Annoyed at being unable to perceive his surroundings and still not entirely clear on what had happened to him, Cormac applied for linkage to whatever server lay nearby. There was the usual delay and security issues limited him to the nearest server. He ran a trace using his name and tracked himself down to a military medical unit set up inside the downed atmosphere ship. Hopping from internal cam to cam he tried to find a view of himself. Instead he found Hubbert Smith standing statuelike in a corridor, and though glad that at least the Golem had survived for a moment could not figure out why he should be glad. Then memories returned of hurtling razor-edged lumps of Jain coral carried in a shock wave, of Arach tumbling away, of Scar standing headless…
Cormac tried to speak, tried to ask questions but could not, then abruptly closed down on the urge, since this medic probably possessed no knowledge of what had happened anyway but was merely here to stitch back together whatever had survived. Cormac became suddenly cold, now understanding the reason for his earlier sadness. He had certainly lost another long-time associate, possibly two, but would have to wait for confirmation from Hubbert Smith. Turning his focus away from such painful memories, he again tried to find a cam view of himself. Gaining access to the room in which he lay, he discovered the only cams available there were in the autodoc, and he gazed analytically through its sensors. Chrome instruments were aligning pieces of broken bone as the head of a bonewelder moved into position, then Cormac heard the familiar sound of the welder going to work.
Not enough though.
Just then the realization that he had another way to see his surroundings returned to him. His U-sense was slow, reluctant, as if it too had been sleeping. His surroundings slowly came into focus, though that was hardly the correct terminology since he was seeing three hundred and sixty degrees and through everything around him.
‘Shame your gridlink is offline,’ said the voice. ‘You could have helped speed up the repair process yourself by using some of its med programs.’
Uh?
‘There you go.’
Abruptly his sight returned and sensation came back to his face and his scalp, which both felt sore. He gazed up at the white ceiling, then tentatively tried to move his head. It seemed okay. Letting his U-sense drop back into slumber, he looked down at the autodoc poised over his leg, then up to his left at the medic, a blond-haired man with metal eyes and an aug affixed to the right-hand side of his head, from which an optic cable trailed down to connect to a small pedestal doc he was now wheeling back out of the way.
‘Whasss…?’ Cormac paused for a moment to work up some moisture in his mouth. ‘What do you mean, my gridlink is offline?’
While unplugging the fibre optic from his aug, the man gave Cormac a puzzled look. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
Cormac glanced down at the larger autodoc, now retracting from his leg. ‘I’m fine, as far as it goes.’
‘Memory loss?’ the man enquired.
‘Some, but it’s coming back fast.’
‘Well… you’ll get these momentary glitches after a head injury like that.’
‘Why are you saying my gridlink is offline?’
It had been taken offline by an AI once it was decided that, after thirty years of access, he had been losing his humanity and thus his effectiveness as an ECS agent. However, it had since spontaneously reinstated itself, though no one seemed able to provide a good explanation why. He supposed that, being simply grateful for its restoration, he had not made sufficient enquiries. Anyway, it was certainly functioning right now.
‘Erm…’ The man blinked and tilted his head, obviously accessing data through his aug. ‘Definitely no other damage…’
‘Just answer the question please.’
Sensation abruptly returned to the rest of Cormac’s body, and he slowly eased himself upright.
‘I’m saying it’s offline because the bio-haematic power supply is disconnected and all the laminar storage within the link itself is dead.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cormac, now looking round for his envirosuit. Unable to locate it, he decided it had probably been cut away from his body and discarded. However, he did see other familiar items lying on a steel tray on a work surface over to one side: Shuriken, his thin-gun and some spare clips, that Europan dart.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Certainly.’
‘I’ve got other patients—’
‘Please, don’t let me detain you then.’
The surgeon gestured towards the door. ‘One of your—’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Cormac. ‘Hubbert Smith is waiting outside.’
His expression even more puzzled, the medic departed. Cormac lay back again and considered what he had just been told. Either the gridlink was still on in some way that seemed to defy possibility, or else he was gridlinking without the intervention of the technology implanted in his skull. And either this was a new occurrence or the AIs had been lying to him. He was rather uncomfortable with this second option, not because he thought AIs only ever told the truth but because he immediately felt it was the most likely answer. So, not only was he able to perceive things in a way theoretically impossible for a human being, he was even gridlinking bare-brained.
Then full memory returned: And I can move through underspace.
He shuddered, suddenly also remembering his mentor Horace Blegg’s last days while he and Cormac were being pursued by Erebus’s biomechs. Blegg had believed himself able to step through U-space, for that was how, apparently, he had escaped the Hiroshima nuclear bomb at the beginning of his incredibly long life. Blegg could also mentally access the AI nets and talk mind-to-mind with AIs. Only at the end had Blegg learned the truth: he was a construct of Earth Central, his memories of stepping through U-space had been falsified to give the impression of continuity — such a U-space jump usually occurring when that construct faced destruction, when its mind was uploaded, edited, then placed in another construct.
Am I just the new Blegg?
This thought had occurred to Cormac before, but really it was pointless speculation of the same kind as that of some people who wondered if their lives were just virtual realities. He must continue living in the belief that his memories were true, else he would despair. And succumbing to the idea that the next time he faced death he would be uploaded and put into a new body would certainly have fatal consequences if he was wrong. He would continue to live to the best of his abilities — that was the only choice.
‘Smith,’ he said quietly, knowing full well that he did not need to shout in order to attract the attention of a machine capable of hearing the impact of snowflakes.
Hubbert Smith opened the door and entered. He had a standard-range envirosuit draped over his arm, and in one hand held a pair of enviroboots and a sealed pack of disposable underclothes.
‘All better now?’ the Golem enquired.
Cormac still felt battered, perhaps more so mentally than physically, but he had felt worse. The repairs performed by the medic and the autodocs would still take a little while to settle. Though most physical injuries could be repaired, breaks in bones and tears in tissue being welded, there was a point beyond which it was better to let the body itself, and whatever suite of personal nanites that body possessed, take over, with the result that no one leapt up in prime condition from a surgical table.
‘Getting there,’ Cormac replied. ‘Scar and Arach?’
Smith shook his head. ‘They’re both back aboard the King of Hearts. Arach is a little dented but otherwise fine. Scar… Scar is in cold storage.’