After a long pause Flute replied, “It is an atavistic fear in two respects.”
“Two respects?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged and left it at that. At least it meant my ship mind was managing to consign the war to history. I now turned my attention to a screen frame, bringing the assassin drone into focus.
The sight of the thing sent a shiver down my spine, and I was no prador. My reaction had more to do with a growing dislike of how everything around me felt familiar, which translated into an extreme dislike of coincidences. The thing drew rapidly closer and I could tell by the sounds permeating the ship that the armaments loading hatch had opened. The drone fell out of sight for a moment. Then Flute kindly provided me with an alternative view as it manoeuvred the open hatch towards the drone, brought it in, then the hatch closed. I understood perfectly that this was a dangerous thing to do, but I felt compelled to rescue this comrade—even if it turned out to be just a lifeless metal snake.
A few minutes later it proved it wasn’t lifeless at all, as an alarm klaxon sounded throughout the ship. Flute said, “The drone has the fusion bomb.”
TRENT
Trent looked along the stilt-houses gathered on the shore, then inland towards the Carapace. It was a suitable name for a place mostly built by shell people, but also occupied by Graveyard faecal scum. They called the place “Carapace City”—a case of optimism over reality, since it was questionable whether the place could even be called a town.
“Well, you’re up to your neck in it now, aren’t you?” he said to himself.
His boss was in the process of finishing her transformation into a monster. She’d killed and eaten Gabriel. Trent still felt sick about that, and still felt as if he’d dropped into some alternative reality. He’d checked that storeroom and found the remains. There was dried blood on the floor, a few items of internal hardware, some scraps of indigestible clothing and a neat stack of thoroughly chewed bones. He guessed even a hooder couldn’t eat bones reinforced with ceramal laminations.
“Fuck it,” he said, and kicked something at his feet. The thing rolled away like the stone he’d thought it to be, then sprouted legs and scurried off towards the murky sea and disappeared. “Bollocks,” he added.
He’d thought he’d beaten her, that while she was ensconced in that storeroom he’d managed to break her control over the Moray Firth. She’d soon shown him otherwise. However, she needed him as a human interface with the world, as a gopher—someone to fetch and carry the things she needed from outside the ship. When he learned this, he decided that on the first opportunity he would run, drop every association with her and ship out. But she had to come here to this shit hole. Still, it would have been manageable, he’d enough funds to buy passage out on another ship down here. But no, she’d thought of that. He reached up and touched the sore point behind his ear.
She’d been quick and firm, grabbing him with her many limbs and closing her hood over him as he went down on the floor. He’d thought that was it; that it was his turn to join Gabriel. But the scalpel manipulator travelled coldly up the side of his face and behind his ear to slice with neat precision. It was like losing one of his main senses when his aug dropped away. Since he’d opened his account with a cortical print, and his bank didn’t maintain any more than netlink exchange and a cash machine on this stinking world, he couldn’t access it. There was no branch here where, without the aug, he could get the required cortical scan to prove his identity.
Of course, he perfectly understood her actions in relieving him of his aug. And, as his finger travelled to where his purple sapphire had hung, he understood the source of most of his anger. Losing his aug and all that entailed was bad, but why had she taken the jewel too? Did she know what it meant to him and did she know about Genève? By taking that jewel from him, she’d ensured that he wouldn’t run, as she held hostage the only thing he really valued. He lowered his hand, remembering his sister and his last days on Coloron, hunting down her killers and making them all pay. He took that jewel from the last of them—the jewel they’d killed her for because it had been a real, documented one. It was valuable and had belonged to their mother, being originally from a mine on Titan. He didn’t even know why they’d intended to sell it. Maybe for drugs or augmentation, maybe for passage off that world. That hadn’t really mattered.
Trent swore again, then decided this was the last time he’d express his anger or frustration, as he ascended stairs leading up from the shore. He really didn’t want to be here or go to Carapace City, but what were his choices? This place was a dead end for many, which accounted for the largest portion of those occupying that city. Last time they’d come here, with Spear, the requests they’d received for passage off-world had numbered in the thousands. He just didn’t have the cash to get away, so for now he’d just do Satomi’s bidding. Right now, this involved ordering much-needed supplies which, of course, Isobel would pay for when they reached the Moray Firth.
Fuel for the fusion reactor, which in turn powered the U-space drive, wasn’t a problem. The reactor was an old thing but at least it could run on deuterium, which they refined out of seawater here and sold cheaply. The problem was fuel for the fusion engine and the ship’s thrusters. The first was really old and used tritium-encased micro-beads of frozen deuterium. The thrusters, which were positively antique, used nitrogen tetroxide, which would have to be either made by or bought from a retailer in the city.
Reaching the top of the stepped pathway, he could view the city. At the centre sat the Carapace, a dome of beige composite which resembled the carapace of a terran crab more than any prador. Underneath it resided the market, along with more established concerns. It was his ultimate destination but before he reached it, he would have to make his way through the surrounding shanty town, then the inner streets. It was a place where many visitors had disappeared—generally ending up in the market as stock body parts just an hour or so later. He needed transport through there. Pausing, he glanced to his left towards the spaceport. Behind it lay a car park and taxi rank. He could have hired a lift but the charges were astronomical and the chances of being kidnapped or forced into some other money-making scam were high. There was a better option.
Trent turned to the right, following a winding path that led downwards, bracketed on either side by primitive plants like stringy cacti and various ground-hugging bryophytes. At one point, something the size of a man’s torso scuttled across the path in front of him and he drew his gun to track its progress. He realized, just as it disappeared into a rocky crevice, that he had just seen a crustacean from the prador home world—a creature bearing some similarity to prador but sitting lower down on the food chain.
Within a few minutes the canal came into sight and he was actually happy to see shell people, a couple of barges and a jetty to which a number of water scooters had been moored. He holstered his weapon as he drew closer, then took a moment to lift his breather mask and check the air, because the bad air here mainly clung around the coast. It still smelled rank but seemed breathable, which he soon confirmed with one of his watch functions—one he hadn’t used in all the years since he had auged up. A shellman, not as fully transformed as the one Spear had met, stepped out of a booth as Trent reached the foot of the jetty. This one just looked like a ragged soldier with an organic flak helmet welded to his head. Thorny organic armour had turned his hands into lethal weapons.
“I want to hire a scooter,” said Trent snappily.
The shellman eyed him from head to foot, then turned to peer at the canal.
“We’ve got a reaverfish in,” he stated.
Shellmen were easy enough to deal with, just so long as you ignored their alterations and made no stupid references to their worshipful attitude towards the prador. Trent had been about to comment on reaverfish being a prador food item, so surely no problem to those who aped the prador, but clamped down on that. Reaverfish grew larger than the Earth’s great white shark, possessed an excess of shar
p fins and had tongues that protruded like a sawfish’s nose. They were also far nastier than the great white shark. Moreover, if one of these things attacked you, it wasn’t making a mistake.
“I’ve got a gun,” he replied, now trying to keep his voice level. “And reaverfish can die just like anything else.” He was thoroughly aware that he wasn’t in a good mood and that when he was like this he often became provocative. Really, he didn’t need any more trouble than he was already in.
The shellman turned to study him again. “One zil of diamond slate then—and you get ninety-eight muzil back if you return the scooter before this time tomorrow.”
It was expensive but nowhere near as much as a taxi driver would have charged. It also meant he’d be completely in control of his own transport and the canal would take him right through into the dome.
“Two muzil a day,” he stated.
The shellman shook his head. “Escalating scale of one muzil extra a day, unless you want to contract for a longer period.”
“I’ll pay you eight muzil for five days,” said Trent, and smiled through gritted teeth. “Non-refundable if I return before then.”
The shellman pretended to consider that carefully. But it was noticeable that he had six scooters available, and that there weren’t any empty places at the short jetty.
“Very well.” He returned to his booth. As he did so, Trent turned away to open the screamer pouch at his belt, extracting four small, flat, hexagonal crystals of diamond slate. The man returned with the scooter’s ID key and held it up until Trent handed over the crystal. As Trent closed his finger and thumb on the key’s tab, it read his fingerprints and DNA—no one else would be using this key for the next five days. The keys could be reprogrammed and the scooter could be stolen, but this little bit of security would deter the casual thief. Also the scum here tended to avoid stealing from the shell people. Their community was tight knit and they came down hard on outsiders who stepped out of line.
“Here.” The shellman led him over to one of the water scooters, but then paused to point back down the canal towards the sea. “And there’s the reaverfish.”
Something big was swimming towards them, its main body was submerged but an arc of fins jagged up out of the water like the wings of diving gannets, with a double-finned tail carving from side to side about ten feet behind.
“What weapon?” asked the shellman, indicating the fish.
Trent pulled aside his coat to expose his pulse-gun. The shellman appeared doubtful about this, so Trent pulled his coat round further to expose a series of cylinders on his belt, and the man dipped his head respectfully. This was all a bit overcautious, since the damned fish was unlikely to be able to catch a water scooter.
Keeping an eye on the approaching predator, Trent stepped out onto the scooter and mounted it, inserted the key and fired it up. He felt the water-tractor begin humming underneath his seat, and cruised out into the centre of the canal to head towards the city. Glancing back, he saw the reaverfish was a lot closer than expected, its double-finned tail whipping back and forth to create more of a wake than the scooter itself. He accelerated and realized that he wasn’t getting ahead of the thing, so wound the throttle right back to its stop.
“Persistent fucker, aren’t you,” he said, drawing his pulse-gun.
He aimed carefully and fired, but the jolting of the scooter sent his shot into the water to the left of the fish, kicking up a cloud of steam. He swore, studied the controls on the body of the gun and turned on gyro laser sighting. Now he put a blue spot on a point just back from the fish’s bow wave, clicked on the gyro and the gun came alive in his hand as it tried to keep itself aimed at that point. He fired twice and the fish thrashed, briefly raising its head out of the water and shaking like a dog smacked on the nose. He grinned, but lost it when the scooter hit the edge of the canal and bounced away, nearly flinging him from his seat. Finally managing to wrestle the vehicle to the centre of the canal, he looked back at a raised shark-like head. The reaverfish opened its mouth to expose plenty of black pointy teeth, then its lower jaw split along a vertical slit to expose even more. It protruded its chainsaw tongue from this particular opening.
“Will you fuck off!” Trent shouted, accelerating again.
The fish surged forwards, its tongue scoring the back of the scooter and clipping his leg, its mouth trying to get a grip on the scooter’s tail section and coming away with a chunk of cowling. It fell behind, obviously baffled by this, shook its head to expel a twisted sheet of bubble-metal, then came on again. Trent stared with disbelief at his leg. It had torn his trousers and now blood was welling. Turning angrily, he fired again, but the gyro nearly tugged the gun from his hand, it now having acquired a target somewhere up in the sky. He holstered it and concentrated on his driving, going as fast as he could through a series of bends in the canal, then opening the scooter up as it straightened out. Now there were dilapidated buildings on either side of the canal and shellmen and other disreputable characters were looking on.
Trent concentrated on his navigation, going as fast as he could while avoiding barges and protruding rigs. The light changed and his concentration was so intense that he only realized he’d entered the Carapace as the waterway opened out ahead. The terran hue was from sun-plates set in a ceiling high above. He was now entering a small lake with vessels drawn up all around its perimeter. Behind these was a chaotic panoply of tall buildings, multi-level streets and market stalls, all swarming with humanity. Now on open water he accelerated once more, pulling away from the fish which he’d either hurt or had tired in the chase. Near the end of the lake, he turned his scooter, bringing it to a halt to face the approaching reaverfish. He could have headed for the edge, dismounted and been away with no problem. However, he needed this—he wanted to feel effectual again.
“Right, you fucker,” he said, and accelerated towards it.
ISOBEL
The idiot, thought Isobel, as she viewed the scene. Trent’s antics showed up in the laminate above her chain-glass screen, projected by the numerous pin cams she’d attached to his clothing when she removed his aug, and the silly keepsake of his sister. What had she told him? Just make a few low-key enquiries to see if traders there had what she required. Don’t draw attention to yourself—because if you do people like Stolman in the local mafia will start taking an interest. However, she recognized Trent’s impulse and understood it to the core of her being. He had probably been driven a bit stir crazy, trapped aboard the Moray Firth for so long, and had felt the need for some action. She too felt the need for it, though this didn’t stem from boredom, but the perpetual nag of what she was becoming. In fact, if he did get into trouble she knew she’d be glad of it. She could then accede to her own impulses and have an excuse to leave her ship, to hunt and to kill. Meanwhile, however, she had to suppress her urges and attend to other business.
While the U-space drive was out she’d been unable to use her U-space communicator, their tech being integrated. And even when the drive was operating again, it had still been impossible to use it. The communicator was old design and, unlike newer models, couldn’t operate from within that continuum. Now, time to get things organized.
Isobel put out a call and waited. U-space communication was supposed to be instantaneous but that was a lie. In reality the connection time was constrained by the amount of power you wanted to use, by U-space oddities between points A and B in a continuum where distance was supposed to be meaningless and, of course, by how long it took whoever she was calling to answer. After eight tedious minutes, a tone sounded and an icon blinked up in the laminate. She mentally opened it to see who she was speaking to but, for the moment, did not allow her own image to transmit.
“Morgan,” she said to the beefy, bald and heavily scarred individual who appeared.
“Isobel,” he replied, dipping his head in acknowledgement.
She studied him for a moment. He could easily have corrected the deep scar that ran from his forehead
across his right eye, transecting his nose to end in a lump on his top lip. His mismatched eyes—one blue and the other brown—could’ve been corrected too. As could all the other dents and hollows on his face and the mottled pink and grey of his skin. He could, should he so wish, look like an Adonis. However, he was a man who enjoyed the shock of his brutal ugliness just as he enjoyed the brutality of his trade. He was her chief of coring and thralling. He was someone who enjoyed inflicting pain and horror and so was perfectly suited to his role. He would also be the one, she felt, who could more easily accept her current appearance.
“Morgan,” she continued. “I am now going to let you see me since you, and others you select, will need to know what I now look like.” She considered delivering some sort of warning, but instead allowed her image through.
Morgan jerked back from his screen, his mouth dropping open, then shook himself and leaned forwards again.
“Gruesome,” he said admiringly, then grinned horribly. “You’re going all the way?”
Isobel considered that for a second. Her transformation into a hooder had been continuing apace, but now, since Penny Royal’s recent intervention, that change itself had taken a different path. The grey patches were now regularly distributed—at her joints, at the tips of her limbs and at the rooted sides of her plates of carapace. They were spreading too, like the effect of heat discoloration in metal, leaving ivory white behind them. Studying this effect at a nanoscopic level, Isobel had found deep changes involving s-con threads and laminations of fullerene and other materials. Her carapace was growing even stronger than its already extreme hooder invulnerability. As for her eyes, which were turning lemon yellow, the changes there were due to genetic changes in a photo-luminescent bacteria living inside; she could not fathom their purpose. Of course Morgan saw none of that—he just saw the monster.