I NOW GIVE YOU TOTAL CONTROL OF THE BOH OUTER GATE>
SOLVE >
Fucking comedian!
The cargo vessel now suddenly appeared in all her models, throwing everything into disarray. Solved: model one, two, three… four and five. Through, the cargo vessel was through. Buffer feedback figures.
There!
Suddenly she realised what had gone wrong during the real test. The energy at the meniscus, just a few points out because she did not include in the calculation the cargo vessel's transition time through the warp. It seemed so obvious, and so easy to move, in the mathematical realm, beyond it. Again she glimpsed beyond the warp seemingly into U-space itself. Terror lay there, and epiphany. Logic began to break down and it felt to her as if something tore in her head. Briefly she saw the cargo ship leaving the Boh gate, and remaining intact. Then the models began to erase one after the other. FULL SYSTEM ACCESS WELCOME MORIA >
Moria smiled and felt a godlike omniscience, then messages began to come through one after another: A ROLLING STONE GATHERS NO MOSS THROW DIRT ENOUGH, AND SOME WILL STICK THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS She pulled the optic lead from her aug and leapt out of the chair as if a snake had appeared on the desk.The AI is still in the system?
No, but maybe some fragments of it remained…like George. She shouldn't let it spook her like that. Getting her breathing under control she sat down again and reconnected. The proverbs kept coming, so she routed them into memstorage in her aug and concentrated on her access to the systems controlling both runcibles. Soon she ascertained that Jebel Krong had turned off the positioning drives so that the whole complex no longer accelerated towards Trajeen. A sensible decision really, what with him intending to detonate CTD mines aboard. She tracked through the sensors previously used by the AIs and finally located two spacesuited figures working at one of the gateposts, placing a nondescript cylinder inside one of the access hatches. Moving on she began testing her control, applying models in her aug but not actually initiating any action. She could turn the positioning drives back on, here and at Boh, and she could initiate the warp, though doing that would require processing space from the Trajeen networks which were currently crammed with traffic. She possessed complete exterior control of the runcibles, though without an AI, no chance of sending anything through, so what was the point? A moment of power before the shit-storm hit, and with that power she could do nothing. AND HAND IN HAND, ON THE EDGE OF THE SAND, THEY DANCED BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON,
What?
She was routing all that into storage, so why had her aug brought that one to her attention? A quick search rendered the answer to her: this was no proverb, but part of the nonsense verse penned by Edward Lear, the one Iversus Skaidon, the inventor of runcible technology, had so loved.
Why, why that?
THE MOON
THE MOON
THEY DANCED BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON.
Hand in hand.
A shiver ran through her as she clearly visualized Jebel Krong standing haloed by Trajeen, Vina speeding over above him.
The moon.
Was she just imagining things? Groping desperately? This must be madness. But… Jebel intended to install an aug on George… would there be enough of the AI left? And those proverbs, didn't they make a weird distorted kind of sense?
Moria sat back, seemingly paralysed by the enormity of what she was thinking. Then, after a long pause, she sent the instruction to start up the positioning drives again, to speed the runcible back on its way towards Trajeen.
"Thank you, thank you so much," Jebel said, his words directed out into space to a Polity dreadnought captain called Tomalon. The news had only just reached him and at first he found it difficult to credit, but the cheering from his Avalonians seemed to drive it home. TheOccam Razor—there a name to go down in history. A Polity ship had actually destroyed one of those fuckers. But Jebel's good mood rapidly faded. Apparently theOccam Razor,though still in pursuit, was severely damaged. And with Jebel's Prador ship still on the way, that victory brought no respite at all. Then other recently received information surfaced in his mind.
I guess, Cirrella, you were lucky.
The news only recently reached Jebel an hour before that about theOccam Razor, though it had been known after the questioning of the survivors fromAvalon Station. The AFs best estimate of those taken aboard the Prador ship stood at around seven hundred, and Jebel wished he possessed less imagination, less of a clear vision of what might be happening to them, still happening to them. He supposed their number would be much depleted now, if any remained alive at all. Rescue was of course impossible, but now there seemed some small possibility of an ending.
Jebel up-close-and-personal Krong.
He had killed so many of them that way, sticking mines on their carapaces and blowing the bastards to bouillabaisse. In the beginning, every death brought some satisfaction, but as the war progressed and he came to realise that Prador adults cared very little about the deaths of their numerous children, his feelings of satisfaction diminished. And alwaysthe ship remained, with Immanence still comfortably ensconced aboard it.
This time, by mining the Boh runcible, maybe Jebel could get to the Prador captain,really plant an explosive on a carapace where it would hurt, for Immanence would certainly try to seize that runcible first. Or was he kidding himself? Wouldn't the Prador captain expect something like this, wouldn't he send his children to scour the Boh runcible first? Jebel frowned. Damn he wanted to go out there, just to get close to the ship, just to have the opportunity, no matter how small to—
"What is it, Urbanus?" He turned as the Golem entered the lounge.
"We are under power—the positioning drives have been restarted."
"What?" Jebel felt a flash of irritation. "Well turn them off again and cut the power supply."
"We can't. It seems they were reinstated by executive order."
It took Jebel a moment to absorb that. "Moria Salem?"
"She is the only one who could do that, unless the override came from one of the planetary AIs. One of them is presently trying to extract information from George, and it tells me no such override has been initiated."
"Bring her here—she's got some explaining to do."
"There's no need for that." Moria strode into the room.
Jebel assessed her. He had rather liked her forthright attitude and hardheaded approach to the situation they faced. He rather liked her. But now he could see she was frightened and rather less sure of herself.
She turned to Urbanus. "Have you fitted George with an aug?"
Urbanus glanced towards Jebel, who inclined his head slightly.