3
Those who wonder why naturally exoskeletal creatures would want to clad themselves in yet further layers of armour obviously do not understand the psychology of adolescent Prador. Humans want to own their own homes, which they will furnish and decorate to their own taste; on more primitive worlds they will even put locks on the doors and windows, install home defences and alarms. But adolescent Prador do not have homes as such. For them the territory they can call their own lies within their own shells, and can only be extended by adding extra layers. Aware of their tenuous hold on life, they forever strive to build up their mobile defences and therefore gladly rather than reluctantly accept the armour provided for them by their controlling parent, and so believe themselves just that little bit safer. Each armoured Prador is its own fortress; yet each has a back door open to that same controlling parent – a door that is invariably used.
– MODERN WARFARE lecture notes from E.B.S. Heinlein
Sniper clings tight to the great scaly flank of the Gurnard, with Thirteen affixed by his tail to his shell. At first Sniper could not understand why the ship’s AI did not inform the vessel’s captain of their presence but, after scanning that shuttle as it headed over to Montmartre, he now understands.
‘I don’t suppose he’d be overjoyed to see me,’ says the big drone.
‘That is my own assessment of the situation,’ replies Gurnard.
Back on Spatterjay, Sniper once saw Captain Orbus from a distance as he himself, still in his old drone shell, was trading illegal artefacts on the Island of Chel. Knowing the Captain’s reputation, he did not bother approaching him to check if there was anything he might buy or sell. During his ten years as Warden of Spatterjay, Sniper had gained access to Polity files on Orbus and found them very interesting reading. The man was a sadist and though little evidence was available, seemed more than likely to be a murderer too. Later, rehoused in his present form, Sniper was ordered to search an area of the ocean for a particular Golem android the Polity AIs were worried about, and Captain Orbus’s ship, the Vignette, lay within that same search area. The Captain, not being the most stable of characters, rejected Sniper’s request to be allowed to search his ship, in fact objecting most strongly with a pulse rifle and flexal bullwhip. Sniper, always robust in his response to that kind of objection, left the Captain tied by the ankles to a cross-spar with his own bullwhip. Of course, later he rescued Orbus and some of his crew from Vrell’s spaceship as it surfaced from the ocean depths, but Sniper doubts that the Captain is the kind to take that favour into account, even if he had been in any fit condition to know what was going on.
‘But he’s all recovered now?’ Sniper enquires.
‘Apparently,’ says Gurnard. ‘According an assessment of him, made by the other Old Captains, the traumatic events he suffered on Spatterjay have allowed him to recover his sanity. Perhaps that is a debatable point, for it seems likely his mental illness was abating anyway, and those events just expedited the process.’
‘So he might be okay with me?’
‘He may no longer be fighting the nightmares of his past, and he may no longer be submerged in that sick world he created for himself on the Vignette . . .’
‘But?’
‘He might indeed be regarded as sane, but that does not guarantee he has suddenly turned non-violent and sweet-natured.’ The AI pauses as if considering something else. ‘I think it best he does not know about you for the present. However, I think it will be a good idea for you to be ready to back him up – as it seems likely that the situation here is more dangerous than one might suppose. I want you to locate the Prador carapace we are here to collect, and probe that station thoroughly – assess the true situation there. I cannot get clear readings because there’s too much exotic metal armour in the way.’
‘An Old Captain who needs back-up?’ exclaimes Thirteen disbelievingly, and is instantly shushed by Sniper over their private channel.
With a shove of his tentacles, Sniper now propels himself away from the Gurnard’s hull. Twenty yards out, he engages his chameleonware, whereupon he and Thirteen disappear from sight. Under the effect of that shield, he fires off simple chemical propellant thrusters and speeds towards the station.
‘Dodgy,’ says Thirteen, coming back on that private channel to Sniper.
‘Bloody right,’ Sniper replies. ‘That Gurnard is up to something, and it ain’t just about collecting some shit for a museum.’
‘No Polity warships allowed here,’ Thirteen observes. ‘Nor any Prador warships either.’
‘Exactly,’ says Sniper.
Of course, he has been manipulated. Any AI of sufficient ability could have predicted how Sniper would react to being called in for ‘assessment’, and that he would rapidly be using his contacts in the illegal artefacts trade to find a way offworld. That same AI would probably be aware that the Gurnard was the only ship currently in orbit about Spatterjay which was taking on such cargo. Sniper is now precisely where some Polity AI wants him and, that being so, some sort of shit is about to hit the fan, because no AI will employ Sniper if a talent for diplomacy or advanced macramé is required. He focuses his attention on the station lying ahead and studies it intently.
Montmartre, though essentially a conglomerate of junk built up over centuries, has certainly been refined in recent years, bound together more securely, rebuilt in sections, combined into more of a single unit. Its main body is essentially spherical – now even more so since large segments of Prador exotic metal armour have been affixed around the outside – but with spindleward towers and one long extrusion at the equator containing carrier shells converted into docking facilities. Sniper avoids the carrier shells, because most of the station sensors cluster about them, and heads instead directly towards one of those sections of exotic metal attached to the main body. A couple of squirts of his thrusters soon bring him to a near-standstill in relation to the station, and he stretches out one tentacle to grasp the edge of what was once a laser com port in the Prador ship this expanse of brassy metal was salvaged from. He pulls himself in, drags himself across the surface like some huge space snail, and peers over the rim of the armour.
Support frameworks curve from the armour’s edge right round to the next segment of armour nearly half a mile away. Sniper surmises that the intention here is to eventually cover the entire station with this stuff, as and when it becomes available. Directly below this rim lies the curve of an old bubble unit, then other curves, as well as interconnecting tunnels, the occasional converted spaceship, or even a section of some other space station: in fact a great complex of airtight habitats folded into this one ball and secured with bubble-metal beams. There are also signs of further construction in progress – the intervening spaces being gradually enclosed.
‘Ooh, looky looky,’ says Thirteen.
‘What?’
The little drone detaches from Sniper’s shell, impelled by compressed air jets, and settles down to the edge of the armour. His seahorse tail then divides, one half of it grasping a nearby bolt head, the other tapping against a casting flash along the edge of the armour section. ‘That shouldn’t be there.’
Sniper ups his magnification and studies the line running along the armour edge. It is ragged and sharp, but if this huge chunk of metal was retrieved from some wreck, that ridge should have been neatly ground away because, when being installed on a ship, these sections must butt up against each other with micrometric precision.
‘Could have been a dreadnought under construction,’ Sniper suggests.
‘I suppose,’ Thirteen replies grudgingly.
Sniper now pulls himself across the armour’s edge, and worms down into the station structure just as far in as he can fit himself. Once past the layer of exotic metal, he finds it easier to scan deep into what lies ahead, and there finds things much as expected. Even the scan shielding covering many areas, so that they appear very hazy under scrutiny, is entirely in keeping with the kind of people who live or trade here. Doubtless the Prador carapace currently resides in one of those shielded areas, and it will be difficult for the drones to see what happens to the Captain should he enter one of them.
‘Looks like a lot of dirty secrets in there,’ remarks Thirteen, presently linked into and riding on Sniper’s more powerful scanners.
‘Looks like you‘ll have to go inside,’ Sniper rejoins.
‘Yeah,’ says the little drone, ‘I thought so.’
Scanning in his immediate vicinity Sniper locates the positions of all the nearby station sensors and personnel. Below the bubble unit lies a very large enclosed area divided into accommodation for tenants, and an internal street lined with shops and other commercial establishments, behind which stand warehouses, but not the storage facility they seek, for this warehousing seems entirely packed with crates of spaceship components. Numerous blind spots are available, and Sniper chooses an apparently little-used tunnel connecting the warehousing to a large shop rising five floors tall.
‘Over there,’ he says, indicating in memory space that location to Thirteen. ‘You shouldn’t have too much trouble since there are free drones aboard.’
‘Right,’ says Thirteen doubtfully.
Sniper reaches out and sets the spatulate end of one of his two larger tentacles against the bubble-metal beam presently blocking his progress. The edge of the spatula begins vibrating at high speed, microscopic chainglass teeth running round it on a series of threadlike belts. Throwing out a stream of powder, it slices easily through the beam just there, and then at a point lower down. Sniper moves the cut-out section to one side and drifts on through, before replacing it behind him and fixing it in position with a squirt of vacuum-hardening epoxy. Cutting through two more beams similarly, and bending off to one side a duct containing fibre optics, he finally arrives above the connecting tunnel.
‘Okay, inside,’ he orders the little drone.
Thirteen sighs, but knows precisely what is required. Sniper withdraws his head and tentacles inside his big nautiloid shell, in order to make a space for his companion, and Thirteen positions himself within the mouth of the shell. Now Sniper presses that same mouth down against the roof of the tunnel, initiating a gecko seal about the shell’s rim and pumping air into the cavity Thirteen now huddles inside. This is to bring the pressure in there up to the same as that found within the tunnel, because station sensors are especially sensitive to any changes in air pressure, since any such variance aboard a space station is always a serious matter. Thirteen meanwhile coils himself up tight whilst Sniper uses that spatulate tentacle to cut through the tunnel wall and lower a disc of it down inside. Thirteen uncoils and floats down inside the tunnel.
‘Find Orbus and stick with him,’ Sniper advises. ‘I’ll stay in contact and keep watch, but I’m also going to have a nose-around myself.’
‘If I get too close to him, he might recognize me.’
‘Not a problem so long as you stay out of reach of that bullwhip of his.’ Sniper pulls the disc back up into place, and starts applying an epoxy that sets quickly in atmosphere. Floating on AG, Thirteen drifts off down the tunnel below, muttering to himself.
Within the cramped space, Vrell touches a control on the side of the toolbox, whereupon it settles to the floor and unfolds to display its varied contents. Now studying his surroundings more intently, the Prador begins to identify the purpose of the superconducting cables, the ducts containing fibre optics, the computer components and other hardware here. He reaches out and takes up a small diamond saw, chooses one particular duct and, with extreme care, cuts through its casing, removing a yard-long section to expose the mass of fibre-optic cables inside. Many of these are colour-coded, and from his memory of the ship’s schematics he picks out those he does not need and eases them to one side. Fifteen cables remain. Next he takes up a ring-shaped external optic interface and plugs its own optic feed into his harness CPU, before snapping open the ring and closing it about the first cable. Prador computer language – blocky hieroglyphs – begins running diagonally across his mask’s screen, and after studying these for a moment he realizes they aren’t encoded, so this optic is not the one he requires. Taking a moment more to study the glyphs, he sees that this feed is simply data running into the Sanctum from the ship’s engines. He selects another cable and checks again, this time to report on the status of five of the ship’s fusion reactors. The eighth cable is the one he is after.
The computer code now running across his mask is supposed to be unbreakable, but he long ago learnt that there is no such thing as an unbreakable code. Vrell does not even bother copying it to his CPU memory, just memorizes it himself and applies his intellect to it. He runs code-breaking programs in his mind, discarding elements of them and altering them as he goes along. Eidetically clear in his mind is the Prador language, which includes text, sound and pheromones, and he runs perpetual comparison between the code and his language’s structure. This takes him an hour, and he wonders if he has cracked it as fast as Polity AIs would manage the same chore. Thereafter, Vrell does not even apply a translation program through his CPU, but simply reads the code directly. First he samples back to the moment he began memorizing and replays the communications in his mind.
‘. . . likely he is in that armour,’ Vrost has just finished saying.
‘We can’t go in there yet – it’s too hot even with armour,’ comes the reply, along with a pheromonal signature identifying the Prador concerned. Vrell sees how the Spatterjay viral mutation has distorted the signature from the norm. This is something he would never have spotted from the outside if he were a normal Prador receiving communications from one of the Guard. Obviously they translate their signatures for any com outside their own family, so as to keep their real nature hidden.
Next comes a data packet Vrell translates as readings from air samplers. Vrost must have studied this for a moment before saying, ‘Trace organics, but they could come from the Guard incinerated in there. I want you to try and find anything remaining of that suit and take direct samples.’
‘There won’t be anything left.’
Vrell is surprised at this comeback. Obviously the King’s Guard – these mutated second-children – are allowed more of a free rein than normal Prador, since conversations between second- and first-children of the latter kind usually consist simply of orders and direct obedience.
‘If you are concerned about losing more of your unit,’ says Vrost, ‘do not be. We are all dead anyway – because, with that nanite aboard, this ship will not be allowed back into the Kingdom and, since we know it slowly penetrates glathel seals, the extent of our lives is limited to three hours.’
Interesting. Vrell knows the nanite can penetrate some porous substances – but glathel seals? He does a high-speed analysis incorporating his knowledge of the hard rubbery substance his kind employ to make airtight seals, and comes to a rapid conclusion: the nanite cannot penetrate a static seal, but will work its way down through the laminated layers of that same substance while it is in movement, precisely as it is now being moved in the joints of the armoured suits worn by the Guard.
‘Why then is it necessary for us to find out if he is inside that suit?’ enquires the King’s Guard. ‘In two hours this ship, and we along with it, will cease to exist.’
Ah, thinks Vrell, Vrost himself hopes to find some way of surviving. For the seals about the Sanctum just might all be intact, he surmises, and are certainly static.
‘Because our father so instructs,’ replies Vrost. ‘Do your duty.’
Their father: King Oberon himself.
This particular communication closes down and for the ensuing hour only routine information packages are exchanged. From these Vrell puts together a mental image of the search now in progress: the Guard being sent one after another into the area devastated by the fusion-reactor explosion, then sickening in the perpetual sleet of radiation and withdrawing to find somewhere to curl up and die. Then, in present time, conies a communication Vrell recognizes as channelled through an exterior route.
‘That I can still obtain a response from your U-space communicator means you have disobeyed me,’ says someone. Vrell studies the complex pheromonal signature and, though recognizing some of the organic compounds as having a Prador as their source, know these are but a small proportion of the whole.
‘Father,’ replies Vrost, ‘I wish to ascertain that Vrell has either died aboard this ship or still remains aboard it when I detonate.’
So, that signature is King Oberon’s. Vrell studies it more intently, identifying those same distortions he saw in the signature of that member of the King’s Guard, but seeing even further distortions and a huge complexity that goes way beyond any mutation he has so far observed or himself experienced. However, does this mean anything more than that the King is making sure his signature is difficult to copy? Vrell feels it does. He does not know how old Vrost or any of the Guard here are, but certainly the King is over seven hundred years old. Who could know what he has become in that length of time?
‘If you had detonated, as instructed,’ replies Oberon, ‘Vrell would certainly have been inside. Obviously, throughout the long period of your watch over Spatterjay, you have gained a degree of independence from me and are able to disobey. This is now more than evident since the remote detonation code I sent to your ship from here has not worked.’
‘Father, Vrell cannot escape.’
‘Have you at least disabled all the U-space escape pods? Please tell me that you were able to follow that simple order?’
‘I have.’
‘Oh good.’
Vrell allows himself a Prador smile, which consists of twisting his mandibles to a particular angle normally used to gut a certain kind of crustacean considered a delicacy on homeworld. He is ambitious for a lot more than simple survival, and did not even consider taking that escape route; he will seize control of this ship or die.
‘Presently we are searching for traces of his remains, since he—’
The King interrupts. ‘I have studied the data. You will find no traces, for Vrell is almost certainly still alive, and probably even now somewhere near you.’
In the midst of this conversation comes a spurt of a very complex code. Vrell studies it intently but finds himself struggling to make any sense of it. He works at it harder, applying more and more of his mental capacity. Slowly he begins to make some headway and realizes that, oddly, this intricate code only contains a very simple message.
‘So, Vrell, doubtless you have intercepted this.’
Vrell suddenly feels very insecure and rises up higher on his legs, unclipping his particle cannon.
Oberon continues, ‘Despite my constant cautions to Vrost, he has become both arrogant and independent. He does not realize what you are and that, now you are aboard his ship, he cannot hope to survive. Though he disabled my option to destroy his ship remotely, he will certainly attempt to destroy both himself and his ship the moment your nanite penetrates his seals. But that’s not enough, is it?’
Thinking very fast, Vrell yanks the optic interface away. But he is not quick enough, for the virus the King now sends propagates through his CPU and blooms on the screen of his mask. His mind, having been closely applied to the previous code so as to uncover the message, is therefore receptive to the thing that now enters through his eyes and penetrates his brain. Vrell tries to control a sudden impulse to turn the particle cannon upon himself, then tries to disrupt the self-assembling worm in his head that starts his limbs jerking while it causes other organic reactions actually inside his body.
Managing to swing the cannon across he fires upon two particular superconducting cables, severing them so that their massive discharge of power arcs towards the floor. Knocking his mask aside, he directs his lower turret eyes at the hideously intense arc-light of the discharge, and shrieks as the front of his head smokes and his optic nerves burn out. Now, seeing only with his palp eyes, he closes a claw around the optics before him, tears them free, then smashes that same claw into the casing of one of the components of the Sanctum’s distributed computer network. That should now delay any destruct signal Vrost might send.
The worm in Vrell’s head, disrupted by the intense flash of light and the pain, starts to fall apart, and he shuts down selected parts of his mind to ensure this, though the rest of his mind notches up a number of gears and starts operating so fast it feels like it is beginning to burn. All the schematics he has memorized come to the forefront of his consciousness: all he understands about Prador technology, the materials of the ship around him, in fact just about everything he knows resurfaces for conscious perception, and he processes it to find a solution.
Swivelling round, Vrell reaches up and tears off the casing of another of those computer components, then tries to bring his limbs sufficiently under control so that he can reach inside with a small abrading tool clutched in one of his manipulatory hands. Finally, with delicate precision, he cuts across two miniature gold wires and presses them together, before turning again to grab up one of the superconducting cables by its insulating layer and then slam it into the side of a hydraulic fluid reservoir. Now he fires the particle cannon beyond the same container; aiming precise shots at twenty-three different locations on the wall, before hurling himself at it. The panel, its twenty-three rivets incinerated, collapses under his charge, and he falls through and down towards the floor twenty feet below. Even as he falls, he opens fire on the King’s Guard standing at the end of the corridor, concentrating on the magazine of a missile-launcher strapped on its back. The subsequent detonation slams the Guard into the side wall, but Vrell’s aim does not waver even as he lands, and further detonations send the armoured Prador tumbling further down the corridor, where it comes to rest, probably still alive but with its suit’s systems knocked out and the nanite doubtless already penetrating various damaged seals.
Vrell spins towards the big heavy doors of the Captain’s Sanctum and watches as, despite Vrost’s efforts to make sure they stay firmly closed, the doors begin to vibrate. Simple hydraulics: the power surging into the reservoir is heating it up and expanding the fluid, forcing it the wrong way against valves, then something finally gives and high-pressure fluid slams into the door cylinders, and the doors crash open. But, even as Vrell hurls himself forwards, some part of the worm still inside his head collapses into a different shape. It loses its impetus and becomes simply a message.
‘Next time, then, Vrell,’ says the King of the Prador Third Kingdom. ‘But now I’ll allow you to deliver my displeasure to Vrost.’
It takes away some of the pleasure of victory for Vrell to know that his real opponent is possibly even more lethal than himself.
Gazing up through the hollow core of Harper’s Cylinder, towards internal elevator tubes and a stair winding up around the internal wall, Orbus surmises that this cylinder was once the spin section of a very old ship – one built before grav-technology advanced sufficiently to become usable. Now, as part of this space station, it is like a tower block with grav operating from the lower end and with all sorts of commercial establishments lining the interior. Smith’s front office – with access to the storage area he owns, which is positioned just outside the Cylinder – lies somewhere near the top. However, Orbus has some business to conduct first at a place halfway up.
‘There’s a drone watching us,’ says Drooble.
Experiencing a moment of déjà vu, Orbus glances at his companion, then follows his gaze up and over to one side. There is indeed a drone up there, one made in the shape of a seahorse and presently clinging to the stair rail by its tail, but whether it is actually watching them is debatable. Now studying the thing, Orbus feels it is somehow familiar, but then everything possesses a degree of familiarity once you’ve been knocking about for over seven hundred years. More likely this is something Smith himself sent to watch them and, hopefully, that is all the two behind them are here for too.
‘Iannus,’ he says, ‘I think we should worry more about them.’ Orbus stabs a thumb over his shoulder at the two rather large individuals who have been trailing them since shortly after they boarded this station.
There is something he very much does not like about the way they move: a sort of wooden gait but with no unnecessary movement of any other parts of their bodies. He suspects they might be early-series Golem or some other make of android, but something niggles at his memory, some rather black areas of his memory.
Drooble glances over his shoulder at their two shadows. ‘Do you reckon we should go and have a word with them?’
Orbus heads for one of the elevator shafts. He doesn’t like drop-shafts but this should be okay because at least he’ll have something solid under his feet. ‘What will be achieved by having a word with them?’ He hits the call button and the doors ahead slide open. Stepping inside with Drooble close behind him, he quickly selects the floor he requires. The two big men pick up their pace, and Orbus studies them more closely through the still open doors. Both of them wear long heavy coats, baggy trousers and large boots. They also wear gloves, and pork-pie hats pulled low on their foreheads, and though gazing directly at both Orbus and Drooble, their meaty features express a kind of dead indifference. Orbus feels something crawl up his spine and for a moment that errant memory nearly surfaces. Then the elevator doors close, and he and Drooble are whisked upwards through Harper’s Cylinder.
Arriving at the floor they want, Orbus soon locates their first destination by the Anglic script scrawled above the double chain-glass doors, and even as he heads over, the doors slide open at his approach.
‘Captain,’ says the individual inside as, with a sigh of exoskeletal motors, she stands up from a very old-fashioned computer console. ‘You will understand, I hope, if I don’t shake your hand?’
Her skin is a yellowish orange, her long hair a silvery white, while her eyes possess a metallic glitter. Even the bulk of her exoskeleton cannot disguise how thin she is, for she is an Outlinker: a Human adapted to living in zero gravity, usually aboard one of the outlink stations that border the Polity. People like her can survive for an appreciable time in vacuum, being able to store a great deal of oxygen inside them and seal their bodies against zero pressure. However, her bones and muscles possess very little strength, so her fear of an Old Captain’s handshake is utterly comprehensible.
‘Not a problem, Reander,’ says Orbus with rote politeness, before reaching into his carry-all to pull out the ship’s slab.
She points to a small round table beside her console, then turns her attention towards Drooble, who is peering down into a glass-topped display box.
‘If you see anything you’re interested in, I’m sure I can give you a special price,’ she informs him.
The place is packed with hardware stowed on shelves that retreat into cobwebby darkness, while the mezzanine floor above, with steel stairs leading up to it, is stacked to the ceiling with boxes. There seems likely to be something here to excite interest in just about anyone.
While Reander is using an optic cable to connect the ship’s slab to her console, Orbus eyes a large reinforced-chainglass machete. He doesn’t require such an item to chop through the thick dingle of Spatterjay, but something deep down is telling him it might come in very useful, and soon.
‘Iannus,’ he warns. ‘Keep an eye out.’ He nods towards the door, and Drooble heads over that way, ostensibly to study a display case full of laser lighters just beside it.
Reander watches this exchange just for a moment, then returns her attention to the screen. ‘Dear oh dear, that ship is full of junk,’ she observes. ‘However, I think we can do business on at least some of the cargo.’
Orbus steps up beside her, trying not to notice how she flinches away from him, and peers at the ship’s manifest currently displayed on her screen. Upon first boarding the Gurnard, he had taken a stroll through the grav-plated areas of the hold and been astounded at the sheer quantity of goods stored there, also by their variety and, in many cases, their sheer age. Some of the stuff is even in the process of making the transition from junk to antique. And yet the grav-plated areas of the hold contain only half the total available storage space.
‘These.’ Reander highlights some of the cargoes on the list: fifty tons of Bishop’s World onyx and three crates of toy pulse-guns. This space station couldn’t possibly have a use for such a quantity of onyx, but doubtless she has a customer to sell it on to who will then transport it elsewhere. Though curious about its possible destination, the Captain does not let this concern him too much. He picks up the ship’s slab and, so Reander cannot see, checks the minimum price these two cargoes must be sold for, adds 20 per cent, and allows the price to display on her screen. She sighs and they begin the ancient Human pastime of haggling, but the Captain’s heart isn’t in it and he soon lets her buy the goods for only 5 per cent above minimum.
‘So what can you tell me about Smith Storage?’ he asks, as she now sits down to carefully work her way through the rest of the manifest.
She glances up. ‘Still got problems with that carapace?’
She herself was the intermediary aboard Montmartre who found a place for that item to be stored.
‘Still got problems,’ Orbus confirms.
‘That’s odd.’ She frowns. ‘Anyway, that question is one being asked a lot around here lately.’ Now she does look up. ‘They’ve been in business for only a year, but they’ve bought up a lot of station space and have been bringing in a lot of goods, yet they don’t seem to do much business. They did, apparently, sell the new exotic armour you can see out there to the station owners, and they’ve done a bit of smaller trading, like with your particular item, but it still doesn’t seem enough to cover their expenses.’
‘What’s the general station consensus on them?’
‘They’re arms traders who’ve been sold a special licence to operate from here, or they’re a big Polity concern preparing to move into the Graveyard, or they’re a Separatist cover company, or else they’re the owners, the Layden-Smiths themselves, gradually reacquiring full control of the station.’ Reander now begins highlighting various food cargoes held in stasis.
‘Your own opinion?’
‘The last,’ she says. ‘Business has picked up in the Graveyard over the last twenty years and I reckon the owners want a bigger share of the profits. They’ve been operating for a long time so they’ll have the contacts, and I also don’t think it’s coincidental that the new concern is called Smith Storage.’ She shrugs. ‘It seems a sensible move – though I still don’t get why they’re being so awkward about one Prador carapace.’
After a pause she adds, ‘It seems they undercut all the other storage companies to get the business.’
‘Cap’n,’ interrupts Drooble.
‘They here?’
‘Just the drone.’
‘Keep watching.’
‘You’re being followed.’ Reander abruptly stands up. ‘I’ve got just a small business here and, for readily apparent physical reasons, I cannot afford to get involved in anything nasty. The station grabship will head over to the Gurnard for the items we’ve agreed upon. You’ll now inform your ship AI?’
Orbus taps a finger briefly against the ship’s slab, before unplugging it and dropping it back in his bag. ‘Already done – there’s a direct link.’ Abruptly he realizes it wouldn’t be fair on her if those two heavies broke in here and caused a problem, for minor violence that might bloody any normal person’s nose could crush her skull. ‘One last question?’
‘Go ahead,’ she says.
‘Cymbeline’s agent delivered the carapace to you for storage. Do you know what happened to him afterwards?’
She shrugs. ‘He left – that’s all I know.’
Turning towards the door, Orbus pauses by the chainglass machete. ‘How much for this?’
Reander walks over, meanwhile pulling a plastic sheath and shoulder strap for the blade from the shelf behind. Tossing them to him she says, ‘Take it with my compliments – I was always nervous about having that thing in here anyway.’
Orbus picks up the big blade and weighs it in his hand. Reander cringes back, so he slides it into its sheath, nods to her briefly and departs.
The little survey ship is not even concealed behind any shielding, merely docked at one of the Layden-Smiths’ private docks. It is a simple bullet-shaped craft with a small hold and exterior twinned U-engine nacelles, of the kind used all across the Polity, so Sniper would not have even bothered scanning it had he not noticed the damage. The vessel has been hit with a high-intensity laser burst from the dock’s defences, the beam punching through the hull in a very particular area to the rear of the crew compartment. Here, the old war drone knows, was almost certainly where the ship’s AI, if it had one, would be positioned. Scanning inside the vessel, he sees that it had indeed possessed an AI, but that entity is now merely a slag of shattered and molten crystal. Scanning further, he finds that the rest of the crew has done no better.
‘The survey vessel belongs to Charles Cymbeline’s agent in this area,’ Gurnard confirms, after Sniper tight-beams an update back out of the station.
‘Well,’ says Thirteen, also listening in, ‘that solves one riddle.’
‘And he’s still aboard,’ Sniper replies.
The corpse in question is well on the way to skeletonhood, but Sniper possesses more than enough knowledge of human anatomy and forensics to know what has been done to him, especially when taking into account certain other items scattered on the floor about his feet. Someone glued him to a wall and tortured him. They used an autodoc on him, so they could deliver the maximum amount of pain and still keep him alive. They used psychotropics, pain inducers and a good old-fashioned bit of bone breaking and electrocution, and even relieved him of all his fingernails. The final finesse was the use of a specially-adapted augmentation to ream out his mind. Obviously, whoever did this wanted to learn everything the agent knew about something, and there is no doubt they obtained that information. As for the rest of the crew, they received similar treatment. Only one was not interrogated, for quite likely it was essential to take him out of action as quickly as possible. And how.
‘Urn,’ remarks Sniper to both Gurnard and Thirteen, ‘seems there’s something around here capable of tearing apart a Golem android.’
‘I think I can guess who did that,’ says Thirteen.
‘Enlighten me.’
Thirteen sends him an image of two large and bulky individuals climbing into a lift. ‘I thought there was something funny about them and, judging by the looks he was giving them, Orbus does too.’
‘And what exactly is funny about them?’ enquires Gurnard.
Thirteen changes the image to an X-ray view. Where in normal humans only the bones would now be visible, along with any metal items carried about their persons, these two are only reduced to translucence. However, it is possible to see the hardware sitting inside their skulls and the threads of metal spearing down their spines. Sniper at once recognizes what these two are, and knows that two of them certainly could manage to tear apart a Golem android.
‘Warn the Captain about them,’ Gurnard instructs.
‘Without getting into debates about who I am and why I’m here?’ Thirteen asks.
‘I think things have moved beyond that,’ says Gurnard, ‘but try to be subtle.’
‘Subtle, right,’ says Thirteen. ‘Yeah, I remember subtle.’
Outside Reander’s establishment, Drooble stabs a finger towards where the seahorse drone is still hovering above the entrance to the elevator shaft. Orbus nods as he continues over, then, before stepping into the elevator, peers up at the drone and asks, ‘What do you want?’
‘Many many things,’ replies Thirteen. ‘But right now I want to know why so much of this station is shielded, and why two very old men, who once made a brief and traumatic visit to Spatterjay, are keeping tabs on you.’
‘Two very old men?’ Drooble queries, but in Orbus the memory finally surfaces and he now knows precisely who the two heavies are – or, rather, what they were. It is as if someone has just slapped him, slapped him harder than anyone has been able to manage for centuries. Hearing an odd creaking sound, he realizes it is the noise of his own muscles tightening up like knots of steel cable.
‘Anything else you want to know?’ Orbus asks the drone.
‘I’d like to know why a Prador carapace is so important. I’d like to know why Smith Storage, which is, as Reander Asiera guessed, a concern started up by the owners of this station, is bringing in a lot of cargo but transporting none out, and why the owners themselves – the five descendants of the original Layden-Smith family – haven’t been seen for over a year.’
‘And why do you want to know these things?’
‘Because I work for Gurnard and I’m here to back you up.’
Orbus stares at the drone, not sure whether to be amused or angry, then steps into the elevator after Drooble and selects the floor on which Smith Storage lies. Stepping out from the elevator upon arrival, he is greeted at once by the sight of the two heavies waiting on either side of a quite possibly genuine wooden door. Switching his heirodont-hide bag to his left hand, he thereby frees up his right hand and keeps it up ready by his left shoulder, within easy reach of the machete now strapped across his back. He knows that these two will not notice something so obvious as this, though perhaps whoever is looking through their eyes will.
‘Is Mr Smith in?’ he enquires as they reach the door.
‘Fuck,’ says Drooble abruptly.
Orbus glances at him, realizing he’s just caught on. Neither of the two heavies responds, though the door immediately begins to creak open. Orbus realizes that, just after talking to the drone, he should have turned round and headed straight back to the Gurnard for some explanations, or maybe mooched off to buy passage on some other ship out of here. However, the presence of these two at the door stirs up in him a deep reservoir of anger, and a horrible joy at the certainty that here at last he will be able to express that anger.
‘I just go through?’ he asks, pointing ahead and, without waiting for a response, steps through.
A reception office waits beyond the door and, judging by the splash of old blood behind the desk, which itself now lies in two halves on the floor, the receptionist will not be greeting them. Beyond this lies a set of double doors.
‘I guess the storage area is this way?’ Orbus strides ahead.
Drooble glances back at the two heavies, the main door closing behind them as they lurch in to follow. Orbus slams a boot into the centre of the two doors ahead. One smashes back against the wall adjacent and the other goes crashing end over end down the corridor extending beyond. Here they have not bothered to remove the corpses, and two lie on the carpet, stains spread out about them. They’ve obviously been here for some time, being now rotted down to bone and parchment skin. Both of them seem to have their heads on backwards.
‘Probably the Layden-Smiths, or their staff,’ Orbus observes, striding ahead. ‘I’m guessing our two chums originally came in this way.’
‘Hey, Cap’n,’ says Drooble, ‘glad to have you back.’
A further set of double doors leads to a bubble-metal stair running down along the wall to terminate in a small storage room stacked with plasmel boxes. At the rear of this room stands a large heavy door, probably taken from a ship’s bulkhead. After glancing back to see their two companions now picking up their pace, Orbus jumps.
‘Come on, Iannus!’ he yells.
Orbus hits the floor with a crash, denting it, and Drooble lands somewhat more lightly beside him. Behind them, the two pursuers start to negotiate the stairs, probably as they always have done, this method of descent being recorded as a program in what might be called their minds. Orbus doesn’t bother with the handle of the bulkhead door, for he can see it is locked down in its recess and therefore it should only be possible to open it from inside. This area, then, is supposed to be the killing ground. He knows this door is most certainly station property, but surmises that the Layden-Smiths are beyond objecting to the damage he will now cause. Dropping his small bag, he smashes a fist into the metal beside the door, twice, to leave a dent, lodges both hands in this to grab the door and heaves. His Old-Captain strength, grown incrementally over seven hundred years, his body wound so tight with viral fibres that his muscles are as dense as old oak and his bones like toughened steel, is not to be long resisted. Ceramal locking mechanisms snap clean off, and the door swings round to crash against the wall.
Within lies a large darkened warehouse, shelves reaching up to the high ceiling, large cargo containers towards the rear, monolithic stacks of boxes all around, in fact an area little different in appearance to the Gurnard’s hold. From behind come two loud crashes, as their pursuers finally receive instructions not to waste time negotiating the stairs. Drooble, so long in service of his Captain he can nearly read his mind, ducks to one side, drawing a ceramo-carbide hunting knife from his boot.
‘Mr Smith!’ Orbus calls out.
The two come in behind, and without even looking round Orbus draws his machete and spins, the blade describing a perfect flat arc all about him. The tug of contact is hard, of course, for the blade is slicing through flesh and bone just like his own. Along with a rigid chunk of Prador hardware. Now Orbus unhooks his bullwhip with his free hand and lashes it sideways, the snake of flexal coiling around the legs of the second heavy. He pulls, and the man goes down on his back, the big pulse-gun he just drew sent skittering from his hand. His companion, now headless, still stands upright, one hand vibrating at the edge of his severed but utterly dry neck. He hasn’t realized he is dead. He hasn’t realized he actually died seven hundred years ago.
Drooble, ready to snatch any opportunity, skitters over and picks up the pulse-gun, then steps over and begins firing it down into the head of the fallen man. He empties the weapon, firing until nothing remains of the head but a smoking fibrous mass and the glowing metal of a thrall unit.
‘Fucking blanks,’ he spits.
Indeed they are. These two are what Orbus would have become on Spatterjay centuries ago had he not managed to avoid being cored and thralled, if the war had not ended and rescue finally come. Slowly, like a building demolished by specially placed charges, the headless human blank collapses first onto his knees, then tilts over forwards, before slumping down onto his side.
‘Mr Smith!’ Orbus calls again viciously, turning away to survey the entire storage area.
In a wide aisle between shelves, beside masses of jury-rigged consoles, lies a great brassy-coloured object that Orbus recognizes as basically the same shape as a Prador carapace. For a moment he thinks that this must be what, ostensibly, they came here for. However, it heaves itself up onto its numerous legs and spins, reaches out with one claw to tear down some shelving and cast it aside, then extends its other claw, in which it holds a massive rail-gun.
Orbus begins to shake, but cannot tell whether this is from fear or excitement.
‘I don’t think you’re Mr Smith,’ he manages.