Jack Four by Neal Asher

Author:Neal Asher [Asher, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529050004
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2021-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

12

The woman called Racher picked me up off the bed and put me on a gurney, run by grav, while Brack watched from the door. As the thing followed her out, slaved to her control, Brack stared down at me, his hand straying to the handle of his machete. But he did nothing. I mentally replayed what Racher had said before she dumped me in her cabin and it struck me that it’d been a precaution. She thought I might be able to talk again and didn’t want to be associated with Brack’s open intentions to harm me. This made me realize how absolute a ruler of the Stratogaster station Suzeal must be, feared by those who worked under her and, perhaps, worshipped.

Racher took me out of the ship, then down through a dropshaft and out into bright light. I saw two other tough-looking individuals walking along with the gurney. They wore uniforms of black and white, and carried weapons I recognized as slammers – guns that could fling out a bolus of metal dust to devastating effect on a human but didn’t have much penetration. Perfect weapons for keeping order in a space station where you didn’t want to make holes. A moment later I got my first glimpse of the hub of the station. A geodesic glass roof ran above, and through it I could see the curve inside the hub where spaceships were docked, perhaps including the one I’d been inside.

We entered a much wider dropshaft and the journey down this seemed interminable. A boulevard ensued and I could hear people all around me, with someone peering down at me before one of the guards pushed him away. We carried on down corridors, then arrived in another room.

‘Put him in the frame,’ said a man’s voice.

As they did this, I felt my hopes rising on seeing the autodocs, scanners and other medical equipment all around. Racher heaved me up.

‘Some help here,’ she said.

The frame sat inside gimbals. They clamped my arms and legs spread-eagled, putting a strap about my waist. I noted then that there was no grav below the gimbals as they turned me horizontal. A mechanical arm unfolded from one of the pillars over to one side and inserted a sensor head and, as it traversed my body, I felt the wave of heat I’d felt aboard the King’s Ship when first deep-scanned. It withdrew and folded up against the pillar again once it was finished. The gimbals then turned me upright to face a man who’d just come in through the door – the others had gone now. This odd-looking homunculus didn’t seem to have any eyes, just flat skin there underneath a sensory band running an optic plugged into his skull. He grinned maniacally, exposing snaggle teeth stained by some red chemical.

‘No bombs,’ he said.

‘I doubt even they would be so unsubtle,’ said Suzeal, presumably through an intercom. ‘There might be something else.’

‘Not as far as I can see,’ he said, tugging at his bottom lip.

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