Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

“I thank you,” he said, and nodded to it. The weird head dipped in reply, it seemed. Abaron went to Chapra who was by Jane.

“Get her legs,” said Chapra, holding the girl upright.

Jane seemed quite calm about the fact that she had been cut in half. Get her legs? Abaron glanced aside to where the other half of her lay. Then he looked back to her.

“I can be repaired,” she said.

Abaron picked up the legs, surprised at their weight. Chapra carried the top half. They took Jane to the Jain, who took her in its tentacles, pulled her under the sea, and into the mouth of its machine grown huge there. The worms went with it.

“Tell me about the Jain,” said Diane.

“There is little provable fact. From the few artefacts discovered and from some cultural archaeology it is evident that their technology was… is far in advance of ours,” said Alexion. He did not look away from the information scrolling up on the screen before him. It was just too fascinating: some things proven beyond doubt, others now possible, and so many more questions to ask. Alexion normally did not hold much of an opinion about the current political situation, but would gladly see the Separatists hung who might halt this lovely flow of information.

“Their nanotech is fantastic. It might easily be called picotech…”

“Are they warlike?”

Alexion looked around. “There’s so much space. Why?”

“We are.”

“We’re stupid.”

Diane shrugged.

“I suppose it is possible. God help anyone they declared war upon.”

“Meaning?”

“As I said to Chapra, ‘the Jain moved suns’ and we’re fairly sure of that. I have to wonder if a race capable of that kind of thing would have any enemies left at all.” Alexion returned to his work and Diane grimaced at the back of his head. They would be there soon, ahead of schedule because of the Laumer engines and ready to deal with an enemy they knew. Smith was with them on the off-chance they found an enemy they did not know. She wondered if he was aware of how closely his ideas and summations were being inspected by the Hogue AI. Thus thought of, that AI spoke to them in its gravelly voice.

“ Schrödinger’s Box destroyed. Am receiving extreme range runcible transmission.”

“Seal containment sphere. Maximum security.”

“Done.”

Alexion looked around and Diane shrugged once again.

“Best guess as to what is coming through?” she asked him.

The AI answered her. “They are through. I have a Golem android, Box, and an armed Confederation soldier… Disarmed.”

Diane grinned. She turned to go.

“May I come with you? I think my studies have ended for now,” asked Alexion. Without stopping, Diane nodded. Side by side, they entered a drop shaft.

“In time that soldier may come to think of himself as very lucky,” she said. Dropping through the irised gravity field Alexion looked at her questioningly.

“In ship warfare there’s little room for mercy and less room for prisoners. He may be the only one we leave alive.”

Alexion shivered. Shortly after, in the containment sphere, he observed the Golem Rhys holding a pulse-rifle on the Confederation soldier. But the man was not up to much. He was flat on a four-gee gravplate, groaning weakly as blood ran from his flattened nose. Smith surmised that though the man might be glad to be alive, he was not particularly enjoying the experience just then. The night sky of Haden was black and starless but light was provided by strange luminescence under the sea, igniting and going out, lighting large glassy shapes. The two human bodies lay on the sand, swarmed over by finger lobsters and flat black cruciform creatures moving as slowly as starfish. Abaron and Chapra sat inside the back of the gunship with the coolers on and their visors open. They had intended to eat here, but the mess in the cockpit and the smell circulated by the coolers scotched that idea.

“What other jobs did you do before you studied xenology then?” asked Abaron. Chapra grinned. “I was an Earth Central Enforcer for twenty years, then a Monitor for another six.” Abaron tapped the controls before them with the metal spoon he had intended to use. “So you should be able to fly this.”

“Yes, I can fly this… You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m beyond surprise.”

The communicator beeped and a voice spoke out of it in gibberish.

“That’s Faculan. He’s asking someone called Beredec to respond.”

“I wonder which one he was.”

“Who knows? Anyway, there’ll be more gunships down here before long.”

“What next?”

“Back into the jungle. We—”

“What is it?”

Chapra wordlessly pointed out the screen at the naked figure striding from the sea.

“That didn’t take long, not long at all,” said Abaron.

Jane grinned up at them then disappeared from sight as she went to the airlock. They turned in their seats as she entered the ship.

“You’ve grown,” said Chapra.

Her hair was longer. She was bigger. She had the body of a pubescent girl, only there was a hardness to her musculature that did not look quite right.

“Whole body growth accelerated the repair process,” she said, then, “The artificial human, Judd, will be coming here in his shuttle to lead you to a place of safety.”

“Lead?” asked Chapra.

“It might be prudent to bring this gunship.”

“How long before he gets here?” said Abaron, climbing to his feet.

“Judd will be here in ten minutes.”

Chapra stared at Jane. She looked so different. She was beautiful, and she would make a beautiful adult.

“Do you want clothing?” she asked, then wondered at her impulses.

“That won’t be necessary.”

Abaron grinned at Chapra, who ignored him.

“Let’s get out of here for a while,” she said, looking around at the blood-bespattered cockpit.

“Don’t you need to familiarise yourself?” Abaron asked.

“No need.”

They filed back outside after Jane. The sand was now swarming with the thumb-lobsters and cruciform fish, and watching these scrape up the gory sand they did not attend to their surroundings closely enough. One of the giant wingless mosquitoes attacked Jane. She caught it, almost negligently, then tore it in half without a word before pointed out the shuttle as it glided toward them just a few metres above the sea.

“Strong,” said Abaron.

Chapra only nodded.

The shuttle beached with a deep grinding crunching as the AG cut and allowed the full weight down on the sand. Judd came out through the airlock.

“I am here to lead you to a place of potential safety,” he said. Chapra thought that a strange way of wording it. The Golem also seemed twitchy to her. There was something wrong with it. Had the Jain damaged it?

“We only need to hide for a day or so.” She checked her timepiece. “ECS are punctual if nothing else and I can’t see that ship standing up to a dreadnought.”

Judd stood there blinking at her.

“What’s the problem, Judd?” she asked.

Judd said, “I do not have Box to advise me so I do not know if facts should be concealed from you. I have very little practical or theoretical human psychology.”

Chapra absorbed that but Abaron looked shocked. Chapra remembered how she had felt on first discovering that AIs could lie, cheat, and kill just like humans. The only difference was that AIs did it with firm purpose, and were better at it.

“If it concerns our survival then facts should not be concealed. Trust me, I’m a scientist,” said Chapra, then felt a sinking sensation when Judd did not acknowledge humour. It was bad.

“The situation is not amenable to survival,” said the Golem.