The Skinner
Authors: Neal Asher
Neal Asher was born in Billericay, Essex, and still lives nearby. He started writing SF and fantasy at the age of sixteen and has since had many stories
published. His other full-length novels are
Gridlinked
,
The Line of Polity
,
Cowl
,
Brass Man
,
The Voyage of the Sable Keech
and
Polity Agent
.
Also by Neal Asher
The Parasite
Runcible Tales
The Engineer
Mindgames: Fool’s Mate
Gridlinked
The Line of Polity
Cowl
Brass Man
The Voyage of the Sable Keech
Polity Agent
Neal Asher
TOR
First published 2002 by Macmillan
First published in paperback 2003 by Tor
This electronic edition published 2009 by Tor
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-46541-0 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-46540-3 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-46542-7 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © Neal Asher 2002
The right of Neal Asher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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For Caroline – now in a real book.
Thanks to all those excellent people whose names stretch through the alphabet from Aldiss to Zelazny, and who have kept me spellbound for most of my life. All their names are
too numerous to list here, but they have been a continuous source of pleasure to me and a huge influence on what you find between these covers. Also my thanks to the wonderful people at Pan
Macmillan for their hard and meticulous work.
In any living sea on any world there are always creatures whose fate is integral to the gastronomic delight of other . . . creatures. Boxies might more correctly be
described as lunch-boxes, such was the purpose they served in the sea – and they knew it. Feeding upon occasional shoals of vicious plankton – which would make the experience of
swimming for a human akin to bathing in ground glass – and the dispersing remains of those many other creatures which, at some point, always served as an entrée, the boxies swam at
high speed and with a kind of nervous determination. Only by keeping moving like this could they reduce the frequency of leech attacks on their nerveless outer bodies. Only swift movement kept
them from the sickle-legs of prill and the serrated claws of glisters, or from the mouths of larger leeches, which would swallow them down whole. However, a successful survival strategy for a
species was not always so successful for all of its individuals: a boxy shoal increased with each addition of fry from each hatching of eggs laid on the stalks of sea-cane and decreased with
each attack upon it by a hungry predator, and therefore old age was not a common cause of death in it.
The reif sipped at his clear drink through a glass straw and seemed to have his attention focused beyond his companion, at somewhere in the middle of the opposite wall. Erlin
supposed he must be drinking one of the many chemical preservatives he used to prevent his flesh falling from his bones. The man who had just joined the reif sat with his back to Erlin, who now
noticed that he had something on his shoulder. When this something took off to do a circuit of the room, she was fascinated. It was an insect as large as a severed thumb and the drone of its wings
was loud in the subdued atmosphere of the shuttle lounge. The man was obviously indentured to a Hive mind, for the flying creature had to be a hornet from Earth – the eyes of a Hive mind.
What the hell could bring a reif and such a man here, together? Erlin picked up her coffee and began walking across to them, till a thickening of the air and a vague feeling of disorientation made
her pause.
From taking one step to another, Erlin realized that the safety field had tripped: a rough entry into atmosphere. But then, in her experience, things got steadily rougher from now on. She
glanced to the windows that slanted out at forty-five degrees from the outer edge of the lounge. The shuttle was now circling above the honeycomb which was the Polity base on the island of Chel,
and she observed how the sea surrounded the island in concentric rings of varying shades of green, as of split agate. The sea was calm down there, so what had tripped the safety field must be one
of the many storms that ripped through the thick upper layers of cloud. Finally reaching their table, she turned her attention fully on the seated pair.
‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked.
There was little discernible reaction from the reif, but the man grinned at her and gestured to an empty seat. He wasn’t bad-looking, Erlin thought, and his manner was pleasant, but he was
not
the
man.
Her
man was somewhere down on the sea below. She placed her coffee on the table, then pulled out the seat, turned it, and sat astride it with her forearms resting across
its back.
‘I’m curious to know why a reification should want to come here, and why someone indentured to a Hive mind,’ Erlin noticed the man frown, ‘should come here also.’
She looked with interest at each of them in turn, then glanced at the other passengers occupying the lander’s lounge. It was clear that fear or disgust had cleared a wide space around the
reif and his companion, and embarrassment had cast a pall over general conversation. Many of them were now trying very hard to appear not to be listening. Erlin shook her head as she focused her
attention on the reif. He was no cause for disgust. He didn’t stink, as reifs were popularly believed to, nor was he any cause for fear – some of the augmented types here in the lander
could have torn him limb from limb. But to Erlin he was a source of almost painful interest. What purpose had driven this man to want to continue functioning after his own death?
‘I am
not
indentured,’ said the reif’s companion, then took up his drink from the table before him and sipped.
Erlin turned to study him. ‘What?’ she asked
‘I’m
not
indentured,’ he repeated succinctly, putting down his drink.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Erlin, inspecting him.
He wore jeans tucked into the hard-wearing boots of an environment suit, and a loose cloth shirt, which was open at the neck to expose a Maori tiki charm. There was no visible sign of
augmentation on him, but that did not mean he was without it. Below unruly blond hair, his features were handsome and hawkish, and Erlin thought it likely he’d had his face restructured in
the past, but long in the past, because character now showed through and had softened the aseptic beauty of the cosmetic job. In his left ear, he wore a single diamond stud – which was
probably his Hive link transponder.
‘
Were
you indentured?’ she asked him.
‘Two years,’ he replied. ‘And those ended about twenty years ago.’
‘Two years . . . that’s the usual sentence for killing a hornet, isn’t it?’ said Erlin.
The man nodded and grinned, before reaching for his drink again. Erlin observed him for a moment longer, then curiosity drew her attention back to the man’s companion.
The reification was clad in a utile monofilament overall of bland grey, and he had a smooth lozenge of metal hanging from a chain around his neck. He had obviously been a heavy-worlder when
alive. Now his muscles were stringy on his thick skeleton, his hands bony claws, and what was visible of his face, under a half-helmet augmentation, was that of a grey mummy. Erlin next studied the
aug: it was golden, had a cartouche inset into its surface, and had, extending from the inner side of it and curving round under the reif’s one visible eye, an irrigator fashioned in the
shape of a cobra with its hood spread. The reif’s eye was blue, and it seemed to be the only part of him that was remotely alive.
Of course
, she could see now what might have brought these two people together: the fear and disgust of the others here. Most people had yet to dispel their atavistic fear of large
stinging insects, and most did not like to share the company of corpses, no matter how interesting the conversation might prove to be. More than anything else in any world, Erlin wanted something
to maintain her interest. She wondered just what stories there might be here.
The reif dropped his glass straw back into his drink and, with slow precision, he leant back. As he turned his blue eye upon her now, Erlin imagined she could hear the creaking of his neck.
There came a clicking gulp from deep in his throat, then he spoke in a surprisingly mild baritone, his words slightly out of sync with the movement of his mouth. But then, Erlin thought it unlikely
that his vocal cords actually generated his voice.
‘Many would seek immortality here,’ he said, and deliberately tilted his head to peer at the circular blue scar on Erlin’s forearm. It was an easy conversational gambit to turn
attention away from himself. Erlin pretended no reaction to his words, but suddenly felt very hot and uncomfortable. The secret of Spatterjay had been out for many years, and immortality was a
commodity in a buyer’s market. Why did she feel guilty?
‘Many would find it and wish they hadn’t,’ said Erlin. Just then, the hornet droned back from across the room and Erlin could not help but notice how the other passengers
flinched away from it, then tried to appear as if they had not. There was much nervous laughter in its wake. As it settled again on the man’s shoulder he merely glanced at it, then reached
into the top pocket of his shirt and removed a small vial. From this he tipped a puddle of syrup on to the tabletop. The insect launched from his shoulder to the table, where it landed with a
noticeable rattle, then it walked stiff-legged to the puddle to sip. Erlin saw that the creature’s thorax was painted with luminous intricate lines, as of a circuit diagram. They must mean
something to someone – but not necessarily anyone human. On the table also lay a shoulder carry-case for hornets. Inside the case was another hornet, still as if sealed in clear liquid
plastic.
After a brief silence the man said, ‘There’s a place, you know, where people live in the bodies of giant snails which float in the sky suspended from gas-filled shells.’
Erlin absorbed the comment with almost a feeling of delight. At the sound of the next clicking gulp, she turned back to the reification.
The reif said, ‘On Tornos Nine, people live under the sea in giant mechanical lobsters. It’s all for tourism, really. Every lobster contains its own hotel and restaurant. There are
few private lobsters.’