The Omega Solution

by Peter J Evans

  "Hi," she called, waving. "Er, have we met you already, or...?"

  "I do not believe so, Durham Red." The Aranite halted in front of her, hooked a finger into the deck and floated upright. "However, it is possible. You humanoids all look very much alike to me."

  "Yeah, but at least we've got rhythm."

  The Aranite trilled softly. "Welcome to Weaver of Paths, Durham Red. I am Technician Liao-Fa. May this venture bring you status."

  "Honey, I've got about as much status as I can handle." Red reached into her jacket and pulled out a small, hardshell case. "Are you the guy who's going to read my chips for me?"

  The Aranite's head swung forward on its long neck, getting almost within licking distance of the case. "I am. Although you mistake my gender."

  "Oops."

  "It is of no importance. It changes on a regular basis."

  Godolkin had walked right around the lab's circumference and was striding towards Red on her right-hand side. "The details of this transaction continue to elude me, Aranite. Exactly what are you charging us for this service?"

  "The price of unlocking the crystals is the knowledge we gain from doing so." The Aranite's free hands wove together in complex patterns. "The secret of active silicon, the basis of its structure, photochemical composition, four-dimensional lattice affinity... This would be of great value to us. It would give our community great status among those of the outer ring."

  "And the information held within?"

  "Is off-limits." Liao-Fa made a curious gesture, a sort of bobbing, four-way shrug. "This was implicit in the original contract, I believe."

  "What if it really is too old?" Red asked. "What if it's so buggered it can't be read?"

  "Then, Durham Red, the question becomes academic. We can only obtain value from your artefacts if we are successful in our studies. If not, we would by definition have provided no service, and would in turn receive no payment."

  "Oh, cool!" She flipped the case into the air, caught it playfully. "So it's a no-win, no-fee deal?"

  The Aranite licked its lower eyes. "Not entirely. You still owe us for air and landing rights."

  Godolkin was opening his mouth to speak. Red cut him off. "Great. Sounds like a bargain. When do we start?"

  Extracting the Lavannos data was never going to be quick. Red thought she had prepared herself for that, but when the process actually started she realised that she was going to be impatient the whole time.

  Impatience wasn't something the Aranites even understood, of course. Their entire existence was based on the long-term plan.

  The Aranite spider-communities had stalked the debris rings of Lyricum for centuries, getting bigger and more complex with every generation. This, Red had decided, was why their insides were so convoluted. The machines hadn't been constructed from scratch, they had been rebuilt and expanded year after year; facilities added as they were needed, connected by tunnel-tubes and walled over to protect them from space. Without the restrictions of artificial gravity, the various new bits of the community could be bolted on in any direction, any orientation.

  Why the Aranites had chosen to model their mobile homes on enormous spiders was, however, something Red still couldn't fathom. Maybe they just thought it looked cool.

  The Aranites had access to technologies unknown in the rest of the Accord. They pored over the shattered debris of starships from the earliest days of the Bloodshed, before mutants and humans had bombed each other back into the dark ages. Every broken piece of junk the mites took aboard was picked apart by technicians like Liao-Fa and thousands of others, in globular labs all over the spider. Every now and then they would find something no one else had anymore, and their all-important status would rise.

  Status, that was the key to Aranite life. Each community was measured against all the others by what it knew. Presumably the Aranites had agreed a set of protocols amongst themselves, eschewing open conflict for a complicated game of rank and social standing that operated on every level. Liao-Fa herself must have been of considerable status within the community to even get the chance at Red's crystals.

  And watching the technician and her assistants at work was beginning to answer Red's biggest question about the Aranites - why the Accord hadn't simply stepped in and taken over the whole operation decades ago.

  The Aranites were prepared to spend years on a single piece of garbage, scanning and picking it apart and conducting test after test to make sure every last iota of knowledge had been wrested out from it. There was no way the Accord - even the fabled Iconoclast Recovered Technology Division - could match that kind of dedication. Far better to let the Aranites have their orbiting junkyard, and leave the extraction of these millennia-old secrets to those with the patience for it.

  It was that patience she was witnessing now. Just setting the crystals up for initial scan had taken half a day.

  Red had stayed at the bench, the spherical table that hung at the lab's centre, for most of that time. She was surrounded by Aranite technicians. They crowded around her, bustling about in constant motion, sliding over and under each other and never once making contact as though each were a part in a perfectly oiled engine. Liao-Fa stayed largely where she was, and Red was glad about that. If the Aranite had been as mobile as her fellows, Red would never have been able to keep track of her.

  Godolkin had retreated back to Crimson Hunter after the first scan had been set up. "I can be of more use to you there, Blasphemy," he glowered. "Besides, the lack of gravity is beginning to bother me, too."

  Gravity, Red guessed, had nothing to do with it. The Iconoclast probably thought that the Aranites were going to strip Hunter for spares if he wasn't around. "Okay. Go back and get some rest. I'll keep you posted."

  "How are you going to get back?" That was Harrow. The mutant was crouched on the curved outer wall. "We're a long way from the bay, and the journey..." He closed his eyes for a moment, as though the memory of that headlong flight had made his nausea worse. "Forgive me, holy one. I should have gotten used to it by now."

  "Forget it." She pushed herself away from the bench and drifted over to him. "It can take a while. First time I went up in a ship without gee-plates I thought I'd never stop puking." She saw the colour drain ever so slightly from his face, and grinned. "Oops. Sorry, Jude."

  "I can find my way, mutant," snapped Godolkin. "This leprous maze holds no terrors for me. However, if you wish to accompany me, I can lead you."

  That had been... How long ago? Red had completely lost track. Ever since she had spotted the blackened datastores on their shelf in Tola's lock-store, they had transfixed her. She couldn't drag herself away from them. She found herself hoping that either Godolkin or Harrow would come back to the lab with some synthetic blood to keep her going, or she'd end up having to bite Liao-Fa. And she wasn't sure how Aranite blood might taste...

  She was just wondering about that when the lights in the lab started to dim.

  Abruptly, the Aranites froze in place. They had been in such uninterrupted motion until then that the change was quite startling. "What's going on?" Red whispered.

  "A power loss." Liao-Fa cocked her head to the side, as though listening. "Localised? There could be danger."

  "Does this happen often?"

  The Aranite blinked rapidly. "It does not. Durham Red, you should return to your vessel."

  "Not without the crystals." Suddenly, Liao-Fa seemed very alien to her. Alien, and not at all trustworthy. "Get them out of the scanner."

  "I cannot." The lumes around them were almost out now. Bluish panels in the walls emitted a soft, feeble glow. "The sensing bed locks down in the event of power loss."

  "Sneck." Red unclipped her comm-linker. "Godolkin?"

  Static hissed out at her. Red didn't try a second time. "Liao-Fa, you and your people have shown us great hospitality, and I'm grateful. But if you try and rip me off, I swear to God I'll come back here and slaughter every Aranite in this community." She jumped towards the tunnel mouth. "Be
cause I can't tell you apart, and I'd need to be sure I got you. Okay?"

  If the Aranite answered, the words were lost: Red was already scooting off down the tunnel. "It should be easy," she snarled to herself, giving the wall an angry punch. "Why is it never snecking easy?"

  She had been in green-lit tunnels the whole way to the lab, she remembered. Her memory was pretty good - if she stayed on the green route, and went back through the open spaces in sequence, Red guessed she could be back at the landing bay within a few minutes.

  She was halfway along the tunnel when the lights there went out too.

  The tunnel branched a short distance further on. Red drifted to a halt, slapping the wall to slow herself. Had she changed course here? She couldn't remember the deputy going into a new tunnel, but with the lights out it was hard to be sure. The blue emergency panels gave only the most meagre light, and even Red's phenomenal night-vision wasn't much help.

  She decided to stay with the tunnel she was in, and set off again. Moments later, there was a metallic grinding sound from up ahead, a high song of blade against blade. She tensed.

  An iris of metal was scissoring closed, blocking the tunnel.

  The comm-linker chirruped.

  "Durham Red, this is Marshal Wei-Fan."

  "Marshal? What the sneck's going on here?" She turned over in the air like a swimmer, and began to head back the way she'd come. "The tunnels are closing up on me."

  "Weaver of Paths has come under attack." The Aranite's guttural voice gave away no emotion, but then they never did. "A raider squadron attempted to gain access. They were repulsed, but the hull sustained damage. There are pressure leaks."

  "I didn't feel anything."

  "The lab complex was far from the assault site. Do not be alarmed - we have you on our sense engines, and will make sure you are not trapped in a decompressing section."

  "Thanks." Red snapped the linker off and stashed it back on her belt. "That's really snecking comforting."

  Another iris growled shut behind her.

  Red moved on, finding herself in a narrow, twisting tunnel, far smaller in width than any she'd been down before. Wei-Fan must have been taking her in a different way. Did that mean the bay was in danger? She tried the linker again as she floated down the tube, but once again was replied to only with electrical hiss.

  The tunnel opened out, a three way junction. Red angled herself left and collided with an iris as it slammed shut in her face. "Jesus! Will you people be careful?"

  Only one way out. Red took it, trying not to let a nagging worry become a full-blown rush of panic. She needed her wits about her now. There was something not right about all this...

  The tunnel turned to glass.

  Red slowed herself and looked about wildly. She had seen this place before, on the way to the lab, a network of transparent tubes crossing over and under each other with no apparent pattern. But she hadn't been inside any of the tubes on that trip.

  Strange, dark motes were drifting down through the air outside the tunnel. She moved forwards slightly, pressing her face to the cold glass. As she did so, one of the motes raised an arm and pointed.

  Gunfire hammered into the tunnel.

  Red dived away. The far end of the tube had taken the full brunt of the burst, the heavy glass fracturing in big, knife-edge chunks. Several were flying away from the tube, bouncing and spinning off the other tunnels. Red dodged to the side as one whirled soundlessly past her.

  She looked up. The dark specks were much closer now, resolving themselves into human shapes, bulky in all-over body armour. Iconoclasts? She searched for the characteristic egg-shape of a holy weapon, but saw none. That they were packing some serious weaponry, however, was not in doubt. She ducked back towards the tunnel mouth as another eruption of gunfire tore the far end of the tube completely free.

  The tunnel iris scraped closed, sealing her in.

  The tube was creaking horribly. No gravity pulled it down, but the stresses it had suffered just from the weapons-fire were in danger of breaking it apart entirely. Red reached down to her right boot and snapped free the bulky side of the heel, leaving a thin stiletto. She did the same to the other boot, then brought the two pieces together, locking one into another. She whipped the tiny gun they formed up in both hands and fired it at the first man to drift into the open end of the tube.

  The man's head flashed into fire. He tumbled away, his armoured shoulder slamming heavily into the broken glass as he did so. There was an ugly snapping sound next to Red's face, and a thin line appeared in the side of the tunnel, a hairline crack from one end of the cylinder to the other.

  "Uh oh," she muttered.

  Two more armoured men floated close. Red's shot took one in the chest, but the other dodged with surprising swiftness. His return fire struck the iris a hand's width from Red's skull, spattering the side of her face with liquid.

  She fired blind, eyes shut, waiting for the pain to hit. The metal of the tunnel iris must have been turned instantly to liquid by the shot. The little gun was getting warm in her hands - it only had a limited charge, but if these bastards had already blinded her it was all over anyway...

  There was no pain. Red opened her eyes as another shot slammed into her gun-hand, whipping her around in the air and pasting her fist to the glass.

  Her hand, and the gun, were embedded in a messy splash of green goo.

  Red hauled at it, snarling. She was half-aware of armoured figures flying towards her, of the tube groaning and shuddering, more cracks snapping into being beneath her feet. She sent one figure whirling away with a massive kick to the chest, but then another shot of the gluey stuff slammed into her foot, pinning it. Another hit her, and another.

  In seconds, she was webbed to the iris as securely as any fly in a spider's trap.

  She struggled. The glue stretched, but it was horribly strong.

  One of the armoured figures drifted up to her and raised a small cylinder to the side of her neck. There was a sudden jolt of pain, a coldness. She sagged.

  The last thing she saw was her own face, plastered with green slime, reflected in the mirrored visor of the man in grey.

  7. NEW SHADOWS

  She awoke struggling, flailing her way free of the green glue. In her dreams it had been all over her, choking her.

  Tangled, she tumbled sideways. The floor came up and hit her.

  She lay on her back for a few moments, breathing hard. There was something covering her face, but it wasn't glue. It was some kind of fabric. She pulled at it, and it slid silkily away.

  Durham Red realised two things at that very moment. Firstly, she had been lying on a bed, had gotten tangled up with some very expensive-looking sheets, and fallen onto an equally luxurious rug. Secondly, she was completely naked.

  Red had no great problem with being naked, but she preferred to know the circumstances in which she got that way.

  She sat up. Her head span a little, but it cleared moments later.

  The bed, she could see from her position on the rug, was circular, and occupied the centre of a large round room. The ceiling was domed, panels bleeding a soft white light, and the floor around the rug looked like polished marble. There was a single chair alongside the bed, an armchair in what looked like gilded wood. Her clothes lay in a neat pile on top of it.

  There was a faint vibration coming up through the floor, an almost imperceptible thrumming. It tickled her memory. She was sure she knew what it meant.

  "Sneck," Red whispered, even that soft curse loud in the silence. "I think I saw this vid..."

  She went over to the chair. A quick check of her clothes revealed them to be intact and freshly cleaned. She wondered why for a second until she brushed unconsciously at her hair and found a small chunk of solidified green glue stuck amid the strands.

  "Oh, man..." She pulled the chunk free, twisting her head to do so. It came away painfully, taking a couple of scarlet strands with it.

  One thing was certain: it wasn't the Icon
oclasts who had her. No way was this the kind of treatment they had in store for Saint Scarlet of Durham.

  Red dressed quickly. Her gun was gone, of course, and there was no sign of her comm-linker either. The slender wrist-daggers she had tucked into sheaths in her gloves had been taken, along with her hidden strangling wire, her poisoned needles, microgrenades, the detonex coins in her belt...

  Whoever had stripped her had managed to find and remove every concealed weapon she carried, and some of them had been very well concealed indeed.

  "Well," she muttered to herself, pulling her gloves back on and balling her fists. "Guess I'll just have to make do with what I've got."

  There was one door leading out of the room. Red studied it for a minute or two, wondering how she was going to pick the lock. She touched the control pad experimentally, and was quite startled when the door slid aside.

  An open corridor lay beyond it.

  Red stuck her head out and looked left and right. She saw no one, just the walls of the corridor stretching away to meet heavy bulkheads in either direction. The décor of the room was carried over into the space outside, she noticed; the dark marble floor, the smooth wooden panelling of the walls. Even the bulkheads looked like polished oak.

  Despite what she could see, the faint thrumming from the floor gave the place away. She was on board a starship.

  So the raiders who attacked the Aranites hadn't been completely repulsed. Some must have managed to sneak into Weaver of Paths, glue-guns and all. They'd covered her in glop, drugged her and carted her off in a ship. That much was obvious.

  Other than that, all Red had were questions. But once she'd done a little exploring, and found out who had seen fit to take her away, she would make sure she got a few answers.

  She stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her. As she did, one of the end bulkheads slid open. Red dodged smartly to one side, into the slight depression left by one of the smaller doors. Her fingertips found the panel, but nothing happened save a soft tone. Locked.