Thorn sighed and began to unstrap himself.
‘But should we pursue any further,’ asked a new voice, ‘as we now know where to look? Should we not now call in the dreadnoughts? That our quarry is continuing along its original course might indicate that whatever awaits at its destination is not too worried about us.’
Thorn eyed the ancient Japanese man. He had a point: why risk four Centurions against an unknown foe?
‘But do we know where to look?’ Cormac asked. ‘This could merely be diversionary, and I’m not happy about bringing the larger force all the way out here until some target is confirmed.’ He gazed at Blegg. ‘Unless I am instructed otherwise, we continue.’
Blegg shrugged resignedly and disappeared.
Utterly connected and at one with the Heliotrope, as it rose from U-space into the real, Orlandine felt an amusement almost sublime. Her dreams provided her with clues, and her partial interfacing with Jain technology provided the means. Now she could detect a node signature in U-space. In those first moments of abrupt mental growth she assigned programs to the task and, on abandoning the Dyson segment, decided to track down other Jain nodes. And look where that search brought her: full circle.
She identified the four Centurion-class attack ships, way in front of her, only when the trap revealed them, though she had been aware of something in that location, for a node signature registered from there. She then surmised that the other node signature far ahead of them issued from the alien vessel. It further occurred to her that the Polity ships might be using the same tracking methods as herself, which was probably why they did not lose the ship despite its chameleonware being as sophisticated as their own.
But what now?
She had decided to track down node signatures in the hope of observing uncontrolled Jain growth, to learn more and perhaps locate their original source. But pursuing these two could soon become a lethal occupation. Her most sensible move would be to abandon the idea, and flee to somewhere remote where material and energy resources would be easily available to her. A planet was out of the question, for she was still not prepared to take the risk of putting herself in so vulnerable a position at the bottom of a gravity well. Perhaps an asteroid or comet close to a sun… but, even while considering those options, she kept the Heliotrope on the trail of the Polity ships, who in turn might well be following the alien vessel to its home.
There were no disagreements from the AIs about continuing this quest, but that was not unexpected as warship AIs tended not to back down. Cormac felt Blegg’s point only valid so far. Whatever lay ahead might be something small they could easily neutralize. It might be very mobile, in which case halting now would defeat the whole reason for allowing the Legate to escape since, while they awaited the larger force, the Legate and whoever or whatever had sent it might escape. And if the Legate’s master turned out to be something too large for them to handle, then they could run, and only thereafter would it be time to pull in the dreadnoughts and destroyers.
Cormac returned from the bridge to his cabin, and lying on his bunk, worked through in his gridlink all the recordings of recent events. Jack informed him that the large object the NEJ had destroyed with a CTD imploder was once an old Polity ship called the Calydonian Boar. Apparently it had joined up with some other AIs that headed out this way after the Prador War. This suggested those AIs either ran into something utilizing Jain technology or alternatively tech arising from it. Or had used it themselves. The positioning of such a defence implied something to defend, which somewhat undermined his theory about a mobile opponent. He sighed and banished speculation—however it ran, they would achieve their aim here: not to engage and defeat some enemy, but to clearly identify one. It seemed they would know shortly to whom the Maker had handed over its Jain nodes.
He turned his thoughts to other matters. The memory package still awaited his attention, and yet again he began to consider the implications of that. He had once managed to translate himself through U-space, and though he could not see how that might be possible, it seemed nevertheless a damned useful ability to possess. He really needed to re-integrate those memories, to see if he could re-acquire that ability. However, he remained reluctant to venture into that hell, those memories integral to what Skellor made him suffer. Other thoughts impinged: that he could translate himself through U-space might imply that Blegg, who claimed to be able to do the same, might be telling the truth after all, so was not merely some avatar of Earth Central. Perhaps they were both that mythical thing so beloved of holofiction producers: ‘the post-human’. Cormac grunted in annoyance, dismissing the idea. The reality, he felt sure, was that the AIs were the genuine post-humans.
He decided the package would have to wait until after the resolution of forthcoming events out here. Absorbing it now might psychologically damage him—impair his efficiency—and, until Blegg told him otherwise, he remained in charge and could not afford to risk that. He slid his feet off the bed and perched on the edge. He desperately needed something to do, and like the humans aboard the other ships, he headed for the ship’s training area.
16
Thin-gun: there is still much debate about whether this weapon, much loved by holofiction producers, was first introduced fictionally or actually. I’ll get back to that shortly, but first let me describe this weapon: well, for a start, it’s thin. ECS took the components of a typical gas-system or aludust pulse-gun, reduced them to their smallest size, and flattened them. The basic ethos behind this weapon is that it is easily concealed—being flat, it does not bulk in clothing. As such it is the main choice for those regularly working undercover, be they Polity agents or criminals. Further developments by ECS resulted in microtok-charged energy canisters—combined with either a gas or powdered aluminium load — being constructed small enough to insert into the handle of this weapon in the form of a clip. Some thin-guns contain a sub-AI micromind that can prevent the gun being fired by anyone other than its rightful owner, or can cause it to detonate its own power supply if pointed at its owner, and can even make a moral decision about whether or not it wants to fire at all. But, returning to the fiction/fact debate concerning these weapons, the first fictional thin-gun appeared in a VR interactive game, before the Polity became a distinct entity and before the runcible-based expansion. Despite the rather savage methods the authorities employed at that time, corporate police were never able to trace its producer. The interactive, though withdrawn from sale through licensed outlets because of its seditious content, sold very well on the black market and rose to attain cult status. Subsequent investigations revealed its producer to be very probably one of the rogue AIs involved in the Quiet War. The same AI may well be still extant—though it’s not telling.
- From ‘How it Is’ by Gordon
The solar system, still in the process of forming out of an accretion disc, contained thirty-two planetary masses, eight about the same size as Neptune or Uranus, and two further Jovian masses, the rest falling into the size range between Neptune and Earth. Other masses—asteroids, moons, comets—numbered in trillions. Gas and dust shrouded all, meteor strikes and massive storms lit the interior intermittently, as did the slowly growing sporadic luminosity of the nascent sun, as fusion fires fought with black spots for dominance of the solar sphere.