The Line of Polity

5

Boy and woman bowed over the book as over a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. The text provided the bare bones of the story, but the picture filled out that story to such an extent it had to be studied for some minutes before moving on to the next.

"Presently, little Molly Redcap knocked on the door. 'Who is it? inquired a gruff voice. At first the voice frightened her, but thinking her grandma might be ill she replied, 'I bring you potato bread and wine from my mother. Softly the voice replied, 'Come in, come in, you are welcome to come in. When she entered, Father Siluroyne hid himself under the heat sheet. 'Put the bread and wine in a fridge and come sit on the bed with me. Molly took off her mask and bottle and skipped over to the bed where she was much surprised at the change in her grandma."

The woman leant back with her hand over her mouth for a moment — already she was beginning to recognize the change of tone. When the boy glanced round at her impatiently, she continued:

"Grandma, what big motion sensors you've got."

"All the better to follow you wherever you go."

"Grandma, what a lot of eyes you've got."

"All the better to see you my little morsel."

"Grandma, what big teeth you've got."

"The very same I used to chew up your friend with the axe."

"Oh, please don't eat me. I'm a God-loving child!"

The woman glanced at the child on her knee, who was staring at the picture of the thing in the bed in wide-eyed fascination.

"I'm beginning to see a pattern here," said the woman.

" 'Underground' is misleading in a number of ways," Fethan explained as they trudged on out of the stand of flute grass onto drier ground cloaked with mosses, wild rhubarb and black plantains. "It makes you think of a singular secret resistance organization, when in fact it's the aim of most people there merely to survive — not to overthrow the Theocracy. You could also be misled into thinking the word has nothing to do with 'ground' and 'under' when in reality it has everything to do with those words." Fethan stabbed a finger downwards. "Below us there's about ten metres of loose and highly organic soil — the creation of millions of years of tricone burrowing and feeding. Below that is a layer of chalk over fifty metres thick — created by tricone shells sinking through the soil and slowly conglomerating and compressing." Fethan stopped and pointed towards some current movement in the damp ground that was shaking the big purplish leaves of the rhubarb and causing disc molluscs to drop from their undersides like scatterings of silver coins. The ground humped up, and briefly the spiked end of a tricone broke the surface before retracting. "Industrious little soil makers those. The inhabitants here could make a fortune exporting tricones — and the concomitant ecology — to Polity-run terraforming projects. Of course that'll never happen with the Theocracy in control."

"You were saying about the Underground," Eldene reminded him — part machine or not, Fethan did tend to ramble.

"Oh yeah." Fethan looked about himself, then led the way to where the ground rose beyond yet more flute grass. "Underneath the chalk you've got layers of limestone — which is probably the result of the tricone's distant ancestors — with occlusions of basalt and obsidian and other volcanic rocks. You know the geology of this place is fascinating."

"The Underground," Eldene reminded.

"Yeah, well, the water flow of this landmass is also fascinating. As it soaks down, it wears the limestone away, making caverns and underground rivers, till eventually reaching the deeps where it's heated by geo-thermal energy and pushed out again in hot springs, about fifteen hundred kilometres from here. There are cave systems down there that are thousands of kilometres long, some as big as space habitats — room for cities if you wanted 'em. That's the Underground, and that's where, over the last couple of centuries, your people went when they fled the Theocracy."

Through this second stand of flute grass they moved onto higher ground clad in blister mosses and the occasional tricone shell blued by algae. Eldene considered asking what basalt and obsidian were, and how big exactly was a space habitat, but her scole was now shivering against her body, she herself was beginning to pant, and the air tasted like iron in her mouth. They reached a bank, which they climbed, and looked around. To their right a mechanical digger stood tilted into the ground, its windows broken and its entire surface orange with rust. Ahead of them stretched row upon row of low twisted black trees with yellow leaves and a peppering of nodular green fruit, growing out of ground thick with vegetation so green it made Eldene's eyes ache.

"Grape trees," said Fethan.

Eldene already knew about grape trees: those strange plants producing the fist-sized fruits that were turned into wine for the Theocracy. She'd seen pictures of them on the labels of stubby bottles, and once tasted some of the wine stolen by a friend back at the city orphanage. She instead pointed down at the surrounding green vegetation and gasped, "What's that?"

"Grass," Fethan replied.

Eldene glanced back at the flute grass, then eyed the old man with suspicion.

Fethan indicated the flute grass. "That's a native plant so named because of a few similarities to this" — he pointed now at the verdancy below the trees — "which is the real thing. It's one of the plants brought by the fanatics who first came here to set up their colony two hundred years ago. It's real grass from Earth."

After negotiating the slope, they entered the orchard of grape trees. Feeling weak and drained, Eldene stumbled to one side and slumped with her back against one of the trees. It was time — she could not go on like this any more. With reluctance, she hinged up the mask of Volus's breather and took a deep breath. The surge of oxygen left her suddenly light-headed, and in a somewhat distracted state she stared down as Fethan squatted before her and pulled open her shirt. For a moment she thought to slap his hand away, as she had with some of the younger male workers who had become a bit too curious about the tightening of her shirt above her scole, but he was an. old man — and a machine — and he was helping her.

Her scole was now almost white, and had pushed away from her chest on its eight chitinous legs. Its head was still attached to her: pincers still hooked in and feeding tubules still imbedded in her flesh, but there was now some leakage of blood, and a white pus crusting under her breasts. Below the creature was a neat row of 'leaves' — a litter of five baby scoles born to leech blood. Back at the worksheds these would have been carefully removed and transported to the piggeries in the north, where they would be fattened up on pig's blood before being returned to be attached to a new worker.

"About done with, your scole," commented Fethan. "Combination of leafing and Volus hitting it with that stinger of his." While she stared in perplexity, he tugged off each of the leaves and tossed them to one side. "Fucking things," he muttered, then removed his own false scole and opened it up. From within this he removed a small flat pack, which he also opened to expose a sewing kit, and Eldene wondered what the hell he needed that for. She stared at the old man in puzzlement.

"Best we get it done now," said Fethan. "Dying ones sometimes don't detach cleanly, and if they leave bits of 'emselves in you that can cause problems." With that he reached down and took hold of Eldene's scole. Eldene yelled at the horrible ripping sensation, then yelled again when the pain hit her. Through eyes blurred by tears she saw Fethan standing with the scole gripped tightly before him, its legs kicking in the air, its pincers opening and closing, and its three feeding tubules waving like bloody fingers. Then, cast aside, it landed in the grass on its back. Eldene felt a sudden frisson of fear at seeing the thing detached and moving on its own like that. She then stared down in horror at the raw wound welling blood from her chest and, as well as pain, felt embarrassment at her own nakedness — not for exposure of her breasts, but of the area below where the scole had been attached. For more than half her life this thing had lived on her torso and now she felt incomplete without it. After Fethan threaded a needle and stooped to sew together the ragged edges of the wound left by the scole, she turned her head away from such intimate work and wished she could faint from the pain.

"You know," he said as he worked, "scoles are the same old biotech as the squerms and sprawns — brought in by the Theocracy when it first established itself here."

"Really," said Eldene through gritted teeth.

"Yeah. No one uses big ugly symbionts any more, and these things cut your lifespan by half."

Eldene turned and stared at him.

"You didn't know that, did you?" he said.

"I did not."

"It never occurred to you to wonder why proctors and priesthood put up with the inconvenience of breather gear."

"I thought… something to do with status…"

"You thought wrong."

Through the shuttle screen, Cormac gazed out at Elysium and saw neither green fields nor any of the blessed. The station was a morass of linked habitats clustered around the kilometre-long monofilament cables and struts that supported the main catchment mirrors of a sun-smelter facility. Here it was that the more free-wheeling entrepreneurial types towed in asteroids for smelting, bought refined metals, ran factories, and generally made large amounts of money — or not — in a grey area where the line of Polity had simply juddered to a halt and dissolved before the onslaught of the wishes of this place's inhabitants. There was a runcible installed, the reason they had stopped here, but as far as the Polity was concerned this was a place you came to at your own risk. There weren't many complaints made: those who might have wanted to did not usually get much of a chance, being given a brief tour of the inside of one of the smelters.

"There's many feel this place should be broken up," said Cento.

Cormac turned to the Golem, who was piloting the shuttle, and once again was struck by his perfection. This it was that told him he must be dealing with a copy of Cento for, since the events on Viridian, the original Cento had retained the brass arm that he had torn from the killing machine, Mr Crane, and this Cento possessed no such arm. Aiden appeared no different from how he had looked the last time Cormac had seen him, but the other Golem was yet another copy.

"There are places like this all across the Polity," said Cormac, "and those who object to them don't have to visit them."

"I like this place," said Gant from behind.

Cormac glanced round at him and Aiden. "You would," he said. "Wasn't it to here you and Thorn used to come for your holidays — a bit of relaxing non-lethal violence and enough high-tox cips to dissolve this shuttle?"

"Good days," Gant reminisced.

Cormac snorted and returned his attention to the screen, as Cento brought the shuttle in towards a conglomeration of habitats below the cylindrical tower of a giant refinery. Looking beyond this, he saw an ancient grabship clasping in its huge ceramal claw the single mountain protruding from the asteroid it was hauling in. As he understood it, the asteroid would be brought to one of the many furnace satellites, and then the sunlight from the mirrors would be focused upon it. While it heated, the automated systems on the satellite would draw off materials when they attained their particular melting or volatile temperatures. Nothing would be wasted: this place produced just about everything on the elementary table, and even the asteroidal ash that remained — such as it was — they used to make soil for the habitats. Thereafter, rough ingots and tanks were transported from the furnace satellites to the refineries and factories, there to be turned into bubble-metals, alloys and pure crystal for electronic applications, composites and complex compounds: every substance used by the material technologies of the Polity.

Soon, amongst the habitats, they noticed a structure like a giant octagonal coin around which clustered deep-space and insystem ships. There Cormac saw many of the multi-spherical varieties — ships consisting of any number of conjoined spheres — also ones with the sleek lines of cuttlefish, and those like baroque sculptures, still others that were replicas of vehicles out of human history: aeroplanes, early rockets and shuttles, and even one ship that had the appearance of an ancient sailing vessel.

"You get some types here," Gant observed.

Cento navigated the shuttle through this swarm and finally brought it to an open bay in the side of the structure. Cormac glanced back through the rear screen and saw that the Occam Razor was still easily visible. The reason given here by the docking control for the dreadnought not being allowed in was that it was just too large to be joining this crowd — supposedly just one accidental burst from one of its manoeuvring thrusters could crisp any number of these ships. He doubted this was the true reason and, to be honest, it irked him that some autocrat here could order a Polity battleship to stand off.

As the shuttle drifted slowly into the bay, through the shimmer-shield, Cento made a sound of annoyance.

"Problem?" Cormac asked.

"Not really," muttered the Golem, "but I have just been informed of what we are being charged for the use of this bay."

"Probably ten times the going rate," said Gant. "We're a type that ain't all that welcome here."

There were people coming towards them from every direction as they headed for the ramp leading down to the catamaran, but in the darkness there was no way to easily distinguish friend from foe, or rather, for all those foes to realize that Thorn and Stanton were not friendly. This did not last though, for somewhere on the barge an auxiliary generator or pile cut in. A searchlight beam lit the area around Brom's cabin, and began to traverse the deck. It found them as they were running down the ramp to Stanton's vessel.

"The mooring cables," Stanton instructed almost conversationally, as there rose an outcry from the barge.

Thorn grabbed the nearest cable and unhooked it from its bollard, while Stanton did the same with the other one. Stanton was leaping aboard as Thorn unhooked the final cable. Someone on the barge then decided it was no longer time for just shouting, and something smashed the cable from his hand, while the ramp behind him erupted into jagged twists of metal. He leapt from the ramp onto one of the catamaran's outriders and found himself clinging to a stanchion supporting the suspended cabin as tractor drives engaged in both outriders, and the vessel began to pull away. Thorn ran along the outrider to the steps leading up it into the cabin, but slipped when projectiles slammed holes through the surface next to his feet, and only managed to prevent himself falling into the water by catching hold of the safety rail guarding the steps. With his legs still trailing in the water, he glanced back at the quickly receding barge and saw one of the gun turrets swinging in their direction, before disappearing in an actinic explosion. From the ramp, most of Brom's people started opening up with hand weapons, while a small group of them set up a tripod-mounted missile launcher. Thorn assessed his chances of reaching the cabin at just a little above zero, and his chances of remaining alive, either there or here, as little different. Then a coughing sound from the rear of the cabin, and something cylindrical and black sped back towards the ramp. The explosion that followed sliced the ramp in half and threw those of Brom's people who were still intact into the water.

"Are you coming up here or not?" Stanton shouted.

Thorn finally hauled himself from the water and scrambled up the steps.

The catamaran's cabin was of a standard utile design: cylindrical, with a rear hold and a forward cockpit containing three control chairs. Thorn entered the hold and headed quickly for the cockpit, little comforted to be under cover when he noticed the many bullet holes punched through the walls.

While with his right hand guiding the vessel out to sea using a joystick that had probably, in a previous life, belonged to some kind of nil-AG aircraft, Stanton glanced at Thorn and nodded to the chair next to him. As Thorn strapped himself in, the mercenary swung across the targeting visor he had himself just used to take out the ramp, then kicked across the floor-mounted firing control he had been operating with his left hand. Thorn saw that the hinged beam the control column extended from, as well as the jointed arm supporting the visor, allowed them to be operated from any seat.

"Bit primitive," Stanton explained. "It was connected into this boat's harpoon, but I've replaced that with a weapons carousel. You've got twelve heat-seekers, three chaff, and three antimunition packages back there. Use them wisely."

Thorn pulled the column into position and swung the visor across his face, feeling its skin-stick surfaces adhering to him. Now he had a view straight back to the barge but, thumbing the swing control on the joystick he now gripped, that view swung in increments of ninety degrees, as the launcher on the rear of the catamaran swung round. Tilting his head back, he saw nothing but sky for a moment, before thumbing the launcher round again so the barge was back in the screen.

"We've got AGCs launching," he told Stanton.

"Most'll be running," the mercenary told him bluntly.

"Three are running in this direction."

"That's why I said 'most'," Stanton replied.

Finding the cursor control under his little finger, Thorn called up the mask's menu and scrolled down through it. The selection buttons Stanton had added — heat, chaff and anti-m — were red and of an entirely different font from the rest of the menu. He was about to choose one of these when a familiar voice spoke. "That you in there, trooper Thorn?" He quickly made a different menu choice and called up, in the corner of the screen, a mini-display that showed him Ternan's face. Zeroing the targeting box on one of the approaching AGCs, he then selected heat, fired off a missile, and had the pleasure of seeing her frantically slapping at controls while the three vehicles broke away. However, anti-munitions took out the missile before it reached its target.

"How long, Jarv?" asked Stanton, speaking into his wristcom.

"Seven minutes," replied a woman's voice.

"Why so slow?" he asked.

"Thousand-kilometre restricted zone. Came on just as you got to the barge — probably something to do with your friend there," she replied.

"Any Polity activity?"

"You bet. When they shot down that military transport, we got a swarm of craft taking off from Gordonstone. As soon as the 'ware generator went offline, two insystem attack boats launched from Cereb. They're about three minutes behind me."

"Great," murmured Stanton.

Thorn absorbed this, but kept his attention mostly focused on the pursuing AGCs. There were seven of them now, and there was no way this catamaran, even with its tractor drive flat out, could outrun them. Observing seven white dots then speeding from the AGCs towards him — quickly highlighted in flashing red boxes on the screen — he selected and fired chaff, shortly followed by antimunitions. Three missiles exploded in the cloud of glittering dust that the remaining four successfully punched through. The antimunitions package flew apart into its hundred component seeker explosives, two of which were detonated by two of the missiles, but the remaining two hammered on in.

"We're not gonna survive seven minutes," Thorn observed, firing one of the last two antimunitions packages.

The explosions were close, shock waves veering the boat in its course and shrapnel clattering against the cabin. Thorn pulled the visor aside in time to see a missile tumbling end over end into the sea beside them, and detonating just under the waves.

"Seven AGCs, and it looks like all of them have launchers." Thorn slapped the targeting visor back into place.

"Jarv," explained Stanton, "we're going to bail out. Thorn, empty that carousel. We're going."

Thorn took the cursor to each missile selection, rattling the firing button on each, then removed the visor and reached for his seat straps. Stanton was already through the door into the hold by the time he had his straps undone. Soon the two of them were moving back to the entry hatch. Thorn glanced to the rear of the hold, where the carousel was clicking round, and heard the missiles launching one after the other. Following Stanton down, he squinted through spray driven up by the outriders chopping through the wave tops. The two men jumped at the same time. Travelling at the same speed as the catamaran, Thorn hit the sea and bounced — the water feeling about as welcoming as concrete. Next, he was into it headfirst, whiteness all around him and copper salts bitter in his mouth. At his first breath on coming to the surface, he saw the catamaran already fifty metres away — missiles still launching from the rear of its cabin. The missile that then hit it, he did not see.

The central cabin just disappeared, like a balloon being burst by an orange explosion. Caught in the blast, one outrider went straight up into the air, then dropped like a dolphin having reached the summit of its leap, and disappeared. The remaining outrider, its tractor drive still functioning, motored on, towing a tangle of smoking wreckage.

"Perfect timing," said John Stanton from behind him.

Thorn sculled round to the mercenary and grinned at him, before looking beyond to where the pursuing AGCs were now coming into sight. Soon the seven vehicles were hovering over the still motoring wreckage of the catamaran. From one of them another missile stabbed down and destroyed even this. Then the attackers nosed out across the area.

"Shit," said Thorn. "You reckon they know we got out?"

"Perhaps," said Stanton.

Thorn shot him a look of annoyance, then began hyperventilating, ready to dive under the waves. Stanton seemed amused by this. Thorn was just about to submerge when a double sonic boom shook the sky, and there came a roar as of a giant steel beast. A blast of hot wind hazed the area with sea spray and a shadow blotted out the sky. The AGCs turned and fled, like crows driven away from a road kill, and Thorn gazed up at the trispherical ship as it descended, cables dropping from an underside hatch.

Stepping from the shuttle, Cormac looked around the bay and wondered at why it was so empty. Such a huge area had plenty of space for other shuttles, of which, judging by the number of ships outside, there needed to be many, yet there was none here but their own. He had begun to get an intimation of something not quite right when out of one of the row of drop-shafts to the rear of the bay emerged the welcoming party.

The two men were suited in grey businesswear and wore black intensifier eye-bands and executive polished-chrome augs. They preceded soldiers uniformed in light combat armour, with helmets which extended down one side of their heads — containing military coms and augs no doubt — and carrying pulse-rifles. But all these seemed inconsequential compared with what came up out of the shaft behind them, passed to either side of the group, and swung round in front. Here were two large polished cylinders floating vertically, with weapons mounted at each end. They were heavy-armour AI drones — very new and very dangerous. Even the Occam Razor did not have anything like this aboard. Cormac glanced back and noticed that the bay's armoured doors were drawing closed. He initiated Shuriken as the three Golem accompanying him moved out to either side of him.

"Probably come for the docking charges," Gant suggested to Cento.

Cormac glanced at Gant. "Who are these?" he asked.

"Could be anyone," the Sparkind replied. "There's about a hundred private armies here employed by various corporations. More likely though that these are Elysium Security — each corporation provides a percentage of its own forces for overall security."

"Got some serious weaponry," noted Cormac, indicating the drones.

"They are ship drones built for Earth Central Security," said Aiden.

Cormac turned to the Golem. "Any communication?"

"They are somewhat… terse," Aiden replied.

The drones reached them first and floated out to either side of them, turning to the horizontal as they did so, training their weapons on the four of them. Each drone, Cormac noted, possessed a missile-launcher and an APW — antiphoton weapon — obviously whoever had sent this welcoming committee was taking no chances. The soldiers halted smartly while the two leaders advanced and came to a halt five metres from Cormac. The one on the right, who was bald, quite obviously boosted, and had skin the colour of orange cheese, carefully surveyed Cormac and his companions.

"Welcome to Elysium." he said, at last.

"Interesting that you chose those words," said Cormac, eyeing the drones. "I don't feel particularly welcome."

"We are always cautious here," the man replied. "And we become especially cautious when paid a visit by an ECS dreadnought. What business do you have here?"

The man's companion, who was shorter, not so heavily built, and had long black hair spilling across his shoulders, showed a set of chrome teeth in a grin. "Lons here is always a little blunt," he said. "But you must understand that many living here have interests that they wish to preserve." He moved forwards, with Lons trailing a step behind him, and held out his hand to Cormac. "Alvor," he said, clasping Cormac's hand in a sweaty grip.

"Ian Cormac."

Both men's expressions abruptly hardened, but Alvor continued: "I'm surprised you would want to come here. But now that you are here, if you would accompany us?" He turned and gestured towards the drop-shafts.

"I think you are misconstruing the purpose of my visit. I'm here solely because Elysium is the only place on my present route to possess a runcible facility," said Cormac.

"Unfortunately I am not the one this needs to be explained to." Alvor was now surveying Cormac's companions. He went on, "Also, because of certain security considerations, your friends will unfortunately have to remain here meanwhile."

Cormac raised his hand to silence Gant, who had been about to protest, and asked, "Who do I need to explain this to, and what are these 'security' considerations you mention?"

Lons replied with, "We've no objection to Golem here, except of course when they are Golem Twenty-sevens disembarking from an ECS dreadnought. Then we become suspicious."

Alvor shrugged. "Dreyden is understandably nervous of such company."

"Dreyden?" Cormac asked.

Alvor stared at him for a long moment before going on, "Our employer has been the de facto ruler of Elysium for some years now — of which ECS must be well aware?"

"Well, I'm not," said Cormac. "As I said to you, my business here relates only to this place's location — nothing else — and I can't be expected to remember the name of every tinpot autocrat, since hundreds of them rise and fall in every decade around the edge of the Polity." The two men frowned at this, but Cormac continued. "I'll now accompany you to see this Dreyden, but meanwhile my companions will continue with the real purpose of our visit here."

"Are you sure about that, Agent?" Gant asked him.

Cormac glanced at him. "If I'm not back here with you when you're ready to leave, and if I haven't communicated with you… then you'll know what to do." He glanced coldly at the two grey-suited men. "I'm sure Captain Tomalon would be more than willing to give his weapons a test run."

"Unfortunately Dreyden does not want ECS Golem running about this place unsupervised, so they must remain here," said Alvor.

"And how do you intend to make them remain here?" Cormac asked.

Alvor glanced at the two huge drones, and winced as if it was painful for him to even mention their presence.

"Let me put it another way," Cormac went on. "Is this Dreyden prepared to murder ECS Golem androids out of no justification other than his paranoia? When all they will be doing is going over to the runcible facility to await someone's arrival?"

Alvor put his fingers against his aug, as he obviously received further instruction. "The arrival of whom?" he asked after a moment.

"Not that it concerns you greatly, but a Polity scientist, that's all," Cormac replied, starting to feel irritated now.

Smoothly Alvor went on, "If that is their only purpose here, then you'll have no objection to them being accompanied, then?"

"No objection, just so long as there are no more delays," said Cormac. Then, to his three companions, "No screw-ups. This place is for another day."

Cormac waved a hand in the direction of the drop-shafts, and began heading in towards them. The two grey-suits fell in beside him, and the attendant soldiers parted before him, then closed behind.

Upon reaching the shafts, Cormac glanced back to note that the two drones had remained with the Golem — obviously human soldiers were not considered sufficient accompaniment for those three. Alvor punched a code into the touch-console beside one of the shafts, then stepped out to where the irised gravity field wafted him upwards. Cormac quickly followed. As he was dragged up he felt that familiar slight tugging each time he passed a floor and, counting thirty of such sensations, realized he must be nearing the top of the station. At one point there was a pause in his ascent, before he passed 'Restricted Area' signs, and thereafter the sides of the shaft were striped orange and black — the universal colours of danger. At the required level, he stepped out behind Alvor into a vestibule before twin wooden doors. The floor of this space was slabbed with alternate white and translucent-red stones — probably of alabaster and artificial ruby. Suspended from the ceiling by ominously heavy cables was a standard design of security drone, but with an APW bolted underneath. It observed him with matt-black visual receptors and turned to track his progress as he followed Alvor to the door. Glancing back, he saw that only Lons had joined them — the soldiers having departed the shaft somewhere below. No doubt Dreyden considered them unnecessary now Cormac was within his internal security system.

At the doors, Alvor turned and held out his hand. "Your weapons."

Cormac pulled his thin-gun and tossed it across to the man. As Alvor caught and inspected this, Cormac unstrapped his shuriken holster, then handed it across. With raised eyebrows Alvor studied the weapon before pocketing it.

"Interesting," he said, before turning to lead the way in.

Beyond the doors was a glass lock, and through this Cormac saw a huge biodome with a roof constructed from hexagonal panes of chainglass, through which sunlight was reflected from a pylon-mounted mirror on top of the station. Following Alvor through the glass door when it hissed open, he found himself beginning to sweat in the humid atmosphere inside the dome. All around grew tropical plants: cycads, tree ferns, orchids, and other adapted or exotic species. To his right a stand of cyanids reared up into shadow, their sharp blue leaves like huge machete blades, metre-long flower pods open to expose intricate yellow convolutions like the surface of a brain. A low creaking attracted his attention towards his left, where a plasoderm's circular grey seed case slowly opened and oozed the flattened worms of jelly that were its slime-mould spore carriers. Seeing this last plant — a native of Callorum — immediately raised Cormac's suspicions. However, he knew that samples of such plants were always in circulation, and could be easily obtained by an enthusiast. He told himself not to have such a nasty suspicious nature.

"Friend Dreyden has an interest in botany, I take it?" he said.

"Yeah," grunted Lons, revealing even more of his charm now he felt himself to be more in a position of power.

"Donnegal Dreyden was an expert in the fields of biomechanics, botany, linguistics, and political science before he focused his full attention on metallurgy, and subsequently formed Alliance Smelters," said Alvor — quoting straight from the manual, Cormac felt — before gesturing ahead to a building that seemingly acted as a wide pillar supporting the centre of the biodome, and then leading the way over to the metal stairs that spiralled up its side. Lons trudged along behind them, resentment more than obvious in his mien.

At the top of the building, the stairs terminated in a balcony ringing a circular and luxuriously appointed apartment. Entering it, Cormac scanned the fortune in antiques gathered here — there was even what looked like a preruncible computer resting on a replica Louis XIV gate-legged table — then brought his attention to the man rising from a single screen and simple console positioned in one corner. This individual, on cursory inspection, could have passed for one of Alvor's or Lons's associates. Closer inspection revealed that his businesswear was Armani and his aug a Sony 5000. He was thin and his hatchet face looked tired — with shadows under his eyes and those eyes red-rimmed. His movements were jerky, and slightly unsure, as in someone who is withdrawing from some drug. On standing, he took a cigarette from the box on the table beside him and tapped it on his wristcom, before putting it into his mouth. He lit it with a small laser igniter set into a heavy ring on his forefinger.

"Ian Cormac," he said. "I knew a day like this would come, but I did not expect it so soon."

"That day being?" asked Cormac, advancing into the room as Alvor and Lons moved back to stand by the balcony door.

"Drink?" Dreyden asked, gesturing to a nearby cabinet.

Cormac contained his impatience and nodded briefly, watching while Dreyden poured two whiskies from a crystal decanter, then added rainbow spheres of cips ice. Taking the drink proffered, he felt disinclined to sample it.

"You know, it's taken me two years and about a billion New Carth shillings to get this place organized." Dreyden led the way to a seating area and plumped down in an armchair. Cormac perched himself on the edge of a sofa, placing his drink on a coffee table, the top of which was a polished slab of green tourmaline, apparently found on the asteroid that had made Dreyden his first billion, or so said holographic text scrolling round in the mineral.

"And this is relevant to me how?"

Dreyden drew hard on his cigarette. "Because you're Earth Central Security, and don't tell me that ECS doesn't intend to subsume Elysium."

"Maybe so, but that has nothing to do with why I'm here," Cormac replied.

Dreyden looked doubtful as he went on, "You know, because of the security service I formed here, crime is down to Polity levels and the standard of living is very high. In fact higher than on many Polity worlds. A lot of people here are making a lot of money."

"Admirable," commented Cormac dryly.

"If ECS come in here then many people will die. They'll fight to keep you out; they like things the way they are," Dreyden told him.

Cormac twirled his glass on the tourmaline and noted that the biggest smelting complex in Elysium was Dreyden's property — apparently it could turn a million tonnes of asteroidal steel into foamed-metal construction members in less than a solstan day. Cormac was impressed, but no less irritable and bored.

"You're not listening to me," he said. "I'm not here to conquer your little empire, Dreyden." He looked up. "Though I may yet give the matter some consideration if I'm delayed any longer."

Dreyden stood, and Cormac observed the beads of sweat dotting his brow. The man was twitchy — either angry or scared — as revealed in his sneering tone when next he spoke.

"I have something to show you," he said.

With weary impatience Cormac followed him to the centre of the room, then up yet another spiral stair leading to a platform positioned directly below the chainglass roof. Climbing through the hatch and onto this platform, they came into a smaller glasshouse protruding up from the roof itself. All around, they had a perfect view of Elysium. Dreyden gestured to the ships crowding the floating docks, then beyond them to where the Occam Razor was clearly visible.

"Big bastard, that ship, but it probably doesn't mass much more than the asteroids we regularly bring in," he said. He now pointed to the habitats and smelting complexes that formed almost a tangled wall in space beside them. "You know, we don't have Separatists here because essentially most of Elysium is not actually in the Polity. Though being upon the Line as we are, we share many of the benefits of Polity membership. It's a situation we do not really want to change, either through annoying you people by harbouring criminals or by pushing for full membership."

"Your point?" Cormac asked.

Now Dreyden indicated the huge sun mirrors. "I have complete control over those now. The grabship captains have to buy time on them from me, as do those corporations that own the few furnace satellites that I myself do not own," Dreyden said.

Cormac remained silent, waiting for the man to make his point — he now had some intimation of what that might be, but he wanted it clearly stated.

Dreyden went on, "It only takes a minute to shift the focus of those mirrors. You can't see from here, but there is a ring of them, each capable of covering its nearest partner within a matter of seconds. They can also cover all possible approaches to our… community."

"Very cosy. So you would be well defended should a stray asteroid head in this direction," said Cormac sarcastically.

Dreyden dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it out on the platform. After taking a swallow of his drink he glared at Cormac. "You know, we don't even use the tightest focus to melt asteroids. If we tried that on an asteroid it would vaporize and obliterate the furnace satellite it was lodged in. On the tightest focus we can get heat levels — if the conditions are just right — high enough to start a fusion reaction. There's no known substance that can endure that for long, and no field technology that can withstand it."

Cormac wandered over to the glass wall and gazed down at the Occam Razor. Dreyden's message was quite clear, but utterly irrelevant considering what he knew of ECS policy concerning this place.

"Last count as I recollect," said Cormac without turning from the glass, "there were two hundred million people living here." He turned now to face Dreyden. "ECS just isn't interested… you want the figures? AIs have calculated that with the people here living in such fragile circumstances the losses during a takeover would be something in the region of twenty per cent. And to gain what?" He gestured to the nearest giant smelting complex. "The whole infrastructure would probably be destroyed as well, and the Polity would basically end up with a refugee population in the tens of millions. Probably the smelters and mirrors would be destroyed too, so there would be nothing to gain, and anyway most of what is made here is sold to the Polity, and most of the money used to buy it is spent on Polity goods. I'm not here for this, Dreyden."

Dreyden continued to glare and Cormac realized that the man would just never believe what he was being told — he had too much invested here and was evidently too frightened of Earth Central Security to trust any of its agents. In reality his attitude was perfectly understandable: the Polity had without compunction absorbed worlds into itself when that best served the interests of its entire population, and for the same reasons empires like Dreyden's had been undermined, or obliterated.

"I've no time for this," said Cormac, heading for the hatch.

"What do you want with this Asselis Mika, the life-Coven woman?" Dreyden asked suddenly.

Cormac turned as he began to climb down. "Her expertise. And we will leave with her — understand that."

"So long as you do leave." Dreyden gulped the rest of his drink. "Perhaps, after you are gone, you can pass on the message that Polity battleships are no longer welcome here."

"Oh, I'll pass that on," said Cormac, departing.

Jarvellis was probably the most smoulderingly sexy woman Thorn had ever met. She had long straight black hair, a face that seemed perpetually cheeky, as if she was just about to say something quite shocking, and a figure that was well emphasized by the ersatz acceleration suit she wore. Thorn also understood, even on such very brief acquaintance, that she was completely and utterly in love with John Stanton. She did not give a swooning display in his presence, nor did she simper; it was just a sense of connection between the two of them. He had caught it in that one glance exchanged between the two when he and Stanton had entered the bridge sphere of this trispherical ship. It was a personal connection that completely cut anyone else out of the circuit.

After strapping himself in, Stanton gestured back the way they had entered. "That's cargo, as you saw, and the other sphere is the living quarters. We've got a small galley and a machine shop just behind here as well."

As he too strapped himself into one of the two acceleration chairs immediately behind Stanton and Jarvellis, Thorn considered the hold he had just seen. He'd noted the four cryopods fixed upright to one wall and been unable to miss seeing the racked cargo of weapons crates and other less easily identifiable items.

"What I could do with is an autodoc," he said, delicately probing his broken teeth.

"We've got one, but you'll have to wait. All consoles are DNA-keyed to me and Jarv. Also, Lyric II is run by an AI, and she tends to trust people even less than I do."

That figured.

Thorn turned his attention to Jarvellis as she piloted Lyric II up and away from the planet. The rumbling of acceleration through atmosphere was growing less now, and the middle one of the three screens showed whitish sky diffusing away over starlit space. The right screen displayed a view of the rapidly receding world.

"Ooh, those ECS boys know some dirty words," said Jarvellis, her head tilted towards her earplug.

"And what words are they saying?" asked Stanton.

"Well," said Jarvellis, turning to give Thorn an estimating look, "the gist is 'Stay where you are and wait to be boarded', but the language is much more colourful."

"They'll think you're escaping Separatists," said Thorn. "Which of course you are not."

Stanton glanced back at him. "No, we are not." He returned his attention to Jarvellis. "What about the 'ware?"

She shook her head. "The runcible AI will be on us now and we'll not hide the AG signature from it."

"Can we outrun them?" Stanton asked.

"Oh, pleeaase," spoke a voice from the console in front of Jarvellis.

Jarvellis patted the console. "I think Lyric can handle a couple of rusty old ECS attack boats — can't you, dear?"

"I should think so," replied the voice of Lyric II's AI.

Just then there came a deep roar from within the ship, and subscreens displaying outside views of the ship whited out. Thorn surmised, by this sound, that a powerful engine had just been put online.

"The language just gets worse and worse," said Jarvellis. "Here we go." She touched a control and the view on one of the main screens changed to show Cheyne III's only moon, Cereb, and two much closer objects — identifiable only as being vaguely wedge-shaped — quickly receding. Jarvellis ran her fingers expertly over some more controls, then pulled her earplug. She turned and again looked back at Thorn. "Now, what do we do with your friend here?" she asked.

Before Stanton could say anything, Thorn asked, "You're going after this Deacon character, I take it?"

"Yes," said Stanton, his face assuming the same hardness that Thorn had earlier seen at any mention of the Deacon.

"Then let me come with you. That barge back there will soon become a reef, if it isn't already, and any mission I had there is over."

"Why would you want to come with us?" asked Jarvellis.

"Because whoever that guy was, he was supplying the Cheyne Separatists and I'd like very much to find out more about that."

"We don't work for ECS," said Jarvellis.

"It is also worth bearing in mind," added Stanton, "that ECS has a reward out for our capture."

"I've no intention of trying to claim it," said Thorn. "You saved my life and that might not count for much on a policy level, but it sure as hell means a lot to me."

"Academic, really," said Stanton. "If we try to stop off at any Polity-controlled world or station we'll have ECS over us like worms on a turd — one of Brom's charming expressions, that — so there's no way we'll be dropping you anywhere."

"What about this Deacon — will you be able to track him?" Thorn asked.

"No need," Stanton replied. "He'll head for his rat hole at Masada. That's where we intended to go next anyway, and that's where I'll kill him."

"Masada?" Thorn queried.

"Yes," said Stanton. "Let me tell you about my home world."

The grapes were hard and green and, being a long way from ripeness, only the size of eyeballs. As she chewed on another of the sour fruit, Eldene tried not to think about nut-potatoes and bread and the occasional luxury of meat.

"Do you ever need food?" she asked, after lowering her mask and spitting out a mouthful of green goo.

"Small amounts of nutrients sometimes," replied Fethan, "otherwise my source of energy is somewhat hotter."

Eldene hinged her mask back up into place and spoke through it, having earlier discovered that some device in the collar prevented the muffling of her voice. "Why were you… a worker? How did you become a worker?"

"I came here about four solstan years ago at the behest of Earth Central Security, to bring certain devices and make an assessment of the situation down here. Infiltrating the city was not difficult, as to the Theocracy even the citizens are not individuals — just people to be used up. I completed my assessment in two years, by which time I'd found out about the Underground and made contacts there. I've since been working for one Lellan Stanton — the leader of the rebellion — gathering intelligence on the worker situation, and gathering opinions." Fethan shrugged. "It is easy to get defectors from the city, especially from the processing plants, but not so easy out here, and she wanted to find out how best it might be done."

"And have you succeeded?"

Fethan reached into the pocket of his coverall and removed a short plastic tube of pills that Eldene immediately recognized as those used to prevent a scole rejecting and dying.

"Once we've had these analysed," he said, "we have an opening. It seems the only way now. We'll distribute these through those agents we have placed, and when the time is right have a mass breakout."

"Then what?" asked Eldene, looking pointedly up into the lurid sky.

Fethan put away the pills. "You have to understand, girl, I was not sent here by ECS on a purposeless assignment. When the time is right this world will become part of the Human Polity, whether the Theocracy likes it or not."

"When is the time right? Why is this injustice allowed to continue?"

"It continues because of politics. The Polity takes control of Line worlds, subsumes them, by consent of eighty per cent of the planetary population — or in cases when there has been a complete breakdown of control and they have been asked for help. If ECS came in here with a shitload of warships and blew the Theocracy to hell, that would cause fear on many other Out-Polity worlds, and that fear might prove a uniting force. Last time ECS got that heavy-handed, it upset the balance on a world that had joined the Polity only a few months before. That world then seceded from what was described there as 'the rule of AI autocrats', its government was subverted by Separatists, and the entire planetary population forced into a war they did not want, against their nearest Polity neighbour. So you see; we have to be very careful."

"What happened… to the two worlds at war?" Eldene asked.

"Well, ECS had to defend the Polity world. That's the charter."

"The other world?"

"It's still habitable at the poles."

Eldene chewed that over: there had always been a deep streak of cynicism in her — probably induced by her early reading — which was perhaps why Fethan had shown such interest in her. She'd never really believed his stories about the Human Polity, precisely because she wanted so badly for them to be true. Even so, she had taken in much of what he had told her and it was her understanding that the Polity would only have to learn of the injustice here for it to unleash ECS on the Theocracy.

"When will ECS come?" she asked eventually.

"When eighty per cent of the population has voted for such or when there has been a complete breakdown of political control and help is asked for," Fethan replied obdurately.

"How in the name of God are we supposed to vote?" Eldene asked.

Fethan glanced at her. "Do you want the Polity in control here? Would you pledge allegiance to the AIs that run the Human Polity?"

"Damned right I would. Anything has to be better than the Theocracy!"

Fethan halted and turned, gripping her by the shoulder. "Say to me your name and tell me what you want."

Eldene stared back at the man and tried to figure out what he meant. "I'm… I'm Eldene and I want the… Human Polity running this world. I want to be free. I want…"

Fethan released her. "You have just made your deposition. You've just voted for Polity control here." He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something. "So far that's just over sixty-eight per cent of the population."

"I don't understand."

"The ballots run a limited physiological probe, to make sure the ballotee is not under duress. But because I am what I am, I can collect depositions without it." He gestured behind with his thumb. "Back there I collected fifty-three depositions, which you may be glad to know include Dent's and Cathol's. You were next on my list before circumstances… changed."

"Ballots?"

"The Polity has had machines here collecting votes for thirty-eight years, but never managed to get that eighty per cent vote. Your vote, because of your age, has a life of fifty years calculated from average spans here. It's the only way it can work."

"But Dent and Cathol are dead."

"I didn't say the system was perfect, girl."

"I've never seen these ballots," said Eldene, still confused.

"They're machines — they'll be in a ring, an amulet, the button on someone's shirt. Even so, you understand how difficult it would be to get someone to say what you have just said, with proctors and Theocracy cameras watching them at every turn. Most of that sixty-eight per cent is the Underground vote."

Fethan moved on.

"Then how much longer?" Eldene asked.

Fethan was silent for a moment before replying. "I don't think it's gonna be done by vote, girl. I think that the Theocracy will be destabilized. Sometime soon, Earth Central will send certain individuals here, and things will change very quickly."

"Tell me more," said Eldene, excitement twisting her stomach. And Fethan told her much more.