OUTPARAFUNCT: B.P. LOAD INC. 15%
He had increased the amount of Intertox in his balm to a fifth, but still he was getting those warning messages. How long he could hold on before having to go into a tank he did not know, but it seemed unlikely he would reach the Little Flint before his transformation. He realized how he resented those reifs who would. He resented their knowingness, their lack of respect for him. He had done all this. This ship was his. And he refused to allow them to be so casual, dismissive and contemptuous in his presence. He stood up abruptly.
VIRAL INFECT
Again that message.
IDENTIFY he instructed almost automatically.
SPATTERJAY VIRAL FORM AI
He cleared that one, then another immediately appeared.
MEMSPACE: 00037
Annoyed, he quickly cleared that too, while considering all the potential dangers.
Strone and his followers numbered thirty-six—he had identified them all. Now, Bloc could simply order his Kladites to dispense with them, but that would not go down well with the other six hundred reifications aboard. Also the Hoopers, though primitive, were necessary at the moment and, despite the automation aboard the Sable Keech, it might be foolish to annoy them. The sails, even Zephyr, worked to their contracts for money and that was all. If they became a problem, though, this ship had the facility to sail on without them. It had the facility to keep going without any sails, either living or plain fabric. That left Janer Cord Anders and Erlin Taser Three Indomial, who he certainly wanted to keep on his side. So, no overt action on his part, but there was another way.
Bloc closed his eyes and turned his attention inward to the partitioned control unit he used to control Aesop and Bones. Those two channels were familiar and easy for him. The third channel was something else, however: a red tunnel of madness. He ignored it for the moment and turned his attention to his servants.
Bones he put on hold: utterly motionless in the corridor outside. Aesop he summoned inside. Bloc opened his eyes as the door opened and closed.
‘Summon Ellanc Strone and his friends to the stern meeting hall,’ he said.
‘You’ll not settle anything with them,’ said Aesop.
Bloc eyed him. ‘Did I ask your opinion?’
Aesop remained silent.
Bloc continued, ‘Seven o’clock this evening. When that is arranged, I’ll have another task for you, which you must complete before that meeting begins. I think you know what it is.’ He turned away, but Aesop was not leaving, so he turned back.
‘Leave now,’ said Bloc with finality, and pushed.
As he stepped off the ladder Isis Wade paused to study his hands. The human form, he felt, was interesting: perpetually on the point of toppling from its mere two limbs but never doing so. The limitation of possessing only two legs, however, was more than made up for by the complicated dexterity of the hands. No doubt, had the body he occupied actually been human rather than a mechanical construct, he would be surprised by many of its other… functions. But he was Golem and, behind all this emulation of humanity, something utterly else. He turned from die ladder and scanned the bilge.
There was a great deal down here, most of it at Lineworld’s insistence, some at Bloc’s, and he suspected there was something else that nobody wanted here… perhaps. Making his way along walkways and through hidden corridors he approached the ship’s bows. Being Golem, his hearing was superb; he could hear the beating of a human heart, hear it stop.
Wade shook his head—another human gesture, as if the thoughts in a mind could be physically shaken free. It did not work, for the fact remained that he was allowing these distractions to divert him from his prime purpose here aboard this ship. But the human dramas were so much easier…
In the twisted conglomeration of rooms, corridors and walkways below the chain lockers, Wade began scanning about himself as he proceeded. Eventually, on a grated walkway affixed directly to the lower ribs of the hull, he found what he was searching for. He stooped and picked up a pair of bloody trousers, slashed to ribbons. He shook them, and caught something that fell out: a piece of bone. It was white, with bluish striations through it, and looked as if someone had roughed out its shape from the main bone with a small drill, then snapped it out. Wade nipped it aside then peered over the edge of the grating. After a moment he moved over to one side, clicked across the catches securing one section, then hinged it up. This gave him access to what had been deposited below the walkway. Down there were many more pieces of bone, fragments of cloth, strings of fibrous flesh, a skinning knife and a screwdriver. He picked up the knife and inspected the name etched into the blade: Sturmbul. Wade accessed the list of passengers and crew he had loaded, and after a moment nodded. Gazing into the darkness, towards the chain lockers, he carefully reached out to pull the section of grating down, stood back, and headed quietly in the other direction.
Halfway along the length of the hull, Wade came to his second objective down here. The enclosed section had one metal bulkhead door with a manual wheel and a code-input palm reader. He stared at the reader for a long moment, then took out the skinning knife and inserted its blade under the small keypad. One twist and this flipped away, exposing optical circuitry. He smiled—something else he had been practising—traced the circuitry with the knife point, then selected a plug-in chip, levered it out and pocketed it. He next moved over to the manual wheel, braced himself and began to put on pressure. After a moment something snapped inside the door and the wheel spun freely. As he pushed the door open, pieces of shattered locking mechanism clattered to the floor. Stepping inside, he stooped to pick them up and toss them out of sight, before closing the door behind him.
Wade first eyed the row of glass-fronted lockers containing breather gear and ceramal chainmesh diving suits, then turned his attention to the flattened-torpedo submersible. He approached the ladder, climbed up to the squat conning tower, where he opened the hatch and lowered himself inside. Then, dropping into the pilot’s seat, he studied a large screen and numerous controls. After a little while he went back outside and more closely inspected the craft’s hull. Very quickly he found the harpoon ports and slidable sections covering folded manipulators and chainglass vibroblades.
‘Naughty,’ he said, and shook his head.
Lineworld Developments had certainly been out to cash in wherever possible. Wade wondered what the Hoopers aboard would have thought about them using a submersible to harvest sea leech bile ducts. No matter, since this option was now closed to them. Nevertheless, here, should anyone require it, was a perfect way of obtaining the prized poison, sprine.
He again smiled to himself.
As Aesop made his way down into the hull he felt his terror growing, but Bloc’s control of him was as rigid as a cage. Stepping off the ladder onto the maintenance deck, he observed a couple of Hoopers gazing through the protective cover over a ceramal powder forge, and wondered if the ship would soon be urgently in need of their skill if what was to happen inside it did not sink it. He knew that the hull was double-skinned, sandwiching a layer of crash foam, but would that be enough?