"God willing," added Aberil.
Loman walked away from the screen and dropped into the sofa beside his brother. "And once free of him, we can at last excise this cancer that grows at the heart of our civilization." He paused and reached up to touch his aug, discomfited by this much-needed Gift. "How long until Ragnorak is ready?" He picked up the inhaler provided to prevent U-space sickness — another aspect of space travel that Polity citizens supposedly did not have to suffer.
"Construction is completed. It will just take another month to move it into position. If Amoloran had started moving it after the construction of the initial framework, it would have been there by now. For some reason he wanted it ready before it was moved."
Loman thought that he understood Amoloran's motivations: having Ragnorak already working whilst it was towed past the cylinder worlds to its orbital position would certainly terrify any aspiring usurpers on Hope, Faith and Charity. He stared at the black screen for a long moment before taking a pull on his inhaler.
Aberil did the same before saying, "You called my mission to supply the Cheyne III Separatists a 'fool's errand'…"
"Amoloran was too unsubtle, and not sufficiently ruthless when the situation required it," Loman replied. "He would never have made so decisive a move as we in planting that mycelium. Yet he wanted us to risk supplying Separatist groups on the Line — an action that gains us very little. We must get our own house in order. It is the Polity way that they never take over a stable system, as that would seem unacceptably militaristic to many of its member worlds. We will rid ourselves of the Underworld, and thereafter give the Polity no reason to attempt to seize control of us." He paused as the whole cabin seemed to distort, and he experienced the sensation of weightlessness even though the grav-plates in the cabin held him firm. Feeling slightly nauseous despite the inhaler, he went on, "The Polity cannot continue to expand, and without the guiding morality of God it will eventually be torn apart by internecine conflict. We will assist it along that course, but subtly — keeping ourselves distant and safe."
"You believe this… Hierarch?" asked Aberil.
"How can I doubt? A civilization run by soulless machines cannot succeed. God will not allow it to succeed."
"Yes, that is true," said Aberil. "God would not allow it."
"You have to understand our destiny, Aberil. You have to see the larger picture. We are an outpost of the truth, and when the Polity falls, as it must, we will bring that truth back to its worlds."
"I try not to doubt, Reverend, but sometimes it is hard when one considers the Polity. It contains thousands of colonized worlds, between which its citizens can travel in an instant. It has hundreds of thousands of ships, many of them the size of Calypse's moons, and many of them capable of destroying planets…"
Loman snorted. "Have you been away so long that you have come to believe Polity propaganda?"
"No, Hierarch."
Loman stood and took yet another pull on his inhaler before marching up again to the black viewing screen. This was the sort of thing he should instantly quelclass="underline" the inflation of rumour and myth about the omnipotent Polity. Now to hear such idiocy from the mouth of his own brother. He slapped his hand against the screen and turned.
"Perhaps I do not do you justice. The Polity does have wonderful technologies, but you must never forget that it does not have our heart. Remember that no matter how large or powerful it is, we have already manipulated it to our own ends. Behemoth has fled and, like our hunting dog unleashed, the Polity will hunt him down."
Aberil nodded, his face expressionless. "Yes, Hierarch."
As if to punctuate this conversation, the ship now dropped out of underspace and the atmosphere of the cabin returned to some form of normality. Loman pocketed his inhaler then turned and rested his hands against the bottom rim of the screen, which now showed only starlit space. After a moment, he reached out and adjusted the view on the screen to show a massive structure out in vacuum. For a long time he had been puzzled as to why the appearance of Ragnorak bothered him so. It was only after searching databanks that he discovered a similar shape in the image files used to teach ancient history. There he found what he had been reminded of: the lethal device they were constructing was the Eiffel Tower displaced into orbit above Calypse.
"I didn't understand what you said about Polity field technology," he said, turning back to observe his brother, completely unaware that what he was asking made his previous haughty pronouncements laughable.
Aberil picked up an incendiary bullet he had earlier been using as a model. He held it up before his face. "Each kinetic missile weighs one tonne. If we fired them at Masada, at the velocities Ragnorak is capable of generating, they would explode in upper atmosphere. What we're using is a Polity shimmer-shield over the nose cone of each. It reduces friction sufficiently for the missiles to reach the surface. During penetration they'll turn to plasma, which will burn downwards up to a kilometre. Each of their caves will be filled with this — it will be as if a fusion bomb had been detonated down there."
"Losses on the surface?" asked Loman.
"About thirty per cent," Aberil replied.
"A price we have to pay," Loman said, wondering how long, after these kinetic missile strikes, it would take before the trade in luxury proteins could recommence.
11
The boy had finished his supper and was now listening goggle-eyed to the story in the hope of the usual denouement. The woman pursed her lips as she scanned the next bit of text before reading it out.
"Upon the morning of the second day Brother Serendipity came upon the siluroyne coiled on its bed of grasses. 'Please feed me, begged the creature, 'for I am old and cannot hunt so well, and I am hungry. 'Why should I feed you when, given strength by my food, you might rise up and strike me down? he asked it. 'I give you my word, said the siluroyne. 'Swear your word in the name of God and in the name of his prophet Zelda Smythe, the good Brother demanded. The siluroyne so swore, and he gave it the second third of the meat cake given to him by the old woman by the boundary stone."
The boy started playing with the bits left on his plate, his attention wandering.
"Into the night the creature followed him, companion to the heroyne, and so, doubly warded, did he survive to come closer to the compounds."
"Mum's boring," the boy interrupted.
"You must stay with stories like this, my dear, for through them you will receive great instruction, and great understanding of God," said the woman.
The boy gave her a look — young he might be but he had the innate intelligence of both his parents, and the extra intelligence of the genetic tweaks he had received before being born, and he knew when his mother was taking the piss.
With no little trepidation, Thorn watched while Jarvellis flew Lyric II in towards a large lump of rumbling asteroidal rock. Once she was close enough, the ship's AI took over and, with exact bursts of manoeuvring thrusters, apparently brought the rock to stillness. It wasn't until he looked beyond this piece of asteroidal debris that Thorn felt a touch of nausea to see Calypse and the stars beyond mirroring the tumble he had earlier seen — Lyric II now perfectly matching the rock's motion.
Jarvellis now thrust her right hand into a telefactor glove, closed a viewing visor across her eyes, and began to work the loading grab from the centre of the trispherical ship. On various screens Thorn and Stanton watched the multi-jointed arm rise up towards the rock, with its five-fingered grab opening like a hand, then fingers telescoping out so this hand became large enough to get a sufficient grip.