Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man (31 page)

“Uh, um, uh,” Z-Lin coughed, and Contro noticed he wasn’t the only one looking up in mild concern, although everyone else looked like they understood completely. Z-Lin
never
hesitated at the comm. But then – as before – she never talked to Molren with hair, either. Contro looked back at Sally’s screen. The Molran was smiling, but that was pretty normal, for Molren. Sally’s shoulders were shaking with stifled laughter. “Read you, MundCorp Research Base, this is Commander Z-Lin Clue, official starship designation…” she cleared her throat one more time, and continued more firmly, “well, we usually shorten to
Astro Tramp 400
, or just ‘the
Tramp
’. Deep-space exploration and transportation, minimal crew, limited technical capabilities. We’re reading you loud and clear, MundCorp Research.”

“Yeah, you said,” the Molran outright
grinned
now. “Hi.”

“You said that, too,” Z-Lin was back in control, at least as far as Contro could see. “I wasn’t aware that this was a Blaran outfit.”

Ahh
. Contro nodded to himself. Of course, it would be a Blaran. Contro had just realised why the hair looked so familiar – it was
able
hair. They all had pretty much the same haircut, although this was longer and tangled and dyed that funny colour. It was still clearly a grafted-on augmentation from an able, and Blaren were generally the ones that were into these shocking little cosmetic enhancements. Molren were by no means universally
against
it, Contro supposed, but they did tend to be the more straight-laced, wear-the-same-clothes-they-always-did-even-on-Funny-Shirt-Friday type of fellows.

“It is now,” the purple-haired Blaran said happily, “or what’s left of it. I mean really. All that hard work and
extraordinary
luck,” he went on, his tone turning slightly mournful, “for nothing. Guess it had to be too good to be true, right? But yes – all ours, since the sourcats left,” he leaned back in his seat, tipping away from the screen a little, and spread all four arms, cheerful once more. Contro noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The rest of his body was as hairless as every other Molranoid body Contro had seen, not that he’d seen all that many, except that one time Decay had made him look through his collection of pornography. Anyway, long story short, it looked like it was just the head-hair he’d added, which was probably good because Contro didn’t think ables had that much hair anywhere else. Not that he’d seen many of
them
naked either, except – again – on Decay’s organiser pad that time. “Now the shit-dancers rule Big Gravity.”

“I … see,” Z-Lin said calmly. “Well, hi then.”

The Blaran grinned again, fangs gleaming, and settled his upper hands behind his head, running his fingers into his peculiar mane. “And what brings a fine AstroCorps monkey-bowl all the way out to our humble little tanning salon?”

“Just passing through,” Z-Lin said. Decay tapped at his console, and Z-Lin glanced across at him and nodded, still looking as bemused as Contro felt. Decay took over the comm.

“And let’s have a bit less of the monkey-talk,” he advised smoothly, “you’re talking to a Commander of the AstroCorps fleet.”

The shaggy Blaran laughed aloud. “Oh, my apologies, passing-through Commander of the AstroCorps fleet,” he declared, leaning forward again and clasping his lower hands together. “I had no idea you were so sensitive.”

“Forget it,” Z-Lin said, giving Decay a little shrug before turning back to her console. “That’s a fine primate pelt you’re sporting yourself there … you didn’t give me your name.”

“Gila Rodel,” the Blaran said, “of the
TransMundus
. And it
is
handsome, isn’t it?” he ran his upper left hand through his hair again. “Itches like a son-of-a-whore, though. I don’t know how you m- …
humans
… do it. And
flakes of skin
come out of it. Is that normal?”

“Not if you wash it,” Z-Lin replied serenely.

“Hah, wash it,” Gila Rodel chuckled. “May have to try that. We call it humandruff,” he laughed again, tilted his head and scrabbled briskly at his hair with one hand, presumably letting flakes of humandruff fall on his own console. Then he leaned over, brushed theatrically at the surface he’d just humandruff’d on, and tapped at it with a lower hand. “Uh, yeah, so, just park anywhere, modular. I’ll light up a bay for you and upload the whole sad story to your pet
waskon
over there,” he looked up, and grinned through his fringe. “MundCorp out.”

Z-Lin leaned back in her seat when the Blaran vanished off the screens.

“So, Blaren have taken over the base,” she said. “And did he say ‘
TransMundus
’?”

“I’m afraid so,” Decay said stiffly. “Corsair group – maybe related to the MundCorp Worldship, but not necessarily. It’s a common term.
Mund
,
mundus
. But they’re the real deal. These are some of the Blaren who make the Six Species classify us as a criminal caste.”

“So, actual dancers,” Sally said quietly.

Decay gave her a grim nod. “Corsairs have been trying to get into MundCorp for centuries,” he said, “and now it looks … wait, they’re uploading a data package.”

“I hope I don’t need to tell you to keep that shit isolated from our system,” Z-Lin said. “Corsairs like to disguise computer-busters into their data packets.”

“I switched us to a secure buffered comm set as soon as I saw the hair,” Decay said, “but if they were going to sneak something on board through the nod, they would have done it by now. They could have done it when our guard was still down and we made initial contact. I’ll isolate this anyway.”

“Speaking of which,” Sally said, “isn’t MundCorp Research Base supposed to have a synth?”

“Didn’t get any sort of synthetic intelligence handshake,” Decay said, tapping away at his console. “Whatever happened to the Molren on board, looks like they took
everything
with them. Yeah,” he tapped some more, and some baffling information came flashing and rolling across Sally’s screens. “Apparently, Big Gravity shut up shop and moved their entire operation onto … wow. A
new
Worldship?”

“I didn’t realise they were still commissioning those big buggers,” Waffa remarked.

“Anyway, they’ve gone mobile and they’ve taken the guts of their operation with them. Whether that means the relic that was meant to be in there, or if that was just a myth, there’s no data on that. But the synth, yeah. They took the hub and all the heavy computers with them when they went. They just left a skeleton system that the
TransMundus
has logged into.”

“They’re
squatting
?” Zeegon concluded.

Decay whistled through his teeth. “Looks like,” he said, reaching up to stroke his left ear.

“What’s a
waskon
?” Contro asked. “That Blaran with the hairdo called somebody on board a pet
waskon
. Probably Decay, since he was the one who got sent the upload thingy.”

Decay gave Contro a smile. “Wild animal – from Gethsemane, actually. One of the few they successfully managed to breed and genetically dick around with and declaw and modify, you know, chill it out until it was just a really, really good attack animal, with only occasional cases of losing its shit and ripping its owners into tiny pieces. The tougher Blaren, the corsairs, use it as a nickname for the rest of us, who are just normal, inoffensive members of the species and don’t go around stealing and murdering and breaking the law all up and down the galaxy.”

“Oh!” Contro laughed. “Not much of a nickname, is it? Is it meant to be insulting, or flattering?”

“Depends how it’s used,” Decay said idly. “Sort of like
monkey
, really.”

“So, but hey, aren’t the Blaran corsairs meant to be pretty friendly with humans?” Janus said hesitantly. “I mean, with AstroCorps?”

“Yeah,” Zeegon said, “AstroCorps usually has to act as middlemen between these guys and the Fleet, don’t they? We’re the only ones both sides will talk to.”

“We can’t discount the possibility – the
probability
– that the balance of power has shifted,” Decay said, “
considerably
. If there’s nothing on the other
side
anymore, we’re not middlemen. We’re just … the other side.”

“Recommendations?” Z-Lin said. “Do we just turn and keep on flying? There wasn’t much we needed from this place anyway, apart from news and maybe one of their little refreshment tugs. They could’ve given our exchange another once-over too, but…” she shrugged.

“If we do dock,” Sally said, “recommend we let them know we have a big frosty passenger.”

“
Yes
,” Decay said positively, giving Sally an approving point. “Yes. They’d never … okay, let’s say I’m ninety percent sure they’d never act against an aki’Drednanth. And even if they did…”

“They can mess around with our computer and they have us outmanned and outgunned,” Sally said, “and a Blaran can kill three humans at a time with one pair of arms tied behind his back … but Thord can just…” she snapped her fingers.

“Thord can snap her fingers?” Contro asked. “What will
that
do?”

Sally sighed.

“It’s also worth pointing out,” Decay added, “that these guys will be far less concerned with the corporate sharing protocols. Provided they’re not hostile, it’s entirely likely they’d give us a good crack at this place for whatever’s left. We’d have to offer something in return, but we’re not entirely without resources. And they have no particular logical reason to bear us ill will or any desire to shake us down for parts or information, as far as I can tell.”

“Alright,” Z-Lin said, “see if there’s anything else in that data package that sets off any alarm bells, and let us know. Otherwise, we could use information and they’re not absolutely guaranteed hostile … let’s take her in and dock at the port they light up for us. See where they’re going with this.”

GLOMULUS

Doctor Cratch had long since begun to suspect that their full-of-surprises little ship was still in possession – somehow – of a fully-active and sentient synthetic intelligence.

When the ship started hiccoughing, that suspicion became full-blown and glorious certainty. Glomulus leaned back from his monitor where he was lazily waiting to see if Contro was going to realise he’d forgotten his wristwatch, and waved his hands in the air in a celebratory minimalist dance of triumph.

“Hello, Bruce,” he said.

Perhaps predictably, Bruce didn’t answer. But the signs had been clear. The monitors had flickered. So had the lights, although that had been even more brief and Glomulus had noticed the lights occasionally crapped out when they were entering close quarters with a space station or exchanging high-density comms with someone. Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space had periodically turned Cratch’s medical bay into a strobe-lit disco.

Not only that, but the emergency monitoring bumpers had activated, then deactivated, then activated once again. And the doors had audibly safety-locked, then unlocked. It was all quite subtle, and would only make sense to someone who had been neck-deep in the ship’s computer system for a number of years, picking his or her way through the databases and protocols. Some of that time while the ship was running on full synth. As she most certainly was now. Frankly, he thought it was amazing that
Sally
hadn’t noticed before this. Maybe she had, and was keeping it to herself. Anyway, if she
hadn’t
noticed, she could hardly miss it anymore.

But that wasn’t all. The ship had hiccoughed for a reason.

The only thing Doctor Cratch could think of was that someone – someone other than him – had started diddling around in the ship’s high-level command code, and Bruce had smacked them down. Or – yes, this seemed more likely – had
played
like it was just a dumb little modular computer and was
letting
the infiltrators think they were in, when in fact their invasive packets had been tagged and logged for erasure as soon as Bruce decided it was convenient. Whoever had spiked their punch was going to be in for a surprise when they came aboard to close the deal and found their victims awake and pissed.

Bruce just couldn’t quite manage to pull off a counter-incursion that subtle without tipping its hand, just a little.

So. This meant they’d arrived – Glomulus knew this from the announcement an hour or so ago – and were either approaching MundCorp Research Base or had once again been hilariously detoured by their mercurial AstroCorps officers. And from the small sample of warnings and notices hitting the medical consoles, it looked like they’d entered a red giant system, so that sort of meshed with MundCorp. The base was sitting in orbit around a red giant, he recalled.

But what had happened next?

Glomulus stood, stretched, and favoured the studiously unresponsive console with another little mocking bow-and-grin. He looked around the medical bay but – apart from the very-strongly-theorised Bruce – he was alone. Wingus and Dingus, the eejit nurses, were off-duty and presumably off sitting somewhere quietly, maybe trying to figure out which way around the spleen was supposed to go in that anatomical lift-out dummy he had given them a while ago. He tapped the internal communicator.

“Hello the bridge,” he said jovially. “I take it we’ve arrived and everything is ship-shape? Or rather MundCorp Research Base-shape, ha ha?”

“Yes, Doctor Cratch,” Z-Lin’s voice came back a few seconds later.
So
, Glomulus thought,
can we assume Janya’s not on the bridge to correct you on that ‘doctor’ bit?
“It looks like the base is in one piece but the staff cleared out a while ago, taking most of the hardware with them. Something about a new Worldship mobilising.”

“Interesting,” Cratch enthused. “And the current residents?”