19
Boxy:
this fishlike creature obtains its name from the cubic shape of its body. Like the turbul, the boxy carries a sacrificial outer layer of flesh but, due to its odd shape, is unlike the turbul in being slow-moving. That boxies manage to survive and prosper was originally put down to their breeding rate: after mating, one fully fleshed female will convert all her outer flesh into upwards often thousand eggs, and she can do this as often as eight times a year. The true reason for their flourishing remained misunderstood until their behaviour was studied by the Polity Warden’s submind drones. Boxies habitually swim together in large shoals, and when an attack by leeches is unavoidable, they clump together to neatly form a large cubic mass. Those carrying the least outer flesh congregate towards the centre. Should an attack continue, this basic mass will rearrange, continuously positioning the more fleshy boxies to the outside. This is classic herd-like behaviour — putting the more vulnerable individuals to the centre. Some types of whelk have also evolved similar herding behaviour, specifically the frog whelk—
Bloc knew he could not hold it together for much longer. New error messages kept flashing up in his visual cortex every few minutes, and if he did not get himself into a tank soon, he would end up like Bones and have no body to resurrect. Also, since it was becoming evident that the Prador ship might soon be on the move, things were getting a bit tense here on the bridge.
‘If it comes straight up, we’re buggered,’ announced Captain Ron. ‘Let’s start the engines so, if we get a chance, we can pull clear.’
Bloc stared down at his right hand, which was gripping his carbine. It was shaking, and that could not be due to the putrefaction of his body but to some deeper fault. He must not let anyone off this ship—that fact was hard-wired into his mind, had become his main purpose for being—but enforcing that order was now destroying his chance at resurrection. The longer he remained here in control, the more of his body would be eaten away. But once placed in a tank he would no longer be in control, and then would they even keep him there, after all he had done? He must remain totally in control to prevent anyone leaving the ship, but he… but… but… His thoughts spun round and round in circles, and for a moment he could not even find the will to speak.
‘Bloc, let us start the engines,’ Ron repeated.
‘You will remain…’ was all Bloc could manage.
‘We’ll all end up in the sea,’ muttered Aesop.
Bloc immediately clamped down on him hard, but the effort of doing so resulted in displacement of the mess of software in his head, and he was mentally blinded by the mass of error messages scrolling up in his mind. As soon as he managed to turn them off, another flashed up:
MEMSPACE: 00018
He cleared that, and when he could finally see again, he found John Styx standing before him.
‘Look.’ Styx pointed outside.
Bloc turned his head to see one of the towering weapons turrets sinking. It was slowly being withdrawn into the Prador ship.
‘It’s preparing to leave,’ explained Styx, ‘and if it destroys our ship in the process, what then? All of us end up at the bottom of the sea, no Kladites to adore you, no power for you to exercise, no triumphant arrival at the Little Flint—your dream of the Sable Keech ended.’
Bloc felt a flash of anger. They were disrespecting him again, ignoring what he was and all he had done for them. He said to Styx, ‘You… know too much.’
‘What’s to know? That you’ve deified a man who would have nothing but contempt for you. You crave worship as much as you crave control. Let us at least try to move the ship to safety.’
‘Keech… would understand.’ Wouldn’t he? Everything was too confusing now.
Styx stepped forwards. ‘You said I know too much. Would you like to know how? I know so much because I’ve known about you for a lot of years, Taylor Bloc. I knew all about the corruption and murder you instituted while you were alive, and how you used Cult power to obtain the industrial contracts that first made you rich.’
‘Enough,’ said Bloc, still trying to find some control in his own mind.
Styx continued relentlessly, ‘I knew about your interest in Prador technology, for my interest was the same if not more than yours. I should have dealt with you back then, but I had more pressing concerns, and anyway I’d learnt that certain groups on Klader were sending friends Aesop and Bones after you, so thought that would be the last I’d hear of you. It wasn’t until recently I learnt how you had been reified and were apparently served by two individuals called Aesop and Bones. Imagine my surprise. Imagine how little time it took me to figure out what you had done.’
‘I said… enough…’
‘You know,’ said Styx, ‘I actually thought about a change of career. But while there are shits like you running around, I’ve still got a job to do.’
MEMSPACE: 00007
‘Of course I should have arrested you before you got this far, as here we are beyond Polity law, but it’s surprising the power you have to fascinate. I should have acted. I should not have allowed you to establish power over the reifications on this ship.’ He pulled from his jacket an aerosol canister of a kind Bloc immediately recognized, and held it up. ‘I should not have allowed this.’
In a puzzled voice, Ron asked, ‘What’s that, then?’
Erlin, still restrained by Bones, replied, ‘It’s a hormone from a creature that grazes on fungus, and has a smell almost irresistible to hooders.’
Ron shrugged, then stepped over to one of the consoles.
‘Stay were you are!’ Bloc shrilled.
‘I think we’ve had enough of this,’ said Ron. With casual speed he reached out with his hands, grabbed both his Kladite guards and slammed them together so hard that their balm spattered the surrounding consoles. They stayed upright for a moment, then began to sag. Ron ignored them, pressing a button and stooping over the intercom microphone. ‘Okay, Hoopers, time to come out and play. Take down these Kladite buggers.’
‘Kill him!’ Bloc screamed.
Ignoring the weapon in his own hands, Bloc sent an instruction to Aesop, who raised his carbine and fired it at Ron. The beam sliced into the Old Captain’s arm, but briefly, for Janer was there in an instant, driving a thrust kick into Aesop’s chest and slamming him back over a console and straight into one of the windows.
‘That smarts.’ Ron merely patted out his smoking limb, but when the two Kladites at the head of the stairwell started firing, he roared and charged straight across the bridge. Ignoring the holes being burnt into his body, he grabbed the two of them and slammed them together, before throwing them down amidst those trying to cram up the stairwell. Ramming the door shut on them, he spun the wheel and smashed his fist into the door’s coded locking mechanism. By now the three remaining Kladites inside the bridge had also opened up on him. He ran at them, caught them, and one after the other tossed them out the gap where a window had been knocked out by the tsunami. They were nothing to him, the burns they inflicted were nothing to him. For the first time Bloc had some true intimation of what it meant to be an Old Captain.
Ron now headed over to another console and pressed a sequence of touch-plates. A new vibration thrilled through the ship as its engines started.
‘Stop… or I kill her!’ Bloc shouted, then shook his head, blinded again by error messages. He staggered back, waved his arm in front of himself. Chaotic vision returned. Through Aesop’s eyes—Janer was pinning that reif to the floor—he saw himself waving his arm with rotten skin hanging off it in a sheet. He whimpered, fought for control, regained full vision.