7.

But what shall we do for a ring-

Spying through the many sensory heads positioned in the vast hold, as became his custom, Immanence observed, listened to, and smelt the remaining human prisoners. Very few of them were standing, and most of them situated themselves in a small, close mass on the side away from the sewerage drains. They made themselves as comfortable as possible using clothing stripped from the dead. One human sat at the perimeter clutching a human leg bone which he used to club ship lice that scuttled too close to the female corpse beside him. He obtained this bone some while back from the remains of a man who tried to attack Gnores and was eaten alive in front of his fellows for his efforts.

Now, while the captain watched, another human subdued the one with the bone while two others dragged the female corpse from the crowd to beside one of the drains where later a second-child would come for it. Earlier they all, like the bone wielder, had concealed and protected their dead, obviously suffering some primitive reaction upon guessing the final destination for those corpses: dissection for study, then to be eaten. But obviously someone had taken charge—removing these items before the smell rendered their imprisonment less pleasant than at present.

Well over two hundred died since Gnores took over from Vagule, but not all of those died as a direct result of the new Prime's experiments. Immanence eyed the numerous reports on autopsies conducted by Scrabbler. Out of the total of seven hundred and sixty prisoners taken aboard, twenty-one died quickly from injuries suffered during capture and a further fifty-three from subsequent infections—mainly from those injuries caused when second-children ripped away their cerebral hardware; two died giving birth—one of the children stillborn and the other dying a day later; three hundred and eighty died as a result of thrall implantation and thirteen killed themselves. That should have left two hundred and ninety-one prisoners, but in the last few days over a hundred of the remainder died.

Scrabbler quickly ascertained the cause as a virulent cross-species disease spreading in the hold, its effects much amplified amid a despairing and much weakened population. It seemed the disease was a viral mutation from something carried by ship lice—who, given the opportunity, fed on both the dead and the living—and it possessed interesting possibilities. Scrabbler was now working on even more deadly strains, and methods of producing them in a sporuler form suitable for dumping in large quantities into the upper atmosphere of a world.

Gnores was now, of course, dragging his many feet, terrified that Immanence might count the disease deaths as part of his allotted two hundred, and knowing that even if the captain did not, he only had twenty test subjects left. Immanence now came to the conclusion that human beings were simply too weak for thrall implantation and that until a stronger form of human could be found the whole project would have to be put on hold. He considered his options.

Within a week they would be arriving at the Trajeen system. Since the unfortunate demise of Shree, he felt he should make his approach somewhat more circumspect than originally intended. Certainly the Polity dreadnought that destroyed the other Prador ship would be no problem, since he very much doubted it would be going anywhere after that last battle, but there might be others about. Laying off just outside the system he would contact those dim human agents who were working for the Kingdom to see if they had, as promised, gained control of the two runcibles. If they confirmed this, he would then approach the Boh runcible sending some of his children ahead to scan the device for anything of sufficient explosive yield to damage his ship, though the hold in which he intended to store the runcible was armoured with the same exotic metal as the hull.

By this time, Immanence hoped to have the problem with thrall implantation solved, with numerous useful humans enslaved and placed throughout the ship. The ninety or so humans left were in the way, and Immanence did not relish the idea of placing them anywhere else in the ship. They might be weak and despairing, but no doubt, given the opportunity, they would try to cause some damage. They had, after all, nothing to lose. Regretfully, the captain came to a decision. He opened one communication channel.

"Scrabbler, take a hundred of your fellows down to the hold, slaughter the remaining humans and move them to the cold store with the rest."

"Yes, Father," that first-child replied enthusiastically.

Now the other channel: "Gnores, report to me in my sanctum, immediately."

"Yes, Father." Gnores' enthusiasm seemed somewhat lacking.

Immanence now called up images from the hold on his bank of hexagonal screens, and routed the sounds and smells into his sanctum rather than directly into his sensorium through a control unit; then he swung round to face the doors and opened them. Gnores arrived somewhat later, not as "immediately" as the captain would have wished, and hesitated at the entrance.

"Enter and stand before me, Gnores."

The first-child Prime stepped inside on quivering legs. He scanned all around inside the sanctum and once whirled round when a second-child scuttled along the corridor outside. Finally he cringed before Immanence.

"Let us watch this," said Immanence, and swung back round to face the screens.

Gnores moved warily around the captain to stand at his side.

"It is unfortunate that thrall implantation in humans does not seem to be working," Immanence noted.

"But… I am obtaining some results… Father," Gnores replied.

"Results, yes, but no positive ones."

The doors into the hold opened, and a hundred second-children clattered in, led by Scrabbler who, now a fully grown first-child, loomed over his fellows. Many humans stood, but many more remained prostrate on the floor. The children did not hesitate; eager for the kill they swarmed towards the humans. Scrabbler reached them first, beheaded a man with one claw and impaled a woman on the tang of the other, then hurled her behind him. Screaming arose and the stink of human fear wafted around the sanctum from scent projectors. The man with the bone managed to stove in the head of a second child before others swarmed over him, tearing him apart. The second-children then lost themselves in frenzied abandon. Limbs, torsos and heads were flying all over the place. Immanence supposed Scrabbler would be conducting no autopsies on these humans.

Immanence eyed Gnores and saw him lifting his feet up and down and reflexively opening and closing his claws.

"Once we depart U-space, Gnores, you will take one hundred second-children in the shuttle over to the Boh runcible and secure it for me."

Gnores froze, then slowly turned his eye-palps towards his father, his mandibles vibrating. First the excitement of all the killing in the hold, and now this? Immanence understood Gnores' confusion. The captain considered killing Gnores and promoting Scrabbler, but that would be premature. It was always best to have first-child replacements ready behind each newly promoted Prime, and the captain needed to find a possible replacement for Scrabbler, though there were one or two likely second-child candidates in that hold. Equally, if he killed Gnores and sent Scrabbler to secure the runcible, and some problem arose resulting in Scrabbler being killed, he would end up with no Prime at all—a lamentable circumstance.

"You will of course kill any humans you find there. I don't think we'll be taking any more prisoners for experimentation until all the data you and Vagule collected has been analysed."

"And the human world—will I be leading assaults there?" Gnores asked, his enthusiasm returning.

"Trajeen serves no tactical purpose so, unfortunately not. We will make a close pass around the world and see how well Scrabbler's viral strains do. I won't even bomb the place, since we'll want the runcibles to continue functioning, hopefully spreading the virus throughout the Polity."

Gnores bowed down, disappointed.

"There will be other worlds, and other humans," Immanence assured him.

* * * * *

The door to this particular administrator's office stood open and the signs of a hasty departure were evident everywhere: memcrystals scattered on the floor from an open box, a cup of coffee spilt across a table, and a half-finished sandwich abandoned on the desk. The console on the desk linked into the complex's discrete network, but also possessed a secure connection to the Trajeen network. Most consoles here were like this. Moria did not need anything special to try what she intended, all she needed were command protocols and codes which should be available to her now. She walked over to the swivel chair and seated herself.

The records Jebel Krong made available to her were enlightening. From them she learnt about Conlan's subversion techniques. But the main thing had been simply learning that the man used an optic link directly into any system, thus making his aug more than just a discrete node in any network, but actually plugging into it and becoming more of an integral component. Mentally she sent the instruction—wordless code—to open the casing on her aug. It clicked behind her ear and she reached up to hinge open the little lid. Using a vanity mirror brought for the purpose, she found the socket and inserted one plug of an optic cable, then inserted its other plug into the requisite socket in the console.

LOGON CODE>

Could it be as simple as that?

Via her aug, Moria input her code and discovered that no, it would not be that simple.

NAME>

MORIA SALEM

MOTHER'S NAME>

GILLIAN AN-PARS SALEM

So, it seemed a lengthy question-and-answer security check would ensue—based on her record—probably followed by obscure questions concerning her personal history. However, the next question to come up was unexpected.

SOLVE> 0.004532 DISPARITY BETWEEN G3 AND G2

Now her aug flicked into full-blown modelling mode and it seemed she was again at Boh, as a virtual model of the two gates filled her perception—distances truncated as before. She created the underlying maps for gravity, system energy and U-space coordinates and placed over them models of the two runcibles' energy systems she recalled from her aug's memspace. Warp initiation. The cusps formed, the meniscus expanding as the gateposts irised apart. No cargo ship this time. She checked her figures and discovered the disparity this time to be one decimal place different from before 0.004532 rather than 0.0004532. She began to make the correction and as channels opened to her she felt elation, rather than the terror of her first experience of this. She easily opened extra processing space as the massive data flow threatened to overwhelm her. Her calculations to superpose her corrected model on reality ran easily at first, but then she realised that the decimal point made things substantially more difficult. She applied for more processing space, received it from somewhere. Almost in horror she realised that one corrective model would not be enough. She needed five. More space. Five copies made and calculations running to alter them to a stepped correction. She was getting there.

I NOW GIVE YOU TOTAL CONTROL OF THE BOH OUTER GATE>

SOLVE >

Fucking comedian!

The cargo vessel now suddenly appeared in all her models, throwing everything into disarray. Solved: model one, two, three… four and five. Through, the cargo vessel was through. Buffer feedback figures.

There!

Suddenly she realised what had gone wrong during the real test. The energy at the meniscus, just a few points out because she did not include in the calculation the cargo vessel's transition time through the warp. It seemed so obvious, and so easy to move, in the mathematical realm, beyond it. Again she glimpsed beyond the warp seemingly into U-space itself. Terror lay there, and epiphany. Logic began to break down and it felt to her as if something tore in her head. Briefly she saw the cargo ship leaving the Boh gate, and remaining intact. Then the models began to erase one after the other. FULL SYSTEM ACCESS WELCOME MORIA >

Moria smiled and felt a godlike omniscience, then messages began to come through one after another: A ROLLING STONE GATHERS NO MOSS THROW DIRT ENOUGH, AND SOME WILL STICK THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS She pulled the optic lead from her aug and leapt out of the chair as if a snake had appeared on the desk. The AI is still in the system?

No, but maybe some fragments of it remained…like George. She shouldn't let it spook her like that. Getting her breathing under control she sat down again and reconnected. The proverbs kept coming, so she routed them into memstorage in her aug and concentrated on her access to the systems controlling both runcibles. Soon she ascertained that Jebel Krong had turned off the positioning drives so that the whole complex no longer accelerated towards Trajeen. A sensible decision really, what with him intending to detonate CTD mines aboard. She tracked through the sensors previously used by the AIs and finally located two spacesuited figures working at one of the gateposts, placing a nondescript cylinder inside one of the access hatches. Moving on she began testing her control, applying models in her aug but not actually initiating any action. She could turn the positioning drives back on, here and at Boh, and she could initiate the warp, though doing that would require processing space from the Trajeen networks which were currently crammed with traffic. She possessed complete exterior control of the runcibles, though without an AI, no chance of sending anything through, so what was the point? A moment of power before the shit-storm hit, and with that power she could do nothing. AND HAND IN HAND, ON THE EDGE OF THE SAND, THEY DANCED BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON,

What?

She was routing all that into storage, so why had her aug brought that one to her attention? A quick search rendered the answer to her: this was no proverb, but part of the nonsense verse penned by Edward Lear, the one Iversus Skaidon, the inventor of runcible technology, had so loved.

Why, why that?

THE MOON

THE MOON

THEY DANCED BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON.

Hand in hand.

A shiver ran through her as she clearly visualized Jebel Krong standing haloed by Trajeen, Vina speeding over above him.

The moon.

Was she just imagining things? Groping desperately? This must be madness. But… Jebel intended to install an aug on George… would there be enough of the AI left? And those proverbs, didn't they make a weird distorted kind of sense?

Moria sat back, seemingly paralysed by the enormity of what she was thinking. Then, after a long pause, she sent the instruction to start up the positioning drives again, to speed the runcible back on its way towards Trajeen.

* * * * *

"Thank you, thank you so much," Jebel said, his words directed out into space to a Polity dreadnought captain called Tomalon. The news had only just reached him and at first he found it difficult to credit, but the cheering from his Avalonians seemed to drive it home. The Occam Razor—there a name to go down in history. A Polity ship had actually destroyed one of those fuckers. But Jebel's good mood rapidly faded. Apparently the Occam Razor, though still in pursuit, was severely damaged. And with Jebel's Prador ship still on the way, that victory brought no respite at all. Then other recently received information surfaced in his mind.

I guess, Cirrella, you were lucky.

The news only recently reached Jebel an hour before that about the Occam Razor, though it had been known after the questioning of the survivors from Avalon Station. The AFs best estimate of those taken aboard the Prador ship stood at around seven hundred, and Jebel wished he possessed less imagination, less of a clear vision of what might be happening to them, still happening to them. He supposed their number would be much depleted now, if any remained alive at all. Rescue was of course impossible, but now there seemed some small possibility of an ending.

Jebel up-close-and-personal Krong.

He had killed so many of them that way, sticking mines on their carapaces and blowing the bastards to bouillabaisse. In the beginning, every death brought some satisfaction, but as the war progressed and he came to realise that Prador adults cared very little about the deaths of their numerous children, his feelings of satisfaction diminished. And always the ship remained, with Immanence still comfortably ensconced aboard it.

This time, by mining the Boh runcible, maybe Jebel could get to the Prador captain, really plant an explosive on a carapace where it would hurt, for Immanence would certainly try to seize that runcible first. Or was he kidding himself? Wouldn't the Prador captain expect something like this, wouldn't he send his children to scour the Boh runcible first? Jebel frowned. Damn he wanted to go out there, just to get close to the ship, just to have the opportunity, no matter how small to—

"What is it, Urbanus?" He turned as the Golem entered the lounge.

"We are under power—the positioning drives have been restarted."

"What?" Jebel felt a flash of irritation. "Well turn them off again and cut the power supply."

"We can't. It seems they were reinstated by executive order."

It took Jebel a moment to absorb that. "Moria Salem?"

"She is the only one who could do that, unless the override came from one of the planetary AIs. One of them is presently trying to extract information from George, and it tells me no such override has been initiated."

"Bring her here—she's got some explaining to do."

"There's no need for that." Moria strode into the room.

Jebel assessed her. He had rather liked her forthright attitude and hardheaded approach to the situation they faced. He rather liked her. But now he could see she was frightened and rather less sure of herself.

She turned to Urbanus. "Have you fitted George with an aug?"

Urbanus glanced towards Jebel, who inclined his head slightly.

"I have. George is currently linked to one of the planetary AIs."

"Have you discovered anything?" She nervously rubbed her hands together and could not conceal her disappointment when the Golem shook his head. Now she turned towards Jebel. "I think I understand it all now, but it's a matter of positioning and… this Conlan."

"Woman, you had better start making sense sometime soon or you will be joining him in his cell."

"I'm presuming Conlan possessed some means of communicating with the Prador ship when it arrives?"

"He was to use his aug to make com connection on the back of the U-space link to Boh—the runcible control signal. He's generously given me the code he intended to use, and when the Prador ship does arrive he will be informing them that he has complete control of the two runcibles. I'm hoping this will make them less diligent in searching for any nasty surprises on the Boh runcible."

"Good, that's exactly what I want."

"I won't warn you again." Jebel tried to keep it under control, but felt himself close to losing his temper. Moria seemed oblivious to this—off somewhere in her own mind.

"Positioning. You told me an ECS dreadnought is pursuing the Prador ship?"

Jebel stared down at the floor, took a deep breath and tried to find some calm within himself. "It is," he said tightly, "though it is severely damaged and I doubt it will be up to much."

"And how soon after the Prador ship will it arrive?"

"Almost on top of it, I'm told."

"It is damaged… but it should possess sufficient armament to destroy the Boh runcible?"

"Yes, but we'll be mining that, so there will be no need."

"And I should be able to communicate with that ship from here?"

"Yes…if I give you the required frequency and codes, which I have no intention of doing until you start making sense. I've no intention—"

Jebel gaped at the apparition that now appeared in the doorway: George, with a smear of blood behind his newly installed aug, which stood open, the optic connection dangling.

Moria turned. "You know, don't you? You realised," she said.

George replied emphatically, "When one door shuts, another door opens." Then added, "Faith will move mountains."

Moria whirled back to Jebel. "That confirms it for me, do you agree?"

"Agree with what!" Jebel bellowed.

"Oh yes," Moria said, and told him.

* * * * *

After availing himself of the meagre facilities, which were substantially better than those in his prior accommodation, Conlan paced the small cabin, then paused when he felt that weird shifting telling him the ship was just surfacing from U-space. A short in-system jump, then. In his estimation that meant their destination could only be one place: the Boh runcible. He considered what that might mean, but could come up with no sensible answer, so he sat down and waited. Within a few minutes the door to his cabin opened and Jebel Krong entered.

"Ah, you are considerably more sweet-smelling than when last we met," said Krong.

"Besides that," said Conlan, "and the fact that I am aboard this ship and still breathing, I rather suspect you want something from me."

The expression on Jebel's face told Conlan that only what the man wanted prevented him from beating Conlan to a pulp. And as Conlan was well aware, Jebel Krong could easily do just that.

"As you've probably guessed, we've just arrived at the Boh runcible. Urbanus and Lindy will shortly be suiting up to conceal CTD mines throughout the structure. You and I will be going down there, where you will key in with your aug to the U-space connection. When the Prador vessel arrives you will tell its captain precisely what I instruct you to tell him."

"And why should I do this?"

"Would you like me to start becoming uncivilized again?" Jebel enquired.

"What have I got to say?"

"You'll first tell the Prador captain that you and your people now occupy the Trajeen runcible and, through it, control the Boh runcible. With the proviso that some technicians aboard the Trajeen runcible have managed to evade you, though you'll state that they should not be a problem."

"Then?"

"When the time comes I'll inform you."

"Well, I won't say what you want, not without certain guarantees."

"I can offer you one guarantee." Krong pulled two objects from the pocket of the light spacesuit he now wore and tossed them down on the nearby cabin bed: a pair of pliers and a pair of metal snips.

Conlan stared at the two tools, his mouth arid. "Yes… you can hurt me, but that won't help you get what you want. If I'm in pain I won't have much aug control, but even if I do, I might forget some key phrases necessary for me to use with that Prador captain, to assure him that I am not being coerced."

"What is it you want, then?" Krong asked, teeth gritted.

Conlan decided it was time for him to find out how strong his bargaining position might be. Obviously Krong wanted him to convince the Prador that he controlled the runcibles so they would take one of them aboard without sufficiently checking it. Maybe he was integral to this desperate plan. Now he would find out. "I want a new identity, and all records of my old identity wiped. I want two million New Carth shillings paid to me in etched sapphires, and an unrecorded runcible transmission to any destination of my choosing."

"Oh, is that all?" Jebel asked. "How about a Marineris Trench apartment, a new wardrobe and couple of courtesans to feed you peeled grapes?"

"If I thought all my demands would be met I'd ask for your testicles on a metal hook," Conlan spat.

"Really," Krong leant over him, very close, as if wishing Conlan would attack. "Here's the deal, Conlan: you get to live. You get adjustment and a custodial sentence reviewed every ten years."

"No way is any AI going to fuck with my mind. No deal."

"Then there's only one other option." Krong stepped away from him, stooped and picked up the two tools from the bed.

Conlan wondered if he had pushed just a little too hard. Maybe adjustment wouldn't be so bad…

Krong continued, waving the metal snips at him. "This ship carries cold-sleep escape pods. You do what I say and one of them is yours. We fire it into deep space and maybe, sometime in the far future, someone will find that pod and open it. You could be lucky. The Polity could be gone by then. Or if it still exists you and your crimes might have been forgotten."

Conlan eyed those snips. That wasn't so bad. If Krong had acceded to his initial demands Conlan would have known the man intended to renege. This sounded real. "You have a deal," he said.

* * * * *

The U-space transmitter did not look particularly impressive, just a grey box sitting on the floor with numerous optics and s-con power cables feeding into it. But the technology that box contained was akin to a miniature replica of the one driving the huge runcible outside the chainglass windows on this side of the complex. The transmission of information being a considerably less complex procedure than transmitting huge cargo vessels, the transmitter required no AI—a simple synaptic computer served the same purpose.

Moria chose this particular room in which to base herself, since there was less of a chance of a breakdown of the single link between this console and transmitter in here. Any other console in the complex would have been routed through other networked com nodes, and she really didn't need some idiot software glitch getting in the way. She had more than enough to do.

"Sit there." Moria pointed to one of the three chairs behind the console desk, and George meekly walked over and ensconced himself. "And no more proverbs for the moment. I know what to do now and I don't want you confusing the issue."

George seemed about to say something, but instead clamped his mouth closed like a naughty child and removed his optic cable from his top pocket. While she watched he plugged one end into his aug, then the other end into the console, then sat with his hands in his lap. He appeared childish only for a moment longer, then straightened, something metallic gleaming in his eyes.

Moria placed her flask of coffee and cup down on the pseudo-wood surface and took the chair next to him. In her aug she again checked the time. Jebel had reached the Boh runcible some hours ago, and should soon be docking to what remained of the complex there. The Prador ship would arrive in approximately five hours, according to reports from the ground-based AIs—their data obtained from monitoring stations launched throughout the Polity some days into the war. She had received no communication from the Occam Razor, but then U-com became difficult from within U-space—a problem the AIs hoped to iron out sometime soon.

Moria plugged herself in and began running diagnostic checks on the huge and intricate systems she controlled. She ran up every fusion reactor in the complex to its maximum, routing power into storage in the runcible buffers at this end. Solar collector satellites stood ready to maser energy to the receivers on the runcible, should she require it—a highly likely possibility. Beginning to model the two runcible gates and all the energy systems involved, she slotted in the information revealed by the diagnostic returns. Then, because she knew she was procrastinating, she took a long, hard look at her data map. Certainly the planetary AIs would release processing space to her, but it was not that area of processing that most concerned her. She closely studied the nexus of the data map, where the AI should be, and where before lay nothing but errors and broken connections. Something now occupied the space, directly linked to the console before which she sat. It looked skeletal, with at present un-instated connection to that processing space on the planet below. It looked nothing like an AI, nothing like anything she had ever seen before. It was George.

"Are you ready?" she asked—through her aug.

"Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the Devil."

There, another proverb. What other reply to expect? Whatever the hell that meant she supposed it to be the best answer she would receive.

Moria set to work calculating orbital velocities and trajectories. At present the runcible face lay at a tangent to Trajeen, so she needed to turn it to ninety degrees from the surface. Sending the cargo ship through required a two-kilometre extension of the gate; now she needed an excess of two hundred kilometres. She worked out that this would take, with each gatepost travelling at its maximum of twelve hundred kph, averaged over the distance, more than five minutes.

Too long.

A particular fact niggling at her for some time now came to the forefront of her mind. Her plan stood a much better chance of working if she could initiate the warp only after the gateposts reached full extension. This meant her accuracy in positioning the posts needed to be well inside the tolerances set for the normal method of opening the gate. Over the next long hour she calculated what the new tolerances should be, and applied them to the system. Immediately thousands of errors appeared—possibly more than she could deal with.

"Two wrongs don't make a right" George told her, then added a proverb he used before, "When one door shuts, another door opens."

Moria sat for long minutes trying to understand that, then abruptly felt very stupid. She did not need to initiate warp at full extension at both gates, only the Boh one. This cut the errors by half and, she felt, brought the required calculations within parameters she could handle. She spent a further hour modelling gate operation under these circumstances, then saved the model. Now, to position this gate.

Where it ultimately ended up around Trajeen depended on when the Prador ship arrived and when it could be manoeuvred into position. However, she could run a rough projection based on an arrival time five hours hence. This she did, and then she began to move.

The positional drives fired up again and, slowly, through the nearby windows, she observed Trajeen rise, its blue curve filling the lower half of the view. The moment the runcible lay upright to the surface, and stabilized, she fired the drives in a different direction to send it in orbit around the planet, so it would arrive in position in five hours. Further adjustments would then be required, utterly dependent on the situation out at Boh. Now, with one of her models being updated in real-time via the U-space link and the test viewing sensors out at Boh, she observed Jebel Krong's ship docking, and waited.

* * * * *

Consciousness returned by slow degrees, and during moments in the in-between state, Tomalon possessed no conception of being human. He was the Occam Razor. Through its sensors he observed the Trajeen system as a whole, not contracted to human perception, and realised what mere specks were himself, and the Prador ship millions of kilometres ahead. Then the lines of division impinged, for he did not control his own body, and he became aware of Occam.

"U-space currents have affected the duration of our journey. We have arrived two hours earlier than expected," Occam told him.

"Is this a problem?"

"It is, but one that can hopefully be resolved. I am presently in communication with Moria Salem, who controls the cargo runcibles. She has transmitted a plan of which you need to be aware."

The information arrived at Tomalon's interface with the ship AI, and he slowly and carefully worked his way through it. He felt a shiver when he began to realise what this woman intended to do, and what would be required of the Occam Razor.

"This is a serious proposition?" he asked.

"It is."

"So we must continuously feed her information concerning our position and the position of the Pradorship, while we make an attack run on the Boh runcible?"

As he asked this, Tomalon began checking through the ship's systems and infrastructure to see what Occam had done while he was unconscious. Various ship's robots were busily working, strengthening or replacing structural members, taking wrecked machinery and burnt and twisted metal to interior autofactories to be cut up, smelted, and turned into replacement components for the ship. A veritable swarm of constructors presently worked its way around the hull, removing damaged plates and welding new ones into place. Others were replacing looms of fried optics and wiring. A whole weapons turret had been rebuilt. Yet he realised the ship would probably not survive a head-on encounter with the Prador vessel.

"I am beginning that run now. We will swing around the Prador ship to begin it. Ascertaining our intent, Immanence will accelerate and arrive there before us."

"Well that's just dandy," Tomalon replied, wondering if he should transmit updates to his will and what the chances were of his body being found.

* * * * *

Urbanus and Lindy suited up and departed through the ship's outer airlock into vacuum, each carrying four CTDs. Jebel observed them for a little while on the cockpit subscreen fed from an exterior camera. Their air jets flipped out little dissolving trails as they split up, each heading for different areas of the runcible to conceal their lethal parcels. He considered waiting another hour before going to get Conlan and taking him inside the Boh complex. Then Moria made contact:

"Jebel, the Prador ship just arrived early. Already they are transmitting on the frequency Conlan gave you. You must get him to reply ASAP. Prador vessel's ETA at Boh is probably less than an hour once it gets underway—it is holding off at present."

"That's two hours early." Jebel leapt up from his seat and, collecting his weapons, headed back through the ship.

"Yeah, I spotted that."

"Can you still do it?"

"I can, I think, but if I can't you still have your chance with the mines."

"Though I very much wanted to be here, the plan was that we positioned the mines then ran. One hour doesn't give us much time to do that."

"That last fact would not have been changed had you decided to ignore me."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I will be out of com henceforth. I'm going to be juggling with quite enough balls as it is. Best of luck, Jebel Krong."

"Juggling balls—nice analogy," he replied, but the connection closed before he could say any more, and now he stood at the door to Conlan's room. Before entering Jebel initiated his comlink:

"Okay you two, get those mines positioned in double quick time—we've got company."

"It's here?" Lindy asked.

"Two hours early," Urbanus added.

"My words exactly," Jebel replied. "Now, you've no time to run checks. Get them positioned and get back here fast. I want you both back aboard within half an hour."

Now, through his aug, Jebel checked the view through the concealed cameras in Conlan's room, just as he had before entering the man's cell back in the Trajeen complex. Supine on the bed the man did not seem preparing some ambush this time. Jebel opened the door and entered.

"Okay, time to go."

Conlan sat upright, and Jebel studied him with what he knew to be ill-concealed contempt. Thus far he had learnt that Conlan was a hit man for some gangster organization on Trajeen before joining the Separatists. He was brave, that being a job requirement, but did not possess the kind of face-to-face bravery Jebel saw at the front. A knife in the back or the lengthy torture of a bound victim being more his style. Jebel wondered how he would fare with a laser carbine and a few gecko mines up against a Prador.

"By your hasty demeanour I suspect they have arrived?"

"You suspect right." Jebel stepped aside and drawing his thin-gun waved Conlan to the door. The killer shrugged, stood and walked over, eyeing the weapon as he passed. Jebel supposed he had considered going for it and rejected the idea. "The airlock is down there on the left."

"Do I get a suit like yours?" Conlan asked as they entered the corridor.

"No need. This lock leads directly into the Boh complex."

Reaching the lock, Jebel gestured for Conlan to open it. The exterior door already stood open, having been shunted aside for the embarkation tunnel to connect. They pulled themselves through the tunnel in zero gee, then finally clumped down on the grav-plates in a short tunnel leading to a junction with one of the complex's corridors.

"Go right."

The corridor led past accommodation units for the runcible staff, and finally terminated in a secondary Control Centre, previously in operation while the runcible was being built, but closed down when the AI took control. Moria had, however, since brought this place back online.

"Choose a console."

Conlan moved ahead, shrugged, then plumped himself down beside the nearest console. Jebel removed an optic cable from one of his pockets and tossed it to the man.

"Remember—your life depends on what you do next."

"Oh I do understand that."

While Conlan opened up his aug and plugged in, Jebel studied his surroundings. A row of screens to his right gave him a clear view across the runcible, with Boh, the gas giant, looming behind. Within the room a horseshoe of consoles faced a bank of screens, many of which were running tech data way above Jebel's knowledge; some however, showed different views outside. On one he could see a spacesuited figure busily at work undoing an access hatch, elasticised lines holding the figure in place. By the size and shape he guessed that to be Lindy. Another screen showed a partial view of their docked ship and still others showed star-speckled blackness. He returned his attention to Conlan.

The man now sat bolt upright, his eyes closed. Speaking out loud he delivered the message as instructed, though if anything lay hidden in his words, Jebel guessed he wouldn't know until too late.

"Yes, I have control of the Trajeen cargo runcible, and through it, control of the Boh cargo runcible… There are a few technicians still aboard here at Trajeen, but—No, they can't—not with the AI knocked out… No, none on the Boh runcible. You are clear to take it… Yes, I look forwards to that."

The conversation was brief, and of course much more than Conlan's life depended on it. The lives of nearly a billion souls hung in the balance. Conlan leant back and opened his eyes. "Y'know, even from a translation you can pick up a lot.

"Oh yes."

Conlan turned to face him. "Unless your mines work, everyone is going to die here. I reckon I stand the better chance in a cold coffin in vacuum."

Maybe the man believed that. Probably they were weasel words to try and get Jebel to drop his guard a little.

"So what else do I have to tell him?"

"In a little while you'll tell Immanence that those few technicians remaining aboard the Trajeen cargo runcible have managed to seize back some control, specifically of the positional drives of the Boh runcible." Jebel turned to look at him. "Those technicians will fire up those drives to open the Boh gate."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to," Jebel told him.