Neal Asher: The Line of Polity

Across the ground before him a flattened worm of jelly oozed with slow ripplings that caught the lights from his apartment. To his right he saw that a plasoderm's grey seedcase had hinged itself completely open, and that the object crawling before him was the last of its slime-mould spore carriers to be released. He threw his cigarette butt into the empty seedcase where it hissed out in the damp interior. The accuracy of his shot gave him a second's satisfaction before his whole world collapsed on him.

There was no alarm mode in his aug, as he considered that for anything that urgent he wanted no delay. His connection, which had been a low buzz of activity in a place impossible to point to, suddenly slammed back with such force that he staggered against the lethal edges of the cyanid leaves.

" Battle stats and alarm to all areas lock down and seal gate connection break …"

Alvor was rattling off instructions so closely auged in that he became part machine himself for that brief moment. Lons had already moved beyond the verbal and was dealing in logic blocks and prestored sub-programs. Below Dreyden's hands, virtual consoles flicked into existence, and all around him flat and holojected displays folded out of the air. There he observed huge transfers of information as the bulwarks of his empire were automatically dropped into safe storage. However, his attention was immediately riveted on one small screen. A touch at the non-existent console expanded the screen to reveal the huge Polity dreadnought bearing down upon Elysium.

"Lyric II pursued. Message coming in from John Stanton. "

Dreyden had not needed Alvor to tell him this. He was on top of things now.

"Dreyden, you've got to cover me. He is seriously pissed about those drones," said the holojected image of John Stanton.

Dreyden felt his insides clenching in a brass fist as he studied the man — Stanton seemed scared, and that was a first.

"What about the drones?" he asked.

" Signal code broken. Signal code broken. "

Dreyden pressed his hands together to stop them shaking, as Stanton flickered out of existence and was instantly replaced.

"Donnegal Dreyden," spoke a hated image. "This is Ian Cormac of Earth Central Security. You have thirty seconds to transmit all your control codes to this Polity dreadnought. If you fail to comply I will be forced to fire upon you."

Something was wrong with all this, but Dreyden could see no way to discover what, nor had he been allowed time.

"You know what my reply has to be," he said, not believing he was speaking these words, nor knowing what else to say. "I did warn you last time you were here."

"Do you really think your pathetic mirrors will manage to cut through the armour on this Polity dreadnought before it destroys them?" And now Cormac's expression turned furious. "Do you really think that ECS can countenance you supplying terrorists with high-tech Polity war drones?"

"But I—"

The link cut off and Dreyden was left staring at darkness.

" He can't be that stupid. "

Dreyden was in complete agreement with Alvor's assessment: Agent Cormac of ECS had to know the mirrors were capable of raising in seconds the temperature of anything to that of a sun's surface. The agent must want to die aboard that great ship, and Dreyden did not have the option to persuade him otherwise. Already he was sending the signals that would give him total command of each mirror. Before him a depiction of Elysium sprang into existence, and each mirror gained a shimmering halo as it came under his control. His hands moving across and through the consoles, he spidered the air with bright lines as he plotted trajectories and sent further commands. In that moment he moved into the language of machine code, and felt himself connecting more deeply into his own realm. He knew that, like those images of consoles and screens around him, the feeling itself was illusion, but he felt the glide of massive hydraulics, the acid fire of thruster motors, and the huge shifting of mirrors at his command. Subliminally he noted a grabship caught in momentary focus, turning mercury-bright then transforming into a ball of light expanding and dispersing. Then plotted trajectories intersected on what was even now becoming visible through the glass dome above.

The Occam Razor gleamed then glared in sunlight — a strange gem flashing into existence over Elysium . To one side Dreyden saw the hologram of someone appear and turn puzzled bloodshot eyes towards him. It was recognizably human but horribly tangled, and melded with both the organic and the mechanical.

" Subversion access! Subversion access! "

He didn't need to be told, as he was already fighting to prevent it killing the tracking programs in the mirror-guidance systems. The figure was screaming now as the heat delved down to it inside the dreadnought, white light all around it and holographic smoke filling the imaging area. Equally, the Occam Razor was howling across the sky with fire flaring across its surface and Jain structure ablating away into space. Then it rolled, bringing to bear another surface as yet untouched by sunfire. Dreyden felt a huge surge of energy through solar collectors and, with a thought, folded out a screen to view one section of Elysium itself. He saw an expanding mass of wreckage: burnt and burning habitats, domed forests falling out into blackness, human bodies… and a line of fire tracking across, searing and smashing and killing.

"You bastard!" he shouted, not entirely sure whom he was cursing.

The fire died as the weapons exposed on this new face of the Occam Razor collapsed into the boiling plain of its hull. To one side the image of the man-thing flickered out, and the ship seemed suddenly to alter its shape. For a second everything blacked out as a safety system cut into the visual feedback, then it cleared on the red eye of an explosion, and spreading sheets of molten metal and incandescent gas.

The sun had overtaken Calypse and, preceding the gas giant behind the horizon, had thrown it into partial silhouette — its whorls and bands of colours turning the hue of ancient cathedral paint. Out over the more vivid colours of the flowering flute grasses, Ram and Rom reflected nothing but this colour from their polished cases as they slid silently through the air. Seated on a cold mollusc-studded rock with Eldene pressing close to his side, Apis wondered if he would ever become inured to the fantastic sunrises and sunsets here — and hoped not. He then transferred his gaze to the approaching vehicle that the two war drones guarded.

"I wonder if she found her hatchery," Eldene said.

"I doubt she had the time."

They both watched the ATV come out of the grasses and into a lane of black plantains, against which the multicoloured pollens splashed all over its surface showed up clear like a strange camouflage.

"Here come the others," said Eldene, pulling closer so that he would put his arm around her. Obliging her he glanced aside at the encampment from which Lellan and Fethan approached. Lellan had long been essentially the dictator here, but then Fethan had pointed out that when ECS came to help them, and once it established a runcible on one of the Braemar moons, there would be another dictator and it would be made of silicon. She had not seemed particularly averse to the prospect.

The ATV drew to a halt on an area of crushed-down rhubarb that abutted the river winding out from the foothills. First out of its door was Gant, carrying Mika's huge sample case. Next came Thorn — very nimble on his feet since one of Mika's 'little doctors' had established itself inside him, but then Apis knew exactly how that felt. Thorn, like himself and Mika, no longer wore a mask. Sometime soon Apis hoped Eldene would follow the same route, for if they were to become true Masadans they must learn to live on the surface, not merely exist.