Neal Asher - The Gabble

Jharit turned at a sound, rose to his feet and drew his laser again. He stepped away from Snow and looked around. Snow looked beyond him but could see nothing.

‘If you leave here now, Marsman, I will not kill you.’

The voice was Hirald’s.

Jharit fired into the rocks and backed towards Snow.

‘I have a singun and I am in chameleonwear. I can kill you any time I wish. Drop your weapon.’

Jharit paused for a moment as if indecisive, then he whirled, pointing his laser at Snow.

The expression on his face told all. Before he could press the trigger he collapsed into himself; a central point the size of a pinhead, a plume of sand standing where he stood, then all blasted away in a thunderclap and an encore of miniature lightnings across the ground. Snow slowly shoved himself to his feet as he looked in awe at the spot Jharit had occupied. He had heard of such weapons and not believed. He looked across as Hirald flickered back into existence only a few metres away. She smiled at him, just before the first shot ripped the side of her face away.

Snow knew he yelled, he might have screamed. He looked on in impotent horror as the second shot smacked into her back and knocked her to the ground. Then there: Baris and the corporation woman, walking out of the rock field. Baris sighted again as he walked, hit Hirald with another shot that ripped half her side away. Snow felt his legs give way. He went down on his knees. Baris came before him, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Snow looked up at him, trying to pull the energy together to throw it all in one attempt. He knew it was what Baris was waiting for. It was all he could do. He glanced aside at the woman, saw she had halted some way back. She was looking past Baris at Hirald, a look of horror on her face. Snow did not want to look. He did not want to know.

‘Oh my God. It’s her!’

Snow pulled himself to his feet, dizziness making him lurch. Baris grinned and pointed the rifle at his face, relished his moment for the half a second it lasted. The hand punched through his body, knocked the rifle aside, lifted him and hurled him against a rock with such force he stuck for a moment, then fell leaving a man-shaped corona of blood. Hirald stood there, revealed. Where the syntheflesh had been blown away glittering ceramal was exposed, her white enamel teeth, one blue eye complete in its socket, the ribbed column of her spine. She observed Snow for a moment then turned towards the woman. Snow fainted before the scream.

He was in his bed and memories slowly dragged themselves into his mind. He lay there, his throat dry, and after a moment felt across to his numbed shoulder and the dressing. It was a moment before he dared open his eyes. Hirald sat at the side of the bed, and when she saw he was awake she helped him up into a sitting position against his pillows. Snow observed her face.

She had repaired the damage somehow, but the scars of that repair work were still there. She looked just like a human woman who had been disfigured in an accident. She wore a loose shirt and trousers to hide the other repairs. As he looked at her she reached up and self-consciously touched her face, before reaching for a glass of water to hand to him. Gratefully he drained the glass, that touch of vanity confusing him for a moment.

‘You’re a Golem android,’ he said, in the end, unsure.

Hirald smiled and it did not look so bad.

She said, ‘Canard Meek thought that.’ When she saw his confusion she explained, ‘The corporation woman. She called me product, which is an understandable mistake. I am nearly indistinguishable from the Golem Twenty-two.’

‘What are you then?’ Snow asked as she poured him another glass of water.

‘Cyborg. Underneath this syntheflesh I am ceramal. In the ceramal a human brain, spinal column, and other nerve tissues.’

Snow sipped his drink as he considered that. He was not sure what he was feeling, but it certainly was not the horror he had first felt.

‘Will you come to Earth with me?’

Snow turned and looked at her for a long time. He remembered how it had been in the tents as she, he realized, discovered that she was still human.

‘You know, I will never grow old and die,’ she said.

‘I know.’

She tilted her head questioningly and awaited his answer. A slow smile spread across his face.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he told her. ‘If you will stay with me.’ He put his drink down and reached out to take hold of her hand. What defined humanity? There was blood still under her fingernails and the tear duct in her left eye was not working properly. It didn’t matter.

A single biolight clung to a hull bone, its tick head thrust into a ship’s artery. In the light’s dim blue luminescence Simoz observed the generator palpitating like a sick heart as it drew in plankton-rich sea water. Canvas straps secured the generator to the inner hull and a heavy skein of cables issued from under the dripping rim of its bivalve shell and was stapled to hull beams that disappeared into the darkness where the motors hummed. Simoz subvocalized an acid observation.

Very nice.

The doctor mycelium, the symbiont which monitored and repaired his body and fought off those things beyond the compass of his immune system, was of course defensive.

Biotech is efficient, cheap, and self-propagating.

Yeah, but what people fail to mention about it, is the smell.

This is a crosstech ship.

Mike, it stinks like a Billingsgate gutter.

A nicely colourful historic reference only marred by the fact that you have never been to Earth.

Picky.

‘The motors are ceramic nanofacture,’ said Harbing.

Simoz supposed they must be — biotech ship motors made a sound he usually associated with wet sex.

‘Where from?’ he asked, not allowing the internal bickering to affect his outward demeanour.

‘Nanofactured on the Outlink Station Ooerlikkon and transmitted via Circe,’ Harbing replied.

Simoz studied the Mate with interest, consciously not focusing on the man’s more obvious augmentations and adaptations, which was difficult. From his two-toed feet to the hairless white dome of his head the Mate was a full choudapt with numerous cyber implants. His mouth was the worst; with its feeding palps moving across his chin to emphasize his words.

Simoz looked him in the eye and showed no evident reaction to the flickering of his nictitating membranes.

‘You’ve had no rejection problems?’ he asked.

This question puzzled Harbing. Simoz allowed his gaze to drop to the scanner link Harbing had grafted just above his hip. There were pustules around the disc of bright metal and a slight leakage of pus from behind it.

‘I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at,’ said Harbing.

Simoz nodded to himself.

Sharp drop in IQ a couple of weeks after infection.

Obviously … I am ready now.

Simoz concentrated his gaze on the link and Harbing glanced down. His puzzlement increased when he saw the signs of his own body rejecting its technology. Simoz let things go no further than that. He quickly reached out and put his right hand behind Harbing’s head. His left hand he clamped across the Mate’s mouth and he winced as the palps pinched at his palm.

Harbing struggled, but to no avail, then his eyes grew wide in shock as Mike extended its nano-mycelium body from the palm of Simoz’s hand down the man’s throat.

Are you in?

I am in … cutting motor functions.

Harbing dropped as if someone had cut his strings. Simoz knelt with him as he collapsed, his hands still in position.

Can you link?

Parasitic fungus is primitive form. Aggression. Fungal form, dead.