Neal Asher - Prador Moon

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to," Jebel told him.

8

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand—

Great, now she was getting a headache, which added to the feeling, despite her having applied for and received planetary processing space, of her head being filled to bursting point. Despite the early arrival of the Prador vessel, it had been necessary to slow the runcible's orbital speed to bring it to the right place at the right time. All her previous calculations she'd completely erased, since they no longer applied, even very roughly. The calculations she presently ran were a living thing. She knew the result, the solution, but necessarily needed to keep altering the input values in keeping with data received from theOccam Razorand the test sensors out at Boh. Sometimes, deep in all this, she lost sight of her ultimate aims, but looking out through her owneyesat the changing horizon, storms and cloud banks passing underneath her, snapped her back to reality. If she failed, that view might well change, horribly.

Returning her attention to the Trajeen runcible she again checked her preparations, hesitated for only a moment, then initiated the Skaidon warp. Her view altered immediately as the shimmering meniscus flickered into being beside her. Though the present drain on the fusion reactors lay within acceptable limits, she knew that later the need would rise beyond those limits, so onlined extra power from the solar collector satellites. The power they supplied, by maser, to the gateposts, slotted into her calculations and gave her greater manoeuvring space. She now gave the instruction for the gateposts to begin parting, though she did not yet intend to throw them out to their full extent, since their tendency to drift while the entire runcible was being moved could wreck everything. She now considered some other calculations.

The C energy, though not a true representation of what would instantiate beyond the meniscus because of the exponential progression that took place actually at the meniscus, was very substantial. Moria briefly considered taking the Boh runcible buffers completely offline, ran some calculations, and felt a sudden thrill of horror at the results this rendered. The Boh gate itself would last about.005 of a second, and it seemed possible the entire energy burst could actually ignite the gas giant itself—turn it into a small, swiftly burning sun. Not a great idea. She could not do that; however, she did not have to work the gate as intended for the transmission of cargo ships. The output velocity did not have to be the same as the input, for she could borrow some of the C energy and add it to the latter.

The energy calculation ran roughly at a 70,000 kph disparity between the Trajeen and Boh gates, so anything entering the Trajeen gate at, say, 10 kph, would exit Boh at 70,010 kph, so an object travelling at 40,000 would exit at 110,000… Moria calculated the extent of possible damage to the Boh runcible, and to various objects within its vicinity. She based these calculations on probable reaction times of Prador systems and the Prador themselves. She factored in the probable breakup of a certain object when accelerated beyond certain limits, including in those factors the results of geological surveys requested from the planetary network, and in the end settled on borrowing one fortieth of the C energy. Very roughly, C equalled 1,070,000,000 kph. One fortieth plus initial velocities resulted in a total of twenty-seven million kilometres per hour. In one second, an object travelling at that speed, would cover 7500 kilometres. As Moria modelled the near future, the scene, playing out in her mind, lit a fire behind her eyes.

While some second-children brought him lunch, Immanence ruefully observed the Polity dreadnought, and damned himself for not turning back to destroy it when it was more badly damaged than this. He had mistakenly believed it to be either a lifeless hulk or crippled beyond the ability to go anywhere, and transmitted its location to other, smaller, Prador vessels, thinking it now a problem beneath his notice. However, its presence here did not particularly worry him, because even scanning from a distance it appeared the damage was by no means completely repaired. It might be able to travel, but if it actually tried to attack he knew he could destroy it.

He continued studying the vessel while he mulled over the recent message from the human Separatist. As per plan they had seized control of the Trajeen cargo runcible, and because of that the Boh runcible was now his for the taking. He decided that when he finally travelled inwards to Trajeen itself, he would send Gnores or Scrabbler to collect those Separatists, to bring them aboard for dinner… But that pleasant prospect lay in the future, meanwhile he must decide what to do about this damned Polity ship. Should he turn back and destroy it before seizing the Boh runcible, or just continue with his mission here and destroy it should it try to engage? The latter, he decided.

As Immanence directed his chouds to set his own vessel on a course for Boh, he still kept sensors directed towards the enemy ship and realised, from its trajectory, that it was not, as expected, trying to intercept him. It swung out and round, accelerating hard. The Prador captain felt a sudden amusement. Obviously the Polity ship's captain intended to give himself as much time as possible to make further repairs, and then await Immanence as part of some organized defence of Trajeen itself. Typical of the desperate measures these humans took to protect their own. Immanence munched contemplatively on the human leg a second-child passed up to his mandibles. Then, another possibility occurred to him.

His stomachs rumbled, and he released a long acidic belch, simultaneously spitting the leg out, down onto the second-child's carapace. With a sweep of his claw he sent the child squalling and tumbling end over end into the wall. Too much of a good thing in two respects: the rich human meat was beginning to have an unwanted effect on his digestion, and easy victories led him into a stupid complacency. He realised the Polity captain must know the runcibles were now controlled by Separatists and divined Immanence's plan concerning the one at Boh, and was racing ahead to take control of or even destroy that runcible before Immanence could seize it.

The Prador captain sent the instruction for maximum acceleration, and even in his grav-plated and shock-absorbing sanctum felt the surge throughout the ship as two extra fusion engines fired up and flamed out into space. Champing his mandibles he checked the navigational projections, and slowly his irritation receded. The Polity ship was fast, but not quite fast enough. Immanence would arrive before it. He now opened com channels:

"Gnores, get aboard the shuttle and prepare for launch when we arrive."

"Yes, Father."

Immanence now returned his attention to the quivering second-children attending him. "Bring me shorefish and boulder eel steaks. I've had enough of this human meat for now." The second-children scurried away.

Jebel observed Lindy and Urbanus returning to the ship well within the time he allotted them, but a glance at the screens in this Control Centre only confirmed the message just received from the dreadnought captain: the Prador ship was accelerating massively, and now the Boh runcible lay well within its sensor range. Plans needed to change.

Jebel accessed the blueprint of this runcible complex in his aug and searched for a likely place of concealment. Much of the structure was missing and the complex here was nowhere near as large as the one at Trajeen. He checked corridor plans, the layouts of various accommodation units, then finally settled on a secluded garden, not because it was the best place to hide, but because it lay under a chainglass dome and would present them with a grand view of near-future events. Of course, an airlock lay nearby as well.