Again to keep herself distracted from some particularly nasty images now being displayed, Moria began an investigation into the circumstances surrounding those shuttle crashes, and immediately stumbled on some conspiracy theory net sites. According to them, one of the privately owned craft belonged to someone who later turned out to be a chief financier of Separatist terrorists on Trajeen. And the other belonged to an out-Polity weapons dealer. The AIs killed them, the theorists claimed. While she studied circumstances surrounding the crash of the public shuttle, Sutra rose as predicted, and she snorted with satisfaction.

"You were running something in your aug," said Carolan Moria turned to her. "Is it so obvious?"

"As with me. I'm told we'll only develop the ability to compartmentalize after a few months of usage. What were you running?"

Moria did not like the question. It almost seemed equivalent to, "What are you thinking?" As she understood it, the behavioural ethos slowly being established for aug usage was that you did not ask such questions unless they were work related. She answered anyway.

"That's pretty damned advanced," Carolan replied with a puzzled frown. "I haven't even started on that level of modelling and calculus. Where did you have your aug fitted?"

"Privately—a surgeon by the name of Aubron Sylac."

"You didn't use an ECS-approved clinic?"

"No."

"Oh."

Moria sank back into a trancelike state, and after quickly working through the theories concerning the shuttle crash, dismissed them all and began working on her own. Calling up the specs of that shuttle, maintenance record, component failures, available backgrounds on pilot and passengers, she began to put together various scenarios. Abruptly she found the compass of her perception expanding as she began grabbing information from the local server and AI net. She realised that suddenly she was, as Carolan described it, compartmentalizing, because now she remained thoroughly aware of her physical surroundings, even while running searches and calculations. With a sudden surge of excitement she abruptly comprehended the sheer extent of what she was doing, the intricacy of detail, the incredible logic chains. Swiftly and precisely she came to her conclusion. The shuttle had been sabotaged. Someone broke the security protocols of its control systems and caused a course change resulting in it falling in the path of Vina.

Abruptly: NO NET NO NET *&?@??

What the hell?

"You are, of course, entirely correct, but no one must know about this," spoke a voice in her head.

"Who is this?"

Her aug supplied the answer: IDENTIFIER: TRAJEEN SYSTEM CARGO RUNCIBLE AI.

"Oh Shit"

Moria felt sweat break out all over her body.

"You will not post this information, and I advise that you delete it from your augmentations memstore."

"Erm…"

"The matter was resolved. Consider: the two private vessels contained those with Separatist affiliations. They crashed into Vina after the shuttle… accident. You'll not require further net access to understand the course of events."

Moria immediately replied, "They caused the shuttle crash. It was an act of terrorism and they were… executed?"

"Outstanding. Now, Carolan Prentis has sent you her eddress. I suggest, when I reconnect you, that you reply to her and study the information she has found. We will talk further after your shuttle docks. Again: do not attempt to post what you have discovered."

NET CONNECTION MADE >

EDDRESS REQUEST >

OFFLINE EDDRESS REQUEST?

ACCEPT?

Moria accepted, and shortly afterwards received an information package from Carolan Prentis:

Aubron Sylac (neuro-interface development, cosmetic, mechano and cerebral augmentation surgeon, MD of Anosin Cyberoptics, Professor of biomechanics, cerebral dynamics, nanobiotics and submicron mechanics, AI Philosophy and Synaptic Programming) was rumoured to have arrived on Trajeen this week. Three solstan years ago he escaped from Adjustment in the main clinic in London, Britain, on Earth, and ECS agents have been pursuing him ever since.

— Oh fuck—

Aubron Sylac was sentenced to Adjustment for illegal and dangerous research into augmentation technology…

— Double fuck—

The walls were seemingly constructed of laminated layers of rough white stone, green and red stained with algae. Tangles of iron-grey weed sprouted in crevices and large glistening lice scuttled here and there. In the ceiling, large metal grids concealed the slow rotation of fans which drew damp oceanic air through. The floor was pitted and scratched by the passage of hard spiky feet. Within this cavelike sanctum Captain Immanence, an adult Prador whose carapace spanned five metres, studied the fractured displays in the array of hexagonal screens before him and felt thoroughly satisfied with present progress. Sliding on the AG units shell-welded to the underside of his carapace he turned slowly towards the two second-children who had recently entered.

"Feed me," he commanded.

The two children scuttled forwards dragging the dripping purple slab of a mega fauna steak between them. Once directly below his mandibles they began tearing it apart and passing it up to him, piece by piece. Immanence still retained one claw and two legs, which was a bonus at his great age—only adolescent Prador retained the ability to regrow limbs—but preferred to be fed like this. It was a way of asserting authority and he knew that having to do this terrified both first-, second- and third-children alike, for there was no telling when he might feel inclined to eat one of them. Of course, they were thoroughly under the control of his pheromonal emissions, but the additional fear tended to make them even more solicitous of his good opinion.

As he munched his steak, scattering bloody gobbets on the floor to be scavenged by the ship lice, he considered Vortex's earlier message. It seemed that human flesh did not taste bad at all, and that there might be further benefits in subjugating this soft and complacent species. He finished the meat and allowed one of the second-children to scrub the resultant mess from his mandibles then polish them back to their usual sheen. While this task was being conducted he widened the channel connecting him, via one of the five control units welded to his carapace underneath his remaining claw, to the choud operating the controls behind him, and instructed it to move the ship closer toAvalon Station. Next, his mandibles gleaming sufficiently, he spun back to the controls and screens.

The two chouds here in the sanctum were hunched over, their branching forelimbs deep in pit controls and actually nerve-connected into the ship's hardware. The creatures, with their shiny hemispherical heads and segmented bodies, bore some similarity to ship lice, and were in fact related. Immanence noted that one of them was developing those grey patches that indicated its imminent demise. He controlled his irritation. Another would have to be brought up from storage, cored and thralled, and then installed. Elsewhere in the ship other creatures from home-world were similarly cored and thralled—their inadequate main ganglions removed and replaced by Prador thrall hardware—and ran the vessel's critical systems. Some of them would no doubt also die soon. Immanence preferred to use this method of controlling his ship because the creatures acted as a buffer between himself and the ship's systems. Direct connection via his control units would leave him vulnerable to attack by some rival. But it was not an ideal situation. Immanence realised that now, though he would not have given it a second thought a hundred years ago. It was the humans that showed how much better things could be: their dextrous and sensitive hands, their senses almost on a par with that of the Prador themselves, those small bodies capable of worming their way into any niche. To thrall and control such creatures would offer untold advantages to the Prador. And the fact that you could eat them as well…