Cvorn moved off the port, but not too far away from it, because that tightness inside had turned into deep organ-crushing ache. He felt very tired and found himself losing the thread of his thoughts, his aug responding to his mind with irrelevant data and old memories. He looked around. What was happening with the weapons? What was he doing? Forgetting the disposal port, he walked over to his controls and peered at the array of hexagonal screens. They were scrolling all sorts of rubbish—also in response to his mental confusion. Suddenly a convulsion wracked him and his mandibles extended straight out. It hit him again, then again, saliva pouring in a stream from his gullet. Then a great fountain of half-digested reaverfish and green bile shot out between his mandibles, spattering all over the screens, chunks thudding to the floor and soupy fluids running into pit controls. Another convulsion hit, spraying more of the mess over those controls as Cvorn backed away. Next he lowered his front end to point his mouthparts at the floor, green bile dripping from his burning gullet. That tight pain was still inside but easing a little, and yellow excrement dripped from his half-open anus.
Cvorn was now able to think more clearly. He had been foolish. The hormones in the air and the recent mating had made him forget one important thing. He might have prosthetic limbs and new sexual organs, but everything else inside him was very old, including his digestive system.
THE BROCKLE
Earth Central had not entirely accepted the Brockle’s convoluted explanation for why it had not put Ikbal and Martina aboard the single-ship. And it had said that their agreement must end if the two were not on the next ship to leave. Meanwhile, the Brockle had learned some more about Penny Royal.
Because Amistad had removed the black AI’s eighth state of consciousness, the one that seemed responsible for its many ill deeds, Earth Central Security had forgiven Penny Royal’s past sins. Then when it retrieved that missing part of itself on Masada, ECS retracted the amnesty. But now the Polity AIs were still doing nothing, because of what Penny Royal might do, or might reveal. In addition, judging by everything the Brockle had gleaned from Ikbal and Martina, the black AI was again having trouble with that eighth state.
The similarities between Penny Royal and the Brockle only made the black AI more fascinating. Penny Royal had, in essence, experienced similar problems to the one that had resulted in the Brockle’s agreed confinement here. One of the Brockle’s units had gone astray during its last planetary assignment—an investigation that had ended up turning into a minor civil war. The unit had operated as a discrete being for some years and had actually strayed into territory that was not particularly legal. It had interrogated some innocent citizens and left them permanently damaged.
ECS had instructed the Brockle to shut down its rogue unit and bring all of itself in for forensic examination. The rogue had reacted by finishing its work. Through its interrogations, it had learned that a biotech aug network linked all the leading Polity separatists. It penetrated this and released a particularly nasty program into it that made those augs generate an organic virus. The virus lobotomized the separatists and eight hundred of them died when their autonomous nervous systems shut down. That action, it seemed, was just too much—even though these people had been criminals. ECS again ordered the Brockle to shut down the rogue and come in, but the Brockle now realized ECS was wary of enforcement. Positioned where it was on the world, the Brockle could cause many deaths. ECS then informed it that the innocents the rogue had interrogated had required some mindwork; its actions still might have been forgivable, were it not for one of its victims chewing out his own wrists and bleeding to death.
Antonio Sveeder . . .
He had been an innocent man—the only innocent man the Brockle had killed. However, debate continued about other deaths indirectly attributable to its actions on that world. The Brockle had decided on reabsorption because it wanted to know what had caused its unit to stray so far over the line. The answer had been a simple one: in its dealings with human separatist scum, the unit had come to regard
all
human beings as a problem. It had, in fact, formed an opinion not much different from that of many AIs. It felt human beings were what held the Polity back. They needed to upgrade, or rather the AIs needed to force them to do so—or dispense with them. On reabsorbing that unit, the Brockle concluded that it had not been far wrong. And, realizing the strength of its position, it negotiated. It would continue to work for the Polity but only in the forensic examination of the already proven guilty. It agreed to confinement only if it could protect itself. Thus, ECS provided the
Tyburn
, and the Brockle’s careful extraction from its world followed.
But all this was beside the point, which was that Penny Royal was demonstrably unstable, and that its instability was directly attributable to that portion of itself culpable of murder. It was having trouble trying to reintegrate this portion—but that it was trying at all meant that it was reintegrating its guilt too so the
whole
AI would be under sentence of death. There would be no debate. No consideration about what Penny Royal might do to redeem itself. But even that paled in comparison with recent news.
Time travel . . .
This put everything the Brockle had gleaned from Ikbal and Martina into the shade. They were dealing with a dangerously unstable, paradigm-changing AI that had not only stolen some runcibles but had been fucking with temporal energies. It had been doing stuff that scared even the prador shitless. It had been playing with energy debts and entropic effects, which, if handled badly, could put out star systems or cause nova chain reactions. And what was still the reaction of Earth Central and the other Polity AIs? Hands off, leave alone, no action. Surely, this news alone should have overridden their fear.
The Brockle felt certain that during its years of confinement, some other paradigm must have changed. When had the AIs of the Polity become so forgiving? When had they become so timorous? It was time to move against Penny Royal—and hard. If they weren’t going to do it then someone else had to. And that someone was the Brockle.
The forensic AI stood up from its seat, mulling over what to do. Earth Central had instructed it to put Ikbal and Martina into a coma and leave them alone until the next single-ship picked them up. Their interrogation was over and the ship must return them to Par Avion. The Polity would drop all charges against them and offer the services of a mind-tech, after which they could go on their way. If the Brockle interfered with them again while they awaited the single-ship the watcher would know, and that would be the end of the confinement agreement.
The
Tyburn
had been useful as a prison hulk before and during the prador/human war, but had ceased to be of use a little while after. Prison was a waste of resources, and Polity AIs had decided it was better now to kill the killers and those hardened recidivists who refused mind-work, and impose fines and enforced mental alterations on those guilty of lesser crimes. However, in this time of plenty, crime wasn’t a big problem. The
Tyburn
had sat unused for decades until the difficult problem of the Brockle had arisen and it became the only prisoner. If the Brockle again breached its terms of confinement, which meant not doing precisely what ECS told it, it had no doubt that attack ships would arrive sporting U-jump missiles. Previously, the Brockle could fire up the
Tyburn
’s drive and depart if either side broke the agreement. Now, with the advances in Polity technology, Earth Central thought it had the advantage. Perhaps, despite the Brockle’s new detectors, it did.
Some subterfuge might be the best option.
Earth Central needed to be convinced that the Brockle had left the Polity. The Brockle needed time to put some plans into action. Therefore, the watcher aboard this station was a problem. It was one the Brockle felt it should deal with, and right now.
14
SVERL
Sverl watched the show amongst the shell people, trying to suppress an internal shudder every time he saw that horrible drone inject the cure Thorvald Spear had designed. There had been no doubt that the man would find a way because, surely, Penny Royal had manipulated events to this end. Sverl accepted this notion, but felt uncomfortable with it. It was almost like the certainty of religious faith and that wasn’t a great route to go. But how else should he think? The AI had thrown Spear, like the weapon of the same name, at a target it had set up.
Alternatively, perhaps a better analogy—a favourite of the drone Arrowsmith—would be a chess one. Sverl, Spear, the drone Riss, Cvorn and perhaps the likes of Gost, or even Polity AIs, were being brought into play. They, along with the king of the prador, and maybe many other actors too, were being gently nudged into position by the AI on a massive universal chessboard. What had happened to Isobel Satomi had been the result of one manoeuvre, as were the events on the Rock Pool, and what was happening now was yet another. What would be the ultimate checkmate?
No, not chess . . .
Chess involved an opponent perhaps as able as oneself, and it struck Sverl that Penny Royal did not have one. If he stuck with the analogy, the AI was playing both sets of pieces—
“
I’m angry, you know,
” said Spear via his aug.
After a brief hesitation Sverl asked, “And why is that?”
“
You could have done more to help them,
” Spear answered. “
When you knew what Taiken was doing, you could have flooded the area with knockout gas or something.
”
“I could have,” Sverl replied, “but aren’t you humans rather attracted to the idea of free will?”
“
You should know—aren’t you partly human?
”
Sverl winced at that. “I am, and I question my right to interfere.”
“
You saved them once, and most of them ceased to have free will the moment Taiken started using his prador glands . . . but let’s be straight here. You either love being a spectator of Penny Royal’s manipulations so much that you are crippling your own ability to act. Or your human part has the same lack of empathy as was the case with Trent Sobel. You rescued these shell people from the Rock Pool, then just watched as they began to destroy themselves.
”
“And as a result, I am being given lectures on morality by someone whose life I saved?”
“
I’m just saying that if you had acted sooner there wouldn’t have been so many deaths.
”
“And life is important?”
“
Of course it is.
”
“You are alive.”
“
Yes,
” said Spear, puzzled.
“And so are
all
of the shell people,” said Sverl, “depending on how you define death, of course.”
“
What?
”
“I have been observing, on many levels. Riss has come to understand the sheer extent of Penny Royal’s reach but you have yet to do so. Penny Royal’s victims are not all dead.”
After a long silence, Spear said, “
The spine.
”
Sverl swung round to eye the aforementioned object, still in the clamps that had inserted it inside the assassin drone Riss. “Exactly.”
“
It’s recording them?
”
“Thus far I have ascertained that it contains the stripped-down recordings of thousands of dead minds. But it is also in the process of perpetually recording the entirety of thousands of living ones. I do wonder where Penny Royal draws the line. Does it, for example, record the mind of a victim of one of its victims, or perhaps the victim of an accident caused by one of its victims and, if so, how?”
“
Fucking hell.
”
“But going back to your original point,” Sverl continued, “I saved them from the Rock Pool because the danger to them was a direct consequence of what I am and my actions there. I did not intervene in Taiken’s experiment because, after all, those people did choose to try to transform themselves into prador. The danger to them was a direct consequence of that choice. In essence I know where to draw my line.”
“
But you sent Trent Sobel down here and then me to help him
.”
“When I understood Penny Royal’s plan for them, I chose not to intervene in that either.”
“
But you assisted in it.
”
“My assisting was part of the plan too.”
“
And what exactly is that plan?
”
“Perhaps, in respect of Trent Sobel, Penny Royal wanted to examine the possibility of redemption for a murderer. Perhaps the AI wanted you to become more aware of your capabilities and what you actually are, which is the sum of its victims. Perhaps there was even something there for that horrible fucking snake drone. I don’t know.”
“
Found your god, have you, Sverl?
”
Sverl found that very discomfiting, considering his earlier thoughts.
“Now, on a more practical level, I have things to do,” he said, “as do you. Bsorol and Bsectil are bringing equipment that you require.” Sverl cut the link and blocked it. He didn’t want to talk to Spear any more. The man’s perspicacity was unnerving.
Sverl now turned his tripartite mind to other things. The repairs to his ship made by robots and second-children were proceeding precisely as predicted, as were the subtle alterations to internal shielding and the parameters of the U-space engine itself. By the time they arrived at his first destination, all this work would be completed. Sverl had deliberately chosen a system sufficiently far away, and a transition through U-space that was sufficiently long, just for that purpose. He had also chosen a destination that would give him a tactical advantage—when Cvorn inevitably surfaced from U-space in pursuit.
However, the advantage to be gained by jumping directly within that gas and dust ring was a small one. No doubt Cvorn had already realized that his weapons would be less effective there and had made adjustments. Cvorn might also believe that this reduction in weapons efficiency was Sverl’s
entire
purpose in entering that ring. Speculating further, Cvorn might even believe that Sverl was trying to give himself time to make exterior repairs to his shielding and thus hide the U-signature of his next jump. It wasn’t. Sverl knew he would not have the time. If he tried, during a running battle through that gas, his ship would probably end up even more damaged. Crew aboard would be killed, and his U-space drive might even be knocked out. He intended to make no exterior repairs at all, but he did plan to change the odds drastically.