Neal Asher: The Engineer Reconditioned

“There are no problems of environment?”

“None. Abaron would say there are, but he is being perfectionist. Any living creature of this complexity has a broad range of environmental tolerance. The differences he is quibbling over are the differences between Winter and Summer for a human. The only way to find the optimum is by waking the creature and studying its reactions.”

“You have seniority,” observed the ship AI.

“I am reluctant to hurt his feelings.”

“There is pressure,” said the AI. “Answers are required.”

“We’ll be lucky if we get anything,” said Chapra. “You know the difficulties of communication with aliens

— points of reference, all of that. This creature doesn’t have eyes. Its primary senses seem to be related to taste and smell but on a level so complex that it might even be capable of decoding individual molecules. Add to that it living in water at a temperature that would nicely cook a human and you find a lack of common ground. We need so much more information: its technology, where it comes from… ah.” Chapra paused for a moment then stabbed her fingers down again, deleting the projection of the creature and calling up something else. The result was a shifting, and slightly nauseating greyness. She quickly cancelled that. “I see… I didn’t feel us drop into U-space. How long until we leave the Chasm and enter the Quarrison Drift?”

“Twenty-two hours,” replied Box.

Judd added, “It will be a solstan week before we reach the system that may be the system of origin.” Chapra shifted one finger aside and pressed down.

“Abaron,” she said. “You best get to the control room. We’re going to do it now.”

“We’re up to zero now. Everything stable,” said Abaron.

“That was to be expected,” said Chapra. “The problems start as soon as all that body ice turns to water.”

“The freezing was exceptionally efficient,” Abaron allowed.

“I would say nigh perfect,” said Chapra. “There’s no apparent cell damage to the creature. I wonder just how much of our interference is necessary.”

“The weta,” said Abaron suddenly.

“Pardon.”

Abaron could not help smiling; he knew something she did not know. “It’s a cricket that lives in New Zealand on Earth. It has adapted itself to night-time freezing and a morning thaw without substantial damage.”

“Yes, but the weta evolved to it. I doubt that is the case with this creature. What we see here is advanced cryogenics.”

Annoyed Abaron said, “Or genetic manipulation.”

Chapra regarded him and raised an eyebrow.

“Quite,” she said, her surprise evident. “Now, let’s move on to the next stage.” Her hands fled over the touch keys. The holographic display showed much of the isolation chamber. It was as if they sat at their consoles just to one side of it.

“One degree above zero. Flooding chamber,” said Abaron. As he said this the floor of the chamber dropped a couple of metres below the entrance lock, from below which a jetty extended. Water poured into the chamber from holes all around the wall. When it reached the nil gravity area below where the creature floated, just held in place by the tips of some of the PSR’s limbs, it splashed up and floated too, in seemingly gelatinous masses.

“Deep scan is showing cell chemistry initiation. Heat generated. It is primitively warm-blooded, which is surprising considering its environment,” said Chapra.

“Brief neural activity,” said Abaron.

“Okay, let’s shut down the null-field.”

The field, created by two opposing gravplates, collapsed when Abaron shut off the plate in the ceiling. A growing column of water collapsed and the creature sagged as it gained weight.

“Enzyme activity is too fast for anterior cell chemistry. I’m taking the temperature up five degrees. Use a microwave pulse, we want all that ice thawed quickly,” said Chapra, her voice urgent.

“Done,” said Abaron.

“Christ! Look at that activity,” said Chapra.

“It moved,” said Abaron.

“The chemistry is almost too fast for scan to follow!”

“It moved,” Abaron insisted.

“What?”

“I said it moved.”

“Put it in the water,” Chapra said.

The PSR lowered its charge into the water, which was now a metre deep. Abruptly the creature jerked away from the PSR, then feebly began paddling.

“Get the temperature up! Quick, it’s going into hypothermic shock. Use the microwave pulse again if necessary.”

“Ten, twenty, thirty… it’s coming out of it.”

The PSR retreated from the chamber. The creature continued to propel itself around and around. Abruptly it broke the surface with a triangular section tentacle, angled over like a periscope. The water lay two metres deep now. The creature moved to the edge of the jetty, then underneath.

“Dim the lights fifty percent,” said Chapra.

“Eighty degrees,” said Abaron. Wisps of steam were now blowing off the water’s surface.

“Hold it at ninety and keep the pressure at one atmosphere.”

“Surely it needs more.”

“As I said, it’ll likely have as much an adaptive range as a human. We want it tolerable enough for us to go in there.”

“Why?”

Chapra glared at him. “We have to learn to communicate.”

“Send a Golem in,” said Abaron.

Chapra turned away. “Just do as I say.”

It was the first time she had ever felt truly angry with Abaron, and was beginning to realise it might not be the last. She returned her attention to the chamber and watched as the creature slid out from under the jetty. It moved fast now. An underwater view showed that it propelled itself with a tail fin like a sharp propeller that pulsed in alternate directions. It changed direction and halted by gripping the bottom with its tentacles. It stabilized itself with two fleshy rudders jutting from its sides. The arm — it had only the one — it kept folded to its ribbed body. The head was that of a nightmare crayfish, but without eyes.

“I think you can open the way into one of your tanks now.”

“That will raise the temperature,” said Abaron tartly.

“Let it,” said Chapra. “It’ll only be for a while.” She did not allow herself be drawn. His turn to get under my skin , she thought.

At Abaron’s instruction an irised hatch slowly opened in the wall. Water poured in and the chamber filled with steam. The creature turned toward the disturbance, then backed away. Abruptly it darted to its disassembled sphere and turned one of the inner segments over on top of itself. Crustaceans and plants poured in with the water. The tank emptied and Abaron closed the hatch. Then he and Chapra watched anxiously. Eventually one of the larger crustaceans ventured over near the creature. There was a flicker of movement and the crustacean was up against the creature’s mouth parts, a faint cloudiness in the water, then a cleaned shell and emptied bits of exoskeleton drifted to the bottom. The creature slowly came out of its hide.

“Yes!” yelled Abaron happily.

Chapra watched with increasing fascination as the creature took up the empty shell and used it to scrape at the bottom of the tank. When this had no effect, it carefully picked up all the shell fragments in its single hand, swam over to the jetty, then reached out of the water and deposited them on the jetty.

“I think now I can sleep,” she said, and wondered if that was true. The creature’s response had been perfect, disturbingly perfect.

Kellor took the crodorman’s pawn then grinned at him across the board before picking it up. The crodorman had a look of real fear on his whorl-skinned face. It had taken a while to get that look there, since Kellor had appeared to be a perfect mark when he entered the tent. He looked young and a trifle depraved, his pouting mouth and pretty face the cosmetic choice of a certain contemptible type. His clothing, the tightly tailored white uniform of a preruncible ship captain, was also the choice of that type. The crodorman grunted in pain at the penalty shock, his eyes closed and the bigger whorls of thick skin on his face and wrists flushing red. Kellor studied him with interest. He reckoned on check in another five moves. It would be fascinating to see what level the penalty shock went up to then. The shock from checkmate killed people with a weak constitution. He wondered if the crodorman might die, and he smiled at the next expected move.