Neal Asher - The Voyage of the Sable Keech

Sprage introduced them: ‘Captains Cormarel and Tranbit… I don’t think you’ve met them, young Janer.’

Janer glanced at them, then around at the crowd. If he fired his weapon here, people could get hurt—and annoyed. And these were not the kind to have annoyed at you. ‘I can’t explain now—it would take too long. Sorry, but I have to get inside.’

He turned and hurried away, hearing the squat Tranbit say, ‘Hasty lad, there.’

Janer pushed back through the crowd and around the corner of the museum. The ground here was covered with modified grass, greenish purple, stretching back a hundred metres towards the dingle. The long stone side-wall of the building was unrelieved by windows, and Janer ran along it to where it abutted Olian’s bank itself. Stepping back five metres, he knocked his gun to its non-standard setting, pointed and fired.

A large section of stonework, all of three metres in circumference, disappeared with a screaming crash, thenreappeared as an explosion of dust and compacted stone shrapnel. Janer hit the ground, hot flakes of stone dropping all over him. Then, with his ears ringing, he shoved himself up again and groped forward through the thick cloud to find the hole created. Visibility inside the museum was as bad, but at least he had some idea of the direction he must go. He stumbled on something, glimpsed a Golem metal skull amid the debris, and moved beyond it to a chainglass cylinder lying on the ground. Inside this he observed Rebecca Frisk writhing slowly and dragging her fingernails down the glass. He shivered and stepped over her towards the wrecked door.

Then suddenly a figure was standing beside him.

‘This is not your concern,’ said Isis Wade.

Janer turned abruptly, bringing his weapon to bear on the Golem. But he was far far too slow—Wade’s hand snapped down, caught his wrist and squeezed. Janer yelled as his wrist bones ground together. As he dropped his gun, Wade kicked it clattering into the settling murk.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Golem murmured, then almost in an eyeblink, was gone.

‘Fuck,’ said Janer, rubbing his wrist. He stumbled off in search of the singun. Without it he could do nothing.

‘Open the door or I will remove it,’ demanded the Golem sail.

Olian decided it was pointless to pretend she could not get them inside. The wreckage behind her ably demonstrated the sail’s lack of patience. She took a big iron key from her pocket, twisted it in the lock, and pushed the door open. The space beyond used to be her house’s main living room. Now it was clear of all furnishings, which had been relocated to her new home built to one side of the museum. Stepping in, she glanced up at the security drone suspended from the ceiling, and quickly stepped aside.

‘Intruder, identify yourself! Verbal permission not—’

The sail’s eye’s flashed, and the drone exploded into molten slag that spattered right to the far windows. Olian ducked, her arms over her head, as five more explosions ensued. When she looked up, she saw the five weapons pits in the walls had been turned into smoking cavities.

‘Open the false wall,’ the sail instructed.

Olian considered her rehearsed line: ‘ The security system has now put a five-hour lock-down on the safe. I cannot open it’ but she doubted this one would have any truck with that. The creature had just demonstrated a surprising knowledge of what this room contained.

‘House computer, open false wall,’ she murmured reluctantly.

The wall seemingly holding the two windows began to slide sideways. Their view of distant dingle blinked out, revealing them as screens. A large, utterly smooth, oval door came into view behind.

‘Open the safe,’ the Golem sail ordered.

Olian paused, remembering the last time she had been forced to do so—by Rebecca Frisk and her Batian mercenaries. On that occasion, Olian had duped them, managing to slip into the safe and close it again from the inside. Even so, one of the bitch’s mercenaries had still managed to shoot her in the leg. And this Golem sail, with a particle cannon under its mental control, would possess reactions a hundred times faster, so attempting a similar ruse would be futile.

‘House computer, cancel lock-down and open atmosphere safe,’ she said flatly.

With a deep clonk and a clicking hiss, the door—a great bung of Prador exotic metal—swung open to reveal a highly polished spherical chamber. In here Olian had once kept her prized possession: David Grenant. Now it contained stacks of brushed-aluminium boxes.

‘Aaah,’ the sail hissed.

It advanced with its waddling sail gait and ducked its long neck inside the safe. After peering at the boxes for a moment, it struck down like a snake, catching the boxes in its teeth and ripping them open, and slinging them around the interior of the safe. Chainglass vials spilt out, their stoppers coming loose, till sprine spread over the floor like red sand.

What’s this?

Olian backed away as far as she could get—breathing sprine dust could be fatal to her.

Satisfied with the chaos it had made, the sail backed out. Stretching out its wing like a cloak, it coughed up a small polished sphere and spat it into one of its spider-claws. It then swung round on Olian with its back to the safe. Dipping its head towards her, it blinked and said, ‘You can go.’ Then it turned to face the door through which they had entered. Olian got out of there just as fast as she could.

Aesop stared up at the pipework on the ceiling, and felt some species of joy. He was free, he could feel it: Bloc no longer controlled him. And he had survived: he had not been eaten by a hooder, nor destroyed in some mad scheme of Bloc’s. Here, now, strapped to a table, he was freer than he had been in years. But what had happened?

Vaguely he recollected the fight in the bridge, then some kind of mad revelation and an overloading backlash from Bloc. He realized that his current vagueness about it all was because he could not connect his previous actions while under Bloc’s control to the self he felt now. A face loomed over him, peering down.

‘You’re not too bad,’ said the woman, Erlin. ‘But, like them all, you’re infected with the Spatterjay virus. What are we to do with you?’

Another face then appeared. It was familiar, but for the moment he could not place it.

‘Under Polity law, no guilt attaches to him for everything he did while under Bloc’s control,’ said the man. ‘But he and Bones probably killed Bloc before that.’

‘Debatable,’ said Erlin, turning to the man, ‘what with Bloc coming back to life. Would the charge be assault?’

‘They almost certainly killed others before Bloc.’

‘Yes, I imagine they did,’ Erlin replied. ‘But you realize that you might not be allowed to take any of them back?’

‘Yes, I understand that. Polity law is not the only law.’

Suddenly Aesop realized who the man was. It was Sable Keech. He felt a surge of some unidentifiable emotion, then wondered why. Such would be the reaction of a cultist, or one of Bloc’s Kladites—but it was not for Aesop. He began thinking hard about his present situation. If Keech took them back, they would be AI-probed and all their crimes revealed. No possible plea would then prevent their complete erasure from existence.

‘I won’t cause any trouble,’ he said to Erlin.

‘And what about your friend?’ she asked, looking to one side.

Aesop glanced over and saw Bones, also strapped down, watching them.

‘He’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘He’ll do what I tell him.’

Erlin gazed down at him and gave a tight little smile he very much did not like. ‘Neither of you will cause any trouble.’ She turned aside and crooked her finger. Aesop raised his head in time to see four Hoopers approaching. He started to wonder if his earlier happiness had been a little premature. Then Erlin reached down and began undoing his restraints. Once she had released his hands, he began to free himself. While the Hoopers looked on, she walked over and began to detach the restraints from Bones, too. Keech did not look at all happy about this.