‘Sap from the banoaks,’ said Garp. ‘It takes an hour or so to reach sufficient concentration in the bloodstream.’
Salind jumped when he heard an agonized scream from deeper in the building.
‘That was a cropster whose sap levels just reached sufficient concentration,’ said Garp.
‘What the hell are they doing here?’
Garp explained, ‘It was some lunatic ancestor of Soper’s who first drank tea made from the treels that had fed on an enemy he had nailed to a banoak. He discovered that tea to be powerful indeed. He had discovered the human-specific narcotic, praist. In his subsequent gruesome experiments he also discovered that treels live longer in victims who like their tea too much, and that in those cases the yield of praist increases.’
Deeper in the building Garp abruptly halted and gestured ahead. Here an old grey-bearded man, who Salind thought resembled the park labourer he had observed before meeting Garp the reif, was doing something to one of those strapped to a frame. It took a moment for Salind to absorb this further horror. The woman on the frame was unconscious. The old man cut slits in her body and opened them with sprung clamps. Into the holes, through a wide funnel, he fed finger-length treels.
‘During the later years of the cult of Anubis Arisen it was discovered that if you fed someone on pure banoak sap to get a sufficient concentration in the bloodstream, and if the treels are inserted just so, they will attach quickly without causing too much internal damage -
without hitting an artery. Allowed to grow in a sap-fed human body for as much as five days, the yield of praist is fifty times more than when it was done the old way. The victim dies eventually, as you can see.’ Garp gestured down the row of frames to where corpses hung, larger treels writhing in and out of holes in their bodies.
‘This is a nightmare,’ said Salind, and for once he wasn’t thinking about the story. He thought about what Geronamid had said: eight hundred of these places.
Garp nodded, then unhooked his rail-gun and handed it across. ‘Protect yourself.’
‘What?’
‘I intend to use my hands,’ said Garp, and walked over to the old man. The man looked up, grinning, for he obviously enjoyed his work. Garp reached out and pressed his hands to either side of the man’s face, then twisted. Salind could hear the bones breaking from where he stood.
Now Garp turned and headed back, passing Salind without looking at him as he headed for the building’s entrance. Salind turned and followed. Reaching the first of the women, Garp chopped once and she went down. The next woman went down the same way. The first two of the three men strapping people to the frames, Garp grabbed and slammed together. They dropped soggily.
The third man tried to run.
Message from Jennifer Tarjen: Polity monitors coming in through the runcible and two gamma-class dreadnoughts in orbit. Geronamid has ordered immediate intervention on Banjer!
This has to be because of your transmission!
Like hell, thought Salind. Geronamid had intended intervention here from the start.
Salind’s transmission was just part of the justification.
What’s Geronamid doing now?
Message: Geronamid cannot be traced at present.
Garp caught the third man by his collar, dragged him back and broke his neck. He was going to do them all. He just wasn’t going to stop. . Then there came a turquoise flash that left afterimages on Salind’s retina. He saw Garp fly back, his clothing and skin burning. He hit the ground hard then immediately sat up. Deleen Soper walked in from outside, three men in armoralls walking in behind her.
‘It was obvious you’d been uploaded to a Golem,’ she said. ‘And typically arrogant of you to consider yourself invulnerable.’ She held up her weapon and went on. ‘This is Polity hardware.
It will stop a Golem, as you’ve just found out.’
Garp began to chuckle, then to laugh.
‘It amuses you that you are finally going to die?’ she asked.
From where he was hiding behind a row of frames Salind shakily raised the rail-gun. He had to do something; had to commit. He couldn’t just observe.
‘I’ve already done that. It’s not something that scares me,’ Garp replied.
‘It’s a shame you can’t be put on a frame,’ said Soper.
‘Nothing you can do but destroy me. You can’t even use me for some idiot assassination attempt this time. You might have got your hands on a fancy gun, but no way you’ve got the tech to access Golem hardware.’
Soper leant the weapon across her shoulder and gazed down at Garp. ‘No point in that now. The fact that I could get an assassin through all the Council’s defences brought most of them back into line. I also gained the unexpected bonus of making Mr straight and true officer Garp kill an innocent Polity citizen.’
Salind could feel sweat running down his back. This was it: he could delay no longer.
Message: Salind, put the gun down before you shoot your own foot off.
Who the hell?
Just then he felt Argus go offline, but it wasn’t him that had made it do so.
Garp now began to rise.
‘Stay on the fucking ground!’
‘Polity hardware,’ said Garp, continuing to stand. ‘Had you the opportunity I know that you would have some strong words for your supplier.’
Soper aimed her weapon at him and pulled the trigger, again and again. Nothing happened. Salind could see first confusion then terror growing in her expression. Her three accompanying thugs were backing off, ready to run. He tried the record facility in Argus — that didn’t work either. On his feet now, Garp held his hands apart before him.
‘Don’t worry about me, Deleen. I’m not going to kill you.’ For a moment she found hope, then Garp gestured to the doorway behind, which now filled with a huge shape. ‘He’s going to do that.’
Soper and her three thugs turned. Salind stepped out to see more clearly as Geronamid, still in the form of an allosaur, stepped delicately into the building.
For a moment, stillness, then Soper laughed with relief and tossed her weapon on the floor. ‘You can’t do that. You’re an AI. It’s against all Polity law.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ asked Geronamid, pacing forward.
‘You can’t interfere in places where that law doesn’t apply, and if it ever does apply here there’ll be a general amnesty.’
‘Who said anything about law?’ Geronamid asked. ‘But since you mention it, amnesty doesn’t apply in cases of intervention.’
‘What?’
Geronamid stepped in closer. Salind thought Soper must smell the last meal on the allosaur’s breath. What happened next was nightmarish. Geronamid’s head snapped to one side and one of Soper’s men fell over. His head was gone. Geronamid spat the head at Soper’s feet.
‘I think I would like you to run now.’
Soper stared at the head for one interminable moment, then turned and fled, her men following fast. Salind understood now why Argus was totally offline. The AI had remotely shut it down: no recordings, no transmission. He watched the allosaur take off after the three and disbelievingly watched what happened in the shadowy interior of the building. No one would believe this: Polity AIs were just so measured and moral.