Authors: Neal Asher
‘We’re closer than I thought,’ said Ron.
Janer glanced at him, then at Forlam who was now showing some interest, and staring at the metal post. ‘Perimeter,’ the crewman managed to utter.
‘What is it?’ asked Janer, puzzled.
‘Slave post,’ said Ambel.
Janer was still none the wiser, but he saw Erlin nodding in understanding. Before he could ask her what Ambel was talking about, the Captain led them out of the dingle, and she had moved back to
escort Forlam.
They came out on to the crest of a hill sloping down to a valley. Below them, a river rumbled between red-brown boulders. On the other side of this stood structures built of the same stone: tall
many-windowed buildings sprawled like a disjointed medieval fort. Crenellated walls stretched between them and there were signs, under thick vegetation, of what had once been a moat. To one side
the ground had been levelled, and the vegetation there was having trouble getting a hold on the glassy surface. A wrecked landing craft of very old design stood decaying on that same surface.
Janer moved up beside Ambel and stared.
‘Hoophold,’ said the Captain.
‘And those posts?’ Janer queried, gesturing behind with his thumb.
‘The posts broadcast a signal to activate the explosive collars his captives and slaves wore. Here was where he kept them imprisoned, then cored them, and from here he shipped them out to
the Prador,’ Ambel explained.
‘You think that . . . the Skinner has come back here?’ Janer said.
‘I don’t have to think,’ said Ambel, and pointed.
Squatting on a merlon of the nearest stretch of wall was something that could have been taken for a gargoyle – until it shifted its position and briefly opened its stubby wings. The head
of Spatterjay Hoop was watching them approach.
It all came down to Prador politics, the Warden realized now. It continued observing through the many eyes of the enforcer drones below, and saw the ships of the Convocation
fleet moving towards the Skinner’s Island, and far ahead of them the ship Frisk had siezed. Of course: Ebulan wanted all living witnesses dead so he could claw back power in the Third
Kingdom. One large explosion, when that fleet reached the island, and all the Prador’s problems, here at least, would be solved.
‘SM Twelve, I want four enforcers to get between the main fleet and that ship. If it shows any sign of moving from its present location I want it destroyed.’
Accessing Windcheater’s server took a little while longer, as the sail was deep into studying a political history of Earth and obviously quite fascinated. Though it might cause Windcheater
a headache, the Warden broke the sail’s connection and linked in.
‘Windcheater.’
‘Yes, what, wadda y’want?’ snapped the disgruntled sail.
‘I want you to tell Captain Sprage that he should halt the fleet at least ten kilometres out from the Skinner’s Island. I myself will inform those captains who possess radios or
augs.’
‘And why should I tell him that?’ asked the sail, still irritated.
‘Because if you do not, that whole fleet – and you yourself – will end up as a crust of ash spreading on the ocean.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I think it highly likely that waiting for that fleet at the Skinner’s Island is a CTD. You should have no trouble finding information on such devices through your aug. If
you do have trouble, then try “contra-terrene device”.’
As the Warden withdrew, Windcheater had no trouble locating an encyclopaedia entry concerning CTDs. After reading it carefully he suddenly felt very vulnerable and very small.
Snapping his head up from the deck he tried to locate Sprage. However, the Captain was in his cabin, so the sail shifted his head up behind Olian, who stood at the rail gazing out at the growing
number of ships. He nudged her in the back with his snout.
‘What is it, Windcheater?’ Olian asked him.
‘Did you know,’ said the sail, ‘that a CTD the size of a coffee flask can erase an entire city?’
‘That’s common knowledge to us, and we’ve lived with it for centuries now. Did you know that during the Prador war five entire planets were destroyed with them?’
Windcheater went slightly cross-eyed for a moment. ‘This fleet must not get closer than ten kilometres to the island, so the Warden warns. He claims there’s a CTD waiting for it
there. I suppose it will be a relatively small-yield device, but even that’s too much. I think that if we continue to move any closer I’ll consider my contract void and get straight out
of here.’
Olian’s face went a little white as what the sail had just told her slowly impacted. She pushed herself back from the rail and hurried to Sprage’s cabin.
Windcheater lifted his head higher to scan the many ships now under sail. Eighteen so far. He thought deep and hard about all of the things he had learnt over the last few days. There was the
Polity, huge and embracing thousands of worlds; there was the Prador Third Kingdom; and beyond these there was probably an awful lot more. His own kind, he realized, needed to gain some real
leverage – in terms of political, economic, and possibly military power. Not so they could become major players in the grand scheme of things, but just to make sure that others would not
inadvertently wipe them out.
And, so brooding, Windcheater began to make plans for
his
people and
his
world.
The huge whelk shell was now nearly empty of flesh and the heirodont felt sated enough to return to the depths. Soon all the leeches clinging to its surface would be
turned to mere threads by increasing pressure and, unable to feed, would detach and rise back to the surface. For the heirodont, leeches represented the bane of its life: never having evolved
the nerveless fleshy covering of turbul or boxies, it was put in constant pain by the onslaughts of smaller leeches, and could even be killed by some of the larger ones. This last danger should
perhaps have made it more observant of its surroundings but, though intelligent enough to know that this giant whelk had been the same one that had evaded it earlier, it was also stupid enough
to concentrate on its meal too closely. It still had its nose deep inside the cavernous shell, tatters of flesh hanging about it like cave moss, when an enormous leech struck it from the
side.
SM3 likened its appearance to a Harrier jump-jet, an ancient flying machine it had spotted on an ‘historical weapons’ site, but SM4 argued, on surveying the same
site, that it looked more like a helicopter gunship. At their inception, the two subminds had not possessed sufficient mental differences from each other to have anything to debate, but as the
hours rolled on they slowly began to develop individuality.
‘Why do you think the boss put that nancy in charge of us?’ Three asked its companion as they searched their assigned sector.
‘Well,’ said Four, who was becoming the more dominant of the two enforcer-drones, ‘I reckon it’s all down to prior physical experience of this world. We got the
programming but we ain’t got the experience.’
Flexing its nacelles, Three harrumphed.
‘Yeah, Twelve might have done a bit more than us, but it ain’t got the firepower.’
Four, who had been playing ‘devil’s advocate’, moved into the defensive. ‘It’s not all about what you can do, but about what you can understand.’ Even as it
said this, the drone was not quite sure what it meant.
‘Twelve might have more experience of the physical world, but he sure ain’t got the watts to handle it. That’s what
we’re
for,’ argued Three.
‘Well,’ began Four – and then fell silent for a moment. ‘Did you get that?’
‘Sure did!’ said Three excitedly.
The enforcer drones dropped low, and decelerated on ribbed fusion flames. Below them, the sea was kicked up in two tracks of white spray when they turned as one to nose back along the course
they had been following. They moved more slowly now and slid apart, their dishes and antennae swivelling as if scenting prey.
‘There: underspace signature,’ said Four with satisfaction.
The drones turned again and hovered over the seawater like a couple of wasps zeroing in on a fizzy drink. They bobbed in the air as they attempted to read something from the tightly beamed
signal – trying to pick something up from it by inductance, without interrupting it.
‘We
have
something!’ Four bellowed across the ether.
Flashes of quaternary code flashed through from their receivers, as they tried to nail down some sequence of the code.
‘Direct transmit all you are receiving,’ SM12 instructed them.
‘We’re getting it!’ shouted Three, as it tried to pull together something coherent to pass on. Then, ‘What’s that?’
Four did not get a chance to answer its companion, as a black line cut from the surface of the sea directly towards SM3. The drone fragmented round a disk of light, its weapon nacelles
cartwheeling across the waves. Four blasted away from the surface, and something detonated below it. Then, to one side, a Prador war drone broke from the surface and headed towards it. Four
released two seeker missiles and planed away. One missile exploded way out of range, but the remaining one blew just ten metres from the Prador drone and swallowed it in fire. Four slowed then
abruptly accelerated, as the Prador drone came through that flame with only a coating of soot on its armoured skin.
‘You cannot survive,’ the Prador drone transmitted.
Two missiles came shooting after Four like hunting garfish. The drone blasted higher, only to be slammed sideways as its path intersected that of a stream of rail-gun fire. Pieces fell from
Four’s body as it tried to swerve out of the way of this hammering fusillade. But the gunfire tracked it, and the drone could do nothing but sling power into its fusion engine. The EM shell
extinguished the drone’s engine only fractions of a second before the two missiles came up at it from below. Four didn’t even see them. It disappeared in a double explosion, nothing of
it larger than a fingernail surviving the twin blasts.
The shore was already in sight as the rhinoworm chose its moment to attack. It thumped against the scooter, slewing it sideways, and its beaked mouth clamped over Roach’s
foot. Roach let out a yell, and promptly dropped Keech’s antiphoton weapon into the water. Keech reached over and caught hold of Roach’s jacket, while Boris lunged over the
driver’s seat to link his arms around Roach’s chest.
‘Shoot the fucking thing!’ Keech yelled at Boris.
‘I can’t! He’ll go in!’
Keech swore, and tried reaching for the weapon in Boris’s belt.
‘I ain’t going! I ain’t going!’ Roach yelled.
‘Hang on!’ Boris yelled pointlessly.
Keech’s arm felt leaden as he tried to move it with its cybermotors, then his face became a mask of pain as something crunched in his wrist. He finally managed to pull the weapon free and
aim it at the rhinoworm.
‘Damn! I can’t pull the trigger! Try to hold him aboard!’
Keech released his hold and swapped the weapon to his right hand. Boris, still holding on to Roach, was dragged over the seat when the worm tried to haul his companion into the sea.
Keech’s first shot burnt a hole into the worm’s head. It paused in its tugging only to blink at them, then started pulling again. Keech fired again, then a third time, opening a smoking
crater in the bone between the worm’ s eyes. Abruptly the creature released its prey and rose up out of the water like a cobra about to strike. Keech took aim at the underside of its head:
one shot that blew open something soft and yellow. The worm went rigid, coughed, then dropped into the sea like a puppet with its strings cut.
‘I told you I weren’t going!’ Roach shouted at the creature floating limply beside the scooter.
‘Oh shit,’ said Boris, staring in another direction.
Keech and Roach turned and gaped at the approaching mound of molly carp.
‘This isn’t going to stop it,’ said Keech, holding up his pulse-gun. ‘What we need is something like my APW.’ He glared accusingly at Roach, who tried his best not
to look sneaky.
‘I can’t help it. Me arm ain’t working properly,’ the crewman protested.
‘This is it, then,’ muttered Boris.
The molly carp surged up to the scooter, but turned at the last moment and snapped up the rhinoworm. Because of its unusual mode of propulsion, it was able to stop dead once it had hold of its
prey. It rested right beside the stationary scooter watching the occupants with one eye while it noisily munched on the rhinoworm’s head.
‘Nice molly,’ soothed Roach, while Keech tried to generate enough AG to lift them clear of the waves that were beginning to swamp his vehicle. The motor merely whined and grated.
‘Sprzzck burnt-out, safe Sniper,’ said SM13 from under the seat.
‘Can you give us more lift?’ Keech asked it quietly.
The SM thumped against the seat’s underside and jerked the scooter free of the waves. Roach swore as he nearly fell off again, but pulled himself back on while muttering about
‘talking lumps of scrap’. Keech eyed the molly carp as he reached for the tap that fed pure water to the one working thruster. He opened the tap and the thruster coughed and began to
smoke. As areas of it began to turn red hot, Boris hurriedly shifted his feet off it.
‘What about thrust?’ Keech whispered.
‘No chance,’ said SM13.
The thruster coughed again, and spat out something that skated hissing across the surface of the sea before it sank.
‘There goes the grid,’ said Keech.
The thruster began to belch steam and pure water started to pour out of it. Keech took his hand away from the tap and watched this steady stream.
‘Might as well leave that tap on. It’ll bring our weight down.’ He leaned over and peered under his seat at the SM. ‘You’re all that’s left now. I suggest you
try something.’
‘It’s finished eating,’ said Roach.
The three of them glanced over at the molly carp as it sucked in the last bit of the worm’s tail. About now, thought Keech, it should belch loudly. The carp did nothing so amusing. Instead
it turned towards the scooter, with a movement so abrupt it appeared surprised by it itself, and came shooting at it head on. Before Keech could raise his pulse-gun and fire, the creature struck
the scooter and propelled it over the waves. A second time it rammed against the scooter, still driving it before it.