by Neal Asher
“I was Golem once,” Angel repeated, the words ghosting after them.
ORLANDINE
Orlandine’s ship materialized into the real in the glare of the accretion disc, the nearest weapons platform a glinting speck against a wash of milky white. She at once firmed her connections to the defence sphere and to the Jaskoran system. Knobbler was gone, taking the larger runcible out to the Harding black hole. Harlequin had arrived here some hours ago with the smaller exit runcible, and was now slowly bringing it into indicted space over the disc—not at its rim. She was close to this device and watched the tug hauling it in. It seemed too small in comparison to the vastness of the disc, and for what was required of it.
“Why so slow?” she asked perfunctorily.
“Best to be cautious,” the assassin drone replied.
She understood the drone’s caution. After what had happened to Weapons Platform Mu, and following her recent communications with the AIs of the defence sphere, they were jumpy. If the runcible arrived in indicted space and got knocked out into the real by a USER pulse or mine, it would be damaged. It was also not beyond reason that another platform might have been taken over like Mu. One stray shot at the runcible, and all Orlandine’s plans would be dust. So, being as cautious as Harlequin, she began to review the ghost drives of all the AIs here. For a second she wondered why it did not seem such an onerous task this time, but she quickly understood. She peered, through normal vision, at the Jain-tech links spread out from her body, now connected all around her into her interface sphere. It was doing what it did; infiltrating and subsuming other technology. But it was doing so in response to her mental demand, so was of no concern . . .
“They are clear,” she finally told Harlequin. “Take thrust up to maximum and come in—we need to get this done as soon as possible.”
The closest she could get the runcible to the proto-sun at the centre of the disc was down the axis of the disc, to the edge of the cloud. Any deeper and the Jain tech there would respond. If she gated the black hole at light speed it would cause a blast and trigger precisely the disaster the Wheel was aiming for, so it had to travel relatively slowly from the gate. It would take ten days to reach that sun. Certainly, an attack could come before then, but she had to make this attempt to neutralize the threat.
Sun fire flared and threw the runcible into silhouette as the tug accelerated. Orlandine now spoke to the defence sphere AIs, also sending tactical information.
“The Jain soldier can alter its form by sequestering matter and converting it,” she said. “It can change very fast given sufficient energy.”
“Then we isolate it in vacuum, which will take energy, but keep it away from anything it can use to convert,” suggested one.
“Yes, that is what we must do.”
“And we keep on hitting it until its own U-space store destroys it,” said another. “We have to keep it out of the disc and away from the proto-sun.”
“Yes again,” she replied, hoping it would be that simple. She’d prefer a black hole sitting where the sun now lay—drawing in the disc, the Jain technology there and all those billions of Jain nodes.
Already, in response to her tactical data, the configuration of the defence sphere was changing. Whereas before most sensors and weapons had been directed in towards the accretions disc, they now started to turn outwards. Attack pods were moving out, while fifty platforms were realigning, others shifting to cover their positions. Within minutes the fifty platforms jumped, along with a portion of their attack pods—the behemoths slid into U-space with a notable disturbance of that continuum. A moment later they reappeared scattered about the runcible.
“Match course and defend,” Orlandine instructed. “Nothing hits that runcible even if you have to put yourself in the way.”
Was it enough? If the soldier arrived before she gated the black hole it might recognize the danger represented by the runcible and seek to destroy it. But then if she sent more platforms to protect it, that would leave too many openings in the defence sphere. No, she calculated that fifty was right, based on the resources she had available.
The fifty AIs from those platforms acknowledged this without words, as their drives kicked in to keep them with the runcible and their subsidiary attack pods spread out around it. Orlandine now turned her attention to some of the questions the AIs were asking her.
“If it arrives before I gate the Harding black hole through, we cannot use full USER disruption, just a USER pulse or mine to knock the soldier into the real,” she replied to one question. “That would disrupt the runcible transmission and it is difficult enough as it is.”
“But still it will try to jump into the accretion disc,” one suggested.
“We must confine ourselves to USER pulses and short disruption duration mines.” She paused. “We hit it hard and keep hitting it hard. We have a good chance here of forcing it to maintain its hardfield until it destroys itself.”
It was not a good situation. If the thing came early, and if they gave it a chance to do any more than short-jump, it would be in the disc. Then what? They would have to follow and tackle it in there, which would be a mess. She just hoped, in that case, that however it intended to detonate the proto-sun—perhaps using anti-matter bombardment or something related to its advanced U-space tech—would take some time. If it came early, and if she didn’t manage to gate the black hole. And then of course there was the possibility of interference. Earth Central and the king of the prador had to now know the danger she faced and what she was doing in response. Would either of them send ships to hinder or help?
She sent further technical data about the soldier’s hardfield, and anything else she could think of that might be useful. But in reality, the AIs understood the situation and would respond at optimum. Just as she would respond, for she was now little different from them. She tried to smile but nothing moved inside her.
ANGEL
Angel blinked on emptiness. Both his mind and his body felt like they had been shredded down to their smallest components, meticulously examined and scoured, then all put back together again. The Jain tech inside him was functional, but somehow separate from him now in a way he could not fathom. He knew that he was still strong and fast, but when he reached for the weapons inside him, he found them coming apart. They were being absorbed by the nano-machines that had always been present, but somnolent within him up until now. Did he care to know why? Did he want to understand what Dragon had done?
His immediate feeling was that he did not—that just lying on the floor and being was enough—yet he looked deeper with the inner eye of internal diagnostics. His mind was no longer distributed through the Jain tech, but functioning wholly in the AI crystal in his chest. Long unused Polity systems were now supplanting the Jain in him, which was meekly allowing them to do so. His bones were still tougher than ceramal. He still possessed Jain electromuscle rather than joint motors, and many efficiencies were retained. But something essentially Jain was just leaching away. As he turned, pressing a hand against the floor and standing, he knew with utter certainty that he would not register on Polity detectors. He did not have a Jain signature any more. He was retaining the good and discarding the hostility of the alien technology.
“I am Golem,” he said.
But how did he know all this?
It sat there in his mind where Erebus had been and where the Wheel had been. But it was no longer the dark half of his mind because he was occupying it too. What lay there had encysted itself. It was small and only monitoring the changes inside him, and elucidating him. Inevitably its mental appearance, its icon, was organic: an ouroboros formed of one Dragon pseudopod, turning, swallowing a tail no one had ever seen.
“I am still a slave,” he said out loud.
The ouroboros seemed to shrug.
“Aren’t we all?” responded Dragon.
Only then did he sense the weight and power of that alien entity’s mind. He knew its thoughts, where he could understand them
. He knew its intent, where it was clear. All at once he felt utterly free whilst completely in the power of something that could subsume him in an instant. It could control him down to those very elements of his being it was reordering. Yet, Dragon was putting him right. No, he would not be the Golem he was before when Erebus seized his mind. Why throw away something that is better than it was before? But he was returning to that individuality. He had choices.
“In the end,” said Dragon, “my link to you will be small and weak and easy enough for you to cast out.”
“So you say,” Angel replied.
“So I say.” Dragon was indifferent.
Angel moved to the door leading into the rest of Cog’s ship. He could hear talking above and climbed a spiral staircase to the door leading into the bridge. He stepped through and observed the scene. Ruth was sitting in one of the chairs, her feet up and her arms wrapped around her legs. Cog was in his throne working a console he had folded out of one of the arms. The main screen still gave a view inside Dragon, but was almost blotted out by frames open in the laminate as Cog tried to get a reading of what was happening through the dense bulk of Dragon’s body. Even then the entity tried another U-jump, but failed, and reality shuddered all around them.
“Fuck this,” said Captain Trike, spotting Angel first. The man whirled round and dropped into a crouch, ready to hurl himself at Angel.
Cog looked round, and instantly thumped his elbow back into a point on the throne behind him. A heavy armoured security drone dropped out of the ceiling, sporting a stubby railgun that would surely not be a good idea to fire in here. Hatches also opened in the floor and two silver-throated particle cannons snapped up out of them. They pointed at Angel, while the air shimmered as a hardfield drew across, separating him from the other three. Trike studied all this for a second, then straightened up, glowering at Cog.
“I always had my suspicions about this ship,” he said.
17
When the question “Does the Polity run black operations?” is asked, Earth Central’s response is a denial, but a weary and amused one—it knows it will not be believed. Many foolish people are sure such operations are conducted, because they believe our ruling AIs are little different from the humans who ruled before them. The persistence of this meme brooks no denial, and is reinforced by confirmation bias, separatist lies, apocryphal stories and plain stupidity. Black operations in the past were run by countries, nation states and solar-system colonies where it was essential they be concealed both from the enemy and one’s own people. The Polity is not divided and our onetime enemy is confined beyond the borderland, the Graveyard. Our AIs are benevolent dictators and have been accepted as such, hence the lack of rebellion against them. They have no need for concealment; no need to conduct any military or police action without our knowledge and, as for potential enemies knowing . . . it is better that they see what they are up against. Equally, the notion that Special Forces are always on standby for such, that high-tech destroyers, dreadnoughts and attack ships lurk in the shadows of gas giants, ready to go into action at a moment’s notice, is quite ridiculous. Black ops is a myth.
—from Quince Guide, compiled by humans
THE CLIENT
Weapons Platform Mu slid into the real with just a slight shimmer, but no photonic flash and little in the way of other disturbances. As the Client continued to extend the long chain of her being, feeding and growing the newer and larger portions of herself, she noted that her alterations to the platform’s U-space drive had been successful. Then she watched as sixty-five attack pods materialized with a similar lack of fuss. A moment later, a further six attack pods rose from their repair bays aboard the platform—each was the shape of a pumpkin seed but two hundred feet long, and divided down its length to expose the gleaming workings of its weapons, shield and drive systems. Once clear of the platform, they each fired up steering thrusters and fusion drives to scatter and join their fellows. While this was happening, the Client studied her surroundings in near space.
There were worlds here that had once been populated by citizens of the Polity, and they bore the scars of their war with the prador. Data from Pragus showed that the nearby planet, scarred this way, had once swarmed with life. It had been occupied by a human colony numbering half a bil-lion—heavy-worlders since the planet was twice the diameter of Earth. Now it was swathed in cloud; volcanism was still active from the railgun strikes that had broken its crust, and its ecology had been set back billions of years. Nothing lived on the land any more, while the largest and most complex animals were the arthropods that swarmed in the soupy seas.
The Graveyard . . .
The place was well-named and, of course, the Client was reminded of her home systems. Yet, she did not feel an expected surge of hatred for the prador as before. Now she had learned the history of her own kind, whose progenitors’ aggressive hostility made the prador look like rank amateurs, her righteousness had been crushed. The Jain had been very good at making graveyards. Righteous anger seemed inappropriate and vengeance was no longer a priority. Instead she must continue to prepare for immediate goals. She studied the creature at the tail of her long chain body, and saw that it was fat with energy stores, armour and weapons. It was nearly ready.
The Client returned to exterior views, spreading her attack pods all around the weapons platform. When they were a thousand miles out, she halted some, while the rest continued on. Brief U-space surges from these marked the departure of detectors and mines into U-space, while their USER pulse weapons were fully charged and ready for deployment. Aboard the platform a much more powerful USER, which incorporated a singularity that was the mass of a small moon, was ready to be bounced back and forth through a runcible gate. This one would cause major disruption in the U-continuum and she hoped it would not be necessary to use it, since, as well as trapping the Librarian here, it would trap her too, for many months.
But would the Librarian come?
The tracker was, as she had expected, in the forbidden data, but she did not find it until studying some of the more obscure aspects of Jain biology. It was a virus spread throughout the data that created a quantum echo, a highly esoteric feedback that actually impinged on U-space. It created a signature that was much akin to the signature Jain technology created—the signature the Polity used to detect it. So, certainly the Librarian knew her location.
But did it understand what this location was? Did it have enough knowledge of current events and the political map of this portion of the galaxy? If so, it would be aware that the prador fleet following it here would infringe their treaties with the Polity, and that a Polity fleet could be next on the scene. The Client just had to hope that it was sufficiently crazy to keep chasing her, and that the prador would be smart enough to limit their pursuit to the Kingdom.
As she waited, more and more of the weapons and defensive systems she had built in U-space came online. Just an hour after her arrival, the six attack pods that had been radically redesigned aboard the platform fired up their fully enclosing hardfields. She was soon able to try out the hardfield that completely enclosed the weapons platform too. A little while after that, she contemplated a lone asteroid ten thousand miles away. From a plane of highly advanced armour, a weapon the size of an attack ship rose up on a pillar. It seemed to be all silver pipework and structures that looked like hydraulic rams. As it slid back a portion of itself—like the loading slide on an automatic pistol—then closed it up again, triangular petals opened at its business end. A beam a foot wide speared out, as if the thing was extruding a glass rod at high speed. It took longer to reach the asteroid than either a laser or a particle beam. But when it struck, the asteroid jerked like a beast poked with a cattle prod, then just crumbled. It fell into chunks of rock and iron that continued to split apart, and spread into a cloud of dust.
Then the Librarian arrived.
The scattered detectors picked up the big eversion in U-space and two mines in the vicinity detonated. The moon fel
l out into the real trailing afterimages, then responded. It too had obviously been repairing itself, because glassy beams lanced out and two attack pods fragmented as the asteroid had done. A third modified attack pod slid away like a blob of fat on a hotplate, its spherical hardfield turning black. Other pods responded: particle beams licking out, and railgun missiles filling space.
The Librarian shrieked then and it was the same as before, yet it almost seemed there was some joy in it. Ready now after spending many hours working through the dense data of this challenge, the Client responded with a shriek of her own. It demonstrated that she understood and possessed enough knowledge to decode the language of the Jain and answer the questions, that she could be considered worthy. She then fired up the platform’s U-drive and jumped.
The platform shuddered into U-space then came out with a crash—the disruption from the mine affecting it as much as the moon—but it was nearer now. The platform and its attack pods closed in on the moon, targeting weapons on its surface. The Client scanned deep, picking out targets—reactors and other energy sources, and the sites of drive systems. But one area deep inside, heavily protected by layers of armour and hardfields, she left alone. Soon the platform was matching course with the moon and closing in. Its surface burned as weapons blew apart, and melting hardfield projectors marked its path. Finally, one flat face of the platform touched regolith and the Client slammed giant, ram-driven anchors down into the surface of the moon. From the underbelly, the twenty-foot-wide war dock drilled down, punching into the hollow interior. And now, from her rear end, the Client began detaching the living, highly weaponized segment of herself.
ANGEL
Angel walked up to the hardfield and pressed at it with the sharp tips of his fingers. In a way, he was quite glad of it because, though he was strong and very capable, he wasn’t sure he could survive another round against Trike, let alone if Cog decided to join in.
