The Engineer Reconditioned (3 page)

"Deep scan is showing cell chemistry initiation. Heat generated. It is primitively warm-blooded, which is surprising considering its environment," said Chapra.

"Brief neural activity," said Abaron.

"Okay, let's shut down the null-field."

The field, created by two opposing gravplates, collapsed when Abaron shut off the plate in the ceiling. A growing column of water collapsed and the creature sagged as it gained weight.

"Enzyme activity is too fast for anterior cell chemistry. I'm taking the temperature up five degrees. Use a microwave pulse, we want all that ice thawed quickly," said Chapra, her voice urgent.

"Done," said Abaron.

"Christ! Look at that activity," said Chapra.

"It moved," said Abaron.

"The chemistry is almost too fast for scan to follow!"

"It moved," Abaron insisted.

"What?"

"I said it moved."

"Put it in the water," Chapra said.

The PSR lowered its charge into the water, which was now a metre deep. Abruptly the creature jerked away from the PSR, then feebly began paddling.

"Get the temperature up! Quick, it's going into hypothermic shock. Use the microwave pulse again if necessary."

"Ten, twenty, thirty ... it's coming out of it."

The PSR retreated from the chamber. The creature continued to propel itself around and around. Abruptly it broke the surface with a triangular section tentacle, angled over like a periscope. The water lay two metres deep now. The creature moved to the edge of the jetty, then underneath.

"Dim the lights fifty percent," said Chapra.

"Eighty degrees," said Abaron. Wisps of steam were now blowing off the water's surface.

"Hold it at ninety and keep the pressure at one atmosphere."

"Surely it needs more."

"As I said, it'll likely have as much an adaptive range as a human. We want it tolerable enough for us to go in there."

"Why?"

Chapra glared at him. "We have to learn to communicate."

"Send a Golem in," said Abaron.

Chapra turned away. "Just do as I say."

It was the first time she had ever felt truly angry with Abaron, and was beginning to realise it might not be the last. She returned her attention to the chamber and watched as the creature slid out from under the jetty. It moved fast now. An underwater view showed that it propelled itself with a tail fin like a sharp propeller that pulsed in alternate directions. It changed direction and halted by gripping the bottom with its tentacles. It stabilized itself with two fleshy rudders jutting from its sides. The arm — it had only the one — it kept folded to its ribbed body. The head was that of a nightmare crayfish, but without eyes.

"I think you can open the way into one of your tanks now."

"That will raise the temperature," said Abaron tartly.

"Let it," said Chapra. "It'll only be for a while." She did not allow herself be drawn.
His turn to get
under my skin
, she thought.

At Abaron's instruction an irised hatch slowly opened in the wall. Water poured in and the chamber filled with steam. The creature turned toward the disturbance, then backed away. Abruptly it darted to its disassembled sphere and turned one of the inner segments over on top of itself. Crustaceans and plants poured in with the water. The tank emptied and Abaron closed the hatch. Then he and Chapra watched anxiously. Eventually one of the larger crustaceans ventured over near the creature. There was a flicker of movement and the crustacean was up against the creature's mouth parts, a faint cloudiness in the water, then a cleaned shell and emptied bits of exoskeleton drifted to the bottom. The creature slowly came out of its hide.

"Yes!" yelled Abaron happily.

Chapra watched with increasing fascination as the creature took up the empty shell and used it to scrape at the bottom of the tank. When this had no effect, it carefully picked up all the shell fragments in its single hand, swam over to the jetty, then reached out of the water and deposited them on the jetty.

"I think now I can sleep," she said, and wondered if that was true. The creature's response had been perfect, disturbingly perfect.

Kellor took the crodorman's pawn then grinned at him across the board before picking it up. The crodorman had a look of real fear on his whorl-skinned face. It had taken a while to get that look there, since Kellor had appeared to be a perfect mark when he entered the tent. He looked young and a trifle depraved, his pouting mouth and pretty face the cosmetic choice of a certain contemptible type. His clothing, the tightly tailored white uniform of a preruncible ship captain, was also the choice of that type. The crodorman grunted in pain at the penalty shock, his eyes closed and the bigger whorls of thick skin on his face and wrists flushing red. Kellor studied him with interest. He reckoned on check in another five moves. It would be fascinating to see what level the penalty shock went up to then. The shock from checkmate killed people with a weak constitution. He wondered if the crodorman might die, and he smiled at the next expected move.

"You're Kellor," someone said.

Kellor glanced around at the man who had elbowed himself to the front of the ring of spectators. They shushed him but he ignored them. Kellor inspected the uniform and recognised the man as a General in the Separatist Confederation. Now there was a contradiction in terms. He looked up into the bearded face and saw there the harshness of rigid self-control, a mouth like a clam, and eyes a black glitter amidst frown lines.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, off-handedly making another move. He took no pieces this time, so there was no penalty shock. But Kellor was aware that his nonchalant attitude was scaring the crodorman. The General could not have come at a better time.

"I am David Conard," said the General.

How very interesting
, thought Kellor. Here was the Butcher of Cheyne, the man reputedly responsible for the deaths of over two million Polity citizens. He turned from the board, a flick of a smile on his face when he saw the sweat squeezing out between the folds in the crodorman's forehead. Over ten seconds and the penalty shocks would start. You had to think quick in this game.

"You want my ship?" he asked, noting how the people who had been shushing the General had now moved back from him.

"We can't discuss this here."

Kellor nodded then glanced aside and moved his castle directly after the crodorman's move. The crodorman rapidly followed that move, a look of relief on his ugly face.
Oh silly silly crodorman.

"No problem," he said to General Conard. "I'm finished now." The crodorman lost his look of relief and stared at the board, then he looked up at Kellor. There was no pleading in his expression, just fear and a braced expectancy. This was the bit that Kellor liked; the moment his opponent realised he had lost and that he was about to experience pain, or die. He had enjoyed this moment so often, yet it never palled; the gun pointed or the blade of a knife paused at the skin. But it could never be protracted in a real fight as it could in penalty chess. Kellor grinned at the crodorman and slowly reached out for his queen.

"This will be checkmate, I believe," he said.

The crodorman swore at him then made a sound halfway between a scream and a groan when he made the move. Kellor watched him writhe for a moment, then detached his own wrist bands and picked up his winnings. As he walked from the tent with the General the crodorman slumped across the board, either in a faint, or dead. He did not notice. By then he had lost interest.

The device was alive. Chapra defined it as a device because she was certain it was a product of technology rather than of evolution. It was also growing. Some time during their sleep period the creature had placed the thing on the bottom, at the side of the chamber furthest from where its food crustaceans congregated. It was half again the size it had been. It was now ten centimetres across: a spaghetti collection of tubes, a coral.

"You notice it's increased in size rather than complexity. It's exactly the same shape as it was," said Chapra.

Abaron grunted an acknowledgement. She knew he was deeply involved in problems with the food ecology. The crustaceans ate the artificial proteins he gave them, they could in fact ingest Terran protein and plant matter, and they seemed really healthy. But he could not get them to breed. It was possible he might never know what was lacking in their food or their environment, but opined that while he tried to find out he learned much else. Chapra reckoned it was work he preferred because it tracked him away from the alien itself.

"Where has the shell gone?" she suddenly asked. "Box, did you have it cleared from the chamber?"

"No, the creature utilized it," replied the ship AI.

"Show me."

A flicker and she was looking at an earlier view into the chamber. Another flicker and the water became totally unrefractive; it looked as if the creature, the plants, and the pseudo-shrimps were just floating through air. She watched as the creature placed the device on the bottom then began cruising in circles around the chamber. After a time it reached up on the jetty and collected all the pieces of shell. It took these to the device, and next to it, on the floor of the chamber, ground the shell to sludge and fed it into the tubes.

"What are the main constituents of those shells?" Chapra asked. Abaron replied, "Calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate."

Chapra's hands glided for a moment then she paused in irritation and plugged in her interlink. Her hands glided again.

"The device has been increased in size structurally, using those compounds, but its other constituents are more diffuse. These are carbon and copper compounds in the main, with aluminium, microscopic amounts of tungsten carbide ... " Chapra's voice trailed off and she sat there trancelike. After a time she turned to Abaron who was watching her carefully. "Now is our opportunity," she said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean I'm going in there."

"You must be insane," he said. He looked slightly ill.

"Box," she said, ignoring him. "I want those compounds in the precise proportion they are in the device, only ten times the quantity, separate and held in inert containers ... make the containers from the same material as the sphere inner shell, and in the same fashion. I leave it to you."

"What about contamination?" asked Abaron, a catch in his voice.

"None of its bacteria or viral forms have shown any pathogenic tendency in human tissue, and we are free of all harmful human viral or bacterial forms. Even the beneficent ones we do carry would not be able to survive in its environment."

"The heat?"

"I'll wear an environment suit, but I do not want to be completely cut off."

"Why?" asked Abaron, confused.

"If I completely enclose myself the creature may not be able to see me in its way. Remember, its primary senses are most like our senses of taste and smell — it has no vision." Abaron just shook his head and returned his attention to his console and display. Chapra smiled and stood, removed her interlink. Before leaving the room she rested her hand on Abaron's shoulder.

"Xenology is not the most clever choice for a xenophobe," she said, and headed for the door. Before she went through it he managed a reply. "It is exactly the right choice." Once she was outside the room and beyond Abaron's hearing, Box said, "He is right, and we watch him. His fear makes him a most meticulous researcher."

"Have you followed my instructions?"

"But of course. Judd awaits you in the isolation chamber."

"Superior bastard," she muttered as she strode down the corridor. The world of Callanasta was Diana Windermere's home world, and where the rest of the
Cable Hogue's
crew were stationed or lived on permanent call. It was also the world the
Hogue
orbited and, it had been established, that orbit was of great benefit to the Callanasta's two-centuries-old terraforming project. Diana thought it good that a breaker of worlds, just by its presence, assisted in the making of a world. The call came while she was spear fishing for the huge adapted turbot in the estuary. She was slowly coming up on one of the great diamond shapes as it cruised along the bottom when there came a splash above her and the iron crab of a remote drone sank down toward her. The turbot shot away in a cloud of silt and Diana resisted the temptation to shoot the spear at the drone. It would only bounce off. She surfaced and the drone surfaced with her.

"This is a priority call. You are to come at once," said the drone. Diana pulled her hemolung breather.

"Another fucking drill?" she spat.

"The crew are gating aboard at the moment. We leave the system in one hour." The voice was different all of a sudden. Diana realised the
Hogue
AI had just spoken to her and that it sounded excited. Usually it was locked into the net and too busy in other pursuits to even talk. Diana dropped her spear gun and opened up with her fastest crawl for the shore. She kicked off her flippers in the surf then ran down the grey strand to her beach house. She delighted in the strength of her body. To be this fit compensated for the times she had spent in hospitals being cell welded back together, just as the captaincy of the
Hogue
compensated for the years she had spent taking orders. She grinned to one side at the drone as it overtook her, carrying her flippers and spear gun. Her beach house was made of pine shipped around from the other side of the planet and was a replica of the chalets they built in Siberia in the twenty-second century shortly after the permafrost melted. At least, that's what the catalogue said. Diana did not care so long as she had room for her weapon collection and gym — not for her the augmentations that were so popular in Security, as she considered it better to know her own strength.

Inside the chalet she stripped off her swimsuit and stepped under the shower. As she did this she heard the thump of her spear gun and flippers hitting the floor. Out of the shower she dried, pulled on her jump suit, looked around for anything she might need. There was just one thing. She took a large ceramal commando knife down from its wall display and slid it into her boot. It was unlikely that she would use it; she just took it because she felt uncomfortable without it.