Lockdown Tales

by Neal Asher

  He weeded and dug up blue potatoes, throwing away half of them because they had the black spots on them that told of insides eaten out by thread worms. He brought his haul to the house in two buckets, opened the door then held it open with his boot as he entered. The Golem looked up.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Ben dropped the buckets spilling potatoes across the floor and stared in shock. She was still sitting in her seat with the power cable plugged in. As the shock began to pass he took in the scene. He had left the optics on the floor at her feet and now she had some of them strewn across her thighs. His tool box was on the table beside her and, now he looked properly, most of the table was strewn with components. She appeared more gutted now than she had after he had pulled out what he had. Even as he watched she reached down and grabbed something, a fizzing click sounded and she removed a lump of that metallic fungus – a long piece like the hardened spill of molten metal from a crucible. She put it down on the table.

  ‘Hope not mind,’ she said, waving a hand towards the box of tools.

  He tried to choke out something, but his voice felt rustier now than it had when he used the radio back at the shuttle. Also those were words he had used many times before, so rehearsed and easier to find. Right now he couldn’t think what to say to her.

  ‘You repairs made,’ she said, ‘Thank. Continue them.’

  Finally his vocal apparatus jerked into motion.

  ‘Good,’ he managed, then groping round for more. ‘I did what I could. Was out of my depth.’

  ‘Did enough.’ She smiled, but that only looked frightening with half her face gone. ‘Shot put safety mode. Something else happen.’ She looked around the cabin and he recognised the emulation. ‘Internal clock. Long time.’

  Obviously she had something wrong with her voice synthesiser or, more worryingly, the mind that drove it.

  ‘How long?’ he asked.

  ‘Twelve year,’ she replied.

  He stared at her, puzzled until he realised she was talking about Afthonia’s years and not solstan. He didn’t need to spend time figuring that out because one of Afthonia’s years was close to a century solstan.

  ‘Long time,’ he agreed, stooping down to pick up the potatoes.

  They both worked in silence for a while. He retrieved all the potatoes and took them over to tip into one of his storage boxes. Again he was struggling to think of something to say. She spoke instead.

  ‘What situation yours?’ she asked.

  He walked over, grabbed the other chair and moved it round to sit astride it in front of her. ‘I have been marooned here for about twenty years, solstan. I’m a descendent of humans who decided to stay human as the Polity was breaking up. I and others came here in a ship on an expedition to survey Afthonia and catalogue its resources.’ He swallowed dryly. That was the most words he had said in an age and it really did bother his throat. He abruptly got up, went and got himself a glass of water and returned.

  She had taken more pieces out of her torso and as he watched she plugged in optics at such speed he could not quite see how she was doing it. She was cutting the things to length too but how she was dealing with the plug and socket he had no idea. The only explanation that fitted was that she would deploy nano-technology later.

  ‘I have more components here you might find useful,’ he said.

  She glanced over to the barrow, shook her head, then pointed to his cupboard full of podule finds.

  ‘I take what need?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, help yourself.’

  She dipped her head in acknowledgement but her hands did not slow or hesitate.

  ‘How marooned?’ she asked.

  He told the story, interspersed with sips of water. She dipped her head on occasion to confirm she was listening. About the time he told her of the death of Mickonsel her hands abruptly grew still. She looked over to the cupboard, shifted her feet then slowly stood. He pulled his chair back, abruptly concerned, but she just reached down for the power lead, flicked it over the table and walked over to the cupboard and squatted before it.

  ‘You know my name,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Anna,’ she replied.

  ‘So what happened to you, Anna?’

  She opened the cupboard and began taking things out.

  ‘It is history now,’ she replied, her diction abruptly improving. ‘They had a civil war here using biotech weapons and hard tech. I was on one side. One of those on the other shot me and thereafter I have no memory.’ She looked round at him. ‘The shot should not have been enough. I should have woken.’

  Some facts clicked into place in his mind. ‘Whoever shot you disconnected your power supply.’ He paused for a second then added, ‘Someone also wrapped you up in plasmel and maybe you were buried, so that protected you some.’

  ‘Maybe someone buried me when they found me shot,’ she said, grimacing. ‘There was a plague at that time – altered brain structures… I don’t think anyone is left?’

  He shook his head. ‘No humans here.’ Standing, he walked over as she opened containers and removed a selection of items. There were odd-shaped nodules, small cylinders that looked to be made of brass. While he watched she began inserting these inside her torso and he could hear the sound of them plugging into something.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘For my nanotech – unprogrammed nanites, microfactories, specialised meta-materials.’

  He shrugged. It was no wonder he had never been able to divine what they were.

  Once finished with these she put various containers back, but retained a series of fist-sized eggs of various pale colours and some thin chrome-like rods, and cradling them, stood up again.

  ‘And those?’

  ‘They contain synthemuscle and skin substrate.’

  ‘Oh right.’

  Returning to her seat she began plugging in the items on the table, rapidly, her torso filling out again. This done she took up a pale green egg, took up one of the rods and pushed it into the end. How it went in he had no idea because he had closely inspected those eggs looking for some way to open them. Raising the egg and rod to her face she began moving across it depositing green fibrous material. It was precise – like a printer bot running – and while he watched the shapes of muscles appeared. He could think of nothing to say, just continued watching in fascination as she cloaked the bare metal-composite of her skull with muscle. It was changing colour too, darkening and turning red like bloody meat.

  ‘So you have no way off Afthonia?’ she said, and this time she did it without her mouth moving at all.

  ‘The shuttle is a wreck,’ he replied. ‘I know I could repair the thrusters and maybe I could get one fusion drive working, and that’s a big maybe. Grav engine is screwed too and of course I stand no chance of repairing that.’

  ‘And now any of this is too difficult for you,’ she said.

  She finished with her skull and set to work on her torso. The absolute precision of it fascinated him. He had seen Golem before, but with their emulation they always moved like humans, not like the machines they actually were.

  ‘Yes, it’s difficult. Things seem to have become a struggle lately.’

  ‘That’s because you are dying,’ she told him.

  When he woke again, the conversation rushed back at him. It was surprising he managed to sleep after hearing that, yet he had been so very tired. He lay there running through it all again. Just as she had looked into his cupboards with senses way beyond human she had looked in him and found his problems. That his heart was failing hadn’t been a huge surprise, but confirmation of the fact was unpleasant. The other news was even more unpleasant. Apparently his nanosuite must have been under a huge load while he was here fighting off the dregs of biological warfare of over a thousand years ago. It had also had to deal with strange compounds that were a result of that war too. She told him that the innocular flies had been a way of addressing b
iological weapons. When he told her of their effect on him she posited that in the intervening time the substances they produced had probably changed. To some extent they had responded to the changes in the wartime viruses and bacteria in the environment, but there would also be a lot of mutation. This accounted for them sometimes improving his condition and sometimes not. They were best avoided, however, since they did inject programming changes to nanosuites and that was dangerous territory to get into.

  The upshot of all this was that his nanosuite had, within a few years of him being here, reached the stage where it ideally needed to be reprogrammed and upgraded. It was no longer repairing his body as it should and in some cases was attacking it like an auto-immune disease. So his heart was failing, but he also had tumours in his lungs that had metastised and now spread to his liver and bowel. His brain was clogging up with misfolded proteins and his arteries were hardening with the same crosslinking that spread throughout his body. It was hard to judge now what would have killed him first but she submitted that it would likely be his heart. It was, as she put it bluntly, ready to go pop.

  Would have…

  He told her he would sleep on it. It had all come as too much of a shock and just… too much. Now, as aching and nauseous again he swung his legs off the bed, he was ready, but as his vision cleared as much as it was wont to, he saw she was no longer in the house.

  He slowly eased himself to his feet and walked over to the table. A number of items where there from his collection: things like brass marbles, some more of those chrome rods, an odd item like a knuckle duster and a stack of objects like coins made out of bone. She had also brought over the almanac, his circuit tester and, as far as he could see, had assembled a number of optical and s-con leads. He stared at all this, daring to hope and terrified of that. But of course it made sense. If the podules produced the kind of nanotechnology and components her body required, then why not stuff the human body needed as well? The population here, if any of the history he knew from way back in Polity times was right, would have consisted of a great deal more humans than Golem.

  He headed for the door and opened it. Stepping out, he looked around for her, but she was nowhere in sight. Walking a circuit of his house he saw his barrow and tools were gone. Returning inside he saw his crossbow and machete were still where he had left them. He doubted she would have any problem with mantids or any other creatures she might encounter in the wilds. But why had she gone?

  Next he eyed the sun, now halfway to zenith. So much had happened he had neglected to go for his usual morning food collection. All he had left was blue potatoes and too much mantid meat. It would have to be enough for now since its importance had dropped to irrelevance. He considered topping up the water tank and emptying the sewer tank. Neither of those jobs were really required, but they would keep him busy. But then he shelved the idea, remembering her comment about his heart going pop. Silly to kill himself when suddenly it seemed he had a chance of life. He made coffee from his dwindling supply and sat outside watching the plain for some sign of her, though he had no idea if that was where she had gone. Finally, with a bank of cloud rising on the horizon and wisps of it crossing the face of the sun, as he sipped his third cup of coffee, he saw her coming back.

  Anna was pushing a wheelbarrow improbably loaded with podules. At one point she turned to look at something and he saw she had his pack on, stuffed full, while bulging carry bags hung round her waist. She drew closer and closer and he noted that she had taken some of his supply of clothing: Grace’s envirosuit he had used for spares for his own until they ran out. As she drew closer still he saw that her face was now completely intact. He knew she hadn’t enough of the skin substrate to do her whole body and understood why she had concentrated on her face. Golem were usually cautious of scaring the humans – that was what their emulation was all about. She did have enough of the muscle substrate so likely had covered her body with that. She probably did not look that great naked.

  Finally she brought the wheelbarrow up to the house and put it down. He saw that two of the podules were the food variety while the other three where those filled with tech.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he commented.

  She nodded, picking up two podules with ease, going in through the door and putting them in the house. When she returned she had also dumped the pack and carry bags.

  ‘I went to have a look at the shuttle,’ she said.

  He stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘The shuttle is that way.’

  ‘I went there first.’

  He nodded, accepting that. He had to remember the reality of Golem and of emulation. She had probably run inhumanly fast to the shuttle first – probably there and back in less than an hour. The time she spent there to learn what she wanted to know had almost certainly been minimal with her ability to scan.

  ‘So what do you think of what you found?’

  ‘There are possibilities,’ she replied, fetched the last of the podules and took them in the house. He stood up and followed her inside and she continued, ‘It may be possible to repair the grav engine.’

  He considered that. Such a task was utterly beyond him but then he wasn’t a Golem. If it were possible then everything else followed. He could repair steering thrusters, one fusion drive nacelle and maybe the other with her help. But then what? The shuttle would only be capable of getting to orbit…

  ‘I wonder if the Falcon is still up there?’ he said.

  ‘That is something we must investigate, just as repairing the shuttle is something to investigate further. But all of this is irrelevant to you if you are dead.’ She stood by the table for a moment, then walked over and picked up one of the sacks. Out of this she took some dark roots he had once dug up and then been told by Snooper were inedible, and other plants he again recognised but had never utilised in any way. Taking these over to the kitchen area she cleaned them.

  ‘What are these?’ he asked.

  ‘Medicine,’ she replied. ‘It will help you until we can make more radical changes. Do you have a large container for liquid?’

  He went to the cupboard and searched out a smaller version of his bottle-bamboo buckets. By the time he brought it over she had pulled over the table and found one of his larger knives. Dumping the vegetation and roots on the table she began dicing, but so fast the knife was a blur and it sounded like an engine running. As she worked she discarded some items. Some were precisely the same as others she chopped almost to paste and he could not think why, but then realised she was measuring the quantities. The paste went into the bucket, which she then filled to halfway with water, and stirred with a knife.

  ‘Let it stand for one hour, stir it again, then fill the cup you were using to the brim. Drink it all and then drink the same every eight hours.’

  ‘What will it do?’

  ‘It will ameliorate the pain and thin your blood. It also has anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties for the microbes of Afthonia. It will reduce the bacterial infections and help with the lesions. It will also improve your intestinal biome.’

  ‘Right.’

  She put the knife to one side then crossed from the kitchen area to plug the charging lead back into her body.

  ‘I need to recharge and continue with self-repair now. I will be temporarily shut down.’ She sat down in the chair by the table.

  ‘Shut down?’ he enquired.

  She acknowledged that with a nod. ‘My focus will be inward and most of my processing taken up with nanotech programming and repairs.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Her head dipped and she became completely still.

  Ben stared at her as if expecting something further, then turned away to be about some chores. He first checked the time and set the almanac to sound a bell in one hour, then dismantled the food podules and filled his fridge. He had just finished that when the almanac rang its bell. Fetching his cup he filled it, then remembering her instructions, tipped it back and stirred the c
ontents of the container. It looked like one of the vegetable soups he had made when boiled so often it had turned to slurry. Filling the cup again he braced himself then gulped down the whole cup before the expected awful taste hit him. It was bitter and dried his mouth out once it was down. His stomach seemed to just hang like a lead weight for a moment, as if in shock, and then it started grumbling and bubbling.

  He gritted his teeth, thinking he might throw up, but then pushed himself into motion again. Opening the remaining bags and the back pack, he cleaned the stuff she had picked or dug up and filled the fridge to bursting. Some he recognised as food and some he did not. It occurred to him then that being a resident Golem on Afthonia she probably had the equivalent of the almanac in her crystal mind, and much else besides. Glancing at Snooper, he wondered if he would ever need the robot again.

  Next he opened up the non-edible podules, began sorting and cleaning items to put them away. The first time he went over to the cupboards to squat down and put things inside, he noticed just how easy he found it – how little his knees and back hurt. Many items, liquids and pastes he left out – not sure if he should open up the ‘seeds’ containing substances he knew for maybe she had some use for them that required them to be sterile.

  He started to feel good, really good, and began cleaning and tidying his house. Before he knew it everything was back where it should be and he had swept the floor. Outside he further weeded his garden and considered, then dismissed the idea of planting some more potatoes. When he stood up, dizziness assailed him and a wave of sick weariness overcame him. Fool. He returned inside, prepared and ate some mantis meat and raw vegetables. This multiplied the weariness and he hardly remembered getting to his bed.

  ‘I have initiated fusion,’ she said.

  He stared up at her, utterly baffled, his eyes open but nothing going on behind them. He blinked, then remembered he had supposed she must have a fusion node in her capacitor battery. A good job thought arrived a moment later when he realised how dark it had become and how this would affect his solar panels. Panic arrived on top of that and he pushed himself up to swing his legs round to sit on the edge of the bed. He could hear a steady rumbling and hissing sound and could only think of hordes of mantids as dizziness and nausea arose driving a brief dry heave that set his eyes watering.