‘What have you done to me?’ she asked.
‘I made you into a tool suitable for this purpose,’ Dragon replied.
Her bare hand contacted cold metal, about which she saw the Jain tendrils stirring. She wanted to pull it away but it now seemed frozen in place. The tendrils extended, like a speeded-up film of grass growing, and touched her skin. Seemingly stirred into more frantic motion by the warmth of her hand, their growth accelerated. Pain ensued, but she felt strangely disconnected from it. Perhaps this was a kindness from Dragon. Blood welled on her skin and boiled dry as the tendrils penetrated. In a moment it seemed an icicle was driving its way up her arm, to her shoulder and then into her neck.
Then the ice entered her brain.
The corridor ahead was a danger, Erebus knew this, but there was no avoiding it. No other pattern of U-space disruption offered safer passage through to Earth itself. Even so, Erebus dropped out of U-space some tens of thousands of miles before the constriction and actively scanned ahead. What the AI found there filled it with suspicion and made it bring the entire moonlike mass of itself to a full stop. There was ionization in the vacuum, hot particulate matter, signs of energy output that should not be found out here, so distant from the nearest stars.
Erebus extended its scan, paying particular attention to finding anything that might be trying to conceal itself. For a moment some of the returns hinted that there might be some object directly in its path, but further testing revealed this to be merely a ghosting effect caused by the ionization. However, there was ionization here and that needed to be explained, so Erebus just hung there in space for nearly an hour, scanning, checking and very wary.
‘Second thoughts?’ enquired a voice.
Erebus hated that its first reaction at Fiddler Randal’s return was a sense of relief, and immediately after that felt a surge of rage.
‘Second thoughts are for those incapable of making the logical decision first time around,’ Erebus replied.
Randal manifested in the virtuality, casually human but utterly a ghost. Erebus linked through, placing its own manifestation there to confront the interloper.
‘Hey, would that be like the second thoughts of one whose plans were so faulty he managed to lose fifty wormships to one of his own attack plans?’
‘You cannot provoke me.’
‘Oh… jolly good.’
‘I understand your hate,’ said Erebus.
‘That’s big of you.’
‘But shouldn’t your hate be directed at my target more than at me?’
‘It is focused there, certainly,’ said Randal, ‘but there is still enough of the human being remaining in me to want to kill you for what you did to all my friends… what you did to Henry. You know I still hear her screaming? And there’s still enough human left in me to know that the destruction of your ultimate target is not worth the collateral damage you will be causing.’
Ah, there …
Because the event lay off to one side, within the area of U-space disruption, the light from it was only now beginning to reach Erebus. The AI observed an attack ship surface into the real in a photonic explosion. Its back end, where the U-space engine had been located, was missing, and its hull was distorted.
‘Yes, let us talk of collateral damage,’ said Erebus. ‘Let us talk about Klurhammon.’
‘Aren’t we beyond talk now?’ Randal appeared to be gazing off into the distance. ‘An attack ship. I see. I would say that Earth Central is now utterly ready for you. Doubtless that ship was scouting out this area, and tried to get back through the corridor in one jump in order to give the warning — probably to an awaiting Polity fleet. I don’t suppose it will really matter that it didn’t make it.’
‘Much as you would like me to believe that,’ said Erebus, now seeing where Randal was going with this, ‘I see no logical reason why a scout would ever have been sent. Your desperation to have me believe there is a Polity fleet awaiting me beyond this corridor is rather pathetic. And your evasion of matters pertaining to Klurhammon is perhaps revealing.’
‘Revealing of what?’
‘You talk of my causing collateral damage yet somehow — using my resources — you initiated an attack upon Klurhammon. A considerable number of humans died there, so what was it you were doing that their lives were a price worth paying?’
Randal smiled. ‘I like the way you blame me for that attack, and really I wish I possessed that kind of power. If I did, I would have had your wormships attacking each other by now, or detonating their CTDs within this conglomeration you’ve created.’
‘You managed to take control of one wormship, and I would say that is about the extent of what you can do. You sent it against a low-population world “of no tactical importance”. It could not possibly have been an attempt to forewarn, since Earth Central already knew the attack was due… so I wonder what connection this had with your spy in Jerusalem’s stronghold?’
Randal shook his head sadly. ‘You just don’t seem to understand how badly your melded mind is breaking apart. Parts of you have gained independence and they are no longer completely sane. Perhaps you would be best asking yourself who the captain of that wormship was and what previous connection he had with Klurhammon? And a spy in Jerusalem’s stronghold? If I could have managed to do that, I could—’ Randal’s expression betrayed sudden horror, quickly disguised. ‘Henry… she…’
‘Very unconvincing, Randal,’ said Erebus. ‘Let me lay it all out for you. Though you have learnt much about my ostensible plans, it was pointless you informing Polity forces about them because they already knew an attack was due. However, I kept my real plan from you: the one Earth Central needed to know about in order to react how you would want and try to stop me. I see now that the Klurhammon attack was some kind of error on your part. Did you try to suborn one of my captains and then simply lose control of it?’
No answer from Randal.
‘I also realize now that this spy was nothing to do with you. I can in fact see how useful it would be for Jerusalem to fabricate the presence of such a spy, and to use that as an excuse for clamping down on the free exchange of information. Because Jerusalem won’t want its inferiors to figure out that my initial attack on the Polity had been allowed.’’
‘Very bright of you,’ sneered Randal. ‘The wormship wasn’t controlled by me, and I controlled no spy. I can see why AIs are rated as super intelligences.’
‘Merely another attempt at muddying the waters,’ Erebus replied. ‘Just like your pretence of shock a moment ago. You have almost certainly known for some time about the death of your lover, Henrietta Ipatus Chang. It does not matter what you say now, since it is obvious that you are desperate to convince me that there is a Polity fleet waiting on the other side of this corridor.’
‘You’re just too smart for me,’ said Randal drily.
‘There is no fleet, Randal,’ continued Erebus. ‘In exchange for the human beings I myself needed, namely you and your crew, I agreed with Earth Central to launch an attack on its Polity in an attempt to goad an acceleration in the development of human beings. Earth Central never expected I could present, or even wanted to present, a real danger to its autocracy, and having underestimated me will now pay a heavy price. Earth is the centre of the runcible network, and transmission from runcibles controlled by Earth Central cannot be blocked. From Earth, I will be able to spread myself throughout the Polity, and then proceed to subsume every extant runcible AI into my meld.’