‘Whether it was a ruse or not,’ said Mika, ‘the AIs certainly had no idea what Erebus intended to do next.’
‘Were they trying to find out?’
‘There were scout ships out and everyone was keeping watch.’ Even as she said it, Mika realized how pathetic that must sound.
‘You yourself have been greatly curious about the war with the Prador. You know the kind of industrial and information-processing capacity available to the Polity. Why weren’t industrial stations churning out millions of basic drones to keep watch? Why also weren’t AIs formulating plans and covering all possible methods of attack? Why, in the end, were they not even looking beyond that initial attack?’
As she negotiated drop-shafts and further corridors — the distinction between the two difficult to make out with them being so swamped with Jain technology — she found no answer to that.
Dragon continued: ‘There were many things ECS and its AIs could have done, but they were then sitting on their metaphorical hands — only following through on actions initiated by humans. I made some enquiries, but was shown without any doubt that my questions were unwelcome and my interference would not be brooked. When I suggested this attempt to contact the Jain AIs, Jerusalem immediately approved it. So I think it and others back there were glad of the opportunity to be rid of me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I knew there was more to this attack and to this Erebus business than was being revealed.’
‘You’re saying something stank.’
‘The Polity AIs would give me nothing, so I came here in search of information. My pseudopods have now explored much of this structure and penetrated many of the entrapped ships.’
Mika now understood that those pseudopods had been spreading behind her for more than just defence.
‘I expected a number of things,’ Dragon continued. ‘I expected that the AIs’ taciturnity was due to there being some master plan in motion to deal with Erebus, and that I was not being told anything about it simply because I was distrusted. I came here not only to prove my trustworthiness, but also because I expected to find some dirty secret, some cover-up concerning the original exodus — something, yes, that I could use as a lever, and perhaps something that would give me an insight into whatever that master plan was.’
‘You didn’t know.’
‘I didn’t know that there was no master plan. I didn’t know that Earth Central considers human development frustratingly slow and in need of a push, and that it considers Erebus the perfect tool for supplying that push. I didn’t know that Earth Central sent humans here just so Erebus could use them to initiate Jain technology — that it effectively sent them to be murdered.’
‘You don’t consider this sort of information a sufficient lever?’
‘I exist in the Polity only under sufferance,’ Dragon replied. ‘Some dirty little secret, perhaps about errors made during the Prador-human war, or perhaps about the slipshod manufacture of war drones costing lives, I could have used as a lever. Knowing that Earth Central is culpable in the murder of its own personnel and in instigating a conflict that has certainly now cost millions of lives is the kind of knowledge I could do without.’
Mika now began to understand Dragon’s display of emotion.
‘I am certain now that, though it is entirely possible Jerusalem knew the purpose of allowing Erebus to attack the Polity, it did not know about Fiddler Randal and his crew and that Earth Central had actively connived in facilitating that attack, else it would not have allowed me to come here where evidence of that crime was certain to be found. The decision was made quickly, without consultation. But it is certain that Earth Central will soon know I came here.’
‘You’re scared?’ said Mika.
‘If I return to the Polity I will be hunted down and blasted into component atoms.’
‘We have to tell someone about this.’
‘Who?’
‘But people have to know!’
‘Mika, while you were entering this ship, Erebus’s attack was brought to an end, not by Polity forces but by just a few individuals. The means they used to end the attack is gone now, and even fewer now remain alive. Those who do survive will perhaps ask some questions, entertain some doubts, but then move on. Everyone else who either knows or cares about this will believe it another victory for ECS, that Polity artificial intelligences have triumphed once again and destroyed another threat both to human and AI existence. Who do you tell? The separatists? Is that the route you would like to take?’
‘We tell Cormac,’ she replied, then damned herself for her stupidity. Though he was a Polity agent and had always been loyal to the organization he served, she knew he would, if given sufficient reason, drop that loyalty in a moment and do instead what he felt to be the right thing. Cormac was that sort of person. Nothing was allowed to stand between him and his morality. But what could he do? He was admittedly an exceptional individual, but if he turned against Earth Central he would die, simple as that. Humans who went up against AIs always did. As she mulled all this over, she noticed Dragon had been silent for some time.
‘Dragon?’
‘I am considering.’
‘I’m sorry — it was a stupid idea.’
‘Ian Cormac destroyed one of my spheres and has shown an almost supernatural facility for solving problems and surviving. He has meanwhile also demonstrated some other interesting abilities…’
‘We’re talking about Earth Central here.’
‘You,’ said Dragon, coming to a decision, ‘will tell him.’
Abruptly her surroundings shuddered and, glimpsing movement, she looked back to see something surging up behind her in the drop-shaft she currently occupied.
‘But first you have to get out of there alive,’ Dragon added.
The two wormships now spreading clouds of fragments no larger than a man’s fist had contained a concentration of the viral programs that made up Fiddler Randal.
‘Ouch,’ said Randal. ‘That smarts.’
He might pretend such a humorous reaction, but certainly the strength of his presence within Erebus had been reduced. However, destroying a proportion of a virus was no answer for, while there was a medium in which it could grow, it could quickly return to its previous strength. Erebus needed the proper antiviral medicine.
The entity began pulling its remaining wormships into closer proximity to each other so as to decrease the delay between thought and action for, even in the microseconds it had taken to fire up the weapons that had destroyed those two ships, substantial portions of the virus had managed to transport themselves out. Assessing that time was now becoming an issue, for the U-space disruption could not last and even now some Polity ships might be able to penetrate it, Erebus therefore began shutting down many systems that weren’t autonomic and applying its freed-up processing power to the task of dealing with Randal. The real problem became apparent at once, for Erebus — defined now as the Trafalgar AI melded with over nine hundred other partially distinct AIs — was distributed across all these wormships. This meant that informational traffic between ships was a constant chatter, that Erebus itself was as much the flow between the parts as the sum of them. Randal was created, or rather uploaded, at the same time as the meld, and so had been included within it. It would appear that Erebus’s immune system — that which distinguished self from other — could not tell the difference between Erebus and Randal. This was a quite ridiculous state of affairs, so Erebus decided to try something.
The new tools, those that could initiate specific system burn wherever fragments of the Randal code could be found, were completely ready. They were, however, a virus themselves so needed to be treated with caution. Erebus very deliberately selected one wormship and began severing all its connections with the rest — taking this ship and its captain out of the meld. The legate inside the selected ship — which had once been a Golem assault commander leading Sparkind teams from Trafalgar’s crew — protested this action until Erebus suppressed that portion of its free will allowing it to do so. Now, with the ship utterly isolated but for one radio set only to receive, Erebus focused all sensors upon the selected vessel, then sent the signal to initiate the new tools established within it.