Cowl by Neal Asher

Author:Neal Asher [Asher, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 1405048050
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2004-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The nightmare bore the shape of a man, but a tall, long-limbed man in whom the ranginess of the Heliothane had been taken to its extreme. It had no face-its head was a slightly beaked, utterly featureless ovoid, of the same shiny beetle-black appearance as the majority of its naked body. However, as if this was not strange enough, the black carapace revealed a network of hyaline veins and ribs, so that, when the light caught the network, it looked as if something horribly skeletal stood there.

‘A woman used a semi-AI prognostic program to predict the future development of human DNA, and on the basis of that started recombination experiments on her children. In her terms, her first experiment was a failure, though the offspring survived. Cowl was not a failure, so there is much speculation as to what those terms of hers were.’

Tack flinched as Cowl started to walk towards him, but the dark being was then frozen mid-stride as Pedagogue continued lecturing.

‘We don’t know what external pressures were input, because DNA has no purpose in itself other than its own survival and procreation, so intelligence or physical strength are only increased should they have a direct bearing on that. Should the survival of human DNA entail you needing to lose your big brains and filter food out of the soil, you would all become worms. It can only be supposed that her program posited a future where the highest levels of intelligence, ruthlessness, speed and strength were required. Cowl killed his own mother while in her womb, thereafter escaping by internal caesarean much like a chick escaping from the egg with its beak spur.’

‘But he became one of the Heliothane,’ Tack stated. The information was now just there, in his mind. He saw how Cowl’s survival had initially depended on the Heliothane, how he had deliberately become a very valuable member of that society. It was not so difficult-ruthlessness and intelligence being much admired. The misjudgment had killed many. One of them a top scientist called Astolere-Saphothere’s sister.

‘I see,’ said Tack woodenly.

And see he did. He saw Callisto, a moon of Jupiter, exploding, with the blast contained in some unseen barrier and the moon just winking out of existence. Four hundred million Heliothane gone in less time than it took to draw breath.

‘Cowl, having made his alliance with the Umbrathane, and passing on much of his research, caused a temporal anomaly on Callisto, where his research facility was based, putting a picosecond future version of that moon in exactly the same place as the original. The physical composite of the two moons, forced to exist however briefly in the same place, went in a fusion explosion, the energy generated thereby powering his flight, and that of the Umbrathane fleet, into the past.’

‘And I am supposed to kill this… creature?’

‘Yes, that is your task.’

Back aboard the virtual ship, Tack was bathed in incandescence. The screens now revealed a side view of the sun tap. It was a

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