Ah, I was apprised of this new ability of yours.
Cormac grunted, as almost with physical force the AI rebuffed his attempt.
I just want to know what’s going on.
Over the intercom, Jack replied, ‘ Patran Thorn has shown some need for privacy in this matter and he shall have it. If security was of any concern, or this procedure had any bearing on the mission in hand, you would be given full access.’
Reaching the dropshaft, Cormac hesitated over the control. It surprised him just how worried he was about Thorn, and with what urgency he wanted to be at the man’s side. But he clamped down on that. In truth, he was in the best hands—if hands they were.
Out loud, Cormac said, ‘Okay, keep me apprised, but tell Gant I want him on the bridge. Now, are you running that trace?’
‘I am. It will probably be some minutes before we receive a reply.’
‘Instantaneous communication?’
‘Only when you instantly know precisely what to say.’
Cormac snorted and set the control of the shaft to take him to the bridge. When he finally stepped out of the shaft, it was below a sky only lightly dusted with stars, and with Gant charging along behind him.
‘What is it?’ Gant asked.
Cormac studied him. The soldier’s mind was human, but directly recorded into a crystal matrix inside a Golem body, and Cormac wondered just how real was the worry evident in his expression. But then the same doubt could be applied to any genuine living human’s expression of emotion. In all cases it was what you did that counted, not what was going on in your mind.
‘How is he?’ he asked.
Gant shook his head. ‘Alive—but he’ll be going into cold sleep soon.’
‘You’ll get him back.’
Now expressionless, Gant said, ‘Why have we dropped out of U-space?’
‘Symmetry,’ said Cormac tersely. ‘Skellor has gone after Crane’s missing arm—the arm Cento now possesses.’
‘Arrogant… and stupid.’
‘He would perhaps consider himself as being utterly capable and in control.’ Cormac turned to scan the bridge. As if in response to this, Jack’s automaton stood up from its chair with that cog-grinding clockwork sound and its eyes glittering. ‘Jack, I’d like to talk to Aphran again.’
The AI didn’t reply. Instead, the automaton just slumped, its eyes going out. A line then cut down beside Cormac, and the young Aphran folded out of the air.
‘Does Skellor know you’re still… existing?’ he asked her bluntly.
‘I told him about the light—when it was too late.’
‘So he does?’
Aphran just hung there, not reacting to that.
Cormac bit back his frustration. ‘Okay, leave that. Was he aware just how much you know of his plans?’
‘He did not know how close I was to him, and when he ejected the bridge pod of the Occam Razor, he thought to leave me behind. I hid from him, but stayed close. Close in the dark.’
Cormac turned to Gant, who was staring off to one side of the drawing room where something new had appeared. Glancing over, Cormac saw that Jack had now added an electric chair to his collection here. He grimaced. ‘Let’s try to ignore the distractions.’
‘Sorry,’ said Gant, pulling his attention back.
Cormac paused, then went on, ‘Assume Skellor doesn’t know about her. When he departed on the Vulture, he would have known we would find the bridge pod and realize he was still alive. But to his mind we’d have no idea of his destination or intentions, and our chances of finding him would be minimal. He will think that all he has to avoid is a general search for him across a massive and ever-increasing volume of space.’
Gant said, ‘He probably thinks that we’ll assume he’s fled.’
‘Quite. So he’ll believe he’s got plenty of time on his hands, and much room in which to manoeuvre—that’s why he feels he can play. In his own estimation he is a very powerful being who can travel at will, without risk of discovery, inside and outside the Polity. He’ll never consider himself the subject of direct pursuit.’
‘And we don’t want him to learn that, because then he might run and hide.’
‘I have now received information concerning Cento,’ Jack suddenly piped up.
‘Let’s hear it,’ said Cormac, eyeing Aphran who now appeared as if just this brief interrogation had worn her down to the bone.
‘The Golem was sent on a simple mission to confirm the discovery of an ancient artefact, and has been out of contact ever since—though this is not unusual, as no provision was made for a communication link to be maintained. The sector AI has since failed to establish contact with the carrier shell.’
‘Carrier shell?’ said Gant.
Jack continued, ‘A landing vessel inside a U-space carrier was sent out to the location of the artefact. Both are the private property of an archaeological foundation; both are over two hundred years old and sub-AI. The landing vessel, as well as not possessing U-space engines, does not possess a U-space transmitter.’
‘Jack,’ said Cormac, ‘forget Viridian and take us there. I think that’s where we’ll find a fresher trail.’ Now he looked across at the electric chair: ‘And, Jack, you need to get out more.’
Streaks of magma, across the hull of the survey ship, radiated in vacuum as they cooled. The carrier shell, hanging in space before it like a huge iron nut—with the hole through its centre shaped to the wedge of the survey ship rather than threaded for some giant bolt—had cooled already. Cento supposed he had expected something like this, and analytically he studied the hole punched through the side of the shell, and the radial splashes of molten metal all around it. Either Skellor’s ship carried kinetic weapons, or the man had grappled some piece of debris in this system and flung it at the shell. How he had achieved this did not matter. The result was all that was important right now: all its systems were down and it seemed likely that the craft would never again be used to transport ships through U-space. Nevertheless, Cento steered the little ship into the docking hole. Three of the ten automatic clamps engaged, and the ship was then lined up to the airlock and the fuelling and recharging systems, but the ship’s arrival initiated no further activity. Cento unstrapped and propelled himself into the back of the vessel. At least now he did not have gravity to fight.
The airlock of the little vessel mated with that of the carrier shell but the shell door, even though running on an independent power supply, would not open. Whatever system it ran on was intelligent enough to recognize that the ship contained no air, yet not bright enough to figure that its only occupant had no need to breathe. Restraining what emulation of frustration he could achieve, Cento returned to the cockpit and switched the computer back on. Through its screen it obligingly informed him that there was no air in the ship, but that a number of options were available to him.
‘Stupid machine,’ he mouthed in vacuum, and instructed the computer to repressurize the vessel. Then he returned to the airlock, to wait out the long minutes before the carrier lock opened. He swore aloud when the door still refused to open, this time because there was no air inside the carrier shell itself, and went to find what tools he might require. Three hours later, he finally got through the door.
Fire had scoured the inside of the shell, blasted around the ring-shaped transit tubes by the explosive impact. Propelling himself three quarters of the way round, he eventually found where the object had struck, and peered into the well the impact had drilled through the station. Skellor’s shooting had been admirably accurate. Whatever the object, it had cut right through one of the three balanced U-space engines and taken out the main fusion generator. In one respect, Cento considered himself lucky: at least the generator had merely failed rather than detonated—had that been the case there would be no shell here at all. He propelled himself across the cavity and into the transit tube beyond. Coming at last to the place he was seeking—a simple sliding door—he drove the blade of his hand with such force at the thin lamination of metal and insulation that it punched through without any reaction propelling him away. In a minute, he had torn a hole large enough to climb through.