“Uhuh, I experience both worlds, so I’m not quite as limited as you.”
“That’s enough,” I said. “This isn’t helping.”
But even as I said it I felt oddly happy that these two were back to their usual bickering. It seemed like stability in my chaotic world.
“Well,” said Riss, “I’ve still got some of that explosive gel if the prador child gets uppity.”
“Yes, sure you have,” I said.
“So what now, boss?” asked Flute.
“Now, once we’re ready, we head off again and I find out what I can about where Penny Royal went.”
“Same aims?” asked Riss.
“I don’t really know,” I replied. “All I do know is that before we go I get that spine back from Sverl, and find out what Trent is doing too . . .”
“Then what?”
“Let’s just find Penny Royal,” I asserted. “And then we’ll see.”
What would I do if I was not pursuing Penny Royal? Right now the AI was the focus of my existence and I couldn’t stop until whatever it was between us was resolved. And, deep inside, I knew I was frightened by the prospect of not having this mission, no matter how vague it had become.
With Riss squirming along at my side, I followed Flute across to my ship, pausing at one point to watch the activity in this final construction bay. I initially intended to take Flute round to the munitions hatch, which had been the best way in while the hold was full. However, now the last of the cryo-cases had been removed and going through the hold would be the better route, I diverted the robot. As I got Flute inside the ship and into position, I was reminded of the last time I had done this. At the time Isobel Satomi and her two men had been lying paralysed inside their own ship—victims of a neat biological weapon I had devised. At that time I had been acting rather than reacting. Remembering it, I felt the need to be more positive about my aims now.
“When I spoke to Penny Royal inside Room 101 it said, ‘We have returned to my beginning, and now we must return to yours.’ And I’ve been pondering on what that might mean.”
“Where were you born?” asked Riss.
“New York, on Earth.”
“I don’t think that’s what it means then, does it?”
“Almost certainly not.”
“Your resurrection?”
“On Earth again.” I paused. “One possibility could have been Masada, because it could be contrived that my ‘beginning’ was when my memplant was found in that jewellery shop. But I don’t think it’s that either. In a way I think Penny Royal is referring to something that could almost mean the opposite.”
“Uh?”
“My ending: where I died on Panarchia.” I hesitated, then continued, “And where the new me began.”
By now we had reached Flute’s previous abode and, once the mind case was in position between the splayed-end interlinks, I began plugging in optics and other peripherals. Since the ship was now airtight and pressurized inside, Flute spoke from its PA system, noting, “Panarchia might not exist any longer.”
“What?”
“On my last astrogation update,” said Flute, “Panarchia was a place to approach with caution since the whole system was in the process of sliding into the black hole Layden’s Sink. It might already be gone.”
I then remembered standing on the surface of that world, visor closed against the darts of hunting octupals. Further memories occurred. We were all on anti-rads and running nanosuites in our bodies to counter the constant radiation damage as we were bathed in X-rays discharged as the Layden’s Sink sucked up just another portion of the material universe. I remembered a conversation with Gideon which ran along the lines of, “Why the fuck are we fighting for a world that faces annihilation a century hence?”
A century ago.
Tangled in Penny Royal’s manipulations, I’d been growing used to events seeming to reach predestined conclusions along the way. But no, even as shivers traversed my spine, I just could not accept that somehow the black AI had arranged that. Or could it? That my memplant was found a hundred years after I died was all due to that AI. The events with Sverl were instigated by Penny Royal . . . No, I shook my head. I wasn’t going to go there.
The Brockle
The Brockle contained its frustration and tried to focus totally on the data because, just like the method it had used to find Penny Royal’s route from Room 101, that data might provide the required information. The black AI had managed to separate and initiate one U-drive to escape, even managing to conceal its U-signature but for the briefest flicker as it went under. Where it had gone in the Graveyard now the Brockle had no idea. However, Penny Royal’s U-space connections spread all across the Graveyard, into the Polity, the Kingdom and beyond. Through them it should be able to find something.
As it wondered how to go about this, the Brockle continued with its present investigation, since all information about Penny Royal might come in useful some time hence. The entire crew of The Rose had experienced a strange connection with the AI, which had changed them fundamentally. The human woman Haber, along with her husband Chont, had, under Penny Royal’s influence, experienced a near-telepathic bond for a brief while. It had driven them to separate because that degree of closeness was not something feeble human minds were capable of experiencing. But what was the purpose of it? Unfortunately, Chont and Haber weren’t available, so the Brockle concentrated on investigating the more prosaic psychosis Greer had experienced under Penny Royal’s influence, when she had tried to cut off her own face. It injected nano-fibres to every one of the woman’s synapses, to measure the traffic along every neuron while also weighing neurochemicals. This data it passed through a series of templates, in order to create a precise model of the woman’s mind. Of course she had to remain conscious for this and there was some discomfort for her, but that was irrelevant.
After hours of analysis, the Brockle finally came to the conclusion that no useful data was available from Greer. The proximity of Penny Royal to the crew of The Rose had softened some arbitrary distinction between conscious and unconscious mind, resulting in suppressed angst arising. When Penny Royal was made aware of this, it corrected it, and that was all. There was no purpose to it. Here, then, was another demonstration of just how dangerously out of control that AI was, but again, giving no insight into its ultimate goals. The Brockle extracted its connections into the woman’s skull, noted that she was suffering some adverse after-effects and was crying, but simply dismissed her from its presence. All such reactions were well within the parameters of human function and would eventually be overcome, so there was no need for any kind of adjustment.
“I thought you were done interrogating them,” said Captain Grafton from the ship’s bridge. “Despite what Castle tells me, I can’t see how anything more of value can be learned from them.”
The Brockle felt a surge of irritation as it listened to the woman and gazed upon her prim expression. Castle, the ship’s AI, wasn’t saying anything—all the replies Grafton ostensibly had from it were coming from the Brockle itself. But now Grafton, like others aboard, was beginning to realize things weren’t as they should be. Damn it, what was the point of these humans?
“I will decide whether or not there is anything of value to be learned from them,” it lectured. “Penny Royal’s actions can be both extreme and subtle and one must always look beyond what is apparent.”
“Yeah, right,” said Grafton. “But it’s been my experience that beyond a certain point torture renders little of value.”
“I am not torturing them,” the Brockle insisted. “I am merely obtaining every detail.”
She just stared at her screen, which presently showed an image of the Brockle in human form. “If you say so,” she said, her expression grim, and cut the connection.
The Brockle realized it had been procrastinating. Since Penny Royal had escape
d and it seemed likely the Brockle would have to occupy this ship for some time, the situation would have to change. It could not have Grafton storming down here all the time while it was trying to investigate. Nor did it want crew coming to see the humans—the situation was all just too lax and needed to be dealt with.
It was starting with the Sparkind. Each of the five four-man teams consisted of a mixture of humans and Golem, and it was the latter that were becoming a problem. They frequently used direct communication with the ship’s AI to update on various matters and pose questions. They had started to ask a lot of questions about the change in their mission, then they had abruptly stopped. Now they were attempting to conceal their communications and were taking weapons from the armoury for “diagnostic checks.” They knew something was wrong.
Then there was the submind of the High Castle AI in the science section. It too had been puzzled by the responses it was getting from its master AI. Then, in a very short time, it had gone from puzzlement to alarm. The Brockle had already penetrated the link it had with its master and had forcibly subsumed it, but now the human scientists in the science section were asking questions too.
The Brockle drew its shoaling units together, assumed its favoured human form and headed for the door to its cabin. Obviously it wanted to avoid casualties, but it could not allow its mission to be hampered. If some of them died as it removed the threat they posed, then that was acceptable. So who first?
The science team.
This consisted of five humans and two Golem. Obviously the weak and feeble-minded humans were no problem, but the Golem were another matter. Just as with the ship AI, the Brockle could not take control of them remotely, but it had to be in physical contact with their crystal. Probing ahead, it mapped out a course to the science section that would avoid it coming in contact with anyone else aboard. Walking out into the nearby lounge, it ignored the frightened gazes of Blite and Greer and headed through the blast door into the rest of the ship, mentally locking it behind. Stomping along the luxuriously appointed corridors to its destination, it realized that those in the science section would alert the rest the moment the Brockle launched a physical assault. They were slow humans, but they still possessed augs and other mental hardware. This, then, must be incorporated in the plan.
Shortly, it arrived outside the doors into the science section where, through the cams inside, it could see that all were at work studying debris collected from the destruction of the Black Rose. The Brockle paused, its fat hand resting against the door, and looked up at a slot sitting above it, and suddenly realized that the solution to its problem might not have to involve actual physical confrontation. Stepping back from the door, it now searched inside the High Castle AI’s mind and there found the perfect solution. Even Golem would not be a problem, confined inside three inches of case-hardened ceramal.
The first cam it had tried to penetrate aboard had offered a clue. Since the advent of dangerous Jain technology in the Polity, security had been upgraded in response. One of the first points of entry into a ship like this for such technology was the science section, for it was there any alien items would be taken for study. There was, therefore, a way of securely quarantining that section. Within less than a minute, the entire section could be sealed off by airtight ceramal blast walls inches thick, all communications and power cut, whereupon the section could be simply ejected from the ship. The Brockle felt it didn’t want to get that drastic, just yet, for there still might be things to be learned from those ship remains. It turned away from the door, initiating just one part of the security protocol. Behind it a sheet of ceramal slammed down out of that slot, while other crashes resounded all around and the deck shuddered underneath its feet. A minute later the science section was completely contained.
Jain technology was a dangerous thing. One Jain node the size of a table tennis ball could topple a civilization, so having such security protocols wasn’t really enough, especially when someone could bring in something lethal merely on the sole of a boot. The Brockle rapidly assimilated the fact that most areas inside the ship could be thus enclosed and ejected. It at once closed off the military section, then the bridge. It was congratulating itself on the simplicity of this solution when the laser blast struck it in the chest.
6
Lelic
After wrapping his stinger gun across his back and feeling it sink into its groove there, Lelic pulled himself from his console with a sucking thwack. With a flip of his webbed tail fluke, he moved to his exit tube, propelled himself through it with his webbed hands and the auxiliary tentacles sprouting from his waist, then squeezed out through a sphincter door into the dock.
The wreck, which according to Henderson was free of contaminants, lay down at the bottom of the internal dock sphere, harsh and black against the enclosing pale grey walls of salvaged ceramal, bound together with the red and green growths of constructor coral. Grav was light in here—just a few plates operating at low intensity in the base of the sphere and others scattered all around—so just a shove against the tug, which clung to the wall like a giant tick, sent Lelic down towards it.
He landed just as Henderson ejected from the grab-control bubble. The man, a ball of mollusc muscle still vaguely in human form, landed with a thump against the wall of the sphere and walked down on limpet feet. The sphere was shaking now, a sure sign that others were now docking. Lelic looked up and saw a circular disc of ceramal hinge up to admit another biomech ship, which heaved itself like a giant caterpillar to its docking position, umbilical pipes snaking out to attach and feed it. Then another ship arrived, and another, and soon the place was swarming with extremadapts, mostly in something resembling human form but others utterly alien. There was Dorrel, who seemed like by-blow of a squid and an elephant. Also here, walking across the base of the sphere was Mr Pace, the only resident who wasn’t an extremadapt and one of their links with the outside—because he didn’t look too extreme and possessed his own U-space capable ship. Lelic eyed him. Mr Pace always wore an antiquated suit and at first glance appeared to be a normal. Closer inspection revealed that he was seemingly carved from ebony. Those who knew him were aware that he could survive in vacuum and was unkillable with most weapons. Lelic had personally witnessed a colonist attack him with a ceramic slug thrower. The bullets had just bounced off.
Already the guards and other station personnel were heading over to take a look at the latest candidate here to demonstrate the inferiority of the standard human. Lelic drew his gaze away from Mr Pace, grinned to himself and, using his auxiliary tentacles, towed himself over to the wreckage.
The mass was quite small, so it had to be just a chunk of an attack ship. As he had noticed before, it was a cylinder that had been ripped open. In fact, it had been split lengthways and one half folded back. Pulling himself under jags of crow’s wing metal, Lelic peered at what he could see of the interior. The thing was packed with all the paraphernalia of a U-space drive and other unidentifiable hard tech. Arriving where the survivor had been located, he saw that a lattice of silvery beams had pinned the space-suited figure up against what looked like a series of crushed Calabi-Yau frames, though what they were doing outside a drive canister Lelic had no idea. He pulled himself closer, grabbed hold of the lattice and pulled. Much to his surprise the whole lot came away easily, and he now realized that the figure had not actually been pinned in place by it. Stooping nearer, he checked the suit for damage, but could see none.
The suit was of an old design that didn’t seem to fit with the modernity of the surrounding wreckage. The visor was completely blacked out so Lelic, wanting a look at its inhabitant, reached for the clips holding the helmet in place. He tugged at them for a moment then, on closer inspection, saw that they had all somehow been fused. He stepped back.
“Alive?” enquired Henderson, black eyes blinking from between flat pads of muscle.
Lelic shrugged and then gestured to the approaching guards,
which of course to any normal would have looked like some diverse shoal of marine predators coming to feed. He turned and surveyed the gathering crowd. Wings and fins flapping, tentacles coiling and uncoiling, they all looked eager, and vicious, and Lelic could taste the fog of saliva many of them were spilling. Of course Lelic knew that forcing the survivors to fight each other for the entertainment of the colony was the kind of thing that would have been frowned on in the Polity, though not so much in the Kingdom. He knew it was bad, wrong, and that he and all those around him were the archetypal monsters found in VR entertainments across the Polity. But normals did not understand the alienation that drove this colony, nor its constant need for affirmation of its choices. And frankly, Lelic didn’t care whether or not they did understand. There was a freedom to be had in accepting the reality of what you were. Human beings were killers just like the prador, extremadapts were just a refinement of that, and human morality was an artificial construct. Whatever your morality might be was a matter of choice.
“We’ll still have to get some more in,” said Henderson.
“Certainly.” Lelic nodded.
He had been coming to terms with the reality of how things here had changed. They were importing now, and Polity and prador wealth was required to pay for such imports. They still sold salvage, but these days they made most of their money from death matches. Full sensory recordings drew in a lot, and there were even a few private tourists allowed. But more matches meant more bodies were needed . . .
“It looks more like a U-space nacelle than from the main body of a ship,” said a cold and arid voice.
Snapped out of reverie, Lelic glanced at Mr Pace, and nodded agreement.
Mr Pace added, “Which begs the question as to why there was a human survivor inside it.”
“Perhaps the ship had problems,” said Henderson, “and this guy was sent out into a nacelle to make repairs.”