Dark Intelligence (27 page)

In a maelstrom of pain, madness and expanding mental horizons, Penny Royal transformed Sverl. Afterwards, the father-captain climbed to the surface on new prosthetic limbs rather than grav-engines and hardfield repulsion. He definitely felt much more intelligent and potent. And certainly he was more personally dangerous, as Penny Royal had also provided him with a lethal Golem which Sverl now controlled with a thrall unit. He also quickly began to understand more about the war and why it had gone the way it had. He became aware of the aggressive prador society’s drawbacks, which included its avoidance of employing artificial intelligence. But still, though he understood specific details, a general understanding of the Polity lay beyond him. He felt, at that time, that some deep contemplation would be required, for he had yet to grow fully into his greatly expanded mental horizons.

Before even the shell people came, Sverl landed his dreadnought deep in the ocean of the world they subsequently named the Rock Pool. Other dispossessed prador joined him there and began building their underwater city. Trade was established with still other prador enclaves throughout the Graveyard. When the shell people arrived and began their strange physical worship of Sverl’s kind, the immediate instinct of his fellow renegades was to exterminate them. However, that basic paradigm-changing understanding of the Polity still eluded Sverl, and he persuaded them to leave the humans alone. For perhaps they might help him towards the greater understanding he sought. He allowed them to establish and he studied them.

Throughout this time, Sverl also studied himself. Firstly, he noted the extra organic growths and crystal extensions from his major ganglion and recognized them as the source of his extended intelligence. But he did not then understand precisely what they meant. Over time he noted his body’s gradual physical changes and, running intermittent tests of his genome, he discovered that it too was changing. Investigating further, he found picoscopic processes driving the change, but could not discern what was driving
them
. Only in recent years, with equipment purchased from the Polity, had he discovered underlying femtoscopic processes. He had understood less than one per cent of these. In the end, only his gross physical changes had revealed the truth.

As his visual turret sank into his main body it also spread, drawing his two eye-palps further apart while they shortened. Eventually they disappeared altogether, those eyes then residing in two pits to the fore of his carapace. The vision in his other turret eyes also started to fade. His mandibles, being fashioned of hard metal, remained unchanged. But these sank lower on his carapace while his mouth widened, a split developing from each side and working its way backwards. Doubtless, if he had still possessed manipulatory limbs beneath him, they would either have shrunk or dropped away. To his rear, he sprouted a fleshy tail which, under examination, he found to contain developing vertebrae. All this remained a mystery to Sverl, until a sickening revelation occurred to him when he was studying the shell people above.

While the shell people were humans trying to transform themselves into prador, he was a prador unwillingly being transformed into a joke of a human being. His whole carapace was taking on the shape of a human skull and it was softening, while that horrible and baffling tail was the rest of that disgusting soft creature. He surgically removed it but, over agonizing months, it grew back again. Meanwhile, small delicate white teeth sprouted inside his mouth and his eyes acquired pink fleshy lids that sprouted lashes. At the same time, when he wanted to listen closely to something, he found himself raising his front two pairs of forelegs off the ground—because they were developing nerve connections to his auditory system.

The method of transformation was darkly and grotesquely humorous, in a way Sverl would never have understood as a prador. But there was more, much more. On one level, he seemed to be developing into the organic or human aspect of the enemy, while in his major ganglion he grew nubs of human brain tissue. Understanding this made him realize something he had missed in the decades since his initial transformation. The crystal extensions of his organic brain were, in themselves,
artificial intelligence
. Penny Royal had given him the ability to understand the enemy, by turning him into
both
its aspects. He was an amalgam of prador, human and AI. And in the years to come, he felt sure that the first of those would eventually disappear.

As his AI and human components steadily grew, his anger and hatred faded, while large questions expanded in his mind. His need to understand an enemy changed, slowly transforming into a need simply to understand.

PENNY ROYAL’S PLANETOID

Mona drew her scooter to a halt in a long straight tunnel which speared into darkness for five miles in either direction. It was three metres across and perfectly circular through its length. She dismounted and walked over to its curved wall, and reached out to touch the smooth, almost polished stone with one hand. Her glove sensors detected the complete lack of faults beneath her fingertips. Still no answer to the puzzle that had been bothering her ever since they came here for salvage: where were the machines or the machine that did this? Part of the puzzle had been solved—they now knew why there was no rocky debris, the by-products of a boring machine. The stone around these tunnels was denser than elsewhere in the crust—any debris had been shoved aside and melded into the surrounding stone. Appalling amounts of energy must have been involved, yet there was no sign of the incredible machine that had created the tunnels. However, there were thousands of miles of caves worming through the crust of the planetoid and Mona knew she stood no chance of exploring them all.

Dropping her hand, she returned to the scooter, turned it round and began heading back. It might be that there just wasn’t a machine or, rather, that the machine concerned was Penny Royal itself. If that was the case then the implications were frightening. The black AI was terrifying enough, but if it could manipulate matter on this scale itself … Mona shook her head. No, that couldn’t be right. There had to be machines somewhere, or the figures just didn’t add up. Penny Royal couldn’t have done this alone over the sixty or so years it had occupied this place. The task would have required a hundred Penny Royals, or some vast iteration of the black AI no one had ever seen. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

“Mona,” Gareth interrupted her thoughts over com, “we’ve got another visitor.”

“Another visitor?” she asked, accelerating. “Yeah, I recognize this ship—it’s
The Rose.”

“What the hell is Blite doing here?” she wondered. “Last I heard he was smuggling tech artefacts in the Polity.” She paused as she turned into a side tunnel leading to the place they’d dubbed the “Atrium.” This was a large spherical chamber with a flat gridded floor only a few hundred metres back from the entrance they were using and just beyond that lay their ship. “Don’t answer that—if he’s here then it’s probably for the same reason as us.”

“He’s welcome,” said Gareth. “We’re all but done with this place.”

True, they were done with it now, because they had a full load to haul back. This was heading to Montmartre for John Hobbs’ salvage organization to process. But in reality they hadn’t delved very deeply into this place at all. She was sure there was a lot more to discover here, technological treasures to be revealed. Unfortunately she would not be the only one thinking that—other salvagers would arrive as the news spread that Penny Royal was no longer in residence. Blite was probably just the first of many. But at least he wasn’t the kind who’d resort to piracy and leave them trying to breathe vacuum. Mona had no doubt that Isobel Satomi, with her special problem, would be taking an interest. It was also quite possible that her ultimate boss, with his similar special problem, would take an interest too. Mona felt slightly sick at the thought of ever encountering Mr Pace.

She drove into the Atrium, the scooter’s fibre-rod wheels absorbing any juddering from the floor grate. Ahead she could see some of her crew loading their last two grav-sleds. One now held white oblate spheres, packed with technology they hadn’t been able to identify. The other one contained five skeletal Golem. The Golem would have been almost valueless, were it not for the fact that Hobbs had found a buyer in the Polity. Apparently, a forensic AI wanted to examine them and would pay in diamond slate.

Mona dismounted and headed towards the exit tunnel.

“What’s
The Rose
’s position right now?” she asked over com.

“Same as that destroyer—sitting right above us.”

“Any communication?”

“Blite wants to talk to you. Shall I patch him through?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

A screen image opened in the lower right-hand quadrant of her space suit visor to show the familiar face of Captain Blite. She thought he looked tired, a bit worried and thinner than he had been the last time she saw him.

“Hello, Mona,” he said. “Long time no see.”

“So it is,” she replied, “and before you waste your time: no, I’m not going to negotiate search territories, nor am I going to provide you with any data. If you want data on this place you’d better make a deal with John Hobbs. We’re done here—for now, anyway—and we’re on our way out.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgement then said, “I’m not here for the salvage.”

Mona immediately auged open a private channel and, blocking transmission to Blite, spoke to Gareth in her ship. “You heard that?”

“I did,” Gareth replied, “I’ve put up hardfields and the cannon is online.”

“So what are you here for?” she asked Blite. “I do hope you haven’t branched out.”

It wasn’t uncommon for some salvagers to go rogue and resort to piracy, though Blite had never seemed that sort.

“It’s not a case of what I’m here for,” he replied. “I have a passenger who, as far as I can gather, wants information on any recent visitors here. I did tell it I would ask, but it’s on its way down to you anyway.”

It’s on its way down to you?

“Mona,” said Gareth privately, “the hardfields just went down and the cannon went offline.”

Mona spoke to the four crew still working in the Atrium. “Get these sleds to the cargo cage—now!”

“Oh shit,” said Tanner.

“What is it?” She headed over to where he and Iona were standing. They were staring at the sled where they’d stacked the Golem—and his comment made perfect sense when she took a look herself. The five skeletal Golem had been loaded like logs and were piled to the rear of the sled. They were now slowly extricating themselves—the one on top of the pile lowering a foot to the sled as it began to climb off. Five polished ceramal skulls were now raised, curiously scanning their surroundings with darkly glowing blue eyes.

“Who’s your passenger, Blite?” Mona asked.

“There’s something in the cargo cage,” Gareth interrupted, overriding Blite’s reply.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t know—the cams just went out and some objects there were briefly activated.”

Over suit com Mona said, “Everyone, back to the ship now! Fast as you can!”

The four crew didn’t need to hear the order again and immediately ran for the exit in painfully slow low-grav motion. Mona ran for her scooter, mounted and started it up, turning it towards the exit. She saw the four head out of sight, then heard Iona scream and Tanner’s cursing, terror in his voice. Mona stopped her scooter and considered heading back into the tunnel system and thence to one of the other exits. The nearest was twenty-eight miles away. But in the end she’d have to return to her ship … She paused and now auged in Blite’s reply to her question.

“I’d like to tell you that there’s nothing to fear. But even though me and my crew haven’t really been harmed, I don’t know how long that will last,” he’d said, looking somewhat guilty. “I’d like to help you get away from here in one piece, but there’s no advice I can give. We are all powerless.”

A darkness filled the exit tunnel—a darkness full of knives. The Golem had all climbed from the grav-sled and were now standing in a neat row like troops ready for review. A shoal of sharp obsidian fish flowed into the Atrium, seemingly all connected to a spread of silver threads. These threads then drew the shoal together and the whole mass coagulated into one black irregular lump. This began growing spines, the well-known form of Penny Royal expanding and rising from the floor on a silver trunk.

Mona watched her visor screen dissolve into static and weird code begin running on the heads-up display. Something then engaged with her aug with an almost audible clunk. Events began a perfect replay in her mind, accurately recalled in a way that was alien to human memory. She felt every detail of her brief exchange with Thorvald Spear inspected thoroughly.

So this is how I die
, she thought.

Something vicious arose to respond, and something else, cold and immense, inspected that briefly, before closing it down.

11

TRENT

As he headed straight towards the reaverfish, Trent drew his pulse-gun. He suddenly felt foolish doing this, especially when he heard shouts and cat-calls from the surrounding jetties and docks. But he decided to carry it through and, as he drew closer, the fish raised its head out of the water. Trent took this as a challenge and responded by accelerating even more. The thing withdrew its tongue and slammed closed its tri-section mouth, lowered its protruding fins, and dived.

Damn.

Trent wound the throttle forwards and swerved round, kicking up a huge explosion of spray. He then accelerated away from where the monster had gone under, spotting a dark shadow coming up beside him. He swerved again as the thing exploded from the water, and snapped off half his clip into its massive green-grey body. It came down with a huge splash, the wash throwing his scooter over at an angle, and turned towards him—mouth gaping and tongue shooting in and out. Two things impinged at once: a big blood-red eye gazing right at him, and the edge of a floating jetty coming up fast. He fired the rest of his clip into that eye then slammed the scooter back over, wrenching the handlebars round. In the next moment, he found himself travelling upside down through the air for a second before hitting the water.