Neal Asher - Hilldiggers

"Did you really think you could bring me down?" Harald enquired.

She looked up into the barrel of the small Combine handgun he held—the one she had seen in his cabin what seemed an age ago.

He continued, "Jeon will patch you up—I don't want to lose a sister as well as a brother." He slid the handgun back into his belt, then stepped over and picked up the control glove.

"You…don't want me to die. Yet you are prepared to kill…all those people?"

"It's necessary," he said, "and anyway I don't know them."

"Then I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"Yes…for the crew of this ship."

Yishna held up her control baton, turned one of the twist rings round by one click, then pressed the transmit button.

"What have you done?" he bellowed.

Yishna closed her eyes, as the floor slammed up at her and everything turned to fire.

McCrooger

I felt the sudden acceleration, which meant my inner ear was still functional at least, but it took me another second to understand what was happening. Tigger had reacted to the electromagnetic pulse with a speed that only artificial intelligences are capable of, so we were already beginning to move away just as that eye into Hell opened in the mid-section of Ironfist . A blast front sped either way along the length of the hilldigger, and fire illuminated it from the inside, as if it were an iron bar fresh from the forge, then began exploding from ports, bays and breaks developing in the structure. The megaton range explosion of that mine in the cargo area of Yishna's shuttle swamped all in a fireball. As the first blastfront hit us, it tumbled our Brumallian ship through vacuum, knocking out all the sensors. I was grateful for the blindness.

McCrooger

The planetoid hung in the bloody glare of a red giant, the ring around it far too even and too close to the surface to be mistaken for any natural formation.

"I'm astounded," admitted Rhodane, gesturing about at the Polity vessel we were aboard.

I guessed Polity technology was astounding. Feeling an itch on my nose, I scratched it quickly, satisfied at dispelling this minor irritation. I too was astounded: should synthetic skin itch or was my other nose itching? I glanced past her as Slog, and one of the other Brumallian crewmen from the organic ship, entered the viewing pod to join us, then returned my attention to that glowing ring. While I watched it, I considered the update relayed to me here from the AI Geronamid.

After the surrender of the remaining hilldiggers, Orbital Combine had mooted the idea of its taking control of them but, at the instigation of Chairman Duras, this had been quickly slapped down by Parliament. Those surviving vessels would remain under the control of the Sudorian Parliament, and apparently Combine must hand over control of its Defence Platforms too. I considered this an astute move on the Chairman's part. For, without the Worm at its core, that amalgamation called Orbital Combine might easily come apart with the result of further conflict. Parliament needed to assert its authority, and become the only organisation in full control of such hefty weapons.

"What's it doing?" Rhodane asked.

"Feeding, as far as we can gather," I replied. "It's definitely sopping up solar energy, and there's also some piezoelectric effect within it, generated by the tidal forces of the planetoid."

While political moves continued in Parliament, there was still a great deal of work to be done. On the surface of Sudoria itself there was the wreckage to clear, fires to put out, but this was balanced out by a sudden freeing of human resources as it was discovered how many mental patients were abruptly recovering. In space the two crippled hilldiggers were being moved to a safe orbit, meteor guns were kept firing perpetually to vaporise chunks of debris, and the night skies of Sudoria glittered with falling stars. A day ago Geronamid had chosen to offer Polity assistance, but Duras had politely replied that though Parliament would like a Consulate established on Sudoria, and would also like to begin trade negotiations with the Polity, no assistance or intervention would be required. I think that was precisely the answer Geronamid wanted, anyway.

Rhodane stepped up beside me.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Lost," she replied, "and somehow cheated. I should be grieving now but for what the artificial intelligence here has done to my mind."

"On request, it will return you to your previous state." I paused, studying her. "Do you think that experiencing the grief would make you a better person, that the pain is somehow advantageous?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I, really, but I trust that the AIs do. They repair us when they can, and never stand in the way of us improving ourselves. I've never known them to be overanxious about our suffering if it might be of benefit to us."

As for Brumal, Duras allowed the parliamentary meeting, assessing the evidence the Brumallians had presented, to be broadcast. The inhabitants of that planet were innocent, they had always been innocent. This added impetus to everything Orduval had inspired with his books, and already there were those in Parliament suggesting that the Polity should establish a Consulate on Brumal too. Surely it was only fair?

Slog and the other Brumallian crewman moved off to continue their exploration of the ship, just as Flog and the others from the organic vessel were doing while their ship sat in a repair bay. AI-controlled telefactors were busily swarming inside it and all over its hull, repairing, adjusting, and also extracting Polity technology from amongst organic Brumallian technology.

"And you?" Rhodane asked me.

And me?

By the time those same telefactors had extracted me from the ship, my body below the neck was unrecoverable. Above the neck my brain still functioned, but even that was wadded with IF21 fibres, and consequently suffered a disease similar to the ancient malady called Alzheimer's. The AI here had offered me a number of choices. There was flash-freezing and bio-gridding, memcording, and the one that I chose—DTM or destructive transfer mapping. This entailed the electrochemical destruction of my brain, whereby those structures being destroyed would be simultaneously mapped into the brain of a clone created from my body. Of course, it would take time for that clone to be force-grown in an amniotic tank, but my old self wasn't dead yet. The Golem body I stood in, with its ceramal skeleton and synthflesh covering, was merely a radio-controlled remote, while the real me still bubbled in another tank somewhere aboard this same ship.

"I'm well enough," I admitted.

She nodded, studying me closely. She knew the body standing before her was a machine, but it looked no different to the original healthy version of myself.

"And that?" she asked, pointing at the distant ring around the planetoid.

"What about it?"

"What is it?"

I shrugged, but before I could reply a voice grated from behind us, "It's an alien machine, or it's a living alien, or it's both." We turned to see a silver tiger sitting there, then Tigger continued, "There's no real way of making a distinction, and anyway we're probably not going to be given a chance."

"Why not?" asked Rhodane.

Tigger paced up to stand beside us, nodding his muzzle towards the ring. "It's already powered up now, and there are definite ripples in the U-continuum, which means it's about to jump."

Even as we returned our attention to the ring, it broke at one point and began to contract and emit kaleidoscope light. We watched in silence as icy dust blew up from the planetoid while the Worm nosed out towards interstellar space.