Neal Asher - Brass Man

As this new face of the asteroid turned into view, Salvor swore when he realized the titanium and platinum readings he was picking up were not from some large deposit in the object itself, but from the wreckage strewn on its surface. However, upping the magnification of the image on his main screen dispelled his disappointment. There was something intact down there, something that looked like the head of a giant thistle made out of golden metal. Perhaps he wasn’t wasting his time here after all.

‘Vulture, match to rotation,’ he said. ‘Get me geostat on that thing.’

Boosters thrummed inside the small craft, and the image of the metallic object revolved and centred on the screen. The thrumming then continued as the little ship maintained position.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

Immediately skeletal line images of various objects began to overlay the one already on the screen, flickering on one after another, faster and faster until they became a blur.

‘Not a complete ship,’ replied Vulture. The little survey ship’s AI voice was female and silkily sexy. Salvor had based it on a recording of his second wife’s voice, just as he’d based the AI’s personality template on her as well. This was all before that wife had developed the demeanour of a harpy, and a voice to match.

‘No shit? And there was me thinking the rest of that wreckage and the metal vapour all around here had nothing at all to do with it.’

‘No need to be sarcastic. I was going to add that it is a piece of a ship, and that it is quite obvious which ship, if just a little thought is applied: a piece of the Occam Razor?’

‘Now who’s being sarcastic?’

Salvor called up a subscreen in the bottom of the ship’s main one, and on that he studied scan results. ‘Case-hardened ceramal. Are schematics of the Razor available?’

‘No. Polity AIs are a little bit funny about distributing that sort of information about their battleships. I can’t understand why.’

The Polity, that ever-growing sphere of human-inhabited worlds, was, on the whole, governed by the Earth Central AI, through the sector AIs, then planetary governors or runcible AIs. Humans came in quite low in the hierarchy, and not much military information was shared with them. Salvor supposed this was because humans were not to be trusted. He ignored Vulture’s snipe, and said, ‘I’m surprised any of it survived, and I’m surprised those Polity investigators haven’t found this already — they seem keen to retrieve every fragment. Let’s go down and take a look.’

‘That might not be advisable. The cover story is that the ship’s AI went rogue, and that’s why it attacked Elysium. But there are other stories about some nasty organic tech being involved. Why not report this to the Polity and collect the reward?’

‘Nice idea, but the thinking man has to wonder why such rewards are offered. Nothing’s for free, you know. You can guarantee their profit margin is even greater. Take us down.’

As the Vulture descended, the screen kept the image of the metallic object centred. Approaching the surface of the asteroid, to one side of the object, the Vulture — a ship that resembled a black maggot ten metres long — spat out anchor spears trailing lines. Brief flashes lighting the screen told Salvor that the bolt charges had blown the anchor spears into the rock and, as the little craft pulled itself down, he stood and propelled himself back from the cockpit.

‘I wonder why it’s remained on the surface — there’s not enough gravity to counter the centrifugal force here,’ he said, as he took his helmet from its locker, clicked it onto the neck ring of die suit he wore, and activated his suit’s system.

‘If it hit while hot, then it’s likely it fused to the rock below’ — Vulture was speaking inside Salvor’s helmet — ’or some part of it might be snagged into the ground. But there’s also the possibility that it was fixed to this asteroid somehow.’

That gave Salvor pause. ‘You mean there might be someone alive inside it?’

‘That, or some remaining AI or computerized system.’

‘Well, it’s been a year since the Occam Razor was fried, so any surviving humans would be dead or in cold sleep by now.’

Salvor pushed himself through the cramped cabin to the airlock, the inner door of which Vulture was already opening. He crammed himself into this even more cramped space, while the inner door closed and the lock cycled. Eventually the outer door opened and he stuck his feet out into the clarity of vacuum. As he stepped down, the suit opened a display in the bottom right-hand corner of his visor to tell him it had turned on the gecko function of his boot soles, and to ask if he would like to change this. The suit, being semi-AI, had already scanned his surroundings and was anticipating his needs. He ignored the screen and after a moment it nicked off. As soon as his feet touched the scoured stone of the asteroid his boot soles bonded, and he began walking across to the titanic piece of wreckage as if across a floor smeared with tar.

‘It’s noticeable that the stalk section has been detached rather than broken away,’ Vulture told him over com.

Salvor scanned down the hundred-metre ‘stalk’. He saw that it was square in section and about ten metres across, and all down its length were interface points for fibre optics, gas ducts and fluid pipes. Mating plugs were still engaged in some of these—their pipes, ducts and optics sheared away and trailing into vacuum. Also, along its surfaces, were many other linkages and devices: long racks of gear teeth, hydraulic rams, grav-plates, generators and heavy-load step motors. It was evident that this object was something the Occam Razor could move about inside itself. The far end of the stalk was sealed and attached to some huge hydraulic engine, its mating sockets open to vacuum.

‘Many Polity battleships possess the utility to rearrange their internal structure for optimum efficiency. Evidently this is part of that movable structure,’ Vulture told him.

‘Really?’ Salvor replied drily.

The main part of the object was spherical and about fifty metres in diameter, the profusion of sensor arrays at its far end giving it the appearance of a flowering thistle head. Upon reaching it, Salvor inspected underneath and saw that it had indeed fused to the asteroid, and that this melting process had produced runnels of black rock possessing a disconcertingly organic appearance. But he’d seen weird shit like that often enough before while surveying asteroids. It didn’t mean anything.

Eventually, standing where the sensor arrays speared overhead in a metallic forest, he spotted something that looked like an escape hatch. It was partially open, and water ice frosted the shadowy ground below. This immediately told Salvor that it was unlikely anyone was alive inside, because had that ice been the result of only water vapour in an airlock, it would have been gone long before now. This asteroid had been in close orbit of the sun only a few months before, and the temperatures here would have been enough to melt lead. Obviously, atmosphere had been leaking from inside this thing ever since it impacted here, and was still doing so. He ducked under and caught hold of the edge of the hatch. Briefly, it resisted him, then the servos of his suit kicked in and it swung open—its silent shriek transmitted as a vibration through his glove. He moved into an airlock, his suit obligingly turning on his helmet lights, and saw, as he had suspected, that the inner door was open. Hauling himself through this he scanned around inside.