Gridlinked Page 26

  * * *

  As the Lyric continued to decelerate into the Mendax system, Arian Pelter held court in Hold B. He squatted on a case filled with needle missiles while the mercenaries sat, or stood, sipping whatever it was they required after the body’s trauma of cold sleep. He addressed them with curt and exact phrases. Each of the mercenaries was well aware of Mr. Crane standing not far from them.

  ‘First we have to load the dropbird,’ he said.

  ‘Could have done that on Huma,’ said Svent. Like Dusache, the little mercenary had scabs on the side of his head, though he had developed a squint on that side too. Apparently he had bought the aug after getting drunk with Dusache. He and Dusache were now standing as far from each other as they could get, and had not spoken since thaw-up.

  ‘On Huma,’ said Pelter, ‘I had other concerns. And if you interrupt me again with something that is not pertinent, I will tell Mr. Crane to tear off your right arm.’

  Svent quietened and stared moodily at the deck.

  ‘As I said, first we load the dropbird. That should take up the remaining time we have before we reach Viridian. When we launch, I will pilot the bird in. I intend to land it on a lake approximately a thousand kilometres from the runcible. The nearest habitation is a hundred kilometres from there.’

  ‘Why so far?’ asked Corlackis.

  Stanton answered that before Pelter could. ‘Runcible AIs have got some pretty heavy processing power. One hint of anything untoward and Viridian will be on us. Minimum safe distance.’

  Pelter carried on as if neither of them had spoken. ‘Once we’re down, we will need AG transport. You two—’ he pointed at Svent and Dusache ‘—will stay with the bird. Mennecken and Corlackis will go with me to the nearest town.’ He inspected the two mercenaries. ‘I hope you are both in condition enough for the run. I want to be back at the lake within forty hours solstan.’

  ‘And me?’ Stanton asked.

  ‘With me, of course,’ said Pelter dismissively, before continuing. ‘There we need to steal two AGCs. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but obviously we want to do this quietly.’

  Stanton reflected on Pelter’s idea of quiet: that ECS agent screaming in the rusting shell of a wrecked cargo carrier. He thought about Mennecken being quiet in that alley.

  ‘You said forty hours,’ said Corlackis. ‘Do we have a timescale now?’

  ‘We have my timescale,’ said Pelter. ‘I want our preparations done as soon as possible. I want to be here when that bastard arrives.’

  ‘And you’re sure he will arrive,’ said Corlackis. It was one question too far and Corlackis turned away from Pelter’s flat stare. ‘Never mind,’ he finished.

  ‘Within four days I want a base set up a hundred kilometres from the runcible installation. I’ll want Svent and Dusache inside the installation, keeping watch. In that time I’ll need at least one of the AGCs turned into a weapons platform. Now, any pertinent questions?’

  ‘What kind of force are we likely to be facing?’ asked Stanton.

  ‘I don’t know. We will know when Agent Cormac comes through. It seems likely that he will bring with him four Sparkind and perhaps some others.’

  ‘They’re tough,’ said Stanton.

  ‘But not invulnerable. We have the edge: they will not know we are here.’

  ‘Will we hit him at the installation? That would be risky,’ said Corlackis.

  ‘No, my information is that he will be leaving there on some mission away from civilization. We’ll hit him there.’

  ‘What about extraction?’ asked Corlackis.

  ‘We may be able to use the runcible. We all have . . . changeable identities. If that option looks too dangerous, Viridian has a large spaceport. We will be able to buy passage,’ said Pelter.

  ‘We could get Jarvellis to land, and we’d have our exit there,’ said Stanton.

  Pelter stared at him for a long moment. ‘Yes, there is that option. In that case it would be a question of price. She knows who we are and would charge accordingly. But anyone at the spaceport would not know, and the cost would be consequently less.’

  It sounded a specious argument to Stanton, but he let it drop. There seemed no point in questioning plans he intended to screw anyway. At some point Mr. Crane would be sent against Cormac, and during that period Pelter would be left holding a very desirable briefcase. Thereafter the Separatist would not be going anywhere. The rest of them could make their own arrangements, if they survived.

  * * *

  A huge ring station revolved around the planet, like a much-patched metal tyre rolling on some invisible surface. The station seemed derelict, and probably was. Why live in a station when you have the choice of 100 worlds? Viridian was a cloud-swirled sphere with more landmass than ocean and a green haze over its day side. As the Lyric fell into orbit, leaving the station behind, Jarvellis sat and watched the advance of night. Unlike Earth the night side of the planet was almost completely black. Here there was none of the huge light pollution igniting the sky from vast sprawls of cities. Only the occasional glow from the occasional small city. The night side remained like this, though only so long as it took for the moon to cast down its reflected light. Then, the night turned bloody. Appropriate, thought Jarvellis, and called up two subscreens with views into both Holds A and B.

  Most of the weaponry had been quickly stowed once Jarvellis had opened the tunnel between the two holds. The android was installed inside the dropbird, and now the mercenaries were marking time by checking over their personal weapons, playing cards, or just staring into the air. Jarvellis focused in on John and felt a surge of need inside her. She wanted to touch him, have him make love to her, at least speak with him. But it was just too dangerous. Pelter was a psycho and there was no telling what he might do, or what he might get Mr. Crane to do. Anyway, if Pelter had known about her and John, there would have been no trust—and perhaps no chance then for John to lay his hands on that case. She grimaced and reached out to bring her armoured finger down on the com touch-plate.

  ‘We’re over the night side now,’ she said.

  Pelter turned and surveyed the upper reaches of the hold, still trying to locate the pinhead cameras, no doubt.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll transmit the dropbird frequency once we’re in, and give you the signal.’ He flicked a hand at the mercenaries and they started to collect up their equipment and head for the lock leading to Hold A. On the second screen she watched them coming into Hold A, then trooping up the temporary walkway into the bird. They looked just as if they were walking up a ramp and into a hole in midair. Pelter and John were the last through. Jarvellis noted that John was walking behind Pelter, and that he held his hand up. He was fiddling with the Tenkian ring on his index finger. As Pelter went up the walkway, John looked round and up, straight into the camera. He winked before following Pelter inside the bird.

  Jarvellis glanced at the view into the B hold and frowned. Packing cases and rubbish were strewn all around. Untidy lot. She’d throw it all out through an external lock once they were gone. With a couple of stabs of her finger she cut that view, and went to another one from an outside camera. Now her view was of Hold A from the outside. Shortly, a frequency-decode icon came up on her screen. She tapped that icon with her finger and over a slight whine, Pelter spoke.

  ‘One minute, Captain Jarvellis . . . All strapped in?’

  A chorus of affirmatives came from the background.

  ‘Very well,’ said Pelter, ‘we are ready.’

  Jarvellis flicked a preset control and sat back. There came a low droning through the superstructure as high-speed rotary pumps sucked the air from the hold. This lasted a few minutes, then tailed off and ceased on a high-pitched hiss, as a valve opened to vacuum and exhausted the remaining air. She watched a square of cloth, no doubt used for cleaning some weapon or other, spiral up from the floor. It did not come down, as at that moment the gravplates in the hold were switched off. Now there came another droning noi
se as the hydraulics began to operate. She turned her head to the second screen and watched the spherical hold split and open on the silver rams. She could hardly see the bird as it slid out. It was just a shape on vacuum, and sometimes not even that. The only way she could identify its position, as it parted from the ship, was by the occasional stab of blue flame from the single swivel-mounted guide retro on its belly. For a long while she lost sight of it. Then, far down, a momentary glare of orange. Probably the blood burning off the wings, she thought.

  * * *

  Strapped into his seat in the body of the dropbird, Stanton felt uneasy. He was not uneasy at the mission at hand, but at Pelter’s behaviour. There was that tension about the Separatist leader, almost like a suppressed and vicious glee. Stanton fiddled with his ring and wondered who was going to die next. Svent, sitting opposite him, wore a twisted and angry expression on his face; he seemed lost in himself. Mennecken merely seemed bored as he stared at the screen at the back of the cabin. That screen showed Lyric slowly receding from them. Corlackis sat next to Stanton, with his arms folded over his straps and his eyes closed. Perhaps he had the right idea. Stanton rested his head back and tried to relax.

  Re-entry would take some time. The trick was to not let the bird heat up too much and thus give away its presence. That required care in the thin upper atmosphere, as it would be easy to let it build up a lot of speed. But Pelter had the skill to do things right; as a rich kid he had flown his fair share of re-entry gliders. Stanton wondered if he possessed the patience, however. Considering that thought, he allowed his attention to slide further along the wall of the cabin.

  Mr. Crane was perfectly still, strapped in place amongst the few crates they had loaded aboard, still packed. Stanton now realized that this particular stillness required direct control, no matter how tenuous. Perhaps Pelter did not want Crane taking out his toys and playing with them while the bird descended. Everything had to be totally secured in place during such a descent. Moreover, there was something embarrassing about seeing a killer android playing with a small rubber dog.

  ‘John, something for you to see.’

  Stanton turned his attention to the cockpit. Pelter was leaning round and staring at him. He had a nasty expression on his face. He pointed to the screen moulded into the back of the craft. Though internal, it gave the appearance of a rear cockpit screen.

  ‘Jarvellis, are you getting this?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m getting this. What do you want, Pelter?’ Jarvellis said.

  ‘I just wanted to say it has been a pleasure working with you . . . John, I said look at the screen.’

  Stanton started to get a very bad feeling. He moved his hand towards the release on his safety harness. The cold nose of Corlackis’s little stun gun pressed into the side of his neck.

  ‘Look at the screen, John, and keep your hands where I can see them. Oh, and if anything knife-shaped should, by any strange chance, happen to leap into your right hand, you won’t get a chance to use it.’

  Stanton drew his thumb away from the ring. The Tenkian knife might get to his hand quickly, but getting it into Corlackis before the mercenary pulled the trigger was another matter.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ said Jarvellis.

  Stanton could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

  ‘Just listen and you will learn,’ said Pelter, before returning his attention to Stanton. ‘The Lyric, John.’

  Stanton turned his head so he was looking at the screen behind. The magnification had been upped so he had a clear view of the ship.

  ‘Now,’ said Pelter, ‘you remember I got all that lovely planar explosive from friend Grendel.’

  Stanton stared at the ship. No, this can’t be happening.

  ‘Answer me, John.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said John.

  Pelter went on. ‘Well damn me if I’ve gone and forgotten to bring it with us.’

  Mennecken gave a little chuckle at this, and everything clicked into place. Stanton hit his belt release and turned his head. Corlackis’s gun cracked, and Stanton felt a horrible deadness invade his right shoulder. As the Tenkian tore through his trousers and slapped against his hand, he couldn’t even close his fingers. Next thing, he was down on his knees on the floor.

  ‘Jarv, get out,’ he managed at barely a whisper.

  Pelter reached up and touched his fingers to his aug. It was a habit he retained. ‘Bye-bye, Captain Jarvellis.’

  Stanton went over on his side. He wished he had fallen the other way. His view of the screen was now utterly and uncompromisingly clear. The Lyric blew. A disc of white fire flashed out from the B hold, cutting into the other two spheres of the ship. Multiple explosions followed, and turned the ship into a sphere of fragments that expanded and swallowed the now fading disc. The view clicked back to show the sphere at a distance. As it faded, there were flashes as bits of wreckage re-entered atmosphere behind the dropbird.

  ‘Jarv . . .’

  As his consciousness faded, Stanton heard Pelter speaking to the rest of them.

  ‘That has the added benefit that now we can go in a lot faster. Any heat signatures the AI detects, it will assume to come from the debris.’

  Blackness swamped Stanton, to the sound of Mennecken chuckling.

  19

  Antigravity: In the first three centuries of this millennium, people still viewed gravity with the same lack of comprehension their primitive forebears had for the properties of lodestones. (Could those forebears have had any idea of what would happen when a current was put through copper wire wrapped around a lump of iron?) Antigravity was considered the province of science-fiction writers, and real scientists chuckled about such writers’ inability to grasp plain facts. That they took this attitude, while their fellows were hacking the foundations from underneath Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, showed a lack of foresight comparable to that of an eminent Victorian, who, upon hearing of what forms of travel might become possible because of this new-fangled steam engine, categorically stated that humans travelling faster than twenty miles an hour would be crushed to death.

  From Quince Guide, compiled by humans

  Aiden eased the joystick forwards and the shuttle slid towards the wall of cloud. He tilted the stick and thumbed a side control. The turbines droned and the shuttle climbed for the top of the wall. Cormac gazed down at mountain chains like puckered yellow scars and at frozen seas of reflected gold. Samarkand was a beautiful planet, but it was the beauty of arctic waste that could be best appreciated up here, rather than down on the ground where it might kill you. Fingers of cloud slid across and hid the view. Soon the shuttle was high above what seemed a second land, one of roiling white over guts of brass. This land seemed to have its own red but lightless sun: an oblate object a kilometre across, which seemed to be rolling above the cloud. There was other movement actually on it as well, a slow rippling of its surface, but that motion was so huge it fooled the eye.

  ‘It’s almost an insult that something like that should exist,’ said Carn.

  ‘It’s one of four at the last count,’ Cormac pointed out.

  ‘Oh, right, I’d forgotten.’

  Carn leaned further forwards, perhaps scanning with his yellow eye. He said, ‘No way its orbital velocity is keeping it up.’ He inspected the miniconsole he was holding in his silvered hand. ‘As I thought, it’s using antigravity.’

  ‘The least of its abilities, one would suspect,’ said Aiden. ‘I know of no runcible gates a kilometre wide.’ He paused for a moment, listening, then he said, ‘Hubris informs me that when it arrived there were underspace distortions similar to the kind left by a ship. Dragon probably has a drive system much the same as Hubris’s.’

  They watched the great sphere drift along a thousand metres below and some distance ahead of them. It was an eerie sight and a perplexing one. What was Dragon? A living creature or a machine of flesh? There would never be agreement on that point. Aiden slowly increased their speed
and drew them closer.

  ‘Not too close. I don’t think it would like us to land on it,’ said Cormac.

  Aiden eased back and matched speeds. ‘Hubris reports no response on any channel, even underspace, but it’s been picking up a backwash of some powerful scanning of the planet,’ he said.

  ‘It can’t not know we’re here,’ said Thorn doubtfully.

  ‘Do we want it to know?’ asked Carn, and returned his attention to his instruments.

  Cormac stared at Dragon. Where was the rest of it? Why was only this one quarter here? Had it come for the dracomen? Had it simply sent its agents here to destroy the Samarkand runcible, and was now here to pick them up? What did it have to do with that other thing under the ground? He realized he desperately wanted to talk to it, no matter how convoluted its answers might be. No matter what ridiculous games it might play.

  ‘Prepare to transmit this to it on all channels,’ he said.

  Aiden set the instruments and leant back. ‘All channels open, except underspace. We don’t have the capability on this shuttle. Do you wish me to link with Hubris?’

  Cormac shook his head and concentrated on what he was going to say. The transmitter hissed and made strange whining sounds. He stooped towards it. Hubris had received no reply; might he?