Read Online Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 by Penny Publications - Free Book Online Page A
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further corner.
I hadn't seen anything but dead ship lice aboard when I returned to consciousness here a century ago. Then the ship entire had been almost in vacuum, and when I first ventured down here the erstwhile crew had been vacuum dried. Gradually the ship's automatic systems had recharged the whole vessel with air, but it had taken decades.
"The lice are unimportant," Harriet intoned, her seriousness undermined when she had to kick away a louse trying to crawl up her leg.
"I've seen all this," I said, gesturing around. "I know that the Client slaughtered the prador aboard. So what, the prador slaughtered its entire species." I didn't mention how the way the corpses had been sorted and neatly stacked always bothered me. Had the Client kept these as a food source? Could it actually ingest this alien meat?
"You've seen all this," Harriet parroted.
She abruptly turned away and paced across the hold to the far wall. I sighed and walked after her, but as I drew closer I suddenly realized that there was another square door in this far wall. I paused, scanned about myself, then realized I had never spotted it before because I'd never felt any inclination to walk this far into this dim mausoleum. Harriet nosed a control beside this new door and, rumbling and shaking, it too drew open. I followed her inside.
More dead, I realized, and more ship lice. I gazed at the neat heap—stacked like firewood—for a couple of seconds before reality caught up with me. These weren't prador; they were human corpses. I stood staring for a long drawn-out moment, then forced myself into motion and walked over to inspect them more closely. The corpses here were also vacuum dried and many of them had suffered the depredations of ship lice and in places had been chewed down to the bone. I turned my attention to one nearby that had obviously been dragged from the stack by lice and completely stripped of flesh. The lice had ignored the uniform, obviously getting inside it to dine on the meat. I recognized the uniform at once. I was looking at the skeleton of an ECS commando.
Moving closer, I saw further uniforms, but also a lot of casual dress, a high proportion of clean-room labwear, and the occasional spacesuit and vacuum survival suit. There had to be over a hundred people here.
"You've seen this?" Harriet inquired.
"No," I replied.
"Do you remember?"
I turned toward her. "No, I don't."
I felt slightly sick as I turned away. It must have been a wholly psychological feeling since my artificial body was incapable of nausea. So why had Harriet brought me here to see this? I didn't know, all I did know was that I was standing beside the entire scientific team—plus ECS security personnel—that had been sent to liaise with the Client. I began to head out, then paused now I could see what lay beside the door I'd come in through. I eyed a glittering stack of crystal fragments, ten human corpses untouched by desiccation or decay because, of course, they weren't human but Golem androids. Beside them rested two huge metal beetles, motionless, no light gleaming in their crystal eyes: war drones. It seemed the Client had killed the AI complement of that mission, too.
I headed out of the hold.
The moon was highly volcanic because it was one of many similarly sized moons irregularly orbiting an ice giant. It seemed that they often tore at each other gravitationally, and were torn at by the giant they orbited. In astronomical terms the whole system was unstable and, running a model of it, I saw that at least two of these moons would be shattered in about a hundred thousand years' time; thereafter the system would stabilize with an asteroid ring.
"Do you have something you wish to tell me?" I asked Harriet as I gazed at the images displayed in the hexagonal screens.
"I have nothing I can say to you yet," she replied.
Was that because we were too close to the Client now? I could feel its influence reaching out to me, demanding, dictatorial.
I hadn't seen anything but dead ship lice aboard when I returned to consciousness here a century ago. Then the ship entire had been almost in vacuum, and when I first ventured down here the erstwhile crew had been vacuum dried. Gradually the ship's automatic systems had recharged the whole vessel with air, but it had taken decades.
"The lice are unimportant," Harriet intoned, her seriousness undermined when she had to kick away a louse trying to crawl up her leg.
"I've seen all this," I said, gesturing around. "I know that the Client slaughtered the prador aboard. So what, the prador slaughtered its entire species." I didn't mention how the way the corpses had been sorted and neatly stacked always bothered me. Had the Client kept these as a food source? Could it actually ingest this alien meat?
"You've seen all this," Harriet parroted.
She abruptly turned away and paced across the hold to the far wall. I sighed and walked after her, but as I drew closer I suddenly realized that there was another square door in this far wall. I paused, scanned about myself, then realized I had never spotted it before because I'd never felt any inclination to walk this far into this dim mausoleum. Harriet nosed a control beside this new door and, rumbling and shaking, it too drew open. I followed her inside.
More dead, I realized, and more ship lice. I gazed at the neat heap—stacked like firewood—for a couple of seconds before reality caught up with me. These weren't prador; they were human corpses. I stood staring for a long drawn-out moment, then forced myself into motion and walked over to inspect them more closely. The corpses here were also vacuum dried and many of them had suffered the depredations of ship lice and in places had been chewed down to the bone. I turned my attention to one nearby that had obviously been dragged from the stack by lice and completely stripped of flesh. The lice had ignored the uniform, obviously getting inside it to dine on the meat. I recognized the uniform at once. I was looking at the skeleton of an ECS commando.
Moving closer, I saw further uniforms, but also a lot of casual dress, a high proportion of clean-room labwear, and the occasional spacesuit and vacuum survival suit. There had to be over a hundred people here.
"You've seen this?" Harriet inquired.
"No," I replied.
"Do you remember?"
I turned toward her. "No, I don't."
I felt slightly sick as I turned away. It must have been a wholly psychological feeling since my artificial body was incapable of nausea. So why had Harriet brought me here to see this? I didn't know, all I did know was that I was standing beside the entire scientific team—plus ECS security personnel—that had been sent to liaise with the Client. I began to head out, then paused now I could see what lay beside the door I'd come in through. I eyed a glittering stack of crystal fragments, ten human corpses untouched by desiccation or decay because, of course, they weren't human but Golem androids. Beside them rested two huge metal beetles, motionless, no light gleaming in their crystal eyes: war drones. It seemed the Client had killed the AI complement of that mission, too.
I headed out of the hold.
The moon was highly volcanic because it was one of many similarly sized moons irregularly orbiting an ice giant. It seemed that they often tore at each other gravitationally, and were torn at by the giant they orbited. In astronomical terms the whole system was unstable and, running a model of it, I saw that at least two of these moons would be shattered in about a hundred thousand years' time; thereafter the system would stabilize with an asteroid ring.
"Do you have something you wish to tell me?" I asked Harriet as I gazed at the images displayed in the hexagonal screens.
"I have nothing I can say to you yet," she replied.
Was that because we were too close to the Client now? I could feel its influence reaching out to me, demanding, dictatorial.
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