“Yes, I have Satomi’s recording,” the Golem replied. “I bring them both.”
Sverl was now torn. He wanted to go after Cvorn but he wanted Isobel Satomi and he wanted his ultimate goal of . . .
something
from Penny Royal.
“Take yourself to the Rock Pool,” he instructed, since that world lay about midway between the transmission point of the Golem’s signal and his present location. “I must consider this.”
“Okay,” the Golem replied, seemingly unconcerned as it temporarily closed the link.
What to do?
“Father,” said Bsorol, now closing up the armour of the war drone he had been working on, “I’ve been thinking about Cvorn.”
“Me too,” interjected Bsectil, now in the corridor just inside the airlock, trying to straighten out the dented lid of his tool chest.
“And you’ve been thinking about Cvorn in connection with yourselves, haven’t you?”
“Augmentation,” they both said simultaneously.
Sverl was pleased with their reasoning.
“What do you suggest?” he asked.
“One has to go back to first principles and consider why you want to eliminate Cvorn,” said Bsorol.
That was very, very unpradorishly rational.
Sverl glanced at those screens showing the human population aboard and realized that Bsorol had grasped the main point. Sverl wanted to kill Cvorn because of the threat that prador posed to this adopted population. However, Cvorn was likely a bigger threat now than before, and to follow him would probably put this population, and Sverl himself, in even greater danger. But protecting this population was not all of Sverl’s aim. He was still prador enough to want vengeance for Cvorn’s attack on him and for the lives already lost. Still torn, he now considered telling the Golem to come to his present location, so he could take it and Trent aboard and still go after Cvorn. The other prador might or might not have augmented himself and might or might not have set an effective trap. There was only one way—
What now?
His sensors had picked up a U-space signature. Through his AI component, Sverl initiated the chameleonware throughout his ship and took direct control of all its weapons. Was this the jaws of Cvorn’s trap closing?
“Crew, get to battle stations,” he generally ordered, but even as they scuttled to obey, something unexpected materialized into the real.
Sverl studied the old-style Polity destroyer and analysed it as no threat to him, just before he recognized the ship itself. No, this was no attack from Cvorn, but it might be the answer he needed. He opened up a coded U-space link to it—one established long ago to a resource within that attack ship.
“Hello, Dad,” a voice immediately replied. “What can I do for you?”
Sverl updated from Flute’s mind, quickly incorporating all the events that had occurred aboard the ship the second-child mind controlled, sucking the data into his AI crystal in a matter of seconds, meanwhile ensuring he had Flute under absolute control. It was only as that data began to incorporate across the interface to his organic brain that Sverl experienced a visceral reaction. He seized control of ship’s weapons, charged capacitors and even ignited the drive of one missile. He stood just a microsecond away from obliterating the destroyer out there before he managed to get a grip on himself and cancel what would have been a mass attack. To coin a phrase from Arrowsmith, using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.
Riss . . .
That was the drone’s name. That was the name of this snakelike artificial version of a parasite the prador had wiped out centuries ago. That was the very thing that had attacked Sverl all those years ago during the war. Sverl knew because during his exile on the Rock Pool he had used Polity resources to obtain its name, but had never been able to locate it physically. That was the creature that had laid eggs inside his body; the parasites hatching out and nearly destroying him. The process of removing them had been long and agonizing and left him crippled. Gazing from one of the Polity destroyer’s internal cams, Sverl could not shake his atavistic horror of that drone, and the urge to destroy that ship had not gone away.
“Father?” Flute prompted.
Sverl realized the silence had gone on uncomfortably long. “So Thorvald Spear is following me?” he enquired.
“He is,” replied Flute.
“In the hope that I will bring him closer to Penny Royal?”
Flute took some time replying, struggling against the control Sverl exerted, his loyalties divided. Eventually he gave up. “Yes.”
“The signal should be easy enough to follow,” said Sverl. “You will note that the relay on the nearby asteroid now clearly indicates where it is routing its U-space signal?”
“Yeah, I spotted that,” Flute replied.
“Then follow it, and keep me informed of what you find.”
“You’re not going there?”
“I suspect a trap, and I want to know precisely the nature of that trap,” said Sverl. “Inform me of what you find. If necessary, provoke a response there to clarify the matter. And inform no one aboard of our exchange.”
Flute just emitted a frustrated buzzing in reply.
Sverl’s control of the mind at the other end of this exchange was rigid, and Flute would be unable to disobey, at least for a while. However, Sverl was wise enough to know that a second-child mind with AI enhancements, given enough time, could eventually find some route around rigid orders. Flute would not be given the time.
Sverl now laid in a new course for his ship and opened up his unshielded fusion drive while dropping the chameleonware. However, he did ensure that the other ship could not divine his destination from his dreadnought’s U-space signature as he dropped into that continuum and took himself back towards the Rock Pool.
He had always made sure of a back door into the second-child minds he had sold because of the chance he might be able to use them later. Flute had now proved the worth of that strategy. Flute, and the ship he ran, would follow Cvorn’s signal, while Spear and that disgusting drone would think they were in close pursuit of Sverl. They would spring Cvorn’s trap because, even if that prador could manage to resist attacking such a small Polity vessel, Flute would now force the issue. Flute would probably have time to send a final report back to Sverl.
Probably.
CVORN
The work was proceeding as expected, with ship’s lasers scouring away rock so the ST dreadnought could fit neatly into the hollow moon. As he watched this on his array of screens, Cvorn experienced momentary pain and turned one stalk eye to peer at the human blank working with a shell saw on the side of his carapace, quickly stamping on the urge to shove the creature up against the wall and crush it. It was a silly urge, akin to trashing a laser cutter because it had splashed hot metal into a claw joint. The blank was working to a program Cvorn had created, and he had expected pain at this point since it had just levered out a chunk of scar carapace formed in the socket where one of his legs had once connected to his body. However, the urge was partial confirmation of his theory about the odd feelings he had been experiencing since coming aboard. He just needed to do a little further checking to confirm that theory.
He now brought up new feeds on his screens and contemplated cam views into the laying pool, reminding himself to have the females scoured out so they might take his own seed. He felt a ghost of his mating urge return, a twitching in the remains of his sexual organs and a sense of regret at the fact that one of his children would have to inject his seed mechanically. Analytically he compared this reaction to the one he had experienced while viewing these females at a distance from his destroyer, and saw the difference. This was further confirmation of his hypothesis.
Lastly, he carefully studied the analysis, now scrolling diagonally across his screens, of the ST dreadnought’s air supply and simultaneously checked studies of prador physiology he’d loaded to his aug. Yes, that settled it. The dreadnought’s air was full of the hormonal output of five young males and those females. He was breathing in complex organic compounds generated by decades of frustration in the five males having been satisfied, also by sexually active females, and now by the frustration once again growing in the males. It was a situation rare in the Kingdom because adult males tended to isolate themselves, and Cvorn only found final confirmation in some very old studies. The potent mix in the air was making him feel younger; he was having feelings he hadn’t experienced for well over a century.
Cvorn now ordered the blank working on his carapace to withdraw as he rose up on his grav-plates and swung round from the screens to face his other blank and Vrom, who were both at work. Ensconced in the hemispherical shell of a surgical telefactor, its complex multiple limbs working busily, Vrom was removing the last prosthetic limb from the corpse of this ship’s previous captain. Meanwhile, the other blank was working on the limbs Vrom had just removed, replacing worn components and renewing the nano-fibre connectors.
With a thought, as he settled back to the floor, Cvorn ordered the first blank back to work on his carapace, exposing the flesh, blood vessels and stunted nerves underneath the scar carapace filling his leg sockets. He knew that this wish to be able to walk again, even on prosthetic limbs, was down to that potent mix in the air, but he didn’t fight it. He could have had the Five, and the females, isolated, and the air filtered and cleaned of organics, but did not. Despite some irrational impulses, he was enjoying feeling so alive.
Steadily and methodically, the first blank worked round all his leg sockets, shut down the shell saw and replaced it in its charging point in the telefactor, then returned to pick up the chunks of scar carapace and take them away. Meanwhile Vrom had removed the last leg from the corpse. The blank now came back to clean out Cvorn’s open wounds with antiviral and antibacterial spray, also washing out the shell dust. Cvorn clattered his mandibles, again suppressed the urge to kill something and waited for the ensuing analgesic sprays.
“Would you like to be an adult, Vrom?” he abruptly asked.
Without stopping work, Vrom replied, “Only if my father wishes it so.”
Vrom was as obedient as a blank and Cvorn suddenly found that irritating. Again, analysing his irrational reaction, Cvorn could make no clear connection with those hormonal effects. His irritation stemmed from boredom with such an expected response. Vrom was following his program, just like the blank now coming over with a prosthetic limb ready for fitting. Cvorn divided his attention, simultaneously watching this blank while also focusing through his aug on input from both inside and outside the ship.
The Five, confined to their various sections within the ship, were all very active. They were searching data, disassembling and reassembling equipment including weapons, checking cam views available to them, and sometimes just running around aimlessly. These actions were all an outward expression of their inner frustration, which Cvorn studied via his Dracocorp aug domination of them. They could smell the females and wanted to mate but his instruction, firm in their minds, was as solid a barrier as the locked doors around them. They were now aware of how thoroughly he controlled them, fought against it in their own ways and really wanted to
do
something, but just kept running up against that dominance and finding themselves unable to act. And their hormonal output was like smoke from smouldering corpses on a battlefield.
As Cvorn now watched the enlargement of the hole into the asteroid, he rejected his earlier plans to simply dispense with the Five. Right now, he wanted them frustrated and pumping out all those lovely organics. Perhaps later, when he had made some complete analysis of this process and could artificially produce what they were producing, he’d get rid of them, but not yet.
With coincidental simultaneity, the dreadnought slid into the asteroid at the same time as Cvorn’s first new limb slid into its socket in his body. As the great ship stabilized, extending telescopic feet to the surrounding rock walls, the blank shell-welded the limb into place. As the ship, using grav-motors, incrementally turned the rock to the required position, the nano-fibres began to penetrate inside Cvorn and find their nerve attachment points. And by the time the ship’s forward array of weapons was pointing out of the hole in the asteroid towards the planet, a blank attached the last of Cvorn’s new limbs.
As the effect of the analgesics faded, the pain returned, now a deep raw ache. He tried supporting his weight on his limbs but couldn’t manage it and collapsed. He lay there until he began using his aug to stimulate near-atrophied parts of his brain until he remembered
how
to walk. Gradually, stupidly, these alien limbs began to move. And then to work properly. Once up on his feet and moving, he clattered fierce delight. He used one claw to smash away the blank that had been fitting the limbs and spun round to again face his screens. He was ready now: ready for Sverl, ready for anything!
6
BLITE
As he opened the outer door of one of
The Rose
’s airlocks, Blite tried to remember the last time he had taken a spacewalk like this, but the memory evaded him for a moment. He propelled himself out, then, with a blast from his wrist impeller, back down to the hull, engaging his gecko soles and then reeling out his safety line to attach it to a loop beside the airlock. Now he remembered his last spacewalk. Many solstan years ago, he had come out here to check the hull for attached trackers. Micrometeorites had conveniently destroyed exterior cams while
The Rose
was in parking orbit of the moon on which he had been conducting their latest trade. He’d found the trackers too, and used them to give the thief who had put them there a nasty surprise. But there were no cams out here now. That beam blast that had hit the ship as they escaped from the Par Avion space station had incinerated them.
The burn started halfway along
The Rose
’s hull. Blite walked to the edge of the metre-wide trench carved down through six inches of armour and into the foamed ceramic insulation beneath. He walked along the edge of this, circumventing where it had gone deep enough to activate the breech sealant circuit and where that sealant had grown a great bubble of the vacuum-set foam like some huge fungus. Beyond this, he reached the section of hull over the engine room. He knew where he was because he could now see the wreckage inside.