14

Artificial Intelligence: AI has been with us since the latter part of the twenty-first century. The difference between a plain computer and an AI is not in computing power, but in the development of an ego. By the 107th revision of the Turing Test, it was becoming evident that there would be no need for further revisions. By the time something becomes AI, it can breeze through one of these tests and does not need the status gained by passing one. When something is AI, it can normally look after itself.

From Quince Guide, compiled by humans

Starlit space - vacuum - with planets so distant they were indistinguishable from stars. Suddenly a wormish shape stabbed into existence, as of a laser punching through a block of perspex. Out of this, on contrails of spontaneously generated hydrogen atoms, came the trispherical shape of the Lyric. It tumbled as it came, and blue jets of flame quickly corrected that tumble. When the ship was falling into the system, a white sun blossomed on its centre plate as its ion drive ignited.

The Lyric's systems were not AI, so they had no appreciation of the poetry of it all. They simply decelerated the ship into the Mendax system in the Chirat cluster and made the few corrections required to line it up to intersect the orbit of the planet Viridian. Then they initiated the start-up sequence for the first cold coffin.

Jarvellis sat up and coughed violently as soon as the lid opened. She was sure she had picked up something on that shitty damp world and that now, because her immune system was depressed after cold sleep, something was riding roughshod through her body. She swung her legs over the side and stood up, if a little unsteadily, then walked to the catering unit where a hot cup of chocolate awaited her. This had been her ritual over a thousand flights. It was only after she took her first sip that she remembered precisely what her cargo was this time. She swore and walked across to the console before the panoramic screen, and hit a control. A subscreen popped up in one corner, showing her Hold B.

Six cold coffins were lined up in the central framework. Packing cases were strapped along the further wall. She felt a moment of panic, until she switched to another view. That panic receded when she saw Mr Crane squatting with his back to one packing case. The android was covered in a hoar of frost and seemed to be sorting some objects on the floor before it. That was all right, then. Jarvellis sat naked in the flight-control chair and set her chocolate on the console. From under the console she pulled a diagnostic cuff and pulled it on, before taking up her drink again and continuing to sip. She considered the idea of waking all of them but John and, when they were up and about, opening the hold door. She dismissed the notion almost immediately. There was no guarantee that the sudden air loss would eject Crane, and anyway he still had that briefcase with him. When the cuff beeped she inspected the read-out and swore again. She took the cuff back off and pressed it into place under the console. No way she could tell John, and she did not suppose it would help him to know she was pregnant by him. She sat back and stared through the screen at the distant sun, and then frowned when she knew she was procrastinating. Time to wake Pelter and his horrid crew. The lunatic wanted time to brief his men, and for them to prepare their weapons. But first there was something else…

Jarvellis swung her chair round, stood up and moved to a locker on one side of the cabin. She palm-keyed it, and the door slid aside and a rack extruded. On the rack hung a bulky spacesuit. The suit was old and it had been a long time since she had used it. All external maintenance was done when the ship was on planet and, in the unlikely event that any might need doing whilst in transit, the Lyric had two hull-crawlers with manipulators more dextrous than human hands.

The rack folded, opening out the suit like a split bread roll. The opening extended down the front, and down the fronts of the thighs. She slid one leg into one of the boot sections, then grabbed the rack, and hung there to get her other leg in. The rack folded back and the front of the suit sealed, tfügh pads closing last. The helmet was a ribbed ball cowling of chainglass which, folded down, had the appearance of a thick transparent collar at the back of her neck. She stepped from the rack.

Perhaps she was being paranoid, but it had occurred to her right from the start of this jaunt that Pelter now had the means to blast through the airlocks between himself and her. One hint that he might do that - bringing Mr Crane with him - and she would disable the ship and get out through the lock here. John, she felt, would have to take care of himself. She had enough to worry about.

As the Lyric continued to decelerate into the Mendax system, Arian Pelter held court in Hold B. He squatted on a case filled with needle missiles while the mercenaries sat, or stood, sipping whatever it was they required after the body's trauma of cold sleep. He addressed them with curt and exact phrases. Each of the mercenaries was well aware of Mr Crane standing not far from them.

'First we have to load the dropbird,' he said.

'Could have done that on Huma,' said Svent. Like Dusache, the little mercenary had scabs on the side of his head, though he had developed a squint on that side too. Apparently he had bought the aug after getting drunk with Dusache. He and Dusache were now standing as far from each other as they could get, and had not spoken since thaw-up.

'On Huma,' said Pelter, 'I had other concerns. And if you interrupt me again with something that is not pertinent, I will tell Mr Crane to tear off your right arm.'

Svent quietened and stared moodily at the deck.

'As I said, first we load the dropbird. That should take up the remaining time we have before we reach Viridian. When we launch, I will pilot the bird in. I intend to land it on a lake approximately a thousand kilometres from the runcible. The nearest habitation is a hundred kilometres from mere.'

'Why so far?' asked Corlackis.

Stanton answered that before Pelter could. 'Runcible AIs have got some pretty heavy processing power. One hint of anything untoward and Viridian will be on us. Minimum safe distance.'

Pelter carried on as if neither of them had spoken. 'Once we're down, we will need AG transport. You two -' he pointed at Svent and Dusache ' - will stay with the bird. Mennecken and Corlackis will go with me to the nearest town.' He inspected the two mercenaries. 'I hope you are both in-condition enough for the run. I want to be back at the lake within forty hours solstan.'

'And me?' Stanton asked.

'With me, of course,' said Pelter dismissively, before continuing. 'There we need to steal two AGCs. It shouldn't be too much of a problem, but obviously we want to do this quietly.'

Stanton reflected on Pelter's idea of quiet: that ECS agent screaming in the rusting shell of a wrecked cargo carrier. He thought about Mennecken being quiet in that alley.

'You said forty hours,' said Corlackis. 'Do we have a timescale now?'

'We have my timescale,' said Pelter. 'I want our preparations done as soon as possible. I want to be here when that bastard arrives.'

'And you're sure he will arrive,' said Corlackis. It was one question too far and Corlackis turned away from Pelter's flat stare. 'Never mind,' he finished.

'Within four days I want a base set up a hundred kilometres from the runcible installation. I'll want Svent and Dusache inside the installation, keeping watch. In that time I'll need at least one of the AGCs turned into a weapons platform. Now, any pertinent questions?'

'What kind of force are we likely to be facing?' asked Stanton.

'I don't know. We will know when Agent Cormac comes through. It seems likely that he will bring with him four Sparkind and perhaps some others.'

'They're tough,' said Stanton.

'But not invulnerable. We have the edge: they will not know we are here.'

'Will we hit him at the installation? That would be risky,' said Corlackis.

'No, my information is that he will be leaving there on some mission away from civilization. We'll hit him there.'

'What about extraction?' asked Corlackis.

'We may be able to use the runcible. We all have… changeable identities. If that option looks too dangerous, Viridian has a large spaceport. We will be able to buy passage,' said Pelter.

'We could get Jarvellis to land, and we'd have our exit there,' said Stanton.

Pelter stared at him for a long moment. 'Yes, there is that option. In that case it would be a question of price. She knows who we are and would charge accordingly. But anyone at the spaceport would not know, and the cost would be consequently less.'

It sounded a specious argument to Stanton, but he let it drop. There seemed no point in questioning plans he intended to screw anyway. At some point Mr Crane Gridlinked would be sent against Cormac, and during that period Pelter would be left holding a very desirable briefcase. Thereafter the Separatist would not be going anywhere. The rest of them could make their own arrangements, if they survived.

A huge ring station revolved around the planet, like a much-patched metal tyre rolling on some invisible surface. The station seemed derelict, and probably was. Why live in a station when you have the choice of 100 worlds? Viridian was a cloud-swirled sphere with more landmass than ocean and a green haze over its day side. As the Lyric fell into orbit, leaving the station behind, Jarvellis sat and watched the advance of night. Unlike Earth the night side of the planet was almost completely black. Here there was none of the huge light pollution igniting the sky from vast sprawls of cities. Only the occasional glow from the occasional small city. The night side remained like this, though only so long as it took for the moon to cast down its reflected light. Then, the night turned bloody. Appropriate, thought Jarvellis, and called up two subscreens with views into both Holds AandB.

Most of the weaponry had been quickly stowed once Jarvellis had opened the tunnel between the two holds. The android was installed inside the dropbird, and now the mercenaries were marking time by checking over their personal weapons, playing cards, or just staring into the air. Jarvellis focused in on John and felt a surge of need inside her. She wanted to touch him, have him make love to her, at least speak with him. But it was just too dangerous. Pelter was a psycho and there was no telling what he might do, or what he might get Mr Crane to do. Anyway, if Pelter had known about her and John, there would have been no trust - and perhaps no chance then for John to lay his hands on that case. She grimaced and reached out to bring her armoured finger down on the com touch-plate.

'We're over the night side now,' she said.

Pelter turned and surveyed the upper reaches of the hold, still trying to locate the pinhead cameras, no doubt.

'Very well,' he said. 'I'll transmit the drop-bird frequency once we're in, and give you the signal.' He flicked a hand at the mercenaries and they started to collect up their equipment and head for the lock leading to Hold A. On the second screen she watched them coming into Hold A, then trooping up the temporary walkway into the bird. They looked just as if they were walking up a ramp and into a hole in midair. Pelter and John were the last through. Jarvellis noted that John was walking behind Pelter, and that he held his hand up. He was fiddling with the Tenkian ring on his index finger. As Pelter went up the walkway, John looked round and up, straight into the camera. He winked before following Pelter inside the bird.

Jarvellis glanced at the view into the B hold and frowned. Packing cases and rubbish were strewn all around. Untidy lot. She'd throw it all out through an external lock once they were gone. With a couple of stabs of her finger she cut that view, and went to another one from an outside camera. Now her view was of Hold A from the outside. Shortly, a frequency-decode icon came up on her screen. She tapped that icon with her finger and over a slight whine, Pelter spoke.

'One minute, Captain Jarvellis… All strapped in?'

A chorus of affirmatives came from the background.

'Very well,' said Pelter, 'we are ready.'

Jarvellis flicked a preset control and sat back. There came a low droning through the superstructure as highspeed rotary pumps sucked the air from the hold. This lasted a few minutes, then tailed off and ceased on a high-pitched hiss, as a valve opened to vacuum and exhausted the remaining air. She watched a square of cloth, no doubt used for cleaning some weapon or other, spiral up from the floor. It did not come down, as at that moment the gravplates in the hold were switched off. Now there came another droning noise as the hydraulics began to operate. She turned her head to the second screen and watched the spherical hold split and open on the silver rams. She could hardly see the bird as it slid out. It was just a shape on vacuum, and sometimes not even that. The only way she could identify its position, as it parted from the ship, was by the occasional stab of blue flame from the single swivel-mounted guide retro on its belly. For a long while she lost sight of it. Then, far down, a momentary glare of orange. Probably the blood burning off the wings, she thought.

Strapped into his seat in the body of the dropbird, Stanton felt uneasy. He was not uneasy at the mission at hand, but at Pelter's behaviour. There was that tension about the Separatist leader, almost like a suppressed and vicious glee. Stanton fiddled with his ring and wondered who was going to the next. Svent, sitting opposite him, wore a twisted and angry expression on his face; he seemed lost in himself. Mennecken merely seemed bored as he stared at the screen at the back of the cabin. That screen showed Lyric slowly receding from them. Corlackis sat next to Stanton, with his arms folded over his straps and his eyes closed. Perhaps he had the right idea. Stanton rested his head back and tried to relax.

Re-entry would take some time. The trick was to not let the bird heat up too much and thus give away its presence. That required care in the thin upper atmosphere, as it would be easy to let it build up a lot of speed. But Pelter had the skill to do things right; as a rich kid he had flown his fair share of re-entry gliders. Stanton wondered if he possessed the patience, however. Considering that thought, he allowed his attention to slide further along the wall of the cabin.

Mr Crane was perfectly still, strapped in place amongst the few crates they had loaded aboard, still packed. Stanton now realized that this particular stillness required direct control, no matter how tenuous. Perhaps Pelter did not want Crane taking out his toys and playing with them while the bird descended. Everything had to be totally secured in place during such a descent. Moreover, there was something embarrassing about seeing a killer android playing with a small rubber dog.

'John, something for you to see.'

Stanton turned his attention to the cockpit. Pelter was leaning round and staring at him. He had a nasty expression on his face. He pointed to the screen moulded into the back of the craft. Though internal, it gave the appearance of a rear cockpit screen.

'Jarvellis, are you getting this?' he asked.

'I'm getting this. What do you want, Pelter?' Jarvellis said.

'I just wanted to say it has been a pleasure working with you… John, I said look at the screen.'

Stanton started to get a very bad feeling. He moved his hand towards the release on his safety harness. The cold nose of Corlackis's little stun gun pressed into the side of his neck.

'Look at the screen, John, and keep your hands where I can see them. Oh, and if anything knife-shaped should, by any strange chance, happen to leap into your right hand, you won't get a chance to use it.'

Stanton drew his thumb away from the ring. The Tenkian knife might get to his hand quickly, but getting it into Corlackis before the mercenary pulled the trigger was another matter.

'What's going on in there?' said Jarvellis.

Stanton could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

'Just listen and you will learn,' said Pelter, before returning his attention to Stanton. 'The Lyric, John.'

Stanton turned his head so he was looking at the screen behind. The magnification had been upped so he had a clear view of the ship.

'Now,' said Pelter, 'you remember I got all that lovely planar explosive from friend Grendel.'

Stanton stared at the ship. No, this can't be happening.

'Answer me, John.'

'Yes, I know,' said John.

Pelter went on. 'Well damn me if I've gone and forgotten to bring it with us.'

Mennecken gave a little chuckle at this, and every- thing clicked into place. Stanton hit his belt release and turned his head. Corlackis's gun cracked, and Stanton felt a horrible deadness invade his right shoulder. As the Tenkian tore through his trousers and slapped against his hand, he couldn't even close his fingers. Next thing, he was down on his knees on the floor.

'Jarv, get out,' he managed at barely a whisper.

Pelter reached up and touched his fingers to his aug. It was a habit he retained. 'Bye-bye, Captain Jarvellis.'

Stanton went over on his side. He wished he had fallen the ouier way. His view of the screen was now utterly and uncompromisingly clear. The Lyric blew. A disc of white fire flashed out from the B hold, cutting into the other two spheres of the ship. Multiple explosions followed, and turned the ship into a sphere of fragments that expanded and swallowed the now fading disc. The view clicked back to show the sphere at a distance. As it faded, there were flashes as bits of wreckage re-entered atmosphere behind the dropbird.

'Jarv…'

As his consciousness faded, Stanton heard Pelter speaking to the rest of them.

'That has the added benefit that now we can go in a lot faster. Any heat signatures the AI detects, it will assume to come from the debris.'

Blackness swamped Stanton, to the sound of Men-necken chuckling.

Antigravity: In the first three centuries of this millennium, people still viewed gravity with the same lack of comprehension their primitive forebears had for the properties of lodestones. (Could those forebears have had any idea of what would happen when a current was put through copper wire wrapped around a lump of iron?) Antigravity was considered the province of science-fiction writers, and real scientists chuckled about such writers' inability to grasp plain facts. That they took this attitude, while their fellows were hacking the foundations from underneath Einstein's special and general theories of relativity, showed a lack of foresight comparable to that of an eminent Victorian, who, upon hearing of what forms of travel might become possible because of this new-fangled steam engine, categorically stated that humans travelling faster than twenty miles an hour would be crushed to death.

From Quince Guide, compiled by humans

Aiden eased the joystick forwards and the shuttle slid towards the wall of cloud. He tilted the stick and thumbed a side control. The turbines droned and the shuttle climbed for the top of the wall. Cormac gazed down at mountain chains like puckered yellow scars and at frozen seas of reflected gold. Samarkand was a beautiful planet, but it was the beauty of arctic waste that could be best appreciated up here, rather than down on the ground where it might kill you. Fingers of cloud slid across and hid the view. Soon the shuttle was high above what seemed a second land, one of roiling white over guts of brass. This land seemed to have its own red but lightless sun: an oblate object a kilometre across, which seemed to be rolling above the cloud. There was other movement actually on it as well, a slow rippling of its surface, but that motion was so huge it fooled the eye.

'It's almost an insult that something like that should exist,' said Carn.

'It's one of four at the last count,' Cormac pointed out.

'Oh, right, I'd forgotten.'

Carn leaned further forwards, perhaps scanning with his yellow eye. He said, 'No way its orbital velocity is keeping it up.' He inspected the miniconsole he was holding in his silvered hand. 'As I thought,' it's using antigravity.'

'The least of its abilities, one would suspect,' said Aiden. 'I know of no runcible gates a kilometre wide.' He paused for a moment, listening, then he said, 'Hubris informs me that when it arrived there were underspace distortions similar to the kind left by a ship. Dragon probably has a drive system much the same as Hubris's.'

They watched the great sphere drift along a thousand metres below and some distance ahead of them. It was an eerie sight and a perplexing one. What was Dragon? A living creature or a machine of flesh? There would never be agreement on that point. Aiden slowly increased their speed and drew them closer.

'Not too close. I don't think it would like us to land on it,' said Cormac.

Aiden eased back and matched speeds. 'Hubris reports no response on any channel, even underspace, but it's been picking up a backwash of some powerful scanning of the planet,' he said.

'It can't not know we're here,' said Thorn doubtfully.

'Do we want it to know?' asked Carn, and returned his attention to his instruments.

Cormac stared at Dragon. Where was the rest of it? Why was only this one quarter here? Had it come for the dracomen? Had it simply sent its agents here to destroy the Samarkand runcible, and was now here to pick them up? What did it have to do with that other thing under the ground? He realized he desperately wanted to talk to it, no matter how convoluted its answers might be. No matter what ridiculous games it might play.

'Prepare to transmit this to it on all channels,' he said.

Aiden set the instruments and leant back. 'All channels open, except underspace. We don't have the capability on this shuttle. Do you wish me to link with HubrisT

Cormac shook his head and concentrated on what he was going to say. The transmitter hissed and made strange whining sounds. He stooped towards it. Hubris had received no reply; might he?

'Dragon, this is Ian Cormac. Why are you here?'

The whining increased in volume. Cormac continued, dredging his memory of their last encounter.

'To be human is to be mortal. Do you play chess? I know you like games, Dragon, though you do have a tendency to cheat.'

The whining ceased.

Aiden said, 'Hubris reports the scanning of the surface has ceased.'

'I think you attracted its attention,' said Cam, without relish. 'Its surface is moving.'

Cormac looked and saw ripples spreading. A curved line cut the surface, and the ripples concentrated around it. The line thickened, dark as old blood. It was a split.

'Get us out of here, now!'

Aiden jerked up on the joystick, just as pseudopods exploded from Dragon in a giant grey fumarole. Acceleration knocked Thorn and Cam to the floor. Cormac caught a glimpse of a giant cobralike head swerving towards the shuttle. There was a thump. The shuttle slewed sideways. Then they were away, and the fountain of pseudopods was falling back to the surface of Dragon.

Cormac looked round and saw Cam and Thorn dragging themselves over to tüeir seats. He, too, strapped himself in.

'It's coming,' said Aiden. He looked at the readings on the instrument panel. Then he looked again. 'Accelerating at eight Gs.'

'Jesus!' said Cam.

'Everybody strapped in?' asked Aiden.

'Give me one fucking second!' Cam shouted.

With his hand poised over a lever to one side of the joystick, Aiden glanced back. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the screen.

'Acceleration,' he said, and then he hit the boosters.

Cormac diumped back in his seat so hard he was sure he contacted its framework. Something not tied down went crashing into the back of the shuttle. He heard Cam swearing monotonously before running out of breath. It was as if something was trying to drag the flesh off his bones. He could just see the instrument panel, greying out as he watched it.

'Ten… Gs…' he managed, then blacked out.

'You broke my fucking arm,' was Cam's protest - and the first thing Cormac heard as he came to. He felt as if someone had gone over him with a lawn roller while he was lying on a cobbled street. It took him a moment to pull himself togedier. He tried to blink away the lights that were fizzing at the edge of his vision. Ahead of the shuttle he saw the doors to the Hubris's shuttle bay opening.

'How far behind?' he said, when he was sure he could speak properly.

'About three minutes,' said Aiden.

The shimmer-shield touched the nose of the wing, then slid back over it as if they were entering a vertical pool. It engulfed and passed the cockpit in an expanding circle, and they were into the bay. Aiden fired the front and side retros to slow and turn them. As they came to the centre of the bay floor, the cockpit was facing the shimmer-shield. Gravity came on and eased them down. The shutde settied with a clunk.

'Stay in the shuttle, and secure shutde for impact,' came Hubris's voice from the panel. Red lights were flashing in the shuttle bay. Aiden's hands ran over touch-pads, his fingers a blur. Cormac felt the dull thuds of the grabs coming up out of the floor and taking hold of the shuttle.

Hubris now spoke the words it was probably voicing throughout the ship. 'Secure for impact. Secure for impact. All personnel to emergency modules.' Cormac felt the shuttle vibrating, and a glance through the shuttle-bay windows confirmed that Hubris was accelerating. The view of Samarkand slid from the portals to the shimmer-shield, then quickly past. The irised door closed across the shield, then heavier armoured shutters slid in from the sides. Armoured shutters also closed across the portals.

'Impact in three minutes and fifty seconds. Mark. Correction. Impact in two minutes thirty seconds. Mark. Secure for impact.'

Cormac glanced at the rear-view screen. All of the internal shuttle-bay doors were closed now. An armoured shield had closed off the entrance to the drop-shaft.

'Impact imminent! Impact imminent!'

Cormac braced himself against his seat. This was going to be bad. People were going to get hurt.

It was worse.

The sound was like a giant gong being struck - and cracking. Cormac felt as if his skull had just broken and his guts had been pushed back past his spine. He heard the scream of metal being wrenched and twisted, then snapping. The grabs had broken. The shuttle left the bay floor and hit the doors. The impact threw Cormac against his straps. He felt blood spraying from his nose. Blackness threatened, withdrew, threatened again. He shook his head and saw blood dripping on the screen in front of him. The chainglass cockpit had not broken, of course, but it had been shoved back into the body of the shuttle. The shuttle itself was resting at an angle against the bay doors. But that was not the end of it. He could hear a wrenching tortured sound working its way through the ship as, like a great bubble, it sought to regain its spherical shape.

'Oh shit oh shit oh shit…'

Cormac looked back up at Cam, who was hanging belted in his seat, clutching his broken arm. Thorn hung next to him, unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth. Aiden was the first to move. He undipped his harness, dropped down to the screen, then shoved his hands into the distorted metal to one side of it. Somehow he got the required leverage, and kicked down with legs like hydraulic rams. Cormac was not quite sure he believed what he was seeing. The screen moved forwards with a crash. Two more kicks and it hinged away, on the distorted metal to one side of it, like a domed lid. Aiden immediately hauled himself up and over the flight console, and then across his seat to reach Cam. As Cormac freed himself, he winced at the feel of broken ribs moving in his chest. Very carefully, he lowered himself down from the shuttle. There he took hold of Cam, whom Aiden lowered to him with a single grip on the collar of his coldsuit. Thorn came next. Soon all four of them were safely on the shutde-bay floor. Using the shuttle medical kit, Aiden splinted Cam's arm and injected painkillers. Thorn came to and vomited. Cormac just sat and clutched his own head.

'Emergency personnel to sector three, with fire retardants. Automatic systems out. All hull breaches temporarily sealed. All drop-shafts inoperative. Sector one closed to all personnel until coolant leaks traced and repaired…'

The list went on and on, yet there was no word of what had happened to Dragon.

'Hubris, what's going on? What's Dragon doing?'

The list continued to be recited by subsystem while Hubris spoke to them in the shuttle bay.

'Dragon has taken hold of this ship with its pseudo-podia. It is dragging us back to Samarkand. I have had to close down engines because of coolant leaks. All attempts to remove the pseudopodia have failed. I do not wish to resort to energy weapons at this range.'

There was a thump, and the entire ship shuddered. The shuttle groaned, then slid to the bay floor with a crash.

'What the hell?' pleaded Cam.

Hubris said, 'Dragon is attempting to gain entrance to the shuttle bay. I suggest you abandon this section and head for the communal area.'

As one, they turned to stare at the shuttle-bay doors. They were creaking, flexing.

'I have temporarily engaged drop-shaft one,' said Hubris.

They headed there as the armoured shielding slid away from the shaft. Cam went first, and was wafted up to the communal area. Thorn went next. Cormac turned and watched as the bay doors were slowly wrenched to one side. The shimmer-shield was out, but there was no danger from vacuum at that moment. Beyond the door was a wall of scaled flesh. And all down the edge of the door appeared pseudopods like blue-tipped fingers.

'Is it after me?' Cormac asked.

'We go,' said Aiden.

They stepped into the drop-shaft.

They gathered in the recreation room: Cormac, Aiden, Thorn, Mika, Chaline, and some of the technicians and crew. Cormac saw that one of the technicians was holding a bloody cloth to his head. Another was sitting holding his ribs. He wondered how many more had been hurt.

Hubris showed them the scene in the shuttle bay. The external doors were wide open now and pseudopodia were flooding the bay in a landslide of flesh, their cobra heads feeling along the walls like the fingers of a blind man.

'Intruder defence mechanisms online—'

'No,' said Cormac, 'belay that. Put me through to the shuttle bay.'

'You are through. Intruder defence systems offline.'

'Dragon, why have you attacked this ship?' He had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer; that he had just pissed it off and that it was after him. He somehow doubted, that being the case, that there was anything that could prevent him from being found.

'It's concentrating on the drop-shaft door now,' said Chaline. 'Stress readings are up.' Hubris said, 'Unauthorized access to information banks. Information being downloaded from shuttle-bay area.'

'What the hell?' said Chaline.

On the screen they could see that a pseudopod had attached itself to one of the wall consoles.

'Getting the layout of the ship, probably, and anything else of interest,' suggested Cormac.

They watched as the drop-shaft door crumpled and broke and the pseudopods flooded through.

'They have entry,' said Chaline unnecessarily.

'Perhaps it mistook Hubris for a she-dragon,' said Thorn. There was a giggle from behind him that soon petered out.

Cormac ignored the comment and stared at the screen, his hopes growing. The pseudopods were going down the shaft - away from them - not coming up it. Suddenly he knew what Dragon wanted.

'Hubris, what is the status of the dracomen?'

'They were unhurt in the incident, but have since undergone changes.'

The screen flicked to reveal the interior of the isolation chamber. The two dracomen were lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position. They had excreted some kind of fluid that had sealed them in cauls, so they appeared newborn. Cormac knew they were making ready to go back, but should he let Dragon have them? Would they make bargaining counters? He had to try, else Dragon might just take its dracomen and disappear.

'Dragon, if you persist in this action, the dracomen will be destroyed. We will—'

The ship shuddered again. There was a loud crash over the intercom.

'Pseudopods just took out the door next to Isolation,' said Hubris. 'Do you wish the dracomen destroyed?'

The screen flicked again to show the scene outside the isolation chamber. Pseudopods filled the area and were pushing at the armoured shutters over the viewing window. A voice, which Cormac recognized of old, came over the intercom.

'Bluff, Ian Cormac, is for those without strength. You will not destroy what is mine, for if you do, I will crush this ship.'

Dragon…

'The dracomen are in a sealed chamber… all I want is some answers. Why were they here? What happen—'

'You have limited choices. Open this sealed chamber, or I will simply remove it from your ship. To do so I will need to open out some areas…'

Dragon was right.

'Hubris, open the isolation chamber,' Cormac said quickly.

The shutters slid aside and the pseudopods burst through the window. They were in, then out, in a moment, and the dracomen were lost in the mass of writhing flesh.

'Pulling back to the drop-shaft,' said Chaline, though they could all see that for themselves. 'Hubris, what seal do we have if Dragon disengages?'

'Have seals for drop-shaft ready,' replied the AI.

Scene by scene, the screen showed pseudopods being drawn back. One view showed the seals sliding into the drop-shaft behind it like great coins. In the shuttle bay the pods slid back into the fleshy wall beyond. The ship shuddered.

'Dragon disengaging.'

They all felt the explosion of air leaving the shuttle bay. The great sphere of Dragon drew away. Along with other debris, the shuttle followed it into vacuum.

'Dragon disengaged.'

'Cento…' said Aiden.

'We'll get the shutde back,' said Chaline.

On emergency drives, Hubris limped back into orbit around Samarkand.

'Dragon didn't know all that was going on,' said Mika as she repaired Cormac's ribs.

He did not want to see what she was doing to him. He had seen quite enough blood and ripped-open bodies in his time not to be squeamish, but as always it was a different matter when it was your own blood and your own open body. The nerve-blocker on the back of his neck had, after adjustment, numbed him from the armpits downwards. But, as was always the case with such operations, he could faintly feel the tuggings and certainly hear the sounds. Cormac had wanted to just strap his ribs up and avoid this, but Mika had insisted because he was in danger of getting a punctured lung. He glanced aside at the pipes leading into the remote lung, and again experienced that weird feeling of disconnection. The blocker had shut off some of his autonomics, and his heart and lungs were on hold.

'What makes you say that?'

Cormac's voice sounded exactly the same to him, even though it issued from a mechanical larynx, much like that of a Golem, operating on the shunted nerve impulses from the nerve-blocker. The object was stuck on his shoulder with a skin-stick pad. It had the appearance of a large snail shell made of blue metal, and fixed sideways to a coin of perspex in which small lights glinted.

'Well, the dracomen are part of it. I would speculate they were something like remote probes or agents. It wanted them back for debriefing.'

There was a thump in his chest, then a sticky squelching sound.

'It could have just asked,' said Cam from where he sat rubbing at his arm above his silvered hand. The technician was studying Cormac's open chest with great interest.

'I think you're right,' Cormac said to Mika. 'It was almost as if it was frantically searching the planet for them, and when it didn't find them there it turned its attention to us and grabbed them as quickly as it could.'

'Desperately,' added Mika.

'I don't know. Certainly without any regard for human life. We were lucky Hubris could take that kind of punishment.'

He fell silent. At least, most of them were lucky. Mika had been dealing with various injuries for some twenty hours now. Three of the crew were in life-support canisters, awaiting return to civilization. They might survive, though they would then be spending a long time in a regrowth tank. One of the runcible technicians had not been even that lucky; her head had been crushed to pulp when one of the runcible components had shifted and caught her against a wall.

'Did Chaline have anything to say?' he asked her.

'Repairs are well under way, but she's not happy about the delays. She's becoming very single-minded about her runcible.'

Mika stepped back from him with her gloved hands held up and away from her white coat. The gloves were quite bloody. She looked up at the screen above where Carn was sitting. This screen showed a scanned image of Cormac's chest. He had only looked at it once.

'Aiden?' he asked.

'He retrieved the shuttle. Cento's been stored… so has the shuttle; it's beyond repair. They're getting another one out of storage as soon as the shuttle bay has been repaired. Chaline was panicking about the heavy-lifter, but it was undamaged.'

She stepped close and started manipulating things in his chest again.

'Heavy-lifter?'

'In storage… one heavy-lifter and four minishuttles. Chaline needs the lifter to take down the runcible.'

'Oh… seems we might be all right…'

Mika did not immediately reply. Cormac felt more movement, then heard the low drone of the bone welder. He glanced down at that moment and wished he hadn't. From his solar plexus upwards, the skin and muscle of his chest had been peeled back. Mika had a finger shoved through a hole between two obviously broken ribs and was running the tip of the welder along the break. Cormac could smell something strangely dusty. Calcium particles had escaped the electrostatic process that was laying them down in the breaks.

'We are, I suppose,' said Mika, standing back again to view her work. 'But Hubris is going to be here some time. It needs parts brought from Minostra, and they'll have to come through the runcible. Not until then will it be able to leave orbit.' She placed the head of the welder back in its sterilizing holder and pushed the wheeled unit a little way back from the table. 'Cellweld Inc.' was the wording of the logo on this device, which was a silvered box on top of a wheeled trolley. A touch-console was mounted in the top of the box, and from the side of it issued a skein of pipes and cables. These terminated in a head that could take any of the racked adaptors stored underneath the box. Mika selected something that looked like a small glass spade. 'I've clamped the breaks just to give some support to the welds. I don't suppose you'll be resting for a while yet. The clamps will take a year to dissolve; plenty of time for your ribs to completely heal. I've dealt with most of the internal tissue damage. I'll seal you up now.'

Why was it, Cormac wondered, that doctors so relished telling you exactly what they were doing?

The welder droned and there were horrible sucking sounds in his chest. The tugging felt like what an errant child feels when its mother pulls on its coat.

'There, all done,' said Mika after what seemed an age. 'I've put a couple of analgesic tabs in, and they'll dissolve over the next few days. There might be the odd twinge, but you'll be all right now.' Behind her he saw the tubes of the remote lung clear of blood and felt the small tugs as she detached each of them. He did not get time to feel any lack of oxygen, for she reached immediately for the back of his neck. Feeling returned suddenly. There was no fading in, no pins and needles; his body just turned back on. He took a gasping breath and the sound of his heart was a sudden thunder.

'You are all right,' she said, even in this circumstance not prepared to ask a question. Cormac sat upright and looked down at his chest. It was flawless. Cell-welding left no scars, at least not on the body. He nodded to her. She smiled briefly at him, then turned to Cam.

'It's not pain and it's not physical function,' she said, resuming a conversation they had been having as Cormac had come in.

Carn opened and closed his silvered hand. 'I've lost PU contact. All I get is normal sensation.'

Cormac glanced at him. So that's what his hand was. The necessity of using separate instruments on the artefact must have been annoying for him, all for the sake of a glove. Cormac swung his legs over and stood up. He took up his shirt from where he had tossed it, and pulled it on. He could see that he was now completely dismissed from Mika's attention, and that she was totally focused on Carn. He left her to attend to him.

The drop-shafts were still out of commission, but that was not too much of a problem aboard a ship. It merely meant there was no irised field to drag him to his destination. He had to step into the shaft, where he became weightless, and shove off the inspection ladders in the direction he wanted to go. The trick, as with all weightless manoeuvring, was not to get up too much speed. Soon he stopped himself at the required level and headed for the recreation room, which had now become the centre of operations. He passed through corridors where robot welders were at work, and other areas where technicians had stripped panels away from the walls and were swearing in their own particular jargon. In some areas the gravity was somewhat changeable, which was more worrying than it being completely out. A fluctuating gravplate could quite easily smear a person across the floor. When he arrived in the recreation room he found only Thorn and Chaline. Chaline was watching a tablescreen. It showed a scene across the hull of Hubris. The ship was crawling with robots like cockroaches. Thorn was sprawled asleep on a couch, a flask lying on its side on the table next to him, with a half-full glass of Scotch next to it.

'How are things going?' Cormac asked Chaline.

Still watching the screen she said, 'Seventy hours and we should be fully secure. Hubris won't be able to go supralight until we get a new engine housing from Minostra. The ramfields are down.'

Cormac nodded, then said, 'I walked over some fluctuating grav out there.'

Chaline did not look round. 'No, you didn't. You walked over gravplates with a fluctuating power source. We had a little bit of a panic with one of the generators and had to shut it down.'

Cormac decided to ask no more concerning the damage. The list would just go on and on.

'Hubris, what's the situation with Dragon?' he asked as he walked over to the catering unit.

'Dragon is in orbit seven hundred kilometres ahead of us. There is some activity on its surface,' the ship replied.

At the catering unit Cormac said simply, 'Coffee,' as the machine now recognized his voice and would provide it exactly how he liked. He inspected the cup of white sludge it had provided, then fully keyed in his request. Another one to add to Chaline's list. When he finally got the drink he was after, he returned to Chal-ine's table and sat down.

'Right, tell me, what's the activity?'

The screen changed to show Dragon, and Chaline looked at Cormac in annoyance. He shrugged apologetically, then returned his attention to the screen. Ripples were travelling all round the surface of the alien.

Hubris said, 'One hour ago there was an energy emission directed away from the Andellan system. It was full-spectrum lased light. The reading was in the giga-joule range. If the same pattern is being followed this time round, another emission will occur in fifty-four minutes. I am moving the ship to the other side of the planet, and have left just one observer probe.'

At that particular moment Cormac felt he would rather be on the other side of the galaxy. Was Dragon getting ready to destroy them? If it was they were in serious trouble.

'Anything else?'

'I am also picking up emissions across all spectrums. Some of them have some internal logic and mathematical coherency, but I have not as yet been able to translate. These emissions are directionless.'

'OK,' said Cormac, and the screen flicked back to the scene Chaline had been observing. He studied her and noted how she was deliberately keeping her face free of expression.

'All yours,' he said with a smile.

'Thank you so much,' she said, then pushed her chair back and stood up. 'Unfortunately some of us have work to do.'

Cormac made a gesture of appeasement, but Chaline walked away. He couldn't decide if she was angry or amused. Involvement, he thought, trying not to feel guilty. He sat there sipping for the next few minutes, then called up again the scene from the probe.

Dragon was rippling even faster now, and its spherical shape was being distorted.

'Hubris, are you sure we're safe here?' he asked.

The AI's reply was succinct. 'No.'

The fifty-four-minute mark passed. Sixty minutes was reached, sixty-five… The flash momentarily blacked out the picture from the probe. When it came back, Dragon was spherical again, the ripples moving across its surface just as Cormac had first witnessed.

'Hubris, where did that one go?'

'The planet's surface. Imaging in… the probe has it.'

The picture showed a spreading black cloud with hellish red fires at the centre of it.

'That was Mount Prometheus,' said Hubris.

Cormac shook his head in amazement. Enoida Deacon would not be displaced from her niche in the history books, but what the hell was Dragon doing?

'I have picked up something from Dragon. It's in all human languages.'

'Let's hear the English version then.'

Dragon's voice boomed from the speakers. 'Escaped! Escaped! Criminal! Bastard! Damn! Fuck! Fuckit!'

Cormac sat there with his mouth open. So that was what Dragon was doing - it was having a tantrum.