
"Okay," the old man said, "I ain't mostly machine, but I'm a pretty tough old stick, so you'd better watch your mouth, girl."
Later, when Fethan used another tool from his kit to dig the two small iron slugs out of himself, Eldene became inclined to believe the old man's stories.
First, his mouth turned dry as a sun-baked tile, then it was as if the saliva the node leeched away had been returned to his mouth acidified. Automatically he tried to spit the thing out when the pain became too intense, but it swelled in his mouth and entirely filled it. Drawing deep painful breaths through his nose, he hammered his fist against the wall behind him. His eyes filled with tears. He couldn't scream, he could do nothing about the pain, just as he could do nothing about the horrible sensation that followed it as something oozed down his throat. Gagging now he fought not to vomit, for such a reaction would kill him now. Pain bloomed in his chest, just as it also started to bloom in his sinuses and in the back of his head.
It's going to kill me.
Skellor fought for clarity of vision, and found it in that crystal part of himself, even as pain became suddenly intense around where the aug linked into the side of his head, and where its cooling tubes linked to the arteries in his chest to provide oxygenating and cooling blood to the chemical interfaces within the aug itself. With an all-or-nothing intent, he initiated the start-up package to put the AI aug fully online. A low droning vibrated his skull and glancing down he saw the two chainglass tubes penetrating his chest, fill with blood, and knew that now his aug would be webbed with red veins like something living. And so it was.
His clarity of vision was huge now, and with distant coldness he observed the Jain substructure penetrating and killing his body as it grew. As filaments backtracked the aug connections in his brain and finally penetrated his aug itself, he observed their progress to the chemical interfaces. This Jain technology was subversive: like a parasite it sought to control the system it found itself within and utilize it to its own advantage. It just did not know what was to its advantage, for it was a mindless mechanism. By providing chemical interfaces within his aug, Skellor sought to give it a mind: his own — for Jain technology needed to be tamed.
Finally the Jain substructure began to connect and Skellor began to work at decoding programs and backup systems, to catalogue first trickles of information, then surges of it, in his huge memory. He, for Skellor and AI were now both the same being, worked upon the substructure with the capacities of some huge research establishment. The synergy achieved between crystal and organic brain became vast, and questions collapsed like origami sculptures before an avalanche. But the structure grew fast and destructively. Skellor's heart and lungs ceased, on one breath, and his organic brain began to die. Minutes now, only minutes… He tried shifting the focus of his attention entirely into his aug as his body died, but he failed. For a moment he was poised on a precipice, then:
Just so.
Skellor halted the random searching growth of the substructure.
Just so.
He cleared it from his mouth, used it to restart his heart and lungs, and set it to repairing the damage it had done to his body.
And thus.
Now he began to improve on nature and grow those devices and biomechanical tools within himself that he knew he would require. Glancing down he observed a tendril break out of his gut and through the fabric of his environment suit, as it sought out the chameleonware generator. It penetrated, deconstructed and read and, as it did so, Skellor built a much improved version of the device inside himself. And
whilst all this was occurring, Skellor came to understand the Jain.
4
"Little Molly Redcap walked the plantained path to take potato bread and wine to her grandmother, but unseen by her, with his green and gold stripes, Father Siluroyne stalked the flute grasses," said the woman, shaking her head in amazement at the corrupted story. The picture book showed the girl strolling along, smiling and happy in her sickening piety, then slowly a shape became visible in the long grasses. Previously the creature depicted had born a resemblance to something wolfish, but not now… now it was horribly real.
"Long before she reached her grandma's compound, she came upon Father Siluroyne lying across her path. 'Where are you going on such a fine day? he asked her. Showing him the viands she told him, 'I'm taking these to my grandma' "
The woman paused and both she and her son leant forwards to more closely study the picture displayed. So realistic was it that it seemed the monstrosity on the path would surely have the girl as a grandma appetizer there and then — but it looked up at the passing aerofans bearing unlikely-looking axe-wielding proctors, and slunk back into the grasses beside the path. The picture paused in its slow evolution, because the text had not been moved either by touch or voice activation. The woman continued:
" 'Is that all you are taking to her when the flute flowers are blooming? asked the monster. Little Molly looked about and saw that the flowers were indeed blooming in red and yellow and gold. 'You must gather flowers for your grandma, like a good grand-daughter should' And Molly went to do as bid, for she had no resistance to these most beautiful creations of God."
For a moment, the picture showed the girl gathering flowers, then it quickly clicked to a picture of an archetypal and utterly unlikely cottage in the alien landscape. "Grandma," the text began, "was not having a good day."
"Brom wants to meet you," she said.
Thorn shrugged and continued his meal.
"Now," she said.
"This is excellent fish. You should try some," said Thorn.
"You could get dead, fucking us about," said the man. He leant across the table sticking his chin out. It seemed to be a habit of his. Thorn thought him quite ridiculous and resisted the temptation to break his jaw.
"Calm down, Lutz. Mr Stiles likes to play hard-to-get. He has his reputation to think about," the woman said, and removed her sunglasses. Thorn looked into eyes with sideways-slotted pupils — they were the latest thing, apparently, and a recent addition for her, since she had not possessed them the last time he had seen her. He smiled. For someone who supposedly hated the Polity she certainly liked the benefits its technology brought.
"When and where?" he asked.
"Now, and we take you there."
Thorn nodded and glanced round the restaurant. Three trying not to appear conspicuous while clicking through the menu, at least one outside, waiting by an AGC, probably more. He had a bad feeling. He continued eating.
"Move it, Stiles!" said Lutz and made to shove Thorn's plate away. Reputation at stake, Thorn stuck his fork through the back of Lutz's hand and, before the man had a chance to scream, side-fisted his temple. He caught him before he fell and pulled him so he slumped across the table. A couple of diners looked on in puzzlement, unsure about what they had seen. Nobody but they and the menu clickers seemed to have noticed. The latter three began to rise, until the woman glanced at them and shook her head.
"What do I call you?" Thorn asked her.
"Ternan," she said, staring at her unconscious companion.
"Well, Ternan, you know how I operate. What makes you think I want to meet your boss — and, incidentally, put myself in possible danger."
"Special operation."
Thorn was unmoved.
Ternan added, "Two hundred thousand standard, in any currency, credit, or precious materials."
Thorn dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and stood up.
"Now why didn't you say so?" he said.
As the menu clickers carried Lutz out of the restaurant, the two diners accepted that he had drunk too much. It was that kind of place.
One AGC, no, two. Thorn retained the smile elicited from him when Lutz had revived in the back of this AGC and puked in the lap of a menu clicker. Ternan swore at that point, then chewed at her bottom lip as she drove on — her sunglasses once again covering her fashionable eyes. Thorn secretly kept a watch on the direction indicator. They were heading out over the sea and he wondered just how close his team was and how quickly they could get in. It was comforting to know they would be tracking the underspace transmitter embedded in his pelvis. His body would never be lost, well, at least not that part of it.
"Where is he then?" Thorn asked while, in the back, a menu clicker dressed Lutz's wounded hand.
"You'll see," said Ternan.
He had expected no different. He was about to make some comment about villains' hideaways on remote islands being a cliche, but decided against it. While in training, one of his instructors had warned him about his streak of irreverence, and he had to work continuously to suppress it. Anyway, it was a cliche that villains hid away on remote islands because remote islands were one of the best places for them to hide. Nor did he think Ternan would take kindly to him referring to Brom as a villain. He looked around for such an island as Ternan slowed the AGC. There was no sign of one.
"Where now?"
"You'll see," she repeated.
From the console Ternan flipped up a cover that hid some custom controls and, as she punched in a sequence, small lights ignited along the bottom of the front screen and a grid flashed up, seemingly imbedded in the glass. The whole scene he was seeing, through the screen, flickered and changed. The sea looked somehow different now, and not just because of the huge barge that had suddenly appeared.
Chameleonware. Fuck.
"I'm impressed," he said and Ternan bared her teeth in response.
He studied the barge and estimated it to be nearly half a kilometre long, and a quarter that wide. It was huge. It was also liberally scattered with gun turrets and missile launchers, and rested on the sea like some battleship out of ancient history. Brom had to have outside help. No way could he have got all this organized in the few years since the fall of Arian Pelter's Separatist cabal. And chameleonware? That was worryingly sophisticated. Thorn now realized that he needed a damned sight more backup than he presently relied on. If his own team came here, they'd get smeared before they even saw the place.
With practised ease, Ternan brought the AGC in to land on a platform mounted at one end of the barge, and the other AGC followed her down. Four people waited on the platform. Two of them were guards armed with what looked like rail-guns of a manufacture Thorn did not recognize — not Polity because these weapons required a separate belt-mounted power pack. He stepped out and, with Ternan coming to his side and the others coming quickly behind, advanced on the four.
"Ahh… Stiles."
Brom.
He wore a loose suit of silky material over his gross frame and seemed indifferent to the chill breeze coming in off the sea. Thin grey hair framed his thickly jowled face and, on seeing it close, Thorn saw the man's skin seemed flecked with small scales. There issued from him a smell reminiscent of a reptile's terrarium. The aug he wore was more than a temporary attachment — it looked like a growth from his body. Thorn recognized him at once from his file, but he was not supposed to know him. He shook the proffered hand.
"You're Brom?" he asked.
Brom nodded and smiled a hard smile as he studied Thorn's face. Thorn glanced past him to the strange individual standing at Brom's shoulder. This man was pale with contrasting flat black hair, and wore a white shipsuit with something written down its side and all down one leg. Around his neck he wore a wide band of white metal, and on the side of his head he sported a scaled aug, the same as everyone else here. His face was lacking in expression, almost dead.
Brom gestured to a stair leading from the platform down to the deck, and began walki
ng in that direction. Thorn, glancing behind to note the others moving off in a different direction, fell in beside him, sticking his hands in his pockets so his wristcom was well away from the itchy forefinger on his other hand. One press and his team would be on their way in — and likely he would have signed their death warrant. He had to just ride this out for the moment, get away safely, then come back in force. No way could he send a message out of this place without being detected. If it came to the worst, he would first use the spring gun concealed in his sleeve.
"You seem well-organized here," he said.
"Due to my friend here: Deacon Aberil Dorth," said Brom.
Thorn glanced at the pale man indicated and got only a flat stare in response.
"Well, your friend has provided you with some sophisticated equipment. That 'ware shield seems almost as good as anything the Polity possesses."
"Ah." Brom raised a pudgy finger. "Now that comes from another source, and you'll understand if I do not feel able to reveal it to you." Brom glanced at him. "You did good work at the study facility. John Spader was beginning to ask some awkward questions about the dark-otter death rate in this area. He had to go."
Was that all?
"And now you have something more for me?"
"Oh yes." Brom led the way down a spiral stair to the lower deck. As he climbed down after the man, Thorn surreptitiously studied the nearest gun turret. Rail-guns again, which confirmed Brom's assertion of there being two sources of technology here, for such weapons were fairly low-tech when compared with, the chameleonware shield this barge employed.
