“You are safe?” said S’greela.

Chan was ready to grumble at her: he might be safe enough now, but he was also exhausted, scraped by creepers, covered in dirt, wet, wild-eyed, naked, and mentally battered. Where had the others been, for God knows now long?

He could not say any of it. He had found an instruction in his mind, something that Nimrod had slipped there along with the high-pressure information flow. It was waiting, a time bomb that had just ticked its way down to zero.

Chan lay back on the dark soil. S’greela and Angel moved close, to touch him. Shikari swarmed in to cover and connect them. The first stir of interaction began. Chan felt his way inward, following the flow of the stream. There it was. The others were ready, had been ready long ago.

Leah is right. We humans are the most difficult element.

The others laughed their reply. Chan closed his eyes.

And opened his mind.

Contact began, immediate and powerful. The surge of current passed through every cell of his body, sending Chan off on a tidal wave of pleasure and satisfaction. It was the cozy feeling of the pursuit team, sitting together late at night, amplified a thousand times, a million times, a billion times. Four minds re-oriented … meshed … settled into mentality mode. Saturated. Contact was complete.

Chapter 36

First there was the naming of names. The new mentality decided quickly. It would be Almas, a name for a mind as clear and hard as diamond.

Second came the data transfer. The information flow from Nimrod to Almas was rapid. The primary, secondary and tertiary files that Nimrod had loaded into Chan occupied the new mentality for less than twenty seconds. At the end of that time, Almas knew all that Nimrod knew of mentality origin and nature.

The quaternary data file was the smallest in volume, but it had been nagged by Nimrod for special attention. Almas began the review.

It found a record of the first hours following Nimrod’s own formation, interleaved and overlain with Nimrod’s analysis. The record structure was designed to guide the new mentality through a multi-channel flow, a hyperweb of facts, conjectures, and conclusions.

The naming of names. The mentality that in separation had been Team Alpha was filled with excitement and pride at the miracle of its own creation. It was Nimrod. Nimrod existed as a fusion of will, information, desire, and understanding.

The naming was the first act. The second involved the captured Morgan Construct. It had to be placed in long-term stasis, until its flaws could be understood and remedied. Already there was a clue. M-29, compelled to fulfill its destiny and unable to do so on Cobweb Station, had become insane.

The third act was the most dangerous: regression, back to individual team members.

The mind pool dispersed, dissolved, faded. Leah, S’glya, Ishmael and the Angel stood silent for endless minutes, staring at each other. They were looking at strangers, at parts of their lost self. Finally they made their separate ways back to the upper levels of the Travancore forest. Like components of a Tinker Composite, each part of the mentality must serve its own needs for food, drink, and rest.

Interval. A gap in the record.

In the tent, high in the jungle, Nimrod was re-assembling for a specific purpose. The great news must be transmitted through the Link to Anabasis Headquarters.

A message was created, and innocently sent. The mentality assumed that news of its existence would be received with Nimrod’s own enthusiasm for the event. With the message went a request for transfer up to the Q-ship of Nimrod itself, and the now-harmless Morgan Construct.

There was a long delay. Mondrian’s face appeared on the screen, then vanished again. The mentality waited Nimrod knew of the need to make allowance for the slowness and inadequacy of single-species thought.

The Anabasis reply came: Leave the Morgan Construct in stasis on Travancore. Fly yourselves at once in the landing capsule, up to the Q-ship that holds the blockade on the planet.

Nimrod possessed the empathy of a Pipe-Rilla, the quirky variable logic of a Tinker, the analytical capability of an Angel — and the irrational suspicion of a true human. The message from the Anabasis conflicted with Nimrod’s perception of the plausible.

The landing capsule flew up to the high-orbiting Q-ship. Forty kilometers from rendezvous, the capsule was vaporized by a high-intensity salvo.

But Nimrod was still in the tent, hiding beneath Travancore’s vegetation. The capsule had been flown under remote control.

Now Nimrod was stranded on the surface of the planet. There was plenty to occupy the power of the mentality’s intellect.

The data stream that had come from Nimrod to the new mentality now added a modifying field, to show a change from reporting of fact to the field of conjecture and probabilistic analysis.

The Anabasis sought to destroy Nimrod, but wanted the Construct left behind on Travancore. In this case, the goals of the Anabasis can be equated to the goals of Esro Mondrian.

Conjecture: Esro Mondrian has need of the Morgan Construct.

Contradiction: The pursuit teams were sent to Travancore by the Anabasis to destroy the Morgan Construct.

Analysis: On Barchan, Team Alpha had not destroyed their Simmie Artefact. They had (like Chan’s team) subdued it, and sought to hide the evidence.

If Esro Mondrian knew that fact (probable, at a 0.93 level), then he would expect Team Alpha to be equally incapable of destroying the Construct.

Deduction: Team Alpha had been sent to Travancore by Mondrian, who saw three possible outcomes for the confrontation with the Morgan Construct:

1) The Construct would destroy Team Alpha. This result was the most probable, and it offered no new danger to the Anabasis or Esro Mondrian. The Construct would survive. Travancore would remain as a blockaded world. Additional pursuit teams could be sent to Travancore.

2) The pursuit team would destroy the Construct. The events on Barchan made this the least probable outcome.

3) The pursuit team would subdue the Construct, but not destroy it. The Construct and the pursuit team would return together from Travancore.

End of data file.

Nimrod had deliberately omitted the final part of the analysis, leaving it to the new mentality to draw its own conclusion.

Almas did so, without effort.

Esro Mondrian had hoped for the third of Nimrod’s perceived outcomes: a pursuit team would subdue or disable the Construct, but not destroy it. Mondrian needed the Construct, for some unknown purpose. After its capture, the pursuit teams could be disbanded.

However, none of those three outcomes had been a threat to Mondrian, nor would any of them require the destruction of a pursuit team by the Anabasis.

Conclusion: The creation of the mentality had been a total surprise to Mondrian. This was the event that he saw as an intolerable threat. The destruction of Nimrod had therefore become Mondrian’s prime goal, with the saving of the Morgan Construct of secondary importance. He had ordered the Q-ship to vaporize the capsule as it returned from Travancore without the Morgan Construct. That had been done, but spectral analysis of the vaporized ship had surely told Mondrian that the pursuit team was not on board.

A second pursuit team had therefore been sent to Travancore, with the hope that it would destroy Nimrod and also subdue the Morgan Construct. Instead, it had formed another group mind. And now, like Nimrod, it was in danger from Mondrian. It was possible that at any moment the full destructive power of the Q-ship would be turned on Travancore. But that would not happen, so long as Mondrian thought that the second pursuit team had not formed a mentality, and might destroy Nimrod.