course. Ray Gun was an “it.”
“Deckard,” I said, picking my way past a shining bush that resembled a fan of coral rendered by a drunken glassblower. “Did Broken Spear have on-board AI support?” Intelligence-boosted systems went in and out of fashion over the decades in an endless tug-of-war between the inherent instability of such self-aware entities, prone to mental collapse after a brief, hot life-cycle, and the high value of an intelligence not subject to the disorientations of supraluminal travel nor the stresses of high acceleration.
“Depends,” puffed my engineer.
“Depends on what?” asked Beaumont nastily.
I heard Deckard grunt, almost as if struck, but he could take care of himself. He chose the high road: “On whether she was pre- or post-Yankelov Act. Her ship class originally was, but there was a refit wave after the AI regs changed, right around the time Broken Spear was lost.”
I thought that over. “So Ray Gun might be Lehr’s ship’s systems. All alone up there in orbit all these years.”
“Crazy as an oxygen miner three days after a comet claim,” said Marley.
“Indeed. And one of Lehr’s daughters.”
“Maybe Cathar’s the other one,” Heminge said.
A stranger stepped from behind a pillar of stacked rubble and glittering silica. “Cathar is a traitor,” he declared.
Heminge and Beaumont both drew their weapons. I kept my own hands away from my holstered pistol and the swift death it could deal like the sword of justice. This was not my courtroom, so to speak. Instead, I studied the stranger as he studied me, ignoring the armed threat my men presented.
He was whipcord thin, naked as the landscape and, much like the sullen world around us, covered with white dust that sparkled and flecked as he moved. That coating matched the sparse, silvered hair upon his head and about his shriveled penis and the thousand-kilometer stare in his eyes, which seemed to bore right through me from beneath his hooded brows. Here was a man who looked across years, and carried their wounds upon his body. I could count his ribs, and the cords on his neck twitched as he spoke. He was no better armed than the wind.
“Another one rises from the earth,” I said mildly. “Of the crew?”
“Lieutenant Fishman,” he replied. His voice was as cracked as his skin, also a thing of this world. What this place had done to people, I thought. He raised his hands. “You should go. Before Granny Rail finds you.”
“Surely you mean Ray Gun?”
“No.” He laughed, a mirthless chuckle dry as an old bone. “She has taken the sky from my Captain. Granny Rail has taken the world. Lehr lives on sustained only by the love of Lady Cordel and myself.”
Beaumont shoved forward, pistol in his hand. “Granny Rail. You’re as cracked as that old rummy, Lieutenant Fishman. Go back to your hole in the soil and count yourself lucky to have any days remaining in your life.”
Fishman shifted his long-range stare to drill through Beaumont. “You wouldn’t understand loyalty, would you, man? Count yourself lucky to have any minutes remaining in your life.”
Three gouts of dark fluid spouted in Beaumont’s chest, grim flowers bringing color to this drab and barren landscape even as his final words died in his mouth. A smile quirked across Fishman’s taut face as the rest of us dropped, but the great, gray-silver spider thing that erupted from the ground ignored him completely.
It whirled, clattering, a motile version of the crystalline plants of this world except for the well-worn but fully functional Naval-issue assault rifles in two claws. Rolling up against a backbreaking jag of rocks, I drew my own pistol, but the blunted flechettes intended for antipersonnel use in vacuum-constrained environments would have very little effect on this bright, spinning monster.
Heminge moved past me, firing his much more deadly meson pistol. The rays gleamed with an eerie antilight, the air ripping as the weapon
“Deckard,” I said, picking my way past a shining bush that resembled a fan of coral rendered by a drunken glassblower. “Did Broken Spear have on-board AI support?” Intelligence-boosted systems went in and out of fashion over the decades in an endless tug-of-war between the inherent instability of such self-aware entities, prone to mental collapse after a brief, hot life-cycle, and the high value of an intelligence not subject to the disorientations of supraluminal travel nor the stresses of high acceleration.
“Depends,” puffed my engineer.
“Depends on what?” asked Beaumont nastily.
I heard Deckard grunt, almost as if struck, but he could take care of himself. He chose the high road: “On whether she was pre- or post-Yankelov Act. Her ship class originally was, but there was a refit wave after the AI regs changed, right around the time Broken Spear was lost.”
I thought that over. “So Ray Gun might be Lehr’s ship’s systems. All alone up there in orbit all these years.”
“Crazy as an oxygen miner three days after a comet claim,” said Marley.
“Indeed. And one of Lehr’s daughters.”
“Maybe Cathar’s the other one,” Heminge said.
A stranger stepped from behind a pillar of stacked rubble and glittering silica. “Cathar is a traitor,” he declared.
Heminge and Beaumont both drew their weapons. I kept my own hands away from my holstered pistol and the swift death it could deal like the sword of justice. This was not my courtroom, so to speak. Instead, I studied the stranger as he studied me, ignoring the armed threat my men presented.
He was whipcord thin, naked as the landscape and, much like the sullen world around us, covered with white dust that sparkled and flecked as he moved. That coating matched the sparse, silvered hair upon his head and about his shriveled penis and the thousand-kilometer stare in his eyes, which seemed to bore right through me from beneath his hooded brows. Here was a man who looked across years, and carried their wounds upon his body. I could count his ribs, and the cords on his neck twitched as he spoke. He was no better armed than the wind.
“Another one rises from the earth,” I said mildly. “Of the crew?”
“Lieutenant Fishman,” he replied. His voice was as cracked as his skin, also a thing of this world. What this place had done to people, I thought. He raised his hands. “You should go. Before Granny Rail finds you.”
“Surely you mean Ray Gun?”
“No.” He laughed, a mirthless chuckle dry as an old bone. “She has taken the sky from my Captain. Granny Rail has taken the world. Lehr lives on sustained only by the love of Lady Cordel and myself.”
Beaumont shoved forward, pistol in his hand. “Granny Rail. You’re as cracked as that old rummy, Lieutenant Fishman. Go back to your hole in the soil and count yourself lucky to have any days remaining in your life.”
Fishman shifted his long-range stare to drill through Beaumont. “You wouldn’t understand loyalty, would you, man? Count yourself lucky to have any minutes remaining in your life.”
Three gouts of dark fluid spouted in Beaumont’s chest, grim flowers bringing color to this drab and barren landscape even as his final words died in his mouth. A smile quirked across Fishman’s taut face as the rest of us dropped, but the great, gray-silver spider thing that erupted from the ground ignored him completely.
It whirled, clattering, a motile version of the crystalline plants of this world except for the well-worn but fully functional Naval-issue assault rifles in two claws. Rolling up against a backbreaking jag of rocks, I drew my own pistol, but the blunted flechettes intended for antipersonnel use in vacuum-constrained environments would have very little effect on this bright, spinning monster.
Heminge moved past me, firing his much more deadly meson pistol. The rays gleamed with an eerie antilight, the air ripping as the weapon
Similar Books
