Polity Agent

‘The choice is yours. You can have yourself altered cosmetically, or choose to stay as you now are. One of the dracomen will transport you down to Coloron. Thereafter, all choices are your own.’

‘A second chance?’ she asked.

‘Yes—exactly that.’

‘Thank you.’ Aphran collected some disposeralls from a dispenser in the wall. As she donned them, she just did not know what the future held for her. At some point that fact would be welcome, for now she actually had a future. Jack had created the false identity, this false life. Aphran liked the AI’s choice, but then Jack knew her like no other.

She opened her eyes to see tanks and autoguns advancing and firing on the arcology over the heads of Coloron’s forces. She saw missiles streaking down from above and, as when counting the seconds between the peal of thunder and the lightning flash, tracked explosions across the arcology.

* * * *

Another lander returned to the NEJ just ahead of them. Cormac watched it enter a docking bay, then pulled his attention back to studying the entire ship. Definitely one of the newest designs: attack ship configuration with a state-of-the-art chameleonware hull which, as well as being able to bend low intensity EM radiation around it, could also, to some degree, deflect high-powered lasers and masers. The outer skin was a form of polymerized diamond, over layered composite laced with superconductors. The ship’s skeleton, composed of the usual laminated tungsten ceramal, shock-absorbing foamed alloys and woven diamond monofilament, in this case was cellular and more substantial than usual. Cormac also knew that its extra weapons’ nacelle contained gravtech armament in addition to the usual lethal complement housed in the other two nacelles.

A Centurion, he remembered—that’s what they called these now.

The lander flew over the ship, then down to the second bay on its other side. It eased in through a shimmer-shield and settled in the narrow armoured area. Cormac stepped out first, followed by Thorn and then the dracomen. He noted armoured bay doors closing down and huge hydraulic grab arms easing out of the wall to take hold of the lander.

Jack? he tried once more through his gridlink. Again there came no reply. He applied at other informational levels through the ship’s systems, but found himself blocked by AI defences of the kind now being employed against Jain tech subversion everywhere throughout the Polity. But, then, in any war, communication always suffered first.

‘Not being very talkative, is he?’ he commented.

Thorn glanced at him quizzically.

‘Jack,’ Cormac explained.

‘He’s been rather busy lately, analysing evidence, interrogating suspects and taking apart their memcordings. He also recently rid himself of Aphran.’

Cormac halted. ‘Rid himself?’

From the intercom Jack’s voice suddenly issued, ‘I feel I should rename myself as I am now in singular control of this ship. However, there is some truth in the current name Not Entirely Jack.’

‘Has sentence been executed upon her?’ Cormac asked.

‘Aphran no longer exists,’ replied the ship AI.

That, Cormac realized, did not really answer his question, but he let that go as he turned and walked to the circular door leading from the bay, which promptly irised open before him. He stepped through and found himself in a corridor resembling a pipe. The flat surface of the gravplate floor laid in that pipe was covered with blue carpet moss, bearing a repeating pattern of white nooses—a pattern copied from the original Jack Ketch, though its carpets had been plain fabric. The rest of the corridor remained strictly utile: padded walls and ceiling, diffuse lighting, and soft hand grips in case the gravplates should fail. Cormac wondered if Jack made his usual baroque and sometimes gruesome additions elsewhere, for the original ship had contained various human execution devices of antique design that the AI liked replicating down to the smallest historical detail. Cormac waited until Thorn stepped through beside him.

‘Which way—I’ve been unable to access any information on the layout,’ he said.

Thorn stepped aside to allow Arach also into the corridor. The drone scuttled over to one side and reared up as the dracomen filed out next to head along the corridor. Cormac noted how the dracomen eyed the drone curiously before moving on.

‘Well, you certainly do get some types,’ commented Arach, coming back down on its sharp feet.

Cormac assumed there had been some inaudible communication between drone and reptilians, but simply classified Arach’s observation as interesting before turning back to Thorn, who gestured down the corridor, saying, ‘These corridors run in a grid throughout the ship, all gravplated on one side, so you can walk anywhere using them. There’s no movable drop-shafts.’