Neal Asher: Gridlinked

Cormac shook his head. something was tense and clenched round his insides. He blinked as if in the expectation of tears. And then he surprised himself by feeling regret. He regretted that her sodium-salt-filled body might poison the dark otter. Grudgingly he acknowledged to himself that it was precisely this lack of involvement that had betrayed him. He closed the passenger door and frowned at the pool of blood on the seat. The rental company would not be happy, he thought, with a kind of tart indifference. He turned the AGC and headed at full speed for Gordonstone.

The system of papyrus fields, protective breakwaters, sluices and tidal channels occupied a band four kilometres wide and 140 kilometres long. Cormac glanced down as the AGC sped above a robot harvester. The machine had the appearance of a giant chrome scorpion devoid of tail and legs, and driven along by riverboat wheels. He watched it feeding papyrus into its grinding maw with its five-metre mandibles, and noted the cubic turds of compressed papyrus it left behind. He accessed and quickly learnt that the harvester was a Ferguson Multiprocessor F230 and was about twenty solstan years old. The ultra-fine fibres from the gene-spliced plant me machine harvested made a much sought-after kind of silk. It was Cheyne Ill's only large export and source of foreign wealdi. Of course, sources of wealm were the reason the Separatists had managed to recruit so well here.

The seas of Cheyne III swarmed with dark otters. They were diriving despite centuries of human colonization of the land, as well as colonization of the sea by the adapted Earth lifeforms. Many colonists felt that mey occupied space that could be utilized for highly commercial industrialized sea farming. It had been suggested that perhaps mere could be a few less dark otters. A customized virus would do the trick. But the Polity had come down hard on mat: it was against conservation strictures agreed to when Cheyne III had first been colonized. If any such virus was released, the entire population of Cheyne III would be subject to a fine which in turn would be used to fund a repopulation project. The Polity had samples of all known dark otter genes. This lack of understanding of the hardships faced by the citizens of Cheyne III had caused much resentment.

Cormac looked beyond the papyrus fields to forested areas thinly scattered with villas and repromansions. It was the people who lived here who had been most resentful. They had stood to make an awful lot of money from the exploitation of the seas. The people of Gordon-stone, which reared from the haze like a tiara of silver monolidis, had been resentful only when told, by those who lived in mansions and villas, what fhey were losing out on. The whole farrago offended Cormac deeply. He could not forgive avoidable ignorance.

At city limits Cormac applied for computer guidance, received it, men punched in his destination on the control console. As soon as the city AI took over, he released the stick and leant back. The AGC climbed half a kilometre and accelerated past its manual governor. At this speed the city rapidly drew close, and he soon saw sprawling ground-level arcologies below the plascrete towers. These shining buildings cloaked the ground like the etchings of an integrated circuit. From this height only a green blur could be seen between the buildings, but Cormac knew that there lay endless beautiful gardens and parks, greenhouses and warm lakes, playing fields and orchards. The towers that punched up from this Eden at regular intervals rose for hundreds of storeys into the sky and contained apartments for those who preferred a less bucolic lifestyle. Every tower was an object of beauty, with its projecting balconies and conservatories and its distinctive AI-designed architecture. Strangely enough, by Earth standards, this city was not particularly well-to-do. Even so, its citizens enjoyed a lifestyle that in another age would have been viewed as nothing short of numinous.

Under city control the AGC decelerated as the Trust House Tower came in sight. Here was the kind of building common to Eardi. It stood half a kilometre high and was in effect a self-contained city. The city AI put Cormac's craft in a stacking pattern with all the others that were spiralling down to the fifty hectares of rooftop landing pads. It did not take long for the AI to bring him to the pad above one of the hotel complexes. The AGC was dropped neatly in a row of five similar vehicles enclosed by a privet box hedge. Cormac climbed out and sauntered easily to the nearby drop-shaft. Chipped amethyst crunched underfoot, and somewhere a dirush was singing its heart out.

Cormac smiled at the first person he saw: a woman in a cat-suit and spring heels. He smiled because this should have been expected; it was a lovely day. People smile on lovely days. The woman studied him dubiously wim slitted cat's eyes. Must be back in, he mought irrel-evandy, and considered, then rejected, accessing information on the latest fashions. It was only as he drew abreast of the woman that he noticed she was looking at the front of his shirt. He returned her gaze levelly, and once past her he glanced down.

Idiot!

The blood spattered there was not exactly a fashion accessory. He hurried to the cowled entrance of the drop-shaft, quickly hit his floor-level plate, and stepped out into open air. The irised antigravity field closed around him and controlled his descent. As floor after floor sped by him he removed his shirt and rolled it up. He had it tucked under his arm as he slowed to a halt at his own floor, and stepped out onto the sea-fibre carpeting. In moments he reached the door to his room and hit the palm-lock. It was with chagrin that he noted the bloody smear he left there as he entered. Before closing the door he wiped the smear away with his shirt.

'Messages,' he said, tossing his shirt on the floor and kicking off his shoes.

'Arian Pelter commed you at 20:17, but left no message,' the sexy voice of the Trust House AI told him. He grimaced to himself as he stripped off his trousers. It was now 20:35. Of course he did not need to see the clock to find this out. He always knew the time, to the second.

'Did he leave any provisos with his message?' Cormac asked.

'Only that he be informed when you return,' the AI replied.

'Oh good,' said Cormac.

'There is a problem?' the AI asked him.

'None at all,' said Cormac as he rolled up his discarded clothes and took them to the disposal chute in the kitchen area. He tossed the clothing in, cycled it, and quickly headed for his badiroom. The shower he turned on full and as hot as he could stand. He had the strongest soap on the list mixed into the water and the sonic cleaner going as well. It had always been his experience that blood was a complete bastard to remove.

'Ian Cormac, please respond?' the Trust House AI urged. Cormac supposed it must have been its second or third request for his attention. He shook soap from his ears and clicked the control of the shower to pure cold water. When he had taken as much of that as he could stand, he stepped from the stall and took up his towel. He did not have time to luxuriate in the warm air blast.

'Yes, I'm here.'

'John Stanton and Arian Pelter wish to see you. They are verified. Shall I allow them access?'

'No. I do not wish to see them.'

'Will there be any further message?'

'No further message.'

Cormac quickly pulled on Earth army trousers, desert boots, a hardwearing monofilament shirt and sleeveless utility jacket. This clothing was more to his liking than his dress of the last few months. He looked around and took in the comfortable form chairs and thick carpeting. That wonderful shower, a Jacuzzi badi, and a bed that he had thought might be intent on eating him when he first lay on it. He suspected he would not be enjoying such comforts again for a litde while. He considered the belongings he had installed here: the designer clothing dispenser, the brandy collection, the antique weapons. They were all cover; aimed to present him as a weapons merchant prepared to sell to terrorists. There was nothing much here he really wanted. From his grip he removed a small toylike gun, which he tucked into one pocket of his jacket, and a chip card, which he tucked into the other.