Dark Intelligence (35 page)

“Snackety snack,” it said, swinging its head from side to side as it surveyed the carnage, then, “I love you, Isobel.”

Sverl was baffled by this, until he realized that some of his own feelings must have been leaking through—and he had, just in the last hour, acquired a deep feeling of kinship and affection for her. Isobel also seemed puzzled by this statement, for she hesitated for a long drawn-out moment before issuing verbal instructions.

“Follow me,” she said through her voice synthesizer, “I have fuel to buy.”

Outside the warehouse an armoured car had arrived, along with a fire robot, which wouldn’t now be required since the flames had failed to take hold. Armed shell people enforcers had disembarked from the car, but hesitated to do anything more. In Carapace City they enforced a limited degree of public order because chaos was bad for business. As Sverl finished the first half of the reaverfish and picked up the next, he tuned into their communications. They knew this was Stolman’s warehouse and were aware that he had made some sort of play against Isobel Satomi. They also knew what she now looked like and, as she exited, with Stolman’s Golem behind her, they made the sensible decision to stand aside. The shell people had little love for Stolman—he’d been getting far too powerful and arrogant.

“Is Stolman dead?” asked one brave soul as she passed through them.

“He is,” she replied simply, and moved on.

Sverl now noted another watcher in the area. The battered-looking Polity drone was hovering up by a nearby warehouse’s second-storey loading hatch. Through the eyes of his Golem, Sverl observed it for a short while, but decided there was nothing to be done. The thing presented the persona of a reckless erstwhile war drone, taking a tour of the backwaters and rough houses of the Polity line. But it had been here too long and its subtle interventions betrayed it. The thing was almost certainly a watcher placed here by Earth Central Security. Sverl had considered sending one of his own prador drones to destroy it, but success was not a foregone conclusion. Moreover, even if it worked, ECS would only send something more difficult to spot.

Isobel moved on to Taiken Fuels. Taiken himself would doubtless suffer one of his problematic bowel movements, brought on by his own radical physical changes, before he realized there was money to be made. Sverl was about to turn his attention to other things when something intruded on his connection with his Golem.

“You really need to keep your eye on the ball, Sverl,” said a voice.

Sverl immediately traced the communication to the ECS watcher, then ramped up his com security at once.

“What are you talking about, drone?” he enquired.

“Well, while you’ve been having a grand old time watching Isobel smear Stolman and having a lunch break, you haven’t been paying attention to your other feeds.”

“If you could elaborate,” suggested Sverl, frantically checking his screens and alerts.

“Your Beta satellite,” the drone explained. “You really should check out the view.”

Sverl inserted his free claw into a pit control even as the alert made itself known. He dropped the remaining reaverfish and came close to experiencing a problematic bowel movement of his own.

This changed everything.

BLITE

Great, the Rock Pool
, thought Blite. It was another place he’d decided he never wanted to visit. Any place occupied by a large group of people turning themselves into prador had to be a bad place to go to. The prador the shell people worshipped were here too. To be frank, the entire Graveyard had also dropped off his “desired destination” list a number of years ago.

Blite grimaced. Sure, there were fortunes to be made here. Some collectors paid premium prices for wartime artefacts, and salvaged technology always had a price, despite being antediluvian in Polity terms. There was even money still to be made in rescuing people or memplants. However, the dangers were greater too. Betrayals were frequent, non-payment and other underhand practices could occur and transactions could get bloody. The Graveyard was full of nasty people like Isobel Satomi and legendary villains like the indestructible Mr Pace. This was why Blite had stuck to the Polity in recent years. Yes, he had tended to push the borders of legality, but not in ways that might get him dead.

“No strange U-signatures detected, and Penny Royal isn’t searching,” commented Leven. “I don’t think there’s one of those hidden power plants here.”

“You’re still with us, Leven,” said Greer. “You’ve been a bit quiet lately.”

Leven had no reply to this.

“So why are we here?” wondered Brond.

Blite felt a flash of irritation, since this was a question one or another of his crew had been asking ever since they entered the Graveyard. It put pressure on him to ask similar questions of Penny Royal, and he’d already learned he didn’t like the way the AI often answered.

“I’m not acquainted with metaphysics, so why don’t you go ask our passenger?” he snapped.

“Okay,” said Brond. He sat back, loosened up his shoulders as if he was preparing for a fight, and gazed up at the ceiling. “Penny Royal, why are we here?”

There was no verbal reply, but Brond suddenly didn’t look very well. His mouth dropped open and his hands balled into fists. Blite wondered where he’d been taken in his own mind—or if he’d been reliving one of his own memories.

“We don’t have no choice in the matter,” Brond whispered, then swallowed noisily.

“But why is Penny Royal here?” interjected Martina. She had sense enough to direct her question to the rest of them, rather than to the AI itself.

Dead silence met this. Brond had no answer and Blite knew he certainly didn’t.

“Clear as mud,” grumped Ikbal.

Blite returned his attention to the world below on his screens, then eyed the indicators that would show if the hold door had opened again. He abruptly came to a decision, though whether his orders would be allowed he had no idea.

“Perhaps you should ask?” Brond suggested to Blite.

“He does seem to have a better connection,” Martina agreed.

“We really shouldn’t just ride along with this,” said Greer. “We must do something.”

“Mebbe,” said Ikbal, watching Blite warily.

Blite felt another flash of anger. Before they left Masada there had been at least some degree of respect for his position as captain and owner of
The Rose
. Now his crew felt that any of them could come to the bridge, even when it wasn’t their shift, interrupt him, have discussions about what they should do, and generally act as if they were part of a committee rather than part of his crew.

“All right,” he said, “that’s enough. You, Ikbal, and you, Martina, aren’t on duty right now so you can fuck off back to your cabins or the rec room. And you, Brond, can shut the fuck up. When I want anyone’s input I’ll ask for it. Is that understood?”

By now, Ikbal and Martina were out of their seats.

“Oh, and if you’re feeling at a bit of a loose end then maybe it’s about time you checked the maintenance roster,” he added. “I’ve noticed how it’s getting just a bit ratty in the living quarters and I haven’t seen any clean-bots out of their niches for a while.” He paused, realized he was panting and at the point of going into a rant. He deliberately forced himself to calm down. “That would be your area, wouldn’t it Ikbal?”

“It would, sir,” replied Ikbal, understanding his captain’s mood at once and quickly leaving the bridge.

“And what’s that look for?” Blite asked Martina, who seemed affronted. “Do you think that because you offered to fuck me I’m going to give you some slack? I want you to check the manifest of our stores right now—we have to be getting short of something.”

Martina turned away and stormed out huffily, but Blite knew she would do as she was told. He now turned to Brond. “We’ve got contacts here, I’m sure. Check our files and see what you can find.”

“Yessir,” said Brond, and immediately began applying himself to his console and screen.

“And you, Greer, check coms down on the planet and see if anything odd is happening down there.”

Greer likewise applied herself.

“Now, where was I? Oh yeah, Leven … why’ve you been so quiet lately?”

“You all may be forming the opinion that Penny Royal is a changed character,” replied Leven. “I, on the other hand, being closer to that black AI on the mental plane, am not entirely of that opinion.”

“Which still doesn’t explain your reticence,” said Blite, not bothering to dispute that “changed character” claim.

“The tiger might not want to eat you today, but it’s still a tiger. Always best to keep one’s head down and try not to annoy said tiger.”

“Interesting metaphor,” said Blite, “but now you might be prodding it with a stick, because I want you to contact whoever runs that space port below and get us permission to land. Then I want you to land us.”

“Thank you so much,” said Leven. “You’ll be glad to know that no permissions are required. The space port was built by shell people for the sum purpose of luring business to this world. The only ships that might have a problem here are ECS vessels, what with the renegade prador under the sea nearby …”

Blite said, “Take us down, then.”

As thrusters fired and they began to draw closer to the Rock Pool, Blite speculated. Penny Royal had spent a lot of time in the Graveyard and it was known to have dealings with the prador. Could it be that the AI’s presence here involved these contacts in some way? If it did, then their feelings towards Penny Royal might be due for a rapid change, just when they were slightly more comfortable with its presence aboard. If the prador were involved with the AI, danger could materialize at any time.

SPEAR

The moment the
Lance
surfaced in the Masadan system, we found a Polity attack ship sitting in our path. The thing was a long narrow wedge of midnight and looked precisely what it was: deadly. A microsecond later, it splintered off missiles from its own substance. These disappeared in micro U-jumps, which would have been impossible during the war, since the technology didn’t exist then, and reappeared just a couple of miles either side of us.

“What’s it saying?” I asked.

“It wants to know what we’re doing here above this particular piece of Polity property,” Flute replied. “Also why we happen to have restocked a railgun magazine which, according to historical record, should have been practically empty. Why we have a multi-megaton fusion device aboard, how I was obtained, what we’ve been doing in the Graveyard, who other than myself is aboard, what our business is here and, incidentally, why it shouldn’t vaporize us right away.”

“You’ve provided details?” I enquired.

“I have,” Flute continued. “Now it wants to put Golem aboard, it wants full access to me and is currently in a U-space conference with a forensic AI in preparation for a full investigation of us and this ship.”

“Touchy, isn’t it?” said Riss.

I glanced at the drone, coiled over by the wall with her head down. She had decided not to kill me just yet, since that wouldn’t resolve the puzzle of my connection with Penny Royal’s spine. Of course I was grateful for that, but I had my own problems with that connection.

“This place has a bit of history, that’s why it’s jumpy,” I said. “I want to talk to that ship.”

“Go ahead,” Flute replied.

“Polity attack ship, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Oh, human communications, is it?” the attack ship rejoined with affected boredom. “My name is
Micheletto’s Garrotte.”

“Huh,” said Riss, “someone fancies itself as a Borgia assassin.”

“Well,” added the
Garrotte
AI. “At least I’m only named after an assassin, and am not an anachronism incapable of being anything else.”

“Screw you,” said Riss.

“Surely not—you only screw prador.”

“I think we’re getting away from the point here,” I tried.

“Hardly,” said the
Garrotte
. “An interesting trio you have there. A Room 101 hash-up of a drone, a prador kamikaze that didn’t quite make it to the front and a recently resurrected, deluded and vengeful bio-espionage agent. Now, are you really the types I want orbiting a protectorate world, occupied by a similarly recently resurrected member of the Atheter race? In a Polity destroyer which was once occupied by Penny Royal, and now contains a continent buster?”

“Bringing us back to the point,” I said. “This was a Polity destroyer but under rights of salvage it now belongs to me. This also means you’ve no right to put Golem aboard, or a forensic AI.”

“No right?” the attack ship asked disbelievingly. “You are seriously deluded if you think you have rights extending … hold on a minute.”

After a brief silence, Flute said, “It just recalled its missiles.”

“Ah, Amistad is talking and has just intervened,” said Riss, her head abruptly jerking up and her black eye opening.

“It’s moving away,” Flute added.

I could see that. The attack ship abruptly peeled away from us, with no steering thrusters or any other visible drive propelling it. Then it just disappeared back under the chameleonware that must have originally concealed it. I had no doubt that watch stations along the edge of the Graveyard had spotted us on the way out and that this thing had been forewarned. U-space tracking had obviously become more sophisticated since the war.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I have been denied access to our weapons,” said Flute.

“What?”

“Wartime programming,” Flute explained. “I have been disconnected from weapons control and the only way to reconnect is by physical intervention. Further programming has also been added. Should I attempt to reconnect to our weapons, while in the vicinity of Masada, the fusion bomb will detonate.”

“Best you don’t do that, then,” I said. Having been reminded that Flute originated from a prador kamikaze was giving me worrying thoughts. “Riss?”

“We are now good to approach Masada,” the drone explained. “Under protectorate law, only warships controlled by Polity AIs are allowed to approach this world. Those under private ownership must be boarded, assessed and thereafter controlled by Polity AIs. In this case Amistad, the warden of Masada, has allowed the rules to be relaxed. I have been designated the Polity AI boarding contingent.”