‘So we’ll go there?’
‘It’s not up to me.’
‘Why don’t you ask Amistad?’
‘You don’t get it.’ Grant rested his hands on the table, fingers interlaced. ‘Amistad thinks Tombs going to Dragon Down might be unnecessary, but is letting it run. The drone’s got other irons in the fire right now. Where Tombs goes after Dragon Down depends on them. When it’s ready the drone will be down here having a very long talk with Tombs.’
‘So we just wait in Dragon Down until these “other matters” are dealt with.’
‘No, I’m to take Tombs wherever he wants to go.’
‘Then why not to the AI?’
‘That might be allowed, but it’s his decision,’ said Grant.
‘He’s a fucking proctor, Grant.’
‘He’s a free Polity citizen, Shree.’ Grant gazed at her steadily. ‘If you want him to go to the Atheter AI, then you’d better ask him.’
She didn’t like that at all, but Grant just did not seem to have the energy to care.
Dracomen, it seemed, were very literal in the way they named things. The first two dracomen, created by the massive alien entity calling itself Dragon and looking nothing like its name, had assumed the appellations Scar and Non-scar the moment there was a distinction to make. And the reason for draco-woman Blue’s name stood out at once.
Dracomen were modelled on what some pre-runcible scientist thought dinosaurs might have evolved into had they not been wiped out. Of course, being Human, that scientist anthropomorphized his model to come up with man-dinosaurs, toad-faced lizard men, in fact the kind of evil critters found in just about every virtual fantasy experience on the market. Generally dracomen were pale yellow from throat to groin, their scaling elsewhere ranging from grass green to deep jade. This female, Blue, however, was precisely as her name implied. Her darker scales were almost blue-black and the lighter scales down her front were a curious almost artificial-looking azure.
Stepping out of her gravan Sanders first studied this female then the small town lying beyond her. The name of this place was literal too, for it stood at the edge of where one dragon sphere, the one the Theocracy had labelled Behemoth, had sacrificed itself to create the dracoman race. Dragon Down, inevitably. Of course no crater existed here any more – the tricones and the slow tidal movement of the mud had obliterated it.
‘Please, this way.’ Blue gestured towards a walkway lying on heavily disturbed mud, then nimbly leaped onto it with that weird bird-legged gait.
‘I’ve got luggage,’ said Sanders.
‘Of course you have,’ replied the blue dracowoman.
Did Sanders really need her belongings? How long would she be here? Both were questions she had no answer to. However, she’d felt the need to take back some control, assert herself. She stepped down past her vehicle to the side door, sinking in churned mud up to her ankles, her soles coming to rest on the grid the weight of the gravan had pressed down below the surface. Palming the door pad she stepped back, removed her remote control from her pocket. After a moment one of her two hover trunks came trundling out, rocking as its sensors struggled to read what lay below it. She watched it for a second, until it managed to compensate, then turned and followed Blue onto the walkway.
The town was much like the other dracoman towns scattered across Masada. From a distance it looked like a sprawling mass of giant white puffballs sprouting from the mud. Only when one drew closer did the other infrastructure reveal itself between the globular houses, storage tanks, generator stations, crèches, biofactories . . . though, as Sanders understood it, the difference between those last two might be something hard to nail down.
‘I’m here to see someone,’ she said, finding herself reluctant to move further away from the illusory safety of her vehicle – the same reluctance that had delayed her arrival here when she decided first to return to Zealos and stay in a hotel. She didn’t like obeying Amistad, and dracomen worried her. Stupid really, that last, for though dangerous-looking dracomen were visible throughout the town, there were also Humans here. Just a few metres away from her gravan stood a large old ATV, still in camouflage paint, and still bearing a rail-gun turret on the roof, and beyond that lay an antigravity bus – a utile transport that rested on the rhizome mat like a brick with windows. A woman who was probably its driver sat smoking a cigarette on the step of the open door – a habit some atmosphere-adapted Masadans had taken up as if to raise two fingers at the hostile environment. She was also gazing out to where other Humans, probably her intended passengers, were dismounting from huge lizard-like mounts – one of the creations of those dracoman biofactories, or crèches.
‘Survivors,’ said Blue.
‘What?’ Sanders turned to the dracowoman.
‘Survivors of the hooder attack on Bradacken way station,’ Blue explained. ‘Another attempt on the life of the one you are here to meet.’
‘Jeremiah Tombs.’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone’s controlling hooders?’ she asked, confused.
‘In a way, yes,’ Blue replied. ‘We isolated the gabbleduck death hormone here not long after The Sowing, and supplied that data to Rodol when the Tagreb arrived. Neither we nor Rodol have made that information commonly available, so someone else must have both isolated it and synthesized it.’
‘Death hormone?’ Sanders repeated, feeling slightly slow as she processed this new information. Yes, she knew about the hormone, just as she knew that The Sowing was a reference to the Greek myth of Cadmus sowing the dragon’s teeth – it was effectively the time these dracomen first popped out of the ground like hostile asparagus shoots. ‘Someone lured hooders to Bradacken using the hormone?’
‘The way station is gone. Many were killed.’
‘What about Tombs and Leif Grant?’
‘They survived and, along with an Earthnet reporter, were transported to the Tagreb where Tombs at last begins to reveal the one within. Next they come here.’
Sanders left that ‘one within’ alone, instead asking, ‘Why is he coming here?’
Blue gazed at her with large unreadable eyes that she noted also contained a hint of the female’s overall hue. Perhaps Blue was something like the dracoman version of an albino? No, dracomen did not really possess DNA like Humans and, though they reproduced, every new dracoman fitted precise specifications. There was no random mutation, no random surfacing of alleles. Blue had been engineered to be blue or that colouration was an insignificant side-effect of some other specification. Could it be that Blue was a diplomat and her colour a more soothing one to the Human eye? Sanders shook her head in dismissal – so easy to get paranoid around these creatures.
‘We are on his route,’ Blue told her, a momentary confusion flashing across the dracowoman’s expression. ‘Dragon Down lies between the Tagreb, the place he is currently departing, and the Atheter AI.’
‘Just coincidence then.’
‘Coincidence,’ Blue repeated. ‘An interesting Human term.’ Blue dipped her head in what might have been contemplation for a moment. ‘The time is just right.’
‘For what?’
‘Answers.’
‘What answers?’
‘To the witness.’
Sanders felt a momentary frustration then dismissed it. She knew enough about Dragon and enough about dracomen to be sure she would get no further. We must never forget where they come from, she thought to herself.
Those were the words that had come out in a conversation all but forgotten until now. Just after the Polity raised the quarantine she’d returned to the mainland for a break from her fruitless efforts with Tombs. Lellan Stanton had spoken those words in Zealos, beside the partially reconstructed spaceport, where dracomen were climbing into Polity landers and going off to fight in some larger conflict to which the rebellion and subsequent events on Masada had just been a sideshow.
Sanders stepped up onto the walkway after Blue and followed her into Dragon Down. So where did drac
omen come from – it was a long and tortuous story. Their main population here was a creation of Dragon a mere twenty years ago, but in essence they were Dragon – a singular entity turned into a race, not even that . . . one of four facets of a singular entity . . . Sanders had acquired the story in pieces that just did not seem to fit well together and realized she did not know it all.
We must never forget where they come from.
Sure – presupposing you had any idea where that was.
Blue led her on a winding course through Dragon Down to a huge oblate building lying just off the central park – the structure recognizable as Human accommodation because it actually possessed windows and a balcony area engirdling it. The central park itself was a gridded area seeded with low leafy growth, divided up by raised beds crammed with the products of an agronomist’s dream, or nightmare, scattered with grape trees, yellow avocado trees, and many others she did not recognize, all producing odd colourful fruits. Sanders wondered if a foamstone raft lay underneath this place or if the dracomen used some sort of biotechnology to keep tricones at bay and prevent flute grass coming up underneath everything like a bed of nails. Here dracoman gardeners laboured with hand tools that looked like they must be locked up for the night, after being fed, or checked upon monitors clinging like glass limpets to some plants.
‘Who are they?’ Sanders asked, indicating with a nod the four men lounging on the balcony.
‘Just travellers,’ Blue replied. ‘The elder is called Ripple-John and the other three are his sons, Sharn, Kalash and Blitz. They arrived ahead of the others from the intervention zone around Bradacken. It’s safe here because the wind is carrying the hormone south.’
Sanders glanced back. Some of those she had seen getting down from the lizard mounts had passed the gravbus and were heading this way. The driver of the bus was back inside, ready to run the vehicle to Zealos, probably. She followed Blue up the steps onto the balcony around the Human accommodation, uncomfortably aware of the intentness with which the four men on the balcony were studying her. She raised a hand to them, but only got that stare in return.
The inside of the building was odd. Intervening corridors seemed to be just the gaps between a collection of spheres that had apparently been inflated inside. Blue finally brought her to a door, which was a simple affair of woven and resin-bonded flute-grass stalks with a plain handle to one side – no palm locks or DNA security here.
‘I am informed that Tombs will arrive here tomorrow morning,’ Blue said as Sanders inspected the interior of her room. It seemed almost bucolic – a peasant dwelling out of some history book, none of the weird biomechanisms she had expected to find. Her trunk settled to the floor with a sigh, as if contemptuous of its surroundings.
‘Okay.’ Sanders nodded affirmation, suddenly feeling a nervousness at meeting her charge again. ‘Is there somewhere I can get something to eat and drink?’
‘Of course,’ said Blue, imparting precise directions before departing.
The refectory was another sphere, refrigerated food and primitive cooking equipment available. She made sandwiches and took them back to her room, wondering why the dracomen hadn’t taken advantage of readily available Polity technology, then thinking perhaps that the dracomen did not want to allow potential Trojans into their domain. She had finished eating and was considering just climbing inside the bed she sat upon when the door opened and Ripple-John stepped inside, his three sons coming in behind him.
‘Jerval Sanders,’ he said cheerfully. ‘What an unexpected bonus!’
‘What the—’ was all she managed before he stepped forward and smashed his fist into her mouth.
15
Dragon (again)
Great has been the speculation about the motives of Dragon (in its various incarnations). It has been involved in numerous nefarious activities; set up Dracocorp to produce its dubious augs; was responsible for the Samarkand runcible explosion and the 30,000 resultant deaths; supplied the nano-mycelium that wrecked Outlink Station Miranda; sacrificed one of its four spheres on the world of Masada, converting its mass into the race of Dracomen; tampered with Human DNA on the world of Cull to make grotesque hybrids of men and local life forms; and fought with the Polity against Jain technology. So what is its ultimate purpose, people ask. Is it for us or against us? Is it attacking the Polity or helping the Polity? That they ask questions like this is due to Dragon’s sheer scale and the power it commands. Surely such a being must possess great insight and some numinous ultimate aim. Wake up: godlike powers don’t necessarily imply a godlike purpose. Dragon, it seems to me, is like a child at the controls of a bulldozer, very much enjoying the ride and rather careless of the havoc it wreaks.
– From HOW IT IS by Gordon
Sanders shot backwards over the other side of her bed to collapse on the floor and Ripple-John walked round to gaze down at her. She lay there stunned but he allowed himself the pleasure of driving his boot into her stomach a couple of times.
‘So what now?’ asked Blitz, as Kalash closed the door behind them.
Ripple-John stepped back, breathing heavily but not from exertion, and instead of continuing the beating as he wanted, drew his pepperpot stun gun. The weapon cracked in his hand, slamming a cloud of knockout needles into her back. What now indeed.
The sight of Jerval Sanders stirred up a killing rage in him and had been the impetus for him to go after her straight away like this. Here lay the Polity medtech who had for so long looked after Jeremiah Tombs as if it mattered whether the man was sick or well, mad or sane. Here, he felt, was the woman who had denied the Tidy Squad access to that piece of shit for over twenty years. That wasn’t a rational assessment, he knew, but the others who had protected Tombs did not wear a Human face and so were more difficult to hate.
‘She could die,’ said Sharn, rounding the bed to stand beside Ripple-John and gaze with complete indifference down at Sanders, who was making choking bubbling sounds.
True. Having received a kicking then a blast of stun-gun needles she might choke on her own vomit. Ripple-John considered letting her do so, considered using the stun antidote on her then, when he had her full attention, pulling the knife from his boot and doing something artistic with her face before cutting her throat. However, he had stunned her for reasons not yet quite clear to him – she would be useful, somehow. He stooped and pulled her into a recovery position, stuck his finger deep into her mouth and hooked out lumps of half-digested sandwich, gripped her hair and slapped her back until she coughed up the rest. After a moment she was breathing easier and he stood.
‘We use her,’ he said decisively.
‘How?’ Blitz asked.
Kalash now spoke up. ‘Bait.’
‘But how do we use that bait?’ Blitz asked, always looking for the holes. ‘Tombs, Grant and the Earthnet reporter were transported to the Tagreb in some sort of underground vessel. We know that and we know Tombs is coming here.’ He waved a hand at their surroundings. ‘But killing him here?’
Ripple-John dipped his head in acknowledgement. That they had arrived here after Bradacken was merely due to the fact that this place was the nearest haven from the way station. It was pure luck that they had arrived at Tombs’s next destination.
‘No, not here,’ Ripple-John agreed. ‘At least not while we remain.’ Conducting a direct hit here would be tantamount to suicide and, even if they managed it, would most certainly result in him and his sons ending up dead. Though he was fanatical about killing Theocracy shits, his fanaticism did not extend that far.
‘The hormone?’ suggested Sharn.
Ripple-John shook his head. ‘We don’t have enough of it, and anyway the dracomen would get them out.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Their biotech’s very advanced too and they’d probably detect it and quickly shut it down.’
‘A bomb?’ Sharn suggested.
Ripple-John peered at him. He often felt that Sharn was the dud in the magazine. ‘And where would we put it to ensure we got him?’ br />
Sharn shrugged.
‘No.’ Ripple-John considered their options, tried to put his thoughts in order. ‘Tombs is no longer protected by the thing that screwed Tinsch and later got him away from the hooders at Bradacken.’
‘You’re sure?’ Blitz asked.
The ATV driver and Tidy Squad member at the Tagreb had been reluctant to impart information now Squad Command had said Tombs must be left alone, but a few blatant threats and Ripple-John’s reputation had been enough to open him up.
‘We saw what happened to it on Earthnet, and it’s outside the Tagreb still – the Technician fucked it up bad. If it goes on the move again we’ll be informed at once.’
‘If Tombs travels from here underground we can’t touch him,’ said Sharn.
Ripple-John glanced at him again. Maybe not a complete dud.
‘So while he’s on his way here we can’t hit him,’ said Blitz. ‘We can’t hit him here either, nor will we be able to if he takes the underground route away.’
‘We ensure he doesn’t use that route from here,’ said Ripple-John, the vague shape of a plan forming in his mind.
‘A distance shot from outside,’ said Kalash, true to his name. ‘All we have to do is wait for that underground vessel to surface and wait for him to step out.’
‘And we’d be dead a few minutes after that.’
‘You think dracomen are that fast?’ Kalash asked.
Blitz was the eldest, a teenager during the rebellion, but the other two had taken no part in the fighting. Blitz knew, but Sharn and Kalash had no idea.
‘They can travel overland faster than an aerofan can fly. If they catch you they don’t need weapons and can continue fighting even with half their bodies blown away. I saw that. We don’t risk pissing them off.’
‘So how?’ asked Sharn, then prodded Sanders with the toe of his boot, ‘And where does she come in?’
‘We use a small, discrete bomb to disable that mud vehicle,’ Ripple-John replied, ‘detonated remotely from a good distance – that’ll be your job.’ He paused, thinking it through. ‘After that they’ll have no choice but to leave either by air or overland. If it’s the first then Kalash gets to play with the missile launcher. If it’s the second we get to use her as bait.’ He prodded Sanders with his boot. Yes, preferable to use her to get those inside a land vehicle on the outside where they would be easier to pick off, because they then stood a chance of capturing Tombs alive and could thereafter spend some quality time with him. Ripple-John really liked that idea.