‘The three cylinders you are seeing are the buffers for this particular segment of the runcible. Detonating the CTD here, or in the equivalent place in any other segment, will take the device completely out of commission.’ King paused contemplatively. ‘Spiral stairs, since you ask, because inductance from the runcible buffers would interfere with the irised gravity field in any conventional drop-shaft. Just consider, when was the last time you saw a drop-shaft located anywhere near a runcible?’
This was true: he never had.
‘What about gravplates — since they’re the same sort of tech?’ he asked.
‘Similar, but they produce a static gravity field, while drop-shafts produce a moving one.’
‘I see.’ Cormac gazed at the hologram before him and tried to imprint it on his mind. For back-up he applied to King’s server and downloaded the entire schematic to his gridlink. He turned to go, then paused to ask, ‘How long until we reach the corridor through to Earth?’
‘Less than an hour now.’
Cormac headed for his cabin.
The true size of those blooms of Jain coral only became evident as Dragon drew close enough to them for Mika to see something caught in the fork of two branches amid the many. Gazing at it she wondered if it might be some sort of biomech crouching there ready to leap on passers-by, then she saw writing on its side and abruptly recognized an old-style attack ship, whereupon everything jumped up a magnitude in scale. Only then did she pay full attention to the data provided by her sensors now scrolling up on her screen.
From behind, where the other Dragon sphere faced off the massive Jain biomech, came perpetual surges of EMR — in consonance with the waxing and waning of the light out there. The two were still battling, but it was not this that riveted her attention. The incoming data now gave her the true scale of the partially conjoined spherical blooms. Each of the seven possessed a diameter of no less than five thousand miles. Mika cursed silently.
‘Note the density,’ said the Dragon inside her head.
Yes, these structures certainly occupied a substantial volume of space, yet their density was akin to that of bushes, or maybe a better analogy would be tumbleweeds.
‘Density noted,’ said Mika. ‘What’s that supposed to tell me?’
‘I’m guessing that Trafalgar landed on a moonlet or an asteroid, which it then processed during the first phases of acquiring and controlling Jain-tech,’ Dragon replied. ‘The rest of the AI exodus was gathered in close orbit about that same landing place.’
The Dragon sphere was now getting incredibly close to the nearest bloom of coral. Looking up from the conferencing unit was a disquieting experience, because this bloom stretched from horizon to horizon. It was as if an endless ceiling from which depended a forest of bone trees descended towards her, or maybe a mass of the kind of branching stalactites found in the caves of low-gravity worlds. Deeper in, amid the tangle, she saw the boxy shape of a scout ship melded into a limb of coral, where numerous thin branches had sprung from it as if it were the core of an epiphyte.
‘So now that we are at the centre of things,’ ventured Mika, ‘are you going to be more precise about why we’ve come here?’ She asked this almost because she felt that she should, not because she hoped for any clear answer from Dragon and not, oddly, because she needed an answer.
‘You must go to Trafalgar for me,’ said Dragon. ‘I am fairly certain that it lies at the centre of this particular bloom of Jain technology.’
Mika felt a rumbling vibration through the floor and, when movement at the horizon attracted her attention, she looked over to see a pseudopod tree spearing towards the bone forest. She watched as it reached the Jain coral and penetrated, fraying and spreading out as it did so. The vibration steadied at a low note and, checking scan returns, Mika saw that, in relation to the mass before them, Dragon was now stationary. The sphere had clearly moored itself to their destination.
‘Let me get this straight,’ she said. ‘You want me to fly my little intership craft right into that mess — and to the very centre, about two and a half thousand miles in?’
‘Yes.’
Mika glanced across at the flapping skatelike guide that had led her out from the interior of Dragon, and it returned her gaze steadily with its blue palp eyes. She then thought about dracomen, those entities Dragon created with the same ease that a human would fashion a clay doll. ‘Why don’t you send a probe?’
‘But I am sending a probe,’ Dragon replied. ‘You.’
‘It’s very dangerous out there. I’ve already witnessed that.’
‘It is not so dangerous out there now.’
‘You still haven’t told me why you aren’t sending your own organic probe,’ Mika insisted. ‘If you don’t tell me why, I won’t go-’
Of course she knew Dragon wanted her to go because of the new memories sitting like lumps of rock in her skull, but she wanted certainties.
‘Very well,’ said Dragon, almost resignedly. ‘Because you are an evolved creature. You are not a product of Jain technology, in fact you are not a product of any technology.’
‘That’s as clear as mud.’
‘Perhaps you have not vocalized it yet, Mika,’ said Dragon, ‘but you know what is in there.’
Gazing at that tangled forest of Jain substructure, she surmised that here it formed only a thin surface over something else. ‘I feel something… but I don’t really understand.’ Mika turned her attention to the blue palp eyes still staring at her. ‘Can’t you for once explain clearly?’ However, even as she made this request, she stood up, checked the integrity of her spacesuit and turned towards the airlock.
‘Long ago when all four of my spheres still existed and I myself was sited on the planet Aster Colora, I summoned a Polity ambassador to me. I was still struggling with my Maker programming then, and trying every method I could manage to circumvent it — hence my history of Delphic and obscure pronouncements.’
Reaching the airlock, Mika glanced round to see the remote flopping along the floor behind her. ‘Is this story going anywhere?’ she enquired.
‘The ambassador sent was Ian Cormac,’ said Dragon. ‘He solved the problem I set him in his usual inimitable manner, with cold logic and with a CTD concealed in his rucksack. He would not be suitable for this purpose.’
‘What purpose?’
‘Being demonstrably human.’
With her helmet and visor closed up Mika stepped through the shimmer-shield towards the outer door. The remote flopped after her.
‘You’re saying Cormac isn’t demonstrably human?’
‘The matter is open for debate.’
Mika grimaced. She did not want to be distracted from the main thrust of her enquiry.
‘Still too much mud,’ she said.
‘It is your turn to be the ambassador, but this time neither concealed threats nor a propensity for solving puzzles will help,’ said Dragon. ‘Your own experiences were perfect for convincing my twin sphere that the evidence I presented regarding the death of the Maker civilization had not been fabricated. Those memories, along with further evidence of the same events and evidence of what happened to the Atheter, all reside inside your head alone. You are also the best human that I know and are therefore the right example of humanity for the task of presenting… humanity.’
‘Meaning we’re the next civilization in danger of being destroyed, I presume?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I’m presenting this evidence to what?’ Mika asked.
‘To the Jain AIs,’ Dragon replied.
As she stepped out onto the surface of Dragon, she was grateful for the transition to lower gravity, for her legs felt suddenly weak. She halted for a moment, watching the remote haul itself up then fling itself into gliding flight which terminated against the side of the intership craft. It amazed her that the vessel was still intact. Initiating the gecko function of her boots, she walked over to touch the door control and watched the wing door rise. While she waited she noted flickering changes in the light as of an approaching thunderstorm, then spotted a shower of meteors stabbing up beyond Dragon’s horizon. Had there been air to carry sound, she knew she would now be hearing a roar like that of warfare.