Neal Asher's "Alien Archaeology" (novella, science fiction): A criminal is hunted & punished

Basic plot of this novella is very simple & well hashed: a criminal robs a man of something valuable & nearly kills him in the process; victim goes after the criminal & eventually brings him to justice.

Since this is sf, things need to be a little more complex. So, the valuable stolen is not something easily understood like diamonds, money, or important papers. And chase involves spaceships & many planets & aliens!

Unfortunately, the story is far beyond the typical complexity. There are aliens, Neuromancer style & variety of cyborg gadgets/body modifications/AIs, & many more decorations. I didn't get very bored while reading it, but it's kind of read-and-forget story.

Story summary.

Once upon a time, there were many sentient races on many worlds. One of them did something that would have destroyed all technological societies of all sentients.

To escape, one of these races - Atheter - decides to go non-sentient! I didn't quite catch the details of how they cleaned their minds, but today you have bear-like animals called "gabbleducks" that are actually Atheter. In fact, there is exactly one gabbleduck now surviving, on one of the deserted worlds; he will play a role in the story.

In current time, humans & Prador are two races dominating the part of the space once occupied by these extinct aliens. Prador are bad, humans not so bad.

"Polity" is the human political entity spanning many worlds, & is presumably controlled from earth. Polity is ruled by AIs rather than humans! Both hero & criminal are from Polity; Pradors have a relatively small role in the story.

Rho Var Olssen was once a sharp shooter for Earth Central Security (ECS) - apparently, one of the security agencies of Polity. He now is the only person on a deserted world, & does archaeological digging for a company called Arcosect.

In his digging, Rho has found a valuable gadget called "(Atheter) memstore". This apparently holds the consciousness of Atheters - in the tradition of similar Neuromancer gadgets.

If someone can figure out a way of uploading the contents of memstore into gabbleduck, the current non-sentient avatar of Atheters, we will get a sentient Atheter! A priceless entity for collectors - made even more priceless by the fact that only one gabbleduck now lives on all worlds. This potential sentient Atheter is the valuable thing for which the crime is committed.

Jael Feogril, a woman & a hardened criminal, makes the mistake of robbing Rho of his precious memstore - nearly killing him in the process. Story is primarily of Rho chasing Jael down.

Jael makes a deal with Pradors - she will sell them a sentient Atheter. She makes some shady deals to acquire the sole gabbleduck. But is still faced with the problem - how to upload memstore into gabbleduck?

Enter "Penny Royal", a rogue AI! Jael strikes a deal with Penny Royal who will do the mating of memstore with gabbleduck.

In the end, mating goes wrong - destroying memstore contents. Gabbleduck remains an animal. Jael is dead. Rho recovers his precious, but now dead, memstore.

Collected in.

1. Gardner Dozois (Ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

"Alien Archaeology", short story, review
First published: Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2007.
Rating: B