Polity Agent

Reaching the handler, Cormac noticed a haiman directing operations. The man sat ensconced in one of the handler’s huge claws, occasionally making a hand gesture, but most of his directions were being relayed over informational channels. Cormac queried him on that level, and received a priority slot just after the tanks. The haiman saluted, with a finger to his temple, before turning his attention elsewhere.

When the last tank slid through the Skaidon warp, as through the meniscus of a bubble, Cormac remembered that on jumps he made prior to events on the Ogygian, he had actually begun to experience U-space, which was something previously unheard of. He pushed off from the handler, orientating himself carefully to the plane of arrival at the receiving runcible. Arach shot ahead of him, impelled by air jets, and entered the meniscus first. As Cormac floated after, he felt the stirring of concealed memory—of that other gift from Jerusalem.

Now? Release it now?

No, some other time.

He fell, after Arach, through the Skaidon warp to Coloron.

12

I’ve stated before that I really would like to believe in him, simply because of his name. Surely if you are going to create a fictional hero, nay even demigod, you are going to come up with a more resounding name than ‘Horace Blegg’? Upon that basis I spent many weeks tracking stories through the nets, checking facts, trying to contact those involved. Time after time the main protagonists I did manage to contact remained either close-mouthed or denied any knowledge of the man. Mostly, I only managed to contact those who knew someone who knew someone who… and after tracing down many of those to dead ends, I gave up. Trying to find images of the man has been equally frustrating. There are many available, but often they plainly display different people. Through every line of research I encountered convoluted wild goose chases, breaks and missing information. One would suppose that all I really found was proof of his non-existence. I don’t think so. I believe AIs used search and destroy programmes to wipe out much information pertaining to him. I believe they meddled with reality again. I believe in Horace Blegg.

— From ‘How it Is’ by Gordon

Unless an emergency arose, Blegg usually confined his jumps through U-space to the surface of planets. Translating himself through U-space between planets in a system, or between ships, could be hugely tiring. And ships or runcibles were nearly always available, so why waste energy better applied elsewhere? In this case, however, he became impatient. The Hourne lay ten hours’ journey time from Masada, and Blegg felt no real need to remain aboard to see the Atheter artefact down on that world. Also, the runcibles aboard the Hourne had been shut down, since calculating the U-space position of a runcible located on a moon, planet or large station was difficult enough, but doing so for a ship manoeuvring insystem became near impossible. Blegg decided he must leave in his own inimitable fashion. He gazed down from a viewing blister aboard the great ship towards the moonlet called Flint, on which one of the runcibles in this system was sited. He looked into U-space, located both himself and the moonbase nestled amid the ruins of the shipyard, destroyed by Skellor with the Occam Razor’s weapons, and stepped across.

Earth Central immediately began to speak in his head as he found himself walking across the floor of a geodesic dome enclosing the runcible.

‘I have provided a small ship for you at Ruby Eye—it is capable of entering U-space unshielded. U-tech mapping and detection equipment have been installed and programmed to the U-space signature provided by Atheter. The USERs have now been shut down in that area, so you can travel at will there.’