Seeds of Earth (44 page)

Cora prodded his shoulder with her gun then indicated a pair of heavy pressure doors just along the walkway. 'Straight through and down the ramp.'

Ankles restricted by the secure straps, he shuffled forward and the doors slid aside to let them past.

'I liked the way you tried to take my place,' Cora said. '"Freelance chandler", eh? Good title. I think I'll adopt it now that you won't have any use for it.'

'I wouldn't plan too far in advance, Ms Talavera,' he said, trying to sound as if he were in good spirits. 'Your master hasn't paid you yet. But then you didn't mention our little Ezgara problem -1 wonder why.'

Cora's laughter was light and edged with malice. 'Keep flapping that mouth and I'll have one of the aspirants nerve-block it.'

Kao Chih shrugged and continued down the ramp, which turned leftward twice. The Chaurixa mothership's interior decor was in simple yellows and greens with notices and signs in dark red, often hurriedly stencilled to the walls. From a couple of location guides he discovered that the ship had a linear module configuration, four large hull sections built on a central axis, the drives and engineering at the stern, the bridge and quarters in the prow segment, while the two midsections were dotted with a number of arcane-looking symbols utterly mysterious to him. He had figured out that they had docked at the third hull module from the prow and were heading forward to the second. Cora steered him round a couple of corners and into the ship's spinal corridor, up steps and through the connecting passage, and down more steps. She then had him turn left and follow the gravplating track up the portside curve of the hull past a series of opaque doors. Each door had a grey panel bearing one of the symbols he had seen on the wall guides.

'I know what's going through your head, KC,' Cora said behind him. 'You think you'll have to endure beatings and torture and drugs and crazy mind-scrambling virtsensoria . . . well, no, these people don't work that way. These people are professionals with pressing deadlines and precision needs, so they're not going to waste time trying to beat their point of view into you.'

She stopped him in front of one of the doors and the grey panel melted into transparency. Inside was a white surgical theatre where two masked and gowned Henkayans were working on a bulky form bound to a large cradle. The patient, or victim, was a Bargalil, its six-limbed body lying still and silent.

'The Chaurixa medtechs have three ways of remould ing minds to fit the task. There's viral programming, where they use tailored bugs to edit and rewrite an ordag's brain, creating new compulsions, fears and desires, whole chunks of behaviour dedicated to carrying out the mission . . .'

'What was that name you called him? Ordak . . .'

'Ordag - short for "ordained agent",' she said. 'Well, anyway, that seems like the worst way to me. You are yourself, you feel like yourself, but there's all these memories and instincts making you do things you don't understand. Creepy.'

She motioned him on to the next door. The panel went transparent, revealing a tall Sendrukan male, his eyes blindfolded as he lay strapped to a cushioned table while a hooded device on a segmented cable moved all around his head as if examining it from all directions. There was no one else in the room.

'Another way is to just simply wipe away the mind, flatten all the characteristics, leaving aside the autonomic and certain learned reflexes. Then they embed a new persona sufficiently complex to carry out whatever task it's needed to do.

'But some tasks can be too involved and socially demanding for an embedded persona, so the Castigator's clever underlings came up with kernelling - basically, parts of the cortex are scooped out and a paraorganic nanostructure is grown in its place, which serves as the residence for a partial, or sometimes a full, AL'

'Efficient,' said Kao Chih, horrified but maintaining his composure. 'In Chinese mythology there are many hells, some as elaborate as these rooms.'

She looked at him. 'For example?'

'There is the Hell of Disembowelment where hypocrites and tomb robbers have their bowels cut out. Or there is the Hell of Sawing where kidnappers and those who force good people to do bad things are sawn into pieces.' 'You're making that up.'

He shrugged. 'Chinese history goes back a long, long way, so some things might indeed be made up. And some may not.'

She smiled and wagged a reproving finger. 'You can't spook me, KC. Besides, you haven't seen the rest of our little circle of hell yet.'

The walkway led past another couple of milky opaque doors, curving over to the starboard side, where Cora had him stop before a set of double doors. Through the clear panels Kao Chih saw a white room with a few thin-legged chairs and another pair of doors. He also saw an octopoidal Makhori laid full-length on a wheeled trolley, its pale tentacles stretched out and still while its torso showed regular, slow breathing. Its large, open eyes stared blankly upwards.

'It's just been wiped,' Cora said, giving him another prod. 'This is the augmentation area - go on in.'

He pushed through with both hands and stopped to gaze down at the immobile Makhori.

'Sometimes missions require a strength or speed beyond the abilities of ordinary organic creatures,' she said. 'So ordags are brought here for alterations, modifications, refurbs, whatever the mission calls for, occasionally the full, customised cyber-augmentation heart, veins, muscle, blood and bone, from the roots of your hair to the nails on your toes. No sense left untouched.'

One of the inner doors opened and to Kao Chih's surprise a Human emerged, a thin, old man in a brown robe, grey-haired and stooped. He saw Kao Chih and, peering, came over.

'So they got another,' he said in a creaky voice as he held out a wrinkly hand. 'I'm Josh - what's your name, son?'

'I am Kao Chih, sir - I am honoured to meet you. How do you come to be here?'

'Likewise.' Josh indicated Cora, who was still holding her gun levelled at Kao Chih's chest. 'Came here courtesy of your friend's one-way service.'

'Did she put you to sleep as well, Josh?'

'Three times - I was a cranky passenger.'

Cora rolled her eyes, just as the inner doors opened. A green-clad Henkayan entered, seized the trolley with all four stubby hands and wheeled the insensible Makhori away beyond the doors. A second, more imposing Henkayan appeared, garbed in pale green, ankle-length robes and wearing a yellow band around his throat. His wide, tapering head was crowned with dense purple hair coiffed into stiff, upward coils and his large, coarse features were grinning as he approached Josh.

'Very good, superior one, but keep up practice of New Montana accent, become perfect. Go now to outfitters, they are expecting you.'

'My thanks, Compositor Henach. May the Great Sower's will be served.' So saying, the man called Josh straightened his posture and, ignoring Cora and Kao Chih, strode out of the main doors. The grinning Compositor Henach turned his attention to the newcomers.

'Castigator Vuzayel has spoken to me,' he told Cora. 'This one is to be sent to one of the Tertiary Grace worlds in Metraj, to assassinate a Vikantan industrial-
ist.

Cora made an impressed sound. 'So a partial augmenting, I'd guess.'

'Yes, and then wipe and persona overlay, not unlike my most recent patient.'

'What of the drone?'

'Will be reprogrammed and fitted with anti-personnel systems and self-destruct.'

Cora nodded and turned to Kao Chih. 'Well, this is it, KC - it's been a rollercoaster ride but we got there in the end. So see you in another life - or another hell!'

She smiled and winked, just as the Henkayan touched something cold and metallic to his neck. Immediately, everything below his head went numb and like a puppet with severed strings he fell but was neatly caught. Bizarrely, he was still conscious and fully alert but without any control over his neck muscles so that his head lolled this way and that as Compositor Henach carried him from the room.

'Your new body will be remarkable, Human - we do only remarkable things here and you will see it all.'

The Compositor placed him in some kind of cradling couch which had a row of folded surgical extensors along one edge, like the hooks and pincers of a grotesque creature, glittering and retracted. He only caught glimpses of it as the Henkayan fastened him in. Kao Chih wanted to cry out, even curse his captor, but the deadening effect encompassed his vocal chords.

'So - augmentation of legs, arms, hands, chest, and perhaps spine also.' Kao Chih could see die Henkayan lean over then heard a series of tiny clicks, and a hologram of a human body appeared overhead, an image stripped of skin and showing muscles, arteries, organs, the stark, pale orbs of his own eyes staring up, his toothy jaws gaping but unable to speak, an exhibition in red. A sense of helpless despair filled his mind.

'Hmm, no dataweave, no cranial conduit, and no implants . . . except for molecular attachment in linguistic centre ... hmm, still largely unblemished Human brain - most refreshing . . .'

Suddenly the couch gave a slight jolt and out of sight there was a metallic clinking, and the clatter of something falling to the floor. The Compositor cursed under his breath, put his grin back in place and looked at Kao Chih.

'First, we cut open your legs, insert builder seeds and guide membrane,' he said. 'Quick, easy, you feel nothing, then .. .'

This time the entire room lurched and Henach was thrown sideways to fetch up against the wall. He let out a shriek of rage and dashed across the room towards something out of Kao Chili's sight. Outside the surgery alarms were warbling in the corridors and a moment later he heard the Henkayan say, 'This is Compositor Henach - what is happening?'

'So sorry, Compositor, but the Strigida drone has broken free of its stasisweb and caused damage to the inner hull...'

'I am working! - no excuses, recapture it!'

'Yes, Compositor, at once. When we find it.'

'What? How can you lose it?'

'It found a way into the maintenance interstices, sir, and the security scuttlers aren't reporting anything . . .'

The opencom voice was blotted out by a deafening crash in the room, the sight of flying fragments of what looked like deck tiles, and a terrified howl from the Compositor, swiftly cut off. For a second or two there were only the ticks and knocks of bits of debris falling to the floor and an odd, muffled, mumbling sound. Then the familiar dumb-bell shape of Drazuma-Ha* drifted into view.

'Greetings, Gowchee - I see that you are about to undergo some physical modifications, which would certainly enhance your ability to defend yourself in the future. Would you like me to return later?'

Robbed of his voice, Kao Chih could only frown, glare and mouth various demands and imprecations in an attempt to get his meaning across.

'Ah, I deduce that this would be unwelcome - very well.'

All of a sudden he was plunged back into the sensations of his entire body again, as if he had convulsively awoken from a nightmare, or into one. Shivering, itching, coughing, he scrambled out of the surgical cradle and saw that Drazuma-Ha* was restraining the Compositor with a forcefield extension wrapped around the Henkayan's mouth and neck. Rage mottled his fixtures and despite the forcefield gag he was still trying to shout and threaten, which accounted for the muted throaty muttering.

'So, how did you . . .' Kao Chih began, but was forced to break off by a coughing fit.

'Obtain my freedom? Well, our hosts, who think very highly of themselves, reasoned that providing our female hijacker with the specifications of the Strigida design would ensure success. They failed to realise that over the course of several thousand years I might have introduced some modifications of my own, like improvements to my power grid as well as multiple redundancy in the vital systems. Thus I was able to reroute my core functions, disable the stasisweb and free myself.'

Swallowing painfully, Kao Chih looked down at the long gaping hole in the floor. 'Well, it certainly worked. What shall we do now?'

'Getting off this space-going torture chamber would be most preferable,' Drazuma-Ha * said. 'I managed to tap into the security web and sealed the intermodule access doors, but that will only last until they splice up a workaround.'

Kao Chih stared at the unrelentingly wrathful Compositor Henach. 'Does this vessel have escape pods?'

'Yes, a small number for each module, but if we departed in one it would be an easy matter to send a recovery vehicle to bring it back in.'

'We don't go,' Kao Chih said. 'He does.'

'A diversion, very good, making sure that the pod's comm device is nonfunctional. Then, I assume, we will head towards the docking ring and your ship.'

'Exactly - if you can make it appear that you have me restrained with forcefields, we can play guard-and-prisoner.'

'I have a better suggestion,' Drazuma-Ha* said as a shimmering aura formed about it, lengthened, altered its outline, swirled with colours . .. and suddenly Kao Chih was looking at two Compositor Henachs, the real one glaring with undisguised hate at his impostor.

Kao Chih grinned. 'The appearance is precise - can you sound like him?'

'Of course, puny Earthling!' said the mech in the Compositor's voice. 'My vocal simulacrum is unrivalled!'

'Then let us carry out our plan

'You may like to keep this with you,' said DrazumaHa*, tossing a silvery object which Kao Chih caught. It was a flattened oval with two springy arms tipped with dimpled pads. 'That is what our companion used on you - a nerve-blocker. It may be useful if we encounter difficulty.'

It was not far from the augmentation rooms to the low, narrow escape pod bay, and there were no guards to be seen. It seemed that when Drazuma-Ha* had sealed off the modules, locking all the surgery doors in the process, most of the guards were in the adjacent module searching for a missing drone.

Once the pod's comm system was disabled, the real Compositor Henach was thrust inside, his bellows of rage muffled by the closed hatch. There was a manual release in a wall niche which Kao Chih took great pleasure in pulling. A heavy thump, a furious hiss, and the pod leaped away, small chassis nozzles jetting. Another alarm started sounding so they ducked back out to the walkway and quickly made for the access door leading to the next module. Disguised as the Compositor, the mech paused nearby to crack open a wall panel, uncover the datalinks and modify the intermodule access status.