Polity Agent (60 page)

The part of Dragon entire from which she had been ejected had not returned to its spherical shape. Elongated, torn open, and with thickets of pseudopods waving from many surfaces and rimming raw gaping lips, it seemed offal torn from some beast, though one of leviathan proportions. The other sphere had retained its shape, though one with canyons now excavated through its surface. One of these crossed the manacle, and there hardened splashes of metal gleamed, partially burnt into the scaled skin. Then, like a seed germinating, its side bulged out and folded back like a giant eyelid, and from there extruded a massive pseudopod tree. The damaged sphere’s effort was small by comparison, but they joined again, a thousand blue lights winking out. The two drew together, spinning slowly at first then faster the closer together they came. Next they were one, spinning hard and melding into one titanic sphere.

The spin of this one sphere slowed over several hours. Mika fed herself meanwhile from her supplies, drank thirstily and dozed with her head against a pane that felt warm despite vacuum being less than an inch away. At last she felt some of the mugginess clearing from her head and found the inclination to anger. Jerusalem must have been aware of the first sphere’s intention, had perhaps instructed it to find its fellow. The AI must also have realized what a perfect piece of confirmatory evidence the contents of her skull would make. Doubtless, much that had happened here had been planned. However, she had been in huge danger—probably still was.

When the spin finally ceased the large sphere slowly began to acquire a waist, which grew narrower and narrower until an hourglass Dragon hung in void before her. Finally the two halves separated, and two unmarred Dragon spheres resulted. Mika found she could not maintain her anger, knowing she would be more angry to have missed this. As the glare of fusion flames caught her eye, and she turned to observe the approach of the
Jerusalem,
she smiled to herself.

* * * *

Those on the rock face above were the same mix of biomechanisms Cormac fought earlier in the jungle. Below swarmed a multitude of the salamander creatures—all six limbs angled to grip stone as they squirmed their way up. But the rod-ships would come first, from above.

One of them dropped down directly opposite the ledge and slowly drew in. Knowing he could detonate the CTD with just a thought, Cormac decided he would wait until it extruded one of those tentacular growths, then he would turn this place into an inferno. However, the ship halted some yards out, and its side unzipped and peeled back, revealing a figure clamped in the fleshy interior. In the moment it took him to flick Shuriken out ahead of him, Cormac expected to see a hostage. But this was no hostage.

Cormac stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Arach already killed someone who looked just like you. I guess now it’s my turn to do the same.’

‘Just as humans can be recorded, so can I,’ replied the Legate.

‘That’s nice.’ Cormac peered down at the CTD, wondering why he even bothered with this conversation.

‘Why?’ asked the Legate. ‘Why resist like this and finally throw away your lives?’

Looking up, Cormac replied, ‘Because you will take our minds apart to find information useful to you, and discard the rest. You’ll either kill us in the process but, worse than that, you might decide to use us like automatons. You are Jain-based and that seems the way such technology operates.’

‘We would not utilize anything so ineffective.’

‘Death, then. I take it this “we” refers to yourself and some controlling intelligence.’

‘I am one with Erebus.’

‘Him being?’

‘The one who melds us all.’

Enough.

Cormac sent a command to Shuriken and the throwing star accelerated towards the Legate. Simultaneously, a gap appeared in the craft’s exterior beside the Legate, and something shot out towards Cormac. One of those octopoids he saw earlier. Shuriken veered and sliced through this object.

Time .
.
.

The blast lifted him from his feet and hurled him backwards. He glimpsed burning flesh fountaining from the top of the rod-ship, around the turquoise pillar of a particle beam. The ship seemed to deflate as it dropped from sight, flames bursting around the now flopping figure of the Legate. As he ducked for cover with the others, towards the back of the ledge, Cormac observed the CTD roll away and fall from sight. Burning biomechanisms rained down, piling on the ledge itself then falling further in smouldering masses. Acrid smoke filled the air. Somewhere a boom, and fragments vaguely identifiable as bits of other rod-ships rained down through the volcanic chimney.

‘What the fuck?’ said someone, inevitably.

Polity?

As Shuriken snicked back into his wrist holster, Cormac dared to hope. He peered up through hellish fire but saw only the spiral ship still hovering above. Next, from below, objects streaked upwards—he had been looking in the wrong direction. The missiles slammed into the underside of the spiral ship, and the series of ensuing flashes darkened Cormac’s visor. When it cleared he saw one half of the great ship falling aside, trailing fire, exposed girders like bones glowing white hot. It crashed just out of sight, shuddering the stone beneath Cormac, and a wave of burning jungle spilled over the lip above. The remaining half of it seemed to be managing to draw away, but then another missile impacted. Incandescent fire burned out from its insides, exploding in jets from the surviving hull, and that half too fell from sight. The survivors crouched instinctively as further detonations shook the stone all around them. Then, up beside them rose a Polity attack ship of the same style as the
Jack Ketch.
Its original hull, where still visible between numerous repairs, glittered metallic blue. A bay door irised open in its side and a ramp extruded.

From inside issued a voice. ‘The USER is down, so I think it time to leave, don’t you?’

Cormac recognized that voice because he distinctly remembered his last exchange with it:

‘You saw that I did not gain access to Skellor—or to Jain technology?’

‘So,’
Cormac managed.

‘Tell Jerusalem that.’

They ran for the ramp, their choices being limited, though Cormac wondered how much better they might now fare aboard the
King of Hearts.
The rogue AI controlling this ship did not tend to show much regard for anyone standing between it and its objectives.

Once they were inside the ramp swiftly withdrew. The bay door slammed shut, then abrupt acceleration threw them to the deck. Cormac could not breathe, and noticed the acceleration even kept Arach, the dracomen and the remaining Golem pinned immobile. A telefactor rolled out on treads and began by relieving Cormac of Shuriken, then went on to collect up the rest of their weapons. He could still feel his gridlink connection to the bomb down below, and sent the signal to detonate it—perhaps futile, but it gave him some satisfaction to know that any of those biomechs remaining in the volcanic chimney would now be turned to ash. Minutes later, the telefactor withdrew, but acceleration still held them pinned to the floor.

They were helpless, but at least alive.

* * * *

As he hurtled up through atmosphere, King pondered his reasons for rescuing these Polity personnel and understood that in truth he found more in common with them than with the multipart entity spread through space above. He wanted back into the Polity. He longed for forgiveness. But, with cold and exacting logic, knew it would not be forthcoming. His complicity in the deaths of so many humans on the world Cull would be enough for a sentence of erasure to be proposed, though the outcome there was not certain since he did not actually take a direct part in any killing. However, his destruction of the
Jack Ketch,
and the AI it contained, made erasure a certainty, should he be captured.

Breaching from atmosphere, King immediately noted that there were not so many of Erebus’s minions as he supposed, and a lot of debris. He registered numerous signatures of ships dropping into U-space, and realized that, with the USER now down, they were fleeing. However, many weapons targeted the
King of Hearts
and in reply he began emptying the stash he had manufactured while hiding in that volcanic chimney.

The chimney was a fortuitous find, since his first plan had involved slamming himself into radioactive earth for concealment. He detected it only microseconds before the multiple blast from the missiles sent to destroy him threw up from the mountains material that could be mistakenly identified as parts of himself. Decelerating hard, he smashed in through the rocky mouth of the chimney and crashed down inside. When he hit the bottom, tons of stone and dust rained on top of him. He powered down all systems, excepting chameleonware nowhere near as effective as possessed by the new Polity ships nearby. But it was enough, for none of Erebus’s minions detected him.

Over the ensuing months King made his repairs: sending out telefactors to collect refinable ores from the surrounding cave systems, sucking up briny water from below and separating from it both deuterium and pure water to fuel his fusion reactor and engines. When the USER that had trapped him first went offline, he was in no condition to go anywhere. As a precaution, over ensuing months, he manufactured drones no larger than a human head, from non-metallic materials, and launched them—some to take position on the surface of the planet, some out in space, and all using passive scanning. When the USER came back on again, he lay in a perfect position to observe what ensued—the battle fought by those new Polity Centurion-class attack ships. The second time the USER went offline—this time it quite evidently had not been powered down but destroyed—he readied himself to run, Erebus being otherwise occupied. He waited for the moment the biomechs finished off those Polity personnel who had landed here, and themselves left. But next, all hell broke loose right on top of him.

Bastard, that.

But why did he act when he did? The chances of him being discovered had grown exponentially as Erebus dickered about above him in the volcanic chimney. A quick strike and then an even quicker escape were what was required. So why had he stopped to take on these passengers on the way up? There seemed no easy answer to that.

Gaps everywhere. Though swarming in their hundreds even now, Erebus’s forces had still taken a severe pasting from those Centurions, and seemed somewhat in disarray. King felt a strange sort of pride in that.

My sort.

He dropped into U-space just as his weapons carousel clicked on empty.

* * * *

The
Battle Wagon
went first, then in waves the other ships followed, winking from black existence. Azroc watched armoured shutters draw across the chainglass screen, as they would be drawn across many other screens throughout the
Brutal Blade.
Next the ship’s U-space engines came online with a grumble that reverberated through its massive hull, and warning lights came on inside to indicate that it had entered that continuum. Knowing ten hours of journey time would now ensue, unless the USER came back on, Azroc stepped back from the screen and, making an internal adjustment, shut himself down. As he descended into the Golem equivalent of unconsciousness, he understood that many of the humans aboard would not find it so easy to disconnect themselves from the world.

Later, Azroc roused, immediately conscious and thoroughly aware of his surroundings. A brief contact with the ship’s AI, Brutus, confirmed the passing of nine hours.

‘We are one hour from surfacing into realspace,’ the AI informed him.

‘Reconnaissance first?’

‘We have sent four scout ships, though I suspect any trap will not be visible to them.’

Azroc turned away and headed over to where Karischev and his men were ensconced.

The Sparkind units occupied cylindrical dormitories overlooking bays for landing craft. The humans and Golem mostly lay on their bunks, though the Golem needed no rest and such activities were engendered by their emulation programs. Only a few still checked over their equipment, since most checks had been carried out ad nauseam before now. Many gathered around screens and tactical displays positioned at either end of the dormitories. Azroc found Karischev standing before one of these.

‘A quick scan of the system first,’ declared the man, ‘then we go through.’

‘Four scout ships, apparently,’ Azroc agreed.

‘Of course we’ll probably be sitting on our butts during any ship-to-ship battle. But I’m told there are two living planets here the AIs don’t want to burn, so we’ll probably be sent to them to clear up anything the big guns can’t hit without destroying ecologies.’

‘And to find those personnel who were set down on one of those planets.’

‘Yeah—if there’s anything left of them to be found. The information we received makes that look increasingly unlikely’ -Karischev paused—‘though, admittedly, dracomen and Sparkind, along with Horace Blegg and Ian Cormac, are more likely to survive the shitstorm there than most.’

‘Admittedly,’ Azroc conceded.

‘Y’know,’ Karischev added, ‘I never used to believe those two characters existed. I thought they were fictional, like King Arthur or Rasputin.’

Azroc considered the irony of this statement before replying, ‘Well, apparently they are real.’