Azroc tried to remain cool in the face of this, as he said, ‘Here, as at eight other worlds, Erebus seems intent on total destruction. So why is he putting ground forces down on Ramone? What tactical importance does that world have?’
‘None known,’ Jerusalem replied.
Was this attack seemingly as lacking in logic as Erebus’s first attack outside the Polity, or would it, like the attack on Hammon, turn out to have some particular reason, however strange that might seem? The attack on that minor world had apparently been cover for the murder of two human beings by a legate. But, even then, what possible relevance could the deaths of two people have to a conflict on this scale?
‘How go the evacuations?’
‘Slowly,’ Jerusalem replied. ‘The runcible network is functioning at full capacity — ‘ Jerusalem paused, which was always significant in a major AI, then continued ‘ — and, as is to be expected, it will not be possible to evacuate even a few per cent of the total populations of those worlds.’
‘Could Erebus’s aim be to overload the runcible network?’ wondered Azroc, utterly sure that this idea was the reason for Jerusalem’s pause.
‘That might be the aim, but for what purpose, if any, is unclear.’
‘Right.’
Azroc returned to his viewing of the destruction currently being wrought out on the edge of the Polity and tried to integrate the whole with what he hoped was a unique perception. Maybe Erebus had been deliberately making apparently illogical moves in order to camouflage some deviously cunning assault. Or maybe that melded AI was as mad as a box of frogs and no pattern would ever emerge. Azroc spent hours studying all that he was able to study, and came to the conclusion that Erebus was preparing for ground assaults to capture about eight worlds, while the rest were to be depopulated or destroyed. He could still see no logic here. If these eight worlds were essential to some plan, why not use greater forces to take them swiftly? As to the rest of the worlds, their depopulation or destruction could serve no purpose at all beyond the sheer carnage wrought there.
‘One thing is evident,’ he abruptly said. ‘We’re seeing only a small percentage of Erebus’s known forces here. So where are the rest?’
‘That is something we would all like to know,’ Jerusalem agreed.
Cormac was glad to be back once again in realspace. The trip through U-space had seemed even more testing this time, for there had been moments, especially alone in his cabin, when it seemed the King of Hearts completely dissolved around him and he was stranded alone in void. Then, almost like someone who has been suddenly dumped into deep water, he could feel himself beginning to make swimming motions, though in this case the muscles involved were between his ears. There had been other weird moments too, when he found himself in other parts of the ship and could not remember getting there. Had he stepped through U-space?
Frustratingly, he retained no memory of doing so either in his mind or in the memcording facility of his gridlink. This was doubly worrying, since if he had managed to move himself through U-space or had just walked from one location to another, his gridlink should have recorded either activity. That neither had registered might mean the hardware in his head was failing, and he thought he would soon have to get himself checked out. He was not keen on that, however, since he didn’t really trust those who would have to do the checking: Polity AIs.
Later, he told himself. When absolutely necessary.
Now standing in the bridge of the King of Hearts, Cormac tried to put that unreal time out of his head. He glanced at the two chairs and one saddlelike seat provided by King, and wondered why the attack ship AI was at last making some concessions to its passengers. He then concentrated his attention on the magnified image of the nearest hammerhead troop carrier, the torch of its drive spearing out behind it like a focused cutting flame, and the drives of all the other Polity ships beyond it flaming into life too.
‘Weird design,’ he commented, as he felt through his feet the rumbling vibration of the King of Hearts’ own fusion drive igniting
The troop carrier seemed to possess all sorts of vulnerabilities, like that extended ‘neck’ leading up to its ‘head’. What was that all about?
‘Designed by a human,’ King replied with a deliberate lack of tone. ‘Those two ships out there were to be cruise liners before Jerusalem requisitioned them.’ There was a definite sneer in ‘cruise liners’.
‘What kind of alterations were made to them?’ Cormac asked, for he could see now that, as passenger ships, they would have possessed a certain tranquil grace. Accessing further information about them he found one was called The Swan, which seemed perfectly apt, but the other was called Bertha, which seemed slightly absurd.
‘Jerusalem grabbed them before their construction was finished. They now contain electable re-entry units for the troops, particle cannons and hard-field projectors.’
How long since Jerusalem had become the de facto commander of ECS forces in this Line war? Six months now? Or had these ships already been in the process of being refitted for military purposes before Jerusalem grabbed them?
‘Quick,’ he commented.
‘As you are aware,’ said King, ‘wartime installations have been put online.’
Cormac had once seen one of the eight massive factory stations that had been mothballed after the close of the Prador-human war. It sat out in interstellar space like a giant harmonica; forty miles long, twenty miles wide and ten deep, the square holes running along either side of it the entrances to enormous construction bays. He recollected Mika standing beside him saying, ‘This place was built in only three years and churned out dreadnoughts, attack ships and war drones just about as fast as the construction materials could be transmitted in. It could not keep up with demand during the initial Prador advance, since on average one medium-sized ship got destroyed every eight seconds during that conflict.’ Admittedly that same station was being used to house refugees when he and Mika had observed it, but if the others were now online, taking six months to refit The Swan and Bertha might be considered rather slow.
He continued staring at the two hammerheads, suddenly angry at the glib explanation King had given him, and which he had been quick to back up with his own memories. Abruptly he found himself questioning the kind of AI explanation that up until recently he would have been content with. Yeah, if those massive factory stations were up and running again, then it wouldn’t take so long for them to refit existing ships or turn out something new. However, it should have taken a considerable amount of time to get those stations back up to speed, so when had Earth Central, and the hierarchy of AIs below it, come to the conclusion that there was enough of a threat to the Polity for them to reactivate those mothballed stations? Theoretically there should have been no awareness of a Polity-wide threat until the appearance of Jain technology, which had been signalled by the biophysicist Skellor, and surely that threat could only have become classified as major after the events on Coloron a year later? Yet it seemed the AIs had been preparing for something big for some time, quite possibly even since before Skellor had come on the scene.
In the past Cormac had put this sort of almost prescient behaviour down to the superior intelligence of the AIs. So why was he doubting now? He realized such doubts stemmed from logical inconsistencies. On the one hand the Polity AIs had been preparing, yet on the other, now that Erebus was attacking, they seemed only to be reacting. These were major intelligences working consensually, yet it seemed Erebus had them totally flummoxed. Or was removing this threat not actually at the top of their agenda? He shook his head. He didn’t have time for this right now, but was damned sure he was still going to get some answers.