12
Like the Human race the Prador developed electronics by beginning with simple switches and going on to thermionic valves, transistors and then, as they first ventured beyond their world and physical weight became an issue, the integrated circuit. Again like Humans, from this they developed computers to handle the increasing complexities of their civilization. However, because of the ruggedness of the Prador physiology and their lack of regard even for their offspring, and because their biotechnology of that time was so advanced, their thinking machines soon incorporated parts of the surgically excised brains and nervous systems of their children. Later, as Prador understood the possibilities inherent in creating artficial intelligence – something that might eventually prove superior to them – they chose to use the whole brains of their children rather than go that route. AIs were therefore never developed in the Prador Kingdom, and the penalties for either importing or researching them are severe.
– From QUINCE GUIDE compiled by Humans
Sadurian puts the stack of crystal memtabs down on her console and returns to her seat. The tabs contain programs she has not used in many years, first because they are something the Prador very much do not like, and second because long ago she singled out the main reasons for the King’s inability to breed. Mainly it is about the virus being carried as a parasite in the King’s spermatozoa. The issue, however, was not one of Prador genetics, but instead about turning off the chemical switch that sends the virus into survival mode by stunning it prior to fertilization. These programs were constructed to explore what all different kinds of genetic tissue can produce: a computer womb but also something else.
‘It is done?’ she enquires.
‘Done,’ replies Delf, typically laconic.
Sadurian studies the tangled molecular maps on her screen, displaying millions of fragments of alien code that are wound up in the mycelial tangle of the Spatterjay virus. Her problem is that, before she starts predicting what the genome produces, she needs to first put it all together. It will be like rethreading a million beads back on a new string, but exactly in the right order. Sadurian begins loading her programs which, requiring no further input from her, now slot themselves together. She glances across at Delf and Yaggs, checks a couple of subscreens, and sees that Delf has now returned to the deconstruction and mapping of the King’s genome. However, it does not matter that these two Prador are here, because they have known about these programs for years, doubtless reported them to Oberon, and so far nothing untoward has happened.
The last crystal memtab goes into the tab-reader slot, then, after a moment, pokes out like a tongue and she extracts it, returning it to the stack.
‘I am ready,’ says a voice from the console, speaking Human Anglic.
‘Okay, Sphinx, check kernel four. You’ll find some interesting data there.’
‘I see,’ replies Sphinx, who is an artificial intelligence.
Because the Prador do not like AIs, those caught experimenting with them tend to end up on the hot end of an electrified spike somewhere in the central caverns of the Prador homeworld’s capital city. That way, it usually takes Prador offenders a week to die. Humans caught smuggling such technology into the Kingdom die more quickly, but that is only a matter of physiology, since the same sort of spike is generally employed in both cases. However, none of this applies to Sadurian, for she is under the King’s protection and knows that if she ever displeases Oberon sufficiently, her end will be quick, messy and dispensed by the King himself.
The AI continues, ‘We seem to have here the cellular component of the Spatterjay virus, comprising numerous pieces of a genome I do not recognize and other components relating to some form of quantum storage.’
Sadurian nods briefly to herself, absorbing the words she already expected to hear, before abruptly realizing that Sphinx is telling her more than she expected. A cold talon drags itself down her spine.
‘Quantum storage? What do you mean "quantum storage"?’
‘Molecular components constructed in the format of quantum-storage units, and nested amidst the alien genome.’
‘What do they store?’ Sadurian asks, still not quite grasping what she is hearing.
‘Since I am at present only studying a computer model, I cannot tell you that. A much deeper analysis of the actual physical units will be required – the superpositions and entanglements of the atoms concerned – and then only a general idea might be obtained,’ Sphinx replies. ‘And even to do that will require the work of a specialized AI somewhat more powerful than me.’
‘Right,’ says Sadurian, sitting back. ‘Right . . . I want you to start finding a way to put that genome back together. I want to find out what it makes’
‘Easy enough. It is trihelical, so there are fewer base combinations, fewer ways the pieces can link up, than with a double helix.’
Even as the AI speaks, the images on the screen change. Lengths of alien genome, represented as simple rods of varying lengths and colours, stand up like skittles in endless rows, flickering and swapping places. On a second screen, rods being selected out are joined, separated, and rejoined with other lengths. As Sadurian knows perfectly well, the whole graphic is a huge simplification intended for her benefit, but it is satisfying to see at least some of the process.
‘Interesting,’ comments Sphinx.
‘An eye,’ says Sadurian, peering at the recognizable anatomical image of an eye plus optic nerve and some other related structures.
‘Yes, in one incarnation it is little different from a Human or squid eye, however, it is becoming increasing clear how a large series of related alleles cover a whole range of options.’
The image changes, the eye slowly transforming into a brushlike organ, then a jointed antenna, which then collapses back into an opaque receptor of something other than visible light. Sadurian feels a further prickling down her spine when she recognizes something resembling the King’s present midnight eyes.
‘These are only a few of the options,’ Sphinx adds. ‘And it seems that there are also many further options for other physical structures.’
‘Any conclusions?’
‘My conclusions are, at present, that much of this is too well ordered to all be a simple product of evolution. Instead, I would guess evolution plus a great deal of genetic modification over a long period of time. It is also interesting to note that this creature has the facility to grow nerve tissue with a pure electrical basis, also to grow very hard bone or shell – often with molecular honing to sharp edges – as well as very dense muscles, and numerous ways of delivering potent venoms.’
‘Products of a hostile environment?’
‘Creatures capable of genetic modification at this level only have hostile environments that they themselves create.’
Sadurian doesn’t need any more hints. Before entering the Kingdom, she was at the top of her profession for a good reason.
‘This is a soldier,’ she decides.
‘So it would seem.’
Sadurian wonders just how much further she wants to go with this. She has learnt what needed to be learnt, and now it is time to see Oberon. ‘So the quantum storage is its mind, I guess.’
‘Seems likely,’ says Sphinx.
Sadurian stands up and heads for the door. Somehow, Oberon knows all this, she is sure, but what does the King want to do with such knowledge? Does he want to learn everything known about and by this soldier . . . or soldiers? Or, thinking about his recent actions and his paranoia regarding the Prador Vrell, does he want to utterly stamp such knowledge out of existence?
‘Ah, bollocks,’ says Sniper, as three armoured figures simply shed their chameleonware, thus demonstrating that they don’t feel the need to hide from him. He studies them carefully, using all his scanning routines, and is utterly baffled.
They seem to bear some similarity to Prador, being also crustaceans and clad in armour of the same exotic metal as the Guard’s. However, their armour is a deep blue in colour, and extends into lobster tails at the back. They each possess four thick legs and their claws are mismatched, one of them possessing three jaws and the other just one jaw extending into a long scythe-like spike. Their heads are separate and protrude from their bodies on short necks, just like Vrell’s, and are loaded with sensory apparatus and with two gleaming blue forward-facing eyes. Their weapons reveal a similar format to Prador weapons he knows, but are much altered and blended into their bodies. Each possesses the mouth of a particle cannon at the base of that scythelike spike, and other suspicious-looking openings ranged about their bodies. Scan data reveals how they also blend with their armour. It appears he is facing insectile cyborgs.
‘I don’t suppose you want to talk about this?’ Sniper enquires.
A particle beam, spectrally shifted from blue to green, stabs from the middle one of the three, to splash on the hardfield Sniper projects. The force of the blast sends Sniper skidding backwards, for that beam possesses a kinetic component he has never encountered before. Almost immediately the hardfield generator Sniper uses begins to behave oddly, and strange resonances feed back through its power supply. The blast is feeding a computer virus to him straight through his own projector. Flinging himself high, he shuts down the field and, onlining another generator, he intercepts a second beam strike from another of the three, while he tries to damp the resonance in the first generator.
Sniper shuts off grav and drops, not wanting them to pursue him into the sky, and as he hits ice again they advance. He watches them carefully pause to study the ice, then circumvent a churned area directly ahead of them. Sniper sends a detonation signal and a mine explodes below one of the three creatures, flinging it high. Of course he didn’t bury the mines where he churned the ice. He opens fire on the remaining two, his particle beam splashing against a hardfield disc. Just a distraction. The one still hurtling upwards through the air manages to correct its tumble just in time for one of Sniper’s preprogrammed missiles to slam into it from the other side of the ship. The explosion slaps it down hard on the ice, where it bounces, snapped partially in half like a cooked prawn. But, even as Sniper watches, it begins tugging itself together. Sniper is about to hit it again, when suddenly the ice all around it begins fragmenting, and he hears the recognizable smack of bullets hitting home.
Orbus.
The Old Captain is positioned three hundred yards away, down on one knee and aiming carefully. Beyond him, Vrell is still struggling towards the distant vessel. As the two remaining creatures launch themselves into the air, intent on avoiding any further mines, missiles whicker out from them. Sniper manages to hit each projectile with his laser, but the blasts knock him weaving backwards. A second later the particle beams are back, grinding against his hardfields, their viral load trying to work its way inside him.
The wounded creature down on the ice begins to shiver, then rattle against the frozen ground. Suddenly it shoots straight up making a sound like a big angry hornet, hovers for a moment, then streaks off sideways to slam into the side of the dreadnought, where it shatters like brittle porcelain.
Lucky strike, thinks Sniper, but at a cost, as Orbus and Vrell also come under fire from the remaining two creatures. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Gurnard’s lamprey shuttle roars in over the top of the dreadnought, a stream of rail-gun missiles playing across one of the opponents and knocking it tumbling through the air. The shuttle turns hard, briefly playing its fusion torch over the second creature, so that it falls a hundred feet with smoke pouring from its armour.
The shuttle belly-lands just beyond Orbus and Vrell, skidding round and sliding, while trying to bring itself to a stop with its steering jets and sun-bright bursts from its fusion torch. For a moment Sniper allows himself some optimism, but both creatures have simply corrected their flight once the shuttle is past, and they open fire again.
Vrell, the bigger unarmoured target, is now down on his belly, a spatter of green blood staining the ice beyond him, and a great smoking groove carved across his back. As the shuttle settles in a great cloud of steam on the ice behind, Orbus goes down on his knee again, sighting on one of the distant creatures as it tumbles through the air. With the gun’s menu up inside his visor, he checks through the options, but again returns to the sprine bullets. The simple fact is that if Sniper is having trouble taking down those two monstrosities with his array of weapons, then Orbus stands no chance of succeeding with the conventional firepower of this weapon he holds. He just hopes instead for another lucky hit, another hole punctured by Sniper or by that rail-gun hit from the shuttle, to enable him to get some sprine inside creatures that must be infected by the Spatterjay virus.
He fires one burst, completely on target, but to little effect. As he turns to aim at the other creature, now steadying itself and beginning to rise again, a series of explosions track across the ice towards him. A blast lifts him from the ground and then something else slams into his chest and spins him round in midair. He hits the ground winded, still clutching his multigun, the front of his suit now a molten mess and error message after error message displaying on his visor. Heaving himself upright, he is glad the creatures seem to be saving their big stuff for Sniper, or else he would be nothing but a smoking crater now. Time to run, he decides.
‘Cap’n!’ A distant shout, immediately echoing in Orbus’s com gear.
Orbus turns and gazes across at the shuttle. Its side door is open and Drooble standing out on the ice, beckoning to him. But how did Gurnard get the vessel here so quickly? Did the AI somehow work out that they would abandon the dreadnought like this?
He quickly moves over to Vrell. ‘Can you stand?’
Vrell tentatively moves his legs, then abruptly heaves himself up on to them, tilting over as two remaining legs on one side begin to shake under the load. Orbus considers just making a run for the shuttle, then with a surge of anger quickly moves over and jams his shoulder underneath one edge of the Prador’s carapace. He has made his choice: Vrell is an ally, and that’s the end of it. Slowly they begin to make their way towards the vessel, while Drooble moves out to meet them.
‘Come on, Cap’n!’ he shouts. ‘Why don’t you just leave that fucker!’
Abruptly Vrell jams one claw down into the ice, bringing them to a sudden halt.
‘Go to the shuttle,’ he orders.
‘I’m not going to leave you now,’ says Orbus. ‘It took me long enough to accept that you deserve to live.’
‘The shuttle,’ Vrell observes, ‘is too small.’
Orbus gapes at it for a moment, then calls himself all kinds of fool. Of course, how the hell does he expect to get the big mutated Prador inside a vessel like that?
‘I’ll bring it back here and you can cling to the outside,’ he says. ‘We can get you clear.’
‘Yes,’ Vrell concedes, but that is all.
Orbus eases his shoulder out from underneath the Prador, and watches it start to sag, before breaking into a loping run. He notes that Drooble is not accompanied by Thirteen, a fact that makes him suspicious.
‘Why did Gurnard send you?’ Orbus asks over com.
‘He didn’t,’ Drooble replies. ‘This was my own idea.’
‘Probably not a great one, then.’
‘Probably.’ Drooble raises his gaze to the ongoing battle between the drone and the two unknown creatures, and to the dreadnought lying beyond them. ‘That don’t look promising.’
Orbus glances back. Movement on the summit of the dreadnought, then something blurs momentarily, and a thunderous crackle cuts the sky. He swings back in time to see Drooble turning back towards the shuttle.
‘Ah shit,’ says Drooble, then he flies apart in an immense eruption of ice dust and random fragments. The shuttle bucks and lifts, deforming as if wriggling in pain under multiple impacts, chunks of its flying away in all directions, but also a great spray of splintered metal spraying out to carve scars across the ice beyond it. Then something detonates inside it, and it disappears in a hot globular explosion. Not for the first time, Orbus finds himself at the brunt of a shockwave. In a storm of ice chunks, shattered metal and and seemingly liquid fire, he hurtles backwards, hits the ice on his back and skids, his armour smoking and spatters of molten metal gleaming across his visor.
Fuck you, Drooble, thinks Orbus. Fuck you. Something at the surface of his consciousness wants to rage at the world, go charging back and attack whoever fired the big rail-gun from the dreadnought, and then to spend himself against any that remain. But the feeling seems a skin over a hollow emptiness. And when the storm abruptly ceases, truncating unnaturally, and out of it an invisible claw snatches him up and draws him in, he doesn’t fight it – just lets it drag him away.
Orbus, Vrell and Drooble have disappeared amid the massive eruptions caused by the rail-gun, and Sniper does not suppose it will be long before the same weapon is turned on himself, though he will not make so easy a target. He absorbs and accepts the loss of those three, somewhat surprised at how much he regrets it, despite him knowing them for so little time and theirs not being the most likeable of characters. This isn’t something he can ponder for long, however. He needs to finish this soon, finish it before more weapons or more opponents are put into play.
Brute firepower is not the answer here, for Sniper simply does not possess enough of it. The wily tricks he previously used to take out Prador and their drones had always worked to his advantage. Maybe not again, though. No, even as Sniper retreats under the impact of those green virus-laden beams, his two opponents methodically start probing down below with lasers, to wipe out the missiles he also concealed in the ice. They then launch, all around them, a cloud of small ball-bearing-sized objects that go speeding away. Incendiaries of some kind, doubtless to intercept any other preprogrammed missiles. Sniper is rapidly running out of options.
One of his hardfield generators is resonating high, a virus forming – under induction from it – within his processing space and feeding back to interfere with the function of the generator itself. Only seconds remain before he needs to shut it down, or before it shuts itself down. He has one spare inside him which he brings online, but even that is already being interfered with. He searches desperately for options and finds only one. He regularly used a supercavitating drive to travel at high speed through the oceans of Spatterjay, and this produced a conefield ahead of him by bonding water molecules into a frictionless layer. Shutting down the most unstable hardfield generator, he tries the conefield. It intercepts and refracts the beam, which plays over his shell, but even so reduced, it blisters the nano-chain chromium and induces further viruses into his system. One of these propagates in the control hardware for his antigrav, and he drops like a stone. Maybe he should learn something from this?
Sniper loads some of his own attack viruses, and fires them by com laser even as he falls. One of the attackers abruptly shuts off its beam and drops. Working? No, the thing steadies and rises again as Sniper finally crashes down into the ice. A missile then slams into him, the blast sends him skidding a hundred yards. Two tentacles are now gone and a large chunk of his shell missing. But the force of the impact shakes something loose in his crystal mind.
Sprine bullets? Orbus was firing sprine bullets.
Knowing that this is all now coming to an end, Sniper launches missile after missile, depleting his supply. He fires his particle cannons, draining himself of energy and the particulate matter ionized for the beams. A com laser strikes him, engages his sensors, and he just cannot shut it out. Inside him the computer viruses begin linking up, and he feels himself downloading through the laser. They are stealing his mind, all his knowledge, everything he is, and the looting seems utterly methodical: enough for him to know what will be taken next. In the few seconds remaining to him, he loads the code Vrell had sent him into the next portion of his mind that he expects to be stolen, and it goes.
Above him two sun-bright lights flash into being, as the two alien creatures disappear in tactical fusion explosions. Ice boils into steam around Sniper as the shockwave picks him up yet again, just briefly, then slaps him down again, skidding up a hillock of fragmented ice behind him. The viruses, however, will not disperse so easily, and he continues to fight an internal battle: wiping portions of his own memory and closing down processing space like an army burning crops before an invader. Only after a few minutes does he regain enough control to once again re-engage his senses.
Carbon-dioxide snow falls all around him and fog banks, shot through with persimmon-yellow stains, roll away to his right and left. Like hornets disturbed from a hive, creatures just like the two he already killed depart the dreadnought and fly towards him. He is out of ammo, very low on power, and has lost nearly two-thirds of his mind. These things will not fall for any more tricks, and certainly they would soon analyse what just happened and respond to it. There will now be no access to the fusion tacticals inside them.
Sniper does not even have the power to destroy himself. He gropes out with ragged tentacles to snatch up chunks of hard ice, deciding he’ll throw rocks at the fuckers if that’s all that remains to him.
One creature, some way ahead of the main group, begins to descend out of the sky towards him. Abruptly a silver bubble appears around it, then just as suddenly collapses and winks out. From the space the creature occupied drops a compacted ball of smoking matter, which hits the ice and flies apart. All the others simply draw to a halt in mid-air, contemplate the situation for all of half a second, then turn and retreat.
The fact that sprine killed these creatures, and the detonation of the fusion tacticals inside his two attackers, is all the evidence Sniper needs. Issuing from the alien ship behind him, this field-tech attack on their fellows is further confirmation. The unknown creatures aren’t invading the dreadnought from that other, alien, ship; they are the dreadnought’s erstwhile crew.
Orbus gasps chill air and shudders, needles of cold piercing into his skin. He opens his eyes on eerie, green-tinted illumination, feels a cold floor beneath his back, and under his palm.
Iannus Drooble is dead.
He can’t quite grasp that, for Drooble was his crewman for centuries and seemed almost an extension of his being. Orbus feels hollow now and oddly devoid of anger. Trying to analyse this feeling, a quite drily unemotional and horrible thought occurs to him. Drooble’s death has severed yet another link to his own past; it has cut through the anchor chain linking him to the Vignette and somehow cast him adrift. The death of the crewman might well be the cure he needs and, though he resents that notion, it is a resentment without the power to turn itself into rage.
After a moment he sits upright, muscles creaking, then gazes down at himself, realizing his armoured spacesuit has been removed. Now glancing to one side, he observes Vrell lying down on his stomach, remaining legs sprawled. The clatter and bubble of Prador speech issues from somewhere, and Vrell, still wearing his harness though disarmed, replies to it, and now the harness translator, obviously just turned on by Vrell, supplies the words to Orbus.
‘I will not,’ says Vrell.
‘Why not?’ asks an unknown Prador, its voice now also relayed through Vrell’s translator.
‘Because I choose not to.’
‘But you must be suffering from the injury hunger engendered by the Spatterjay virus, and there beside you is a source of nutrient.’
The penny finally drops and Orbus realizes that the ‘source of nutrient’ is himself. He stands up and, in a way he hopes isn’t too obvious, moves away until his back rests against a curving black wall. At least now he will have time to react before Vrell makes a grab for him. Whatever camaraderie Vrell is feeling for Orbus will soon depart as the virus continues its work inside the Prador. After all, Humans suffering from injury hunger for long enough will eat just about anything. Orbus remembers some of the gruesome stories he has heard about Hooper crews stranded on the islands; and about how quite a few crew members mysteriously disappeared, and how the survivors don’t much like discussing the matter. And Prador tend to be even less concerned by moral issues bearing on their food supply.
‘I find that very interesting,’ continues the voice. ‘My understanding of the effect of this mutation is that it produces a beast much better able to survive. One would suppose, being Prador, that survivability equates to ruthlessness; while in Human society a degree of altruism, whether with an evolutionary or moral basis, works better than unrelenting viciousness.’
With shaky effort, Vrell manages to heave himself to his feet, still tilting to one side where the two legs remaining fail to adequately support his weight.
‘Who are you?’ Vrell asks.
A long pause ensues, then the same voice replies, ‘I have now weighed up the pros and cons of telling you the truth. I am the Golgoloth.’
Orbus is surprised at Vrell’s reaction. The Prador instinctively cringes like a dog expecting a blow, which puts him out of balance so that he staggers to one side to rest one edge of his carapace against the wall furthest away from Orbus. His legs are visibly shaking again, and Orbus suspects this has nothing to do with the physical strain they are under.
‘Who is the Golgoloth?’ Orbus asks.
‘A myth,’ Vrell replies. ‘A story used to frighten offspring.’
Orbus contemplates that statement. Taking into account the fact that Prador fathers rather enjoy eating alive some of their own children, if this Golgoloth is something used to scare the young, it must be terrible indeed.
‘Yet here we are almost certainly aboard one section of a massive vessel,’ says Orbus, ‘a vessel the Polity has no knowledge of and which it seems likely was either built in the Graveyard or hidden in here before the border defence stations went fully online. So tell me about this Golgoloth.’
‘I don’t know very much,’ confesses Vrell. ‘It is supposedly a monster that can travel through darkness to any location, where it cuts out and eats the organs of young Prador. It is claimed to be immortal, and to control the destinies of all Prador . . .’
Through the intercom, or by whatever other means this Golgoloth thing is using to talk to them, comes a clattering and bubbling. Orbus waits for a translation, but there is none forthcoming. He suspects he has just, for the first time ever, heard Pradorish laughter.
‘In Prador culture, myth-making indeed struggles to produce anything coherent,’ says the Golgoloth. ‘But Vrell, like all myths, about which your companion doubtless has greater knowledge, being the product of a society where myths easily propagate, the ones concerning me do possess an element of truth.’
‘So what’s true about them?’ Orbus asks.
‘Vrell,’ says the Golgoloth, ‘you really should exercise more control over your food.’
‘Why don’t you answer the question Captain Orbus has asked?’
The eerie glow increases in intensity, then the walls slide into translucence, revealing vague lights lying beyond, then gradually into transparency. Studying his surroundings, Orbus realizes they are enclosed in a cylinder, within a larger chamber. Turbid water, about a foot deep, slops against the outside of the cylinder wall, and the place is packed with optic and power cables and pipes plugged into blocky monoliths of a technology that appears to be more about plumbing than electronics. Platforms mounted on single pillars support other conglomerations of technology, and numerous other cylindrical tanks – much narrower than the one they now occupy – contain organic components blended with hardware and wired in to the whole mass. Here and there, multi-jointed arms terminating in complex manipulators are in the process of either assembling or disassembling various components. Independent robots like segmented iron starfish move through it all, and in the water itself living organisms and odd machines constantly bumble or dart. However, taking all this in at a glance, Orbus’s attention is inexorably drawn to the individual squatting on a platform that seems to be at the focus of all this hybrid technology.
‘The Golgoloth?’ he wonders aloud.
Vrell just jerks away from the transparent wall and moves over to Orbus’s side of the cylinder. Orbus isn’t afraid, realizing that Vrell isn’t moving over to take advantage of this ‘source of nutrient’, but just getting as far away as he can from the thing on the platform.
The creature bears some resemblance to normal Prador in that it possesses a similar number of limbs, a carapace and a visual turret. However, it is distinctly asymmetrical, its colouring ranging from a sick yellow to white, its carapace so covered with lines and mismatched depths of shell that it seems to have been decorated with a montage. Orbus recognizes these marks as surgery scars: the result of shell-welding. It is also linked by numerous optics and pipes to two monolithic machines positioned behind it. Things also crawl over its shell, things like mechanical ship-lice. Its turret eyes don’t match: too small on one side and too large on the other. Its palp eyes are also mismatched: one of them blind white and trailing wires from its centre straight into an array of electronic eyes mounted on its back, the other big, and bright green, almost glowing.
‘Is this what your myths describe?’ Orbus asks.
‘It is,’ Vrell confirms.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ says Orbus. ‘A young Prador survives the death of his father and manages to get safely to his father’s ship underneath the Spatterjay ocean, where he is subsequently mutated by the Spatterjay virus. This young Prador manages to get his father’s ship running again, go up against a fully-armed Prador dreadnought and survive yet again, subsequently exterminating the whole crew of that vessel and taking control of it. Yet now this same Prador is frightened by a fairy tale?’
Vrell abruptly jerks away from the wall and swings his nightmarish head towards Orbus, who suspects he himself has unwittingly just made the transition from ally to food. Certainly Vrell looks greatly in need of something to eat: his belly plates run in parallel with his upper carapace, and the distance between the two has decreased to less than a foot. Where he lost his legs the shape of new legs can now be seen neatly folded underneath a taut translucent skin.
‘I am weakened,’ says Vrell, his mandibles grinding, and a black saliva dripping from the lower part of his mouth.
Orbus takes a pace or two back, whereupon Vrell leans forward and takes one unsteady pace towards Orbus.
‘I see,’ says the Golgoloth, ‘that despite your strength of mind, Vrell, that viral-injury hunger is at last winning out. However, having scanned both yourself and the Human enclosed in there with you, I see that the result of any contest between you is by no means assured.’
A large arm swings over, above the cylinder they occupy, and at its end is an object shaped like an inverted cup. This clamps down, causing the floor to shudder underneath them, then in the ceiling a hatch divides centrally, the two halves hingeing downwards to drop something inside. It hits the floor with a heavy wet thump, spattering purplish blood across it and up the walls. The animal source of this great chunk of raw flesh, with jagged black bones almost like ribs, is a mystery to Orbus, but the smell clicks some switch even inside himself and his mouth starts watering. It has, after all, been many hours since he has eaten, too.
Vrell totters towards the flesh and almost falls upon it, legs sprawling and head lunging down. He tears up a large flap of it in one claw, brings it to his mouth and saws at it with his mandibles, whereupon it quickly disappears into the grinding plates inside his mouth. He severs another chunk, then another, eating so fast he is scattering loose gobbets of it all about him. Orbus moves over and takes up one of these fragments, bites hard and worries off a mouthful. Whilst chewing, he tries not to think about how its texture so much resembles raw human flesh. He swallows, expecting nausea, but though part of his mind feels disgust at this meal, his digestion is not so picky. His stomach rumbles alarmingly, and he continues to eat.
Again the floor shudders underfoot, and Orbus glances up at the hatch again, expecting another load of food to drop through it, but the hatch remains firmly closed. Returning his attention to Vrell, Orbus notes how the membrane is tearing along his wounded side, and small soft legs are folding out.
‘The speed of regeneration is indeed astounding,’ the Golgoloth observes, ‘yet there could be severe penalties to pay. For it seems the Spatterjay virus is what you Humans would describe as a Trojan horse.’
‘Oh, you’re speaking to me now?’ Orbus remarks.
‘I find you interesting, Human.’
Orbus guesses this is one of those situations where if you aren’t of interest you are merely rubbish to be discarded, or more likely just food. However, even being an object of interest does not ultimately guarantee fair and equitable treatment. This Golgoloth creature strikes Orbus as no better than any other Prador, where any interest in an individual might result in vivisection just to satisfy that interest.
‘However,’ the Golgoloth continues, whilst turning on its platform as if to gaze, through all the surrounding equipment, at something lying far beyond this vessel, ‘exigency overcomes my curiosity about you – and about Vrell. It seems that those rather strange alien entities of yours out there have decided I am a threat that must now be countered.’
At first Orbus feels some amusement at hearing this creature describe others as ‘quite strange’, but then wonders what is meant by ‘of yours’.
‘It is time for me to put some distance between us and them, so I can have more opportunity to decide what needs to be done next,’ the Golgoloth adds.