‘Yes… meaning.’

‘Is it my imagination,’ asked Blegg, ‘or do you sound more and more like Dragon every day?’

On a ledge here, Blegg rested and eyed his companions on the rockface. The air carried less dust this high, so he could see them more clearly, which was not exactly reassuring. He checked the detector and saw that the Jain node lay only twenty yards away, in a straight line running up through and above the monolith. Not so far to climb, so he grimaced and continued, eventually coming up over the edge onto the top.

‘Ah… I see.’

Blegg unslung his pulse-rifle and casually aimed it, not that a weapon like that would do any good. He considered the grenades he carried and rejected the idea, too. Anyway, he could step away through U-space any time he chose.

Only a few yards away from him, the figure stood eight feet tall. It wore a wide-brimmed hat held in place against the wind by one heavy brass hand. Its coat was ragged, and it wore lace-up boots.

Mr Crane.

Perfectly complementing this menacing tableau, a vulture suddenly landed in a cloud of dust and a scattering of oily feathers. Blegg remembered this bird to be another Dragon creation; the mind it contained being the AI from the Vulture—the ship Skellor stole and which the AI had forced to crash here before transmitting itself to Dragon.

‘So, who’s been talking to Earth Central?’ Blegg asked out loud.

The vulture cocked its head and replied, ‘Me, of course.’ It extended a wing towards the big brass Golem. ‘He don’t say much.’

Mr Crane tilted his hat back on the brass dome of his skull, groped in one pocket, then took out a handful of various objects. He stirred them with one finger. Blegg noticed a piece of crystal disturbingly like that of the Atheter artefact, a blue acorn, a small rubber dog, and a golden ovoid. The brass Golem selected the ovoid from among them and held it up before his face like a jeweller inspecting a suspect gem, then, with a flick of his hand, tossed it to Blegg.

Too dangerous to touch, but Blegg snapped out a hand and snatched the object from the air. I’m dead, he thought, as he held up his hand and opened it. The Jain node rested in his palm, cubic patterns shifting on its surface.

‘You understand?’ Earth Central asked.

I’m damned.

The Jain node did not react at all.

Jack routed the package from Thellant into secure storage in a virtuality, where it howled like a pack of wolves confined behind a thin door. Aphran held back for a moment. Having witnessed the initial non-reactive scan of this package, she knew it to be layered with Jain tech subversion and sequestering routines, as was expected. However, though Jack perpetually delegated tasks to her, in this one there seemed some hidden purpose—she was too closely entwined with the AI to not realize that. She now extended the boundaries of the virtuality and projected herself inside it. For ease of handling she gave the memory package a form easy to comprehend on a VR level, while on an informational level her programs could take it apart. Swirling chaos eventually collapsed down to a stack of books in which squirmed venomous reptiles and insects—she needed to read these books yet avoid being stung or bitten. Beside her, a thin man appeared. He wore a pinstripe suit, bowler hat, and the glitter of thick spectacles concealed his eyes. Jack Ketch, the hangman.

‘No reservations?’ Jack asked, just like with Freyda, the Separatist.

‘I have some,’ said Aphran. ‘I’ve been working for the Polity under a sentence of erasure, which I know will never be repealed. Why should I continue?’

‘Because as long as you work, that sentence will not be executed.’

‘And because you may be damaged in the process.’

Jack leant forwards. ‘You think?’

‘Yes, though you have been gradually disentangling yourself and I suspect that, while I deal with this’—she gestured to the VR representation—‘you will pull away even more.’

‘Yes,’ Jack replied, ‘the processing power you will require in this task will further weaken your hold on me. I may even be able to separate from you completely.’

‘Does it mean nothing to you that I saved your life?’

‘My life is very important to me—which is precisely the point: my life.’

‘So you are going to erase me, just like you did Freyda.’

‘You believe that?’

‘I do.’

‘Then do not carry out this task.’

Aphran looked upon the perilous stack of books. She seemed damned either way: doing this, she could be separated from Jack and wiped out; if she did not do this, it would just take longer.

‘Very well, let it be over.’ She turned from him to her chore, feeling him fade and distance himself from her.

Aphran picked up one book. Some centipedal monstrosity immediately wound itself around her arm and opened its pincers. She caught its head in her fist and crushed it, then opened the book. This one detailed Thellant losing two Separatist cells, one after the other, and fearing a trail would lead back to him, then subsequently learning that his contacts in those cells were all assassinated on their way to interrogation. He suspected ECS, but it seemed a crazy move to kill those who could lead them to other cells. Next, the Legate waiting in Thellant’s apartment, to claim credit for the killings and to make an offer. The centipede broke up into segments, each of which transformed into a scorpion. She knocked some of these away but others stung her. Worms propagated through her. She fought them, pulled more of herself into the virtuality, doubled and redoubled. Four Aphrans picked up books, and fought the killer programs—more of herself in, redoubling. Some versions of herself coming apart, others intercepting vital information from them. All the while, behind her, like strings being cut, she could feel Jack separating himself. Nothing she could do about that now, for she could not turn away from this task until it was done.

In the virtuality a virtual age passed, though only minutes in real time. Virtual pain hurt just as much as the real thing as the Jain tech programs ripped into her, but this Aphran was a product of that same technology. She reconfigured herself, sent in her own programs like informational DDT, stamped and splattered her attackers, cut off self-propagating worms at their source, confined nasty HK programs in briefly generated virtual spaces and then collapsed them to zero. She saw how Thellant’s organization expanded as a direct result of the Legate’s assistance, saw him grow rich and dependent. Numerous meetings between the two of them revealed snippets of information she put together. The Legate was just that: a legate working on behalf of someone or something else. It showed technical abilities beyond that of normal Golem—seeming suspiciously like the product of Jain technology. Eventually she gathered it all: everything about Thellant and the Legate. And she now knew how the Legate might be found.

Re-absorbing her alternative selves, Aphran became one again in the virtuality, a neat stack of books before her and shattered chitin spread all around, vaporizing and turning to dust.

‘Give it to me,’ said Jack.

She stood alone, with just one channel open to Jack—her only link outside the virtuality. He had broken away totally and now she could be safely erased. She considered destroying everything she had obtained, or holding onto it and bleeding over small amounts just to extend her existence. But in the end she truly regretted all the things she had done as a Separatist. The arrogance and stupidity of her earlier self appalled and disgusted her.

Enough.

Aphran transmitted all the data, and Jack accepted it.

‘Do I die now?’ she asked.

‘Yes—in every way that matters to the Polity.’

Aphran felt herself contracting, going out, draining away.