‘Tell it to stop!’
Skellor smiled, shook his head, disappeared.
‘Fuck! Fuck!’ the woman screamed, firing repeatedly at the spot where he had been standing. Then her gun was snatched away, disappearing, whereupon a single shot issued from one side, making a hole through her cheek and blowing out the back of her head. The two remaining people, a man and a woman—both dressed in the coveralls of runcible technicians—backed away, firing at Mr Crane and frantically screaming for help over their augs. Crane accelerated towards them, not because they were causing any damage to him, but more likely because of the holes they were putting in his coat. Reaching them, he grabbed both by their heads, then slammed them together. His hands met, palm to palm, in a wet explosion.
Standing to one side of Crane, Skellor reappeared. ‘You are impressive, Mr Crane,’ he said.
Crane scraped away the larger spatters of brain and pieces of bone from the front of his burnt coat. As he stood there, his exposed brassy skin darkened as it exuded Jain fibres—and in a few seconds the burns and tears on his coat had disappeared. Even the blood faded as if sucked away. Crane looked down, shook a piece of skull from the toe of his boot, offered no reaction to the words. Skellor immediately probed inside the Golem and, with what he found, considered destroying Crane there and then. Some of the Jain structure inside the Golem was no longer under Skellor’s control, hence the way Crane had used it. But Skellor stayed his hand, putting in place a program to alert him should any more of that structure be subverted by the Golem. Mr Crane, after all, was so very good at his job.
Skellor turned and walked towards the dropshaft and, not bothering to utilize panel or grav fields, which might well be under Nalen’s control, reached inside and grasped the maintenance ladder. Before following, Crane abruptly stooped and picked up the piece of skull he’d shaken from his boot, then gazed at it. They had all died, so he could not, in his twisted logic, gain a substantial icon. He tossed the skull fragment aside, and followed Skellor into the dropshaft.
8
The human mind operates within a brain that comes in a one-size-fits-all lump of meat. The AI mind operates from vessels as many and various as are the different minds they contain. The basic Golem mind is stored in a ‘brain’ that is a fist-sized lozenge of crystal laced with s-con nanofilaments and micro-optics, semi-conducting laminates in their billions, power feeds and cooling tubes. It is roughly equivalent to a human mind, but eidetic and functioning ten times as fast, though limited by anthropomorphic emulation programs. Going by the old IQ system, the Golem comes in at about 150. But such methods of measurement are now almost irrelevant, as Golem can be upgraded and, with augs and gridlinks, even that lump of meat can transcend the limits imposed on it by evolution. Also, human minds can be loaded to silicon—become AI—and, if the rumours are true, AI minds can be loaded to human brains. And, in the end, it is difficult to know what to measure.
— Excerpt from a speech by Jobsworth
Completion… the symmetry… aesthetically pleasing.
Cormac swung his legs out of his bed and, swearing, stood up. ‘Jack, take us out of U-space and set up a communication link through the runcible network.’
The AI did not question the order, and Cormac immediately felt the lurch; the displacement as the Jack Ketch surfaced into realspace. For a second he thought that somewhere on the ship there was a fault in the shielding, for what he had just felt had been almost painful. Then he realized that might not be the true explanation; the feeling was probably all his own. Perhaps, like someone subjected to allergens for too long, he was becoming overly sensitized? He dismissed the thought—for the present.
‘Right, run a trace through the net and locate the Sparkind Golem called Cento.’
‘Bearing on our present mission?’ asked Jack’s voice, sounding leaden.
‘Symmetry—don’t you see? When she said it, I assumed she was talking metaphorically, vaguely, but what she was actually saying referred to something specific. To complete Mr Crane, to make him symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing, Skellor needs what Cento has.’
‘Skellor… technical ability? He could easily build an arm to mirror the one Crane already possesses.’
‘Yes, he could but, underneath all that ugly Jain technology and his crystal matrix AI, there is one thing about Skellor that must not be forgotten.’
‘What one thing must not be forgotten?’
‘That he is a complete bastard.’
‘Query: weakness?’
‘It was before—couldn’t resist the urge to gloat. Now, what are Thorn and Gant doing right now, and why the fuck am I talking to one of your subminds, anyway?’
After a long pause, Jack’s more familiar voice replied, ‘Sorry about that—otherwise occupied. Gant is waiting outside Medical. Unfortunately, while you were sleeping Thorn collapsed and is now undergoing surgery to remove his mycelium.’
Cormac began pulling on his clothes. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’
‘I didn’t tell you because to do so would achieve nothing of value. I suspect Gant had other concerns to occupy him—like resuscitating his friend, then carrying him to Medical.’
No need to get tetchy, Cormac replied over his gridlink, as he stepped to his cabin door. Then, as he headed for the dropshaft, he accessed Jack at a lower level, to try for a visual link to wherever the surgery was taking place.
Ah, I was apprised of this new ability of yours.
Cormac grunted, as almost with physical force the AI rebuffed his attempt.
I just want to know what’s going on.
Over the intercom, Jack replied, ‘ Patran Thorn has shown some need for privacy in this matter and he shall have it. If security was of any concern, or this procedure had any bearing on the mission in hand, you would be given full access.’
Reaching the dropshaft, Cormac hesitated over the control. It surprised him just how worried he was about Thorn, and with what urgency he wanted to be at the man’s side. But he clamped down on that. In truth, he was in the best hands—if hands they were.
Out loud, Cormac said, ‘Okay, keep me apprised, but tell Gant I want him on the bridge. Now, are you running that trace?’
‘I am. It will probably be some minutes before we receive a reply.’
‘Instantaneous communication?’
‘Only when you instantly know precisely what to say.’
Cormac snorted and set the control of the shaft to take him to the bridge. When he finally stepped out of the shaft, it was below a sky only lightly dusted with stars, and with Gant charging along behind him.
‘What is it?’ Gant asked.
Cormac studied him. The soldier’s mind was human, but directly recorded into a crystal matrix inside a Golem body, and Cormac wondered just how real was the worry evident in his expression. But then the same doubt could be applied to any genuine living human’s expression of emotion. In all cases it was what you did that counted, not what was going on in your mind.
‘How is he?’ he asked.
Gant shook his head. ‘Alive—but he’ll be going into cold sleep soon.’
‘You’ll get him back.’
Now expressionless, Gant said, ‘Why have we dropped out of U-space?’
‘Symmetry,’ said Cormac tersely. ‘Skellor has gone after Crane’s missing arm—the arm Cento now possesses.’
‘Arrogant… and stupid.’
‘He would perhaps consider himself as being utterly capable and in control.’ Cormac turned to scan the bridge. As if in response to this, Jack’s automaton stood up from its chair with that cog-grinding clockwork sound and its eyes glittering. ‘Jack, I’d like to talk to Aphran again.’