Free Polity 4 - The Technician by Asher Neal Page B

Masada of putrefaction – something
had died nearby, within the last week. Swinging his shear to chop a path he
made his way through the vegetable mass, regretting he could not bring his
robot, Mick, with him, but it wasn’t made for this sort of terrain. The smell
grew stronger as he advanced until he broke through into an area where the
lizard tails had been crushed flat at the base of a crumbling lava slope
leading up to the crater rim. And here he found the source of that stink.
    The
gabbleduck was down on its belly, as if crouching like some massively obese cat
preparing to pounce. Its bill lay flat on the ground and its eyes were now a
pepperpot of holes in its bare skull, which prawn-like dryben were using like
holes in a wasps’ nest. Chanter took a hard sharp breath and quickly scanned
his surroundings. This was unusual, very unusual, practically unique. The
remains of gabbleducks were a great rarity, for hooders – usually avid
predators that avoided carrion – always gathered in numbers when a gabbleduck
was dying, or dead. They would then go into a feeding frenzy, crowding each
other out in their eagerness to feed upon every last scrap of the creature
until absolutely nothing remained. Gabbleducks, it seemed, produced an oddly
complex hormone whilst they were in the process of expiring, and this hormone
drove hooders crazy. There seemed no evolutionary basis for this, but then evolution
wasn’t always the answer. It certainly offered no answers for why the
Technician produced its grotesque sculptures.
    Chanter
walked over to the massive corpse, noting further dryben crawling in and out of
holes eaten in through its body, and then he glanced up the lava slope. It must
have expired up at the top there and rolled down, but still this didn’t explain
why no hooders had been attracted here to obliterate the remains. Perhaps some
connection with the sickly lizard tails and the lack of tricones down in the
vent? Chanter grimaced and headed for the slope, further puzzled as he climbed
to see penny molluscs clinging in neat spirals to the stone. As he climbed he
felt some degree of worry, for a dead gabbleduck would certainly be of interest
to the Polity researchers now on this world and the AIs above would know that
it was here. His visit might draw their attention, though he was not so stupid
as to believe that the AIs weren’t already aware of his presence here on
Masada.
    At the
top of the slope he pulled his palmtop out of a side pocket of his backpack and
called up the map showing his present location and the path he must tread to
reach the coordinates Dragon had given him all those years ago. The arrow
directed him to his left along the crater rim, though when he checked, he saw
his destination lay twenty kilometres directly ahead. The trekking program had
obviously found something there he needed to go round, a cliff or crevasse,
maybe a river. He set out, big flat feet clumping down on shale bound together
by the mycelial fibres of mountain fungus. Luckily it was early in the season
for this growth and it had yet to turn the rocks slippery, though the downside
of this was that he would be unlikely to see any of the fungus-sucking
herbivores that dwelt up here.
    Halfway
round the crater rim the arrow directed him down a gentle slope into a canyon
formed by black basalt walls standing only a few metres high. He trudged on
down to this, but at the base of the slope halted and scanned around. Maybe that
gabbleduck back there, and the oddities within the crater, had left him with
this creepy feeling, but he got the distinct impression that something was
watching him. He glanced up. Perhaps something was, maybe some AI, keeping a
sensor directed towards that corpse, now idly tracking his course. He shook
himself and stomped on, legs already beginning to ache from this unaccustomed
exercise.
    After
five kilometres, Chanter chose a suitable rock and sat down heavily, telling
himself his amphidapt body was as