Seeds of Earth (60 page)

'It's now in atmospheric descent,' Kao Chih said. 'Velocity falling, altitude 520 kilometres and falling, course . . . banking towards the northern hemisphere. Is that the location of this warpwell?'

'Yes, and of the Human colony,' said Gorol9.

'Hull temperature at 88 per cent of tolerance . . . coolant system coverage at 51 per cent and decreasing ...' said the synth alert.

'How close are those missiles?' Gorol9 said.

'First impacts in 4.7 minutes,' said Dalqa42. 'Likely targets are port and starboard thrust engines, and bridge superstructure. Droid survival quotient is 19 per cent, organic crew 8 per cent. Recommend evacuation.'

'Agreed - transfer destination coordinates to escape boat and shuttle.'

'Done,' said Ysher23.

'We must waste no time,' said Gorol9. 'I and Ysher2 5 will take your shuttle, Gowchee, while you, Pilot Yash and Dalqa42 take the harvester's escape boat. Our pursuit must continue - the Instrument must be prevented from reaching the warpwell.'

After that it was a mad scramble down to Yash's living room, from which a trapdoor ladder led down to the escape boat. There was a pause while the Voth stuffed a seemingly random selection of items into a filthy shoulder sack, then they hurried down to the boat. Muttering incomprehensible Vothic oaths, Yash strapped himself in, shoulder sack wedged between his bony knees, while Kao Chih followed suit and Dalqa42 came last, closed and sealed the hatch.

Kao Chih heard a muffled crash from back in the harvester and felt the boat shake. Then there was a cluster of loud bangs and the boat lurched forward and dropped, sudden vertigo surging in his stomach. Without a doubt they were free of the
Viganli
and a moment later he heard a cluster of servo whines, and a sense of weight returned, then a sway to the side along with the occasional deep buzz.

'Lift surfaces have been deployed,' said the droid Dalqa42. 'Directional jets functioning normally, guidance system nominal. Time till landing, approximately 7.5 minutes.'

Kao Chih nodded. 'Pilot Yash, is there any way to see outside?'

'Not until we are below 4,000
meol.'
The Voth glowered at him. 'And do not presume to speak to me, Human jelk! You bear responsibility for the loss of my jelking ship!' And he turned his face away.

'Yes, you're right,' Kao Chih sighed and settled back, converting the
meol
altitude in his head to roughly 2,500 feet.

The minutes crept by. The escape pod often shuddered and pitched from atmospheric turbulence, poor weather according to the droid. In the fifth minute a pinging sound came from an overhead control pad and the Voth wordlessly reached up to press a button. Small triangular panels slid aside on both sides of the nose, revealing viewports - mostly they could only see the rushing greyness of clouds but occasionally they caught glimpses of landscape far below, mountains and valleys, dense areas of green. Darien, he thought. At last.

'Droids Gorol9 and Ysher23 have landed ahead of the Instrument's shuttle and have met with armed resistance,' said Dalqa42 all of a sudden.

'Ahead of it?' said Kao Chih. 'How?'

'Weather conditions... wait...' Dalqa42 was silent for a moment or two, then, 'The adversary's craft just arrived but crashed into rock formations a short distance from the warpwell's location, a deep excavation into a rock promontory ... Gorol9 reports that they can sense the Instrument's presence and advises us to be ready.'

'Ready for what?' said the Voth.

'For combat, Pilot Yash,' Dalqa42 said.

'Not my fight, droid,' said Yash.

'Those we are about to encounter will assume that it is and act accordingly. To increase the possibility of a successful outcome, Gorol9 and I will now transpose . . .'

Kao Chih and Yash exchanged a puzzled look as the droid fell silent, immobile. A moment or two later the droid began to move again, surveying the boat's interior and its occupants.

'Human Gowchee and Pilot Yash - somehow, it is pleasing to make your acquaintance again. Now, we are just seconds away from . ..'

The escape boat lurched upward then seemed to swoop downwards, banking as it did so.

'Steerable canopy deployed - guidance will take us to within five metres of the warpwell location. Prepare yourselves for ...'

Through the small viewport Kao Chih could see a muddled blur of landscape turning and turning beneath them then tilting and rushing past, rushing up quite quickly ...

'.. . a rough landing ...'

The boat swept into a gulf of shadow, an abrupt plunge followed by a sharp swing to the right as they slammed into something. Even as Kao Chih and Yash cried out, the capsule pitched forward and descended by. steady stages, landing with a bump. Scarcely waiting for the boat to settle, the droid Gorol9 tugged on the hatcn release and a curved section of the hull popped open. At once Kao Chih inhaled a flow of cold, damp air laced with smells of growing things . ..

Gorol9 helped them both out. They were at the foot of some kind of sheer-sided excavation faced with ribbed, composite cladding, looking up at a grey, evening sky from which raindrops were falling. For a second Kao Chih stood there, feeling the rain on his face, enjoying the sensation . . .

'The Instrument is here,' said Gorol9. 'Further in ...'

The sound of weapons-fire came from a doorway at the end of the narrow trench and the droid started swiftly towards it. Kao Chih hesitated, until Yash took a shiny blue beam pistol from his shoulder sack and offered it to him.

The doorway had a set of steps leading down into an icy chamber where golden lamps on the floor threw sharp shadows against a wall with three doors. There were four dark and glassy pillars here, too, and the motionless, huddled shapes of dead people, seven large humanoids, Sendrukans, he guessed. The three doors were surrounded by a carving-covered wall, and without pause the droid dived through the only door that was open.

Beyond, more bodies at the edge of an immense circular chamber with a low wall running around, prescribing a kind of walkway. A few small lamps were spaced along the low wall for about a quarter of its circuit, revealing to Kao Chih's eyes some of the sweeping patterns, the symbols and the characters which were carved into the chamber's wide stone floor. Was this what all the deceptions, the pursuit, the destruction and death had been for? - was this the warpwell?

More gunfire came from behind them, and Yash brought up his plasma cannon.

'I'll hold this door - you go after our droid friend, see he doesn't get into trouble. He owes me a ship!'

Kao Chih nodded and hastened along the walkway. Ahead he could make out the spindly shape of Gorol9 (formerly Dalqa42) striding after a glowing blue object that was heading towards the centre of the chamber's stone floor. As he walked he saw that the blue thing was a strange artefact resembling a section of a long, articulated limb or tentacle. A cyborg machine. As it came to a halt, Gorol9 extended its gait to a lope. Unthinkingly, Kao Chih stepped over the low wall and began running towards it, not noticing the silvery, threadlike glows that flickered across the floor patterns in his wake.

'Fools who rush to their deaths,' said Drazuma-Ha* in a voice which echoed sharply in the chamber, 'should not be disappointed.'

A shaft of amber force leaped out and seized Gorol9 around its slender torso and dragged it in close. An amber blade then hacked off the droid's legs and Kao Chih, rage in his heart, raised the beam pistol and blazed away.

'Even if you could get through my exquisitely designed force shield,' Drazuma-Ha* said, 'that pathetic weapon would scarcely dent my skin. Admit your defeat, Human, admit the inherent weakness of your unaugmented flesh.'

It was true - the beam pistol's bolts flared and sparked uselessly against the blue aura. Bitterly he lowered the weapon, slowed to a halt and fell to his knees.

'You have nothing to admit to this maimed hybrid,

Gowchee,' said Gorol9, still being held down on the carved stone. 'You have nothing to be ashamed of.'

'So speaks the machine,' said the Legion creature. 'Good, obedient device, just one amongst the Construct's little horde of windup junkpiles. Attend carefully, Human - this machine, this contraption, will never know the wonder of convergence, the intermingling of life's pure essence and a technology perfectly adapted to life's supreme ambition. Oh, machines can be made highly complex and made to imitate the permutations of true sentience, but ultimately it is only obedience to a detailed matrix of commands, a dry, empty mockery of living sentience.'

'You are a made thing,' said Gorol9. 'Your vaunted convergence with technology is nothing but your desperate need to flee the pains of the flesh, the entropy of the flesh, the ending of the flesh. And you? - you are little more than an offcut, stemming from your progenitor Knight's need for an instrument...'

'Liar! My essence, my foundation is organic, and my sentience flows from the purity of convergence ...'

INTRUDERS HAVE BEEN DETECTED!

Kao Chih almost quailed at the thunderous volume of the voice which reverberated all around but which seemed to issue from the stone floor beneath. In that instant he saw a spiderweb of glowing threads spreading across the intertwined patterns, all emitting a curious, crystalline brightness.

'Aah, the guardian awakes,' said Drazuma-Ha*.

YOU ARE OF THE LEGION, INTRUDER - YOUR PRESENCE HERE IS A VIOLATION. YOU MUST BE ERASED.

'Exactly, machine. Obey the unvarying schemata of your responses. Open the door through which I may fulfil my transcendent task ...'

'Sentinel - I am Gorol9 of the Construct's forward echelon. You must not deploy your energies against the Legion intruder - it will use them against you.'

I RECOGNISE YOU, GOROL9, BUT YOU MAY NOT COMMAND ME. THE THREAT IS CLEAR AND IT MUST BE ERASED.

Feeling helpless, Kao Chih raised his gun again, then his shoulders sagged and he slumped back, tears of angry desperation in his eyes. How he hated this machine-creature.

'Good - you recognise the futility of your position, Human,' said Drazuma-Ha*. 'You may be weak, yet there is hope for your species - many have already taken the first steps towards convergence and when the Legion assumes its rightful dominance we will help them
further
along that illustrious journey.'

'You betrayed me,' Kao Chih said. 'I trusted you! ...'

'Look upon it as a lesson,' the Legion creature said, lancing out with an amber shaft of force which batted away the beam pistol then grabbed him round the neck and hauled him in. At the same time, the crystalline radiance rising from the warpwell patterns began to pulse, lighting up the ceiling and the walls.

THE LEGION INTRUDER IS A CLEAR THREAT AND WILL BE ERASED. ALL OTHERS MUST LEAVE - NOW!

'And now the pair of you will join me in my triumph, but only as equals ...' An amber blade extruded from the Legion instrument's force aura and Kao Chih began to cry out in horror, struggling as the blade swept round towards his own legs.

The droid Gorol9 acted. A jointed arm shot out and its multiclawed hand flew straight at Drazuma-Ha *, colliding with its forcefield aura, to which it clung. The restraints and the blade shafts shrank to nothing as the forcefield flickered with bands and went out. Kao Chih reached over to snatch up his beam pistol then gleefully aimed it at the Legion machine-creature, which was now lying on its side, a motionless, lopped-off steel tentacle.

'Your weapon is as useless as it asserted, Gowchee. But you have a neural device in your pocket which might immobilise it - use it! We have only seconds before it recovers.'

A neural device? A quick search of his pockets produced ... of course, the nerve-blocker which Compositor Henach had used on him back on the Chaurixa ship! Trusting to Gorol9's advice, he dived at the Legion Instrument, which was starting to right itself. He grabbed it round the middle with one arm and with his other hand took the nerve-blocker and rammed it into the joint between two of the thing's articulated segments. A panel opened in the side of it and a tool-tipped arm lashed out at him. While fending it off with his pistol, he had to use his body weight to hold the Legion machine-creature down as he desperately shoved the nerve-blocker's flexible arms into the joint gap, praying that it would work.

'Betrayer! - you have betrayed life and aided ... dead machines . . .'

'I have my honour,' Kao Chih said, gritting his teeth against the pain of his wounded hand, slashed by the tool-wielding arm. 'And the satisfaction of knowing that you are ended . . .'

But the flickering aura went out and suddenly he realised that he was talking to a lifeless piece of machinery.

Light hung all around in layered veils, just visible through his overwhelming exhaustion. The voice of the warpwell Sentinel was booming somewhere overhead, an exchange involving Gorol9. Pilot Yash was close
by,
shaking his shoulder, saying that a company of Brolturan troops would soon be on top of them. Kao Chih tried to sit up, but instead he flopped onto his back, staring up at the chamber ceiling, his tongue mutt, his limbs numb, his flesh as cold as the wintry radiance that surged over him like a tide.

He never lost consciousness. Everything was lucid and he felt quite alert, despite the dreamlike swirl and eddy of images, his mother and father bidding him farewell at the dockside at Agmedra'a, the Roug Tumakri riding with him in the strange AI cart at Blacknest . . . then instead of Tumakri it was the Chaurixa surgeon, Compositor Henach, who was sharing the cart's cramped interior.
'Ah, the unblemished human brain,'
he was saying. 'A
remarkable canvas for convergence ..
.' Then the cart turned and shot into a dark corridor full of swaying shadows and, oddly for a deep space station, the smells of growing things. There were the sounds of familiar voices and a glow. Eyes open, he realised that he was lying on his back and raised his head . . . and regretted it when pain clamped his temples.

'Back with us, Human?'

The Voth was seated on a fallen log, next to a conical lamp giving off a buttery yellow light. Propped against the trunk were the remains of Gorol9, who was regarding him steadily. 'You were poisoned by the Legion Instrument's desperate self-defence,' the droid said. 'Luckily, Pilot Yash had some anti-toxin infusers in his big bag so the only effects you suffered were the psychoactive ones.'