‘I understand why you zapped the Vulture,’ said Thorn, sitting in one of the club chairs, ‘but doing it straight away will have given him ample warning we are here.’
He looked better now, comfortable in ECS fatigues, and not hallucinating as Cormac felt sure he must have been shortly after his surgery. What he had seen was not possible, surely? With a degree of unease Cormac remembered something similar happening with Blegg on the Occam Razor, but of course that just wasn’t the same.
Still pacing, Cormac replied before the AI did. ‘Those swarms of U-space sentinels probably aren’t all Dragon’s, so Skellor would have detected us the moment we entered this system.’ He looked up at the view displayed of the sandy planet wrapped in pearly scarves of cloud. ‘The first ECS imperative was to make sure Skellor doesn’t get away. Jack acted on that, even if in doing so he destroyed something we might have used as a trap.’ He glanced across as Cento and Gant entered the bridge, shortly followed by Fethan, then added a little acidly, ‘I suspect the larger AI view is that once Skellor’s contained he can be destroyed at leisure, and that any collateral damage will come into the calculation later.’
‘It’s like Masada,’ Thorn observed.
‘How so?’
‘Like Masada—only turned about. Skellor wanted to capture you there. He destroyed what he thought were all means of transportation from the surface, then sent in his hunters but with no great urgency because he knew he could burn the entire planet down to the bedrock any time he liked.’
‘Is that how you feel about it, Jack?’ Cormac asked, turning to the automaton sitting in its club chair.
‘There are humans down there,’ said the hangman.
‘That wasn’t what I asked, but never mind. What about Dragon?’
‘Over the plain adjacent to where I destroyed Skellor’s ship, a hard-field dome has been erected. It is ten kilometres in diameter but of no great height. The Dragon sphere is probably underneath it, underground. I surmise this because that particular point is the epicentre of a gravity phenomenon.’
‘What?’ asked Cormac.
‘Gravity waves are being generated from there, causing earthquakes throughout the area.’
Cormac wondered how the hell he was supposed to factor that in: a Dragon sphere underground playing around with gravtech. He decided things were complicated enough already.
‘Go on,’ he said.
Jack continued, ‘Also, one of my telefactors is approaching the area, and I have already detected subterranean tunnel systems similar to those first found around Dragon on Aster Colora.’
‘Have you tried communicating?’ Cormac asked.
‘Only light penetrates the barrier. I’ve tried using message lasers, but get no response.’
‘Could Skellor be inside that barrier?’ Gant asked. ‘Maybe you need to put a few slow-burners through the plain as well, and maybe a couple of imploders—just in case.’
‘More likely Dragon erected it to keep Skellor out,’ said Cormac. ‘We know Dragon has as much liking of Jain technology as you have of Dragon itself, Gant.’
‘Then where is Skellor?’ interjected Thorn.
‘Jack?’ Cormac asked.
‘I am scanning from here, and four more of my telefactors are quartering the whole area, but I have not yet located him,’ the AI replied. ‘Though I have located another ship.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Cormac instructed.
‘An old Polity attack boat, refurbished and most likely privately owned. It is located in a mountain cave system five thousand kilometres from Skellor’s landing site. All its systems are shut down, and scanning indicates it has not been used in some years, possibly decades.’
‘Any sign of the crew?’
‘Nothing that stands out, though people from the ship could be mingled with the indigenes. No aug signals or any other signs of Polity technology.’
‘What about that colony ship in orbit?’
‘Virtually inert, and has probably been so for centuries. I get a beacon response to an old-style com-laser frequency, but nothing else. Scanning reveals no one aboard. Skellor could be there using his personal chameleonware, but as nothing there has been activated or interfered with, the probability is much higher that he’s on the surface.’
‘I could check that ship out for you,’ Fethan piped up. ‘I’m getting a bit stir-crazy in this old tin can, and it would be a relief to even go and look around in another.’
Something like a snort of pique issued from Jack.
Cormac stared at the old cyborg estimatingly, then said, ‘Okay—go and take a look. You go with him, Cento. Power it up and secure it if you can. The rest of us will go down to the surface and see what we can find out from the human population. Jack—you’ve been listening in on them?’
‘Yes—their language is rooted in old standard English with a strong French influence. I can load a linguistic crib program directly to Gant, and to you through your gridlink, but Thorn will require VR teaching of some hours.’
Cormac turned to Thorn. ‘I’ll want you on the ground soonest, so get yourself into VR—you’re no use to me if you can’t understand the answers you beat out of people.’
‘That would be most annoying,’ Thorn replied, standing.
‘When you’re ready, take the second lander over to this grounded Polity ship and check it out, then you can rendezvous with us.’
Thorn nodded.
‘Right,’ said Cormac to them all. ‘Let’s find this bastard.’
His senses now directly connected into one of his miniature sentinels, Skellor studied the ship that had destroyed the Vulture, and experienced a feeling of unreality. A soldier would feel this way when, peering over the edge of his trench, he saw a bulldozer bearing down on him. For a fraction of a second he just denied what he was seeing, then came acceptance—and fear. He considered his options.
If he ran and hid he could evade detection for a very long time, but he was still in a trap. It was possible ECS might, after searching meticulously and finding no further evidence he was here, decide that the Vulture — and Crane, should they find him—had been decoys. But that possibility was reliant only on Dragon saying nothing, and he doubted that. ECS might also choose the option of taking this planet out of the equation permanently, but the likelihood was low, what with this place’s indigene population and the AI regard for sentient life. Shutting down his link to his sentinels, Skellor stared down at what had become of the man called Plaqueast — the man’s name was one of the smaller scraps of information Skellor had torn from his mind.
Plaqueast’s arms and legs had withered, their substance having been drawn into his increasingly bloated body. His clothing had parted to reveal skin deeply veined and mottled in shades of purple and yellow. His skull had now collapsed, what remained of his head only retaining enough integrity to accommodate his mouth for breathing—and as a birth channel for the aug lice still crawling from it. Jain tendrils extruding from his lower body rooted in the sandy soil, seeking out nutrient for the ongoing process. Already, only a few metres away, those tendrils had found a suitable source, and had dragged to the earth and were sucking dry one of the sleer/human hybrids. All about—up the butte to which this bloated thing bound itself with mucal webs, across the ground, up pillars, and amid the trusses high above and on the underside of the platform—scuttled hundreds of the aug creatures. But there were not enough yet, for Skellor needed thousands if he was to hold a suitable hostage to ransom.
However, it was time for the hostage-taking to begin.
The exterior input centre looked as if someone had flensed it with autogun fire, such was its ruination. The gravplates, now working again but utterly disconnected from any form of computer control, had dragged the smoke into laminations, and dropped tangles of optics and superconductors and numerous shattered components to the floor. The air was now getting stale and smelt strongly of sweat and fear.