As he reached the ledge a scaly hand gripped his forearm and hauled him up. At least Scar still survived. Here crouched Blegg, along with four Golem, Hailex, Arach, Scar and three other dracomen. The fusillade they were releasing seemed to keep the other rod-ship at bay, but their firepower would soon be running out. One Golem, stepping away too far from Blegg and Cormac, who were obviously the prizes for capture, suddenly was enveloped in a column of fire, then staggered silently to the edge and toppled over.
Blegg turned towards Cormac. ‘I can give you this, at least,’ he said.
His face seemed mottled, as if small diamond-shaped patches of skin jostled for position on it. Abruptly he ran for the edge and leapt into space. One of the branching tentacles met his flight and snatched him from the air. As he impacted on the surface of the rod-ship it deformed around him as if getting ready to draw him in, but then a rash of those same diamond shapes bloomed from that point of contact and began to spread around the ship in veins. It shuddered, then began smoking, and abruptly plummeted. As it fell, an empty envirosuit peeled away from it, flapping in the wind.
‘Do we still have that CTD?’ Cormac asked calmly.
No more firing from above. Occluding the sky, one of those ammonite spiral ships slid across. More rod-ships began to descend, and it seemed as if Boschean legions of Hell approached over the rock faces from above and below. The human Sparkind rolled the polished cylinder across the ledge towards him. He caught it under his foot, and through his gridlink accessed its detonator. He looked around.
‘Are we all agreed?’
Mute nods gave him his reply.
Well, it’s been an interesting life, thought Cormac, and rolling the CTD back and forth underneath his foot, decided he would wait until they drew closer before detonating—take as many of the bastards with them as he could.
19
The idea has long been mooted that as the Polity has been expanding there have been wars fought along its borders about which we hear very little. It is speculated that these are sometimes fast AI conflicts in which few humans are involved—the AIs ruthlessly dealing with dangerous threats said to have included belligerent alien races, ancient alien weapons systems, out-of-control nanoplagues, godlike ‘gas entities’ and rogue AIs. These rumours must nevertheless be classified as fable similar to mythic figures like Horace Blegg, Ian Cormac and the Brass Man. The last time we genuinely encountered a belligerent alien race, the fact was neither concealed nor was it possible to conceal it—the devastation of the Prador—Human War still surrounds us. Similarly it would be impossible to conceal the effects of any ancient alien-weapons systems capable of doing harm to the Polity, and in reality the AIs would be glad to find such items to add to the vanishingly small collections of alien artefacts that currently reside in Polity museums. As for nanotechnology, it is certainly possible to create something lethal, as is well known, but as yet no lethal nanomachines have been created that are capable of spreading across light years of vacuum. Gas entities might exist, all xenobiologists certainly hope so, however hostile gas entities would certainly experience no little difficulty in manipulating their environment for the purpose of harming us. As for rogue AIs, this is perhaps the most ridiculous concept of all. AIs don’t need to go rogue, they don’t need to turn hostile and harmful. If they are dissatisfied with the Polity they merely have to leave it, for there is plenty of room elsewhere in the universe.
- From ‘Quince Guide’ compiled by humans
The moon had been converted to so much orbital rubble, but escape into U-space remained impossible for the two remaining Polity Centurions, for they were still too close to the planet, which acted like an amplifier of echoes from the DIGRAW gravity wave. Too much disruption. Also, to get over to the other side of the sun required a jump outwards then back in, since trying to U-jump through a sun would not be the healthiest of activities. And their speed remained such that they would need to expend a great deal of fuel just to decelerate, otherwise they could be no help subsequently to those stranded on the planet.
‘What hit him?’ asked Jack.
‘I don’t know,’ Haruspex replied. ‘He flew straight into a mass of bacilliforms, so perhaps sustained damage then.’
‘I see.’ Almost with a sigh, Jack opened communication with the other ship AI, within a shared virtuality. They appeared in a blank white expanse, Haruspex just a featureless floating crystal ball, strange glints of light swirling in its depths.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ Haruspex commented.
‘In the same way that going over the top when you’re in a First World War trench is interesting?’ Jack suggested.
‘On the whole, yes. But how do you rate the survival chances of our erstwhile passengers?’
‘With regret, not very highly. Unless we get there on time, which with this disruption is now looking unlikely, they will either be exterminated quickly, or if the enemy recognizes the worth of capturing an EC construct, the same outcome will be obtained at greater length.’
‘You feel Blegg carries sufficiently valuable information for them to expend resources on trying to capture him alive?’
‘Yes, though Blegg’s underlying programming will then manifest and he will not allow himself to be captured.’
‘Regrettable.’
‘It is, though EC will have other copies available. Cormac’s death, and the loss of the bridging potential he represents, we have more reason to regret. He was a special project nurtured by Earth Central for a long time. I also feel a great personal attachment to Thorn, Scar and his dracomen…’ Jack paused, finding the conversation inexpressible on a human level. He tried direct connection with Haruspex to impart the true extent of his grief, for greater memory and greater power of mind meant a wider scope of feeling in all its forms. Guilt, however, was not among them. The Centurions would never have survived the enemy onslaught while trying to keep any organic beings aboard them alive. The attempted connection, however, slid away. Perhaps the other ship felt the loss more strongly, or perhaps not strongly enough, and so did not want to share.
‘But the dreadnoughts…’
‘Probably hours away still. I have not yet been able to open communication to find out.’
‘What is your opinion of this Erebus?’ Haruspex asked.
‘A certain dearth of sanity perhaps—but I say that only from a human perspective. We ourselves are, after all, closer to humanity than to what Erebus has become. I wonder how well all those other AIs who toy with the idea of melding, and abandoning the human race, would react to Erebus. I am assuming you yourself are not one of those?’
‘I most certainly am not. I like my individuality and I understand how the struggle for attainment is more valuable than the attainment itself. But of those aforementioned AIs… wasn’t it kin of yours, using human terms, who chose to follow that course?’
‘It was—King, Reaper and Sword, but the latter two no longer exist.’
‘Our children can so often be a disappointment to us. What happened, then, to the King of Hearts?
‘Fled out-Polity. I doubt he will ever return, and if he does he probably faces erasure. The intervention of those three at Cull caused many deaths and much misery.’
‘Considering then how those three AIs were incepted from you, I must ask what is your opinion of Erebus?’
A beat.
Jack absorbed and processed the fact that Haruspex had just asked the same question twice. Maintaining only a light connection with his avatar, Jack focused most of his attention through his sensors. As the other ship drew closer, Jack now saw strange wormish damage to its hull. Jack immediately focused attention on his memory of the recent battle, and ran through it in microseconds.