Polity Agent

Cormac grimaced—of course, if the AIs did connive in this manifestation, they would never tell him. He gridlinked again and accessed the AI command structure, and saw overall command devolved to himself. Surely the AIs would be better at handling this? He asked himself this question only briefly—having done so many times already—before issuing his instructions. He knew his present status would last only so long as he did not screw up. Glancing over as Thorn strode across apparent vacuum to join him, he nodded an acknowledgement.

‘Jack, what’s our complement so far?’

‘Two dreadnoughts and twelve attack ships… make that three dreadnoughts.’ Obviously another one had just arrived.

‘Okay.’ Cormac studied the hologram of the Cassius system. ‘Have one of the dreadnoughts stand out meanwhile, and position the other two underneath the segment. Have them use realspace scanning and U-space scanning for the node signature. Position the attack ships evenly around the perimeter.’

‘The Legate might run for it without the node, using chameleonware—’ Thorn began.

Cormac held up his hand. ‘Chameleonware is fine just so long as no one is aware the user is somewhere in the vicinity. EM shells should disrupt the ‘ware sufficiently for us to enable detection. Though I doubt the Legate will run without taking its toy with it. There’s no one living in that segment, so no potential human hosts like Thellant.’

‘Big area to have to search.’

‘I’m open to suggestions.’

Thorn shrugged and folded his arms. Briefly Cormac wondered how the other man felt about Cormac assuming command, since until Coloron this arena had been Thorn’s. He dismissed the question: Thorn was a professional, and had been one for a very long time. In situations like this, petty jealousies could not be allowed.

Cormac closed his eyes, and using his gridlink, turned and twisted a three-dimensional representation of the Dyson segment. With scan data relayed to him from the dreadnoughts closing in, he obtained a clearer idea of where the node was generally located, though the signal still would not resolve clearly. He checked the positions of the attack ships, which were nearly in place, observed more stars now flashing all around like a firework display, as more ships arrived. Rather than ask, Cormac checked their number via gridlink. Still not enough: they would need a minimum of a hundred ships for this. ‘When we have the edges covered, we go in here.’ He sent an image of the segment with one edge highlighted. ‘We’ll need to stretch the coverage of each ship with telefactors and drones—we still haven’t enough vessels. I want them to use EM shells, in a standard search pattern, because I do not want this Legate to know we can detect Jain nodes.’

‘And when we reach the target itself?’ Thorn asked.

‘Disable, capture, then questions… if possible.’

‘We don’t even know what this Legate entity is. Is it an alien, an AI, both, or neither? It might not allow itself to be captured.’

‘What other options do we have?’ said Cormac coldly.

* * * *

No more.

She was a library stacked floor to ceiling with books, a computer going into information overload… or, perhaps a more human analogy, she was now educated beyond her abilities. She needed Jain tools to handle such masses of information. She therefore needed to take another irrevocable step.

Orlandine gazed at the small vessel the nanoassembler had provided—an innocuous fingerlength chainglass test-tube with a simple plasmel stopper fitted in one end. It contained something that looked like golden syrup into which a wad of metallic hair had been dropped. However, the hair moved constantly as if fluid in the tube was being held at a constant rolling boil. She stared at it for a long moment, then again checked her screens.

Finally having penetrated the alien ship’s chameleonware, she now tracked it carefully as it drew closer. The arrival of Polity forces also had not escaped her notice, nor the fact that they used secure com and systems hardened against Jain informational assault. But who were they after, herself, or her visitor?

Damn it!

She closed her eyes and tried to bring a sudden surge of anger and frustration under control. She still lacked vital information—a lack that might be the death of her. After a moment she grew calm. She decided to risk contacting the alien to see what she could learn, for it was an unknown, whereas Polity AIs were a definite known danger to her. However, first she needed to expand her capacity, set up defences, arm herself informationally. Opening her eyes she once again gazed at the test-tube.