The mouth of the shaft was a perfect oval created by its angle into the flat ground. Either this area where it had been started was clear to begin with, or it had been specially cleared. Its walls were coated with a fine white powder of carbon-dioxide crystals streaked with the green of sulphate impurities. At the lip of the shaft Gant squatted and opened a box. Within were silver spheres stored like eggs in a tray.
'I've pre-programmed them,' he said, and took one from its packing. As soon as it was in his hand it glowed like a light bulb. He tossed it into the shaft. As soon as it was out of his hand it streaked away. 'There are sixty in this box. The way I programmed them we'll have one every thirty-five metres with a couple left over for the chamber itself.'
Cormac said, 'Should be enough. I would suggest a
Gridlirtked twenty-metre spacing between us as we go down. You can call the lights down.'
Gant nodded. 'You're the boss.'
Cormac smiled, then remembered that Gant could not see his mouth through the mask. He was about to say something more, when a loud crack behind had him spinning with his finger poised at the quick release on his shuriken holster.
Cento was holding a long tube with two handles. While Cormac watched he loaded a cartridge into the top of it and pressed on the cap. A couple of metres across from the first, he fired another fixing bolt into the ground. Cormac let out a tense breath. Until that moment he had not realized how on edge he was. He straightened up and watched as Cento pulled the ring from the box on his belt. As he pulled it, there was a faint fizzing sound. With its cladding on, the chain-cotton looked like a yellow rope, impossibly thick to have come from such a small box.
Gant joined him and attached his line, and soon the two of them were walking down into the shaft. As they had been instructed, Cormac and Cam attached their abseil motors and followed after. Learning to use the friction setting was difficult at first, but Cormac soon found that the way to do it was to lean forwards a little way and walk normally.
Thus they descended.
16
Dragon: This Aster Coloran dragon is fast passing into fable, but we know that it did exist. For we know that on that planet existed a creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometre in diameter. We know about the pseudopods and the gigantic Monitor. Those of us that have not seen pictures of these must have spent the best part of our lives living in a cave. Doubt is now being cast on these 'Dragon Dialogues'. It seems likely that they were a product of a man called Darson who, driven almost insane by a lack of evidence of Dragon's evolution on Aster Colora, then went on to construct an elaborate hoax. He almost succeeded in convincing everyone that Dragon was some sort of intergalactic biological construct. Where the hoax fell down was in its introduction of Ian Cormac at its end (Refer 'Dragon in the Flower' ref. 1126A), whom we know to be the invention of fabulists.
From Quince Guide, compiled by humans
Pelter was not good at waiting. He sat in a form chair by the window of his room and stared at the storm. It was like staring into a deep green fish-tank. He accessed the local server to see what he could find out about this weather that the people here so readily accepted. As with any aug, the information scrolled up on his visual cortex. It was like having a third eye directed at a computer screen, and it took some getting used to. The background of this screen, unlike for other augs, was now a vast wall tegulated with hand-sized scales.
The information he was viewing was not what he wanted. He did not want to know how many thousands of litres were hitting the ground every second, nor did he want to know about the giant fire far to the south which was feeding the weather system. With a thought he initiated one of the aug's search engines, and, with another thought, primed it and sent it on its way. The information he wanted clicked up: a few numbers on a white background. Two hours, then. He closed off the link to the server and began to disconnect from the aug.
If you are gridlinked, the information is downloaded directly into your mind.
'Who said that?'
No need to speak out loud, Arian. I can hear your thoughts.
'Dragon,' Pelter said. He did not want to just think what he had to say; that was too intimate.
Yes.
'I've been waiting for this. Is he still on Samarkand?'
He is, but that is not where you must go.
'I go where I choose.'
Hubris is at Samarkand. Do you think you could avoid being detected?
Pelter crushed the rage that rose up inside him. The storm - the green beyond the window - was taking on shape. It now had scales.
'What would you suggest then?'
/ will tell you where you can wait for him. Where, when the time is right, you may kill him.
'When the time is right?'
/ too have a purpose.
Somewhere a pterosaur head was speaking against red light. The smell of cloves, so strong it made Pelter wince, invaded his room. Behind him he heard Mr Crane move.
'Your purpose is to see him dead?'
Of course.
The hesitation was fractional, but Pelter was too close to miss it. Almost instinctively he activated Sylac's aug and his connection to Crane. Something had been touching that connection. He knew it just as someone knows when a thief has been in their private residence. The scales before him, he now realized, were the other augs, close and intimately linked.
'Where should I wait?'
Again that hesitation. Viridian. Ian Cormac will come, eventually, to Viridian. You will wait for him there.
'Thank you. Do you know what he will be doing there?'
He will be going to kill someone.
'Who?'
That is not your concern, Arian. Just let him complete his mission, then you can kill him.
Pelter used Sylac's aug to interpret the chaos of scales. A sorting program gave him the form of a web. At the centre of that web was an obese shape, a human taking on the form of his master. From this shape he felt the controlling link and the force of alien personality.
'What forces will he have with him? Do you know that much?'
There may be four Sparkind. Perhaps he will have others, but they are inconsequential.
'Sparkind are not.'
You have substantial weaponry. You also have Mr Crane.
'Don't worry. When he sets foot out of the runcible installation he is a dead man.'
On Viridian, Arian Pelter, I want you to wait. Let him do what he has come to do.
'Merely an expression. He will be a walking dead man. I will hold back for you, for all that you've told me. But tell me, how is it that you know all this?' The scales were fading now and Pelter could see his own bitter expression reflected back at him. The reply he got now was faint.
Their runcible AIs, Arian Pelter, so arrogant and so sure that they cannot be overheard. I listen to them all the time and, sometimes, I find things even they have missed. I wish I had found it earlier. Samarkand would not have been… necessary…
The personality turned away. The pterosaur head faded. But the links, all through, remained. Pelter summoned up an image of a thin-gun pointed at his face, and used it as an anchor. It took a huge effort of will as he fought the cold pain in the side of his head and disconnected from the Dragon aug. Scales faded, links that had been growing ever stronger faded. He snorted the smell of cloves from his nostrils and stood.