Skellor halted. This man was carrying an APW; Skellor also noted that in a pouch attached to his belt he carried a Dracocorp aug. No doubt they assumed that the lack of a reaction to him by the security of this station meant he was a Polity agent. He linked through to the big Golem, to give instructions, and then saw that they were not required. Crane had already picked up from him the result of the scan and was ready to act.
‘By what authority do you ask that question?’ he asked, taking a pace closer.
‘The authority of Nalen, who, despite what the Polity might think, runs this station.’ The man drew his APW handgun from inside his puffed coat, and held it down to his side. ‘And Nalen would like to meet you — but with suitable precautions in place.’
Precautions… The man meant Skellor wearing the Dracocorp aug, and to do that he would expose himself to Nalen’s inspection. Perhaps he could insert the virus through that link, but then again Nalen might be able to fend him off. It would have to be the bloody path. Mr Crane moved even before ordered.
The man had no time to raise his weapon. Crane went past him with a snapping sound, which might have issued from the Golem’s clothing—so fast did he move— but more likely from the man’s neck. He remained standing for a second—his expression bewildered as his head sagged, his shattered neck unable to support it. Crane hit the next APW wielder and hefted him screaming from the floor, a big brass hand turning in a bloody morass below his ribcage. Skellor advanced, in no particular hurry, and observed the one equipped with the launcher turning and bringing the weapon to bear from underneath his long coat. He fired—just as Crane turned the victim he was holding into the path of the shot. The screaming man exploded into something ragged and bloody. Crane threw the remnants at the one with the launcher. This second man was yelling as he tried to disentangle himself. Crane was by him, taking away his launcher, turning it round and driving it straight through his body. Even as he dropped the man, he turned and backhanded an assailant behind—a woman—who in an instant was a headless woman cartwheeling sideways through the air. A second woman drew her weapon and aimed at Skellor.
‘Tell it to stop!’
Skellor smiled, shook his head, disappeared.
‘Fuck! Fuck!’ the woman screamed, firing repeatedly at the spot where he had been standing. Then her gun was snatched away, disappearing, whereupon a single shot issued from one side, making a hole through her cheek and blowing out the back of her head. The two remaining people, a man and a woman—both dressed in the coveralls of runcible technicians—backed away, firing at Mr Crane and frantically screaming for help over their augs. Crane accelerated towards them, not because they were causing any damage to him, but more likely because of the holes they were putting in his coat. Reaching them, he grabbed both by their heads, then slammed them together. His hands met, palm to palm, in a wet explosion.
Standing to one side of Crane, Skellor reappeared. ‘You are impressive, Mr Crane,’ he said.
Crane scraped away the larger spatters of brain and pieces of bone from the front of his burnt coat. As he stood there, his exposed brassy skin darkened as it exuded Jain fibres—and in a few seconds the burns and tears on his coat had disappeared. Even the blood faded as if sucked away. Crane looked down, shook a piece of skull from the toe of his boot, offered no reaction to the words. Skellor immediately probed inside the Golem and, with what he found, considered destroying Crane there and then. Some of the Jain structure inside the Golem was no longer under Skellor’s control, hence the way Crane had used it. But Skellor stayed his hand, putting in place a program to alert him should any more of that structure be subverted by the Golem. Mr Crane, after all, was so very good at his job.
Skellor turned and walked towards the dropshaft and, not bothering to utilize panel or grav fields, which might well be under Nalen’s control, reached inside and grasped the maintenance ladder. Before following, Crane abruptly stooped and picked up the piece of skull he’d shaken from his boot, then gazed at it. They had all died, so he could not, in his twisted logic, gain a substantial icon. He tossed the skull fragment aside, and followed Skellor into the dropshaft.
8
The human mind operates within a brain that comes in a one-size-fits-all lump of meat. The AI mind operates from vessels as many and various as are the different minds they contain. The basic Golem mind is stored in a ‘brain’ that is a fist-sized lozenge of crystal laced with s-con nanofilaments and micro-optics, semi-conducting laminates in their billions, power feeds and cooling tubes. It is roughly equivalent to a human mind, but eidetic and functioning ten times as fast, though limited by anthropomorphic emulation programs. Going by the old IQ system, the Golem comes in at about 150. But such methods of measurement are now almost irrelevant, as Golem can be upgraded and, with augs and gridlinks, even that lump of meat can transcend the limits imposed on it by evolution. Also, human minds can be loaded to silicon—become AI—and, if the rumours are true, AI minds can be loaded to human brains. And, in the end, it is difficult to know what to measure.
— Excerpt from a speech by Jobsworth
Completion… the symmetry… aesthetically pleasing.
Cormac swung his legs out of his bed and, swearing, stood up. ‘Jack, take us out of U-space and set up a communication link through the runcible network.’
The AI did not question the order, and Cormac immediately felt the lurch; the displacement as the Jack Ketch surfaced into realspace. For a second he thought that somewhere on the ship there was a fault in the shielding, for what he had just felt had been almost painful. Then he realized that might not be the true explanation; the feeling was probably all his own. Perhaps, like someone subjected to allergens for too long, he was becoming overly sensitized? He dismissed the thought—for the present.
‘Right, run a trace through the net and locate the Sparkind Golem called Cento.’
‘Bearing on our present mission?’ asked Jack’s voice, sounding leaden.
‘Symmetry—don’t you see? When she said it, I assumed she was talking metaphorically, vaguely, but what she was actually saying referred to something specific. To complete Mr Crane, to make him symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing, Skellor needs what Cento has.’
‘Skellor… technical ability? He could easily build an arm to mirror the one Crane already possesses.’
‘Yes, he could but, underneath all that ugly Jain technology and his crystal matrix AI, there is one thing about Skellor that must not be forgotten.’
‘What one thing must not be forgotten?’
‘That he is a complete bastard.’
‘Query: weakness?’
‘It was before—couldn’t resist the urge to gloat. Now, what are Thorn and Gant doing right now, and why the fuck am I talking to one of your subminds, anyway?’
After a long pause, Jack’s more familiar voice replied, ‘Sorry about that—otherwise occupied. Gant is waiting outside Medical. Unfortunately, while you were sleeping Thorn collapsed and is now undergoing surgery to remove his mycelium.’
Cormac began pulling on his clothes. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’
‘I didn’t tell you because to do so would achieve nothing of value. I suspect Gant had other concerns to occupy him—like resuscitating his friend, then carrying him to Medical.’
No need to get tetchy, Cormac replied over his gridlink, as he stepped to his cabin door. Then, as he headed for the dropshaft, he accessed Jack at a lower level, to try for a visual link to wherever the surgery was taking place.