โHah!โ Karst shouted at the screens. โThat screws over their fucking radio.โ
โItโs not exactly a killer blow.โ Lain rubbed at her eyes with the heel of one hand.
โIt doesnโt deal with the implications of them having radio in the first place,โ Holsten remarked. โWhat are we dealing with here? Why arenโt we even asking that question?โ
โItโs obvious,โ came the terse voice of Vitas from over the comms.
โThen please explain, because precious little is looking obvious to me right now,โ Lain suggested. She was concentrating on the screens, and Holsten had the impression that her words had more to do with being irritated at Vitasโs superior manner.
โKernโs World was some sort of bioengineering planet,โ Vitasโs disembodied voice explained. โShe was creating these things. Then, knowing we were returning, sheโs broken them out of stasis at last, and has deployed them against us. Theyโre fulfilling their programming even after the destruction of her satellite.โ
Holsten tried to catch the eyes of Lain or Karst or, indeed, anyone, but he seemed to have faded into the background again.
โWhat does that mean the surface is going to be like?โ Karst asked uneasily.
โWe may have to conduct some widespread cleansing,โ Vitas confirmed with apparent enthusiasm.
โWait,โ Holsten muttered.
Lain cocked an eyebrow at him.
โPlease letโs โฆ not repeat their mistakes. The Empireโs mistakes.โย Because sometimes I feel thatโs all weโve been doing.ย โIt sounds like youโre talking about poisoning the planet to death, so we can live on it.โ
โIt may be necessary, depending on surface conditions. Allowing uncontrolled biotechnology to remain on the surface would be considerably worse,โ Vitas stated.
โWhat if theyโre sentient?โ Holsten asked.
Lain just watched, eyes hooded, and it looked as though Karst hadnโt really understood the question. It was now Holsten versus the voice of Vitas.
โIf that is the case,โ Vitas considered, โit will only be in the sense that a computer might be considered sentient. They will be following instructions, possibly in a way that gives them considerable leeway in order to react to local conditions, but that will be all.โ
โNo,โ said Holsten patiently, โwhat if they are actually sentient. Alive and independent, evolved?โย Exalted, came the word inside his head.ย The exaltation of beasts. But Kern had spoken only of her beloved monkeys.
โDonโt be ridiculous,โ Vitas snapped, and surely they all heard the tremble in her voice. โIn any event, it doesnโt matter. The logic of the prisonersโ choice holds. Whatever we are ranged against, it is doing its best to destroy us. We must respond accordingly.โ
โAnother drone gone,โ Karst announced. โWhat?โ Lain demanded.
โWith the hull sensors being picked off Iโm trying to keep tabs on the fuckers with drones, but theyโre taking them out. Iโve only got a handful left.โ
โAny armed like the ones that took down Kern?โ the old
engineer asked.
โNo, and we couldnโt use them, anyway. Theyโre on the hull. Weโd damage the ship.โ
โIt may be too late for that,โ Alpash commented levelly. He showed them one of the last drone images. A group of spiders was clustered at one of the shuttle-bay doors. A new line in the metal was visible, flagged by a ghost of dispersing vapour down its length.
โFuckers,โ said Karst solemnly. โYouโre sure we canโt electrify the hull?โ That had been a hot topic of conversation before they tried the EMP burst. Alpash had been trying to work up a solution for a localized electrical grid around wherever the spiders were located, but the infrastructure for it simply was not there, let alone the enormous energy that would be needed to accomplish it. Talk had then devolved towards lower-tech solutions.
โYouโve got your people armed and ready?โ
โIโve got a fucking army. Weโve woken up a few hundred of the best candidates from cargo and put disruptors into their hands. Assuming the little bastardsย canย be disrupted. If not, well, weโve broken out the armoury. I mean,โ and his voice trembled a little, small cracks evident from a deep, deep stress, โthe shipโs so fucked a few more holes wonโt make any difference, will they? And anyway, we can still stop them getting in. But if they do get in โฆ we may not be able to contain them.โ He fought over that โmay,โ his need for optimism crashing brutally into the wall of circumstances. โItโs not like this ship was laid out with this kind of situation in mind. Fucking oversight, that was.โ And a rictus grin.
โKarst โฆโ Lain began, and Holstenโalways a little behind
โthought she just wanted to shut him up and spare him embarrassment.
โIโll get suited up,โ the security chief said. Lain just watched him, saying nothing.
โWhat?โ Holsten stared. โWait, no โฆโ
Karst essentially ignored him, eyes fixed on the ancient engineer.
โYouโre sure?โ Lain herself seemed anything but.
Karst shrugged brutally. โIโm doing fuck all good up here. We need to go clear those vermin off the hull.โ There was precious little enthusiasm in his voice. Perhaps he was waiting for Lain to give some convincing reason that he should stay. Her creased face was twisted in indecision, though, an engineer seeking a solution to a technical problem she could not overcome.
At that point Holstenโs console flickered into activity again, and he realized the attackers on the outside had located the clear channels that Karst had been using to control his drones; and that Karst would soon be using to communicate with the ship. It was Holstenโs job to notify everyone the moment the spiders made this discovery, but he said nothing, part of him staring at the sudden patchy scatter of signals being picked up by theย Gilgameshโs surviving receivers, the rest of him listening to the conversation going on behind him.
โYour team?โ Lain prompted at last.
โMy core team are suited and ready,โ Karst confirmed. โIt looks like we might have a fight the moment we open the airlock. Little bastards could be out there already, cuttingย in.โ Nobody was arguing with him, but he went on, โI canโt ask them to go and me stay behind,โ and then, โThis is what Iโm for, isnโt it? Iโm not a strategist. Iโm not a commander. I lead people: my team.โ He stood before Lain like a general who had disappointed his queen and now felt that he had only one way to redeem himself. โLetโs face it. Security was only ever here to keep Key Crew and cargo in place for the duration of the trip. But if we have to be soldiers, then weโll be soldiers, and Iโll lead.โ
โKarst โฆโ Lain started, and then dried up. Holsten wondered whether she had been about to say something bizarrely trite, some piece of social ornament like,ย If you donโt want to go, then donโt. But they were long past what people
did or didnโt want to do. Nobody had wanted the situation they found themselves in now, and their language, like their technology, had been pared down to only those things essential to life. Nothing else, none of the fripperies and flourishes, had been cost-effective to maintain.
โIโll get suited up,โ the security chief repeated tiredly, with a nod. He paused as though he wanted to throw out some more military form of acknowledgement, a salute from those about to die, and then he turned and left.
Lain watched him go, leaning on her metal stick, and there was a similar ramrod stiffness to her bearing despite her crooked spine. Her bony knuckles were white, and everyone in that room was watching her.
She took two deliberate steps until she was at Holstenโs shoulder, then glowered about her at the handful of Tribe engineers still left in comms.
โGet to work!โ she snapped at them. โThereโs always something that needs fixing.โ Having dispersed their attention, she took a deep breath, then let it out, close enough to Holstenโs ear that he heard the faint wheezing of her lungs. โHe was right, wasnโt he?โ she said very softly, for his ears only. โWe need to clear them from the hull, and the security detail will fight better if Karstโs out there with them.โ It was not that she had told the man to go, but a word from her might have stopped him.
Holsten glanced up at her and tried to make himself nod, but something went wrong with the motion, and the result was meaningless and noncommittal.
โWhatโs this?โ Lain demanded abruptly, noticing the stream of signals on his screen.
โThey found our gap. Theyโre transmitting.โ
โThen why the fuck didnโt you say?โ She called out, โKarst?โ then waited until Alpash confirmed that she was connected to the man. โWeโre changing frequencies, so get your people ready,โ next giving him the new clear channel.
โHolstenโโ
โVitas is wrong,โ he told her. โTheyโre not biological machines. Theyโre not just Kernโs puppets.โ
โAnd how are you supposed to have worked that one out?โ โBecause of how they communicate.โ
She frowned. โYouโve cracked that now? And didnโt think to tell anyone?โ
โNo โฆ not what theyโre saying, but the structure. Isa, Iโm a classicist, and a lot of that is a study of languageโold languages, dead languages, languages from an age of humanity that doesnโt exist any more. Iโd stake my life that these signals are actually language rather than just some sort of instructions. Itโs too complex, too intricately structured. Itโs inefficient, Isa. Language is inefficient. It evolves organically. This is languageโreal language.โ
Lain squinted down at the screen for a few seconds until the transmissions abruptly cut off, as the jamming switched frequencies. โWhat difference does it make?โ she asked quietly. โDoes it get Vitasโs fucking prisoners out of their cells? It doesnโt, Holsten.โ
โButโโ
โTell me how it helps us,โ she invited. โTell me how any of this โฆ speculation does us any good. Or is it just like all the rest of your bag of tricks? Academic in every sense of the word.โ
โWeโre ready,โ came Karstโs voice at that moment, as though he had been politely waiting for her to finish. โWeโre in the airlock. Weโre about to open the hatch.โ
Lainโs face was like a death mask. She had never been intended as a commander, either. Holsten could see every one of those centuries of hard decisions in the lines on her face.
โGo,โ she confirmed, โand good luck.โ
Karst had a squad of twenty-two ready to go, and that used up
all the heavy EVA suits that were still functioning. Another twelve were currently being worked on, and he was only grateful that the Tribe had needed to go out and make patch repairs on the hull, or he might not even be able to field that many soldiers.ย Soldiers: he thought of them as soldiers. Some of them actually were soldiers, military woken up from cargo either this time or the last time, added piecemeal to the security detail whenever he had needed a bit more muscle. Others were veterans of his team: Key Crew who had been with him from the start. He was taking only the best, which in this case meant almost everyone who had the appropriate EVA training.
He remembered very clearly when he himself had gone through that training. It had seemed a complete waste of time, but he had wanted to win a place in Key Crew on theย Gilgameshย and it had been something they had been looking for. He had spent months bumbling about in orbit, learning how to move in zero gravity, how to step with magnetic boots, acclimatizing to the nausea and the disorientation of such a hostile and inimical environment.
Nobody had mentioned fighting an army of spiders for the survival of the human race, but Karst half-fancied he might have imagined it, day-dreamed it back when he was young and theย Gilgameshย project was still just an idea. Surely he had seen himself standing on the hull of a mighty, embattled colony ship, weapon to hand, beating away the alien horde.
Now, in the airlock, his breath loud in his ears and the suitโs confines pressing and leaden, it didnโt seem at all as much fun as he had imagined.
The hatch they were about to exit through was set in the floor, from where he was standing. There would be a vertiginous shift of perspective as they got out, carabinered to one another and trying not to be flung off the shipโs side by the rotating sectionโs centripetal force. Then they would have to trust to their boots to hold them, progressing along a surface that would constantly try to dislodge them. Things would have been easier, perversely, had they been accelerating or
decelerating in deep space, with the inner sense of โdownโ falling towards the front or the rear of the ship, and the rotating sections stilled, but they were in orbit now, free falling around the planet, and therefore forced to fake their own gravity.
โChief!โ one of his team warned. โWeโre losing air.โ
โOf course weโreโโ Then he stopped, because he hadnโt given the order to open the external doors. They had been standing here on the brink for some time and the words had been reluctant to emerge. Now someoneโsomethingโwas forcing his hand.
Somewhere on the hatch there must be a pinhole letting out their air. The spiders were out there, right now, trying to claw their way in.
โEveryone latch down and lock your boots,โ he ordered and, now he was faced with action, the thoughts were coming smoothly and without undue emotional embroidery. โYouโd better crouch low. I want the outer door opened quick as you like, without the air venting first.โ
One of the Tribe confirmed his instructions in his ear, and Karst followed his own advice.
Instead of the steady grinding of the hatch that he expected, someone had obviously taken that โquick as you likeโ to heart and activated some sort of emergency override, snapping the hatch open within seconds so that the pressurized air around them thundered through the resulting breach like a hammer. Karst felt it raking at him, trying to drag him out with it, to enjoy the vast open vistas of the universe. But his lines and boots held, and he weathered the storm. One of his team was immediately torn loose beside him, yanked halfway through the opening and only saved by her anchoring line. Karst reached out and grabbed her glove, clumsily pulling her back until she was against the subjective floor beside the gaping hole.
He saw some fragments, then: jointed legs and a torn-open
something that must have been most of a body caught by the mechanism of the hatch. Beyond โฆ
Beyond were the enemy.
They were in disarray, crawling over one another. Several had been battered away by the decompression, and he hoped that a few had been lost to space, but there were at least three or four dangling out at the end of threads and beginning to climb back up towards the hatch. Karst aimed his gun. It was built into his glove, and was a refreshingly simple piece of kit, overall. Nothing in the airless wastes of vacuum would stop a chemical propellant working if it contained its own oxygen, and the airless void should be a perfect marksmanโs paradise, his range limited only by the curve of theย Gilgameshโs hull.
He wanted to say something inspiring or dramatic but, in the end, the sight of the creeping, leg-waving, spasmodically scuttling monsters so horrified him that, โKill the fuckers,โ was all he could manage.
He shot but missed three times, trying to adjust for the surreal perspective and mistaking the distance and size of his quarry, his suitโs targeting system mulish about locking on to the little vermin. Then he caught it, sending one of the beasts that still remained on the hull spinning away. His team were shooting as well, careful and controlled, and the spiders were plainly utterly unprepared for what was happening. Karst saw their angular, leggy bodies being hurled away on all sides, the dead ones dangling straight out from the hull like macabre balloons.
Some of them were returning fire, which gave him a nasty turn. They had some sort of weapons, though the projectiles were slow and bulky compared to the sleek zip of bullets from the human-made guns. For a moment Karst thought that they were throwing stones again, but the missiles were something like ice or glass. They shattered against the armoured suits, causing no damage.
The spiders were unexpectedly resilient, clad in some sort of close-woven armour that had them dancing about under the
impact of the bullets without necessarily letting any penetrate, and Karst and his fellows had to hose several of them with shot before something got through.
They exploded quite satisfactorily, though, once they died. Soon, if there were any enemy survivors, they had fled;
Karst paused a moment, reporting back to Lain before taking
the big step of putting himself outside on the hull, out before the curtailed horizon of theย Gilgamesh.
Then there was nothing for itโso he went.
The heavy EVA suits were proper military technology, although most of the actual military systems Karst would have liked to have accessed were not online or had been removed entirely. After all, the engineers had not needed sophisticated targeting programs when going out to make repairs. Like everything else that survived of the human race, a tyranny of priorities had come into force. Still, the suits were reinforced at the joints, and armoured everywhere else, with servos to help the determined space warrior actually move about in them. They had an extended air supply, recycled waste, controlled temperature and, if the hull sensors had actually been left intact, then Karst would have had a lovely little map of everything around him. As it was, he climbed laboriously through the hatch in a second skin that bulked out his torso and each limb to twice its actual circumference, feeling hot and cramped, sensing the slight shudder as ancient and lovingly maintained servomotors considered each second whether or not they would relinquish the ghost and seize up. Some of the suits still had functioning jet packs to allow for limited manoeuvring while away from the hull, but fuel was at a premium, and Karst had given the order to save it for emergencies. He was unconvinced that using the antiquated, oft-repaired flight packs was not just one step too far towards a death-trap.
His image of his surroundings was the cluttered and narrow view from his faceplate, and a handful of feeds from cameras on his squad-matesโ suits, which he was having difficulty
matching up to the actual individuals concerned.
โLain, can you send everyone instructions on a formation, and their place in it?โ It felt like admitting defeat, but he did not have the tools that the suitโs inventor had anticipated to hand. โI need eyes looking out every way. Weโre heading for Shuttle Bay Seven doors. Close this airlock behind us. And the outer doorโs compromised somewhereโโ
โItโs not closing,โ came Alpashโs voice. โIt โฆ somethingโs gone wrong.โ
โWell โฆโ and then Karst realized he had nothing much to say to that. He could hardly demand they came out and fixed it right now. โWell, seal the inner door until we return. Weโre going now.โ
Then Lainโs instructions came through: showing them her best guess at a route to take, and a formation for the security team to fall into, eyes focused all around.
โWeโve got another drone launching,โ she added. โIโll send it far out to look down on you, and patch it into your โฆ fuck.โ
โWhat?โ Karst demanded immediately.
โNo drone. Just get to the shuttle bay, double-time.โ
โYou try fucking double-time in these things.โ But Karst was moving, the point of the arrow, and his team shambled into place, step after hulking metal step along the hull. โAnd let me guess: drone bay after the shuttle, right?โ
โWell done.โ
The drone had simply not got out of the bay, hanging tangled in webbing that its sensors could not even detect, its launch hatch still open. Holsten had no idea what sort of access the drone bays gave to the rest of the ship, but Lain was already sending people that way, so presumably that meant the creatures were aboard.
They had camera feeds from Karst and a handful of his people, though by no means all, recording their slogging progress outside on the hull, constantly surveying the ground
before them over that truncated horizon.
โBlind!โ hissed Lain furiously. The network of hull sensors was in pieces, hundreds of maintenance-hours of damage inflicted in just minutes. โWhere are they, then? Where else?โ
Holsten opened his mouthโanother chance for a trite and meaningless remark, and then alarms began to go off.
โHull breach in cargo,โ Alpash said flatly, and then, with a curious deadness to his tone, โThatโs a second breach, of course. After the impact earlier.โ
โThereโs already a hole in cargo,โ Lain echoed the sentiment, eyes seeking out Holstenโs. โTheyโre probably already inside.โ
โThen why make another hole?โ
โCargoโs big,โ Alpash said. โThey must be boring in all over the ship. They donโt need hatches. We โฆโ His eyes were wide as he looked at Lain beseechingly. โWhat are we going to do?โ
โCargo โฆโ Holsten thought of those thousands of sleepers, oblivious in their little plastic coffins. He thought of spiders descending upon them, coasting in the gravity-free vacuum towards their prey. He thought of eggs.
Perhaps Lain harboured similar thoughts. โKarst!โ she snapped. โKarst, we need your people inside.โ
โWeโre coming up on the shuttle-bay hatch now,โ Karst reported, as though he hadnโt heard.
โKarst, theyโre inside,โ Lain insisted.
There was a pause, though the clomping progress of the cameras didnโt slow. โGet people there from the inside. Iโll deal with this, then weโll head back in. Or do you want them actually right outside your door?โ
โKarst, cargo is without gravity and atmosphere, I canโt just sendโโ Lain started.
โLet me kill this nest and then weโll be back,โ Karst spoke
over her. โWeโll keep a lid on it, donโt worry.โ He sounded maddeningly calm.
Then another transmission came in from aboard the ship, a moment of garbled shouting and screaming โฆ then nothing.
Silence followed. Lain and Alpash and Holsten stared at one another, appalled.
โWho was that?โ the ancient engineer asked at last. โAlpash, what did we โฆ?โ
โI donโt know. Iโm trying โฆ Call in, please, call in, all โฆโ
There was a flurry of brief acknowledgements from different groups of the Tribe and reawakened military across the ship, and Holsten could see Alpash checking them off. Even before they had finished someone was shouting, โTheyโre here! Get out, get out. Theyโre inside!โ
โConfirm your position.โ Alpashโs voice was strained. โLori, confirm your position!โ
โAlpashโโ Lain started.
โThatโs my family,โ the younger engineer said. He was away from his station, suddenly. โThatโs our living quarters. Theyโre all in there: my kin, our children.โ
โAlpash, stay at your post!โ Lain ordered him, hand trembling on her stick, but her authorityโthe leverage of her age and pedigreeโwas right now just smoke. Alpash had the hatch open and was gone.
โThere they are,โ came Karstโs triumphant shout over the comms, and then: โWhere are the rest of them?โ
Lainโs mouth opened, her eyes dragged irresistibly towards the screens. There was a handful of spiders about the shuttle-bay hatch, caught in the glare of the sun, long, angular shadows cast down the length of the hull. Less, though, than there had been, and perhaps that just meant that the others had gone for easier access points. The chaos over the comms showed that the creatures were establishing beachheads all over the ship.
โKarst โฆโ from Lain, surely too quietly for him to respond.
Holsten saw one of the spiders abruptly shatter, torn open by a shot from Karst or one of his team. Then someone shouted, โBehind us,โ and the camera views were swinging around, giving wheeling views of the hull and the stars.
โIโm caught!โ came from someone, and others of the security team were no longer moving. Holsten saw one man, pinned in the camera view of a comrade, fighting something unseen, slapping and pulling at his suit, the drifting net of threads that had ensnared him invisible yet too strong to break.
The spiders were emerging then, racing along the curve of the hull with a speed that laughed at Karstโs plodding progress. Others were steering down from above, where they had been drifting at the end of more thread, climbing up against the outwards force of the rotating section; climbing to where they could leap on Karst and his men.
Karstโs upraised gun/glove, at the corner of his camera, flashed and flared, trying to track the new targets, killing at least one. They saw one of Karstโs people being hit by friendly fire, boots torn off the hull by the impact, falling away from the ship to end up jerking on the end of an unseen line, as an eight-legged monster came inching up towards his helpless, flailing form. Men and women were shouting, shooting, screaming, trying to run away at their leaden, crippled pace.
Karst stumbled back two heavy paces, still shooting, seeing his helmet display record the remaining rounds in his helical magazine. More by luck than judgement, he picked one of the creatures off as it alighted on the woman next to him, spraying freezing pieces of carapace and viscera that rattled as they bounced off him. She was caught in the webbing the little bastards had seeded the hull with, just great loose clouds of the fine stuff that had half his people now completely ensnared.
His ears were full of people shouting: his team, others from inside the ship, even Lain. He tried to remember how to shut down the channels: it was all too loud; he couldnโt think. The
thunder of his own hoarse breathing roared over it, like a hyperventilating giant bellowing at each ear.
He saw another of his people fly loose from the hull, cancelling the grip of his boots without anything else to secure him. He just flew away, ascending into the infinite. If his suit had thrusters, they werenโt working now. The luckless man just kept going, receding into the infinite, as though he just could not abide to share the ship with the busy monsters intent on getting inside it.
Another spider landed on the trapped woman beside Karst, just sailing in at the end of a colossal leap, its legs outstretched. He could hear her screaming, and he stumbled forwards, trying to aim at the thing as the woman flailed and bludgeoned at it with her gloved hands.
It was clinging to her, and Karst saw it carefully line up its mouthparts, or some mechanism attached to them, and then hunch forwards, lancing her between the plates of her suit with sudden, irresistible force.
The suit would seal around a puncture, of course, but that would not help against whatever she had been injected with. Karst tried to call up medical information from her suit, but he could not remember how. She had gone still, just swaying limply against the anchor point of her magnetic boots. Whatever it was, it was quick-acting.
He finally managed to turn off all the voices in his head, leaving only his own. There was a moment of blessed calm in which it seemed possible, somehow, that he could regain control of the situation. There would be some magic word, some infinitely efficacious command that a truly gifted leader could give, one that would restore the rightful arrow of evolution and allow humanity to triumph over these aberrations.
Something landed on his back.