Creation Machine (8 page)

There was nothing. She swore under her breath and patted her ear with the flat of her hand so that her hearing thumped. ‘Muz?’

There was a sound like angry raindrops. It became words. ‘Shit, that was loud.’

‘Sorry. What’s going on?’

‘Got company.’

‘Expected?’

‘No.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t know yet.’ There was a pause, and Fleare heard static and shouting voices. Then Muz’s voice cut back in. ‘Look, are you through the gate?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyone around?’

‘Not in sight.’

‘Fingers crossed it’ll stay like that. Get to the security block. I’ve got an idea.’

‘Okay.’ Even as she spoke she sensed that he had tuned her out.

The security block was a few hundred metres away. Fleare compressed her lips and began to run, keeping to the edge of the wide street and dropping to a crouch as she passed the blank, empty windows of the abandoned buildings. The distant explosions were getting more frequent, and now she could hear the hisses and pops that meant someone was using energy weapons. The ground shook constantly and the air smelled of smoke and ozone.

The street was narrow near the gate, but broadened the further downhill it went, and the tall, irregular buildings of schist and sandstone gave way to more modern, although still very old, structures of foam stone and cinder blocks. Fleare preferred the claustrophobia of the older streetscape; the wider spaces made her feel thoroughly exposed. On an instinct, she slowed, then stopped and ducked into a doorway. As she did, something stung her cheek. She raised a finger to the place and held it out for examination.

Blood. Her cheek was bleeding. Which meant . . .

Pock!

A puff of dust kicked off the corner of the stone porch, barely an arm’s length away. Fleare launched herself into a flat sprint that took her along a snaking path out into the middle of the broad street and across to the other side, while the ground exploded in a line of angry little craters behind her. There was some kind of statue sticking out from the building opposite her. It was on an arched base; she threw herself under it, crashed painfully into the wall at the back, rolled as upright as the space allowed and slapped her ear. ‘Muz!’

‘
Ow
. What? Don’t shout.’

‘I’m not. All right, I am. Under attack, big time! Some sort of geriatric bullet thing. You were supposed to distract them. What the fuck did you do?’

‘Nothing! Well, apart from showing them a lot of very good porn. Kept them happy for a while. But now something’s triggered a legacy defence system. It wasn’t me. At least, I don’t think so. Are you under cover?’

‘Yeah, for the moment.’ The ground beneath the monument was raw earth; she scooped up a handful and threw it out towards the middle of the street. It landed in a deafening rattle of prehistoric gunfire. ‘Surrounded by automatics, though. Muz, get me the fuck out!’

‘Okay. Working on it.’ There was a pause. ‘Okay, Plan B. No, wait, fuck, okay, Plan C.’

‘Muz!’

‘Sorry. Plan D. Definitely. Listen, can you draw some fire near you? Um, as near as possible? I’m patched into the Monastery automatics but I need a fix. Plus-minus a couple of metres should do it.’

‘This had better be necessary.’ Fleare bit her lip, scooped another handful of earth and lobbed it gently out of the statue base. It landed in a straggling arc less than two metres from the statue. Fleare crouched and covered her head.

The ground in front of her exploded in a shatter of dust. Through the ringing in her ears she heard Muz. ‘Got it! Coming in. Ah, shit, wait. Look, sorry . . .’

‘What?’

But then her body buzzed and her sight darkened and things stopped mattering.

She woke up on a hard floor somewhere that smelled of oil. Her head ached. She risked opening an eye, winced at bright light, and closed it again.

‘Ah. Glad you’re awake. Feel okay?’ It was Muz’s voice.

Fleare forced both eyes open and looked around for him, but there was no one there. She was alone in a small room with plain metal walls. ‘What happened? And where are you?’

‘I had to, ah, expedite things. And you’re in a decontamination room just in case. This ship’s a little cautious; it thinks I’m contamination. I’m outside the door. I’ll be with you in a minute. Sorry.’ The voice didn’t sound apologetic.

‘Expedite?’ Fleare propped herself up on one elbow. It hurt. She shook her head carefully. ‘I feel like something hit me.’

‘You probably do. Stun field. As I said, sorry.’

Fleare got to her feet. ‘Was it you?’

‘Yes. Look, it wasn’t part of the plan, okay?’

‘Oh really. Not even Plan D? So why’d it happen?’ She wanted to stare accusingly at something, but the room was featureless. She selected a corner at random and glared up at it.

‘We got jumped. Some kind of fleet. A lot of small agile stuff and something much bigger that stayed a long way out. The small stuff might have been slaved to one control source, judging by the playback. Anyway,’ and the voice gave a stagey sigh, ‘we had to pull you out in a big hurry. Too fast for explanations; the best bet was to stun you, stick you in one of the Monastery’s own escape pods and sling you into low orbit.’

Fleare shook her head again. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘You’re telling me that a whole fleet got itself under the nose of the Monastery tower without triggering the big fireworks? When you had to sneak up on it disguised as a smoke cloud?’

‘Yup. They should have been boiled into plasma. They weren’t.’

Fleare frowned and rubbed cautiously at an aching leg. ‘Which means what?’ she asked. ‘Be simple, please. Thinking hurts.’

‘Okay, fair enough. Three options. One: the fleet was brought in by the Strecki and the Monastery decided not to interfere.’

Fleare thought back to her conversations with the Monastery AI. ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Lodgers or not, the sociopathic old fucker would have torched them in a heartbeat.’

‘That’s our analysis too.’ The voice paused as if gathering its thoughts, and Fleare had long enough to wonder who the ‘our’ was. ‘Option two: it was all the Monastery. That makes sense, in a way. It’s got plenty of out-of-the-way corners where it could have kept a slaved fleet, and it would explain why the fleet didn’t get boiled away into space.’

Fleare considered that. ‘Possible,’ she said, ‘although I can’t see why it would do that. What’s option three?’

‘Ah. Option three’s the interesting one, if not all that probable. Let’s assume that the Monastery stayed out of things because it did know the fleet was coming – had its blessing, in fact – but the fleet wasn’t Strecki?’

‘But why would some random battle fleet turn up just as you did? I mean, you didn’t whistle them up, did you? Oh, wait.’ Fleare stared at nothing for a second. Then she grinned. ‘You said interesting? Embarrassing, for my money.’

‘Why so?’ The voice sounded frosty.

‘Do the maths.’ Even through the headache Fleare was beginning to enjoy herself. ‘Just a standard mercenary fleet costs a million a minute. You said this one looked like it had central control. Maybe from the one major unit you managed to notice. That costs what? Ten times more?’

She waited for a response but none came. She went on: ‘So that means, someone with a shitload of cash knew you were coming and decided to join in. Ha! Busted!’

When it spoke the voice was quiet. ‘So think it through. Who’s the someone?’

Fleare frowned. ‘Who knows? Someone with big funds and big influence. Someone who knew you were coming. Someone . . . oh.’ She fell silent, staring at the floor. A knot formed in her stomach.

‘That’s right.’ The voice was gentle. ‘Someone wealthy and influential, who knew we were coming, because they had an interest in you.’

Fleare felt her lips set into a bitter line. ‘Daddy,’ she said.

‘As you say. Daddy.’

Fleare went on staring at the floor for a while. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

‘No. Not at all. I hope not, to be honest, if only because I’d rather it was someone with a bit less clout.’

‘Yeah. So do I.’ Fleare chewed her lip. She
was
sure, no matter how she tried to be naive instead, but she wasn’t going to give in that easily. ‘Well, when you find out it wasn’t him, let me know, will you? Otherwise, keep it to yourself.’ She stood up, driven by the need to be
not here
. ‘Now, Corporal Leader Muzimir fos Gelent – assuming I’m decontaminated, is someone in charge here?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Okay. I’ve always wanted to say this.’ She drew herself up. ‘Take me to your leader!’

‘Oh for
fuck’s
sake. Listen, you need a wash. Come on.’

The rest of the ship was – surprising. Fleare brushed a creeper aside. ‘You said this was an Orbiter.’

‘It is. It’s orbiting.’

‘It’s full of jungle.’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Yes it is! Look!’ She waved an arm around. ‘Trees! Hanging things! Insects! Hot! Jungle!’

‘No it
isn’t
. First, this is Meridian-Tropic Humid-Zone Triennial Forest.
Not
jungle. Second, the Orbiter isn’t full of it. There are seven other habitats, all different.’

‘Right.’ Fleare kept quiet for a few paces, while clouds of insects hissed around her. Then she shook her head. ‘No, I am going to ask. Why?’

‘The ship collects habitats. It looks after them.’

‘Not that. I meant why are we using it? And whose is it?’

‘The answer to the first question is that it was hanging around nearby and it said yes. As for the second, it isn’t really anyone’s any more. I guess it’s its. The guys that had the Monastery before the Strecki? They used it for corporate hospitality, but since they left it’s been at a loose end.’

‘Loose end? But the Strecki have been here for, what, a mil?’

‘A bit over.’

‘Wow.’ Fleare shook her head. ‘The long view. No wonder it needed a hobby.’

‘Yeah. Well, to be honest there’s more to it than that. A few years ago it chose a home planet; almost like a retirement hobby. It helped out, got into ecology, that kind of stuff. There were loads of rare species. Then the planet got Hegemonized.’

‘Is that a word?’

‘It is now. The planetary leadership thought they were taking out a long-term mortgage on some moons full of minerals. In fact there was some micro-print. They were tying their whole planetary GDP for the next century into a leveraged corporation owned by one of your father’s companies. A couple of years later someone sent them a bill for interest. The bill was the same size as the whole net worth of the planet and the moons put together.’

‘What did they do?’

‘Sold up. No choice. So the Heg’ stripped the planet, rare species, everything, and turned it over to intensive agriculture.’

‘Shit.’ She looked around. ‘How do I talk to it?’

‘Just talk. It’s listening. It doesn’t say much.’

‘Okay. Um, ship?’

There was a pause, and then a slight click and a background hiss as if someone had switched on something old.

‘Hello.’ The voice sounded old too, a soft breathy growl that could have been male or female.

‘Look, I’m sorry about the planet.’

‘You weren’t responsible.’

‘No.’ For a moment she didn’t know what to say next. Then she asked, ‘Why do you collect all this?’ She waved round, assuming that the ship could see as well as hear.

‘The habitats are conservation. They are from the planet, before it was defiled.’

‘Did you save everything?’

‘No. Barely one per cent of species. I had to choose.’

Choose.
The word did something to Fleare. ‘How?’

‘Badly. But better than the alternative.’ There was another click, and the hiss stopped.

Fleare looked at nothing for a moment, shaking her head gently.

She was roused by Muz’s voice. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. Just processing another reason we were right to fight the Heg’.’
And me, my father
, she thought, and shook her head again. Then she pushed back her shoulders. ‘Right, what next?’

‘Head for that rock over there.’

She peered through the dim light. ‘What, the hot damp jungly rock surrounded by hot jungly insects?’

‘It isn’t a jungle and that isn’t insects, thank you. It’s me. I’m waiting for you.’

‘Oh.’

The rock marked the edge of the habitat. The boundary was some sort of air curtain that looked like falling steam. It felt cool after the humid forest. On the other side there was a pool fed by a hot spring. Fleare looked at Muz and grinned. ‘I like this habitat better,’ she said.

Half an hour later she was bathed and dressed in some anonymous-looking clothes that had appeared while she was in the water – loose trousers and a smock in some sort of soft greeny-brown material that weighed almost nothing but felt warm – and best of all, she was eating finger-sized pieces of smokily roast meat from a tray full of skewers that had floated up to her and dropped to the flat rocks with a soft clang. She had forgotten that anything could taste like that. She chewed slowly and with a sense of astonished concentration, while Muz talked.

‘Society Otherwise was rolled up as a going concern the same day you were hauled off to the Monastery,’ he said. ‘It was the speed that got us, as much as anything. The Heg’ overwhelmed us. They never bothered talking about peace, or terms or shit. They just wrapped us up as if we had never existed.’

‘Were you . . .’ She searched for the right words, but couldn’t find them.

‘Was I still in my jar? Yeah, for a while. By the time they got up their courage to let me out the whole thing was over. Kelk and Jez were around long enough to say hi, then they were moved out as well. Spent six months in camps, then there was an amnesty and they got let out. Me too.’

‘Ameffy?’ Fleare pulled a face round her mouthful. She swallowed. ‘That was big of the Heg’. So where are they now?’

‘Jez is running some sort of transport business in the Outer Rotate. Kelk’s just bumming around, as far as I know. I’m in touch, once in a while.’

‘Hm.’ Fleare ate in silence for a while. Then she said quietly: ‘We were betrayed, weren’t we?’

‘When?’