Ensconced on the couch in this viewing lounge, he smelt her hair and felt quite comfortable with her head resting on his chest. ‘The AIs assess events and make their predictions, but “cards” does seem an apt description—it all can seem as unlikely as tarot to the rest of us.’

‘They did not predict so well. Many people have died and many ships were destroyed,’ Mika observed. ‘And, from what I gather, there is still some confusion about what Erebus’s overall strategy might be.’

Cormac nodded, the illogic of recent events bothering him too. ‘Erebus just gave us a very bloody nose indeed, but I agree: why deliver a bloody nose early rather than await the opportunity to deliver a killing blow?’

‘You might also ask: why attack at all? As the understatement goes, space is big and there’s room in it for us all.’

‘The Makers didn’t think so.’

‘We don’t know what they thought.’

‘Indeed,’ Cormac concurred.

Cormac could not yet see the rogue AI’s intent, but he would see it at some point, just as he had fathomed Blegg before the man understood himself. Earth Central, whom he spoke to only an hour before entering this lounge, had told him, ‘I needed an agent directly connected to myself, a probe into human society to ken events from the human level.’

‘But why a probe that considered itself immortal?’ Cormac asked.

‘He required continuity to give himself the necessary perspective. I created Blegg’s mind thirty seconds after I myself came online, mapped out his history and decided how I would run him.’

‘Why the legend?’

‘The memes originated not from Blegg or myself, but from all those humans with whom he became involved over the ages. At first I considered stopping those memes—keeping his existence secret — but I soon learned how, in the presence of a living legend, humans often feel impelled to excel. Humans need their heroes, they need to believe they can be something… better. The legend of the lone immortal has been a staple of myth throughout human history, and Blegg perfectly fitted that mould.’

‘And what about what happened to him back there?’

‘In the early years I ran him in a Golem chassis, but substantial alterations of his memory kept being required since injury easily revealed to him what he really was. Only when technology had reached a certain level was I able to create his biomech bodies. However, such bodies contain much information that could be useful to an enemy, so they had to contain a fail-safe, as did his mind.’

‘But he knew what he was—you let him know there on Cull, with that Jain node. He told me Mr Crane tossed it to him and he caught it in his bare hand, and because it did not react to him he knew he wasn’t human.’

‘He would have learned anyway. Your assertion to him that he was an avatar of me was only a small step. The sheer accumulation of data throughout his existence was leading him to that same inevitable conclusion. Only by erasing hundreds of years of his memory could I return him to his original unknowing state, and then he would be of little use to me anyway.’

‘Are you going to resurrect him again?’

‘Blegg is obsolescent.’

‘But surely you need him now more than ever?’

‘No, I do not, for I have you, Ian Cormac’

Sprawled on the sofa, Cormac felt his surprisingly relaxed attitude stemmed from the utter weariness at his core. But how true was his weariness? How true was anything about him? He could move through U-space just like Blegg could not… or was that a lie?

… for I have you, Ian Cormac.

Gazing out at the star drives and the stars, Cormac wondered if he was the new model Horace Blegg just created by Earth Central. He studied his hand. Biomechanism or human? And how different are they in the end?

How could he possibly know?

Orlandine had been travelling through U-space for five days now, her course taking her around from the galactic rim, while skirting the Polity, and in towards the clustered stars of the inner galaxy. Soon, she decided, she would adjourn to a cold coffin, shut down the tech operating inside her body and sleep for a hundred years. Somewhere, deep within the Milky Way galaxy, she would wake and find herself a world that the line of Polity would not reach for a millennium, supposing the Polity itself survived for that long. There she could fully explore the Jain technology, and there build something… numinous.

As a further five days passed, Orlandine realized she was procrastinating. Eventually she threw a hard question at herself.

‘Okay, Orlandine, what is this numinous thing you are going to build, and who’s going to appreciate it anyway?’ She paused, gazing out through Heliotrope’s sensors at the cold light of the stars.

‘Oh hell,’ she finally muttered, and turned the ship around.