Polity 4 - The Technician (44 page)

‘Survivors,’
said Blue.

‘What?’
Sanders turned to the dracowoman.

‘Survivors
of the hooder attack on Bradacken way station,’ Blue explained. ‘Another
attempt on the life of the one you are here to meet.’

‘Jeremiah
Tombs.’

‘Yes.’

‘Someone’s
controlling hooders?’ she asked, confused.

‘In a
way, yes,’ Blue replied. ‘We isolated the gabbleduck death hormone here not
long after The Sowing, and supplied that data to Rodol when the Tagreb arrived.
Neither we nor Rodol have made that information commonly available, so someone
else must have both isolated it and synthesized it.’

‘Death
hormone?’ Sanders repeated, feeling slightly slow as she processed this new
information. Yes, she knew about the hormone, just as she knew that The Sowing
was a reference to the Greek myth of Cadmus sowing the dragon’s teeth – it was
effectively the time these dracomen first popped out of the ground like hostile
asparagus shoots. ‘Someone lured hooders to Bradacken using the hormone?’

‘The way
station is gone. Many were killed.’

‘What
about Tombs and Leif Grant?’

‘They
survived and, along with an Earthnet reporter, were transported to the Tagreb
where Tombs at last begins to reveal the one within. Next they come here.’

Sanders
left that ‘one within’ alone, instead asking, ‘Why is he coming here?’

Blue
gazed at her with large unreadable eyes that she noted also contained a hint of
the female’s overall hue. Perhaps Blue was something like the dracoman version
of an albino? No, dracomen did not really possess DNA like Humans and, though
they reproduced, every new dracoman fitted precise specifications. There was no
random mutation, no random surfacing of alleles. Blue had been engineered to be
blue or that colouration was an insignificant side-effect of some other
specification. Could it be that Blue was a diplomat and her colour a more
soothing one to the Human eye? Sanders shook her head in dismissal – so easy to
get paranoid around these creatures.

‘We are
on his route,’ Blue told her, a momentary confusion flashing across the
dracowoman’s expression. ‘Dragon Down lies between the Tagreb, the place he is
currently departing, and the Atheter AI.’

‘Just
coincidence then.’

‘Coincidence,’
Blue repeated. ‘An interesting Human term.’ Blue dipped her head in what might
have been contemplation for a moment. ‘The time is just right.’

‘For
what?’

‘Answers.’

‘What
answers?’

‘To the
witness.’

Sanders
felt a momentary frustration then dismissed it. She knew enough about Dragon
and enough about dracomen to be sure she would get no further. We must never forget where they come from, she thought to
herself.

Those
were the words that had come out in a conversation all but forgotten until now.
Just after the Polity raised the quarantine she’d returned to the mainland for
a break from her fruitless efforts with Tombs. Lellan Stanton had spoken those
words in Zealos, beside the partially reconstructed spaceport, where dracomen
were climbing into Polity landers and going off to fight in some larger
conflict to which the rebellion and subsequent events on Masada had just been a
sideshow.

Sanders
stepped up onto the walkway after Blue and followed her into Dragon Down. So
where did dracomen come from – it was a long and tortuous story. Their main
population here was a creation of Dragon a mere twenty years ago, but in
essence they were Dragon – a singular entity turned into a race, not even that
. . . one of four facets of a singular entity . . . Sanders had acquired the
story in pieces that just did not seem to fit well together and realized she
did not know it all.

We must never forget where they come
from.

Sure –
presupposing you had any idea where that was.

Blue led
her on a winding course through Dragon Down to a huge oblate building lying
just off the central park – the structure recognizable as Human accommodation
because it actually possessed windows and a balcony area engirdling it. The
central park itself was a gridded area seeded with low leafy growth, divided up
by raised beds crammed with the products of an agronomist’s dream, or
nightmare, scattered with grape trees, yellow avocado trees, and many others
she did not recognize, all producing odd colourful fruits. Sanders wondered if
a foamstone raft lay underneath this place or if the dracomen used some sort of
biotechnology to keep tricones at bay and prevent flute grass coming up
underneath everything like a bed of nails. Here dracoman gardeners laboured
with hand tools that looked like they must be locked up for the night, after
being fed, or checked upon monitors clinging like glass limpets to some plants.

‘Who are
they?’ Sanders asked, indicating with a nod the four men lounging on the
balcony.

‘Just
travellers,’ Blue replied. ‘The elder is called Ripple-John and the other three
are his sons, Sharn, Kalash and Blitz. They arrived ahead of the others from
the intervention zone around Bradacken. It’s safe here because the wind is
carrying the hormone south.’

Sanders
glanced back. Some of those she had seen getting down from the lizard mounts
had passed the gravbus and were heading this way. The driver of the bus was
back inside, ready to run the vehicle to Zealos, probably. She followed Blue up
the steps onto the balcony around the Human accommodation, uncomfortably aware
of the intentness with which the four men on the balcony were studying her. She
raised a hand to them, but only got that stare in return.

The
inside of the building was odd. Intervening corridors seemed to be just the
gaps between a collection of spheres that had apparently been inflated inside.
Blue finally brought her to a door, which was a simple affair of woven and
resin-bonded flute-grass stalks with a plain handle to one side – no palm locks
or DNA security here.

‘I am
informed that Tombs will arrive here tomorrow morning,’ Blue said as Sanders
inspected the interior of her room. It seemed almost bucolic – a peasant
dwelling out of some history book, none of the weird biomechanisms she had
expected to find. Her trunk settled to the floor with a sigh, as if
contemptuous of its surroundings.

‘Okay.’
Sanders nodded affirmation, suddenly feeling a nervousness at meeting her
charge again. ‘Is there somewhere I can get something to eat and drink?’

‘Of
course,’ said Blue, imparting precise directions before departing.

The
refectory was another sphere, refrigerated food and primitive cooking equipment
available. She made sandwiches and took them back to her room, wondering why
the dracomen hadn’t taken advantage of readily available Polity technology,
then thinking perhaps that the dracomen did not want to allow potential Trojans
into their domain. She had finished eating and was considering just climbing
inside the bed she sat upon when the door opened and Ripple-John stepped
inside, his three sons coming in behind him.

‘Jerval
Sanders,’ he said cheerfully. ‘What an unexpected bonus!’

‘What
the—’ was all she managed before he stepped forward and smashed his fist into
her mouth.

Dragon
(again)

Great has been the speculation about the
motives of Dragon (in its various incarnations). It has been involved in numerous
nefarious activities; set up Dracocorp to produce its dubious augs; was
responsible for the Samarkand runcible explosion and the 30,000 resultant
deaths; supplied the nano-mycelium that wrecked Outlink Station Miranda;
sacrificed one of its four spheres on the world of Masada, converting its mass
into the race of Dracomen; tampered with Human DNA on the world of Cull to make
grotesque hybrids of men and local life forms; and fought with the Polity
against Jain technology. So what is its ultimate purpose, people ask. Is it for
us or against us? Is it attacking the Polity or helping the Polity? That they
ask questions like this is due to Dragon’s sheer scale and the power it
commands. Surely such a being must possess great insight and some numinous ultimate
aim. Wake up: godlike powers don’t necessarily imply a godlike purpose. Dragon,
it seems to me, is like a child at the controls of a bulldozer, very much
enjoying the ride and rather careless of the havoc it wreaks.

–
From HOW IT IS by Gordon

Sanders shot backwards over the other side of her bed to collapse on the
floor and Ripple-John walked round to gaze down at her. She lay there stunned
but he allowed himself the pleasure of driving his boot into her stomach a
couple of times.

‘So what
now?’ asked Blitz, as Kalash closed the door behind them.

Ripple-John
stepped back, breathing heavily but not from exertion, and instead of
continuing the beating as he wanted, drew his pepperpot stun gun. The weapon
cracked in his hand, slamming a cloud of knockout needles into her back. What
now indeed.

The
sight of Jerval Sanders stirred up a killing rage in him and had been the
impetus for him to go after her straight away like this. Here lay the Polity
medtech who had for so long looked after Jeremiah Tombs as if it mattered
whether the man was sick or well, mad or sane. Here, he felt, was the woman who
had denied the Tidy Squad access to that piece of shit for over twenty years.
That wasn’t a rational assessment, he knew, but the others who had protected Tombs
did not wear a Human face and so were more difficult to hate.

‘She
could die,’ said Sharn, rounding the bed to stand beside Ripple-John and gaze
with complete indifference down at Sanders, who was making choking bubbling
sounds.

True.
Having received a kicking then a blast of stun-gun needles she might choke on
her own vomit. Ripple-John considered letting her do so, considered using the
stun antidote on her then, when he had her full attention, pulling the knife
from his boot and doing something artistic with her face before cutting her
throat. However, he had stunned her for reasons not yet quite clear to him –
she would be useful, somehow. He stooped and pulled her into a recovery
position, stuck his finger deep into her mouth and hooked out lumps of half-digested
sandwich, gripped her hair and slapped her back until she coughed up the rest.
After a moment she was breathing easier and he stood.

‘We use
her,’ he said decisively.

‘How?’
Blitz asked.

Kalash
now spoke up. ‘Bait.’

‘But how
do we use that bait?’ Blitz asked, always looking for the holes. ‘Tombs, Grant
and the Earthnet reporter were transported to the Tagreb in some sort of
underground vessel. We know that and we know Tombs is coming here.’ He waved a
hand at their surroundings. ‘But killing him here?’

Ripple-John
dipped his head in acknowledgement. That they had arrived here after Bradacken
was merely due to the fact that this place was the nearest haven from the way
station. It was pure luck that they had arrived at Tombs’s next destination.

‘No, not
here,’ Ripple-John agreed. ‘At least not while we remain.’ Conducting a direct
hit here would be tantamount to suicide and, even if they managed it, would
most certainly result in him and his sons ending up dead. Though he was
fanatical about killing Theocracy shits, his fanaticism did not extend that
far.

‘The
hormone?’ suggested Sharn.

Ripple-John
shook his head. ‘We don’t have enough of it, and anyway the dracomen would get
them out.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Their biotech’s very advanced too and they’d
probably detect it and quickly shut it down.’

‘A
bomb?’ Sharn suggested.

Ripple-John
peered at him. He often felt that Sharn was the dud in the magazine. ‘And where
would we put it to ensure we got him?’

Sharn
shrugged.

‘No.’
Ripple-John considered their options, tried to put his thoughts in order.
‘Tombs is no longer protected by the thing that screwed Tinsch and later got
him away from the hooders at Bradacken.’

‘You’re
sure?’ Blitz asked.

The ATV
driver and Tidy Squad member at the Tagreb had been reluctant to impart
information now Squad Command had said Tombs must be left alone, but a few
blatant threats and Ripple-John’s reputation had been enough to open him up.

‘We saw
what happened to it on Earthnet, and it’s outside the Tagreb still – the Technician
fucked it up bad. If it goes on the move again we’ll be informed at once.’

‘If
Tombs travels from here underground we can’t touch him,’ said Sharn.

Ripple-John
glanced at him again. Maybe not a complete dud.

‘So
while he’s on his way here we can’t hit him,’ said Blitz. ‘We can’t hit him
here either, nor will we be able to if he takes the underground route away.’

‘We
ensure he doesn’t use that route from here,’ said Ripple-John, the vague shape
of a plan forming in his mind.

‘A
distance shot from outside,’ said Kalash, true to his name. ‘All we have to do
is wait for that underground vessel to surface and wait for him to step out.’

‘And
we’d be dead a few minutes after that.’

‘You
think dracomen are that fast?’ Kalash asked.

Blitz
was the eldest, a teenager during the rebellion, but the other two had taken no
part in the fighting. Blitz knew, but Sharn and Kalash had no idea.

‘They
can travel overland faster than an aerofan can fly. If they catch you they
don’t need weapons and can continue fighting even with half their bodies blown
away. I saw that. We don’t risk pissing them off.’

‘So
how?’ asked Sharn, then prodded Sanders with the toe of his boot, ‘And where
does she come in?’

‘We use
a small, discrete bomb to disable that mud vehicle,’ Ripple-John replied,
‘detonated remotely from a good distance – that’ll be your job.’ He paused,
thinking it through. ‘After that they’ll have no choice but to leave either by
air or overland. If it’s the first then Kalash gets to play with the missile
launcher. If it’s the second we get to use her as bait.’ He prodded Sanders
with his boot. Yes, preferable to use her to get those inside a land vehicle on
the outside where they would be easier to pick off, because they then stood a
chance of capturing Tombs alive and could thereafter spend some quality time
with him. Ripple-John really liked that idea.