Dark Intelligence (46 page)

“It will be useful,” she said, referring to the
Glory
.

“So where are we heading now?” Morgan asked. “I’m not too happy about sitting this close to the Polity—I’d bet we’re being watched even now.”

Confirmation—she could not allow Morgan or the rest any choices. She blinked her numerous eyes, another subframe opening in the laminate. This showed an object like an extended dumb-bell, crusted all over with sensors. The structure glinted with lights from thousands of portals, coilgun barrels the size of sequoias sprouting from each end. This was the nearest Polity watch station. The obvious weapons weren’t all it possessed, apparently. There would be USERs in there or intelligent U-space missiles, plus runcible gates linked to installations inside suns or placed on the event horizons of black holes. These would be capable of routing appalling amounts of power. However, such stations were here to watch for some major push by the prador, so a few human ships like hers were surely beneath their notice.

“Don’t let that concern you,” she said. “This border is as leaky as a prador door seal—we’ve had our agents and Separatist agents crossing it for years.”

“We’re crossing it?” said Morgan, alarmed.

“Don’t be silly,” she lied. “Our business remains in the Graveyard. I’ll be coming over to the
Caligula
shortly to go into more detail about that—I’ll want full control of its weapons for what’s to come.” The rest wasn’t much of a lie. She had already penetrated the
Caligula
’s systems, as she had penetrated the other two ships, but they weren’t her main concern. While she controlled those systems remotely there was always a chance, once Morgan and the rest knew where they were going, that they would try and maybe succeed in mutinying. She needed to be within physical reach of the people, not the computers. She understood now that she had relied on computer omniscience for too long.

“I’ll be with you shortly,” she said. “Inform the captain of the
Glory
that my agent will be arriving on his ship shortly too.”

“Your agent?” Morgan enquired.

Almost without conscious thought, Isobel looked through cams inside the
Moray Firth
to where the Golem was working—making refinements to her space suit.

“Yes, my agent,” she said, and cut the communications link.

Fear was the key. Her presence aboard the
Caligula
would enforce the obedience of all aboard and the presence of a skeletal Penny Royal Golem aboard the
Glory
would do the same there. That was as far as she could extend her physical control. The
Nasturtium
, if its captain managed to rebel, would be an acceptable loss.

“You will take charge of this ship,” she said abruptly, turning to Trent.

He looked hopeful, but only for a moment, perhaps realizing that “taking charge” didn’t mean he would be able to flee in the
Moray Firth
.

“What are you going to do?”

Isobel turned away from the screen and her consoles. “I’m going to ensure absolute obedience,” she replied and set off back through her ship.

Soon, with Trent hurrying to catch up, she arrived at her laboratory platform, where the Golem held her bulky space suit stretched out over its arms. She quickly began donning it, with the Golem’s attentive assistance. Trent watched all this seemingly with tired acceptance. She knew he thought that taking the hunt to Masada was suicide, and knew he had given up trying to persuade her otherwise. He was a fool—there was a reason she was in charge with him subordinate. As the seals closed on her limbs and around the fixings to her weapons, she considered how all the work she’d done aboard the
Moray Firth
could have been wasted. Surely it would be better for her to remain aboard the
Caligula
now? It was the larger ship and so would have more room for her. It had more firepower and more resources aboard. Why had she retained her silly sentimental attachment to her old ship for so long, while keeping the
Caligula
moth-balled? She just had no idea, though she saw a connection to her earlier attachment to her human body.

“Return to the bridge,” she said to Trent. “You can monitor from there.”

It didn’t really matter where he located himself aboard, since he wouldn’t be operating any of its systems. And whatever he did, or didn’t do, made no difference whatsoever. But right then, she just wanted him away from her. Closing her suit had felt like abnegation—she was denying herself prey by putting the suit between them—and that made her feel even more like attacking him. As he walked away, she swept off the platform and down to the hold she’d designated as her airlock, the Golem stomping after her. She entered through the back cargo door and felt the monomer fabric of her suit stiffen slightly as the door closed and the air evacuated.

As the outer cargo doors opened on hard vacuum, she felt a surge of excitement—in complete contrast to her previous worries and her rage. It felt a little like going after Stolman, but now something martial was raising its head inside her. Moving to the lip of the hold, she gazed at her three other ships as the
Moray Firth
drew closer and began to decelerate. They were still some miles away and not very clear visually in the dim red light of the local sun. She was about to clean up the imagery using her haiman augmentations when the ships abruptly snapped into sharp and exact focus.

What?

Next gridlines and targeting frames appeared across her vision, just momentarily, but as they faded she
knew
precise distances, power levels and weapons complements. Attack plans blossomed in her mind in intricate detail.

My eyes …

It was something to do with them, and something to do with other changes inside her. Trying to understand what had happened as best she could, she realized all this had stemmed from some unconscious part of her—it included her augmentations, but was more sophisticated. Inside her, mind and machine had just taken a step closer than even haiman integration could manage.

I am a hooder
.

Apparently hooders were biomech weapons, but she’d never thought very deeply about what that might mean. They were capable of withstanding powerful weapons, but where was the rest? Where was the tactical mind and where were the thought processes, the actual armaments and everything else implied by the words “biomech weapon”? It struck her that the hooders of Masada were as devolved, mentally, as the gabbleducks—the descendants of the Atheter. So what was this? What was happening to her?

Penny Royal
.

What had the AI said during their last encounter, when it had initiated these further changes?

I know the original form now
.

Isobel’s excitement increased as she finally understood the full potential of her change. Previously she had been transforming into one of Masada’s hooders. These were animals, mindless shadows of the biomechs they had once been. Penny Royal’s further intervention meant she was now changing into the original hooder form. The Polity had been sitting on data, so new insights into Masada’s hooders were under wraps. But major events had occurred on Masada. An alien machine had all but destroyed Penny Royal there, before Amistad resurrected the AI. That machine was destroyed in turn, mainly down to a hooder—an almost legendary albino hooder rumoured to be millions of years old. It was named the Technician.

I will be even more powerful now
.

Isobel twitched her cowl, sending instructions to the Golem poised beside her. It immediately launched itself into vacuum; a skeletal missile perfectly on target for the
Glory
. She too then launched herself, her trajectory precisely and instinctively calculated. As she travelled, she felt the need to move her limbs but thought that ridiculous until she tried. Pale pink fire flickered around them and she felt them digging into the soft rhizome-coated loam of vacuum, gripping the quantum foam of the universe to accelerate her towards her
target
.

“Isobel! Isobel!”

It was Morgan, trying to talk to her. She was a missile, unreadable energies washing around her, and the
Caligula’s
automated defences had immediately come online. She felt a moment of chagrin, knowing she would have to reach out to shut down those defences, but before she could use her usual methods some other part of her reached out first. The defences went offline. A potential firing pattern blossomed within her and it had nothing to do with the Polity weapons she carried. She saw the induction wave would cause a surge through the
Caligula
’s reactor. The ensuing sub-space fold, as carefully shaped as an origami model, would force the U-space drive to initiate while being completely out of balance. Then, feeding on the power surge, the
Caligula
would be crushed in its own warp …

Noo!

Isobel forced away that
other
, lost her grip on space and found herself tumbling, everything that occurred before now a momentary fantasy. Her mind could now label all the energies she’d used and actions she’d made and intended to make. But just a moment ago these weren’t thoughts but feelings—and the resulting actions were as easy and as unconscious as walking, running, breathing … the beating of her heart. And now they were gone again. She slammed into the hull of the
Caligula
and bounced away, leaving a definite dent, horror rippling through her. This was almost worse than her urge to kill and rend and feed. She had almost, without real conscious thought of her own, annihilated one of her own spaceships.

Isobel writhed in vacuum, unable to grip anything that would lead her back to the ship, but finally had to admit defeat and use the impellers on her suit. Slowly re-establishing control, she used prosaic haiman functions to penetrate the warship’s systems and get it to open a hold door. She collapsed inside on functioning grav-plates, noticing crates of weapons stacked all around her as the hold charged with air. She noted too that her space suit had split open and, unlike the last time she had found herself in vacuum, she felt no ill-effects at all. She abruptly, angrily, stripped away the suit and discarded it. Perhaps she was being foolish, but she felt sure that her future held no need for such basic protection.

“Isobel!”

Morgan was first through the bulkhead door, followed by four armed heavies, two of whom she vaguely recognized. She swung towards them and noted the heavies instinctively reaching for their weapons.

“You’ve changed,” Morgan added.

What was he talking about? He’d seen her transformation already. She reached out with her augmentations to gaze through the cams here in this hold, and looked upon the new Isobel. That had been no fantasy out there—something had definitely happened, some deep change had occurred. She could see, without calculating, that her length had increased to fifteen feet, with a consequent reduction in her girth. Her carapace, all of it, was now a perfect ivory colour and her eyes glowed a bright almost jewel-like lemon yellow.

I’m beautiful
, she thought.

She was also, she realized, incredibly hungry. Those here must have realized this on some instinctive level even as she did, for they all began backing away, even Morgan.

No … control
.

Her Golem had arrived at the
Glory
and entered, and was now positioned on the bridge, while the
Nasturtium
remained under her mental control. She wanted to get going, and now, but the hunger wouldn’t leave her and she found herself edging towards Morgan and the others.

No … stop
.

She checked the cargo manifest of the
Glory
, confirming that it still included eighty-six mindless human beings, with prador thralls installed inside their empty skulls. She sent her instructions. When the captain of that ship questioned the order to shift part of that cargo across to the
Caligula
, the Golem beside him rested a hand on his shoulder and said, “Snickety, snick.”

It was enough, and he obeyed.

BLITE

Blite had never felt anything like it.
The Rose
shuddered, and he sensed a sickening
twist
travelling down its length. It seemed to try and turn him inside out as it passed through him too. He rolled out of his bed, realizing he was floating up above the floor just a microsecond before the grav-plates came back on and dropped him on it.

“Bollocks,” he said, almost resigned.

Who was on watch? Brondohohan and Ikbal, though the others would be on the bridge soon enough after that, whatever it was. He struggled to his feet, swaying, still feeling an odd wavering effect from the plates underneath his feet. He then staggered over to his cabin door and out. Chont and Haber were ahead of him, Martina and Greer trotting up the corridor behind.

“What the hell was that?” asked Greer.

“I don’t know,” Blite replied.

“We’re out of U-space,” said Martina.

He nodded and turned to head after Chont and Haber, only now realizing the truth of her words. The buzz was gone; the perpetual hum and tension of the U-space engine had ceased.

“There’s something big, black and nasty out there,” said Brond the moment Blite reached the bridge and dropped into his chair. “It’s called the
Micheletto’s Garrotte
and it’s some sort of modern Polity attack ship.”

“How did it knock us into the real?” Blite eyed the deadly looking black spike of a vessel shown on the screen.

“It didn’t,” said Ikbal. “That was something else, sited in a suspiciously regularly shaped asteroid out there. Seems we ran into a USER, because the U-space entry barrier was recently extended to here.” Ikbal looked round from his instruments. “Now we’re surrounded by modern splinter missiles that could U-jump right in here at any moment. They’re all capable of even tracking us through U-space too—that is, if we stood any chance of getting through the USER effect.”

“So what now?” Blite asked, bracing himself.

They all knew he wasn’t asking the question of them.

“The
Garrotte
AI is being particularly stubborn and aggressive,” Penny Royal whispered. “It seems I am not trusted.”