'Not too happy, I would say,' said Thorn.

'General idea,' muttered Blegg.

'Dragon has isolation chamber. Detaching. Flooding drop-shaft with crash-foam. Massive air loss. Crash-foam not holding. Closing shuttle-bay doors.'

The screen showed the shuttle bay from another angle. The bay doors were labouring to close against a hailstorm of crash-foam and wreckage. The debris was hurtling out into the vacuum.

'Pull away, maximum acceleration. Fire proton guns when ready.'

Dragon receded from the doors. A purple flash ignited space and a charred hole fifty metres across appeared in its scaled hide. Cormac watched for a moment, then removed a black cylinder-section from his pocket, with a miniconsole on it. He poised his finger over a flashing touch-plate.

'That's a—' began Thorn.

'Remote detonator, yes,' said Cormac impatiently, then asked, 'Distance, Hubris}'

'One kilometre. Mark. One and one half kilometres…'

The proton guns fired again, but this time the purple flare was not on Dragon's surface. It ignited over an invisible membrane and did no damage.

'Dragon preparing to return fire.'

They could all see the ripples crossing its surface.

'Distance?'

'Three kilometres. Mark. Four and a half. Mark. Six kilo—Fire imminent! Fire imminent!'

Cormac pressed his finger down. Everything under that membrane turned to light. The membrane broke and the screens whited out. Hubris bucked and they were flung to the floor.

Epilogue

The bleak sun inched above the horizon and a new day fell across the ruination that surrounded the complex. Above the corroded-bronze sky Samarkand was gaining yet another feature; a spreading orbital cloud of frozen gobbets of flesh, pieces of bone and metal… Dragon remains. Hubris, poised geostationary above the complex, watched this cloud spread with an aesthetic appreciation only available to AIs having the full spectrum of senses it possessed. With another fraction of its sensorium it listened in through the computer of the departing mini-shuttle. In a completely disconnected way it knew that it too was being used in this way, by a mind as many orders of magnitude greater than it, than it was of the computer.

'It woulda looked at everything y'said and did,' said Blegg, then he chugged down a large cup of whisky and grinned wickedly.

With his own cup resting on his knee, Cormac stared down at the floor of the shuttle with the unseeing gaze of exhaustion. He was finding it difficult to grasp that his plans had paid off.

Eventually he spoke. 'I guess it's a case of knowing who your enemies are.'

Blegg looked at the bottom of his cup in annoyance, took out his flask, shook it, and then smiled benevolently. Cormac had never known anyone like him. He probably knew exactly what had happened, yet managed to appear completely unconcerned. A strange man was Blegg. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.

It seemed only a minute had passed before Blegg was shaking him awake. He looked up at the screen and saw that the shutde was coming down on the edge of the complex, in a storm of CO₂ crystals. He waited until he felt it touch down before he spoke.

'Aiden, ask Samarkand II how the stage-two run-cible's coming along.'

The Golem got up from his pilot's chair as if he had not heard. Samarkand II answered the question over the shuttle's speakers.

'The stage-two runcible is undergoing rough alignment. This will take approximately fifteen minutes. I will fine-tune it in one tendi of a second.'

If ever an AI had been guilty of conceit, Samarkand II was that one, diought Cormac. He moved to the door of the shutde as a covered walkway attached itself like a lamprey. As he waited at the door for the air beyond to heat up, he turned back to Blegg.

'You know, they have a carrying pouch inside them. Dragon knew everything that was going on here. It just grabbed them to make sure they were internally clear of the mycelium. It didn't want us finding that.'

'Y'not wrong. That where the CTD went?'

'Yeah, but it had to cut away some material to get it in.'

The door diumped open like the door to a fridge, and they entered the walkway. Soon they were passing by the milling technicians, and Samarkand II's voice droned over the speakers.

'Stage-two runcible alignment test commencing… Test complete. Still too far out for insertion of five-D cusp.'

The larger containment sphere of the stage-two runcible now rested under a large dome with floorspace all around. The open door to the containment sphere was big enough for heavy transport sleds. Cormac recognized the familiar figure of Chaline next to the door. He walked up to her and saw she was directing the adjustment of machinery under the black glass floor inside: the same kind of machinery as he had destroyed in the stage-one runcible. Dislodged floor panels were resting up against the wall of the sphere.

'Much longer?' he asked.

She watched him suspiciously for a moment, and then relented. 'A few minutes.' She gestured at the work going on. 'This is only cosmetic. One more test and the spoon'll be in.'

Cormac left her to it and walked back to Blegg. The Japanese was refilling his flask from a drinks dispenser. How he managed that, Cormac had no idea; the dispensers here did not normally dispense alcohol. When the flask was full they turned and watched as esoteric adjustments were made and Samarkand II gave notice of the next test. Inside the sphere they saw rainbows shimmering between the wide-apart horns of the run- cible. They climbed to the roof of the sphere, penetrated it, then to the roof of the dome and through that. It was a beautiful sight. Cormac remembered the first time he had seen this with the stage-one runcible: the tower of rainbows reaching into the sky. It still did not fail to impress him.

'Spoon's in. All yours, Samarkand II,' said Chaline with glee.

Cormac said, 'Samarkand II, inform Viridian that access is now allowable from there.'

'Viridian has already been informed.'

'You mistake me. Inform Viridian that Cormac says access from there is now allowable.'

There was a pause, and when Samarkand II spoke again it sounded as surprised as an AI could be. 'Viridian tells me your message is affirmed… Transmission coming through.'

At that moment the runcible flickered and Cento stepped through. He had been rebuilt, partially. His missing arm had been replaced with one the colour of brass. He held it up and grinned triumphantly as he approached. Aiden greeted him with a perfect emulation of human happiness. The Golem came over to join Cormac and Blegg.

'Transmission coming through: energy anomalies,' Samarkand II announced.

The cusp of the runcible flared with light, and a glass dragon stepped through. There were screams of surprise, some screams of fear. The dome seemed full of light.

'There is no need for panic,' said Samarkand II - and those who had screamed felt a little foolish, perhaps.

The Maker came down from the dais on limbs of fire, scanning the place with its three glass eyes. It seemed to Cormac it should dwell in that tower of rainbows he had seen. It seemed wholly mythical.

'Now, I didn't expect to see him? he said.

He pointed to the blackly silhouetted dracoman walking before the alien, like a slave - or its tamer. Soon the Maker reached them, and now they could see the workings of its body, like a glassy display of flasks and tubes in a chemistry laboratory. It spoke, and its voice seemed to draw sound from every direction and precipitate it out in gusting words.

'Cormac,' it said, and its terrifying head bowed down to peer at him.

'I thought you were going to use Scar for the blast,' said Cormac.