Neal Asher: The Voyage of the Sable Keech

‘You do of course understand how very annoyed with you are certain parties?’ said Aesop, setting up a little tripod on the table on which in turn he mounted an old-fashioned holocam.

Bloc tried to utter a name, could not even open his mouth. He could, however, just move his eyes, and observed Bones opening a premillennial doctor’s bag. These killers had style and panache but, even though he recognized this, neither that thought nor the neurotoxin prevented his bowel from emptying when Bones began taking out antique stainless steel pliers, forceps, scalpels, electric bone saw and cauterizer.

The holocam now perfectly set up and operational, Aesop took out an anosmic receptor and set that running. This device would continually sample molecules from the air, so that whoever viewed this recording, probably in VR, would miss nothing, not even the odours. Smelling the results of Bloc’s incontinence, Aesop waved a hand under his nose. ‘Playing to your audience, Bloc?’

Bloc managed to make a grunting sound, as the toxin was wearing off. Aesop glanced at his partner, who immediately walked over to the balcony and drew the doors closed, shutting out all sounds of the city beyond.

‘Nicely insulated apartment this. I had considered taking you elsewhere until I studied the building specs. No one will hear you scream here and, of course, my clients want to hear you scream. They want you to suffer a great deal, Taylor Bloc. So, while that toxin wears off, I’ll tell you exactly what we are going to do to you.’

Bloc screamed, his voice echoing off into unknown dimensions of a Calabi-Yau shape stretched as taut as his own skin as Bones peeled that away. He howled as they twisted out his nails and broke each of his finger joints, yet found himself bewildered by formulae writhing through the air behind his tormentors. Every aspect of his agony, every curve and angle of his surroundings, was redolent with mathematical meaning. Every movement and every change generated complex numbers. His skin represented in two dimensions the surface of space, and Bones shoving a finger through it, a gravity well. The bone saw flung up fragments of formulae that coalesced in the air, then spattered the floor as blood and vomit. There was direction to the calculation, as there was direction to Bloc’s torture. Both ended with the enveloping comfort of death, and finally he sighed away into blackness.

Taylor Bloc stood on his apartment balcony gazing out across Haldon, watching the sun rise over the city. He blew on his delicate porcelain cup of tea and took a sip, relishing its tobacco pungency. Part of him, deep inside, began screaming immediately.

No, not again…

Then, almost like a light being turned on, he woke trying to scream, but only a hoarse cawing sound issued from his mouth. Thrashing from side to side, he opened his eyes. The morning sunshine hurt, stabbing sharply into his head, and tears began pouring from his eyes. Where were they? Where were his killers? I escaped? But no, he did not escape—he died a painful undignified death, screaming, then his death continued…

Aesop and Bones… I killed them and now they serve me. Only dreams.

The morning sunshine was glaring through the windows. Bloc felt terrible. His body felt as if it had been beaten from head to foot, his teeth ached, he was cold, and his skin felt so sensitive that every small touch to it was almost a pain.

Then, he suddenly realized: I feel.

A deep shiver of awe ran through him, and he turned his head from side to side, locating himself on one of the restraint tables. He was not restrained, so he withdrew a hand from under the heat-sheet covering him—the thin insulating monomer snaking over his skin in an avalanche of sensation—and held it up before his face. It was baby pink, and as soft. The nails were just small crescents at the quick of each finger.

I’m alive.

With slow careful movements Bloc sat upright, the sheet sliding down his chest. It was almost too much—too much feeling for him to process. He groaned and in an instant Erlin was standing next to him, watching him with careful contempt.

‘You’ll get no nerve-conflict with your cybermotors,’ she said.

‘Keech…’ he managed.

‘Keech was augmented and remained so after his resurrection—that’s where his problems came from. You, however, are not augmented in any way.’

He turned to look at her, and while doing so tried to call up routines and diagnostics, access his control unit, open the channels to Aesop and Bones. Nothing.

‘What have… you done?’ It was a strange experience, breathing and speaking, and trying to arrange the two so they did not conflict.

‘When you downloaded from crystal to your organic brain and it became plain you were going to come out of the tank alive, I used an autodoc on you. It pulled every single power supply you contained, and I also used the doc to remove this.’ She held up something: a grey box that sat easily in the palm of her hand, with a hexagonal box affixed to the side of it, linked by a ring of sealed optics. Bloc recognized his memplant and the attached control unit.

‘What gives you the right to do that?’ he hissed. He was just a living man now.

‘The right?’ she asked, her voice incredulous. She shook her head, pulled a comlink from her belt and spoke into it. ‘You wanted to know—well, he’s awake now.’

From the link Ron’s voice replied, ‘Perfect timing.’

As Erlin returned the link to her belt, Forlam came over. He tossed a disposable coverall in Bloc’s lap. ‘Get dressed.’

‘You can’t give me orders. This is my ship. You are under my command; your Captain is employed by me.’

Forlam shrugged. ‘Naked or otherwise—don’t bother me.’

What are they going to do?

Bloc slid the heat-sheet all the way off him and stared down at his body. He looked perfect: no scars, just pink skin. His pubic hair was just a shadow above his genitals, and while staring at what Bones had once cut from him—an event all too clear in his mind after repetition—he felt a sudden surge of sexual feeling. He dressed, quickly, the coverall cold and textured against his aching skin. Finally clothed, he looked over to Erlin again.

‘ I did this,’ he said. ‘It was because of me this ship was built. It is because of me that reifications will live. I own this ship and it is under my command.’

Erlin shook her head. ‘Let me bring you up to date and back to reality. Windcheater has imposed a large fine for the use of this ship’s engines, which in turn has caused a cost overrun on this voyage. Apparently, by your original agreement, Lineworld Developments now own this ship—not that it will profit them much.’

Bloc felt a tightness in his throat, and his eyes were watering again. Then a hand that felt as if made of rock closed on his biceps. Forlam marched him forwards.

‘You can’t do this!’ Bloc found it even hurt to shout. ‘I created all this! I did this! I am bringing my people to the Little Flint!’

Walking behind them, Erlin continued, ‘Most of your people are either in tanks or have shut themselves down. They don’t much like the odds, since successful resurrections are only one in seven thus far. Many of them are likely to end up like Bones, and the true cultists among them are angry at what you have brought them to.’

Bloc fell silent then, and allowed Forlam to lead him out on deck. They might think they had won, but they did not know him well enough. They would pay for this. How he would make them pay.

It was a long fall to the bottom and, heavy now, the giant whelk had landed hard. She gazed up at the shapes hovering on the ocean surface and felt an immediate protective fear. Large predators up there ready to attack her? She needed to get back to shallows where she could protect the mass inside her, and where food creatures were small enough to easily subdue. She began dragging herself along the bottom, heading instinctively upslope to shallower waters. Momentarily she felt a strange disquiet. She vaguely recalled there had been an easier way of travelling than this, and something important she had to do. But that thought faded under the exigencies of the present.