Prador Moon

3

They dined on mince, and slices of quince—

The Trajeen cargo runcible briefly came into view through the shuttle windows: five horn-shaped objects with tips overlapping bases in a curvilinear pentagon. Each of these objects was three hundred metres long with accommodation and R&D units clinging around its outer curve like the cells of a beehive. Tube walkways linked these conglomerations, and many solar panels glimmered like obsidian leaves. An orthogonal nest of plaited nanotube scaffolding poles enclosed the whole. Moria glimpsed the robots, one-man constructor pods and telefactors in the process of dismantling that scaffold. The glare of welders and cutting gear lit stars throughout the complex and plumes of water vapour swirled out like just-forming question marks over vacuum.

The shuttle swung in, taking the runcible out of view for a few minutes. Shadows then fell across the vessel and Moria saw some of those hexagonal units up close as the craft came in to dock. It shuddered into place, docking clamps engaged with a hollow clattering, followed by the whoosh of air filling a docking tunnel. After a moment, the disembarkation light came on and all the passengers began unstrapping themselves and pushing off from their seats to grab the safety rails leading to the airlock. Inside the shuttle it was nil gee, as in the tunnel leading to the complex.

"Best of luck," said Carolan as they reached the complex itself, then she slapped Moria on the shoulder and moved swiftly away. Moria guessed the woman's haste was instigated by the sight of the ECS officer heading this way across the embarkation area. She had only told Carolan that the AI contacted her concerning her Sylac aug and wanted to speak to her further, not daring to relate the circumstances of that contact. She pushed herself from the docking tube and settled down to the floor as the grav-plates within began to take hold.

"Moria Salem?" asked the man, smiling at her nicely.

"You know I am," she replied.

"Let's not be unpleasant about this," he told her, his smile becoming fixed.

Moria eyed him, realising he came suitably equipped to handle "unpleasantness." His shaven pate gleamed a head and shoulders above her and he probably massed about twice as much—none of that weight being fat. He was either a heavy-worlder or a man substantially boosted: bones and joints reinforced to withstand an implausible muscle mass.

"Where do I go?" Moria asked.

"With me of course." The man's smile lit again and it almost seemed genuine. Despite herself, Moria began warming to him.

He led her across the embarkation area to a nil-gee drop-shaft along which they towed themselves to a corridor. They traversed further shafts and corridors until reaching one of the tubes crossing vacuum between units of the complex. Moria now realised they were leaving the area in which she normally worked. Through the transparent tube wall she could see stars glimmering all around the swirled marble of Trajeen, and nearby lay a vertiginous view of the cargo runcible and surrounding facilities. A distant speck revealed itself as someone in a spacesuit, striding on gecko boots around a metallic curve, flipping a cable along behind. This gave scale to the view—an impressive though familiar sight to her.

The tunnel terminated at a coded security door. The man pressed his hand against a gene and palm reader of the kind that also ascertained that the hand's owner still lived—certain macabre scenarios briefly flitted through Moria's mind—then he input a code on a touch-plate.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He glanced at her. "George." An old and strangely prosaic name in this setting.

Beyond the door lay a whole unit Moria knew to be infrequently visited by the usual project crew. Rumour had it that its armour lay a metre thick and that it contained weapons arrays and its own independent drive. Grav dragged them to the floor within the inner lock, and while George opened the second door, Moria glanced up at the scanning drone suspended from the ceiling—suspiciously large power cables plumbed into it.

Inside, the carpeted corridor absorbed sound, and muted lighting from ornate light fitments lay easy on the eye. The carpet itself was decorated with repeating representations of the Trajeen AI and computer network. AIs were represented as red triangles, subminds were minor orange triangles, with variously coloured dots indicating servers and computers, and the whole being tangled in a three-dee web of com channels. The walls were clad with pillow-shaped foamstone blocks. Not so much bustle here—an oddly quiet and comfortable niche for something requiring no comfort. George led her to wooden panel doors and opened them onto a wide lounge alongside which long windows gave a panoramic view across the runcible.

"Please, take a seat." George gestured to a sofa.

Moria perched on the edge of one plush black fabric-covered sofa and surveyed the lounge. It seemed likely to her that much of this room's contents were either antique or indistinguishable reproduction. The oval table lying between the two sofas appeared to be made of genuine Earth-import wood, or maybe the table itself had been imported. Along one wall, on a worktop of polished stone, stood a collection of computers extending from the earliest PCs to present day. Behind them the racked wall contained a huge collection of ancient storage media: tapes, discs of many different sizes and formats, stacks of silicon data storage units, digital paper, carbon rod and early crystal, and much else she could not identify. In one corner squatted an insectile telefactor with forelimbs folded across its body as if it were in prayer; behind it lay the atmosphere-sealed shelves of a carousel packed with books. She realised the computers were all wired in and, by wear in the carpet below, that the telefactor frequently used them. It seemed the AI enjoyed access to much ancient information, though to what purpose she could not guess. A hobby? Historical research?

"A drink?"

Moria turned to see George standing by a drinks cabinet.

"Do you have greenwine?"

"Certainly."

He found a bottle Moria knew to be a rare vintage, and poured two glasses before coming over. He placed the drinks on the table and seated himself on the sofa opposite.

"So when does the AI talk to me?" She took a sip of her drink—ice cold in a crystal goblet lightly dusted with frost.

"It is talking to you now," George replied.

A beat.

"You're a Golem?"

"No, I am physically human but mentally a submindof the Trajeen System Cargo Runcible AI." He gestured towards his chest. "This body was grown in a vat, the mind programmed as an adjunct to myself."

Moria had not known this to be possible. It might not be, for AIs did not necessarily tell the truth.

"Okay." She took another drink to hide her confusion, then decided to play along with this. "Other than the fact that the aug I'm wearing might be something other than standard, I've something else bothering me."

George waited.

She continued: "Why did Sylac use his own name if he is a fugitive?"

"He conducted many operations in his surgery in Copranus City, working under the pseudonym Doctor Runciman Hyde." George winced. "A rather telling pseudonym… Only with you did he use his correct name. He is arrogant and wants us to know about his work. By using his true name, prior to closing his surgery and moving on, he knew we would eventually find out, and track down all those upon whom he conducted nonstandard augmentation."

"He has gone then?"

"We are searching for him at present, but he had two weeks in which to make his escape. Precisely at the time you experienced the enhanced level of aug function aboard the shuttle, over a hundred others experienced the same. However, only through you did we identify him."

"So what now?"

"Now I must make an assessment of you, your aug, and the synergetic combination you represent." George leaned forwards and now Moria noticed something weird about his eyes: the irises seemed to have become evenly spoked and metallic. "I will make an optic linkage to your aug, and in a virtuality of your choosing, we will explore your potential or… otherwise."

"I suppose that virtuality is the only choice I have in this matter?"

"Precisely."

"I think we interrupted their dinner break," said Jean, adding, "It seems they like to play with their food."

Alan Grace, a tough and experienced ECS monitor, pulled himself down beside a laser drill rig and vomited. With no gravity to drag it down the vomit shot with amazing speed across ten metres of air space to splash on a wall. The other two ECS monitors were further back in the factory, short ropes securing them to the floor and one of them tightening a tourniquet just above the other's right knee. Below that knee remained nothing but shreds. The woman felt no pain though, the drug patch on her neck having sent her to glittering fairyland.

"Urbanus, find the grav-plate controls and see if you can route in power—slowly," Jebel instructed, keeping his tone succinct, factual.

Droplets of blood and other fluids swirled across the nightmare scene like plastic beads. There were three corpses here. The Prador had secured them to the wall with some sort of resin. The left-hand one, a man, had suffered most. His arms were gone below the elbows and what remained of his guts hung out. It seemed evident, by the ties above his elbows—little different from the tourniquet presently being applied to the wounded monitor—and by the tubes plumbed into his carotids leading to some kind of pressure bag, that the aliens had kept him alive while they took him apart. His arms were nowhere in the vicinity. It seemed obvious what the Prador had done with the parts they removed. The other two corpses were headless. One head spun slowly a few metres below the ceiling, whilst the other lodged amid some nearby pipework. Jebel guessed the Prador killed their prisoners upon sighting him and the others. He glanced down at his right hand and saw it quivering. Mentally he ticked things off: hostile, horrible-looking bastards, eat people, torture people. Redeeming characteristics: none found. He felt a mad giggle rising in his chest and stamped on it hard.

Turning away, Jebel closed his eyes and tried to distance himself from what he felt. But one fact kept replaying in his mind: these people were almost certainly civilians, so being a noncombatant just did not help. Cirrella's apartment lay a few floors down from here and some way ahead. He considered just leaving the others and going his own way, going to find out, but self-discipline and training won out in the end. By remaining part of the overall strategy to retake this part of the station he stood a better chance of helping her, and others like her. If he went off on his own he would probably end up dead. Simple really, but not something he could accept on an emotional level.

"I've rerouted connections," said Urbanus over comlink, "andAvalon is supplying power. The machinery will remain offline but I am beginning to power-up the grav-plates now."

Slowly, gravity returned. Throughout the factory, objects began settling to the floor. Jebel watched the beads drop and the corpses sag. He glanced back as other similarly insalubrious objects pattered down. His own feet shortly touched a floor becoming slick with blood.

"That's better," said Alan Grace, holding his gut.

Urbanus returned. "Avalonis sending others to secure this area." The Golem nodded to the wounded monitor. "They'll take her back to the nearest med bay."

Within minutes the backup team arrived, and medics tended the wounded monitor while others began to reconnect shattered optic junctions to pincams. Com became clearer and for a second or two Jebel found his aug function trying to reinstate. Via com, the station AI informed him, "You are now in command, Jebel Krong, ranking increased by two points. Continue your mission, which is to get out as many civilians as possible, but understand your time is now limited. We have confirmation that the Prador are returning to their shuttle. Once that shuttle departs, this station is likely to become the prime target of the mother ship."

Please let Cirrella be safe now…

"What about the ECS ships?"

"All destroyed."

It struck him in the guts. They won nothing here—they were just trying to limit their losses. His aug then fully reinstated long enough for him to receive details of the areas he must now sweep, but still no message from Cirrella. He decided that the moment they were recalled he would set out by himself and find her, but other things needed doing now.

"Very well." Jebel scanned his command. "We continue. I for one want to kill some more of these fuckers."

His team growled assent.

He led his comrades from the factory into further nil-gee areas, finally reaching the designated meeting point—a spherical chamber at the junction of numerous corridors in the centre of which stood a cypress tree, its limbs shattered. There he gave instructions to the other units, and they moved on.

"If they're retreating to their ship, we'll probably not run into any more ambushes," Jean observed.

"Okay, let's pick up the pace."

They moved faster for another quarter of an hour before Urbanus abruptly called, "Halt!"

Jebel glared at the Golem, but Urbanus, as coolly as his name, directed Jebel's attention to certain small cylindrical objects affixed to the ceiling ahead. "I don't know what they are, but they're certainly not ours."

"Shoot one of them," Jebel instructed.

In one smooth movement Urbanus raised and fired his carbine. The cylinders detonated in multiple blasts, filling the corridor ahead with fire and shrapnel.

"Bastards," Jebel commented, and slowed the pace again.

However, by Jebel's estimation they had penetrated halfway into the area held by the Prador. Finally they worked their way up to a long shopping mall with balconies overlooking a park extending through a kilometre-long tube. And once again sighted the enemy.

George—she could no longer think of the AI as a submind of the "Trajeen System Cargo Runcible AI" — was a presence at her shoulder while she demonstrated the trail of logic leading her to the truth about the crashed shuttles. Occasionally she surfaced from the virtuality to glance aside at the optic cable snaking down over her shoulder from the aug, and sometimes to take a sip of wine from her glass which, by some hidden mechanism, remained chilled all this while.

"U-space calculations again, and runcible mechanics," George instructed.

Moria began by modelling the cargo gates at Trajeen and Boh in her aug and started to run the calculations involved in sending something through—the same calculations an AI needed to make, in nanoseconds, at each transmission. The Trajeen gate, relative to the one orbiting Boh, was travelling 70,000 kph faster. Simplified, the calculation involved the input of energy required to push the object through the Skaidon warp plus the energy required to accelerate it to 70,000 km/h so that basically, when it came out of the gate at the other end, it neither accelerated nor decelerated. But that was an extreme simplification. Between the gates, in U-space, Einsteinian rules ceased to apply while the object accelerated to a speed beyond C, relative to realspace, though in U-space where such measures did not apply it moved not at all and no time passed… didn't really exist. Moria didn't go there, that being the territory of the AIs. She concentrated on the simpler calculations, for though the broad difference between the two gates was a speed of 70,000 kph, obtaining the exact figure involved factoring in angular momentums and solving rather esoteric force vectors. Another factor in the calculation was the C energy, this being the input energy of the transmission and the energy drawn into the runcible buffers at the destination runcible. The first transmission ever conducted had been unbuffered. A pea was sent, in deference to Iversus Skaidon's obsession with the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear—a beautiful pea-green boat, though later «pea-green» being assigned to a particle tentatively identified as a tachyon. Other terms were also later assigned: travellers became quince and the gates became runcibles. The pea came out of the receiving end where the Einsteinian universe ruthlessly reapplied its rules. It exited at a fraction below light speed and caused an explosion that vaporized most of the surrounding base, killing numerous researchers. Luckily, Moria felt, they decided not to make the test using an owl or a pussycat… or a boat. She solved the vectors, quickly and efficiently.

"Impressive," said George, "though still the product of linear thinking."

"A fact of which every human runcible technician is aware," Moria replied dryly.

Humans who worked on runcibles were endlessly frustrated by this science which lay completely at a tangent to human linear thinking. Yes, a human could comprehend sections of the mathematics and complex technology of everything outside the Skaidon warp, and with augmentation a single human might one day be able to encompass it all. But past the warp you stepped beyond an event horizon not dissimilar to that of a black hole. The rules broke down, things started to make no sense to a product of biological evolution. Every object transmitted through a runcible came with its own information package detailing its energy vectors, vectors which also involved time. In U-space all Skaidon warps are in the same place at the same time which is no-time, in no-space. The object doesn't cease to exist for there is no time for it to do so. How do the AIs controlling the receiving runcibles know when to pull the object out? By reading the information package. Essentially everything ever transmitted or to be transmitted exists in U-space… where nothing exists but does… It gave Moria a headache just to try to encompass the twisted logic without getting involved in the mathematics and technology involved in what was called "the spoon." That headache became worse when she contemplated such things as time-inconsistent runcibles and the possibility of receiving something before it was ever transmitted.

"Let me see. You have been involved in the design and construction of warp adjustment generators?"

"Yes, but I was beginning to lose grip on the mathematics."

"Well, as I suspected, you have achieved synergy with your augmentation—you are more closely interfaced than anyone before now."

Remembering what happened to Iversus Skaidon and knowing the dangers of direct interfacing with AI, she asked, "Is this going to kill me?"

"Your augmentation is not an artificial intelligence. It is a computer, a glorified modem, a junction box. I understand your fears but they are not relevant here. The synergy achieved by direct interfacing a human mind with AI causes a kind of feedback loop sending both minds into a cyclic critical escalation, which results in the less sturdy mind being overloaded… usually the human."

"Usually the human?"

"There are sparsely documented cases of the reverse happening, though no real confirmation, but we are digressing here. It seems Aubron Sylac has truly achieved something of note here. When you return from your next break, I am going to move you into the Control Centre where you will join those overseeing the first test. Some training will be required, but I trust you will be adequately able."

"That's it?" Moria returned to full-on reality.

George leant forwards. "That is it, for now."

Down below Jebel that multi-legged, multi-murderer Vortex crouched, like a nightmare gatekeeper to Hell, atop the statue of some premillennial astronaut, its attention focused on the scene below. The smaller Prador were scuttling along at ground level through the long tubular park, digging their sharp feet into the ground and scuffing up turf to keep from going airborne as they towed along lines of prisoners all linked together. So, taking slaves or stocking their larder? Which is it? Both? Only a quarter of an hour before, Jebel raised to his eyes the monocular Jean passed him and noted with angry horror that the prisoners were not tied to each other, but stapled hand to hand. Listening, he could just hear the yelling and cacophony which also seemed the product of some lower circle of the pit. He scanned faces—yelling, terrified, some unconscious. It was not by her face that he identified her, but by the blonde hair in a plait and the jeans and green blouse. Something really snapped inside him then, but he tried to control his visible reaction.

"Okay," he turned to his comrades, noting the slightly wary look they were giving him. "We've got Vortex and ten of his little bastards down there." He turned on his comlink and in brief conversations with the other unit leaders ascertained their positions and gave them their instructions. The ECS grunts were closer to the Prador, and down towards Jebel's right. His throat dry, he continued, "If this goes wrong you are to hit those ten little shits and grab as many of those prisoners as you can. Choose your targets carefully, those are Polity citizens down there." What else could he say? If his plan worked there should be no shooting. Now he returned his attention to his own people. "Who has the gecko mines?" he asked.

Jean unslung her pack and opened it. Jebel took out the square case inside and popped it open. Twelve mines rested inside, each a small ovoid that could sit in the palm of a hand. They were programmable and could be set to detonate in many different ways. The gecko pads, presently covered by nilfrict paper, would stick to just about anything. He selected five mines and set them for detonation should any attempt be made to remove them, also to be detonated by the remote transmitter, which he took from the box and placed in his pocket. Just as a precaution he also set them to a timed detonation of one hour. He placed the mines in pockets on his utility belt.

"You," he stabbed a finger at Urbanus, "will come over the top of the park with me. I want you positioned, along with three others, over on those balconies." Jebel pointed to some jutting balconies trailing red clematis over on the far side, directly adjacent to Vortex. "And you, Jean, will take the others and find a similar position on this side. There are probably balconies further along here."

"Yourself?" Urbanus asked.

"We know what will happen. If we attack, they'll just kill indiscriminately. We attack as a last resort. This Vortex is obviously the big shot around here and perhaps places some importance upon his own survival. I am going to come down on him from above—up close and personal."

"I see," said Urbanus doubtfully. "And your chances of surviving?"

"Well, that's up to all of you, when you cover my escape."

Now, crouched upside down between lighting units above the monstrous Prador, Jebel Krong gazed down at the hellish scene trying again to pick out Cirrella. He could not see her, and wondered if he had really seen her at all. But then the screams and bellows from below impinged once again and the ball of rage growing inside him expanded. He changed his com frequency to that which the Prador were using. Jebel was able to learn nothing as the creatures communicated with some kind of esoteric code. But the possibility that Vortex would hear what he needed to say and be able to understand it was his only one option here. Jebel straightened his legs hard and hurtled headfirst down towards the Prador.

What the fuck am I doing?

At the last moment Jebel flipped his body, came down on the Prador feet first, absorbing the impact with his legs and slapping down the two gecko mines he held. They stuck hard and he managed to stop himself from flying away again by holding onto them.

"Okay, fuck-head. I just stuck two mines on you." Steadied now, Jebel pulled the other mines from his belt and slapped them down. Vortex froze in position, obviously surprised—perhaps the creature had not expected a human to dare coming this close. "Oh look, three more. I hope you've got your translator on, because if we don't talk about this, you are crab paste."

One claw suddenly snapped up past the Prador's visual turret. Jebel sprang away as it slammed close to where he had crouched.

"Now!" over com.

Missiles streaked in from either side, exploding the statue underneath Vortex. As Jebel hurtled back up towards the ceiling he saw the creature swivelling back and raising one of those Gatling rail-guns towards him, but the missile blasts sent Vortex tumbling through the air. A line of rail-gun missiles tracked across the ceiling, putting out lights and filling the air with glittering fragments. Jebel reached a gap between lighting units and quickly pulled himself to cover, bouncing through the frameworks and shadow. Vortex fired again, but Jebel realised the Prador wasn't shooting at any target, but using the gun's recoil to drive itself down to the branches of an apple tree where it clung on.

"Do you hear me, Vortex?"

The other Prador were shooting at the balconies. Pieces of stonework and clematis flowers rained down. After a moment this firing ceased.

"I hear you," came the reply.

"Did you hear what I just said to you while I stuck those mines on your back?"

"I heard."

"Well this is the deal. You release those prisoners and I'll shut down those mines, at which point they'll auto detach." It was a lie—Jebel did not intend removing the mines.

Some instruction, some signal, maybe just the twitch of a claw. Suddenly the smaller Prador turned on their captives and were firing. Pieces of human bodies were flying in every direction, and with no gravity here they just kept on spreading—an ever-growing gory explosion.

Nodeal.

Cirrella.

Jebel activated the mines and watched the explosion blow away Vortex's main body, but leave the creature's legs hanging in the apple tree. He then took up his missile launcher and hurled himself down towards the mayhem, firing on the other creatures from midair, blasting carapace and armoured limbs in every direction. He was not thinking anymore—didn't care. Coming down in the branches of the tree in which Vortex's limbs still hung, he pulled himself down and tried to stay on the ground. The grass was spattered with green liquid and pieces of carapace, and similar material drifted through the air all about him. He was breathing Prador blood. He saw a man tumbling past, wrapped in his own intestines. Projectiles were slamming into everything around Jebel, but just seemed to miss him every time. Crawling, he pulled himself along, grabbing handholds on bloody grass and through an equally gory rose bed. Only here the blood was red. One of the smaller Prador rose bubbling beside him, then exploded, spattering him with strong-smelling flesh. Choking, he crawled on—he did not know for how long and only realised time had passed as the intensity of fire from all sides finally reduced. He gazed around at mayhem partially concealed by a gory haze and could see no Prador standing, few humans too. At some point grav came back on, but he continued to crawl. How he found her he did not know. He sat stroking her hair, eyes averted from where her leg and half her torso had been torn away

"We have to get away, now." Urbanus, leaning over him.

Cirrella behind him and somehow a weapon back in his hands. More Prador coming.

Urbanus again. "I can't let you do this."

The blow to Jebel's temple brought welcome oblivion.

In his frustration Captain Immanence snatched up a second-child in his remaining claw and held it squealing above the deck. The other two quickly fled through the open door into the sanctum, but the fascination of "it's not me this time" held them there while Immanence smashed their brother repeatedly against the wall, before dropping the quivering wreckage.

These humans thought to try and make deals?

Immanence bubbled with rage.

"One of you come here and feed this to me, the other one go and fetch Vagule," he grated out in the sawing crunching Prador language.

The two second-children at once began to squabble. Neither of them wanted the chore of feeding their brother to Immanence while he was in this mood.

"Now!"

One second-child possessed the presence of mind to dash away leaving the other one quivering in the doorway. Immanence made a note to himself to remember that—the runner might possess the characteristics to survive into first-childhood. The remaining second-child came over, still quivering and now making an obeisant whining. It picked up a hunk of carapace with flesh and purple-green organs still clinging inside and held it up to the captain. Immanence took it with his mandibles and chewed contemplatively. Eating always calmed him, and he was in a slightly better frame of mind—for a Prador—when Vagule, one of his two remaining first-children, arrived.

Immanence studied Vagule. The first-child had yet to attain the bulk of Vortex and there was a healing crack in its carapace, no doubt made by that other now-dead first-child. Sucking the flesh from a small claw, Immanence began to see the plus side of things. Vortex, having attained full growth, had only been maintained in permanent adolescence by the pheromones the old adult emitted and by certain additives to his food. Inevitably some mission would have taken him away from that diet and those pheromones long enough for him to make the transition into full adulthood and thus become a competitor. Then it would have been necessary to dispense with him. Vagule, however, lay some time away from that stage in his life where the dietary changes became necessary.

"You are now the Prime," Immanence told Vagule. "Assign your current projects to Gnores and stand ready to deal with the human prisoners. You may move into Vortex's cell. I will provide the code keys to all his research and stored files."

"What happened to Vortex?" Vagule asked.

"He became careless and humans killed him. You may study the recorded data I will send over to Vortex's cell and thereby learn from his mistake. Now leave."

Vagule spun round and moved away fast, no doubt anxious to sample the privileges of his new position. Immanence dismissed the remaining second-child—the other one did not return—and closed the sanctum doors behind it. After a moment he caused his chouds to call up views of the station, and status reports on the ship's systems. Everything seemed functional, and all he required now was for the shuttle to get out of the way. He checked the status of that operation and ascertained that all but a few of the second-children were aboard. He also discovered that one large second-child had begun issuing orders and dealing out shell-cracks to those who did not obey with sufficient alacrity—another first-child candidate.

Immanence opened com to that individual. "You, XF-326, are now in command. Close up the shuttle and depart the station."

"The others?"

"Are dragging their belly plates. There are two kinds of Prador, XF-326, the quick and the dead. Decide now which you want to be."

Sudden frenetic activity ensued within the shuttle. The doors began to close. One last second-child made it inside the shuttle, trying to drag after it a chain of prisoners. It managed to get three and a half of the humans through. After another few minutes, Immanence observed explosions as the Prador blew docking clamps the station AI had previously locked. The shuttle departed, ripping pieces of the station away and snapping the boarding tube like a stretched worm. Small, struggling and expiring objects followed it into vacuum, some of them were second-children, most were dancing chains of stapled-together humans.

"Now we will see about deals," said Immanence.

He scanned the station along its entire length. Large heat sources were evident around those Polity matter transmission devices, which probably meant humans were crowding there. He ran some calculations and came up with a rough estimate: about four thousand humans still remained aboard, though this number was dropping at an alarming rate. Immanence realised they must be throwing them through the matter transmitters at a phenomenal rate. He was planning to wait until the shuttle returned to its bay aboard his ship, but if he did that his kill number might well drop by two-thirds.

Weapons online.

Something stung Jebel's neck and coming to a half-conscious state he fought to return to oblivion. It was like waking to the sure knowledge of an imminent bad hangover, though infinitely worse. He knew things were going to hurt him. Badly. But as consciousness finally did return the expected pain did not rush in, and he only felt numb inside. On his outside, however, cuts and bruises impinged and his head ached as if someone ran a potato peeler around inside his skull.

"I won't ask if you're okay," said Urbanus.

Lying on the floor, with something tucked underneath his head and a yelling crowd all around him, Jebel stared at the Golem squatting beside him. Without Urbanus' intervention he would not have had to wake to this. He tried to find some anger at that, but it eluded him.

"What happened?"

Urbanus nodded over nearby, so Jebel hauled himself up a little to look. They were in a runcible embarkation lounge surrounded by crowds of people packed in tight: families with children, pets, hastily gathered belongings. Nearby were rows of the injured, prostrate like him but being tended by medical personnel and a couple of mobile autodocs, like chrome beetles.

"We managed to get twenty of them out," Urbanus told him.

Jebel winced, but it seemed almost an automatic reaction.

"Why did you stop me?" he asked.

"Because you were intent on killing yourself."

"Last I heard, laws against suicide were pulled a few centuries ago."

"Then I stopped you for selfish purposes and for the Polity. I did not want you to die, and one such as yourself will be useful in what is to come."

Jebel again tried to feel some anger at the Golem, but the anger now eating away his internal numbness focused in only one direction, and Urbanus possessed too few limbs to be a candidate.

"If you wish, I can return your weapon and you can go kill some more of them. You'll die. Either by them killing you or when this station is destroyed as seems sure to happen."

Jebel hauled himself up further until sitting upright. Waves of dizziness blurred his surroundings, and now he smelt burning and heard the distant sounds of weapons fire. "Where are we?"

"Within the area the Prador cut off. We couldn't get out, and now our best chance of escaping lies through this runcible." Urbanus pointed.

Jebel stood and gazed over the heads of the crowd. ECS commandos and station personnel ringed the runcible, the two bull-horns of its gateposts mounted on a black glass dais. Through a gap in this cordon a line of people four across was filing up to the Skaidon warp and stepping through, as through the skin of a bubble, and disappearing. Despite the racket of the surrounding crowd, it all seemed pretty orderly. He guessed that would soon change if the Prador entered this place.

"Why aren't the Prador here?" he asked. "You told me a while ago that they might try to seize this runcible."

"Two reasons, I suspect. They are withdrawing from the station, probably because something is imminent from the mother ship. They are also probably aware that if they got close to the runcible,Avalon would destroy it, taking many of them with it."

Jebel absorbed that. Though Urbanus had previously explained that the station AI might be prepared to destroy the runcible rather than allow these Prador to get their claws on it, he had not thought to ask why it was so important. You needed AIs to operate runcibles and AIs the Prador did not possess.

"That would kill all these people as well. Why? What use would a runcible be to the Prador?"

"Despite all the claims to the contrary, we haven't really fathomed how advanced these creatures are. Runcible technology, even without AI control, could be used as a powerful weapon. And from recent experience it seems likely that would be just how they would use it."

Jebel nodded. "Is it open port now?" He glanced over at those filing through the Skaidon warp.

"For the civilians, at present. But it won't be for us when our slot comes up in about five minutes."

"Why not?"

"Because we are needed," said Urbanus. "Do you think for one moment that onlyAvalon Station is under attack?"

Immanence first launched a small swarm of missiles carrying simple chemical-explosive warheads, and watched with every sensor at his disposal. The swarm, first accelerated by rail-gun, ignited solid-fuel rockets to disperse and then bring the missiles in to target points all along the station. Within fifty kilometres of the station they began to detonate as defence lasers and masers fired. Immanence ran tactical programs to log the positions of those defences and then accelerated his ship towards the station. Missiles were now rising up from the defence positions, preceded by a storm of solid rail-gun projectiles. The captain supposed the AI was firing every weapon it controlled. What else could it do?

A thousand kilometres out he picked his targets. Five hundred kilometres out the rail-gun missiles began to impact on his ship's hull. Again, piezoelectric layers and thermal generators stacked up the charge inside his vessel and he released it through all four particle cannons. The beams bored into the station's hull, air and fire exploding out behind as they cut trenches to their targets. Some of those defence positions just disappeared, others blew glowing craters as stored munitions detonated. Immanence veered his ship, passing over the station. More firing from down there, and in return, stabs from the particle beams taking out their sources. He swept in a long, slow turn, and approached again. This time he selected four particular warheads: stasis-contained antimatter wrapped in a layer of hydrogen compressed to a metallic state. He veered again, firing, and watched these lethal devices speed down towards the station as he accelerated away. Still some defences, for one of the missiles was struck and bloomed into an expanding sphere of fire, bright as a sun. This sphere touched off a second missile which created a similar explosion nearer to the station, but ahead of this one's blast wave, the two others struck.

Two explosions ate through the Polity station in seeming slow motion. Hull metal peeled up before the blast waves and ablated away. White-hot structural beams hurtled out, losing their shape as they turned to liquid then gas. The station burned and broke apart, its debris melting away as the two explosions melded into one. The sleet of radiation struck Immanence's ship, soaking into screening and causing various detectors to scream their alarms. But before the main blast front reached it, he dropped his ship into U-space, clattering his mandibles in delight all the while.