Surface Detail

suns.

“There,” the Bodhisattva’s drone said, turning to Yime and the avatar. “Full speed ahead, I think.”

Himerance nodded. The stars on the screen started to drift away. “Fields at naked-hull minimum,” he said. “Going to a velocity which will be traction-injurious within about forty hours.”

“When do we get there?” Yime asked.

“Eighteen hours,” Himerance said. The avatar stared at the screen. The view had swung to dead ahead. “I’d better check my Manual files, see if I remember how to work as a functioning warship. Probably all sorts of stuff I need to do. Prepping shields, calibrating Effectors, manufacturing warheads; that sort of thing.”

“Anything I can—?” Yime began to say, then realised how absurd this would sound to a ship. “Sorry. Never mind,” she said, flapping one hand, which hurt a little.

The avatar just smiled at her.

He woke to a sort of busy quietness. There was a ringing noise somewhere, and some distinctly annoying beeping, and something else he couldn’t immediately identify, but it all felt terribly muffled, like it was happening somewhere down the other end of a very long tunnel and he really needn’t be concerned about it. He kept his eyes open and looked around, but nothing made sense. He closed his eyes again. Then thought that was probably a bad idea. Something bad had happened and it might not have stopped happening yet; he needed to keep alert, keep his eyes open, keep focused.

He felt heavy in a strange way, as though his weight was being taken by his head and neck and shoulders. He turned his head to one side, then the other.

Fuck; he knew where he was. He was in the back of the flier. All this dark, tipped chaos around him was the remains of the aircraft. What the fuck had happened?

He was lying in the seat he’d been in when whatever had happened… had happened. He wanted to shake his head to clear it but wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He brought one hand up to his face, wiping. Sticky. He looked at his hand. That was blood. He was breathing heavily.

His feet were up in the air, pointing towards the sky, which he could see through the contorted remains of the flier’s rear deck. Where the ultraclear glass should be, there appeared to be nothing. Stuff was falling out of the cloud-dark sky and landing on him, landing all about him. Black and grey. Soot and ash.

He remembered the fireball he’d glimpsed.

Had that been a nuke?

Had some fucker tried to nuke him?

Had some motherfucker tried to nuke him in his own plane on his own fucking estate?

“Motherfucker,” he said, his voice sounding heavy and slurred and far away.

He didn’t seem to be badly injured; nothing broken. He glanced behind him — that did hurt, as though he’d been bruised — then pushed himself back down the seat, head first, grabbing onto the support for the laser rifle — still on, little tell-tale lights blinking — to stop himself from falling backwards against the bulkhead, which was now tipped so that it was nearer to being a floor than a wall.

He got himself standing upright and stood there swaying, brushing the dirt and bits of glass and smears of blood off his clothes. What a state. He looked at the soot and ash still falling down around him through the space where the ultraclear had been. He’d have to climb if he was going to get out that way. He brushed some of the ash and soot out of his hair. Fucking radioactive shit, he’d bet. When he found who’d been responsible he’d have them fucking skinned alive while he hosed them with saline solution. He wondered who to suspect. Had there been anybody meant to come on this flight who’d called off at the last moment? He couldn’t think of anybody. All present. His whole entourage, all his people.

He looked along to the door into the rest of the flier, then reached up and struggled to detach the laser rifle from its stand, eventually giving up.

Felt like the flier was nose down into the ground. That meant the pilots were probably dead. He wondered how many of those in the main passenger compartment were still alive, if any.

He pulled at the door — more of a trap-door, now — but it wouldn’t open. He had to get down on his knees and use both hands to pull it open, cutting one of his fingers on a bit of torn metal as he did so. He sucked the blooded finger, licked it. Like a fucking animal, he thought. Like a fucking animal. Skinning alive would be too good for whoever had done this. He’d want to think of something worse. There were probably experts you could consult.

He lowered himself into the darkness beneath the protesting, creaking door.

* * *

“What’s happening to my eyes?” It came out as a cry, like a yelp, not the calm question she’d intended. Her eyes were getting sore, feeling pressured.

“Suit’s getting ready to foam inside your visor,” the ship told her crisply. “Gas pressure first, so the foam won’t come as a shock. Don’t want detached retinas, do you?”

“As ever, thanks for the warning.”

“As ever, apologies. Not big on warnings. Grief; it’s so complicated keeping you humans undamaged.”

“What’s happening now?”

“The suit will be using its neural inductor to set up screening images straight into your brain. You may get double vision while your eyes are still working and it’s calibrating.”

“I meant outside, with the other ship.”

“It’s mulling over my last communication, which was basically, Stop following me or I’ll treat you as hostile. Reconfigured a touch to a more defensive posture. I gave it half a minute to make its mind up. Probably too generous. It’s one of my failings.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lededje watched the eight-limbed snowflake shape, unsure now whether she was seeing it with her eyes projected inside the suit’s helmet, or somehow purely with her visual centre, lensed in there directly by the suit. The image shimmered again.

“What—?”

“See?” the ship said. “Too long. Didn’t even take the full half-minute.”

“What did it do?”

“Fucker tried putting a shot across my bows, is what it did. Told me to heave to and prepare for boarding, in what you might call classical terms. Says it suspects me of being part of some swarm outbreak, which is amusing, if deeply implausible. Marks for originality.” The ship sounded amused. “Also, hitting me with a comms enclosure, cutting me off from outside contact. That’s not neighbourly at all. Plus means it’s either very big and capable or it’s not working alone, and there are at least another three ships in the vicinity. I could find them, plus I could just punch through it, but both would mean I’d have to drop the li’l- old-me Torturer disguise.” The ship made a sighing noise. “Going to have to foam you up, lass. Close your eyes.”

She closed her eyes, felt the pressure and temperature on her eyelids change subtly. She tried, tentatively, to open her eyes again, but they felt glued shut. Disorientingly, the view she had of space around the ship didn’t seem to change at all.

“I—” she began.

“Now your mouth.”

“What?”

“Your mouth.”

“How can I talk to you if I close my mouth?”

“You’re not closing it, initially; you’re opening it so another sort of foam can get in there; coats your throat in carbon fibre to stop it closing up under high acceleration, then you close it, the buttress foam fills your mouth and another load of foam does something similar with your nose; you can still breathe normally but you’re right, you can’t talk. You just have to think the words; sub-vocalising with your throat should help. Mouth open, please.”