The Skinner (47 page)

Keech took aim at its eyes, but Roach caught hold of his wrist.

‘It’s only playin’. Won’t do to annoy it,’ he warned.

The scooter tilted over as the carp shoved it towards the shore. It was now travelling faster than it had moved for some hours, waves slapping against its underside while the AG motor puffed out
smoke and whined alarmingly. The molly carp abruptly stopped propelling it, the scooter continued on, only the occasional wave slowing its progress.

‘Beach ahead!’ yelled Boris.

The scooter skipped over a mound sticking out of the water, smearing frog whelks with its underside. It continued to skip waves like a skimmed stone and the AG finally started to give out. The
probe said something nonsensical that nevertheless sounded obscene. The scooter ploughed right into the beach, flinging its three passengers on to the sand.

Keech swore, sat up and spat out a mouthful of sand. Boris groaned and stayed lying on his back. Roach was the first to his feet and limped unsteadily to the waterline. The molly carp rounded
the mound they’d just bounced over, cruising in close to the shore where it drew to an abrupt halt.

‘Did it mean to do that?’ asked Keech.

‘I reckon,’ said Boris.

‘Like hell,’ said Roach.

The carp now started shaking violently, so that the water foamed all around it. It then tilted back, opened its mouth wide, and made a loud groaning sound.

‘Weird,’ said Boris.

Suddenly the beast sank out of sight – but not for long. It exploded from the water, straight into the air, and seemed to hover there, hanging nose-down for a moment, before crashing back
into the sea.

‘I ain’t never seen one do that before,’ observed Roach.

‘Me neither,’ said Boris.

Keech stared at the creature in perplexity. The way it had hung there in the air for a long moment had been . . . well, very strange. The carp was out of sight again, but left evidence of where
it was by the gas and silty detritus bubbling to the surface. A putrid smell wafted in across the waves.

‘I reckon it isn’t well,’ commented Boris.

Just then, something exploded from the water with a whoosh and flash of light and shot over to hover above them.

‘I see,’ said Keech, though he wasn’t sure he did.

Sniper settled lower, opened his heavy claw, and dropped the monitor’s antiphoton weapon to the sand. He flexed his legs and shook himself. Rancid pieces of meat fell from his scarred
armour. Keech felt a stirring of memory: hadn’t there been something like this involved in the clean-up operation here all those centuries ago? This was a war drone of very old design, he
realized, and though ancient and without human expression it certainly managed to appear pissed off.

‘You all right?’ grated the drone.

Keech was about to give an answer when a movement caught his eye. He glanced down at the seahorse SM, as it made a buzzing sound and flipped itself upright on the sand, balancing on its
tail.

‘Sprzzt, kill ’em,’ the little SM managed.

Sniper turned and faced out to sea, then turned back to them.

‘Fucking Prador drones,’ he said. ‘Let’s see how they handle a real war drone.’ And with that, Sniper racketed into the sky, opened up his fusion engine and was
soon just a dot on the horizon.

‘What was that all about?’ Keech asked, studying the SM. The effort had obviously been too much for Thirteen, who went over sideways on the sand with a thump.

‘Prador drones?’ Keech queried the two Hoopers. Boris and Roach appeared just as confused. Keech went over to retrieve his weapon.

‘Maybe they’re back here. Maybe the war’s on again,’ said Roach.

Keech shook his head as he moved to the luggage compartment of the grounded scooter. From it he took out the portable medkit Erlin had given him, sat down on the sand, then injected and bandaged
his wrist. This was the problem in using cybermotors ungoverned by an aug: they could over-reach the strength of the bones they were attached to. As an afterthought, he looked up at Roach.

‘You need this kit?’ he asked.

Roach flexed his hand then batted at his legs. Thick scabbing fell away from the burns exposed through his charred trousers, and clean skin was revealed underneath.

‘Don’t need none of that stuff,’ he said.

‘I thought not,’ said Keech.

When he had finished working on his wrist, Keech stood and turned towards the dingle. The sudden and disconcerting appearance of that war drone he had to dismiss as irrelevant, simply because he
had no explanation for it. Now he must concentrate on the matter in hand. It occurred to him that if Frisk thought he was dead, she might leave Spatterjay. Then again, she might also have come here
in search of Jay Hoop, and Keech wanted both of them.

‘Ambel and the others should be here somewhere, searching for your Skinner,’ he said.

‘That’s so,’ said Boris, staring contemplatively at Thirteen.

‘How do we find them?’ Keech asked.

‘They’ll have landed on the other side of the island,’ said Boris.

‘Best we head over there, then.’

He fired his APW into the dingle. There was a blinding purple flash and a thunderclap. Once the debris had settled, Boris and Roach got up from the sand and glared at Keech accusingly. Keech
gestured to the avenue he had opened up lined with burning trees. He grinned and went stomping on in there. Roach limped after him and Boris moved to follow, hesitated, then went back to Thirteen.
He picked up the SM before hurrying after the other two. ‘Sprzzt thanks,’ said the submind.

Pieces of bubble metal floating in the sea pinpointed where the two drones had died.

‘That Prador drone won’t be here,’ said Sniper. ‘You realize it
was
your secondary emitter and that there’ll be more of the bastards?’

‘I am aware of that, Sniper,’ the Warden replied.

‘You also understand that you’ve got no chance of pinning down that signal until we’ve thinned a few of them out and whoever’s sending it starts getting
desperate?’

‘I am aware of that also, Sniper.’

‘What is it you’re after, then?’ asked the war drone.

‘Enough code to decipher, then I can break into the transmission.’

‘To get that’s gonna mean a stand-up fight. These bastards ain’t gonna hang around while we record their overspill.’

‘How fortunate, then,’ said the Warden, ‘that you are no longer anally retentive, so to speak.’

‘Look, we need to work out how to do this,’ snapped Sniper.

‘What would you suggest?’

‘I suggest we find the fuckers and blow them. The more we blow, the less of them can act as secondaries. That way we’re sure to get more and more of their code.’

‘Well, that sounds like a good plan. How do you suggest we locate them?’

‘Sarcasm don’t help,’ said Sniper. ‘I know Prador, and if there’s one here, it’s in the deepest hole it can find. So what’s the deepest hole in Nort
Sea?’

There was a long delay before the Warden replied, and its tone had somewhat changed when it did. ‘Yes, there
is
one very deep trench down there.’

‘And I’d bet that where I am now has a clear and direct line to the bottom of that trench.’

‘Why is that relevant?’ asked the Warden. ‘Under-space transmissions go
under
space. They are not affected by anything less than a planetary gravity well.’

‘It’s relevant,’ Sniper lectured, ‘because Prador stole U-space tech from us. They still think like they’re using realspace transmitters, and in terms of direct
links and control. That’s their psychology. Put a mountain in the way of the signal, and a Prador will think it’s not quite in control of that signal’s recipient. Your secondary
emitters will be found in an area above that trench.’

‘Very well,’ said the Warden. ‘SM Twelve, stay with drones Seven to Ten at the ship. The rest of you move into sectors immediately over the Lamant trench. Sniper, you take
command there.’

With this communication came a deep-ocean map and Sniper saw immediately where he must go, and that it was not far. Slowly he slid up high above the ocean, with his antennae waving and a dish
extruded from his stomach plates. As he travelled, he activated a system that he had not used in centuries, and bled power from his U-charger. Slowly, laminar gigawatt batteries built up to a huge
charge inside him. Over the sea, he grinned his antiphoton grin. Soon he would get a chance to show his teeth – but he did not realize how soon.

Radar returned four signals as the enforcer drones the Warden had sent out came into the area.

‘Spread out singly and search. Stay up high to give yourselves time to respond to any attack.’

‘Sure thing!’ the drones responded eagerly.

‘If one of them comes at any of you, you don’t try to take it alone. You run for me.’

Their response this time was less enthusiastic.

Sniper watched the four signals separate and spread out, and then, from memory storage, he downloaded differing programs into his carousel of smart missiles. He knew that nothing less than a
direct hit by one of these on that Prador armour would do the trick, and even then . . . These Prador drones were certainly not the pushover they had been in the old days. Sniper accelerated and
was soon at the precise centre of the area to be searched.

‘Shit!’ shouted SM1.

Sniper received a fragmented picture of explosions, and one fleeting image of a Prador war drone. On radar he saw that SM1 was hammering towards him at Mach II. Close behind this SM came another
signature that did not show up so clearly on radar. Sniper froze that second signature and studied it.

‘Exotic metal . . . right,’ he said. Then, ‘SM One, go higher, then straight down into the sea once you’re a kilometre out. I will give you the signal. Don’t
deviate, you’ll have incoming straight over you.’

‘Poxingmissileupassgunning!’ was the SM’s reply.

Sniper opened up his fusion engine and sped towards the drone in trouble. After calculating vectors, he spat out one missile and watched it accelerate away. By the time it reached its intended
target, it would be doing over Mach V. Little time to manoeuvre for either target or missile. Next, Sniper cruised to the right and opened up with his rail-gun. A swarm of carborundum fingers,
needle-pointed and weighted, sped out in front of him. In seconds SM1 came into sight, swiftly pursued by the Prador drone. Sniper watched the missile making small corrections to its course, then
sent the signal. SM1 dived, pieces falling away from it as the Prador hit it repeatedly with rail-gun fire. The missile flew over SM1, straight into the Prador’s face. It managed to shift
aside only slightly before it was struck. Sniper tracked it as it came tumbling out of the explosion, its armour glowing white-hot. It corrected and swerved towards him, only to run straight into
the swarm of carborundum fingers. As they struck, it shuddered in midair, jets of metal vapour issuing from its softened armour as the fingers penetrated and smashed its insides. Sniper turned in
on it like a raptor as it dived for the sea. He allowed it to get within ten metres of the surface before grinning his grin. Violet fire speared the Prador war drone. It hit the surface and rolled
along it like a droplet of water on a hotplate. Then it blew, scattering fragments that bounced and sank in clouds of steam.

‘Take that, fucker,’ said Sniper, as he jetted above those fragments.

The disembodied head dropped away before Janer could acquire it in the autosight and centre the beam on the thing’s perch. Stone flaked and exploded away, as he tried to
follow its course. In a moment it lost itself in the vines growing over the ruin. Janer only stopped firing when Ambel placed a hand on the barrel of the carbine.

‘The power supply isn’t endless, lad,’ said the Captain.

Janer lowered the weapon and studied its displays. He swore when he realized there was only a quarter of a charge left.

‘We’ll go in after him,’ said Ron, undoing the straps that held Forlam to his back. ‘Erlin, Anne an’ Pland can stay here with Forlam.’

Janer surmised that this meant he himself was included in the hunt, so there’d be a use for that quarter-charge yet. He watched as Ambel removed a packet from his belt and handed it to
Pland.

‘Wet your knife for the body if it turns up,’ said the Captain. ‘Same for the head.’

Pland nodded and gingerly accepted the packet.

Ambel pointed to the QC laser in his belt. ‘That’ll burn either of ’em, but it won’t kill ’em.’ Now he turned his attention to Peck, who stood clutching his
shotgun and looking surly. ‘You wouldn’t stay here if I told you to, would you, Peck?’

‘Buggered would I,’ said Peck.

Ron laid Forlam on the ground, with his back resting against a rock.

‘Feelings bits betterst,’ said Forlam.

There seemed something funny about his tongue. Ron studied him dubiously for a long moment, before turning to Erlin.

‘He’s not well,’ said the Captain meaningfully.

‘I’ll get some more Earth nutrients into him,’ she said.

‘Let’s go then,’ said Ron.

The four of them set off down the slope towards the river, and the ruin beyond. Janer walked with his nerves jangling, and his attention flitting to every movement in the undergrowth. Peck
proceeded with his shotgun close to his chest, and Ambel plodded stoically along, with his blunderbuss resting on one shoulder and his hand on the hilt of his sheath knife. Captain Ron ran a stone
across the edge of his machete as he walked. Once they were halfway down the slope, he pocketed the stone and held out his hand. Ambel passed across one of the small packets of sprine.

In the river, leeches clung to the bottom, looking just like trout swimming against the current. In the deeper water, Janer spotted a creature that had the appearance of an onion with spider
legs, and though it showed no inclination to come out of the water after him, he kept a wary eye on it. They crossed by using the boulders as stepping-stones and shortly reached one of the
overgrown moats extending below a crenellated wall. Peck stared down into the moat and spat. Janer also gazed into it, and saw only stagnant water filled with a tangle of white branches. He was
about to move on after the others when he realized that branches were not what he had just seen. He took another look at them and realized that what he was seeing was a tangle of human bones.