Neal Asher - The Skinner

‘Warden? Warden? Twelve, do you hear me? What’s going on out there? Sniper? Sniper?’

Again there came nothing over the ether but an empty hiss. Something catastrophic must have happened, for even the Coram server was dragging its heels, and Thirteen could get little of relevance out of it.

The SM at the planetary base was the only one with anything to offer. ‘The Boss broke contact when that ship blew. He was fooling with Prador control codes, so maybe he got some feedback.’

Thirteen acknowledged this possibility, but doubted it very much. Deciding it could do nothing else until contacted, the little drone decided to continue observing and recording the events here. Seeing Sprage and Ambel standing somewhat apart from the rest, as the fire burnt lower, the drone dropped into the trees behind them and moved in close. The two Captains were silent for a long while until, after filling his pipe and getting it going, Sprage said, ‘Decision goes against you, and it’ll be the fire. No one’ll want you coming back again.’

‘Then I must be convincing,’ said Ambel. ‘Why did you say I am Gosk Balem? I have no memory of him. There’s nothing of him left.’

Sprage said, ‘The house may be gutted, even its inner walls and floors and ceilings torn out — but the house still stands.’

‘Very wise, and I’ll burn for that,’ said Ambel bitterly.

‘That’s something to be decided,’ said a voice out of the twilight. Captain Ron walked up to stand to one side of Ambel, then continued, ‘Time for you to tell it all again.’

Thirteen watched as the Captains and crews converged out of the twilight, their flickering shadows cast about by the flames. There was no formality here, and no requirement for it. Most of the Captains were gathered together, so this constituted a Convocation. Anything decided by these Captains, while they were together, would be written in stone. Thirteen rose higher and swung out to get a better view of proceedings, and immediately found that it was being accompanied through the air. That Olian Tay’s holocorder dogged its flight should have come as no surprise at all.

Janer sat on a log with the queen hornet on one shoulder, and with interest watched the gathering. He liked Ambel and certainly didn’t want to see him burned alive, but if the decision went against the Captain, what could Janer do? He glanced at Erlin, who was watching events with something approaching terror in her expression. Janer noted that she had acquired one of the Batians’ weapons, and he wondered if she intended anything rash. If she did, he felt he must intervene — though he was not sure to what end. He turned to Boris and Roach, sitting on the log beside him.

‘What happened to the two mercenaries?’ he whispered.

‘They both got eaten by leeches… sort of,’ Boris whispered back.

Behind them a crewman, who could have been Goss’s twin, shushed them to silence. Ambel had begun telling his tale in a flat emotionless voice. Janer knew how effective that telling could be, but he’d heard it before and was getting bored now.

‘Where will you establish the first nest?’ he whispered.

‘The hole into which the Skinner fled seems a viable proposition,’ replied the mind.

‘You don’t sound wholly convinced.’

‘ Until two hours ago I was. I have since spoken with an augmented sail called Windcheater, who has offered me a place on the rock where the sails roost. Windcheater has an agenda, I believe,’ said the mind.

‘World domination? Humans go home?’

‘No, Windcheater wants humans and everyone in here. He wants the Polity in. He wants the Hive minds in. He would like the Prador here, if he could get them. He has augmented his innate intelligence and is absorbing knowledge at an astonishing rate. I well understand this, as he has been starved of these things for many thousands of years. ’

‘Thousands?’

‘A tentative estimate. The sails themselves don’t really know. They don’t die very often.’

‘One moment,’ said Janer. He turned to Boris, ‘What happened to that adolescent Prador?’

‘Still looking for it. Reckon it went into the sea,’ Boris replied, and was again shushed from behind. Janer noted that Ambel had not quite reached the end of his story, so returned to his conversation with the mind.

‘Still no answers to the question, why does he particularly want your nests on his rock?’ Janer probed.

‘ Windcheater wants us all here because, the more Polity entities there are here, the more opportunities there’ll be for him and his kind. Specifically, I think he wants us on his rock so he can charge rent.’

‘And what form would the rent take?’ asked Janer.

‘Quite simply money — with which he can buy augmentations for all of his kind. AI linkups, high-tech tooling … all the trappings of technology. As Windcheater so appositely put it to me, “Spend a thousand years sitting on a rock having conversations that consist mainly of comments on how windy it is, and you’ll have a true appreciation of library computers, walls and solar heating. “ I somehow suspect that in the near future Hoopers will have to learn to handle fabric sails and rigging themselves on their ships. ’

‘Forgetting that, are you prepared to pay the rent? You could just as easily establish a nest here.’

‘The rock has its attractions. For one it is not easily accessible to Hoopers. ’

‘You consider them a danger?’

‘I cannot say. How will they react when they discover that creatures with stings that inject sprine are about to colonize here?’

‘I guess it’d be worth your while to take a few precautions,’ agreed Janer.

Ambel had just finished his story, and now the Captains were asking him questions. What did he remember? Did he now consider himself free of guilt? Did he think there should be a statute of limitations on multiple murder? Would he be prepared to undergo an AI-directed mind probe? Ambel seemed to give the right answers to all these questions, then at the last, a question was flung at Captain Sprage.

‘Why did you insist he is the same Gosk Balem we flung in the sea?’ asked Captain Ron.

Sprage stood up and drew deeply on his pipe. The tobacco’s glow was reflected in his eyes so they glimmered like embers.

‘He’s the man. Memories are gone but the framework is still there. He has the morals, the understanding and the empathy that were Gosk Balem’s. Put in the same position as he was put a thousand years ago, and likely he would do exactly the same things again,’ said Sprage.

‘You’re saying he’d still throw Hoopers in the furnace?’ a Captain asked, eyeing Sprage doubtfully.

‘He threw just the brains and spinal columns of Hoopers into the furnace. The rest of the bodies were sold to the Prador, like empty cups to be filled with metal and Prador thoughts.’

‘Very poetic, Sprage. We all know about coring,’ growled someone in the darkness.

Sprage went on, ‘Gosk Balem was an ECS soldier who was captured by Hoop and his crew. They brought him here to be cored like the rest of their captives, but as he was ECS, and so obviously horrified by what they were doing here, Hoop decided to keep him alive in order to extend his suffering. They forced a slave collar on him, then put him to work at the furnace, burning the physical remains of coring. He had no idea then that those remains were still living and, even had he known, would he have chosen not to burn them? Would any of you?’

Silence met this question, so Sprage continued: ‘The Hoopers that were cored were too recently infected with the virus to have survived long in that ganglionic form. Those that weren’t eaten by leeches would have died or slowly transformed into leeches themselves. He never burned anything that still had a chance at life. He worked for Hoop because he made the choice of survival.’