Cormac 02 - The Line of Polity by Neal Asher

Author:Neal Asher [Asher, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Polity Universe
ISBN: 9780330512565
Publisher: Tor
Published: 2009-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

Aphran and Danny entered the bridge pod first, soon followed by five other Separatists who looked both tired and frightened. Skellor observed them as they halted just inside the doors and showed no inclination to come further in, and through their augs he sensed the gritty taste of their fear and their confusion at what they were seeing.

Nodding to the command-crew chairs he said, “Take your places.”

With their eyes widening in horror, they stared at the chairs with the growths poised underneath them like grasping claws. Through most of them, he sensed continued fear and confusion, but from Aphran he felt sudden panic at her partial understanding of what he wanted. He reinforced the order with something like a mental slap that jerked them all into motion. Inevitably it was Danny who responded first, and was soon in the seat nearest to Skellor.

“You don’t need to do this,” said Aphran tightly, fighting all the way but unable to stop herself from sitting down.

Skellor did not bother to reply. Whether or not he actually needed to do what he was doing was irrelevant — he was doing what he wanted to do, and because he could. With the seven now seated, he started the Jain structure growing again, observing it climbing around the backs of each chair, fingering over the arms, and fumbling at the clothing of the seven Separatists. At the first penetration of his skin, the man on the end groaned in pain, then his groan was cut off as the filaments penetrated his spine and rapidly made connections as they sped up to his brain. Skellor then shunted over programs to run the man and programs for him to run. Where the man’s own experience or memory or skill conflicted with what was now required of him, it was erased — chalk wiped from black slate. Drooling in his chair, the Separatist took control of the almost irrelevant systems of life-support.

Aphran, Skellor noted, was making weak whimpering sounds as an extension of the structure slid over her shoulder and rose up by the side of her face and hung poised there like a cobra. She showed the whites of her eyes as she tried to peer round at it, but was unable to turn her head. She yelled once when it struck, and thereafter lost herself as she unwillingly gained control of the weapons systems of the Occam Razor. But she did not control them as a human being — she controlled them as a submind of Skellor, an extension, a useful tool that possessed as little self-determination as a trigger. Aphran did not drool; she just slumped in her seat and her face lost any vividness of expression it had once possessed.

The others followed, one after the other, and as he delegated control of systems, Skellor freed up much processing power within himself in which to more fully view and understand his conquest. The Occam Razor was a formidable ship, but it was not yet entirely his.

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