Polity Agent

That brought about a silence as they all watched. Perfectly on time, it seemed a pinhole punched through the strange object as if it were drawn on a sheet of black paper held up to the sun. Abruptly it distorted and shrank inwards towards the hole. The view then polarized over some titanic flash, and next they observed an expanding sphere of glowing gas. Within minutes the Centurions penetrated this, sang to the tune of the Shockwave as it peeled their smaller attackers away from them.

‘Alien vessel is jumping,’ Belisarius—a horse head talking.

The scene greyed out for a few seconds, and around Thorn the holograms grew thin as a nightmare crowd. Then the Haruspex shuddered back into the real, with star patterns altered about it.

‘It’s still running in a straight line directly for that high-albedo object,’ Jack observed. ‘I would guess, upon observing us, it paused to receive instructions.’

Thorn sighed and began to unstrap himself.

‘But should we pursue any further,’ asked a new voice, ‘as we now know where to look? Should we not now call in the dreadnoughts? That our quarry is continuing along its original course might indicate that whatever awaits at its destination is not too worried about us.’

Thorn eyed the ancient Japanese man. He had a point: why risk four Centurions against an unknown foe?

‘But do we know where to look?’ Cormac asked. ‘This could merely be diversionary, and I’m not happy about bringing the larger force all the way out here until some target is confirmed.’ He gazed at Blegg. ‘Unless I am instructed otherwise, we continue.’

Blegg shrugged resignedly and disappeared.

* * * *

Utterly connected and at one with the Heliotrope, as it rose from U-space into the real, Orlandine felt an amusement almost sublime. Her dreams provided her with clues, and her partial interfacing with Jain technology provided the means. Now she could detect a node signature in U-space. In those first moments of abrupt mental growth she assigned programs to the task and, on abandoning the Dyson segment, decided to track down other Jain nodes. And look where that search brought her: full circle.

She identified the four Centurion-class attack ships, way in front of her, only when the trap revealed them, though she had been aware of something in that location, for a node signature registered from there. She then surmised that the other node signature far ahead of them issued from the alien vessel. It further occurred to her that the Polity ships might be using the same tracking methods as herself, which was probably why they did not lose the ship despite its chameleonware being as sophisticated as their own.

But what now?

She had decided to track down node signatures in the hope of observing uncontrolled Jain growth, to learn more and perhaps locate their original source. But pursuing these two could soon become a lethal occupation. Her most sensible move would be to abandon the idea, and flee to somewhere remote where material and energy resources would be easily available to her. A planet was out of the question, for she was still not prepared to take the risk of putting herself in so vulnerable a position at the bottom of a gravity well. Perhaps an asteroid or comet close to a sun… but, even while considering those options, she kept the Heliotrope on the trail of the Polity ships, who in turn might well be following the alien vessel to its home.

* * * *

There were no disagreements from the AIs about continuing this quest, but that was not unexpected as warship AIs tended not to back down. Cormac felt Blegg’s point only valid so far. Whatever lay ahead might be something small they could easily neutralize. It might be very mobile, in which case halting now would defeat the whole reason for allowing the Legate to escape since, while they awaited the larger force, the Legate and whoever or whatever had sent it might escape. And if the Legate’s master turned out to be something too large for them to handle, then they could run, and only thereafter would it be time to pull in the dreadnoughts and destroyers.

Cormac returned from the bridge to his cabin, and lying on his bunk, worked through in his gridlink all the recordings of recent events. Jack informed him that the large object the NEJ had destroyed with a CTD imploder was once an old Polity ship called the Calydonian Boar. Apparently it had joined up with some other AIs that headed out this way after the Prador War. This suggested those AIs either ran into something utilizing Jain technology or alternatively tech arising from it. Or had used it themselves. The positioning of such a defence implied something to defend, which somewhat undermined his theory about a mobile opponent. He sighed and banished speculation—however it ran, they would achieve their aim here: not to engage and defeat some enemy, but to clearly identify one. It seemed they would know shortly to whom the Maker had handed over its Jain nodes.