The Age of Scorpio (3 page)

‘Why’s it speaking monkey if it’s Seeder tech?’ Melia asked before remembering everyone else on the
Swan
was either human or started off that way. Brett looked at her reproachfully. Eden just glared.

‘I don’t know. I’m not getting anything through the hull. Eden?’ Nulty said.

Eden went through the sensor suite, but a combination of the Red Space environment and the craft/thing’s hull/skin was blocking even the harshest of active scans.

Something occurred to Brett. ‘Was this the area where the glitch was coming from?’ he asked Eldon.

Eldon considered this. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what? We tow this to the rendezvous and get paid?’ Melia asked, undisguised greed in her voice. She was not very interested in sensor glitches. Eldon seemed reluctant to answer the question.

‘What?’ Melia demanded.

‘We need to go on board,’ Eldon said. Melia looked at him like he was insane. Brett was nodding eagerly.

‘Fuck that!’ Melia said.

Eden was irritated to find herself forced to agree with Melia. ‘Go inside what? We don’t even know if it’s a ship! It could be a fucking animal for all we know, and I don’t want to get swallowed. If it is a ship, the environment might be completely inimical to human life.’

Melia was nodding in agreement.

‘Then why’s it broadcasting in human common?’ Eldon asked.

‘I don’t know, a caught transmission? A lure?’

‘How dangerous can they be if they’re transmitting a mayday?’ Brett asked. Eden just looked at him as if he was a moron.

‘He’s right,’ Nulty said. ‘We want to salvage this, we have to check to see if it has crew.’

‘The crew of that thing can’t be subject to Consortium salvage laws,’ Eden said, getting more heated. ‘If that’s Seeder tech, what if the whole thing is filled with servitors? Have you thought about that?’ They gave a shiver. All of them had seen the wedge-headed, multi-limbed, armoured carapace effigies of the last living remnants of Seeder biotech, crucified on the X-shaped crosses in churches.

‘Then we can’t take it back into Known Space,’ Nulty said.

‘Look, this is a big fucking score—’ Eldon started.

‘Yeah, for you. Even with a bonus it’s not worth the risk for the rest of us,’ Eden said. Eldon was less than pleased to see Melia nodding in agreement.

‘But, Baby Doll, you’ll get to share in my fortune,’ Eldon pleaded.

‘Uh uh, not this time. I want an equal share. When I agreed to our little arrangement you misled me into thinking that you were a ship’s captain . . .’

‘I am.’

‘No, you’re owner of a piece of shit. I want an equal share.’

‘Equal share? Are you actually going to do something or just hide in your cryo-pod until it’s over?’ Eden asked.

Melia turned to glare at the more masculine, scaled woman. ‘I’ll do my bit,’ she answered haughtily. Eden just raised an eyebrow.

‘Look. I am the captain, and you will fucking do as you’re told or you’ll be out that airlock for mutiny!’ Eldon screamed at them, visions of his fortune slipping away. Melia, Eden and Brett just looked at him sceptically.

‘And how do you intend to enforce that?’ Eden asked. Eldon turned to look pleadingly at Melia. He couldn’t believe she’d turned on him after he’d treated her so well.

‘Oh, grow up,’ the feline snapped.

‘I think it’s time to negotiate, boss,’ Nulty said.

‘This is mutiny,’ Eldon said weakly. The rest of them ignored him. ‘We don’t even know how to get in.’

Eldon had finally admitted how much his mysterious contact was paying him after Eden held him upside down and Melia threatened to torture him. To make matters worse, Brett had had to intervene on Eldon’s behalf, further adding to the humiliation.

Brett was piloting the
Swan
steadily nearer to the craft/thing, trying to get close enough for their active scans to work, when it happened. During a very slow pass, something seemed to grow out of the craft. It looked like a tunnel made of the hull’s rubbery flesh.

‘What is it?’ Melia asked. There was something obscene about it, Melia decided, and it wasn’t as if she had terribly delicate sensibilities. ‘Some kind of defence system?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Nulty communicated over the interface. ‘I think it’s a docking arm?’

Brett swung the engine arms around to bring the
Swan
to a halt. The tunnel seemed to be swaying in the cloudy Red Space in front of them.

‘You’re going to let that touch the
Swan
?’ Eden asked doubtfully, looking over at Eldon. Eldon was crouched in the corner, sulking. He had been trying to work out how get the money for the ship/thing and then burn the rest of the crew. He looked up at the sound of Eden’s voice.

‘Oh what? Am I captain again? Is there actual work to be done?’

‘Take it easy, Cap’n,’ Brett said good-naturedly.

‘Go and fuck yourself, muscle-head,’ Eldon muttered. Brett just laughed as if it was friendly banter.

Eldon had seen the thing in his mind but he walked over to look through the transparent hull.

‘Nulty, if it goes badly do you reckon you can cut that thing?’ Eldon asked.

‘Er . . . yes,’ Nulty said. He did not sound very sure of himself.

Eldon turned to Eden. ‘Sure, why not? A fifth of something is better than nothing and you gotta take risks if you want the pay-off. Besides,’ he stabbed a finger at Melia, ‘maybe then I can get rid of this bitch and get a decent concubine.’ Eldon glared at her. ‘You’re coming. None of your bullshit. I’ve got the contract. You don’t come, you don’t get paid, understand me?’ Melia looked like she was about to argue. ‘Besides, if it all goes horribly wrong I want to make sure that you die as well as me.’

Melia hissed and made an obscene gesture.

Brett pushed both hands into the ball of semi-solid liquid. The spacesuit started crawling up his arms, covering them and then growing down his torso. He held the visor in front of his face and the liquid suit crawled over his head to connect with it. The armoured environment bladders on the suit inflated as they took gas from the surrounding atmosphere. The suit had already connected to his neunonics and Brett adjusted the gas mix with a thought.

He had already adjusted his nano-screen, brought it in close to his body, only leaving a little outside the suit. Whenever he did this it always made his skin crawl but he knew this was psychosomatic. A screen of nanites surrounded Brett, like everyone else in Known Space, everyone who didn’t want to quickly sicken or die and could afford it. The screen prevented him from being attacked by rogue nano-swarms, provided him with a degree of privacy and stopped him from coming down with all but the most sophisticated advertising nano-viruses. Nanite pollution was so extreme in all but the most expensive enclaves in Known Space that without a screen you would be dead within days, or at very best sporting a colourful rash advertising the latest soft drink.

However, for cultures that did not have such a high level of nanite pollution exposure, the nano-screens themselves could be potentially harmful.

‘First-contact protocols?’ Brett asked. He had just realised that he’d always wanted to say that.

Melia and Eden stopped and looked at him as if he was mad.

‘What do you think happens if there’s a crew on board, arsehole?’ Eldon demanded. Brett was taken aback by the anger in his tone. Eldon was just pissed off that he had to spell this shit out to Brett. ‘We get nothing. Reining in our nano-screens is the least of our issues.’

Brett just stared at Eldon as he lifted one foot and then the other so the spacesuit could assemble the hard-wearing soles.

Eldon was holding the quick-release holster for his double-barrelled laser pistol to the thigh of the suit so it could bond, as Eden handed out the double-barrelled disc guns. The disc guns were basically electromagnetic shotguns. It fired solid-state cartridges of smart matter that split into multiple razor-sharp aerodynamic discs. Designed to be fired semi-automatically, the disc guns had a pump-action mechanism to help clear the inevitable jams. Like most brutal close-quarters weapons, they had been designed by one of the tribes of lizard uplifts. Eden held out one of the weapons to Brett. He eyed it through his visor for a while and then took it from her.

‘Just so you know,’ Eldon said, holding up a hardened biohazard container. ‘Just so you’re in just as much trouble as the rest of us if this screws up. Just so you can’t claim you had no knowledge or rat us out, this is a bucket of the most potent virals I could lay my hands on. If we get in and there’s crew, this is for them.’ Brett stared at it. He looked like he was about to object but he caught a glimpse of three hard faces watching him through darkening visors. ‘In fact, I think you should carry this.’ Eldon held the canister out. Eldon was enjoying this, starting the boy down the long road of moral compromises and disappointments that was life. He also thought he was doing the boy a favour. You want to prosper, then people are going to have to die; it was an important life lesson.

‘I don’t want to—’ Brett began.

‘Just fucking man up,’ Eden snapped at him. Brett had thought they were friends.

Brett swallowed hard and took the canister from Eldon.

‘Fuck up, you get left. Don’t hold up your end, you get left. Understand?’ Eldon was starting to feel more in control again. Also, he was never going to get tired of making this kid miserable. Brett just nodded.

With a thought Eldon fired the
Swan
’s engines gently to spin the ship slowly and match up the end of the tunnel of flesh with the
Swan
’s crew airlock. Compared to the jarring impact of most docking arms, this felt like a kiss.

Eden checked the readings from the sensors on the outer airlock door in her neunonic feed. ‘We’ve got a seal. Atmosphere looks fine, all within uplift tolerances, no discernible exotics, no discernible nano-activity, but I’ll run a more thorough check when we’re through . . .’

‘What?’ Melia asked.

‘Nothing, just it looks a bit moist is all.’

Eldon tried not to think that he’d let his clone insurance lapse. He transferred command protocols to Nulty.

‘You’ve got the
Swan
, Nulty,’ he said across the interface.

‘Okay, boss. Go careful.’

Eldon sent the command to open the airlock.

The sound of the water lapping against the rocks at the mouth of the cave had pushed through into her dream and gently woken her. Britha opened her eyes. Her lover’s silver skin reflected the sunlight that had managed to penetrate the sea cave. The selkie’s fine scales turned the light into a glittering rainbow pattern.

‘You slept,’ Cliodna said.

Cliodna was sitting next to her, naked as she always was, gently stroking the border where the shaved stubble on the side of Britha’s head met her long dark-brown hair.

Britha rolled onto her side to better look up at the other woman. The muscles on her back flexed, making the tattoo of a Z-shaped broken spear entwined with a serpent move as if the snake lived. ‘More like passed out,’ Britha said, smiling up at Cliodna, who smiled back, but the smile looked sad.

The dark pools of her lover’s eyes were impossible to read, so different were they from those of Britha’s own people, the ancestor folk, the Pecht as they called themselves.

Britha propped herself up on her elbow. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I . . .’ the selkie started and went quiet as if she was searching for the words. The last few times Britha had visited her, Cliodna had seemed even more quiet than normal. Britha felt an ache in her chest.

‘Cliodna . . .’ Britha reached for her. The change was instant. Cliodna hissed, the nails that Britha liked to feel across her skin suddenly looked like claws; needle-like teeth were bared, and the selkie bolted for the back of the cave. Britha started away from her lover. She knew that the other woman shared ways with the animals, as Britha did if the ritual required it of her, but Cliodna had always seemed so gentle. Britha angrily suppressed her moment of fear. She bore her scars well. Fear was not something she could entertain even in the face of the Otherworld.

Britha pushed herself up onto her feet and made her way into the darkness at the back of the cave. She was still naked; it did not occur to her to clothe herself. Like many of her people she was more comfortable naked, she was even prepared to go to war like this. Intricate interwoven tattoos of animals whose traits she wanted, or symbols of power that could armour her, covered her upper right arm, across her muscular shoulders and down her left arm to her fingers. More tattoos curled down onto her breasts and ran up her right calf. All of them were various shades of blue, from the darkest midnight to the brightest summer sky. The woad had taken her to many places and shown her many visions when they had pierced her skin with it. She had lost days travelling beyond this land in the waking dreams it brought on.

Cliodna was crouched down hugging her legs, her long dark hair covering her features. Britha crouched down and reached for her, but Cliodna flinched away from her touch.

‘Cliodna, what’s wrong?’ Britha asked.

‘I . . . we’re not like you.’

‘Selkies?’

‘That’s just what you call me. To give me a name, so you can understand . . . We have to do things – we’re governed by different laws.’

‘What are you telling me? That your people wouldn’t approve?’ Britha asked. She didn’t think that the rest of the Cirig would like what they were doing either, but none would dare challenge her and after all, one of her responsibilities as
ban draoi
was to treat with the Otherworld. Though this probably wasn’t what they had in mind, Britha mused.

Cliodna’s laugh was short and bitter. ‘My people . . . they would not understand but nor would they care.’

‘Then what?’

‘I can’t explain . . . my responsibilities – things that I have no choice but to do . . .’

‘What are you telling me?’ Britha all but demanded. She was not the most patient of people and she was beginning to feel exasperated. Britha felt she was already being a lot more patient than she would have been with a male lover but then something about their pricks turned them into lack-wits.