Thorn waited for further explanation, then said, "Before I go on… tell me, what exactly are you sending by U-space?"
"A cry for help: including five thousand hours of sealed recording of what goes on here."
Thorn thought about that until Lellan prompted, "Bigger picture?"
Thorn continued, "All I thought was that there are other things to factor in. Your Theocracy uses Dracocorp augs, doesn't it?"
"What?" said Lellan.
Stanton interjected, "I've seen them before, when I was with Pelter — and for some reason they freaked him out — but they're available all across the Polity now. If there was a problem with them, surely they'd be made illegal."
"Dracocorp is an Out-Polity corporation that was set up by Dragon's agents. All augs that come into the Polity, whenever ECS can track them down, are checked for subversion access. As far as I know, nothing has been proven, because their technology is so damned complex."
"So what are you getting at?" Lellan asked.
"I'm just pointing out these things: an Outlink station possibly destroyed by Dragon, a lot of Dracocorp augs around here, and now Dragon up there destroying laser arrays. You may be benefiting now, but I'd guess that what is being done is not specifically for your benefit. Of course" — he fixed his attention on Stanton — "if the station destroyed was Miranda, then it's likely someone else might be turning up here."
"Who?" asked the man.
"Ian Cormac — he usually gets called on when there's any shit involving Dragon."
"Yes," said Stanton, his face expressionless.
"That's good, isn't it?" asked Lellan, looking from one to the other of them in confusion.
"For Masada, quite probably, but not necessarily so for me," said Stanton.
Before Lellan could ask anything more, Polas interjected, "I'm getting a picture now." The man was operating a small toggle control, and each of the screens showed views over the curve of Masada, then space, and the face of Calypse. "There," he said, pointing at one of the screens.
Dragon loomed clear on the horizon, and Polas pushed his control forwards to take the probe closer. As it slowly drew in, the picture kept juddering, and when asked about this Polas replied, "Automatic avoidance — it's dodging debris." On two occasions thereafter they saw drifting clumps of titanic wreckage, fires glowing inside them, gases spewing away.
Closer to Dragon, and a flash of light blanked the screen. It then came back on to show a spreading ball of fire and debris — and one less laser array.
"I don't care," said Lellan. "We've lived under those for too long."
"God in Heaven," said Polas. He was operating other controls, calling up views all around as the probe accelerated towards Dragon. Radar images came up, spectral displays — he seemed to be trying every instrument the probe possessed.
He turned to Lellan. "EL-24 and 26 next," he said.
"How much of a hole has it made for us?" she asked.
Polas removed his hands from the controls — perhaps because they were shaking so much.
"Talk to me, Polas," said Lellan.
He turned to her, with a stunned expression, then stared back at the screen when it blanked yet again. "That was EL-26. One more to go, and that's it."
Lellan still hadn't quite grasped what he was telling her. Her expression showed irritation, confusion, then slowly dawning realization.
Polas nodded.
"It's destroyed…" He blinked at the screen as it flickered off then back on again. "It's destroyed all forty-six arrays. There's nothing but wreckage up there now."
12
"In the predawn light Brother Serendipity stood at the bounds of Agatha Compound and turned to address his three companions. 'You have served me well these three days, and should know that in that service you have served God and his Prophet: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? "
The woman made a slight whimpering sound as she suppressed a laugh. The Brother stood to one side of the tall boundary stone, with his arms spread wide and a beatific expression on his face. The three creatures looked at each other with expressions that were completely unreadable. The gabbleduck then lifted what could loosely be described as a hand up to the side of its head and, with what could equally loosely be described as a finger, scribed circles in the air.
"As the sun rose over the compound. Brother Serendipity said unto his companions, 'You shall come with me to share in this glorious day! "
Now the three creatures moved in around the Brother, almost concealing him with walls of flesh, bone, claws and teeth.
" 'Here, from my trial in the wilderness, I come to claim my birthright. I shall smite the morlocks in their dank caverns and I shall rise up over my brothers and rule from the sky! said the Brother. 'That would be a good place to rule from. said the heroyne, sharpening his beak on the side of the boundary stone, 'This boy could go far' added the siluroyne, sharpening his claws on the other side of the stone. 'Shame' concluded the gabbleduck, whose teeth and claws were always sharp."
The boy didn't get it for a moment, until he saw the picture of the creatures pulling apart the Brother like a piece of naan bread. He then grinned with delight and pointed at the picture.
"Gabbleducked," he asserted, not without a degree of craftiness in his expression.
The woman looked at him warningly, then finished the story.
"And thus our story ends with the moraclass="underline" You can have your cake and give it away, but never turn your back on a gabbleduck."
The night sky was bright with shooting stars that burned long courses through the oxygen-bereft air. Occasionally, distantly, some larger piece of wreckage would make it to the ground, and there then would be a flash and a boom as of gunfire on a distant battleground.
"Dragon is nothing if not thorough when it decides to destroy something," commented Mika.
"It always works on a huge scale," said Cormac, taking a sip from the tea Gant had made out of a packet he'd found amongst their supplies. Cormac and Mika were sitting on their packs whilst watching this display; Apis stood a little apart from them, his head tilted to the sky; and Gant and the dracoman were out 'taking a little recce', as Gant put it.
Cormac nodded to the Outlinker boy. "You notice how all his hatreds are directed towards the Theocracy here and against Skellor on the Occam, He hasn't had a bad word to say about Dragon, yet the creature destroyed the General Patten and killed many of his kin."
"I had not noticed that," agreed Mika, studying the boy.
"It's an attitude prevalent throughout the Polity — since Samarkand, and probably before, Dragon has been viewed as more a force of nature than a being in its own right. It's too huge and unfathomable for most people to see it otherwise. You might just as well hate a hurricane or a volcano."
"I think I understand that: even with scientific objectivity, one cannot help but feel awe. It is godlike in its power and size, and its rather Delphic communications only make it seem more so. There is also its immortality: you once destroyed one Dragon sphere, yet Dragon still lives," Mika replied.
Apis turned towards them now, and walked back over. As he seated himself on his own pack, Cormac thought that behind his visor the boy looked rather unwell.