‘Well, hello, Orlandine,’ said the entity, the virus.

Orlandine gazed at the scruffy-looking man and knew that this could not be a human being.

‘What are you?’ she asked, while on other levels she investigated the structures of information that had caused this apparition to appear.

‘Me?’ He pointed with both forefingers at his own unshaven face. ‘I’m a seriously pissed-off dead man.’ He grinned. ‘The name’s Fiddler Randal.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Well, I want something to die — the something that killed me — and I want your help.’

‘Ah, and coincidentally you were transmitted to me by a wormship.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve managed to spread myself throughout Erebus.’

A dubious contention, Orlandine thought, but nevertheless asked, ‘Why should I help you?’

‘Because that same something manipulated you; intended you to be a weapon it could use against the Polity.’

‘So you want Erebus to die — the same entity of which you seem to be a part,’ said Orlandine. ‘Now why should I try to kill it? Despite Erebus’s manipulation of me, it still gave me the greatest gift I could ever have wanted.’

‘Like making you a murderer?’

Orlandine felt distinctly uncomfortable with that statement. Without doubt, Randal was referring to her partner, Shoala, whom she had killed while covering up traces of her escape with the Jain node that had been Erebus’s ‘gift’ to her.

‘That was my choice,’ Orlandine replied. ‘It’s one I regret, but it was mine alone. I cannot blame Erebus for that, only myself.’

‘Then you’re much more forgiving than Erebus is,’ said Randal. ‘You see, you didn’t do what you were supposed to do. Admittedly I had a hand in that, as I’ve had a hand in a lot of Erebus’s fuck-ups. But Erebus, for all its power both mental and physical, is a petty being.’

‘Are you ever going to get to the point?’

‘The point is this.’

He slid to one side and the virtuality changed. With a spasm of nostalgia, Orlandine gazed upon the landscape of her homeworld. She recognized the fields of plants drastically altered to supply biomodules for high-tech Polity industries. She recognized the purple-blue colour of the sky, and could almost smell the complex pollens in the air. Her memories were clear, because even way back then she had undergone the physical alterations, including the fitting of a gridlink, that were the starting point to becoming a haiman. In those days there had still been much debate about the morality of choosing a child’s future at so young an age, but at that time, to enable someone to become a haiman, it had been necessary for the first alterations to be made while still very young. The AIs had allowed her mother to change her, and now, as an adult, she understood why. The AIs had wanted humans to climb a bit further out of the primordial swamp.

Her brothers, the twins Ariadne and Ermoon, had attained full haiman status before her, but then they were both twenty years older. Their mother, Ariadne, had been single-minded about the future she had planned for them all. She could never understand the boys’ later objections to what she had forced upon them, and had been greatly disappointed when, after the divorce of Ariadne and their father, the boys refused to make the move to Europa. She also clung on when Orlandine had made the move to the Cassius Project — always the constant stream of messages, the proprietary interest and the gifts that Orlandine felt sure were sent to assuage Ariadne’s sense of guilt.

And, look, there were the twins.

The data flow increased and she began to sense the scene as if she was actually there, standing over them. They were bound to the ground in some kind of organic cage, fighting to free themselves. Briefly a long-fingered metallic hand swept into view right above them, and both of them began to scream and struggle harder. Wisps of smoke rose from their clothing as it began to blacken, and Orlandine could smell melting plastic. Flames burst through the fabric and the two young men began to burn. Their screams became something almost unhuman, fading to agonized gruntings and gaspings. A smell like seared pork permeated the air as the flames grew magnesium-bright, consuming the two bodies and the entire structure encaging them. Finally it was over, and nothing remained but ash. In a blink the scene was gone… and Fiddler Randal was back.

Orlandine used every method available to her to keep her emotions under control. She altered the flow of neurochemicals in her brain, modulated the balance of her blood electrolytes and sugars and artificially stimulated precise patterns of synaptic firing. She did not allow herself shock or grief, or anger.

‘What is this?’ she asked with robotic calm.

‘One of the problems with Jain technology is that with such huge processing space available it is possible for much to exist in the gaps without interfering with its basic function,’ said Randal. ‘I’m part of Erebus — a ghost in the machine — and as such, while I evade being trapped and erased, I can know Erebus’s mind and see all that it does. I therefore saw this.’

‘Supposing that these images are even true,’ said Orlandine, ‘what was Erebus’s purpose in doing this?’

‘Plain vengeance. As well as not letting Erebus’s gift of Jain technology overwhelm you and then turn it on the Polity, enough information was transmitted for Erebus to know it was you who destroyed its USER, thus allowing the Polity fleet to escape. For my host it was the smallest diversion of resources to kill your two brothers like that.’

‘I see.’

After a long silence, Randal asked, ‘So what are your plans now?’

In the cold emotionless place Orlandine presently occupied, she felt no urge to plan anything. However, she was a haiman, and having sought and found the synergy of the human and the machine, she could not totally deny her human side. Still remaining analytically cold, she reasoned that if she verified those images, upon re-establishing normal emotion she would grieve — and then grow angry, appallingly angry. All other thoughts and aims would be swept aside.

‘You could easily be some agent of Erebus sent to manipulate me again,’ she said.

‘Yes, I could.’

‘How can you help me?’

‘That depends on what you intend to do.’

‘If these images really show the truth, then I believe I intend to destroy Erebus.’ But of course she already understood that Randal knew this would be her answer.

‘Okay, that being the case, I can show you in detail how Erebus intends to bring down the Polity. Or at least I can show you what his plans were just before I transmitted myself to you.’

‘So you’re a copy of the original version of yourself still existing within Erebus,’ Orlandine observed. ‘Surely you would do better to give this information to the AI Jerusalem, who I understand is in command of the present defence?’

‘It is the nature of all Erebus’s plans that they contain a glaring flaw ready to be exploited by an enemy. I should know because I am always the cause of that flaw, just as I am the flaw within Erebus.’

Orlandine wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. ‘Do go on.’

‘Unfortunately, were I to inform Jerusalem of Erebus’s present plan, it would then be countered, but in such a way that Erebus would escape mostly unharmed. However, if its present attack plan is carried through, someone else exploiting that flaw could, with sufficient resources, obliterate Erebus. You must understand that there are those who welcome Erebus’s aggression and its… consequences.’

Orlandine pondered that statement for a moment. ‘You’re saying there are those within the Polity who are on Erebus’s side?’

‘It’s not a case of sides. Erebus’s present aggression is considered useful by some very high-up Polity AIs. But you don’t want to know exactly who — trust me on this.’

This was not so surprising, Orlandine supposed. There had often been AI rebels in the past.