'What do you think?'
Cormac turned and looked at her. 'First and foremost I think it was a liar and a fraud. I don't think it came here twenty million years ago, nor do I think it came to test humanity. The two statements don't tie up. And I certainly don't think it was capable of destroying us.'
'Is that all?'
'No. I don't think it self-destructed after it had served its ostensible purpose. There was not a trace of its body left, even under ground. I think it's out there somewhere, and it's laughing at us.'
Chaline smiled at that, then stood. 'Another drink?' She held out her hand for his glass. For a moment he considered refusing and heading for bed. He handed her his glass.
Damn it, I'm human.
As Chaline returned with the two drinks, he studied her closely. Her overall was wrinkled and sweat-stained, but did not detract from her allure in the slightest. Her face had an imperious beauty, her figure was worthy of note and she had something remarkable between her ears; anyone in her position had to have. Cormac felt something he had not felt with Angelina. That mechanical action had not been in response to any need in him. He had felt wholly cynical about it. When was the last time he had really made love to a woman? Maria Convala was the last, he was reluctant to admit.
'What's the matter?' Chaline asked him, a tilt to her head and a knowing smile.
'You're very attractive,' he said.
She sat down. 'I'm also very tired.'
Her mein was coy, and it surprised him. He glanced up as a group of technicians walked in after their shift, and he silently thanked them.
'We could finish our drinks in my cabin,' he suggested.
Her coyness disappeared and she inspected him esti-matingly. Abruptly she stood again, and he thought he had maybe pushed too hard. She was going to chop him down.
'I really need a shower,' she said.
Cormac waited now for the kind rejection.
'I can't get in your cabin by myself,' she said impatiendy.
Cormac was out of his seat and exiting the canteen before he even had a chance to be surprised. At the door to his cabin he slapped the palm-lock and entered in a teenage terror at how to initiate things. Chaline dispelled that worry in an instant: halfway across the room she turned, ran her thumb down the centre of her overall and parted it, kicked off her deck slippers and shrugged her overall to the floor. Cormac remembered to close his moudi as she smiled at him, men headed for his shower. We forgot our drinks, he thought, and then grinned. He left his clothes beside hers and followed.
'You are slow,' she said, as he moved up behind her and placed his hand on the lighter skin at the soapy curve of her hip.
'Too long listening to AIs,' he said, pulling her to him and sliding his hands round her waist, then up to her breasts. She pushed her bottom back against his erection and slowly moved it from side to side.
'I hope you haven't lost all your manual skills,' she said, then turned and reached down.
Cormac pulled her close again and started kissing her neck, and then he found himself on top of her on the floor of the shower room, inside her. From there, to the bed and the night - not one thought about gridlinks.
12
Wouldn't you think that with such omnipotent AIs, such advanced security systems, and such dedicated ECS Monitors, crime would be a thing of the past? Think that and you aren't thinking. Our security systems may be advancing every day, but so are the criminals. Between what I like to call the forces of order and of chaos there is a constant 'arms race', and it's difficult sometimes to say who might be winning. Sometimes it is also difficult to distinguish which side is which.
From How It Is by Gordon
Briefly there had been a night, very briefly. The sun had dipped behind the horizon for two solstan hours before creeping back. As if this momentary lapse had allowed it through, a green bank of cloud rose from the further horizon and rolled in with pinwheels of lightning scoring its underbelly. Stanton took another bite from the kebab he had bought inside, and wondered just what sort of meat he was eating. What sort of vegetation for that matter. It was after inspecting the contents of his meal for a moment that he looked along the length of the old road. Down the sides of the compacted and fused-earth surface were deep storm gullies. He had heard it could be bad here. What most puzzled him were the square panels set along the road at regular intervals. They were painted black and yellow, and each had a letter and a number. The letter was always a C and the numbers ascended in order. He was staring at these when a woman with a shaven and tattooed skull stumbled from The Sharrow. She was painfully slim in her jeans and padded sea-fibre jacket, and her skin had a bluish tint. Probably part Outlinker, he thought.
'What are those?' he asked, pointing at the squares when she gave him a once-over.
She looked confused for a moment, and then waved an arm dismissively. 'Car clamps,' she said, and stumbled off.
Stanton filed this information under miscellaneous, then looked back up the road in the other direction. The familiar loom of Mr Crane stomping along behind Pelter was not difficult to miss. He finished his meal in a couple of hurried bites, wiped his hands on a tissue and tossed that tissue into a nearby bin. As Pelter drew closer, Stanton saw that something had changed.
'New aug,' he said.
Pelter reached up and touched the reptilian aug clinging behind his right ear. Perhaps it was something about the light, the weight of cloud above and the flickering of yellow lightning, but Stanton felt sure he had seen the aug move under Pelter's touch. It was the final step, Stanton thought. Pelter had once been an attractive man; now, with his head made lopsided by two mismatched augs, the optic link in his suppurating eye socket and a face grown haggard and perpetually twisted by whatever drove him, he was ugly. Without a doubt he now looked what he was.
'A new aug,' Pelter repeated.
'OK,' said Stanton when it became apparent Pelter intended to say no more. He glanced up at the darkening sky and felt the first slimy drops of rain on his face. 'Storm on the way, and they can be bad here.' He looked at Pelter again. 'The boys are inside. Any luck with a dealer?'
Pelter nodded and gestured towards the arched entrance of The Sharrow. Side by side they walked through, Mr Crane at their back, a brass shadow.
'We have an assortment of interesting toys and we have our delivery system,' said Pelter.
'What sort?'
'A stealthed dropbird of Polity manufacture. I am told it was stolen piece by piece from an ECS base. It's old, but it will serve. Now -' Pelter looked at him' - did you deal with the other matter?'
'Jarvellis didn't let out any information concerning us. Neither by aug, her ship computers, nor auto manifest. She had all bets covered, as always. I believe her. She's smuggled weapons successfully for decades. You don't manage that under the noses of ECS without sealing every data leak.'
Pelter shook his head. 'That doesn't concern me. What about our transport?'
'It doesn't concern you?… We have to know how the information got through, Arian. We could be walking into a shitstorm here.'
'It doesn't concern me because I now know.'
'Know what?'
'Don't concern yourself. I have it covered. Now, transport?' said Pelter.
They halted almost in the middle of the room. Stanton glanced round at the raucous drinkers and saw the looks flung their way, then he looked towards the restaurant platforms ahead of them.