Polity Agent

‘Take us out,’ she replied. ‘I need to take some direct ionization readings.’

Opening herself into the ship’s systems she observed the umbilicals detaching like flaccid worms. Autohandlers had loaded the last few items requested only minutes ago. Clamps detached and the slight spin of the station cast the ship adrift. Now clear of it, she observed the Cassius Station in all its might.. Ovoid and gigantic, the thing was 200 miles from top to bottom and 150 miles wide, yet in itself it was but a single component that would be later fitted into the Dyson sphere, along with millions like it. Orlandine focused on the equator while selecting certain crucial programs from her files—only slightly different from those she had used to kill Shoala’s systems. The detonation lay only three minutes away. To delay until after that would be to forewarn this ship’s AI.

‘Heliotrope, here are the parameters of a search, and related data.’ She sent the programs to the AI, and trustingly it accepted them without checking. As the Jain programs isolated the AI and began to take it apart, she watched the station. Precisely on time a brief speck of light appeared on its huge surface. But the mere fact that she saw it without magnification, from this distance on a structure so massive, meant a few thousand cubic yards of the station had been vaporized along with Shoala’s interface sphere, and his corpse. After a moment she picked up signals meant for her, and ignored them, while delving into the complexities of entering U-space. The ship AI died just as the ship it controlled dropped out of existence.

* * * *

With a feeling of extreme déjà vu Thorn walked out along the platform, but that sensation passed as he gazed out across the roiling sea. When Skellor had come here, and for ten shillings picked up his Jain node at a market stall, there had been no sea here at all, but now the terraforming process was much advanced. The market now absent, large structures had arisen on what must now be described as a pier. A big ship lay magnetically moored to it, and a crane lowered large cargo containers into its hold.

‘Why a ship?’ he asked.

‘That was Aelvor’s choice,’ replied Jack via Thorn’s comlink. ‘For energy efficiency. The runcible is downside so requires the main output of present fusion reactors, thus for planetary transport he is using less energy-profligate means. The output from the reactor aboard that ship would only be enough to lift an AG transport one tenth the size.’

‘Then why not bring in more reactors?’

‘Economics. Aelvor is working within a budget.’

Economics.

Thorn tasted the word. When you worked for ECS it was one you knew about, but also knew only applied to others. The formulae that AIs employed to control financial systems he knew to be as esoteric as those they used to control runcibles. He understood that the profit margins of all concerns were limited by those formulae, as were their rate of expansion and resource demand. This last applied here, too, for Aelvor, the haiman overseeing the terraforming of this place, had been allocated limited resources and was left to assign them as he saw fit. Here then was an attempt to allow a terraformer to create something not quite so homogeneous as many worlds in the Polity. This world was also unusual in having a haiman in charge—the Osterland AI’s power being limited solely to the runcibles and their infrastructure. He wondered how the AI itself felt about that.

Thorn continued along the edge of the pier until he was closer to the ship. Studying one of the containers he recognized on its side the logo of a private biofact corporation. The vessel, he realized, was a seeding ship, and its cargo would probably be released only at specified locations in the sea. Doubtless each container held slow-release canisters of plankton and seaweed spores, as well as fish, crustacean and mollusc eggs, and maybe larger organisms. By the foamy look of the waves and some staining back on the rocky shore, he guessed algae were already taking hold.

‘Okay, we’re on,’ announced Jack.

‘About time too. Why the delay?’

‘Aelvor is high security status, so has already been alerted to the threat Jain tech represents. He was rather miffed that people, such as yourself, who had come in contact with it, were here on his planet, then extremely reluctant to allow any alien organisms of another kind, draconic in nature, down on the surface. I understand his point of view.’

‘What brought him around?’

‘Osterland and myself pointed out how a woman once sold Jain tech from a stall on that very pier, but what really made him become more cooperative was a promise of ten per cent extra on his resource allocation should we leave any mess he needed to clear up. I rather think he would now like us to have a small war down here.’

Thorn turned from the rail to head back towards the city which, over the years, had spread across the rocky landscape. ‘What information do we have?’