Gridlinked

'There is no real defence against energy weapons, but what defence there is this creature had: reflective skin and an effective mediod of heat dispersal. It was also armoured enough to deal with most projectile weapons.' She pointed at the screen. 'Its dimensions were perfect for the shaft.'

'Machine or living thing,' said Cormac, remembering a previous conversation, 'it didn't evolve.'

'No, it has no means of reproduction. It was definitely made? She glanced at him again. 'And its construction is strikingly similar to that of the dracomen. It does not have DNA; it used protein replication.'

Cormac diought about that for a moment.

Dragon again?

'You just said, "Its natural home before the temperature dropped." What did you mean by that?'

Mika put down the silvered leg and picked up another piece of the creature: a flattened ovoid with ribs along one side. 'This is one of its feet. It's very like one of the toes of such lizards as the gecko on Eardi or the srank on Circe. It would have been perfectly designed for gripping onto the rock of that shaft if there was no ice there.' She dropped the foot. 'Also, from what I have discovered thus far, it was reaching the edge of its survivability. Had the temperature gone below one-sixty Kelvin it would have become somnolent. Much lower than that and it would have died.'

'But the dracomen were managing,' said Cormac.

Mika gazed at her collection of body parts. 'This creature was not so complex as them. It did not have the ability to adapt…'

'Questions occur,' said Cormac, looking back at the screen.' Why was that artefact being guarded? And what put the guard there? Whatever did, it did not know the temperature was going to drop. The creature was placed there before the runcible went down. Yet, the dracomen… Were they sent here to retrieve the artefact? Was that Dragon's purpose?' He shook his head. 'If so, why was the runcible destroyed?'

'I believe some other alien is involved,' said Mika.

Cormac turned to her. 'Why?'

'Because of the artefact. I've been checking through the Dragon/human dialogues and other papers. Remember, when you went to Aster Colora - that two-kilometre perimeter? Dragon has no use of machines. Everything it makes is more complex - living. That artefact is not a product of Dragon's technology.'

'Yes… maybe… but the guardian? We run in circles. Every clue leads to more questions… Hubris, what is Dragon doing now?'

'Dragon is still destroying things on the planet. We have no picture now, since one burst destroyed the probe.'

To Mika, Cormac said, 'That's where I hope to get some answers, no matter how cryptic they may be.'

'Dragon tells lies,' Mika observed.

'You can learn something even from lies,' said Cormac, then left her to her work.

Cormac looked down into the huge main bay, at the rows of bubble-metal crates, superconductor cable and sheet, in reels and rolls, the massive shapes of the Skaidon horns in their shock packaging, one of which had killed the technician working on it, and at the two hemispheres of the containment vessel. He watched the technicians moving about the bay, checking this, taking readings here. They were not checking the runcible itself - as that would not be necessary until it was assembled -rather, they were checking the huge amount of equipment that would be used to install it. Most of these technicians carried notescreens. Others carried esoteric equipment, or were followed by robots doing so. The belly of the giant heavy-lifter, its loading hatches open, walled the back of the bay.

'Bloody Dragon,' said Chaline. By her expression when he asked her how things were proceeding, Cormac had already surmised she was not happy.

'Was there damage?'

'No damage to the runcible,' she said, glaring at him.

Cormac cursed himself. Was he so inured to death? 'I was sorry to hear about… the—'

'Her name was Jentia. She was a bloody good technician.'

'I'm sorry'

'What are you going to do? Do you actually care about anything? It killed her - as good as murdered her. It could have killed us all, and it may well have killed the inhabitants of Samarkand. That Darson was probably right.'

'How would you suggest I go about arresting a half-million-ton alien psychopath?'

Chaline turned away for a moment. When she turned back again, it was with a deprecatory smile twisting her lips. 'That was irrational of me,' she said.

'Understandable, but you see the problems I am faced with? I… it's part of the reason I—'

'Yes,' Chaline interrupted. 'You and me both. Let's leave it… Do you know what we saw Dragon doing before the probe was destroyed?'

'Throwing a tantrum, blowing mountains apart,' he replied with some relief.

'Yes, and everything else down there. It is geostationary over the blast-site. I had hoped to use some of the remaining installations there. Last we saw, it was destroying them.'

'By accident?'

'You could say that, I suppose. That shaft was hit as welclass="underline" sealed under a pile of rubble and molten rock.' Was Dragon really just throwing a tantrum? Whatever it was, it ceased twenty hours later.

'Weapons charged and ready to fire,' said the innocuous voice of Hubris. Those weapons were what Cam had hinted might be used to excavate the artefact: to blow away two kilometres of rock. They were now directed towards the curve of Samarkand from where Dragon approached, silhouetted against the dim sun like some fighting machine from Earth's bloody past. The weapons could be used now; at this distance it was possible to prevent impact and not be damaged by flashback.

'Open a channel,' said Cormac. 'Let's see what it wants.'

'Dragon accelerating at three Gs,' said Hubris.

'We can't stand another collision yet,' said Chaline.

'Dragon, if you come closer than one hundred kilometres we will fire on you. This is our perimeter,' said Cormac.

'Dragon slowing… two hundred and seventy kilometres… two hundred and fifty…'

'If it looks as if it's building up to let loose another charge, fire on it anyway,' Cormac told Hubris, leaving the channel open so Dragon would hear.

'Where is it? Where is it?' boomed Dragon's voice over the speakers.

'Where is what, Dragon?'

'The criminal! Where is the criminal?'

'We do not know about any criminal. We came here to investigate the destruction of the Samarkand runcible, and the consequent deaths often thousand people.'

'—one hundred and fifty kilometres… one hundred and forty…'

When Dragon spoke next, its voice had dropped to a conversational level. 'It killed your people. I tried to stop it, Ian Cormac, but it escaped and killed your people. The confinement vessel should have held it.'

Cormac turned and looked at Cam. 'Confinement vessel?'

Cam shrugged. 'What the hell would have needed adamantium to confine it? It must have been quite something, and to break out…'

Dragon answered his question. 'The creature confined was a Maker. Its kind made me. It is a criminal… In your limited way, you would call it psychopath. It is an energy creature.'

Cormac looked at Chaline. 'Psychopath,' he said.

To Dragon he said, 'This Maker, it made the nanomy-celium that damaged the runcible buffers?'

'It did. I picked up readings that indicated anomalies in this sector and, knowing the confinement vessel was here, I sent my creatures, by way of your runcibles, to investigate. They came here after the Maker escaped its vessel. It left the mycelium to destroy your runcible and prevent them following.'

Cormac closed the channel momentarily. 'It ties with what you found out about that guardian,' he said to Mika. 'Same technology as Dragon uses. That's plausible if its kind made Dragon.'