The Beauty of Destruction (57 page)

‘Malcolm, a surprise, but a pleasure,’ he said when there was finally quiet. Beth had to will herself not to get turned on by his deep voice.

‘The Marines are your people?’ Malcolm asked King Jeremy, ignoring Mr Brown.

‘Go and fuck yourself,’ King Jeremy snapped. ‘Kill this motherfucker!’ he ordered a slightly pained-looking Mr Brown.

‘Weldon,’ Mr Brown said. ‘You need to order your people not to shoot.’

‘What? Why?’ King Jeremy demanded. It was the voice of a spoilt child. He was already grating on Beth. Her finger curled round the trigger of her pistol, she remembered the manticore, and she almost fired.

‘Because I understand what is happening, but you will require a demonstration.’

‘Or,’ King Jeremy started as if he was talking to a particularly stupid child, ‘we kill him and get on with our day.’

‘Do you want to live?’ du Bois asked the sociopathic man-child. King Jeremy held up the dead man’s switch and smiled.

‘You’re too fucking stupid to know what this is, aren’t you?’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Alexia muttered. ‘I thought he was supposed to be some kind of prodigy.’

‘Apparently not when it comes to reading people,’ Mr Brown muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Calculate what they have to lose,’ he told King Jeremy, sounding pained. ‘Then perhaps we can “get on with our day”.’

‘You’ll be fine, nobody’s going to hurt you,’ du Bois told King Jeremy.

‘Okay, nobody shoot,’ King Jeremy said.

‘No matter what happens,’ du Bois added. King Jeremy repeated him. Du Bois shot Dracimus twice in the face. Dracimus staggered back, the nanite-tipped rounds already eating away at the inside of his head. Du Bois shifted his aim to King Jeremy as Dracimus collapsed to the ground, his head now looking like a half-eaten bowl. There was more shouting and threats. The three of them waited patiently, as did Mr Brown, until it all died down.

‘Now you’re thinking that maybe you can get us in a rush, before we fire?’ du Bois said, and then raised his left hand. Another shot rang out from a distance and the Pennangalan staggered back and then sat down. She was up on one knee, the Sig 716 carbine at the ready, in a moment. ‘The next round is nanite-tipped and goes in Weldon’s head, understand?’ Du Bois shouted.

‘I’m going to fucking kill you!’ King Jeremy spat.

‘So you have suborned Grace,’ Mr Brown mused. ‘If she believes you then she must be very angry with me. I’m surprised she hasn’t already killed Mr Rush.’

‘Don’t call me that!’ the already on-edge King Jeremy snapped. Beth was half starting to think that in his anger he would forget to keep the dead man’s switch’s button depressed. Mr Brown had a point, though. It seemed that Grace was playing along with their plan.

‘Would the nuke kill you?’ du Bois asked.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Mr Brown said after a moment’s consideration. ‘It’s enough of a doubt that I am willing to consider partners, although there was always a place for you, Malcolm.’

‘This is how it works,’ du Bois said through gritted teeth. ‘King Jeremy drops his gun and stays with us at all times. We go into the sub. I’m in front. Beth is behind. He is always covered. I even suspect something is happening, conventional or your magic bullshit, we kill him and everyone dies.’

Mr Brown had looked even more pained at the mention of magic. ‘You must want to live a great deal. Tell me, will Miss Soggins be joining us?’ Nobody answered.

‘You’re not serious?’ King Jeremy demanded.

‘Shut up, Weldon,’ Mr Brown told the sociopath, and then turned to du Bois, Beth and Alexia: ‘Well then, you’d better come on board, I suppose.’

39

A Long Time After the Loss

It had been the longest journey that the Monk had ever experienced in Red Space, and it had happened far from the Church beacons. To the Monk’s mind they might as well have been lost among the blood-coloured clouds of the supposedly coterminous universe. More than thirty standard days, with the ship acting more and more strangely each day. They had neunonically cut their connections to the
Basilisk II
. They couldn’t take the risk of the Yig virus suborning their neunonics, and meat-hacking them. The
Basilisk II
was seemingly flying itself. They had resorted to voice commands to communicate with the ship. It responded to them sluggishly, if at all. The Monk had half expected the craft to take on more serpentine qualities, perhaps influenced by Scab’s tale of the bridge drive ghost being infected by the Yig virus, but that hadn’t happened. Instead there had been a subtle change in the interior design, and in the texture of furnishings, as if the ship had reconfigured itself to cause a constant feeling of unease. She was pleased that as far as she could tell it hadn’t corrupted the food supplies, yet.

They hadn’t summoned Basil since the Yig virus had infected the bridge drive’s navigation biocomputer. The biocomputer was S-tech, it was an isolated system, it shouldn’t have been possible to hack but then Naga-tech was also derived from S-tech, and had been given more of an opportunity to evolve. As good as the security was on the heavily modified yacht, the ship’s AI wouldn’t have stood a chance. Nobody had seen Basil since, although Talia swore blind that she had seen a hunched figure creeping around the corridor by the bedrooms.

They couldn’t even immerse. That was the worst thing. Maude and Uday were either gone, or horribly corrupted by Yig. The Monk had been able to lock away the loss of the Cathedral while they were careening from one disaster to the next. Now she had all the time she needed to think about it. She had books, movies, music contained in her internal liquidware, accessible through her neunonics, much of it from before the Loss. She had spent a lot of time lying on her now tactilely unpleasant bed, clutching her legs to her chest, listening to sad music, or watching old films in her mind’s eye without time compression, despite having perfect recall of them, wishing she could cry. She was trying to process her emotions, but using drugs to moderate her moods so she could function. All the while expecting the ship to turn on them, or to learn that they were forever lost in Red Space at any moment.

Their hope mostly lay with Ludwig. The L-tech automaton Elite was monitoring the ship as best it could. It had been quite open in admitting that in doing so it had caught the Yig virus. Like Oz, Ludwig was trying to fight the virus off, and seemed in control of himself, which was fortunate, as after the bridge ghost had been infected with Yig, Scab had suffered a psychotic break. The human killer was in a permanent fury. Ludwig had to restrain him. This loss of control only made Scab worse. The Monk felt like she was back in prison and banged up with a real psycho.

The Monk hoped the infected
Basilisk II
was going to the Ubh Blaosc, and she hoped there were answers there. If not, it had been a long hard road for nothing. After thirty days she wondered what was happening in Real Space. Had the rest of the Church been hunted down? With the Monarchist systems down to one Elite now, had the war begun? Or was it already over? What was Patron doing?

She felt the changes in the ship. She had become attuned to it during the long voyage. The main systems were powering down, so it could bleed off heat and limit its EM signature. It was reconfiguring to make it more difficult to detect. Then she was aware of the slight change in the atmosphere, the background noise, as the bridge drive was activated. The Monk stopped the music in her head, rolled off her bed and onto her feet.

‘Door.’ Nothing happened. ‘Door! Please.’ The door opened. Talia was walking by, Vic trailing after her. The hard-tech augmented ’sect had spent all of the voyage either with Talia, or in a semi-hibernated state. It seemed that he was not able to cope with boredom very well without access to immersions. He turned to look at her as they passed. She suppressed a shiver. She had never been able to cope well with the inhuman movements of ’sects. It was like their heads were mounted on swivels.

The lounge/C&C was bathed in red light, the smart matter hull completely transparent. Ahead of them she could see the blue rip of a bridge point and beyond that Real Space. She tried to feel relief but there was still too much unknown, though she was hoping for an advanced but benevolent race that would help them. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, but the ship’s flight felt off somehow.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Gravity,’ Ludwig said. He had learned how to communicate verbally. She suspected he was using a dialled-down sonic weapon application of the Elite-tech to do so. Scab hung limp in front of him, held in a coherent energy field that must have been using a significant amount of the automaton’s entangled energy feed. At least Scab wasn’t trying to thrash about. ‘There is something with a huge mass just the other side of the bridge point.’

The
Basilisk II
slid through the rip into space. There was a glow from beneath the ship, manoeuvring engines compensating for the pull of gravity. At first the Monk thought they were above a vast plane. It stretched as far as they could see in all directions. The bridge closed behind them, and the ship started to rise. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but neunonic analysis suggested that there was a slight curvature. The
Basilisk II
continued to rise. The ‘serpent witch’ mind of the bridge drive’s navigation systems had brought them out very close to the object, whatever it was. It was clear that it had been constructed, despite its vast size. It had to be L-tech.

‘Any scans, comms?’ the Monk asked Ludwig.

‘Nothing,’ the automaton answered after a moment. She hadn’t liked how long it had taken the Elite to get an answer from the Yig-infected ship. Then came the realisation of what it was.

‘It’s a Dyson Sphere,’ she said. Talia frowned. Vic concentrated for a moment and then opened his mandibles in his ’sect replication of human surprise.

‘That’s like a star encased in a structure, right?’ Talia said. The Monk was a little less surprised at her sister’s knowledge this time. Her neunonics were trying to do the maths on the amount of matter involved, although it was just estimates because she couldn’t risk accessing the
Basilisk II
’s systems. The builders would have had to cannibalise multiple star systems for this much matter. She looked up through the transparent hull and yes, Known Space seemed lacking in nearby stars. Her neunonics had no frame of reference to plot location. They were in deep space. She suspected between galaxies. This suggested that the megastructure had been moved, somehow.

‘A stellar engine?’ she asked Ludwig. The machine didn’t answer. ‘Is this your home?’

‘I think so,’ Ludwig said. It sounded like the sort of thing an uplift would say; she didn’t like that it sounded unsure. ‘Mr Scab wishes to speak with you,’ the automaton said. The Monk glanced at the others. Vic sagged. She couldn’t read Talia’s expression, despite neunonic analysis. The Monk nodded. There was a shift in the air around Scab’s face, though he was still hanging limp in front of the cylindrical floating automaton, suspended in mid-air.

‘You have to let me go,’ Scab said. His tone was flat, but it still sounded the closest to desperation she had ever heard from him. It chilled her, and reminded her of just how vulnerable she suspected he truly was. ‘I need to kill.’

Vic let out an affected laugh.

‘You’re not really convincing us,’ the Monk said.

‘I don’t think it will be you. I’m ready. I want to kill it. Shoot me like a bullet into god.’

‘Let him go,’ Talia surprised the Monk by saying.

There was nothing, it was dead, inert, as far as they could tell, though even active scans wouldn’t have got through the dense shell of the Dyson Sphere. There was no activity on the surface that they could see, and the
Basilisk II
’s AG system was strained to its maximum tolerances with them being as close as they were. Ludwig managed to coax the truculent possessed yacht out further. They did a fast fly-by, stealthy as they could, passive scans only. Four and a half standard hours later all they had seen was a lot of smooth grey matter.

‘We have something,’ Ludwig said. As a precaution they did not ’face with Ludwig either, though if he was overcome by the Yig virus then his Elite-tech would easily overwhelm their neunonic security. When he fell they all fell. Part of the transparent hull magnified. They were far enough away from the sphere now that she could make out the curvature more clearly. The ship was a gnat staring at a mountain.

‘I don’t see it,’ the Monk said. Talia came to stand by her side, peering at the magnified part of the hull. Vic wasn’t far behind. Scab was sitting in his chair, smoking. The ship upped the magnification on the hull. The Monk’s augmented eyes could now make out a very faint red glow. The magnified square of the hull switched to the infrared spectrum. There was a faint emanation of heat from the area.

‘Can we send in one of the AG submunitions?’ the Monk asked. ‘Use it for passive scans and then return to the ship and report?’ They couldn’t risk transmissions.

‘In theory,’ Ludwig said. ‘But like all the ship’s systems they are infected, and it will be beyond my influence unless we transmit and give away our position.’

‘Do you know the way back?’ Scab asked, and then took a drag on his cigarette. The Monk just looked at him. ‘Then let’s get this over and done with.’

The Monk turned to Talia. ‘You still want neunonics? Soft-machine augments?’ Suddenly her sister didn’t look so sure of herself. Scab opened his mouth, but then didn’t say anything.

‘Now wait a minute …’ Vic started.

‘It’s not up to you,’ the Monk snapped. For just a moment Talia looked frightened.

‘I’m not so special out here, am I?’ she said. The Monk laughed.

‘I’ve no idea where here is.’ Even with all her experience she couldn’t quite get her head around how far the two of them were from Bradford. Talia just hugged her sister. For that moment she found herself feeling profoundly grateful. Her sister knew that she needed help. ‘How much do we trust the assembler?’ she asked Ludwig. The automaton reeled off some impressively large number as the probability against Yig infecting any neunonics they assembled.

‘Yay! Now I can be a superhero too,’ Talia said weakly. Some part of the Monk felt bad. It felt like she was polluting her sister, but she was also increasing her chances of survival. Talia’s systems would be high-end civilian/mid-range military/bounty killer – the
Basilisk II
’s assembler was good, but not much use for the custom illegal hard- and software that the likes of herself, Vic and Scab had within them. They would do their best to fabricate armour and weapons. She would have artificial skills provided by the software, but they wouldn’t have time to properly integrate them with her body, even after it had been augmented, and artificial skills were no match for experience and training.

They had put Talia under and laid her on her bed. The neunonics and liquid hardware had been fed into the brain membrane through the eyes and ears, and most of the assembled soft-machine augments had been injected intramuscularly. They had left to let them grow and integrate. Talia had been ravenous when she had woken. They had run her through some simple integration exercises. Scab had started to pace impatiently. Ludwig had remained a still presence in the lounge/C&C, though Beth knew he was fighting an unseen electronic war within his own systems and the
Basilisk II
’s.

Then they had put on the new armour bought from the black market habitat on the way to Black Athena. They had run diagnostics and simulations with the as-yet unused weapons systems. There was something more than a little off-putting about seeing Talia armed and armoured. The Monk suspected it was the assumption that her younger sister had no sense of responsibility whatsoever, and that giving her weapons was just an act of lunacy. Still, the softwired neunonic skills made her look at least competent. Beth was also pleased that Talia had Vic looking after her, though she tried not to think too hard about their ‘relationship’. She saw Scab casting her sister the odd strange look. She had even felt a momentary pang of jealousy, but then found herself shaking her head and smiling at the ridiculousness of it.

Ludwig had brought the
Basilisk II
down as close to the Dyson Sphere as the AG and manoeuvring systems could manage. Subjectively the sphere looked like a huge, flat mountain stretching away from them in all directions. They were too close to make out the curvature. They made their way towards the escaping heat as stealthily as they could.

It reminded Beth of someone having taken a spoon to crack a boiled egg, but that was perhaps because she knew the translation of the name the Ubh Blaosc. It was a huge, ragged tear in the shell of the Dyson Sphere. From inside they could make out the faint red glow.

‘Plasma damage,’ Vic said, looking at the melted and fused smart matter surrounding the hole in the shell. ‘It must have had the force of a sun.’

‘An Elite?’ the Monk asked.

‘Too much even for them,’ Vic said.

‘The dragons breathe fire,’ Ludwig told them. Even Scab turned to stare at the automaton.

‘Are you all right?’ the Monk asked Talia. Her younger sister was looking uncomfortable in her skin.

‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘It’s like I’m trying to get used to things that are already instinct.’

They were over the hole now, the ship struggling with a strange interplay of gravitic forces, tiny against the backdrop of the massive rift. It began to sink into the hole, into the Dyson Sphere, into what she assumed was the Ubh Blaosc.