Dark Intelligence (50 page)

“It wouldn’t work,” interjected a distant mind, causing an immediate “oh shit” reaction amidst the three. “Events in the Graveyard are becoming clearer—the defensive technology you have spotted would stop a CTD dead.”

“So how should I react?” Amistad enquired of Earth Central.

“You don’t. You just watch.”

Amistad’s frustration increased and when Earth Central again withdrew, he did some hard thinking. After a moment he incorporated data from one of his subminds—one that had been in constant contact with a recent arrival on this world. And then he made direct contact with that arrival himself.

“How is your information-gathering exercise proceeding?” he asked.

“Well enough,” Riss replied, though without much enthusiasm. “But now, since it’s the great Amistad himself talking to me, rather than his submind, my suspicions have been aroused.” The snake drone and Spear were in Chattering, back in their hotel after their recent visit to Markham’s. Now updated by his submind, Amistad was fully aware of the events that had occurred there. And, in the light of them, he was considering his options. He could tell them Penny Royal had arrived and allow them to respond, or he could keep them locked down in Chattering as a bargaining chip. They, or at least Spear, seemed to have a part to play in the black AI’s manipulations—though what that part involved wasn’t entirely clear. However, even as Amistad weighed the options, the decision was taken away from him.

“I see,” said Riss.

Amistad immediately checked his communications security, but there were no holes. Riss and Spear had just received a message from the
Lance
, and Spear had jumped out of a chair at the news. They now knew Penny Royal had arrived, and were being updated on its descent to Masada.

“Of course you were about to tell us all about that, weren’t you?” said Riss.

“Of course,” Amistad replied, giving away nothing, then re-delegated his submind to watch the two. Next, clamping down on his war drone frustration, he tried another communications channel—another one that hadn’t been open for some time.

“So what are you up to?” he asked.

“Restoring balance,” Penny Royal replied at once.

“You still have your eighth state of consciousness,” Amistad stated.

“I do.”

“It is guilty of murder.”

“Yes.”

“Then you are a fugitive.”

“On Masada, which is not legally part of the Polity,” said the AI. “Perhaps you need to talk to the Weaver about that.”

Of course, the Polity couldn’t go after Penny Royal without the Weaver’s consent. If they’d wanted to “arrest” Penny Royal, it should have been done outside Masada’s atmosphere limits—and even then they’d have been on dubious legal ground. The Weaver essentially owned Masada and had a claim on the entire Masadan system. Only the protectorate status of this world gave the Polity leeway out there. It was all, legally, very murky—just the kind of murk criminals like to hide themselves in.

“You are bringing a defensive system for the Weaver,” Amistad stated.

“Yes.”

Yes?
The affirmative struck Amistad as far too easy. Penny Royal was up to something more complex than just bringing a defensive system. And what about Spear? Where did he fit in?

“What do you get in return?”

“Balance.”

“So you’ve turned into an altruist?”

“What I am and what I will be is yet to be decided. And whether I will be, too.”

“Now you’re being deliberately obscure.”

“I will enjoy a further exchange with you, Amistad, but not here, and only when your tether has been cut.”

Com shut down.

Amistad chewed that over. He was bound to this world so long as it remained a protectorate; so long as it required a warden. A defensive system, no matter how advanced, was not something that could change the status of this world so definitively. Definitely something else …

Masada’s warden reopened the channel to the
Garrotte
which had so abruptly closed previously.

“Nothing else gets in here without me knowing, do you understand?”

“Difficult now the USER’s down.”

“But not impossible.”

“I can cause local U-space disruptions with my missiles—knock most things out as they come in-system—but if they’re targeted at Masada itself, I won’t have a lot of time for scanning and analysis thereafter.”

“Then you’d better react at AI speeds, hadn’t you?”

“Certainly,” said the
Garrotte
, obviously waiting for something more.

“If you don’t have time to get a response from me, in a priority situation you have carte blanche.”

“At last,” sighed the
Garrotte
.

BLITE

To allow for Masada’s boggy surface,
The Rose
lowered landing feet that spread monomer sheets between their toes. This mimicked the webbed feet of some great bird, and would prevent them having to constantly use anti-grav to prevent the ship sinking down through the rhizome mat.

“So what is that?” Brond asked, gazing ahead through the bridge screen.

“That,” said Blite, “is the Atheter AI.”

The building before them looked like an ancient temple abandoned in the Masadan wilderness, with its domed roof supported by a ring of pillars. In its floor, it housed a huge disc of memcrystal, which in turn housed the only known Atheter AI in existence.

“So we just notched up from being in a dangerous situation to being in a lethal one, huh?”

“I don’t know that it’s ever been anything but lethal,” Blite replied. “I would say that we now find ourselves seriously out of our league. This is big shit. This is a game where entry level should be planetary governor and above.” He sat back, checked some of the displays before him and noted that the hold door had opened. “I’m going outside,” he decided abruptly, and stood up.

“Maybe not too smart,” said Ikbal.

Blite turned to glare at him, ready to bawl him out, but Ikbal pointed to another display. Apparently there were three hooders not far away. Blite deflated somewhat but insisted, “Okay, I’ll visit the armoury, but I’m still going outside.” He suspected the hooders wouldn’t be a problem, because Penny Royal was probably outside too and that would put off even for those voracious hunters.

As he headed back out of the bridge, he noted Brond and Ikbal standing too, doubtless intending to follow. He considered saying something to put them off, then reconsidered—he wasn’t their mother. The rest showed no inclination to come. Perhaps they were the sensible ones.

Opening up the armoury, he selected a portable particle cannon he’d obtained in the Graveyard, cutting it out of the claw of a much-decayed prador first-child. He also hung a couple of sonic grenades on his belt. Leaving the armoury door open, he then headed to his cabin, shucked off the soiled shipsuit he’d been wearing since the Rock Pool, and selected an enviro-suit from his wardrobe. He was about to put this on, but suddenly felt as grubby as he actually was, and decided to take a shower. It was almost as if he was preparing for some final battle on some level, some endgame event. Twenty minutes later he stepped out of
The Rose’s
airlock onto a ramp. But instead of descending, he headed to one side, climbing a ladder leading to the upper hull. Brond and Ikbal were waiting for him, trying to look cool and casual despite the company just a few yards away. Nearby, a giant flower of black blades balanced on a stem of plaited silver stood swaying in some unfelt wind.

They’d brought pulse-rifles with them and Blite wondered why—the weapons would be ineffective against hooders. But then, after a moment’s consideration, he understood how they felt. The weapons were a comfort.

“I thought you were heading straight out,” said Ikbal accusingly.

“Yeah, I thought so too,” added Brond.

“I took a shower,” said Blite, feeling far more casual than the other two were trying to appear as he unshouldered his weapon. He propped it against a sensor cone protruding from the hull.

“Anything occurred meanwhile?”

“Nothing much,” said Ikbal, “except that.” He stabbed a finger out into the flute grasses, where what looked like the upper part of some giant’s black spinal column lay just visible. Blite swallowed drily. There was a hooder out here, close, well within striking distance of them. He then remembered just how dangerous these things were. Even being inside
The Rose
didn’t necessarily mean they were safe, if such a creature decided to attack.

As he watched, the hooder abruptly rose up, curving round and away from them. He realized it was circling something out there. Then, scanning beyond it, he could see one of the other hooders—also circling something. Off to one side there was another disturbance that might be the final one of the three Ikbal had detected.

“They possess a vague memory of the servant war machines they once were,” whispered Penny Royal. “And they now become confused by the new behaviour of the gabbleducks, them being the devolved descendants of those the hooders once served.”

Penny Royal was very good at providing answers to questions Blite hadn’t asked, but was a bit obscure when it came to the direct ones he did ask.

The closest hooder again halted, this time at a greater distance from the ship, and settled down into the grasses. The disturbance it had been circling briefly came into view. It was indeed a gabbleduck.

“Surfle peg,” Blite heard distantly.

The gabbleduck disappeared into the grasses again, its course taking it directly towards the building housing the Atheter AI.

“It was carrying something,” said Brond.

“They weave,” said Penny Royal. “They make objects that seem to serve no purpose. And sometimes they make objects whose purpose is obvious, and they abandon both. The active mind of the Weaver speaks to them in dreams they don’t understand, and those dreams are always louder near the AI.”

The gabbleduck now climbed up onto a walkway leading into the AI building, still clutching the object before it. Arriving at the pillars, it hesitated, then discarded the thing like someone guiltily discarding trash. It then passed between two pillars, turned and exited between two others, dropping back down into the grasses. It muttered nonsense as it departed.

“Like votive offerings,” said Blite.

“Not even that logical,” Penny Royal replied.

“Why are we here?” Blite asked, and before he could curse himself for letting that question slip out, Penny Royal answered him.

“Spear will come, because he has to.”

“So?”

“He and I are the lure and Isobel will respond as calculated.”

Blite just waited. Penny Royal knew how much he understood and how much he was capable of understanding, and would either explain or not.

“As a human and a predator she will inevitably gather all her forces around her for an attack here—she will not be able to resist the lure,” Penny Royal informed him. “Those forces will include her cargo ship. And, her trade with the prador having been terminated, one of those ships will inevitably still contain its cargo of the cored and thralled. The accelerating changes within her will starve her—and rather than feed on her own people she will attempt to feed on that cargo. The Atheter war mind growing within her will then detect the Jain element of the Spatterjay virus. Their use of Jain technology kept the Atheter locked in civil war for millennia before they sacrificed everything they were in order to be free of it—and Isobel is now close to her final war machine form. Reacting to that threat, the war mind will begin to dominate, and her changes will accelerate. They will accelerate further every time she encounters any resistance. And when she is here, she will finally be ready.”

That was quite a long speech from the AI. But Blite only understood that Isobel Satomi was coming and that it was quite likely that things would soon turn nasty.

SPEAR

I quickly packed away my meagre luggage, basically just some items that weren’t particularly essential. Riss eyed my rucksack and said, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a CTD knocking around in there, have you?”

That stopped me in my tracks. When Flute informed us that
The Rose
had arrived here, I’d been shocked and knew I had to react. Subsequent events were baffling but I started getting ready to leave at once, as I would soon know Penny Royal’s location down on the surface of the world. But what then?

I wasn’t armed. I didn’t really have the firepower of the
Lance
to back me up since it had been effectively neutered, and I certainly didn’t have the option of using the fusion device. All that had been taken away from me as we approached Masada. Even if I could somehow get round that, there were weapons up there that could quickly turn the
Lance
into vapour. I allowed myself a wry smile at Riss’s comment, remembering that I’d wondered what I’d use against Penny Royal when we met. Strong language it would have to be.

“I guess we’re going to have to view Masada as neutral territory,” I said.

“It would be nice to assume Penny Royal will do the same,” Riss observed drily.

“So what do you suggest?” I said, dropping my rucksack down on the bed, then sitting down beside it.

“I don’t know any more,” said the drone.

That simple statement had many implications. Amistad had called Riss a “one-trick pony.” The snake drone’s motivations were generally absolute. First she’d been a prador killer with just one method of attack, next she sought vengeance on the one that had hollowed her out. But even that was gone now.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Riss.

“You do?”

“What’s my trick now?”

“Close enough.”

“Answers—we have to confront Penny Royal, whether the black AI is making us do that or not.” Riss paused, head pointing down towards the floor. “I am beginning to understand that I could never transcend what I was, without that self being destroyed. Vengeance filled the void and it’s still there, but as an option only. I think I reflect you in that.”

I nodded and stood, took up my rucksack. “Let’s go.”

The problems started when I tried to send the gravcar to Blite’s ship’s location, relayed to my aug by Flute. The car just sat there with “unable to respond” displayed in red letters on its console screen. When I started auging for an explanation, I hit chaotic disruption in the virtual world. But I did manage to discover that all gravcars had been temporarily grounded, while my destination had been put under a quarantine order.