Surface Detail

Felt like the flier was nose down into the ground. That meant the pilots were probably dead. He wondered how many of those in the main passenger compartment were still alive, if any.

He pulled at the door – more of a trap-door, now – but it wouldn’t open. He had to get down on his knees and use both hands to pull it open, cutting one of his fingers on a bit of torn metal as he did so. He sucked the blooded finger, licked it. Like a fucking animal, he thought. Like a fucking animal. Skinning alive would be too good for whoever had done this. He’d want to think of something worse. There were probably experts you could consult.

He lowered himself into the darkness beneath the protesting, creaking door.

*

“What’s happening to my eyes?” It came out as a cry, like a yelp, not the calm question she’d intended. Her eyes were getting sore, feeling pressured.

“Suit’s getting ready to foam inside your visor,” the ship told her crisply. “Gas pressure first, so the foam won’t come as a shock.

Don’t want detached retinas, do you?”

“As ever, thanks for the warning.”

“As ever, apologies. Not big on warnings. Grief; it’s so compli-cated keeping you humans undamaged.”

“What’s happening now?”

“The suit will be using its neural inductor to set up screening images straight into your brain. You may get double vision while your eyes are still working and it’s calibrating.”

“I meant outside, with the other ship.”

“It’s mulling over my last communication, which was basically, Stop following me or I’ll treat you as hostile. Reconfigured a touch to a more defensive posture. I gave it half a minute to make its mind up. Probably too generous. It’s one of my failings.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lededje watched the eight-limbed snowflake shape, unsure now whether she was seeing it with her eyes projected inside the suit’s helmet, or somehow purely with her visual centre, lensed in there directly by the suit. The image shimmered again.

“What-?”

“See?” the ship said. “Too long. Didn’t even take the full half-minute.”

“What did it do?”

“Fucker tried putting a shot across my bows, is what it did. Told me to heave to and prepare for boarding, in what you might call classical terms. Says it suspects me of being part of some swarm outbreak, which is amusing, if deeply implausible. Marks for orig-inality.” The ship sounded amused. “Also, hitting me with a comms enclosure, cutting me off from outside contact. That’s not neigh-bourly at all. Plus means it’s either very big and capable or it’s not working alone, and there are at least another three ships in the vicinity. I could find them, plus I could just punch through it, but both would mean I’d have to drop the li’l-old-me Torturer disguise.” The ship made a sighing noise. “Going to have to foam you up, lass. Close your eyes.”

She closed her eyes, felt the pressure and temperature on her eyelids change subtly. She tried, tentatively, to open her eyes again, but they felt glued shut. Disorientingly, the view she had of space around the ship didn’t seem to change at all.

“I-” she began.

“Now your mouth.”

“What?”

“Your mouth.”

“How can I talk to you if I close my mouth?”

“You’re not closing it, initially; you’re opening it so another sort of foam can get in there; coats your throat in carbon fibre to stop it closing up under high acceleration, then you close it, the buttress foam fills your mouth and another load of foam does something similar with your nose; you can still breathe normally but you’re right, you can’t talk. You just have to think the words; sub-vocalising with your throat should help. Mouth open, please.”

“I am not happy with this. This is all very… invasive. You can understand that with my history I’m troubled by this.”

“Again, apologies. We can always not do this but then we can’t manoeuvre with the alacrity we might need to keep both you and me alive. Potentially, this means death or discomfort. Death or trauma. Or I ditch you in the module and-”

“Do it!” she said, almost shouting. “I can always get counselling,” she muttered.

Warm foam slid into her mouth. She felt it – or something, somewhere – numbing her mouth and throat; she didn’t gag, didn’t feel exactly where the foam went.

“Well done,” the ship sent. “Now, bite down, Lededje. No rush. Our pursuers are giving us a countdown to compliance but there’s ample time. Hmm. Finally some ident. GFCF. There’s a surprise.”

She bit down, into the warm foam. Something started to tickle her nose, then that sensation faded too.

∼Right! the ship announced breezily, its voice inside her head.

∼That’s you as ready as you’re ever going be. Try sending instead

of saying?

∼Howowow ig diss? Oh, fshuck.

∼“How is this?” You’re overdoing the sub-vocalising. Just do it, don’t think about doing it.

∼Okay, how’s this?

∼Perfect. See? Easy. Now we can start behaving like a proper warship!

∼Oh, great.

∼It’ll be fine.

∼What’s happening?