Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

‘ Look at him! Doesn’t it bother you, to reduce a human being to something like that?’

‘Have you ever thought,’ she asked, her voice cold, ‘about the struggle the Tian Di faced in order to achieve as much as it did, over the centuries? Things like the CogNet, instantiation lattices, data-ghosting, or any of the hundreds of other networked symbiotic technologies that make our lives easier?’ She nodded towards the huddled figure. ‘This laboratory isn’t here just for show. The Council still supports original research into new ways to integrate flesh and machinery.’

‘There must be other ways to—’

‘Other ways?’ she barked. ‘It’s precisely that lack of insight, that refusal to commit to necessary sacrifices that tells me you could never be a member of the Council yourself. You’ve seen Ambassador Sachs, haven’t you? Whatever’s under that mask of his, it’s evident the Coalition has become a fully post-human society. We need to understand them and what they’ve become before their culture overwhelms our own because, let me assure you, their technology is far in advance of ours. That, right now, is the central focus of my research.’

She gestured towards the hunched figure. Luc looked on as, very slowly and carefully, it turned on the spot, its feet shuffling and scraping on the bare floor. He watched it lumber towards a curved balustrade set against a far wall, then slowly make its way down some steps and out of sight. Luc found it hard to contain his horror; it was difficult to believe that pathetic, shambling form had once been a person with a name and a history.

‘Where is the Ambassador now?’

Luc forced himself to turn back to de Almeida. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Ambassador Sachs,’ she repeated with obvious impatience. ‘You are still keeping tabs on him, aren’t you?’

Luc switched his attention back to the Ambassador. Instead of a visual feed, this time his lattice supplied a geo-locational tag attached to a virtual map of Vanaheim.

‘His flier’s headed north-west,’ he informed her.

‘Fine. Just keep an eye on him. Otherwise, I think we’re done here for now.’

‘The lattice,’ said Luc. ‘What’s the latest prognosis?’

She bit her lip, clearly mulling over an appropriate response. ‘It’s hard to be sure. But I’m feeling pretty hopeful I can delay its growth long enough to find some longer-term solution.’

Luc nodded tightly, unwilling to let her see how distressed her words really made him.

A mechant floated down next to her, a tunic jacket gripped in its manipulators. It laid the jacket across her shoulders.

‘I’ll call on you as soon as I have anything more of value,’ she said, stepping towards the spiral staircase that led to the upper floor. ‘A flier is waiting outside for you, one I’ve reserved for your sole use. You’ll be pleased to know you won’t need to hide inside any more crates in future.’

She quickly ascended the steps, disappearing into a shaft of light slanting down from the next floor up. Luc stepped towards the exit, but then paused, thinking of the eyeless ruin de Almeida had just sent downstairs.

It only took a few moments to descend the steps to the basement level below de Almeida’s laboratory.

He pushed open a door at the bottom of the steps, finding himself at one end of a long stone corridor with an arched ceiling. The air tasted damp and slightly mouldy, while junk and what looked like pieces of discarded laboratory equipment were piled untidily in deep alcoves set into the passageway on either side. He could hear the muffled thud of machinery from somewhere up ahead, the slate tiles beneath his feet vibrating faintly in time with the thuds.

The air grew rapidly warmer as he made his way along the passageway. After twenty metres or so it widened to accommodate several steel trestle tables, a few of which were covered over with blood-spattered sheets, almost as if Luc had stumbled across a battlefield hospital.

He came to a stop, seeing two mechants hovering over the naked body of a man that had been laid out on one of the tables. Another eyeless horror – not the same one, he sensed, that de Almeida had just sent down here – stood next to the unconscious man. This creature had needle-tipped machinery in place of fingers; its movements were slow and measured and, as Luc approached, it turned slowly to regard him with its uncanny blank gaze.

Dry-mouthed, Luc forced himself closer to the table. He now saw that the man lying there was being operated on. His skull had been cut open, black pits gaped where his eyes had once been, and much of his lower jaw had been removed. One of the mechants was engaged in manoeuvring a chunk of grey-blue machinery into place where his jawbone had been.

Luc staggered away and threw up in a corner.

He coughed, wiped his mouth, then pressed his forehead against the cool damp stone, breathing harshly. In that moment he heard a sudden, brief burst of static coming from behind him.

He turned to hear a second burst of static issuing from the machinery-clogged throat of the needle-fingered creature. After another moment it appeared to lose interest in him, turning its attention back to its comatose patient. Luc wondered if it had been trying to say something, assuming any kind of human consciousness was still trapped behind that savagely disfigured face.

Luc became aware of a slow, dragging shuffle, echoing from some way further down the corridor. Peering ahead, he saw the very creature he’d come looking for disappear into a shadowed alcove, not far from where the corridor came to an end.

Part of him wanted to turn back, to the world of daylight and air that didn’t smell of mould and disinfectant and death. His heart thundered inside his chest at the thought of going any farther. Worse, he had no idea how de Almeida might react if she discovered he had come down here.

But he had to know.

Making his way quickly to the same alcove into which the stooped figure had disappeared, Luc found himself at the entrance to a wide, low-ceilinged room. Instantly he was bathed in a blast of heat emanating from an open furnace at the opposite end of the room from him, the air shimmering violently from the heat. Rubbish was piled up on either side of the furnace door, while several more of de Almeida’s eyeless monstrosities worked steadily at shovelling it all into the flames.

He saw the stooped creature he had followed, outlined by the flames dancing in the heart of the furnace. At first he thought it would pick up a shovel and join its companions, but instead, to his unending horror, it climbed in through the open furnace door, burning like a torch as the flames caught at its ragged clothes. Apparently impervious to pain, it continued to move deeper into the furnace before slowly pitching forward.

The roar of the furnace grew incrementally louder for a second or two.

Luc heard a sound like the cry of an animal caught in a trap, then realized it had come from his own throat.

He took several steps backwards and stumbled against the wall of the passageway. His lungs felt like they had turned to ice despite the intensity of the heat.

The next thing he knew, he was back upstairs and halfway through the greenhouse attached to de Almeida’s laboratory. He kept going until he was outside, then collapsed against a low wall bordering a garden before again throwing up over some artfully arranged flowers.

As de Almeida had promised, a flier stood waiting for him, a blunt-nosed affair with a more utilitarian appearance than most, meaning it was probably used primarily as a goods vehicle. He staggered towards it as if drunk, climbing on board and barely noticing when it lifted up into clear blue skies.