The Line of Polity

7

The woman studied instrumentation for a short while and the boy, knowing the importance of those things she did, contained his impatience, and turned his attention to the toys scattered on the floor all about him. Shortly the woman was satisfied with what she was seeing and returned her attention to the book.

"Out of the wilderness Brother Malcolm came at last to the house of the gabbleducks and lifting the latch, he entered said domain. Upon the table were three bowls, and thus Brother Malcolm said, 'I was hungry and so I was fed' And sampled only a little from each bowl of food, for he was a pious and ungreedy man."

The woman paused as she scanned back through the text. "Ungreedy?" she repeated, whilst the picture in the book showed the great slob of the Brother tucking into a huge mound of food on the table.

"Fatso," said the boy, pointing at the man's picture.

"Just so," said the woman, then went on. "Even after so small a meal, Brother Malcolm found weariness descending upon him, to hook lead weights in his eyelids. Moving then to the other rooms of the house, he found three beds. The largest of these that he tried was too hard, and he could find no rest. The medium bed was too soft, and he could find no rest there either However, the smallest bed was just right, and he slept the sleep of the just."

In the picture, the great fat Brother had not managed to haul his bulk up onto either of the large beds, and so chose a small bed that sagged under his weight and out of the end of which stuck his feet clad in filthy socks with red and white stripes.

The mountains were close enough now for Eldene to discern snow on their upper slopes and dark occlusions of vegetation fingering up from the plains that abutted below. From the slope they stood upon — a rampart of earth that divided croplands from the wilderness of Masada — she gazed out upon this scene with some trepidation. It had taken most of the day to get this far, and as yet there had been little danger of note. However, she wondered if the heavy mesh fence that now stood behind them was there to keep people in or to keep something out — something it was obviously ineffective at doing, as they themselves had scrambled over it in minutes. Her worries increased when Fethan took the stinger from her and handed her Proctor Volus's gun in return, then instructed her in its use.

"It's powered up for one magazine, but that's okay because that's all we've got. There are five rounds in each disc of the magazine, and seven discs in total," Fethan said, displaying the cylinder he had extracted from the butt of the gun before clicking it back into place. "Simple firing mechanism: the trigger's electrical, so it's very light and easy to use. You hold it down on one pull to get continuous fire for each disc — that's the five rounds. One press and release gives you one shot. Double press and hold down, and the gun will empty its entire cylinder — that's thirty-five shots discharged in about five seconds. Be very careful with this. I don't want to be picking bullets out of my syntheskin every time you get a little nervous." He handed the weapon over and Eldene accepted it as if she was taking a poisonous snake.

"Why am I likely to need this now?" Eldene inquired. "Surely I needed it more back there."

Fethan grinned at her. "Oh, it's not exactly a halcyon wilderness out here."

"Any safer than back there?" Eldene asked, gesturing with the gun.

"Safer, mostly — and at least out here there's no chance of you getting trigger-happy and killing innocent workers."

"What am I likely to have to defend myself from, here?" Eldene asked as they descended the slope into head-high flute grass.

"Heroynes, siluroynes and mud snakes," Fethan replied.

Eldene snorted, remembering a book of fairy tales amongst the precious few books the orphanage had possessed. "Yes, and no doubt there's gabbleducks and hooders that I'll need to use one of my precious three wishes against," she said.

Pushing into the grass, Fethan replied, "Quince Guide has those last two both listed, along with pictures of them, and Gordon tells of a hooder attack on one of the first survey teams. I myself have only ever seen gabble-ducks, though I know of others who have lost friends to hooders, and some who are convinced that they are destined to go the same way."

"You are kidding?" said Eldene.

Fethan glanced back at her. "Oh no, it's all part of the cycle of life here: the tricones feed on decaying matter filtering down through the soil, mud snakes feed on tricones that get too close to the surface, and heroynes feed on them in turn. Gabbleducks, siluroynes and hooders apparently feed on the many different varieties of grazers that eat the flute grass. All the predators I've named, if large enough, will take a stray human if he's careless, though human flesh tends to make them ill."

"You are kidding," said Eldene, thinking she really did not ever want to run into anything capable of feeding on that huge tricone they had seen earlier.

"Keep your weapon handy and your eyes open," Fethan replied.

Travelling along gullies and across the occasional flats — in which black plantains and the volvae nodules of rhubarbs sprouted from mats of roots — was easiest, but to remain on course they did have to push their way through stands of flute grass. However, closer to the mountains, the stands became less numerous and they were able to pick up their pace. Twice they crossed flattened trails through the vegetation, and on both occasions Fethan pointed to the ground and said, "Mud snake." By midday the ground began to rise and dry out, and here sparse stands of grass contained sprouts of new growth that were waist-high. Here the blister moss grew in clumps as large as footballs and there were occasional lizard-tail plants curving five metres into the air. These were clad in scales coloured in a clashing combination: purple at the tips, ranging to green, then orange at their roots. Some hours into evening, Fethan called a halt at a rocky outcrop where the ground was at its highest before dropping back into another plain of flute grass.

"Best we stop here," said Fethan. "I can hear if something approaches, but mud snakes tend to hunt at night and one could easily grab you from below."

"Or you," Eldene suggested as she wearily sat down on a contorted stone.

"Or me, yes, but I'd still be in one piece after their attack."

Eldene unstoppered her water bottle, flipped her mask down, and took a drink. Opening and closing the mask was now becoming second nature to her, and curiously, she no longer felt that nakedness at the absence of her scole. She felt free.

Studying the stone she was sitting on, she saw that it was covered with small translucent hemispheres that she at first took to be some sort of mineral. On closer inspection, she saw that something was moving inside each hemisphere, so she quickly stood and moved away.

"They're all right," Fethan assured her, reaching over, snapping one of the things from the rock with his thumb, and showing Eldene the underside. A greenish fleshy sucker clenched at the air for a moment and a single globular palp-eye extruded. When Fethan returned it to its place the creature turned round once as if getting comfortable, sucked its eye back in then pulled down flat against the stone. "If you start to run out of food you can give 'em a go," he added. "They're a delicacy in the Underworld, though they tend to cause flatulence, which is not an admirable condition for someone sharing a cave."

Eldene giggled, then giggled again — then found she could not stop laughing. She sat down with her back against the stone and tried to get herself under control. Looking up at Fethan's puzzled expression, she completely lost it and was laughing so much she had tears running down her face. When finally she got a grip on herself — mostly because her laughter was now hurting the injury her scole had left on her chest — she glanced up to see Fethan squatting on the ground before her.

"You better now, girl?" the old man asked.

Eldene nodded and looked around as night sucked the last dregs of light out of the twilight. Shadow surrounded her, and a touch of a breeze was eliciting faint music from the grasses.

"I never thanked you for saving me," she said.

"It's what I do," Fethan replied, standing and unhooking the pack to drop it beside her. "You get some rest now, and I'll watch over you."

Eldene removed from the pack the tarpaulin she had taken from the tool shed they had stayed in the night before, and wrapped herself in it. Again, sleep seemed to elude her, but then crept up behind her with a brick.

In the Security Area, Cardaff sent two diagnostic programs into the system. One came back with nothing, and the other with a corrupted locking code from one of the outer sections: SA34. Had the corrupted code been in SA1, Cardaff would have been worried, as that was where they held the thirty prisoners. He glanced at the relevant screen and saw that the men and women there, in their ship-issue overalls and security collars, were still in conference. Occam assured him that these people could not link with their biotech augs outside SA1 — the walls were so heavily shielded and the augs had no underspace facility.

"Anything on what they're discussing?" he asked Shenan.

The Golem Twenty-seven turned from her console and screen, exposing needle fangs in a smile, and not for the first time he wondered why she had chosen the outer appearance of an ophidapt.

"Their conferencing link is deeply coded and the technology, as we know, alien. Occam estimates it will take two days to crack the codes. Meanwhile we are recording everything," she explained.

"Best guess?" he asked.

"Probably discussing how they might escape, whether or not they will be sentenced to mind-wipe, and how best to retain whatever secrets they have. No doubt fanatics amongst them are putting forward the idea of mass suicide."

"Completely crazy," muttered Cardaff.

"Did you trace that glitch?" Shenan asked.

"Yeah, corrupted code out at 34… shit! I've got another one in SA20." Cardaff punched up views of the relevant section and got nothing but empty corridor, an open security door, and an empty confinement section beyond. "What the fuck is going on here?"

Shenan moved over and stood at his shoulder. Reaching down past him, she punched up a floor plan of the relevant sections and pointed. "The two doors that opened are in a line to the centre here, but SA26 is between. Have you had anything from the security door there?"

Cardaff brought up a view of that door, and checked the readouts before him. "No, nothing. No problem at all," he said.

Shenan tapped a sharp fingernail against the screen. "Except," she said, "that your readout indicates the door as closed and it quite evidently is not."

"Great." Cardaff hit the panic button and the response, rather than the flashing of lights and the squawking of klaxons he had hoped for, was that the console and screens before him went offline. He turned and stared at Shenan.

"I can't transmit out of here," said the Golem. She glanced across to her console, and almost as if in response to this, it too went offline.

Cardaff stood, marched across the room and palmed the touch-plate of the weapons locker. This at least did work and the door sprang open to reveal riot stun-guns, two pulse-rifles, and an assortment of hand weapons. He pulled out one pulse-rifle and tossed it towards Shenan before selecting the same for himself.

"Looks like we got problems," he commented.

"Yes," said Shenan, turning as the door to the room slid open onto the darkened corridor beyond.

Cardaff dropped down behind his console and sighted his rifle on the door. Shenan merely moved back, with her weapon held loosely. It was all right for her, thought Cardaff: Golem Twenty-sevens did not have much to fear in this world. There was a flicker, some sort of distortion in the air, then utter stillness, and Cardaff could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had seen nothing come through that door, but this particular nothing certainly had presence.

"Chameleon—" Shenan managed, before something picked her up and slammed her into a wall of screens. She dropped out of their ruin with clothing ripped and syntheskin torn from her cheek. She fanned fire before herself, and her shots must have hit home for there came a bubbling snarl from the air and something searing hot gripped her head and yanked her from the ground.

Cardaff had never heard a Golem scream, and never seen one taken out so quickly. Shenan was discarded and thumped to the floor like a sack of tools — her head a blackened and misshapen thing. Cardaff opened up, fanning his own fire in the area where… it had been. There were a few hits, clearly, and again that snarling, then all that was happening was that he was trashing the systems mounted in the wall beyond. Half a second after he ceased firing, something feverishly warm pressed against the side of his head, and that warmth spread into his head, and grew hooks.

Cardaff reached up and slapped his hand against another hand — febrile and slippery to the touch. Suddenly his head felt full of hot wires and he screamed, turning as he did so. Now he saw who was standing behind him.

"Interesting," grated Skellor, tilting his own head as best he could.

Cardaff could feel himself going, draining away through that hot touch. The sight faded from his right eye, then his hearing went. He groped for Skellor's arm with his other hand, tried to bring his pulse-rifle to bear. Skellor shook his hand as if to dislodge an irritating insect. For Cardaff… nothing.

"Well, it didn't get away unscathed," said Gant.

They all looked at the view projected on the screen in the bridge pod. The Dragon sphere hung, apparently lifeless, in space — a damaged moon of glittering jade and charcoal. A large segment of it had been charred, and huge black bones protruded into the void like the ruins of some vast cathedral. Around it orbited shed scales and other fragments of its body that had broken away, and this debris was now settling into an orbiting ring. There were no other signs of movement.

"The damaged area is highly radioactive," said Tomalon.

Cormac glanced at him then around at the others seated in the arc of command chairs. The presence of such chairs told him how old the Occam Razor was, since obviously it had been built when such ships required pilots, navigators, gunners and the like, and in subsequent refittings the chairs had not been removed. Tomalon's presence told him that the Occam Razor's AI was also old, for the newer battleship AIs did not require human captains to implement or make judgements on their decisions. It was not that AIs were now more trustworthy; it was simply because humans no longer controlled the Human Polity.

"Only the damaged area is radioactive," said Mika.

Tomalon did not deem this as a question, so Cormac asked of him, "Is that so?"

"Yes, it would appear to be the case. And that is not normal."

Cormac studied Tomalon. While all of them were looking at the screen, the Captain turned his head aside, his eyes unseeing opaque, and his mind linked to the ship's sensors.

Mika said, "This means it is either dead or has shut down its circulatory system to those areas. Any living creature receiving a radioactive wound soon ends up with the rest of its body contaminated as well."

"It has a circulatory system?" asked Cormac.

"Yes — though what circulates is not blood as we recognize it. Much more complex. Dracomen have the ability to consciously alter what their circulatory system carries, so we can presume Dragon has the same ability. I would very much like a sample of that substance now."

I bet you would.

Cormac turned his attention to the dracoman who had come up with Mika from Medical. Scar stood behind the chairs — he found human seating arrangements difficult — his attention fixed firmly on the screen. Cormac wondered just what was going through his head. Scar possessed curiosity, and the need to survive, but few recognizably human motivations beyond that, and that kilometre-wide sphere of living matter out there was the twin of the one that had created him.

"If your hand was exposed to that level of radioactivity, what would you do?" Cormac asked him. Mika turned and inspected the dracoman with intense curiosity. Scar's gaze slid to Cormac.

"What level?" the dracoman asked.

Cormac nodded to the screen where Tomalon had obligingly supplied the figures.

"Cut it off. Grow another," said Scar after inspecting those figures.

Mika's eyes widened in shock. Cormac hoped she had now learnt just how informative direct questioning could be.

"And if the contamination affected more vital organs?" he asked.

"Isolate organs. Drop to minimal function. Grow more."

"Do you think this is what this Dragon sphere is doing?"

By now, most of those on the bridge were staring at Scar. Even the Captain had come back from the ship's sensors and was watching. Aiden and Cento had turned as one to watch and listen. Gant, moodily slumped in his chair, was the only one with his attention still on the screen. He seemed to be trying to outstare Dragon. Scar was a long time in replying.

"Maybe," he said finally.

"What alternatives are there?"

"Dying," said Scar.

They all turned back to look at the screen, except for Mika, who was fiddling with some instruments in the top pocket of her coverall and gazing speculatively at Scar. No doubt the dracoman was in for another battery of tests, and it was lucky for Mika that he did not seem to mind.

"What does deep scan of the undamaged areas reveal?" asked Cormac.

Tomalon's eyes went opaque again and he spoke consideringly.

"There are signs of life, but I cannot tell if they are normal or not."

"The temperature would be a good indicator," suggested Mika.

"A range between twenty and thirty Celsius, nominally twenty-two a metre under the skin," said Tomalon.

"I would say it is not dead, or has died only recently," said Mika, checking figures on her laptop. "It would take some time for it to cool, as it is well insulated. But if it had died shortly after its attack on the Masadan ship, its temperature would be well below twenty by now."

"Send an all-radio-band signal to it. See if we get a reaction," said Cormac.

"Is that a good idea?" asked Gant, still staring broodingly at the screen. "Wouldn't it be better to stick a missile in it, then move off?"

Cormac had already considered that, but there were things to learn, and even a fully capable Dragon sphere would not have been much of a problem to the Occam Razor.

"Things to learn," he therefore said simply.

"Rise in temperature in a lobular structure at its centre," said Tomalon.

"The brain," explained Mika.

"I'll speak to it," said Cormac. "Send my voice." Tomalon nodded to him and he continued, "Dragon, this is Ian Cormac. Please respond."

On the screen, there were signs of movement. Tomalon brought up another view, this one close to the edge of the damaged area: pseudopodia were breaking from a scaled plain of fleshy blue eyes directed towards the Occam Razor.

"Cormac," said Dragon — and that was all it said for some time.

"Dragon?"

"I… listen… you will kill me now?"

"Not unless that's what you want."

"Vengeance!"

"For what?"

"The engines…"

"What about the engines?"

"They turned them on."

"This is how you were damaged?"

Silence.

Cormac asked, "Is there any way we can help you?"

Silence.

"Dragon, why did you attack the Masadan ship?"

"Vengeance!"

"Please explain."

"You will help me?"

"If I can."

"They used it on the station."

"Station Miranda?"

Silence.

"Are you talking about the mycelium?"

"They used it on the station."

"Did you provide them with it?"

"Yes."

Cormac looked around at the others in surprise. He had not expected so direct an answer. Dragon was the antithesis of Mika: whereas she disliked asking questions, Dragon disliked answering them.

"Why did you provide them with it?"

Silence.

"How did they tell you they were going to use it?"

"Prevent runcibles on Masada."

"So you attacked their ship because they did not use the mycelium for its intended purpose? Is this what you are saying?"

"Blamed me! Vengeance!"

Cormac glanced at Tomalon and made a cutting gesture with the edge of his hand.

"Communications link cut," said the Captain.

"What a load of bollocks," said Cormac. He looked to the others. "What do you think?"

"It could be true," said Mika. "This is not the same sphere as the one you destroyed at Samarkand. They are not all necessarily hostile. It could be this area is its hideaway and it considered the Masadans its allies."

Cormac made no comment on that. Mika had her reasons for looking as kindly on Dragon as he himself looked unkindly. He glanced to Cento and Aiden.

Aiden said, "It would be interesting to know what Dragon was to receive in exchange for the mycelium — and if it received it."

"Yes." Cormac nodded approvingly: clear thinking is thinking necessarily separated from glands and all the other paraphernalia of humanity. He turned to Gant.

"I agree, grudgingly," said Gant. "Its attack may have been because it received no pay-off. It's doubtful Dragon would care that much about how the mycelium was used. We know human life means nothing to it."

Mika said, "You are still judging this Dragon sphere by the actions of the one at Samarkand. You have to remember that the four of them separated twenty-seven years before."

"Does it matter?" asked Gant. They all looked at him and he shrugged. "The Masadans destroyed the station — all the evidence points that way — and this Dragon sphere had given them the mycelium. If they had used it on a runcible, there would still have been deaths. I say put a missile in it."

A definite point.

"I think you are overreacting," said Mika, staring at Gant analytically. "You have not yet recovered from your death."

Low blow.

Gant took that in good humour, but Cormac could see that he was formulating a slap-down retort. But much as he would have liked to see the results of such a confrontation, there was work to do. He cut in with, "The situation in the Masadan system is my main concern and anything I can learn about that situation, before jumping into it, I will be glad of. For this reason: no missile."

"And what will this 'jumping in' involve?" asked Gant, grinning.

"You will all be briefed when I consider the time right." And when I know what the fuck I'm going to do.

The bay was large and crowded with shuttles flown in from the huge conglomeration of ships outside, and with small ships like Lyric II. As he walked down the ramp from his ship, with a small flat briefcase held close to his side, Stanton watched another ship — this one a sharp metallic cone — easing in through the huge shimmer-shield that prevented air, people and ships from exploding out into space. Quickly catching up with him, Jarvellis linked her arm through his and gestured back towards Lyric II. "You know, friend Thorn will see we've taken on more cargo when we do wake him," she said.

Stanton nodded as he observed the cone-ship swinging into its allocated docking area. "Tough," he said. "I just don't want a Polity agent stepping on my heels — especially here." Gesturing to another ship nosing in through the shimmer-shield — this one a flattened ovoid of red metal with stubby wings terminating in ion engines the shape of caraway seeds — he continued, "Another one. I think about half the ships here I already saw at Huma, running arms for the Separatists."

"As did we too," Jarvellis pointed out.

"As did we," Stanton allowed, "but we learnt better. I don't reckon Dreyden quite realizes just how nasty the Polity can get."

Jarvellis squeezed his arm. "Of course he does, darling. He knows it's just a matter of balance. He knows that somewhere there's an AI comparing the likely loss of life here if there was a Polity takeover against lives lost as a consequence of the illegal arms trade. I would also guarantee that this place is scrutinized very closely — and at least here the Polity can do that quite easily. Out-Polity dealing is a little more difficult to keep track of."

"I'd have gone Out-Polity," said Stanton, "if I didn't know for damned sure the Polity want me to have these particular items." Stanton remembered how the dealer on Huma, after selling him the bulk of Lyric II's cargo, had then told him how the drug manufactories could only be obtained here — and that other special items could also be obtained here. Stanton also remembered the watchers in the streets of Port Lock on Huma — Golem every last one of them.

Jarvellis said, "I think you credit them with far too much deviousness — when you have ships capable of wasting planets, you don't have to be devious, just careful not to step on something you might have wanted to preserve… Ah, here come those charmers, Lons and Alvor."

Stanton looked across at the two men making their way towards him. Whatever could be said about their charm or otherwise, Stanton knew that these two men were consummate professionals. As he understood it, Dreyden, having climbed so high, was beginning to realize just how far he could fall, and was becoming a bit twitchy about the possibility of Polity intervention here, and starting to clamp down on the arms trade. These two men maintained the fragile balance despite Dreyden's often idiotic meddling: they allowed enough arms to be passed on to the Separatists to prevent Elysium becoming a target, but kept the quantity supplied low enough to keep ECS from doing anything drastic against them.

"Good to see you," he said to Lons, who as always stayed a few paces back from Alvor and acted the silent heavy — a position that led people to make the misguided assumption that he was secondary to Alvor and less intelligent. Stanton, however, knew that they had equal standing below Dreyden, and, if anything, Lons was the sharper of the two. Lons nodded, and Stanton turned to Alvor who always did the talking.

"Alvor," he said.

"Good to see you, John Stanton. And as always it is a pleasure to see you, Captain Jarvellis," said Alvor, grinning his chrome grin.

"I can't say the pleasure's mutual," said Jarvellis. "But I think you are already aware of that."

Stanton knew that these two had a history, but what lay between them was not hate, just a kind of lazy bickering. Had it been hate, he would have wanted to know why, and then would probably have to kill Alvor.

"Do you have my cargo ready?" said Jarvellis.

"Of course. The main package can be loaded right now." Alvor looked pointedly at the briefcase Stanton carried. "And the two extra items you ordered are with Dreyden, who would like to extend his hospitality."

Stanton considered suggesting Jarvellis should stay with the ship, when he saw her expression, but knew she would refuse.

"Then we accept," said Stanton.

Alvor grinned again, and rested his forefinger against his aug in a somewhat effeminate gesture. "And so your main cargo is on its way. Will we require locking codes?" he said.

"Lyric will handle it," said Jarvellis.

The two men turned to keep pace, as the four advanced across the bay.

"Oh yes, you have an AI on this ship," said Alvor. "Do you trust it?"

"More than I'd ever trust you," replied Jarvellis.

"That's nice," said Alvor as they moved on out of the bay.

"I am dying."

Cormac was alone in his cabin when Dragon told him that. He was lying on his bed transmitting through the submind. No doubt Tomalon would be listening in, but there was not much Cormac could do about that, nor wanted to.

"Is there no way we can help you?"

Silence.

"There is a very good xenobiologist on this ship and the bioscience facilities are the best." Cormac thought his offer faintly ridiculous. Got any wound dressing that's a quarter of a kilometre wide? And how about ten thousand gallons of unibiotic?

"Why would you want to help me?"

"Why not?"

"You avoided the contract killers."

Ah.

"It was you then, not your fellow I killed at Samarkand — or the other two?"

"They are far from here."

"Did you organize things through the Masadans?"

Silence.

"How long until you die?"

"I will have vengeance first."

"What are you waiting for, then?"

"Take me there."

Cormac chewed that one over. "You've lost the ability for trans-stellar flight."

"Yes."

"Why should I help you kill people?"

Silence.

"What would you do if we transported you to Masada?"

"Destroy until destroyed."

"And how much damage could you do?"

"Enough."

"I couldn't be a party to such indiscriminate destruction."

"Vengeance!"

"You're repeating yourself, but your impulse could serve my purposes."

Silence.

"We could transport you there. In return, I would want you to only attack orbital facilities. This we can enforce. You are aware of the capabilities of this dreadnought?"

"I am aware."

"Specifically, then: geostationary over the populated area of Masada are laser arrays. Destroy them — only them. Is it agreed?"

"Agreed."

Cormac cut communication.

"You trust this creature?" asked Tomalon.

Cormac kept his annoyance from his voice. "No. But if it attacks anything other than the laser arrays, we can destroy it and be lauded as saviours."

"And after it has destroyed the arrays?"

"Likewise. The crew of that Masadan ship, I have very little concern about, but I'll not soon forget those Outlinkers that died out there."

Skellor gazed from one to the other of the two individuals he had killed: one Golem and one human. As he subsumed the experience of their lives — their knowledge and understanding, and anything else that might be of relevance to him — he could not help but make comparisons. The heart of the Golem's mind, once he had discarded layers of emulation programs, was all logic and clarity and thoroughly documented storage of life-experience and knowledge. The heart of this Cardaff's mind, however, was something that snarled and had to be immediately erased — life-experience and acquired knowledge sitting in layers over this primal animal. As — in the quartz-matrix AI that was an extension to his own mind — he sorted all that he had acquired, he began to feel disappointment. Increasingly he found himself discarding irrelevancies until very little was left. All that remained were a few experiences, all that these two knew about the Occam Razor, and memories of places to which he had never been. So much dross stored by both Golem and human mind alike.

Moving to the nearest console, Skellor pressed one grey hand down on it and let the filaments flow down into its workings. Soon he found what he was searching for and the console came back online. He gazed at the screen showing the thirty Separatist prisoners. They were conferencing through their augs: probably trying now to decide what best to do for the cause. Skellor berated himself for the surge of contempt he felt — they had been useful to him, and would be useful again. With a thought he initiated the program that downloaded the information virus he had been working on into the Jain substructure that interpenetrated his body and was also an extension of himself. The Dracocorp augs had been a very useful tool for the Separatists and now for himself they would become a useful tool. Having an organic basis made them so much more accessible.

Moving out of the control area Skellor marched down the corridor just as the lights came back on. Soon reaching the armoured door into SA1, he punched in the code he had stripped from Cardaff's mind, before pressing his hand against the palm-lock. Now the DNA he had stripped from the man's body enabled him to cause enough of a delay in which to shoot in filaments and subvert the lock's security program. The lock thunked and the door slid open.

"Skellor," gasped Aphran, groping for where she usually kept her QC laser. She didn't trust him — none of them did after he had moved back from the development of chameleonware for them to his own work.

"Glad to see me?" Skellor smiled.

Aphran was a number of paces away from him, but a boy called Danny stood close enough. Skellor recalled all their names since his change. Nothing he had viewed or known previously was now inaccessible to him. Being direct-linked into the quartz-matrix AI had given him perfect recall as well as huge processing capabilities. Being extended by the Jain substructure enabled him to use those capabilities to devastating effect in the real world. He reached out and caught hold of Danny's shoulder. The boy froze — at first in fear, then because Skellor reached inside him and blocked the relevant nerves.

"Now," Skellor said. "You'll be glad to know that you are going to help me to take over this ship." Taking his hand from Danny's shoulder, he transferred it to the Dracocorp aug behind the boy's ear, and cupped the device in his hand. It felt cold to him, but then very little didn't now.

"Take over an ECS dreadnought?" Aphran sneered.

Skellor nodded as the filaments flowed into the aug and sought out the right connections. Once he found them and connected, he loaded the virus. The boy grunted as if he had been punched. Aphran, her face pale with fear, slapped her hand against her own aug, but the virus was transmitting now and she could do nothing. Skellor folded his arms and watched as she lost her balance and went over. All around the others started to fall over as well. The convulsions hit shortly after, and many of them now were showing the whites of their eyes. Three of them started screaming, which confirmed for him his calculation of a seven to thirteen per cent loss. Stepping further into the Security Area he watched those three die, then waited for the others to recover.

"What have you done?" Aphran asked him as she recovered enough to pull herself to her knees. One of her eyes was bloodshot, the other entirely red. Blood was also seeping from her right ear.

"Just ensuring that you do as you're told," he said. "Now, stand up."

The remaining twenty-seven stood as one, then stared at each other in confusion. Aphran was noticeably grimacing.

"Fight it," warned Skellor, "and it will cause you increasing pain until it kills you. Now, come with me."

They followed.

After collecting a meal and a small bottle of wine from his room's dispenser, Cormac sat down to enjoy them while the room's screen displayed an image of Dragon before him. First pouring out a glass of wine, he then peeled back the meal's wrapper and stared for a moment at what might laughingly be described as a roast dinner, then took up a fork and started stabbing at the odd item of food.

Gant's suggestion that they should put a missile into the creature was perfectly understandable, but how perfect a situation they could manufacture instead by having Dragon attack the Masadan laser arrays. Now having accessed the files transmitted by ECS, Cormac had more of a grasp of what was going on there. There was a special neatness about using Dragon, because of the Theocracy's claim that they were building the launcher to protect themselves from this creature. Cormac was not entirely sure what agreements had been broken, but he very much suspected the Masadans of being terrified of Polity subsumption, and of gaining what allies they could — those including both Separatist groups and Dragon. With their arrays being attacked, the Occam Razor would of course have to go and assist the Masadans — after a suitable delay — and then… Then perhaps ECS could learn, very loudly, of the oppression of Masada's surface populace and their wish to become part of the Polity.

"Show me the Masadan solar system," he said.

The screen changed to show him precisely what he had requested: Masada itself orbiting within the so-called green belt which supposedly made it habitable for humans. Not very much further out from it orbited a gas giant named Calypse that must loom large in its sky. Numerous moons surrounded both planet and giant in complex intersecting orbits. All these bodies were numbered, but he doubted very much if the Masadans used such numbers; for them no doubt the moons had names out of some religious work.

"Give me the Masadan names for those moons," he therefore instructed.

The submind he was dealing with was prompt in its reply, though it gave no verbal response. Down the side of the same display, it now showed him each of the numbers with a name and a brief description. Cormac snorted with surprise as he read through it.

Around Masada itself orbited two moons, Thorn and Lok, both indistinguishable from each other in their irregularity of shape and complex orbits. The last of these were sent into different sequences on each close pass of Calypse's moons, of which four were named:

Amok was small and irregular; the severed testicles of some titan spiralling round the gas giant Calypse. Dante was the largest moon, and the one closest to the giant. It was a sulphurous hell with volcanic activity continually encouraged by the wrenching tides of the giant and its close passes of Masada. Torch was a ball of ice with a slight cometary tail when it was at perihelion; this was due to the flaring of complex ices lighting a tail of ice crystals when tidal forces heated the moon. At aphelion the moon cooled enough for the ices to stop flaring. This was a common phenomenon in comets, but not often seen in moons. Flint was cratered, near geologically dead, and furthest out from Calypse, but was hence the giant's moon that passed closest to Masada on the sunward side of its orbit. It was the kind of moon on which the Polity normally established runcible facilities, but here instead was the base for a shipyard — frameworks and buildings stretching out into space from its surface.

This entire system of moons was named — so the screen notes informed Cormac — by their discoverer, one Braemar Padesh. Cormac felt the man must have used some strange random search in their naming process. He was already ruminating on whatever preparations were now being made on Flint, and how costly they might prove in human life, when his door chime sounded. Immediately, in the corner of the screen he was gazing at, a view into the corridor outside flicked up.

"Enter," he said, and the door opened behind him.

"There's something you should know," said Mika, walking quickly into the room and perching herself on the edge of his sofa.

"That is?" he asked, after washing down another mouthful of food with a sip of wine.

"There has been some kind of communication between Scar and Dragon."

"Specifically?"

"Just before the sphere was detected Scar showed… signs of distress, collapsed, then went into convulsions."

"Communication?"

"It seems the most likely explanation. I would conjecture some kind of link."

"Why that conjecture?"

"Because dracomen are tough and as far as I can tell there is very little that can cause them distress; because Dragon is here and it has happened now," she replied.

He studied her for a long moment and wondered if she had bothered to ask Scar what had happened to him.

"Where is Scar right now?" he asked.

"With the Golem — Gant." Cormac noted she had no problem describing Gant as such. "They've got to put your prisoners into cold-sleep. Apparently there are communication problems."

Cormac raised an eyebrow, then turned towards his screen. "AI, can you establish a communications link for me with the dracoman, Scar?"

"Drone present," grated the voice of the submind of Occam's he had been using. Immediately the view on the screen changed to show internal structures of the ship swinging past, and finally it drew to a halt on Scar walking along a gangway beside Gant.

"Scar, does Dragon speak to you?" Cormac asked.

Still moving, Scar lifted his head and gazed at the drone that had to be hovering only a couple of metres in front of him, blinked, showed his teeth, but said nothing. Cormac snorted in annoyance: just like his creator — keeping his cards close to his chest.

"Scar, I want you to return here now. You'll join me in the bridge pod when Tomalon is ready, understood?"

Scar gave a sharp nod and halted. Cormac's last view was of Gant slapping the dracoman once on the shoulder, as Scar turned to head back.

"You hope to learn something," Mika stated, clearly uncomfortable with this near-question.

"I like to keep potential dangers close, where I can watch them, and if necessary, deal with them quickly," Cormac replied, spearing a carrot.

Cormac, Scar and Tomalon stood in the retracted bridge pod and watched as ten grabships approached Dragon. Every now and again Cormac glanced at the dracoman. Only when he was turning back to see the first of the grabships positioning itself against the surface of Dragon did he see some sign of what Mika had reported. Scar flinched — then flinched again as the second ship took position. He bared his teeth as the third moved in.

"You can feel it," Cormac said.

Scar nodded.

"What do you feel?"

"Pain."

"As do we all. I thought you could blank it out."

Silence.

"It's not just the pain, is it?"

"It tries to control me."

"Will it succeed?"

"No. But I will."

Succeed at what?

Cormac was about to voice this question when a change in Scar's expression alerted him to something happening on the screen. He instantly looked up. All the grabships were now in position, most of them out of sight from their point of view, and scalpels of fire were probing the night. Dragon was being pushed towards the Occam Razor.

"How will you secure it to the ship?" he asked Tomalon.

"It will secure itself with its pseudopods."

"Any problems?"

"None that are insurmountable. A portion of its body will remain outside U-field, but it informs me that it intends to position itself so as that portion will be part of the radioactive area. That portion will then be left here — cut away."

How to perform surgery with a U-space field generator.

Dragon grew large in the screen. On other screens were views from the various grabships. Cormac saw forests of pseudopodia reaching towards monolithic devices on the dreadnought's hull. He saw the Occam Razor growing larger, and was able to compare the size of the creature with the size of the ship. A Dragon sphere had twice almost destroyed the Hubris, the ship on which he had travelled to Samarkand. But this sphere came like a supplicant to an iron god.

"Are all the scanners operating?" he asked Tomalon.

"They are all operating. The slightest sign of attempted entry, or the slightest sign of nano-attack, and we will know."

"What can be done with it this close?"

"Many things. We can electrocute it, slice it with particle beams or laser, even detonate a thermo nuke between it and the ship."

"And that won't harm the ship?"

Tomalon came back from his sensor to give Cormac a pitying look. "The hull of this ship is half a metre of Thadium s-con ceramal. There are few energy weapons that can touch it, and it can take a surface blast of up to forty megatons."

Cormac wondered if the people inside could. He also knew of one energy weapon that could touch this ship's hull, and wondered how Tomalon would react to being told that the Occam Razor could be destroyed by sunlight. Glancing at the Captain, it also occurred to him that the man looked very much like a creature of myth that could also be destroyed by sunlight, but reckoned Tomalon would not appreciate the humour, and so Cormac continued to watch the show.

There was no feeling of impact as the Dragon sphere took hold where it could and drew itself against the ship. The view of Dragon that Cormac now watched — from one of the grabships as it released — reminded him of a child hugging the legs of a parent. Soon all the grab-ships had returned to their hold.

"Going under now," said Tomalon.

They went.