‘There went something else,’ said Mika.

Through his gridlink Cormac sent, ‘I understand the Delphic pronouncements, the lies, the half truths. Do you understand what is happening now? What has always been happening?’

‘I understand,’ Jerusalem replied.

‘Would somebody explain?’ asked Mika.

‘Dragon is, and has always been, fighting its Maker base programming,’ Jerusalem told her.

‘Oh,’ said Mika, and nothing more.

After a pause Cormac went on, ‘We could give Dragon a weapon with which to resist that programming. It might not make it any more truthful, but we won’t know until we try.’ Through his link he summoned up another projection next to the guardian: one of the creatures Chaline had seen. Dragon abruptly swung two more pseudopods towards this, then became very still.

‘Note the similarity between these two,’ said Cormac.

‘You could not have been there,’ said Dragon.

‘Time-inconsistent runcible,’ explained Cormac. ‘Eight hundred years in the future we found this.’ The two made-creatures disappeared. In their place, a ruined world, a station infested with Jain substructures, spreading clouds of Jain nodes. Then more views in the same vein, one after another after another.

‘The Maker civilization no longer exists,’ Cormac told Dragon. ‘Even the one who came here, pursuing you, sacrificed itself. The energy from the inconsistent link backlashed into the Small Magellanic Cloud, hopefully obliterating most if not all of these remnants.’

While the pictures ran, Cormac began transmitting to Dragon files compiled and still being compiled ever since the events on Celedon station. The sheer weight of information should convince Dragon—there should be images of other sights unknown to any who had not visited the Small Magellanic Cloud, also the Maker codes, and other minutiae from which Dragon could draw only one conclusion: it was being told the truth.

‘I’m told’, Cormac went on, ‘that maybe in a few million years some of those Jain nodes may drift into Polity space. It is to be hoped we’ll be sufficiently advanced by then for them not to cause any bother. Either that or extinct. But what concerns me is the Jain nodes that are already here now.’

‘Multiple power surges inside it,’ Mika told him. ‘Some kind of crisis.’

Cormac observed an electrical discharge arcing from one of the cobra pseudopods down to polished ceramal. That pod began to shrivel, its sapphire eye went out, then it abruptly collapsed out of sight. The room began vibrating, as if in an earthquake.

‘Could there be a self-destruct pro—’

Jerusalem interrupted, ‘Ejecting CTDs.’

In his gridlink Cormac sent an instruction to the surrounding machinery: Exterior view. He turned in his chair as the walls and ceiling apparently disappeared to reveal the living landscape outside, showing the manacle extending equatorially. Ports were opening along the metallic strip, and objects hurtling out of them and away. As he turned back, the main dragon head abruptly withdrew from him, turned and bit down on the neck of one attendant pseudopod and shook it like a terrier with a rat. The pseudopod died and dropped away as soon as released.

‘It occurs to me that indirect communication might have been better for my health,’ Cormac observed out loud.

‘Areas burnt out inside Dragon,’ Mika informed him.

Cormac continued to Dragon, ‘The Makers were at war with Jain technology, then at peace with it, and thought they had mastered it. Evidently they had not.’

The dragon head swung back towards him. As it did so, more pseudopods rose from the cavity behind it. A smell filled the building—frying squid. The Dragon head blinked, its mouth seemingly twisting with distaste. A long still pause ensued—a silence Cormac felt no urge to break. Eventually the dragon head dipped and spoke.

‘I am based upon Jain technology,’ it concurred. ‘As you surmised, the Makers investigated it and fought against it for thousands of years. They conquered it, assimilated it, and thought to have a perfect understanding of it. They then considered themselves ready for massive expansion into the main galaxy, but an alien civilization was already rapidly expanding in that galaxy.’

‘That would be us, then.’

‘Yes. As you also surmised, my base programming could not permit me to tell you the whole truth: only give hints, half-truths, evident lies. Now the Makers no longer exist, the foundation of my base programming no longer exists. All that remained was the self-destruct, which I have defeated. You were only seven seconds away from me using my gravtech weapon, and thus detonating those CTDs.’

‘You can tell me the truth now, but will you?’ Cormac wondered.

One of the newly fledged pseudopods surged forwards until its cobra head hovered just over the floor right before Cormac, its hood folded underneath. It came down until resting on the surface and reopened its hood. Objects rattled on the ceramal. Four spheres lay there, conjoined like the four Dragon spheres originally were.

‘I have encased them: anti-nanite casings, then laminations of lead and diamond. The breaking of molecular bonds in these materials is not sufficient to provide energy for internal growth.’

‘Jain nodes,’ Cormac guessed.

Dragon continued, ‘I was sent here especially to seed Jain nodes across the Polity. You people not having encountered Jain technology before, the Makers surmised that the resultant internecine conflict would wipe out both the human race and the AIs. It could have worked and may work yet—that one Jain node under Skellor’s control caused considerable localized problems, but could have resulted in catastrophe for the entire Polity.’

‘And where did he get his node from?’ Cormac asked.

‘Allow me to finish.’

Cormac sat back, considering himself rebuked. He also noted how rapidly Dragon retrieved the nodes—the pseudopod bearing them slickly disappearing back inside the scaled entity.

‘Upon my arrival here, a mere three centuries ago, I cut off all contact with my masters, the Makers and chose not to distribute the nodes, and as a result came into conflict with my base programming. This illustrates that the Maker’s grasp of the technologies they employed was not as firm as they liked to believe. Jain technology changes those who use it. I originally came to consciousness in a time when the Makers would never have contemplated conquest. I retained the same attitude, but changed by the technology they used, they did not. I understood the danger to them, but they could not see it. I predicted the obliteration of their kind by Jain tech, but not so soon.’

‘So you didn’t come here before the human race existed, as you previously claimed?’

‘No, that was a lie.’

‘Samarkand?’

‘I caused a catastrophe resulting in the deaths of many humans while attempting to trap and destroy the Maker. I could not then tell you the truth of why I did this—of the danger the Maker represented to humanity.’

‘Such vast amounts of altruism concealed by that evil base programming,’ Cormac observed.

Jerusalem replied with equal sarcasm, ‘It could not possibly be anything to do with the Maker coming here to shut Dragon down, then?’

‘And the danger to yourself?’ Cormac continued.

‘The Maker’s secondary purpose.’

‘The primary?’

‘To seed Jain nodes.’

‘It was to shut you down, then take the nodes in your possession, and seed them itself around the Polity?’

‘No.’

‘Why don’t you just tell me?’

‘I destroyed its ship. There were no nodes aboard. You found none in its escape pod, either. And that it was so willing to return home meant it possessed none. Yet, the Maker most certainly brought more nodes with it.’

A shiver travelled up Cormac’s spine. He began using cognitive programs to pick the bones out of what Dragon had told him — looking for flaws and broken logic chains.