And then she set out.
Its chameleonware was better than anything she had seen, if that were not in itself illogical. She wondered if maybe it could be better still, because the effect only just made it invisible to the Polity detectors in this segment—and no more. Orlandine tracked it by the stray gas currents it stirred and the slight feedback effects it caused in gravtech used to hold the Dyson segment together. She observed this phenomenon for hours, and began to think she would learn no more, but then the Polity detectors in one area it occupied abruptly began recycling old images. While this happened, an odd spoon-shaped vessel appeared and descended beside a globular fusion reactor mounted on one of the angled joists.
Now what are you? Orlandine wondered.
While she watched, the ship stuck itself in place with some kind of cilia, then extended a tentacle that snaked across frigid metal to the reactor. It branched all over the reactor’s cowling, and began to penetrate. Recharging itself? No doubt any report of a reactor drain would not be recorded at the Cassius stations, since Orlandine recognized a technology very like that she now studied.
A gift—from an admirer.
Orlandine suspected that same admirer had now come to pay her a visit. But how did it know to come here? Then it hit her: the dreams. All matter, by current theories being just rucked up spacetime, caused effects observable from underneath its continuum: in U-space. Jain tech was highly organized matter. Implicit in her dreams was the concept of Jain tech making an obvious impression on the fabric of space—that spider shape represented the one that should be recognizable from U-space. Immediately she feared this visitor knew her location precisely, and she started thinking of how she should escape. Then she realized what else she was seeing: this strange vessel was conducting a steady search through one layer of the Dyson segment. Somehow, whoever or whatever piloted it had only roughly divined her location. Continuing this search pattern, it would take some days to find her. However, she must decide what to do meanwhile.
Tools from Jain tech…
Orlandine had concluded that Skellor had used Jain tech as a system to support his interface with an AI, which he in turn used to control that same technology. But not sufficiently accounting for the technology’s own purpose had probably contributed to his eventual downfall. Skellor, however, was no haiman, therefore inferior. Having taken apart one quarter of the Jain node, Orlandine now well understood that any part of it, while growing, established ovaries, in which nodes developed with a one-way connection to their host. In one human body infested with this tech, there would eventually be millions of them—leeching information, while keeping themselves hidden. She could only surmise that Skellor did not realize this until too late. Just not quick enough or clever enough. Interface an idiot with an AI and you surely end up with decrease in overall intelligence.
Arrogant?
Understanding the trap, Orlandine intended to avoid it. But how? There would always be risks. She looked around her laboratory, up at the gimballed device containing the remains of the node, then down at the memcrystal banks in which she stored the bulk of the programming and structural information obtained from it. Perhaps now, with her situation becoming more urgent, it was the time to make a calculated increase of risk to herself? With her present buffering and cut-out systems, she could only expand her processing space by one quarter. Beyond that, things would begin to break down. A mycelium, then, to prevent the degradation of synapses in her organic brain and replace them with something more rugged? Of course she could record herself completely to crystal and just let that primeval organ die… No, the haiman ethos was based on acquiring human/Al synergy, and recorded to crystal she would become fully AI. But would that be a bad thing?
No.
Orlandine slammed a fist back against the crashfoam wall. She refused to cease being who she was. It all came back to human time and utterly human impulses: in the end, gods did not appreciate godlike power, but humans did. Why scrabble after such power if in the process it changes you into something for which that power is just an aspect of yourself no more important than being able to walk or see or hear? No advance there, just a relocation. She would begin with the quarter increase of processing space, and link to the memcrystal banks—risk Jain incursions informationally—then she would consider applying a mycelium to herself. And then she would take the remaining Jain node apart just as fast as she could.
As she turned to set about this task she tried to ignore the small whisper inside: All about power, then…
With his ship still in U-space, Blegg gazed coldly at the Jain node resting in its small chainglass cylinder. This then was the next stage: a second generation node more efficient at taking apart the human race than the one Skellor had picked up. Though keyed to humans, it did not react to Blegg himself. This was something he had pondered throughout the journey here, and from which he drew ineluctable conclusions.
With growing bitterness, Blegg returned his attention to the cockpit screen, across which the detection equipment displayed U-space as a representative map matching the layout of the Cassius system. On that map he recognized the signature for the node beside him, some distance out from one of the main construction stations. The second signature lay over on the other side of the sun, but blurred and dispersed. The equipment only informed him that what it detected there lay within a volume of space about the size of Jupiter. He considered tracking this signature down to its source by himself, but decided to wait until further forces arrived. He would use the time to reconnoitre first.
Surfacing his ship from U-space, he immediately linked in with part of his mind to the station AI. Within moments he learnt about heliometeorologist Maybrem’s recent promotion to station overseer after the abrupt and violent departure of the original overseer, Orlandine. Murder… after a love affair gone wrong. He would have ignored all this had the murder been committed by someone of lesser stature. But the previous overseer? That might be connected, somehow, to the presence of Jain technology here in this same system. He noted that the forensic AI still occupied the station, so decided to pay it a visit. An hour later he docked and disembarked into the station, to be greeted immediately by Maybrem.
The man was a curious combination; his archaic Caribbean holidaymaker garb contrasting sharply with the haiman carapace clinging to his back. His clothing was wrinkled, as if it had been worn for some time, and his face showed the lines of fatigue.
‘I have only a vague idea of the signature’s position,’ Blegg said. ‘What do you have?’
Maybrem led the way into the station. ‘My solar-weather satellites use U-space com, so I ran the search through them and have located it in Dyson segment fourteen, on the other side of the sun. As instructed, I’ve not moved anything any closer to it.’
‘Good,’ replied Blegg abruptly. ‘Now I would like to speak to the forensic AI.’
Maybrem led the way into a wide chamber where, up above, a hologram of the Cassius system slowly turned. A corridor leading off to one side brought them to a drop-shaft which took them up. Several corridors later they arrived at double panelled doors.
‘Here,’ the man indicated.
Blegg turned the polished brass knob and entered.
One of the new kinds that were modelled on social insects, the forensic AI consisted of a squirming mass of robotic ants like a ball of shiny metal swarf. It rested in the centre of a lounge furnished with a scattering of low marble tables and comfortable reclining chairs—looking as incongruous there as a sack of oily tools on an Axminster rug. A heavy-worlder man with black hair and bushy eyebrows slept in one of the chairs, a palm-com in his lap and his feet up on one table, beside a cup of skinned-over coffee. Two women sat facing each other at another table, busily delving with chrome chopsticks into a selection of porcelain bowls. They glanced up, tilted their heads for a moment as if listening, then returned to their meal. Blegg walked forward, aware that Maybrem did not follow—clearly the company of forensic AIs made even haimans nervous.