Neal Asher - The Gabble

“I heard what you said. Why will there not be another shuttle to Scylla for two hundred days?”

“Because it is summer.”

“I beg you pardon?”

There came a sound very like a sigh from the console as if it was tired of repeating this information to people who hadn’t checked.

“Scylla is closed to all traffic for a period of two hundred and seventy three solstan days during its summer season. All ground bases are sealed. This is due to the accelerated activity of dangerous life forms at this time of the year.”

I walked away from the console feeling like a complete idiot. Some of the equipment I had in my luggage was brought along to deal with the life forms I had seen in Paul’s memory, a precaution which had cost me a fair lump of credit for transportation under seal. Now I’d discovered that in my eagerness I’d made a complete bollix. I’d have to go back to Ganymede and wait three quarters of a year before I could come back. In a daze I headed for one of the bars at the edge of the lounge with the vague idea of getting plastered.

I was into my third scotch when a vaguely familiar figure slipped into the seat on the other side of my table. It took me a moment to recognise him, even then I wasn’t quite sure. He looked too clean, too suave, not the man I’d known.

“What a surprise to meet you here,” said Chaplin Grable, and he grinned as amiably as a shark. I sat upright and looked at him in surprise. His smile made a small transition into a sneer as he took out a chainglass blade and began cleaning his nails. They didn’t need cleaning.

“My contact tells me there was a small foul up. I didn’t get time to put the LTM back so he concealed it in the hammer-whelk shell.”

He glanced up from cleaning his nails and I wondered why I had always considered him to be a faintly ridiculous, irritating, but harmless fool.

“Seems the shell went into the next lot, which was then purchased by a Mr Chel. That would be you wouldn’t it?”

He slid around the table into the seat next to me, his arm along the back of my chair and the chainglass knife held between his fingertips with its point pressing against his leg. I considered hitting down on the knife and driving it into his leg, but decided that was a fool’s move. I needed to know how much he knew, how much he had planned. I put on my best buying and selling face.

“Grable, I doubt very much you could get away with using that here, so put it away and let’s talk a little business.”

He watched me coldly and the knife disappeared with practised neatness into a wrist sheath. I’d have to watch him.

“Correct on the first point, a little awry on the second.”

“Your speech is somewhat altered Mr Grable.”

“It suits the situation,” he said with a nasty smile.

I needed to get a step ahead of him. I decided to take a little gamble.

“Of course, it is a shame you don’t know the location. Didn’t your contact have time?”

It was a hit. Grable turned a sickly white, then came back with, “But I’ll have two hundred and seventy-three days in which to scan this planet and find the base.”

His was a hit as well.

“An arrangement, perhaps,” I suggested.

“Yes, it seems the most sensible course.”

I’d never understood the expression ‘eyes like gimlets’ until that moment. Grable had shed his normal unpleasant exterior and what was revealed underneath wasn’t much better.

About an hour ago I reached this location. It will do. There is a hollow in the surface with a sheltering overhang on the eastern side. Here I will be protected from the first destructive surge of the flood. All that remains is for me to survive when this area is under forty metres of sea.

When I arrived here I sat on a fairly dry rock and fingered the bracelet. Nearby the autogun settled down on its tripod legs: an improbable steel mosquito. After a moment I pushed my fingernail under the edge of the green diamond. With a faint hum the diamond hinged out to reveal a polished cavity. I knew what to do next but was again reluctant. I looked across at the nearby scorched carcase of a murder-louse then moved over to it. It smelt of boiled lobster and was steaming slightly. Using a piece of shell I scooped up some ichor and dribbled it into the hollow in the bracelet. The diamond has now clicked back into place. I sit upon my rock and wait.

Grable’s contact on Carla was a man who ran an exclusive minishuttle service to Scylla. It wasn’t illegal, just a little grey. The console had informed me that the planet was closed to all traffic at this time of its year, which didn’t mean it was against any law to go there. All the individual protection laws had been thrown out centuries ago. If a person wanted to risk his own life that was his privilege, just so long as no other unconsenting individuals were put at risk. The powers that be look upon it as evolution in action, an eminently sensible view in my opinion.

His name was Warrack Singh and he had the appearance of someone out of a flat screen pirate film; a kind of new millennium Errol Flynn, deliberately so, I think. His companion was one of the later Golem and was perhaps the reason Singh’s launch equipment and shuttle were in such good order, but then, with the money he charged there should have been no reason for the situation to have been otherwise.

“We agreed on a percentage basis,” said Grable. He showed no anger and could have been discussing something completely irrelevant by the tone of his voice. It had been some time since Singh had told us he wanted a straight credit payment for transportation. I watched while Singh grinned rakishly then I turned to help the Golem with the loading of our supplies and equipment.

“You want to go down there to find something in the summer, friend Grable, then you pay me first.”

Which didn’t say much for his confidence in our chances. I wondered just how bad it could get down there. Perhaps I should have left Grable to it and come back in the winter. Too late now.

“We had an agreement,” said Grable, his tone not so easy now.

“We had an agreement in the winter, and you’re in no position to argue, Grable.”

I took no part in the exchange. All I knew was that if I was Singh I would be watching my back from then on.

Singh’s craft was not the usual delta-wing but a glide effect re-entry shuttle covered with a ceramic outer skin. As I had noted on first seeing it; it was beautifully maintained. But I still felt queasy when looking at it. It was old. The AG units were a new addition — about a century back

— as were the bolt-on fusion boosters. I knew we were going to be in for a rough ride.

Once everything was loaded and we had clearance from the runcible AI we boarded and the craft was sealed. Grable and I had the only seats available. The rest of the row had been folded down into the floor to make room for our baggage. Singh took a seat in the pilot’s chair while the Golem checked something at the back of the shuttle. I stared through the front screen and saw huge bay doors sliding aside. Beyond was the tight curve of a not too distant horizon.

The moonlet Carla was only a few tens of kilometres across.

“Please, strap yourselves in.”

I glanced up at the Golem then did as instructed. I was too used to travelling on shuttles with shock fields in the passenger areas. Grable seemed to have some trouble with his straps.

“Let me help you,” said the Golem.

It reached down and buckled his straps for him.

“We would not want you to get hurt,” it said, in the flattest of voices. I think Grable got the message.

The hum of the AG units made my teeth ache, but the lift was smooth and the shuttle slid out of the bay doors without a perceptible waver. I glanced across at Grable and noted with satisfaction that he had gone white. I had thought I was the soft one. Soon we were gliding rapidly above a landscape of jagged rocks with the glitter of runcible installations between like spilt mercury, then there was a roar as the old shuttle motors flung us out of Carla’s well. The acceleration shoved me back into my seat and I prepared myself for more. We weren’t far enough from the moonlet for the fusion motors to be ignited. When we were far enough I certainly knew it; the world grew a little dim around the edges. It comes as a surprise when you find out how much internal AG shields you from reality on the commercial passenger shuttles.