Polity Agent

‘Twelve-ton discrepancy detected, within the parameters of the Legate’s last departure from here. Other forces are already on their way.’

‘Other forces?’Thorn muttered.

Cormac asked, ‘Where was this discrepancy detected?’

‘The Cassius project.’

It figured: the AIs would be mighty pissed off about anyone messing with that.

14

Simple hardfield principles: this kind of field is projected from its generator much like a torch beam from a torch, the circular field meniscus generating at a distance preset in the generator like said beam striking a wall. Rather than getting into the complex maths and spacial-warp mechanics involved, it is best to think of it as simply a disc extended from its generator on the end of a long and extremely tough girder—both being made of a superconductor. Kinetic shock against the disc results in kinetic shock being transferred to the generator itself, where many methods are used to either absorb or convert it. Simple hydraulic rams are often used, also thermal or electrical conversion rams. Heat applied to the disc results in heat being applied to the generator. Again various methods are used to deal with this: superconductors to bleed it away, and other cooling systems. There are, however, deliberately designed-in limitations to how much of either a generator can absorb. Sufficient onslaught of each will usually result in a generator, with designed-in obsolescence, melting, though sometimes, if the limits are sufficiently exceeded, it will explode. A generator not so designed can, at some unplanned limit, implode, briefly creating a singularity at its core and a consequent fusion burn from highly compressed matter when the singularity goes out. The explosion in this case exceeds, by orders of magnitude, the explosion in the former case. Hence the deliberate obsolescence.

— From ‘Weapons Directory’

The hardfield generators rested in transporters heavily constructed of carbide steel laminated with bearing materials and shock-absorbing foamed resins. Designed to bend and twist under huge loads, then return to their original shape, they were low and incredibly heavy, and in this situation not worth the energy expenditure of AG, so they ran on two sets of caterpillar tracks. Two thousand of them guarded the landward perimeter, their anchor spikes driven down through ten yards of earth until they encountered bedrock. The generators themselves were spherical, covered in flexible cooling pipes and bristling with radiator fins. The fields they projected, as well as being impervious to matter, were polarized against radiations outside the human visual spectrum. Those fields also slanted at forty-five degrees, to deflect the Shockwave rather than stop it completely. The tank commander told her it still seemed likely that any generators surviving the blast would be driven, along with their transporters, deep into the ground.

‘Why not wait until everyone is completely clear?’ she asked, once again perching on his tank.

The man himself stood nearby, smoking a cigarette. He told her it was a habit acquired after spending too much time in his youth taking part in VR interactives based on celluloid films that were centuries old. He found it relaxed him.