Dark Intelligence (54 page)

“So what was it this time?” the snake drone asked.

“Nothing important,” I said, donning my mask and heading for the ramp.

The flute grasses outside stood as high as my waist and at the edge of the ramp I hesitated. I remembered that mud snakes lurked underneath the rhizome and snatched down prey passing above. Then I stepped down, the layer unsteady beneath my feet, and waded through the grasses to bring the Weaver into sight. It still sat there, but was no longer waving what could only inaccurately be described as its thumb. It now held a device I recognized—the one it had used to detach penny molluscs from a rock during our previous encounter.

“I take it you’re going our way?” I suggested.

It nodded in solemn agreement, then peered up behind us. I turned to see those two cylinders hovering about fifty feet up in the air and about the same distance behind the ATV.

“We’re right on the edge,” said Riss. “Another hundred feet and they’d have carried out their orders and fused our vehicle’s drive. Luckily Leif Grant was watching and he’s now changed their orders—they are to follow and keep watch only.”

However, Grant’s problem was that the Weaver had other ideas. The device it held made a clicking sound, just that, nothing spectacular. The two cylinders dropped out of the sky like the heavy lumps of metal they were and thumped straight down into the boggy ground. One of them steadily sank out of sight while the other managed to keep its top end above the grass line. The barrel of a coil gun centred on us and small sensor dishes whirled. Another click ensued and the thing squawked, that barrel swung aside and its sensor dishes grew still. It too then began to sink.

I turned back in time to see the Weaver putting away its handy little device and heaving itself back into quadruped position, whereupon it ambled over to us.

“I need a ride,” it said. “There is now some urgency.”

“Urgency?”

“Do you feel it?” it enquired, raising a forelimb and stabbing one claw down towards the unsteady ground.

I could feel movement, like a constant earth tremor, but I’d put that down to the massive beast before me and the recent unexpected landing of two heavy drones. It then occurred to me that I’d felt this even on the ramp—before the Weaver had started moving and while the drones were still in the sky.

“The engine?” I suggested, nodding towards the ATV.

“No, something moving, down deep,” said Riss. “I can only surmise that it’s something big because of the soil displacement, otherwise it’s impenetrable.” The snake drone looked up. “Some sort of mudmarine?”

“You could say that,” the Weaver replied, then proceeded towards the ramp.

I moved hastily aside, while Riss just turned and shot back up the ramp ahead of the creature. The moment the Weaver stepped on the ramp the whole ATV tipped over towards it, then automatically tried to right itself by expanding its cage wheels on this side and collapsing them on the other as the creature entered. I then climbed up to the doorway but upon peering inside felt suddenly vulnerable. Here was an intelligent being who we were giving a lift, but it now occupied most of the cargo area. I’d have to squeeze past it to get to my seat and, intelligent or not, it was big, possessed huge black claws and very sharp teeth.

“Does human air bother you?” I asked, moving inside.

“Invigorating,” said the Weaver, waving a dismissive claw that passed just a foot over my head with a sharp swishing sound.

The ramp closed up quickly and the scrubbers cleaned up the air in just a few seconds. There hadn’t been much bleed-in since the ATV maintained a marginally higher internal air pressure than that outside. I squeezed past the gabbleduck, taking off my mask as I did so. Immediately my nostrils were filled with a smell akin to that of a big dog that had been chasing sticks in the sea, along with an underlying hint of reptile house. This close to the gabbleduck, I could see the elephantine wrinkles in its skin, subtle diamond patterns and what looked like multicoloured capillaries. Little nodes were scattered here and there, but I didn’t know if they were part of the skin or some sort of parasite. Some areas also possessed an odd oily iridescence, while others were translucent and revealed quadrate patterns of black threads—like a form of carbon electronics. I was fascinated, and grateful not to find any familiarity here. I guess that no one in my available memories had come this close to a gabbleduck and had survived thereafter to become one of Penny Royal’s victims.

“Ahem.”

I looked up, nearly hitting my nose on this gabbleduck’s bill, and backed off, staring into its green eyes.

“Do you mind?” the Weaver said.

“Sorry,” I replied and quickly went to take my seat, even as the ATV moved off.

“It’s heading in the same direction as us,” said Riss, “and is now angling up to surface where
The Rose
came down.”

“What?” I asked, distracted.

“That thing under the ground,” Riss explained.

The ATV was just trundling along while Riss doubtless used her senses to probe the ground below us. She was also probably weighing the pros and cons of arriving before or after this unidentified object.

“Some speed would be good,” said the Weaver from behind.

Riss accelerated.

20

BLITE

“You would be safer inside your ship,” said Penny Royal, abruptly sucking its silver trunk inside and expanding into urchin form, a black star seemingly nailed to the air.

“Yeah, sure,” said Blite, eyeing the AI then casting a glance out towards the nearest hooder.

“She comes,” Penny Royal added, “faster than calculated, more capable than supposed because she has attained an unexpectedly stable unity.”

“Yeah, sure,” Blite said again, now actually starting to feel a bit worried. The AI had initially been a lethal threat, but proved itself otherwise. Thereafter, the threats had arisen from the situations into which it had dragged them. However, it had always appeared utterly sure and in control and Blite had come to trust it on some level. Even the encounter with that black ship, which he’d felt sure would kill them, had confirmed Penny Royal’s capabilities; the black AI’s superiority. Yet now it seemed unsure. Could it have miscalculated?

“How can Isobel be any more dangerous than these?” he indicated the three visible hooders. Even as he did this they all broke off from their circling patterns and began heading away. They were suddenly moving a lot faster than they had been, really motoring, leaving clouds of ripped-up grass fragments behind them.

As if they’ve been spooked
, Blite thought, then wondered what the hell might spook such creatures—other than the AI floating above his ship. As he watched, he suddenly realized one of them was heading straight for the ship, so turned and reached down to grab up his particle cannon. But it was stuck, locked to the hull of his ship.

“No danger,” said Penny Royal.

Blite glanced at Brond and Ikbal, who looked sick with fear, and noted that they hadn’t raised their pulse-rifles. Sensible really, since those weapons would only succeed in pissing off the creature storming towards his ship.

Blite took a calming breath, believing in Penny Royal and sure that at any moment the creature would turn aside. It didn’t. As it approached, it raised its spoon-like head from the ground and he could now see all those horrible manipulators underneath, and the two rows of glittering red eyes. It hit the side of the ship, rocking it, and scrambled up over it. Blite threw himself to one side as the thing came past him like an express train, its hard feet clattering against and actually scoring the hard hull metal. It simply kept going and, just a few seconds of thunderous noise later, the spike of its tail disappeared over the other side of the ship.

He looked at his two crewmen, who’d been on the other side of the creature from him. They were both standing up, brushing themselves off. Ikbal emitted a worryingly hysterical giggle.

“See,” he said, “no danger at all.”

“You would be safer inside your ship,” Penny Royal repeated as it now began drifting out over the flute grasses. “In fact you can leave now, if you wish. You will find my final payment inside.”

Blite wanted to return inside and check his supposed payment. He also considered leaving. Penny Royal was letting them go; it had finished with them, so surely the sensible thing to do was to get the hell out of here now, just as fast as they could.

“I want to see this through,” said Brond.

“I agree,” said Ikbal, grinning weirdly.

Blite felt the same. He wanted completion. However, though he was
The Rose
’s captain and an autocrat, he felt that his crew had been subjected to too much, and that they should
all
be offered choices.

“Is that the consensus of you all?” he asked on open channel.

“No it is fucking not,” said Martina from inside. “And by the way, we’ve got seismic readings on something big travelling fast underground and heading straight for us.”

“Captain,” interjected Greer, “we all want to see this through, but we can do that as spectators, not participants.”

Of course, he’d been mesmerized and hadn’t been thinking straight. He turned to Brond and Ikbal. “Safety lines.” They quickly moved to secure their lines to loops set in the hull, while Blite did the same. Once his line was on he continued, “Leven, are you still with us?” His ship’s mind had grown increasingly uncommunicative since their last time here. It had been rendered redundant and quite possibly terrified in ways known only to AIs.

“I’m back,” said Leven cheerily.

“Glad to hear it. Take us up, nice and easy, then to a safe distance and put us down again.”

“I’m curious to know what might be a safe distance, Captain, other than say, a light century or two.”

The ship began to rise on anti-grav, its feet making a sucking sound against the rhizome mat. Then it broke away with a lurch that sent Blite staggering.

“How’s our hardfield projector?” he asked.

“I hardly think that—” began Leven, then fell silent. After a moment the Golem mind continued, “Oh wow.” “What is it?” Blite asked impatiently. “Seems our defensive capability has increased.” “If you could be a bit clearer.”

“Penny Royal’s been playing around with the projector.”

Blite felt a surge of excitement. If the AI had left them with a projector even just a little like the one it had deployed to defend Carapace City, then they just got stinking rich. Was this then the payment the AI had mentioned?

Leven took
The Rose
a few miles to one side of the building housing the Atheter AI and brought it down again. Blite unclipped his monocular from his belt and raised it to his enviro-suit’s visor. He could now see Penny Royal hovering about a mile out from that building, turning and shifting; its shape constantly reforming, as if the AI was searching for the right response to … something. Then, only minutes later, the rhizome layer just a hundred metres from the AI bulged and burst open—and that something exploded from it in pink fire, mud and steam.

“So that’s Isobel,” said Brond. “She’s not quite how I remember her.”

Blite glanced at the other two and saw that they too had produced monoculars to watch this scene. Returning his gaze to the unfolding events he felt the urge to emit one of Ikbal’s giggles. Yes, everyone had known what Penny Royal had done to Isobel. And he himself had seen some media footage of her new form when she went after some mafia boss on the Rock Pool. That had been shocking enough, because she was an almost complete, though small, hooder. Now she was a big albino hooder, pink fire caging her from end to end as she hurtled up into the sky and slowed, seemingly gripping the very air with her multitude of limbs. She hooked and halted, her hood pointed directly towards Penny Royal.

“Like the Technician?” Brond observed.

“Yes,” Blite replied, “just smaller.”

The story of the Technician hadn’t exactly been suppressed, but it did lack detail and some data had been made difficult to obtain—supposedly because of the Weaver’s ownership of it. However, he’d seen detailed pictures of the Technician, and recorded footage of it climbing into the sky. Isobel was about a third of the size. She also looked newer, whiter—fresh and youthful—while the Technician had been big and appallingly ancient, battered and stained.

Brond continued. “But the Technician was supposedly one of the Atheter’s original war machines—so why does she look like one of those, and not like that hooder that just came close to smearing us?”

Penny Royal’s earlier words, when they had first arrived here, about “a war mind growing inside her,” abruptly clarified themselves in Blite’s mind. Hooders were very devolved, distant ancestors of the Technician’s kind—so it seemed Penny Royal’s manipulations were more profound than they’d thought. But he had no time to think about them further. Up in the sky Penny Royal was changing, spreading out and curving into a great black satellite dish formed of translucent black plates. Isobel suddenly straightened out and streaked towards that dish, growing painfully bright as something travelled along her length and expelled itself ahead of her. The space-twisting force she produced wrenched at Blite’s gut even here. Then that distortion struck the AI dead centre and bounced away in pieces, some heading up into the sky and some straight down into the ground.

The sound, like dreadnoughts sideswiping each other, reached them first, and Blite slammed his hands over his ears. Where one of those distortions hit nearby, the ground folded around it as if twisted by a fish-eye lens. A wave sped out, fast, ripping up rhizome and grasses. It reached them in seconds and flung
The Rose
upwards, sprawling Blite on his back. Then sound became muffled, the air turned to amber around them, and he felt his ship’s grav-engines engage. They settled the ship back down gently rather than dropping it like a brick. As Blite staggered upright he saw that a hardfield now enclosed them, just in time to intercept and bounce away another of those fragments of distortion.

“Nice one, Leven,” he said.

“Like I said,” the Golem mind replied, “a couple of light centuries might be needed, if we want to observe comfortably.”