Jenny Trapdoor by Neal Asher

Author:Neal Asher [Asher, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2023-12-20T06:00:00+00:00

The memory had risen unbidden and in exquisite detail. She felt her anger at the humans who had captured other humans and sold them to the prador and still retained all the data she had grabbed so long ago from the Polity data sphere. Before, she had just scanned across it, but now she looked into it more deeply and questions truly did begin to occur. Alien bugs could infect humans with results that were either indifferent or disastrous. Either the human body killed them or they fed on it voraciously, finally killing it. But it was all about feeding and nothing about supplanting human cellular machinery or doing any of the things viruses and bacteria did on Earth, because the alien bugs had not evolved alongside the humans. That an alien virus could occupy a human, turn it into a reusable food resource and so thoroughly alter physiognomy was, well, highly unlikely.

‘Yes, I have questions,’ she said, but needed to say no more than that because it seemed Yellow was still as much in her mind as she was.

‘The virus is an eclectic collector of genomes but, up until about five million years ago, only of the genomes of the creatures on Spatterjay.’

That was all the paintshop AI said – it just waited for her to work some things out. Five million years ago usually meant only one thing.

‘Jain technology,’ she said.

‘In a word: yes. Five million years ago, for reasons that simply cannot be elucidated, a squad of Jain biomechs transcribed themselves into the genome of the Spatterjay virus. Maybe it was to be turned into a weapon. Maybe it was so they could hide and come back, reborn from the virus at a later time. But things got highly disrupted and it is difficult for that Jain genome to express. However, it has resulted in the virus being able to adapt to alien life forms – all alien life forms.’

Jenny got it at once as she gazed upon the descending prador. ‘What did it do to them?’

‘Physically they have changed in many ways and are as difficult to kill as those human blanks you and that drone burned up down here. Mentally it has boosted their intelligence. We can attribute the end of the war directly to the virus. A father-captain was infected and became smart enough to realise that the prador war effort was doomed against AI production . . . doomed against the productive might of places like war factory Room 101. Also infecting his children he went back to the Kingdom, usurped the then king and immediately negotiated a truce with the Polity. In essence he saved the prador kingdom. If the war had continued the Polity would have broken it and thereafter confined surviving prador to the surfaces of their worlds.’

‘So these children of the new king are dangerous,’ said Jenny.

‘Damned right.’

‘So how do we get out of here?’

The words had risen out of her quite naturally and, retrospectively, she realised she had changed immensely.

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