Neal Asher: The Engineer Reconditioned

“You’re Kellor,” someone said.

Kellor glanced around at the man who had elbowed himself to the front of the ring of spectators. They shushed him but he ignored them. Kellor inspected the uniform and recognised the man as a General in the Separatist Confederation. Now there was a contradiction in terms. He looked up into the bearded face and saw there the harshness of rigid self-control, a mouth like a clam, and eyes a black glitter amidst frown lines.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, off-handedly making another move. He took no pieces this time, so there was no penalty shock. But Kellor was aware that his nonchalant attitude was scaring the crodorman. The General could not have come at a better time.

“I am David Conard,” said the General.

How very interesting , thought Kellor. Here was the Butcher of Cheyne, the man reputedly responsible for the deaths of over two million Polity citizens. He turned from the board, a flick of a smile on his face when he saw the sweat squeezing out between the folds in the crodorman’s forehead. Over ten seconds and the penalty shocks would start. You had to think quick in this game.

“You want my ship?” he asked, noting how the people who had been shushing the General had now moved back from him.

“We can’t discuss this here.”

Kellor nodded then glanced aside and moved his castle directly after the crodorman’s move. The crodorman rapidly followed that move, a look of relief on his ugly face. Oh silly silly crodorman.

“No problem,” he said to General Conard. “I’m finished now.” The crodorman lost his look of relief and stared at the board, then he looked up at Kellor. There was no pleading in his expression, just fear and a braced expectancy. This was the bit that Kellor liked; the moment his opponent realised he had lost and that he was about to experience pain, or die. He had enjoyed this moment so often, yet it never palled; the gun pointed or the blade of a knife paused at the skin. But it could never be protracted in a real fight as it could in penalty chess. Kellor grinned at the crodorman and slowly reached out for his queen.

“This will be checkmate, I believe,” he said.

The crodorman swore at him then made a sound halfway between a scream and a groan when he made the move. Kellor watched him writhe for a moment, then detached his own wrist bands and picked up his winnings. As he walked from the tent with the General the crodorman slumped across the board, either in a faint, or dead. He did not notice. By then he had lost interest.

The device was alive. Chapra defined it as a device because she was certain it was a product of technology rather than of evolution. It was also growing. Some time during their sleep period the creature had placed the thing on the bottom, at the side of the chamber furthest from where its food crustaceans congregated. It was half again the size it had been. It was now ten centimetres across: a spaghetti collection of tubes, a coral.

“You notice it’s increased in size rather than complexity. It’s exactly the same shape as it was,” said Chapra.

Abaron grunted an acknowledgement. She knew he was deeply involved in problems with the food ecology. The crustaceans ate the artificial proteins he gave them, they could in fact ingest Terran protein and plant matter, and they seemed really healthy. But he could not get them to breed. It was possible he might never know what was lacking in their food or their environment, but opined that while he tried to find out he learned much else. Chapra reckoned it was work he preferred because it tracked him away from the alien itself.

“Where has the shell gone?” she suddenly asked. “Box, did you have it cleared from the chamber?”

“No, the creature utilized it,” replied the ship AI.

“Show me.”

A flicker and she was looking at an earlier view into the chamber. Another flicker and the water became totally unrefractive; it looked as if the creature, the plants, and the pseudo-shrimps were just floating through air. She watched as the creature placed the device on the bottom then began cruising in circles around the chamber. After a time it reached up on the jetty and collected all the pieces of shell. It took these to the device, and next to it, on the floor of the chamber, ground the shell to sludge and fed it into the tubes.

“What are the main constituents of those shells?” Chapra asked. Abaron replied, “Calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate.”

Chapra’s hands glided for a moment then she paused in irritation and plugged in her interlink. Her hands glided again.

“The device has been increased in size structurally, using those compounds, but its other constituents are more diffuse. These are carbon and copper compounds in the main, with aluminium, microscopic amounts of tungsten carbide…” Chapra’s voice trailed off and she sat there trancelike. After a time she turned to Abaron who was watching her carefully. “Now is our opportunity,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean I’m going in there.”

“You must be insane,” he said. He looked slightly ill.

“Box,” she said, ignoring him. “I want those compounds in the precise proportion they are in the device, only ten times the quantity, separate and held in inert containers… make the containers from the same material as the sphere inner shell, and in the same fashion. I leave it to you.”

“What about contamination?” asked Abaron, a catch in his voice.

“None of its bacteria or viral forms have shown any pathogenic tendency in human tissue, and we are free of all harmful human viral or bacterial forms. Even the beneficent ones we do carry would not be able to survive in its environment.”

“The heat?”

“I’ll wear an environment suit, but I do not want to be completely cut off.”

“Why?” asked Abaron, confused.

“If I completely enclose myself the creature may not be able to see me in its way. Remember, its primary senses are most like our senses of taste and smell — it has no vision.” Abaron just shook his head and returned his attention to his console and display. Chapra smiled and stood, removed her interlink. Before leaving the room she rested her hand on Abaron’s shoulder.

“Xenology is not the most clever choice for a xenophobe,” she said, and headed for the door. Before she went through it he managed a reply. “It is exactly the right choice.” Once she was outside the room and beyond Abaron’s hearing, Box said, “He is right, and we watch him. His fear makes him a most meticulous researcher.”

“Have you followed my instructions?”

“But of course. Judd awaits you in the isolation chamber.”

“Superior bastard,” she muttered as she strode down the corridor. The world of Callanasta was Diana Windermere’s home world, and where the rest of the Cable Hogue’s crew were stationed or lived on permanent call. It was also the world the Hogue orbited and, it had been established, that orbit was of great benefit to the Callanasta’s two-centuries-old terraforming project. Diana thought it good that a breaker of worlds, just by its presence, assisted in the making of a world. The call came while she was spear fishing for the huge adapted turbot in the estuary. She was slowly coming up on one of the great diamond shapes as it cruised along the bottom when there came a splash above her and the iron crab of a remote drone sank down toward her. The turbot shot away in a cloud of silt and Diana resisted the temptation to shoot the spear at the drone. It would only bounce off. She surfaced and the drone surfaced with her.

“This is a priority call. You are to come at once,” said the drone. Diana pulled her hemolung breather.