‘You’re a cynic’

‘A realist, I would suggest.’

‘Jain technology does, however, react to the intelligent products of evolution, such as humans,’ Mika prompted.

‘Just so,’ Dragon continued. ‘Therefore, any artificial intelligence wanting to use Jain technology must employ such a product of evolution to set that technology in motion, then assert control over that technology by means of the said product, until the product itself can be safely dispensed with.’

‘Trafalgar used humans to initiate the Jain nodes it acquired.’ Mika glanced at the other chairs. ‘But it was necessary for the AI to run a few experiments before it got the methodology sorted out. I wonder if these are all of them — as that docked ship could have had hundreds of humans aboard.’

‘Convenient, don’t you think?’

Now what on Earth did Dragon imply by that? Mika reached out with her laser pointer and scraped Jain tendrils aside to expose a name tag fastened to this subject’s old-style envirosuit. This one had been called Fiddler Randal. She gazed at his hollow eye sockets, studied what remained of his face. His left ear was ragged as if several earrings had been torn out of it, and on the right-hand side of his head was a big silver augmentation which Trafalgar had obviously seen fit to leave in place — probably because old augs like that were difficult to remove without causing cerebral damage.

‘I think you should take off your glove now, Mika, and press your hand to this man’s head, up against his aug,’ Dragon suggested.

You’ve fucked with my body, and you’ve fucked with my mind, Mika thought as, unable to do otherwise, she undid the seal around her wrist, cancelled the warning that instantly began flashing on her visor and removed her glove. Her suit immediately sealed up about her wrist, but her hand was now exposed to vacuum. She could not make up her mind whether it felt as if it was burning or freezing, but certainly there was vapour coming off it. Turning it over she gazed at the palm and saw that there were patterns shifting across it — the same sort of cubic patterns produced on the surface of a Jain node by the shifting of its nano-technology.

‘What have you done to me?’ she asked.

‘I made you into a tool suitable for this purpose,’ Dragon replied.

Her bare hand contacted cold metal, about which she saw the Jain tendrils stirring. She wanted to pull it away but it now seemed frozen in place. The tendrils extended, like a speeded-up film of grass growing, and touched her skin. Seemingly stirred into more frantic motion by the warmth of her hand, their growth accelerated. Pain ensued, but she felt strangely disconnected from it. Perhaps this was a kindness from Dragon. Blood welled on her skin and boiled dry as the tendrils penetrated. In a moment it seemed an icicle was driving its way up her arm, to her shoulder and then into her neck.

Then the ice entered her brain.

The corridor ahead was a danger, Erebus knew this, but there was no avoiding it. No other pattern of U-space disruption offered safer passage through to Earth itself. Even so, Erebus dropped out of U-space some tens of thousands of miles before the constriction and actively scanned ahead. What the AI found there filled it with suspicion and made it bring the entire moonlike mass of itself to a full stop. There was ionization in the vacuum, hot particulate matter, signs of energy output that should not be found out here, so distant from the nearest stars.

Erebus extended its scan, paying particular attention to finding anything that might be trying to conceal itself. For a moment some of the returns hinted that there might be some object directly in its path, but further testing revealed this to be merely a ghosting effect caused by the ionization. However, there was ionization here and that needed to be explained, so Erebus just hung there in space for nearly an hour, scanning, checking and very wary.

‘Second thoughts?’ enquired a voice.

Erebus hated that its first reaction at Fiddler Randal’s return was a sense of relief, and immediately after that felt a surge of rage.

‘Second thoughts are for those incapable of making the logical decision first time around,’ Erebus replied.

Randal manifested in the virtuality, casually human but utterly a ghost. Erebus linked through, placing its own manifestation there to confront the interloper.

‘Hey, would that be like the second thoughts of one whose plans were so faulty he managed to lose fifty wormships to one of his own attack plans?’

‘You cannot provoke me.’

‘Oh… jolly good.’

‘I understand your hate,’ said Erebus.

‘That’s big of you.’

‘But shouldn’t your hate be directed at my target more than at me?’

‘It is focused there, certainly,’ said Randal, ‘but there is still enough of the human being remaining in me to want to kill you for what you did to all my friends… what you did to Henry. You know I still hear her screaming? And there’s still enough human left in me to know that the destruction of your ultimate target is not worth the collateral damage you will be causing.’

Ah, there …

Because the event lay off to one side, within the area of U-space disruption, the light from it was only now beginning to reach Erebus. The AI observed an attack ship surface into the real in a photonic explosion. Its back end, where the U-space engine had been located, was missing, and its hull was distorted.

‘Yes, let us talk of collateral damage,’ said Erebus. ‘Let us talk about Klurhammon.’

‘Aren’t we beyond talk now?’ Randal appeared to be gazing off into the distance. ‘An attack ship. I see. I would say that Earth Central is now utterly ready for you. Doubtless that ship was scouting out this area, and tried to get back through the corridor in one jump in order to give the warning — probably to an awaiting Polity fleet. I don’t suppose it will really matter that it didn’t make it.’

‘Much as you would like me to believe that,’ said Erebus, now seeing where Randal was going with this, ‘I see no logical reason why a scout would ever have been sent. Your desperation to have me believe there is a Polity fleet awaiting me beyond this corridor is rather pathetic. And your evasion of matters pertaining to Klurhammon is perhaps revealing.’

‘Revealing of what?’

‘You talk of my causing collateral damage yet somehow — using my resources — you initiated an attack upon Klurhammon. A considerable number of humans died there, so what was it you were doing that their lives were a price worth paying?’

Randal smiled. ‘I like the way you blame me for that attack, and really I wish I possessed that kind of power. If I did, I would have had your wormships attacking each other by now, or detonating their CTDs within this conglomeration you’ve created.’

‘You managed to take control of one wormship, and I would say that is about the extent of what you can do. You sent it against a low-population world “of no tactical importance”. It could not possibly have been an attempt to forewarn, since Earth Central already knew the attack was due… so I wonder what connection this had with your spy in Jerusalem’s stronghold?’

Randal shook his head sadly. ‘You just don’t seem to understand how badly your melded mind is breaking apart. Parts of you have gained independence and they are no longer completely sane. Perhaps you would be best asking yourself who the captain of that wormship was and what previous connection he had with Klurhammon? And a spy in Jerusalem’s stronghold? If I could have managed to do that, I could—’ Randal’s expression betrayed sudden horror, quickly disguised. ‘Henry… she…’

‘Very unconvincing, Randal,’ said Erebus. ‘Let me lay it all out for you. Though you have learnt much about my ostensible plans, it was pointless you informing Polity forces about them because they already knew an attack was due. However, I kept my real plan from you: the one Earth Central needed to know about in order to react how you would want and try to stop me. I see now that the Klurhammon attack was some kind of error on your part. Did you try to suborn one of my captains and then simply lose control of it?’