Despite the high concentration of prador in the corridors, Riss reached the diagonally divided door to the inner sanctum without discovery. Certainly, she’d had to evade all manner of detection devices, but again the prador here were being slack with their security. The drone had seen this before and had put it down to the prador’s almost psychotic denial of the reality of assassin drones. Here their certainty of the current battle, despite what had caused these three ships to withdraw, had exacerbated their natural arrogance. This was going to be a pleasure—
“Assassin drone Riss,” said an internal voice.
“I hear you,
Primeval,”
Riss replied through her internal U-space communicator to the distant Polity dreadnought.
“You are to desist and withdraw,” the dreadnought AI continued. “No further action.”
Riss emitted an involuntary hiss. This caused a nearby first-child, who was armed to the mandibles, to swing round in suspicion—inspecting the apparently empty floor before the doors.
“Why?” Riss eventually asked.
“The facts of the matter are not entirely clear,” said
Primeval
, “but it seems that the prador king has been usurped, and that the usurper has called for a ceasefire. It may be that the war is about to end.”
“I hardly think that likely. This is probably just some ploy to wrong-foot us—to gain some advantage.”
“If that is the case, then we are failing to see it,”
Primeval
continued. “Our analysis shows a ceasefire gives us the advantage, since our industrial output of weapons now exceeds that of the prador.”
“It seems foolish for me to withdraw now,” Riss argued. “I still have a full load of limeworm eggs. And three father-captains are on the other side of one last door.”
“Orders are orders,” replied
Primeval
.
“But who’s to say they won’t start fighting again?” said Riss, sure of her own utter reasonableness. “The prador here owe loyalty to the previous king and might decide on a schism from the new one.”
“They have already signalled their intent to withdraw and are calling in all their troops, drones, kamikazes and attack boats.”
“Perhaps I should just stay—”
“The order is direct from Earth Central.”
“We’re stopping? We should finish this—they’ll only attack again when the new king is established.”
“It’s a direct order from the top, Riss: withdraw now.”
“But—”
The signal came directly through the same communications channel—a code Riss hardly recognized until it self-assembled and did its work. It inserted itself in Riss’s version of an autonomic nervous system like a mental laxative. Riss hooped, squeezed and opened, spraying a jet of white carrier fluid filled with her entire load of eggs. The prador, seeing the stream apparently appearing out of nowhere, scribing a dripping line across the sanctum doors, centred one Gatling cannon and fired. It tore a trench across the floor where Riss had been discharging herself just a second previously.
Now attached to the ceiling, Riss felt a sense of emptiness beyond the physical. She squirmed to safety, heading out towards the dreadnought’s open hatches. A stream of recalled drones and armoured prador were flowing through, but the chamelonware still held. She would eject herself out into space, beyond the reach of the ship’s U-fields and wait to be picked up. Beyond that, she just had no idea what to do next, for she faced the end of her entire reason for existence.
ISOBEL
Crouched inside the
Moray Firth
, now down in the Rock Pool’s small space port, Isobel damned herself for her stupidity as she watched her cameras on Trent fail. She had embarked on this venture with Thorvald Spear—an activity she wouldn’t have contemplated a few years back. She wouldn’t even have met him back then, and so been enticed by his promise of a cure. One of her lieutenants would have negotiated with him and taken him to the destroyer. Though a more likely scenario would have been Spear being dragged off to be tortured, then cut-auged of everything of value in his skull before being dispatched to the prador.
Trent had been right about her ceasing to expand her organization while she searched for a cure. But she wondered if he’d known about the pin cams and been diplomatic about her other failings. She acknowledged that her disgust at the changes she’d been undergoing, complemented by an over-reliance on her haiman augmentations, had led her to isolate herself from the plain muscle and firepower available to her. Now she found herself here, trapped alone in her spaceship and in danger of falling foul of a two-bit shell-world gangster—of the kind she’d once have squashed without a thought. It was humiliating, and it could not be tolerated.
However, now she could act; now she could
hunt
.
She had briefly considered contacting Morgan again and having him bring reinforcements here. Then she thought about putting
Moray Firth
back in orbit while Morgan dropped a bomb on Carapace City. But no, that might piss off the mysterious father-captain here. Though prador had no particular love for humans of any kind, they definitely wouldn’t appreciate humans bombarding one of their worlds. And, like all father-captains, Sverl was sure to be sitting inside a warship. A better idea would have been to bring down forces to raid the city, wiping out Stolman’s petty organization to deliver a powerful message to similar wannabes like him.
But better still, she’d decided, to deal with him herself. Wasn’t she capable?
One part of her wasn’t sure, the other part was utterly certain.
Stolman had a large and lethal-looking Golem at his disposal. According to the conversation she had overheard, it was also a Penny Royal Golem. Whether that made it more or less dangerous she wasn’t sure, but she was fairly sure Stolman was controlling it through his own aug. It was therefore highly likely that she’d be able to subvert his control over the thing with her own haiman abilities. And, that aside, she was now much harder to kill than a human being, and Golem, though incredibly tough, were still susceptible to proton cannon fire.
With a mechanical clattering, Isobel swept out of the bridge and headed back through the
Moray Firth
, excitement rising. She stopped to attach her speech synthesizer and then pulled a hover trunk out of storage and activated it. Into this went explosives ranging from those that could bring down a building, to anti-personnel grenades like the ones Trent had carried. She put in a rocket bundle: six armour-piercing missiles she could fire remotely from the trunk and mentally guide to their targets. Then, just for good measure, she added extra power supplies and reloads for her shoulder-mounted proton cannon and pulse-rifle. Anything else? Yes, there was something else and, just like the proton cannon, she found it still gleaming and unused. The mosquito autogun shrugged out of its packaging once she accessed and instructed it. Then, taking delicate steps, it walked over to the hover trunk and folded itself inside. That would have to do—there was no room for anything more.
Isobel felt the trunk would help for appearance’s sake, but she also put her grav-harness back on and took a shoulder bag filled with some of her portable wealth. The more such items she took with her, the more she would look like an intelligent technical being rather than an escapee from a zoo. This would lessen the chances of someone deciding to open fire on her. Just to complete her ensemble of harmlessness, she folded down both her weapons on their mountings and put shrink coverings over them—two discs of polymer composite that closed up into black casings. These wouldn’t prevent her using the weapons, but would make them look less lethal. It was the difference between someone walking into a space port with a holstered gun, rather than one in hand.
She exited her ship through the usual airlock, broadcasting to the watchers that she was leaving, adding, “I am highly adapted, so I don’t want any panic or unfortunate mistakes.”
“We observe here,” someone replied.
“I’m not a shellman,” she explained. “I’m something you may not have seen before.”
“Bsorol makes us aware of your biological history, Isobel Satomi,” the voice assured her.
Bsorol?
Isobel dipped her hood to inspect the steady bleaching of her carapace. For a second she’d thought she was talking to one of the shell people here. But now, hearing that name, she analysed word order and emphasis, and realized she’d been talking to a prador through translation software.
Once out of her ship, she scanned what passed for a space port here. Hers was one of three ships. The other two, though large, were still just shuttles. She noted a saucer-shaped one that looked to have come from one of John Hobbs’ salvage ships. There was also a brick-like object, the main detachable cargo section from an old Polity in-system hauler. The drive section, still up in orbit, would doubtless have been adapted to U-space travel. Scattered about the field were a couple of shellman guards and some standard humans unloading cargo from the hauler’s shuttle. All of them were looking at her, which probably meant they’d received a warning from the watching prador. As she gazed back, she suddenly found herself fighting a strong urge to chase after them. Instead, she dropped down onto all her legs and scuttled across to the terminal building. She was briefly irritated by the feel of hard stone and wished for something she could grip more readily, her hover trunk rushing to keep up.
First, she went through a security arch where an automated voice issued her with a warning: “Deployment of any weapon in the terminal building will be terminal for you.” This statement was odd because, though a recording, it sounded as if it had issued from a prador translator. But surely prador did not possess a sense of humour? A short tunnel led her to a pressure door that hesitated before opening to admit her to the building. A few people were scattered inside, but not so many as when she’d come here with Spear. Some showed no reaction to her at all, some stared, while one woman let out a gasp and turned and ran at full pelt for an exit. This probably meant she had some knowledge of the hooders of Masada. Again the urge to give chase arose in her, and again she beat it down. Meanwhile, across and to her left, two prador stood watching.
Both were clad in bulky armour. This was a blue-green she recognized as a Polity alloy, made some time after the war, based on metallurgy learned from the prador. She suspected it was one of these that she’d spoken to earlier. Choosing an exit to the car parks and taxi ranks, she began moving. One of the prador immediately centred a Gatling cannon on her and tracked her as she crossed the area. In response she kept her hood turned so she could draw cross hairs over the prador—the delay between thought and firing just microseconds. Was this a pointless gesture? What were her chances of survival if it were to open fire on her? Though she did have the body of a hooder, it was still weak compared to the adult form. Moreover, could even the latter survive a fusillade of prador alloy slugs, which were harder than diamond and heavier than plutonium? As she reached the pressure door exit and went through, her tension drained. She pondered on how if something had kicked off, nobody else in the vicinity—or indeed the building itself—would have survived.
Ahead lay a small car park for hydrocars, with just a few vehicles present. A foam-stone road cut across nearby and here waited three taxis, their drivers sitting around a nearby table, positioned on a mound coated with blue-green mosses and sprouting fan fungus. They were playing a game involving dice and occasionally sipping from drinks through straws, which they inserted via holes in their breather masks. They all turned to look at her, then leapt out of their seats as she began to approach.
“There is no cause for alarm,” she called. “I simply require a ride into Carapace City.”
By the time she reached the table, two of the drivers were back in their cabs. This time she found it easier to resist the urge to give chase, because the other driver hadn’t fled. He was a squat fat amphidapt who looked like a by-blow of a man and a cane toad, clad in black trousers and shirt with a slick rubbery look, which was probably the only sort of material that could survive his damp warty skin.
“What the hell are you?” he asked.
“I am Isobel Satomi,” she replied.
He tilted his head, considered that for a moment while a long purple tongue protruded to lick over his right eyeball. Then he nodded. “You’re the gal who got screwed over by Penny Royal.”
Isobel repressed the urge to grab him and remove his tongue. It was not the observation about her being screwed over that annoyed her, but being referred to as a “gal.”
“How much to take me into the city?” she asked instead.
“Ten muzil,” he said, casting an eye over her trunk as it settled beside her.
She reached out with one thin black tentacle—the one with the pincers—and snipped the polymer coating over her pulse-gun. The coating shrivelled and dropped off. She raised it and aimed it at his face.
“Try again,” she suggested.
12
SVERL
Sverl gazed with distaste at the image of the single prador, expanded to fill ten segment screens, standing in the audience chamber adjoining his sanctum. Sfolk, who was one of Vlern’s brood of young adult males, was quivering with fear. Adults generally didn’t put themselves at the complete mercy of any other adult. However, Sverl had made sure that if any of Vlern’s brood wanted to present a request, they had to come here. It was a way of keeping them subjugated, which was necessary to prevent them running amok. They had done so when Vlern died, and would do again, given the opportunity.
Vlern had joined Sverl shortly after he sank his dreadnought in the sea, seemingly of fellow feeling about the war’s end. Like other Graveyard prador, he had been intent on acquiring allies to avoid being picked off by the King’s Guard. Contingents of the Guard were still in the vicinity, hunting down such rebels. However, though Vlern had seemed perfectly sane and coherent in initial communications, the reality was rather different. He had been a very old prador, sans legs and mandibles. Dying nerve tissue meant he couldn’t take any more prosthetics either, and he was as mad as a tankful of reaverfish. He’d spent the ensuing decades here under the sea muttering to himself, being fed flesh paste and tank-grown child’s blood. Frequent interventions on Sverl’s part were required to keep him from sending his children against his neighbours—and to ensure he kept those same children in a state of arrested development. Some decades ago, Vlern stopped being able to eat properly and ended up choking on flesh paste. The first Sverl learned of his death was when one of Vlern’s five first-children, then making the transformation into a young adult, tried to take control of Vlern’s old destroyer to kill off his siblings.