Lockdown Tales

by Neal Asher

  ‘So a big item weighing more than a tank?’ said Jaston, just a little breathlessly.

  ‘Yes, very definitely.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘For the present no – we first need to dig it out.’

  ‘Pass me back to the Bishop’s Hand.’

  Rune did so. He had noted the changes in Eller’s expression – the combination of surprise and suspicion, then the confidence that this was a puzzle he would solve as he always had.

  ‘Yes, get them,’ Eller replied briefly to Jaston’s query. He then turned off the radio and eyed Rune. ‘From what you told me last night I can’t see how you can know what is underneath that rock…’

  ‘The second claw was precisely where I estimated it would be should the robot be in one piece. The size of the head thus far revealed indicates the size of the body behind and what it will take to move it.’

  ‘But your estimation on weight interests me,’ said Eller. ‘We have found Polity items before that are ridiculously light – composed of bubble metal.’ He paused, frowning at the ground, the looked up again. ‘How do you know it will be so heavy?’

  Rune reached into his pocket and took out the hexagonal chunk of armour he had first shown to the Rector. ‘This is the item that first indicated to me that there might be Polity tech in the vicinity, while formations in the old lava flow indicated an object that had not been shifted or ablated by it but created some strange flow patterns. Hold out your hand.’

  Eller stared at him dead faced. He had given an order to a Bishop’s Hand and his mode of address had not been sufficiently respectful. This had been precisely Rune’s intention – the knock on psychological effects culminating in Eller estimating his usefulness upwards. After a moment the man did hold out his hand, and Rune dropped the object into it.

  ‘Damn,’ said Eller, offence immediately forgotten. The coin-sized piece of armour was heavier than lead. Heavier in fact than any substance the Cheevers had ever refined or made. But then the Cheevers did not have factory facilities on the surfaces of brown dwarf stars, gravity presses, or techniques for collapsing down matter and increasing molecular bonding forces.

  ‘I thought this might be a piece of the item’s armour,’ Rune said. ‘Now I’m not so sure because its armour does not seem to be formed in pieces, however I am sure that the item’s armour is of a similar if not the same material. That being the case, even just one of the claws revealed may weigh in at many tons for its armour alone. God knows what lies underneath it.’

  Eller grimaced at him for a moment then nodded. It had actually been an acceptable use of the Lord’s name. He turned and gestured to the men nearby and they moved back to reattach the tarpaulin.

  ‘You will ride in the cab with me,’ he said, heading there.

  They reached the edge of the lava flow where Rune slid easily into the role of foreman, issuing instructions the moment he climbed down from the cab. The hoses had a good reach, so he instructed that the generator and compressor run while still on the back of the truck, and the men set to work with air chisels. He meanwhile included Snerl and Gibbon, getting them moving rubble and providing drinks. It took four hours to cut a rough road the truck was more than capable of climbing with its caterpillar treads and Eller became anxious to move on.

  ‘It would be better to make this stable while we have the equipment here.’ Rune gestured to the road. ‘When we come back this way with the item we don’t want any accidents or you might need to requisition a new trailer, or vehicle, or face other problems depending on what has collapsed or where the item has fallen.’

  Eller reluctantly conceded the point.

  Rune now endeared himself with the workers by ordering a lunch break. After that they worked for another two hours cutting the road wider and using an air-driven compactor to crush down the broken stone of the slope into something a lot firmer.

  ‘That’ll do,’ Rune called, and they set out again.

  The tracked vehicle motored up the new road with ease and once on top of the lava, where the going was smooth, Eller accelerated ahead of the walking men.

  ‘Go easy,’ said Rune. He pointed ahead. ‘You see that ridge?’ Eller nodded. ‘Go to the right and around the bottom of it.’

  ‘Why? This vehicle could go over it easily.’

  ‘Yes, it could, but such a ridge is usually indication of a lava tube underneath. It might well collapse.’

  Eller nodded and did as instructed. Finally they turned into the declivity leading to the mouth of the lava tube where the workings were located. Eller parked and engaged the brakes. The light was behind them now as the sun set in a blaze of green and gold. The claws protruding from the rock cast dark shadows down into the lava tube. The scene looked quite sinister, as if some terrible monster was intent to break free from its prison of centuries. Rune acknowledged to himself that, with some provisos, this was indeed the case.

  ‘My God,’ said Eller – again acceptable usage.

  ‘Quite,’ said Rune.

  They climbed out of the truck and walked up to look at the claws, the limbs and that portion of the head revealed behind. Two red eyes glinted at them, and Rune felt sure now that not all the glimmer there was due to reflection.

  ‘This is almost certainly a Polity war drone,’ said Eller.

  Rune nodded. ‘I’ve never fully admitted that to myself until now,’ he lied. ‘If my reading is correct, I would say it is one of those made during the monster war.’

  In the Cheever and Grooger mythology a kind of Ragnorak lay in the distant past. The Polity had gone to war against monsters and it had been devastating. Humans had fought in it, spaceships too, and machines like the one buried in the rock here. In this mythology the war had come immediately prior to the Fall – the only part of it that was completely wrong.

  Rune turned to watch the workers approaching – Snerl and Gibbon running ahead of them. ‘We’ll set up camp and get to work in the morning,’ he said. ‘Better to get organised in daylight and now just get set up what we can.

  ‘Seems like a plan,’ said Eller noncommittally.

  ‘You two might as well head home,’ he told his two apprentices when they breathlessly arrived. Then seeing their disappointment added, ‘Return in the morning first thing.’

  As they turned and headed away, Eller stepped up beside him to watch them go. ‘You, however, will remain here with us,’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’ Rune smiled. The Bishop’s Hand now did not trust him out of sight, which in terms of his intention to stay with this was a good thing, but in other ways might be bad.

  In the evening they had set up four tents, a cooking area, the lights, generator and compressor. Eller slept in a tent with his four officers while Rune managed to acquire a blanket from supplies, but not one of the foam mattresses. It didn’t matter – his body now had no problem with a bed of stone and sleep had become a matter of choice. He lay flat on his back and simply switched himself off for the required hours.

  One of the workers cooked a breakfast of fish and vegetable stew from dried supplies, complemented by bread obviously bought in Meeps. Rune ate as much of that as he could without being branded a glutton, then complemented it from his own supplies. He then selected two of the men to follow him to where a hole lay open in the top of a lava tube and instructed them to set up the toilet tent there, before returning.

  Next he had the men chiselling and shifting the rubble they dug out, cutting a circuit around the item, but also instructed them to cut test holes in towards it, as if he didn’t know its shape under the rock and had to keep checking. Snerl and Gibbon arrived tardily and he waved them over and headed to where Eller was watching the work.

  ‘We’re going to need more food and water,’ he said to the man. ‘These two can fetch it for you, but they’ll need money.’

  Eller eyed the two. ‘I’ll send two of my guards with them.’ He marched off to issue instructions and give money to the two
guards. A little while later the four set off with two of the barrows. Rune felt glad his apprentices were now included – he owed them at least that. But in the end, when they towed the war drone out of here, they would remain in the village. It would be the safest place for them.

  By the evening they had cut a path all around the war drone wide enough for wheel barrows and for two people to easily pass each other. In the oval within, they had made exploratory cuts to find armour. When they didn’t find any near the back they cut in, but in doing so revealed the spiked tail high up.

  ‘You are familiar with the bestiaries in the Divinity College,’ Eller commented.

  ‘I am indeed,’ Rune replied.

  ‘I wasn’t sure until seeing that tail.’

  Rune nodded, but allowed Eller to say the words.

  ‘The thing looks like a giant metal scorpion.’

  ‘Yes, one has to wonder what toxins that sting delivered.’ Rune knew that the tail could deliver any toxin the drone decided to make in the factories inside its body, that the tail could also extrude a wide variety of boring tools, but that mostly it used it as a spiked club in close combat for punching through armour – the spike being formed of a collimated diamond material that wouldn’t blunt its tip even piercing advanced ceramal.

  The lights came on as the sun went down and, pretending he did not know precisely what lay underneath the stone, Rune ordered the air chisels shut down and hand chiselling to commence. After one man managed to smack his own hand with a club hammer and another dropped a rock on another’s foot as if performing a comedy routine, he called a halt to the work. The cook meanwhile had been preparing an evening meal, while Eller’s guards had gone off to fetch fire wood. They sat around campfires eating bread, roast vegetables and meat and drinking hot tea. Eller of course had his own personal fire and invited Rune to sit with him.

  ‘One has to speculate what this will mean for the war,’ the man said.

  Rune immediately became cautious. ‘Quite possibly very little at all.’

  ‘And your reasoning on that?’ The enquiry was light – just conversation, apparently.

  ‘We have learned much from the relicts we have found,’ said Rune, ‘but very little we have been able to copy. We use their power storage devices and we use their hard materials, but we cannot make them.’ He waved toward the drone. ‘We may find weapons here we can activate, but I very much doubt that any of them will make a difference to the war. It is a matter of scale. Perhaps we will find something to kill an enemy quickly, or shoot down a gunship, or sink a missile raft, but it can only be in one place at a time. The war is large and on multiple fronts. The enemy is numerous and their gunships and rafts are many.’

  ‘This is obviously something you’ve been thinking about.’

  Rune shrugged. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘But my understanding is that these drones were very powerful, and that they wielded devastating weapons…’

  ‘The writings in the Divinity College indicate so,’ Rune said noncommittally.

  ‘Could they be wrong?’ Eller enquired.

  This had now become dangerous territory. If he started criticising holy writ he might well end up on a charge of heresy. He then considered how, if Eller so wished, charges of heresy were not necessary should the man want to dispense with him.

  When Rune did not reply, Eller added, ‘You may speak freely on this matter, here. We are just two men discussing possibilities.’

  ‘I would not want to inadvertently slip into heresy while talking to the Bishop’s Hand,’ said Rune. ‘That would be unhealthy.’

  Eller nodded while staring into the flames, then said, ‘Have you heard of the Occam Heresy?’

  ‘I have. The heresy is that only verifiable facts can be assumed as truth, while ecclesiastical thought is only speculation. It is denial of God. It negates the idea that the Fall was due to the sin of pride.’

  ‘Very dangerous in religious circles,’ said Eller. ‘We wouldn’t want facts to get in the way now would we?’

  Rune stared at him for a long moment realising Eller had just broadly hinted that he was in agreement with that heresy. The man had given something and expected something in return. Rune well understood that perhaps this might be a lure into a trap, but decided to take the risk.

  ‘We have no physical proof that the war drones wielded great power,’ he said. ‘All we have are the writings, translated and copied down the ages. It could be that some of those who did that job exaggerated.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Eller, grimacing in disappointment.

  Rune didn’t feel very good about himself just then, since the writings, if anything, had downplayed the contribution of war drones in that long ago war, in preference exaggerating what the humans did. He felt this to be necessary, however, since he did not want them to be too cautious with this drone once it reached Foreton. Eller’s present disappointment would then be dismissed, though whether he would like the consequences of that stayed open to question.

  A little while later Eller retired to his tent and this was the signal for everyone else to do the same. Rune watched them all go while tossing twigs into the fire. Someone switched off the generator and the lights went out. He waited just a little bit longer then stood up in the moonlit night and headed over to the excavation, finally coming to stand before the now fully exposed head of the war drone.

  ‘I wonder how much you can see now,’ he said quietly. ‘And I wonder if you care enough to rise out of sleep.’

  The eyes flickered brief ruby fire and flakes of lava fell from one of the claws as if it had moved, just a little bit.

  Over the next four days they chiselled away all the remaining stone. Rune considered ordering work to remove all the remaining stone underneath as well, but that was a subterfuge he did not need, for they all now knew that the lava had not bonded to its armour. On the second day Eller took the vehicle back to Meeps and returned with a reinforced tank trailer with a ship winch attached, the skates and rollers and the heavy webbing straps.

  First they used the smaller winch – bolted down hard in the ground – levers crow bars and physical toil to pull the drone free. It did slide out on its belly off of a pedestal of stone – that being higher than the thing’s feet – and as it slid off the legs hinged to the same level flaking off remaining stone. Seeing those legs were now moveable, Rune ran ropes around them and across its back, using a tourniquet bar to lift the feet from the ground. Next they backed in the trailer, put down the ramp and attached the ship winch. It then took many hours with jacks and levers to lift the thing up sufficiently to insert roller bars. As the winch hauled the drone round to face the trailer, one of the claws dropped to the ground, the points of the claw stabbing straight into stone. Despite much effort with ropes and then webbing straps they struggled to raise these up, and instead rested them on chunks of metal on top of skates, with a work crew using levers detailed to push these ahead of the thing.

  The ramp bowed underneath the drone, and the trailer sank down to the bottom of its suspension, but by evening they had it as secured as they could with ropes and straps, and then covered with a tarpaulin. Eller wanted to start the journey back to Meeps and then Foreton right then, but Rune advised against it. Eller reluctantly agreed.

  Later Eller told him, ‘We’ll stop off at your house and you can collect some belongings. Plan on a long stay in Foreton.’

  ‘As you command, Hand Eller,’ Rune replied.

  Eller snorted annoyance and walked away.

  Before sunrise another air raid was in progress over Foreton. They turned off the excavation lights and waited, because it was not unknown for the gunships to hit likely targets outside of the town. Rune watched a gunship shedding pieces of itself and streaks of fire as it fell to the mountains inland of Foreton. As he was watching, Snerl and Gibbon came out to stand beside him.

  ‘I am going with the drone to Foreton,’ he told them.

  ‘You
won’t be coming back, will you,’ said Gibbon.

  He turned and studied her. As ever the perspicacity of some people surprised him. How could she possibly know this for sure, and how had she been so right?

  ‘I expect I will be gone a long time,’ he lied. ‘Doubtless they’ll send another relict digger to Meeps. This find will ensure that.’

  ‘You’re not what you seem,’ said Snerl.

  Rune stared at him blankly. ‘I am just a relict digger.’

  They looked at each other, definitely annoyed, then headed away. He knew that was goodbye. He hoped they survived what was to come.

  Once the gunships had departed and the sun drew an emerald line across the horizon, Rune instructed that the back of the vehicle be loaded with equipment. He hadn’t intended that at first, but the weight of the load on the trail had lifted the back of the truck high on its suspension so the treads were almost loose underneath. The new load in the back brought that down again and made it stable. Once this was done, Eller climbed into the cab on the passenger side and waved Rune to the other.

  ‘Is this a good idea?’ Rune asked as he climbed inside.

  ‘I’m assuming you know how to drive?’

  Rune dipped his head in acknowledgement and started the vehicle. In first gear he motored slowly away from the excavation while the workers stowed final items into their packs. Those same men were still in sight behind on the journey to Meeps so slowly did Rune drive. Eller did not object – they were on their way now.

  In Meeps, Rune returned inside his house and packed up two large bags with clothing and other items, then looked around the interior at stuff he had collected over the last three years. None of it was important to him. He headed back to the truck leaving his key in the door.