That hive mind, being old and nigh incomprehensible, did not have much official contact with humans and AIs, though through its own kind it did have some converse with those skirting the edge of the Polity and its laws—humans, aliens and AIs. Through them it must have gained access to the technology enabling it to accelerate its thought processes beyond pheromonal transfer, and to send out its eyes and agents beyond Earth. It was supposed that, like the younger mind before it, it was here after the formula for sprine, but that was dubious. Some claimed that a breed of hornets carrying sprine in their stings would counterbalance the strength and nigh indestructibility of Hoopers, and that Polity AIs were not averse to this. It was a myth, which, foolishly unchecked, led one young hive mind (a mere ten thousand years of age) to attempt colonization here with adapted hornets. Had it succeeded, the Warden’s drones would then have been busy with canisters of insecticide until every last hornet here was dead.

The Polity contained many other individuals potentially as dangerous as Hoopers: free Golem, augmented humans, dracomen and the ineffable Dragon that was their source, and various other aliens. Moreover, just the existence of sprine acted as a counterbalance. Of course Polity AIs had long ago analysed that substance and could easily manufacture it. The Warden knew that one runcible jump away lay a stock of weapons that employed it. A rail-gun firing sprine-tipped darts would certainly be more effective than any hornet, and that was just the least of the weapons available. The young mind’s claim to be seeking personal armament for defence, just like any other Polity citizen was allowed, was rather weak when individual hornets comprised only a minuscule fraction of it. Hornets with killing stings could not be allowed, especially since they could inadvertently wipe out the limited population of an alien race, the sails, who owed their incredibly long life spans to the virus inside them. Surely the ancient mind knew this, which again begged the question, why was it here?

The Warden turned its attention to files that one of its subminds had hunted down from all quarters of the Polity, and began to examine them. The hive mind, though incommunicative to Polity AIs, was very active and constantly monitored. Its eyes—carried by some indentured to that same mind but mostly by those it employed, now the indenture periods were so reduced (perpetually increasing hornet populations of each hive mind resulted in a reduction of the sentence for killing one hornet)—had been to many locations. It travelled to Hive, to most of the planets and stations in the Sol system and, seemingly at random, to other planets across the Polity. But then other hive minds operated in the same fashion: they were looking around, ever curious. Also, like other minds, it searched regularly for information on the nets. And by studying what the mind searched for, the Warden began to see a pattern emerge.

In the beginning the mind had studied the various religions of Earth, paying particular attention to the concept of afterlife those primitive ideologies espoused. It then moved on to a brief spell of investigating the mind-wiping or execution of murderers, swiftly followed by a detour into memcording. At precisely that time, the Warden noted, it had sent its agents to Klader and, both through them and the nets, studied the changing organization of the reifications. It also looked into the history of human medical technologies, paying particular attention to the time when it first became possible for people to live forever. Noting the direction of the mind’s interest, the Warden realized the mind’s physical explorations were anything but random. Its agents visited war graves, the pyramids, the sites of ancient concentration camps, the Solar System battlefields of corporate wars, the planet Samarkand, and planets denuded of life during the Prador War. Its agents purchased for it numerous items with one constant theme: a crystal Aztec skull, reproductions of medieval art, antique weapons, gravestones, funeral urns… the list even included a dinosaur skeleton. So, given its ghoulish interests, Spatterjay should most certainly be high on its list of places to visit. But this was not exactly what worried some Polity AIs.

The mind had studied Spatterjay, and around about the same time there had been a successful raid on an ECS information repository. This unlinked storage system contained, amongst much else, the deciphered genetic codes for numerous Spatterjay life forms. This occurred while the hive mind relocated to Hive and purchased equipment from human genetic engineers there. The AIs were immediately suspicious, but could not prove the mind responsible for the information raid. But they watched very closely thereafter, and began really to worry when warned, by the younger hive mind, that the old hive mind was sending a Golem agent to Spatterjay. The Warden returned its attention to the base on the Island of Chel. Still no trace of the Golem, and only one hivelink had been operating through the runcible, though one not connected to the old hive mind. But the Golem was here, and its guiding hive mind was very very interested in death.

Janer dumped his backpack on the floor and surveyed his cabin. He had expected it to be cramped, but on reflection a ship a kilometre long should have room to spare. It contained a desk against one wall with a screen above it and a swivel chair before it. At the foot of the fold-down bed running along the opposite wall a partitioned area held a washbasin and toilet. The tap he found only ran when he put his hands directly underneath it, and he soon discovered it would not operate if he placed some other item in the way of its sensor. There were cupboards, light panels in the ceiling, a small area supplied with a microwave cooker which also supplied boiling water for hot drinks. But most importantly, this cabin was on the side of the corridor adjoining the hull, so he had the benefit of one of the metre-square chainglass windows, before which rested two form chairs on either side of a coffee table.

He was quite happy with all this, but what aroused in him some suspicions was the bottle of hornet syrup in the cupboard, and the fact that his name was already carved into the door.

This set of crew quarters lay to the stern of the ship on A Deck, whilst there was another one in the bows. Separate quarters were necessary simply because of the sheer length of the Sable Keech. Hoopers working at the bows would not take kindly to having to walk the best part of a kilometre to work each shift. There was a galley and a mess at the end of the corridor outside, and a food store beyond that. The reification staterooms were located on Deck B, a level below. While exploring with Ron and Forlam, Janer had seen how different these were: without toilets and with flat unpadded bunks—no doubt for them to take the weight off their servomotors but certainly not for sleep. There was also no refectory down there, no storage for food, no need for either. He had later learnt that such spartan conditions were misleading, as each reification stateroom could be swiftly converted to house living humans, which their current occupants hoped one day to become. Restaurants, shops and bars—at present mostly closed—in the third tier of the central deckhouse, and on all three tiers of the stern deckhouse, were there to cater to their needs on the return journey.

Sitting on his bunk, Janer dragged his backpack up beside him, pulled out all his spare clothing, then the short hexagonal stasis case. He pressed his fingertip into an indentation, whereupon the case split in half longitudinally and silently hinged open. He eyed the ten small cylinders arranged inside, with their tubes connecting to the transparent reservoir. Each time a hornet died, he would open this and release another one—just revived. There were none presently in the reservoir. He now took the diamond stud of his hivelink out of his pocket and fixed it in his earlobe. This device was only a relay to the implant in the bone behind his ear. By removing this earring he broke the connection between that implant and the transceiver inside the case. The hornets were also linked to the case, which in turn was U-space-linked through the runcible on Coram back to the mind on Hive. He heard nothing, not even a buzzing to signify that the link was operating.