"It never gets any better," he commented.
After touching his toes a couple of times, then running on the spot for a moment with his breath gouting in the cold air of the hold, Stanton replied, "Never really bothered me. Sometimes you welcome the oblivion on long hauls." Stanton moved down past Thorn and headed towards the entry to the ship's living quarters. Over his shoulder he said, "Only one shower here, so you'll have to wait."
Thorn now tried a few exercises himself. Even though normal sensation had mostly returned, the ends of his fingers were still numb from the nerve damage done by the toxin Brom had used on him. Another session with this ship's autodoc seemed likely, he realized, as he went to a locker beside the coffins to find himself disposable overalls to wear while he awaited his turn in the shower. Donning the compressed paper fabric, he glanced round as Jarvellis stepped out of the flight cabin, heading for the living quarters.
"Where are we?" he asked her.
She halted and studied him. "Just coming insystem. The gas giant Calypse sits between Masada and us at the moment. It'll take about six days." She gestured towards the flight cabin. "By all means go and take a look. John and I need a little privacy for a while."
Closing the stick-strip of his coverall. Thorn nodded and, after slipping on the deck shoes that came in the same packet, headed towards the flight cabin. He understood her perfectly: obviously she had come out of cold-sleep some time before himself and Stanton, and he well knew how the body's normal function kicked in over a very short period of time — he himself had often felt unbearably horny in the hour after thaw-up. What he did not understand was why the two of them hadn't left him on ice for a while longer. Looking around, he was suddenly aware of how cramped the cargo area now was. With only small chagrin, he realized that Stanton and Jarvellis had been out of cold-sleep at least once since he himself had gone into it.
In the flight cabin, Thorn dropped into one of the command chairs and gazed at the main screen. Displayed there was the gas giant Calypse, with the corona of the sun glaring to the right of it — its main light muted by a black reactant disc. As Stanton had explained before they had gone into cold-sleep, Masada was surrounded by the laser arrays and cylinder worlds of the Theocracy, with the planetary population held in constant thrall by the ruling caste's technological advantage. This being the case he wondered how his colleagues intended to get Lyric II down to the surface. Admittedly, there were often holes through which a small ship could slip, since in any space-borne civilization there had to be a lot of traffic. But this ship, though it could be mistaken for an insystem hauler, was not exactly small. He thought he might as well experiment.
"Lyric, are you able to respond to me?" he asked.
"I can respond, though you might not like the response," the ship AI replied.
"I'm a little puzzled about how Stanton intends to get this ship down to the planet's surface undetected. He told me that there's just one spaceport and that's only for Theocracy military or cargo traffic, and I've every reason to suspect that the cargo on board here is not for them."
"And what was your question?" Lyric asked him.
"How does he intend to get this ship down to the surface of Masada undetected?"
"Sorry, can't tell you that."
"Do you have Theocracy security codes?"
"Didn't last time I looked."
Sitting back Thorn grimaced to himself: only the terminally naïve believed that AIs did not lie. In fact, in his own experience AIs made better liars than human beings.
"What's your cargo?" he asked bluntly.
"Do get real, Mr Polity agent."
"Okay, what can you tell me about Masada?"
"I've got about ten thousand hours on the subject. What do you want to know? Political system, ecosystem, symbiotic adaptation, religion? About half of what I have covers that last subject alone."
"How about half an hour's eclectic selection? I should think I'll be able to get use of the shower by then."
"All right, I'll begin with the planetary ecosystem prior to the arrival of human beings, findings of the first surveys, then subsequent occupation, and then the history of the Theocracy. Would that be sufficient?"
"Yes, thank you."
With Thorn asking questions, the film show lasted an hour. The two items that most fascinated him were the natural ecosystem and the odd life system introduced by the Theocracy: in the former case the tricones, heroynes, gabbleducks and terrifying hooders; and in the latter the adapted crops and protein sources that were a product of the toil of most of the surface inhabitants. Also the symbiotic life-forms created as a cheaper alternative to breathers and environment suits, as well as being more dogmatically acceptable to the Theocracy than any adaptation of the God-given human form. He was just asking about the Underground when Stanton entered the flight cabin.
"Not a very stable situation," Thorn observed to him.
"No, but stable enough to last for another fifty years, without a sufficient push to topple it meanwhile," Stanton replied.
Thorn gestured to the cargo hold. "And all that stuff's part of the 'push'?"
"It is," said Stanton. "And, do you know, when I bought the main bulk of this cargo on Huma, that planet was undergoing Polity subsumption."
"That normally takes some time, but obviously you found an opening?"
Stanton shrugged. "So I thought. Things were chaotic there, but not very much so. When I found out how tight the security was, I was tempted to go somewhere else, but then a dealer approached me."
"But you risked the deal anyway?" Thorn asked.
"I had a way out but, strangely, I didn't need it. The Polity agents I could see watching my every move did not even attempt to intervene."
"You're saying you have Polity sanction?"
"It was known who I was buying this cargo for. What I am saying is that it's in the interest of the Polity for things to become as unstable as possible on Masada. ECS intends to draw the Line across the world, and most of its population will welcome them gladly."
"Will you?"
Stanton stared at the screen, now showing a lurid but almost rustic scene on the surface of the planet — except for the proctors watching over all from their aerofans, with rail-guns trained on the people below.
"As a child here I always felt there had to be something better than Theocracy rule, but while here, and for some time after, I never saw how you could get beyond the sordid facts of human nature. I've since learnt that the way you do get beyond is by removing human nature from the equation."
"So you are a reformed Separatist?" said Thorn.
Stanton glared at him. "I have never been a Separatist. I'm a mercenary, and that's all."
"Why this, then?" Thorn gestured first at the screen, then at the hold.
"Because I have scores to settle and debts to repay."
Thorn stood and moved to the door, and Stanton walked with him to the ship's living quarters. They entered an area laid out like any planetary house, with a kitchen and eating area, and for the second time Thorn studied his surroundings with some surprise. Most ships possessed automatic food dispensers, yet Lyric II had both this and a small galley, which was an expensive option. He felt a surge of nostalgia at the smell of grilling bacon, and also had to swallow a surge of saliva.
"How do you get down to the surface of the planet without being detected?" he tried.