On every one of eight levels we had to walk through some shopping area or other. Finally reaching the base of the structure, I saw a sign outside one establishment advertising clamberers to rent.
“Here?” I suggested.
Sepia shook her head. “Outside they’re half the price and better maintained.”
Thick doors of cut foam opened into an area where enviro-suits could be rented, then chain-glass doors led onto a crushed and bonded stone walkway, then some steps down to the flagstoned street of the main valley town. Terraces of four-storey houses ran down either side of the wide street, small gardens to the fore often occupied by log piles and trees that looked vaguely like ginkgos. Ancient hydrocars were parked out front. Some of these houses had bubble windows while others had what looked like leadlight panes. The steep roofs were midnight black with high-conversion solar tiles, and smoking chimneys even protruded. It was still raining, gutters spewing water to run down channels in the street and into wide-gridded drains. Not many people were about, which was understandable.
We took a number of turnings, passed shopfronts, a hydrogen charging station, some greenhouses. Crossed a bridge over a deep fast-flowing river, in which grew plants that clung to the stony bottom with claw-like roots and floated leaves, or fruit, like the hulls of sailing yachts, around them swam fishes that looked like salmon, but for the horns on their heads. Sepia finally brought us to the clamberer yard and pushed into a bubble-metal hut, while I paused to take my first look at a clamberer. This was an enjoyably novel experience, rare for me because it seemed none of the dead residing in the spine strapped to my back had encountered these either.
There were ten of them in the yard, each on four long limbs terminating in six-fingered gripping hands, and hunkered down as if trying to avoid the worst of the rain. They consisted of a bulbous chain-glass cabin with seating inside for four, and a sensory head protruding low down and to the fore on a jointed neck. The head looked much like that of an ant, a soldier ant judging by the size of the pincers, though I wondered about the purpose of the carbide chainsaw blades running along their inner faces.
“Seems a bit silly,” said Riss, black eye open as she doubtless inspected all the inner workings of the machines before us.
“I’m always prepared to bow to local custom,” I said.
“Maybe don’t give anyone a ride this time,” she suggested.
It took me a moment to figure out what she meant, then I felt a chuckle rising up inside me. Yes, I did have a tendency to offer lifts. On Masada it had been a gabbleduck, and by Penny Royal’s planetoid it had been Riss herself.
“We take that one,” said Sepia.
I turned. She was out again, accompanied by an amphidapt man who was smiling widely to expose tooth ridges and the white inner flesh of his mouth. He was obviously perfectly adapted for this environment because he was completely naked. He looked like a toad stood upright and given bat-wing ears.
“How much?” I asked.
“I’ve dealt with it,” she replied, holding up a key stick. She turned back to the amphidapt, “I’ll bring it back in one piece.”
He was now staring at Riss, and licking a serrated tongue over his lips. I supposed she might bear some resemblance to whatever food his form favoured—usually something squirmy, and raw, if other amphidapts were anything to go by. After a moment he got control of himself and withdrew his tongue, then reached up and snapped open and closed a webbed hand. “Just remember it’s on a ten-day auto return.”
“I know—I’ve rented from you before.”
He nodded. “And you brought it back okay. Just this time, he’s here . . .”
Sepia grimaced and gestured us to the clamberer, walked over and pulled up a wing door, then stepped inside. Riss shot inside after her, while I unhooked the carry strap of the spine. Then I followed, waving an acknowledgement at the amphidapt.
“Ten-day auto return?” I queried, once seated inside.
“Plenty of those who take clamberers out on a visit to Mr Pace never return. Strap in,” she added, having done so herself, as she inserted the key stick.
As I secured myself, something began to wind up to speed below the floor—probably a big flywheel driven by an electric motor. She took hold of a standard directional joystick and pulled it up, whereupon the clamberer lurched to its feet, raised its head and looked around as if blearily waking. In a moment it was in motion, stepping out through the yard gate then off down the flagstoned street.
“So what are the pincers for?” I asked.
“Tree-felling,” she replied.
I was glad the reason for them was so prosaic.
The clamberer took us out of the town and then down the valley road with a gait that reminded me of being on the back of an elephant. Only after thinking this did I remember I had never actually ridden an elephant, and that I was re-experiencing someone else’s memory. The road ran down beside the river, then swept away to the right, where that terminated in a wide lake. Instead of following the road, Sepia directed our strange vehicle across the river, then along a rough almost non-existent track leading up the adjacent mountain. I noticed hardly any change at all in the vehicle’s gait. Peering down through the curved glass of the cabin, I could see it smoothly gripping outcroppings where required, walking flat or adjusting the bend of its legs to give us a smooth ride. It was all very novel and quite enjoyable, but I couldn’t see the point of it.
“Why the hell couldn’t we have rented a gravcar?” I asked.
“Mr Pace doesn’t allow them near his castle,” she supplied. “In fact he has a couple of missile turrets there to act as a deterrent.”
“Why?”
“Who knows?” she shrugged.
“Well he does have reason to dislike aircars,” Riss muttered.
There was that.
Over the brow of the mountain, we clambered down past terraced fields packed with trees I presumed were tea oaks. Amidst them I could see robot pickers like metal swans running on caterpillar treads, their beaks snipping and vacuuming the tea shoots into their cavernous bellies. We crossed a small stream then mounted another slope and were soon striding across the flat top of a mountain, which I felt would have been a better location for the space port. After this we went down again then entered another valley which reminded one of my mental passengers of Glen Coe. It was getting darker now since we had arrived towards the end of the thirty-hour day, and I could see lights ahead. A further twenty minutes of travel brought us below Mr Pace’s castle, where Sepia took us onto a road leading up. A few minutes later we crossed a stone bridge and entered a wide courtyard through a stone arch, where the clamberer squatted and its flywheel wound down.
“Okay.” Sepia pointed across the courtyard to an arched and studded wooden door. “Last time I was here, and before I saw the bone pile, I hammered on that. Someone answered and told me that Mr Pace wasn’t around and I could sod off.”
We clambered out of the clamberer and headed over, Sepia clutching her carbine close to her stomach and Riss now up off the ground, sliding through the air like an ophidian missile. Reaching the door, I banged on it with the base of the spine. Waited for a little while and was about to hammer again when the door swung open.
“Follow me,” said something.
I didn’t realize what had spoken until I looked down and saw a small cylindrical robot on the floor. It turned on rotary flapper feet and took off down the corridor within. We followed, having to slow down as it clumsily negotiated a spiral stair. It then took us through further corridors with a distinctly medieval air, though the sconce torches emitted a gas flame of some kind, the pictures were memory paint, steadily changing scenes as we passed, and the one suit of armour in an alcove was a wartime exoskeleton. Big wooden double doors then opened to admit us into a room that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Bram Stoker novel, but for its warmth and the fire
burning in a huge grate occupying one wall, another room beyond visible through the flames. Meanwhile, the robot secured itself beside others of its kind in a stand like a shoe rack.
“Come in,” said Mr Pace.
He was standing with his foot up on the hearth, forearm resting against the mantel, gazing into the fire. I wondered why he had a fire burning here. Surely a man with a body made of metallic glass didn’t feel the cold? I moved on into the room, Sepia at my shoulder, still tightly clutching that carbine. By the grim look to her face I reckoned she had lost any suicidal impulses and, in that moment, I suddenly had qualms. Until now the things I had been doing hadn’t endangered anyone quite so vulnerable as Sepia. Yes, Flute had been in danger but was now the mind of a Polity destroyer, while Riss was something dangerous and hard to kill. That had now changed. Riss slid through the air past us, then dropped neatly to coil herself on a large circular pedestal table. There were ornate and not particularly comfortable-looking sofas before the fire. I didn’t want to sit down. I walked through onto a wide carpet off to one side of the fire and halted.
“I tried to get in contact with you from orbit,” I said.
“Yes.” He nodded.
“And incidentally we’re not here to relieve our boredom.”
He pushed away from the mantelpiece and turned to face us. With his obsidian face and white pupils he looked a demon perfectly appropriate to this setting.
“Of course not,” he said, “you’re a pawn in some complicated game Penny Royal is playing, and your arrival here is just one more obscure move.”
“All I’ve come here for is to ask you the location of that extremadapt colony Penny Royal apparently destroyed.” I paused for a second, a little irritated by being called a pawn. “A question you could have answered easily enough while we were in orbit.”
“It’s easy enough to give,” he said, and I felt a channel application to my aug. I denied it for the moment and made preparations to receive something hostile. Mr Pace shrugged and continued, “But you won’t be going there, since your journey ends here.”
Here it comes, I thought.
“Of course I could have sent you those coordinates while you were in orbit, but why should I do that when I wanted you here? Or, more specifically I wanted that here.” He stabbed a finger at the spine. The channel application was still there, ready for me to accept.
“What did Penny Royal do to you?” I asked, backing up a little and shooting a glance at Riss.
“I can stop him, but I doubt I can kill him,” she sent.
He spread his arms and gestured inwardly to his body. “Penny Royal gave me exactly what I wanted. I am invulnerable.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he affirmed. “Certainly this body can be destroyed but every time it is—five times thus far—I find myself waking up again here in the mountains of this world. The location is different on each occasion. Even dropping myself into a sun did not end me. Some mechanism rebuilds me here every time.” He paused and took a step away from the fire. “I’ve never been able to find it.”
“You want to die?” I asked.
“I want to die,” he agreed. “The old reach that ennui barrier that brings many of them here. I envy them because it is a barrier they can pass through in time, and so I kill them. Penny Royal made me invulnerable but made that barrier impossible for me to pass.”
“And what has that got to do with us, and this?” I held up the spine.
“I thought you were intelligent.”
I got it then. The spine recorded Penny Royal’s victims, living and dead. He was recorded in it, and from it he was perpetually renewed. He wanted the spine because if he could destroy it, then he could finally end his own life.
“I could just hand it over to you now and leave,” I said.
“No.” He shook his head. “I will destroy the spine and thereafter endeavour to foul the plans of that fucking AI to the best of my abilities. Until I am destroyed. You are part of those plans, an integral part, so I will now kill you and your companions.” Then he moved, fast, and the world slowed down around me.
In his first step he hit a barrage of fire from Sepia’s laser carbine, complemented a second later by shots from her pulse-gun. This brought him staggering to a halt and set his clothing on fire. Meanwhile Riss streaked in from one side, the table smashed to splinters by the violence of her launch.
“Down!” she shouted, flipping over and coming at Mr Pace ovipositor-first.
I hesitated, then turned, threw myself at Sepia and snared her with one arm, bringing us both down on the floor. Glancing round, I saw that Pace had caught hold of Riss.
“Really, stab me?” he said, then flung her away contemptuously.
I buried my head under my arms just as the explosive gel she’d deposited on his chest detonated. The force of the blast tried to peel me up off the floor and burning debris rained down all around. When I looked a moment later Mr Pace was gone, blown back through his fireplace and into the room beyond.
“Let’s go.” I stood, hauling up Sepia, and we ran.
I didn’t know how long it would take Pace to recover from such a blast. Would such a thing even stun him? We charged out the way we had come in. Glancing back, I saw Riss acting as our rearguard, but still there was no sign of Pace. Finally we tumbled out into the courtyard and pulled ourselves into the clamberer.
“Fucking silly idea,” said Sepia, as she jerked up the joystick before the flywheel had built up enough speed, the clamberer lurching slowly to its feet. She sent it towards the tunnel just as the studded door blew out behind us, Riss streaking from it like a shard of glassy debris. The flywheel accelerated and the clamberer did too. It took us out through the tunnel and we were a hundred yards along the road when another blast ensued. Looking back, I saw rubble tumbling to fill up the tunnel, then Riss hit the glass of the cabin and stuck there, her gaze back towards the castle, black eye open.
“Fucking silly idea,” Sepia repeated.
I felt something still nagging at me and realized the channel application from Pace was still there. Taking all the mental precautions I could, I cautiously opened it. Nothing large came through; no virus or worm or other informational attack. What did come through almost escaped my notice at first, then I saw it: a simple text message giving galactic coordinates.
“I got the coordinates,” I said.
She glanced at me. “If they’re the right ones.”
I shrugged and firmly closed the channel to Mr Pace.
“And right or wrong,” she added, “that bastard will know where we’re going next.”
Soon we were climbing a mountain slope, moving a damned sight faster than we had on the way here.
“Fuck,” Riss sent.
“What is it?”
She sent me an infrared image of the castle, a clamberer scrambling down from its battlements.
“How much of that explosive gel do you have left?”
“Not a lot,” Riss replied.
I considered the terrain ahead, then the interminable and convoluted journey up through the small city below the spaceport platform, and wondered whether we were about to go anywhere at all.
11
The Brockle
The Brockle felt itself to be a thoroughly pragmatic entity and after a period of contemplation realized a number of things. The extensive data in the package from the watch station gave no indication of Penny Royal’s location: only the odd communication from Amistad to Thorvald Spear did that. Also, the scale and complexity of what Penny Royal was achieving, at a distance, had firmly brought home to the Brockle another fact: it needed to be stronger, both mentally and physically, if it was to counter the threat the black AI posed.
The Brockle had considered upgrading itself before but no circumstances it had encountered had ever driven it to take that step. As it dropp
ed the High Castle into U-space it began assessing resources. Plenty of materials and energy were available, but intricate planning was required. Now, in human form, it trudged out of its cabin, noted that Blite and Greer were asleep in theirs, and headed through the corridors of the ship to the advanced high-tech autofactory all such ships now carried.
As it walked, it probed ahead, assessing the capabilities of the machines available, and soon saw that most of what it needed was there and that ways could be rigged to provide just about anything else it could think of. The machines ranged from matter printers that could deposit composites in just about any form, an atom at a time, to gravity and hardfield presses capable of forming super-dense baryonic materials. Using the processing of its own units, it began designing further units incorporating extended processing and bulked-up power supplies but also physical capabilities it had not possessed before: state-of-the-art U-tech sensors and a distributed weapons system. While with a small part of its mind it concentrated on the details of the physical upgrade, it returned the rest of its mind to the design of that extended processing.
Here was where things could get a little sticky, for steadily upgrading that ill-defined capacity humans called “intelligence” without extreme care could flip an AI mentality over into a state where the material universe ceased to be of much concern. In that state all thought became self-referential; the more prosaic aspects of reality became less interesting than mental constructs—one of those prosaic things being plain survival. Minds sank into the contemplation of the infinite and the infinitesimal: time, space, U-space and the proliferating dimensions, or the sub-atomic and the very grains of existence. It was a kind of mental event horizon which, when passed, was impossible to return through. As the Brockle contemplated this it had an epiphany.
That’s how Penny Royal does it!
Out of physical necessity the Brockle had, over the ages, formed itself into a being capable of distributing its physical and mental parts. This shoal design had been useful for penetrating and assessing organizations, gathering and sorting multiple perspectives and launching subtle cascading attacks. But now it realized another advantage to remaining distributed: by buffering its separate mental parts, in much the same way humans were buffered from AI to prevent burnout, it could increase its overall intelligence while preventing that fall through the mental event horizon. Synergy, of course: the parts creating a greater whole while retaining enough separation to prevent what might be described as collapse. In essence it would be like using field tech to keep a bunch of super-dense components separate; components that would otherwise clash together and collapse into a singularity.