Cormac stared thoughtfully at the Outlink station as great swathes of its hull unpeeled and explosions sparkled its surface. "If Dragon really is involved, I could do with some assistance out there."

"You are thinking of Mika, the life-Coven woman from Circe."

"I am," said Cormac.

"You are also thinking of what she might learn from the materials gathered from that base on Callorum," said Blegg. Cormac shrugged, and Blegg went on, "The nearest Polity outpost on your direct route to Miranda's last position is the asteroid smelting station, Elysium. Mika will be there when you arrive."

"What about the rest of the Sparkind?"

"Once you are at Elysium, copies of Aiden and Cento, having been transmitted through the runcible there, will upload to memory space in the Occam's AI and, should you require them, they can be downloaded into spare Golem bodies that the ship carries. You already have Gant and Scar with you. Thorn, unfortunately, is otherwise engaged."

Cormac nodded, good enough — though working with Golem copies always made him edgy. The minds of Aiden and Cento would be no different from those of their originals, only the bodies would be different, though not visibly, so there was no logical reason for his edginess — just a personal quirk he supposed.

"Anything else I should know?" he asked.

"The nearest inhabited world outside the Line to where Miranda was destroyed is one aptly named Masada. It is interesting to note that the theocracy ruling that world ordered, some time ago, the construction of a kinetic missile-launcher, ostensibly to defend Masada against Dragon."

"What might they hope to achieve with it otherwise?" asked Cormac.

"The utter suppression of a rebellion that is, literally, underground."

"Explain."

"The rebels live in caves. And a kinetic missile-launcher of sufficient power can penetrate deep into the ground."

"I see."

Cormac stared at Blegg, trying to see the wheels within. The ancient Japanese was unreadable but then, in Cormac's experience, Blegg was only as readable as he wanted to be. He was named agent Prime Cause. He would perhaps better have been named Prime Manipulator.

"Is this another of your games?" he asked.

Blegg gazed at him with eyes like enamel buttons.

"The Occam Razor is not actually the nearest Line patrol dreadnought but, considering the possible involvement of Dragon, you are the most suitable choice of investigator and… facilitator." As Blegg spoke, the dojo once again folded in around the two of them, only this time minus the dracoman. "No games, agent Cormac. We have no time for them now." And, with that, Blegg walked to the door of the dojo. Cormac paused for a moment before following him. There were other questions; there always were. When he stepped into the corridor beyond, Blegg was gone: the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter rolled into one. Cormac returned to the dojo, and closed his eyes.

"End program," he said succinctly.

Now he felt his body assume its original pose: the Pharaoh position, as in the kata. The temperature changed abruptly and he felt a tingling stinging at the sides of his head. When that sensation ceased — signifying that the nanofibres had been withdrawn from his cortex — he reached up and pulled aside the auging clamp. Opening his eyes, he saw the ship's drone hovering before him and, glancing around, he once again located himself in the Occam Razor's VR suite.

"We go to Elysium, and from what I know of the place, that is certainly the most inapt description," he said, stepping from the support frame.

The drone dipped in midair as it, no doubt, relayed this information to Tomalon.

The entire Separatist base lay packaged and strapped down in one small section of one of the huge holds. A shimmer-shield, from ceiling to floor, divided off this section from the rest of the hold, no doubt to prevent wastage of the inert gas that was now being pumped in. Skellor observed the security drone suspended from the ceiling like some art deco light fitting and, whilst sweating in his environment suit and watching in panic the count trickling away on the air-supply indicator displayed in the bottom corner of his visor, called up a specific viral subprogram in his aug. It was getting easier to do this now. No longer did he feel the crystal matrix AI as something separate from himself — it was he who was remembering the program, and he who was opening the soft link to the security drone.

The link established itself with a click that was almost audible to him. He felt the subprogram uploading through it, and he observed that program draining from the temporary memory spaces in his crystal matrix aug like acid from uncorked carboys. Letting his attention follow it through, he observed the drone's internal defences spiralling out like informational smoke, and in virtual space he erased them. Then he killed the drone and withdrew, subverting its uplink to Occam, to leave only a program to respond to the constant query signal from the ship's AI that the drone was still functional.

Skellor let out a gasp and reached down to fumble for the shut-off button. Around him, the air flickered and he was revealed standing by a stack of crates below the drone. Looking down at the chameleonware generator on his belt — an object like a large white snail shell with a touch-console mounted in its mouth — he noted that he had shut it off just minutes before it would have done so itself. He rested his hand against its glossy surface and felt the heat of it — he had not yet found a way of running a personal generator for longer than a few hours without overloading it, as the power required to run such a device was huge.

He moved away from the crates to stand before the shimmer-shield, still keeping an eye on his air supply. Probing into the walls of the hold, he soft-linked, but was gratified to discover that the shield only linked back to Occam to inform the ship AI that it was functioning, not whether someone had stepped through it. Skellor then stepped through, the shield tugging and pressing against him so that it felt as if he were pushing through thick jelly. Once he was through, another display in the corner of his visor, which heretofore had only read 'Argon', now showed that the usual mix of breathable gases surrounded him. He removed his mask and took a deep breath of air redolent of metals and warm electronics, which was always the recognizable taint of ship air. Moving to the wall of the hold, he sat and closed his eyes to more closely explore his relationship with his crystal matrix AI, and found that, of course, it was killing him.

It was a given that direct interfacing with an AI would kill the human participant by blowing each synapse like a fuse in an increasing cascade, and would also drive the AI into its own particular version of insanity. For centuries, researchers had tried to construct AIs more amenable to the joining, but had always failed. This was unsurprising as such a joining was comparable with attempting to weld a lump of steel to a candle — it didn't matter what you did with the steel: the welding process would always be too hot for the candle wax. Skellor's answer to this conundrum was that you didn't weld, you used glue instead. Presently he had yet to use the glue — and the AI had yet to completely burn him out, because it was not fully online. He had also only been directly interfaced for an hour before that bastard Polity agent had turned up.

Now it was time for Skellor to use the glue.

The egg-shaped container he cupped in his hand was as much Jain technology as was its contents, for the contained nanotechnology would overrun even an inert material. Lining the inside were billions of nano-constructs whose sum purpose was to deliver the message 'not yet' to the living node they surrounded. Skellor turned the egg so it stood on its end, and linked through to it. Immediately he felt poised at a portal into a vast space crammed with a tangle of glittering and vastly complex shapes. Pulling back, he paused for a moment and considered his options. If he remained linked to the AI, without using this Jain node, he would die within a few hours. If he disconnected from the crystal matrix AI aug, he would return to his previous state, and that was unacceptable. Even with the AI not fully online, he found himself easily capable of working through formulae he had been unable to even begin with before; his memory was now eidetic, and his grasp of his own work huge. Disconnection would also lead to his capture, and for some of the things he had done he would most certainly end up being forcibly mind-wiped. His remaining choice rested in the palm of his hand.