Skellor sent the initiation code and watched as the egg opened like the petals of a flower, to expose the Jain node. It was another egg, a smaller version of its container — a metallic egg mottled with complex cubic patterns. It didn't look much, even in this age when a planetary governor could fit into an ashtray, and when a weapon of planetary obliteration was not necessarily much bigger than that. But, in its own way, it was immense. It was still a source of amazement to Skellor that he, of all people, had found this object, when people all across the Polity had been searching for such things for centuries. He knew that corporations spent billions on Jain research, that whole planets had been the subject of archaeological digs, that there were some truly titanic AIs whose only purpose was to find something like this. Yet where had he found it?

The world was wintry, but not killingly cold. Across its mainly oceanless surface grew forests of deciduous trees, none more than fifty years old, as it was only fifty years before that the orbital mirror had been moved into place and the planet heated enough to sustain Terran life-forms. Great canals directed water down from the slowly melting poles to fill up those cavities in the land earmarked as future oceans. It was beside one of these nascent oceans that a spaceport had been established, and where it was rumoured that a runcible facility would soon be installed. Skellor found the market on one of the huge jetties under construction on the yet-to-be-filled ocean's bed. The stall was one of the few not doing very much business, it being cluttered with items that most Polity citizens would discard without a second thought. He had been on the point of heading back to his hotel, for the day was cold and drizzly, and a storm was predicted to drift in from the northern outflow — but a grubby hand reached across and clasped his jacket.

"I got some good stuff that ain't on display, my friend," said the owner of the hand.

Skellor studied her: she looked of a type — those who bought passage to new worlds, then couldn't be bothered to work hard enough to make a decent life for themselves, or to raise enough money to move on. Her cosmetic work was out of date, her clothing shabby, and she had that look of perpetual anger at circumstances she did nothing to correct.

"Like what?" he asked.

Quickly she pulled three plastic cartons from under the table and opened them on its surface. The first carton contained artificial gemstones suitably adulterated to make them look like the real thing, the second contained a selection of augs of the type that would scramble your brains within a week, and the third contained a grey egg and a bag of broken coral.

"See," she said, holding up a Sensic augmentation.

Skellor turned to go, but then allowed his attention to stray back to the third carton.

Where had he seen coral like that before?

"What's that?" he asked, pointing.

She picked up the bag and shook it. "This is real coral, from the Barrier Reef on Earth."

"How interesting," said Skellor, knowing that the chances of stealing coral from that place were equatable with the chances of beating the Earth Central AI at chess. Again about to turn and leave, he remembered where he had before seen coralline objects such as these. In the Tranquillity Museum on Earth's moon: in a chainglass case inside a security chamber everyone was aware could be ejected from the Museum at a moment's notice, to be obliterated in space by CTD — Contra Terrene Device — that euphemistic term for an antimatter weapon.

"All right, how much do you want for them?" he asked.

"You have to buy the whole carton," she replied. "Twenty shillings."

"I don't want that egg thing, so I'll give you ten."

Glancing at the purple swirl of cloud to the north, the woman agreed.

The node was changing colour and there seemed to be movement: interchange within the cubic patterns on its surface. A year of research had revealed to him that the coralline objects were certainly Jain, and certainly useless. Fifteen years of research had revealed perhaps one per cent of the secrets of the node, but enough to put him way ahead of any competitors in his field, and to give him an understanding of what he was dealing with. Tipping the object into the gloved palm of his hand, he raised it to his lips.

Then he pushed it into his mouth.

3

With the slightly bored tone of an adult who knew what was coming, the woman said, "The brother who had built his house from blocks of limestone and roofed it with slabs of the same, already knew the dangers of pride and, hearing that his friends had been eaten by the heroyne, he prayed for them." She glanced at the child in the hope that he had fallen asleep at last, and that she wouldn't have to read the rest. One read-through was enough to get the heavy-handed message and, even though she had been told to persevere, she was contemplating dumping the damned book. The boy, unfortunately, was as wide-eyed as ever.

"For his house was built with the stones of the Satagents, cemented with Faith, and the roof was tiled…" She trailed off into silence when she realized that what she was saying bore no relation to the words the book displayed. Thinking that she must be getting ahead of herself, she started again:

"But neither pride nor prayer have influence on the heroyne," she said, then leant forwards to more closely study the text.

"I'm sure it didn't say that yesterday," she muttered. Half closing the book, she was surprised to see that the tide of Moral Fables had just acquired a 't' and changed to Mortal Fables.

"Mum?" said the boy impatiently.

"Naughty," she said with a grin, as she opened the book again.

The boy gave her a puzzled look, but she continued reading:

"For it came to stand over his house that night, as he prayed to his god. Then it huffed and it puffed, it puffed and it huffed, then it kicked down his walls."

The boy looked even more puzzled at this.

"What do you think the last brother said to the heroyne when his house was gone?"

On more familiar territory now the boy replied, "Don't eat me!"

"And let's see you make a stab at guessing what it did do."

The boy gave the usual reply whilst the heroyne in the picture book repeatedly gobbled down a man in priestly attire…

It started after the first sleep period, when the clans came groggily from, in most cases, drugged slumber. Apis had woken before most of the others. Yes, the destruction of the station was terrible, but it was also the most exhilarating thing that had happened to him. His mother woke shortly after, and studied him speculatively as he gazed at the other clan members rising and beginning to move about. No one had an individual cabin. They were in a huge hold, and what privacy they had was provided by plastic sheeting easily suspended in low gee — probably created by slow acceleration of the ship rather than any grav-tech, as Peerswarf informed him.

"Go and find a food dispenser," his mother ordered him, and he quickly went, not being inclined to disobey when her voice took on that tone. Apis soon found a machine set in the wall, and collected a ration of food bars and a container of some sort of hot drink — there had been no labels on the machine. He was on his way back when he heard the uproar. Immediately curious, he went over to investigate.

Two full-gee men stood uncomfortably by doors at the back of the bay. There was something quite odd about their identical dress: they wore white shipsuits that appeared to be padded and armoured, and down one side from armpit to ankle were words in no language Apis understood. They wore visored helmets that armoured one side of their faces, and joined to a ring of the same white metal around their necks. On the exposed sides of their heads they each wore scaled augs with an organic appearance. They both also carried weapons of some kind. Apis realized that these men wore military uniforms — but no Polity uniform that he recognized.