The telefactor unit, its scanning equipment extended and working frenetically—dishes spinning, holocorders and gas samplers operating, lasers strobing the area as they measured and were bounced off surfaces to gain spectral information—floated up to a ceiling seemingly interlaced with tree roots. Also surveying the interior of the bridge pod, Cormac remembered how, when he had been aboard the Occam Razor, the ship would shift its internal structure. This pod was moved around inside, and even extruded from, the hull. He had known then that the pod could be ejected. Obviously, while the Elysium mirrors had focused on the ship itself, this was what had happened, for the heat damage here was not so severe. Some quite combustible items had survived it.
He observed a desiccated corpse resting upright against the back wall, and walked over to inspect it. The ripped interfaces poxing this corpse’s skin and the creamy glint of opaque nictitating membranes in the sunken eye sockets confirmed that he had found Tomalon, the captain of the Occam Razor before Skellor had taken over. Returning to the command chair, which the woody growth in the rest of this pod had also swamped, he saw where someone had fitted—as a human-shaped component in some huge organic machine. Then, observing the other chairs here, he realized that they too had once been occupied by people somehow linked to the same woody growth, though it seemed evident to Cormac that those occupants had not left here in the same way as Skellor, for the upholstery was burnt away and much of the metal of the chairs melted.
‘So this is all Jain biotech,’ he murmured, tempted to reach out and touch, but not prepared to increase his present danger with such unnecessary gratification.
‘It is,’ replied Jack over com. ‘Initial analysis indicates that from this point Skellor extended nano-filaments along the fibre optics, in order to take control of the ship. These he then, by necessity, had to expand—and you see the result.’
‘Necessity? Why was it necessary for this stuff to be larger than the fibre optics?’
‘Because it is not simply for conveying information. It is capable of movement, transporting materials, and base construction and reconstruction at an atomic level from any point of contact. It also possesses a high-level computing facility, in all areas. It was probably this that Skellor used to build those flying calloraptors that attacked you on Masada.’
‘I hear everything you say, but most importantly I heard “is capable of movement”—present tense.’
‘At the moment its level of function is at that of a plant, since here its energy sources are limited. It is also hierarchical so perhaps requires a dominant controlling mind.’
Cormac glanced at the main control chair, and wondered if anyone might volunteer for that position beyond Skellor. He looked up as the telefactor drifted down at an angle from the ceiling towards the tangled wall. He noted, as it settled, that one of its arms was folding out to present an optic interface.
‘Is that a good idea?’ he asked.
‘Probably not, but we’ll learn nothing more here by passive observation. Perhaps you would now like to depart the area?’
‘No—just get on with it.’
The telefactor settled just off the floor, its arm telescoping towards the wall, through a gap between the thick roots of the Jain material, to a shadowed optic plug. The moment the interface connected, the unit jerked as if a large invisible hand had slapped it. Light flickered all around the bridge, at the ends of broken optics, and Cormac was not sure if it was an illusion caused by this that made the surrounding structure seem to move. Then the lights died.
‘What the hell happened?’ Cormac asked.
‘There was an attempt to insert an information virus into my telefactor. The attack withdrew the moment the CTD—which this unit contains—activated. It would seem that either this Jain structure itself wants to survive, or that somewhere here there is still a controlling mind… I am now receiving communication…’
Cormac felt a flush of cold as the suit’s internal air circulation increased to dry the sweat breaking out all over his body. Of course the Jack Ketch AI had taken out insurance, he had known that, but he was uncomfortably aware that his insistence on being here at the scene had abruptly put him on the brink of obliteration. Jack could make that decision in a nanosecond.
‘There is an entity here. I am unable to determine whether it is a physical one in some hidden location, or a stored mentality within the structure itself.’
‘Can you transfer to me what it’s saying?’
‘There are words, but they do not relate to the communication, which is in binary code similar to that used in the thought processes of AI.’
‘Give me the words.’
Like a cold breath in his ear, a woman’s voice said to him, ‘‘The light, Skellor. The light.’ Then the voice cycled repeatedly, until Jack shut it off.
‘And the essence of the communication?’ Cormac asked, aware that something was niggling at his memory—some familiarity about that voice.
‘It is asking for direct current of a defined wattage. This, I gather, is what it was seeking from my telefactor.’
‘How much?’
‘Eight point three watts made available to the power outlet below the optic plug. I estimate that this could stimulate growth in the structure, but that the risk would be no more than it is at present. The entity is thoroughly aware of my precautions.’
‘Then give it what it wants and let’s see what we get.’
Cormac returned his attention to the unit as another arm swung out, holding a simple bayonet power plug uncoiling two power cables from the body of the unit itself. Another arm reached out, and the spidery eight-fingered hand it terminated in closed on the Jain structure and pulled. The woody substance shattered—frangible as charcoal—exposing the power socket. The unit now abruptly stabbed the plug into place. Lights again lit in broken optics all around the interior of the pod. Over com, Cormac heard a whispery hissing, as of a zephyr in woodland, then the tinkling of a rill bubbling down some rocky course—but this second sound became that of fading laughter.
‘What is that?’
Jack did not reply, and Cormac wondered just how many seconds remained before the AI detonated the CTD. Then there was movement over by the row of command chairs, specifically where the Jain structure seemed to have gone crazy, spiralling up from the deck like fig vines that have strangled a tree, and blackened towards its interior by fire.
Illusion… those optics?
But no, the ghost stepped out into view like a tree sprite departing her home. She was naked, nymphean, and as she moved Cormac could see the skeleton inside her translucent form—moving out of consonance, as if always a little behind. Perhaps it was because of this that he did not instantly recognize her.
‘Jack, speak to me.’
‘My apologies. I was fascinated by the way all the broken optics in there are being utilized to create this holographic image. I have also just received a message from the new Warden of Elysium.’
Cormac’s suit blower was operating noisily. ‘What message?’
‘Obviously, after seeing those anchor points in the rock of the asteroid, it was essential to determine what ship was their source. We have contacted all but one of the ships working the belt asteroids. That one should have returned some time ago, but has been out of contact. It’s a survey ship called the Vulture.’
‘That figures,’ said Cormac, his main attention focused on the spectre in the bridge pod. He went on, ‘So, Aphran, what’s Skellor up to now?’
The breathy voice coming over com replied, ‘Hunting dragons.’
His breathing ragged and his body feeling as if someone had worked him over with a baseball bat, Apis studied the woman he had come to love and wondered at the change that bonding process had wrought in him. Standing with her arms folded and her back against the counter running around the inner wall of this surgical facility, Eldene was by no means a female that an Outlinker should find attractive. The huge improvement in nutrition for her, as for all the pond workers of Masada since their emancipation, had softened the lines of hard muscle built by constant toil, filled out her hips and breasts, and blunted the sharpness of her features, though she still carried little in the way of fat. However, to Outlinker perception, she was grotesquely over-muscled. That perception meant little to him now, as if his own adaptation to living on the planet’s surface had changed him psychologically as well as physically. Even amid the pain and debilitating fatigue, looking at Eldene—at those wonderful green eyes framed by her crop of black hair, that fulsome figure and her strong, tricky hands—Apis wanted to make love to her. One more, and possibly last, time. He turned away.