One small device, which had looked like a four-winged insect from the start, suddenly realised that it was probably all that remained of the components the ship had left behind. It sat on the snout of the airship, perched clinging to a thin stanchion supporting a long, dangling, trailing banner, and watched through impersonated compound eyes as another component, a thumb-sized scout missile, plummeted from on high, falling minutely past the bulbous nose of the slowly advancing airship, unwinding a twisting thread of grey smoke as it fell, unseen by any human eye. It disappeared into the dark depths of the huge open-work tunnel beneath.
Some seconds later the giant airship bulged its way through the volume of air the little device had fallen through. The artificial insect detected a faint, disappearing trace-scent of the scout missile’s descent.
The insect considered its instructions in the event of such eventualities, waited for a time, then lifted off, buzzing away on a long falling curve, building in just enough erraticism into its course to look convincing as it headed for the nearest point of entry into the body of the airship.
“That’s not good,” Berdle said.
“What’s not good?” Cossont asked.
“Something big and powerful just rolled up at Xown and started blighting all my gear,” the avatar told her. They were sitting in the shuttle’s compact command space, watching the planet approach as they decelerated from the system edge.
“What gear?”
“The bits and pieces I left behind to keep an eye on whatever’s happening there.”
Cossont frowned at the avatar. “Do you leave stuff behind everywhere you’ve been?”
“Pretty much.” Berdle looked at her with an expression indistinguishable from genuine incomprehension. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Never mind. This big and powerful something; bigger and more powerful than you?”
“Definitely bigger.”
“We still going in?”
“Even less choice now.”
“We couldn’t just… call Ximenyr?” Cossont said. “Could we? You know; just say, Hi, we need them eyes you’ve got?”
Berdle smiled briefly. “I have been trying to contact the gentleman. I asked Mr QiRia’s mind-state if it would cooperate and it said it would, but Ximenyr’s been impossible to contact. A direct appeal to him, from Mr QiRia, ought to be our first course of action when we do gain access to him.”
“Oh. You might have told me.”
“I might.” Berdle agreed, looking unconcerned. “I would have, had we been successful.”
“Huh. Okay. So: this ship the same one as at Bokri?”
“No,” the avatar said. “Can’t be. Registering all different anyway. Battleship rather than battle-cruiser; I can outrun it, but that’s not much use when we both want to be in the same place at the same time.” Berdle shook his head. “Shit in a slather. Pretty much everything’s gone or going. I’m losing all my senses down there.”
“Think they’ll be putting their surveillance in, instead?”
“I suppose. Though, being Gzilt navy rather than special forces or anything, I bet their stuff isn’t as sneaky as my stuff.”
“What was the last you heard through all this sneaky stuff?”
“Ximenyr was still there on the airship, getting prepared for the latest bout of ceremonial partying. Apparently; that’s all according to the airship’s own channels. I don’t have direct access to him, and he hasn’t been heard of for at least seven days. I have — had — stuff inside the airship but nothing in the guy’s own quarters after he found that scout missile. Pretty sure he’s still there, but not certain. I’ve found some incidental recording of him still wearing the container round his neck, from the day after we visited him, so — at least initially — we didn’t spook him. Also, the whole layout of the airship’s been changing, since a couple of days after we were here before; they’ve created a big new space inside. And they’ve been bringing in a lot of extra tech, including new field projectors. And water; that thing must weigh a lot more than it used to, but they seem to have balanced it all out with extra AG. None of which would matter if we could see inside it properly, but we can’t. Plus now we’ve got competition, and they know where our attention’s been focused, if they didn’t before. Not to mention,” he said, turning to her, “there’s been a guy, walking or jogging ahead of the airship, since we left.”
“I thought there were various people doing that?”
“Oh, it’s collected lots of people keeping pace with it recently, in air-cars, travel-tube carriages, special trains and ground vehicles, plus there are people keeping pace with it on foot for half a day or so at a time, but there was only one guy who just kept it up all the way through. I had an insectile watching him the whole time and he just never stopped; he hardly even varied his pace. All he did was switch what level and which side he was on, and keep level with different parts of the airship, I suppose so he wasn’t too conspicuous. He’s got some sort of camo or adaptive clothing on that changes every day, but that didn’t throw the bug off; it was still the same guy, walking or jogging day and night.”
“Probably not human then.”
“Probably not human,” Berdle agreed. “Though of course you never know; there are some very odd humans.” He frowned at the screen and the giant red-brown, green and blue ball of Xown, as though the planet itself had been responsible for this upset. “Trouble is, he’s disappeared now, too.”
He awoke.
He was in a military medical facility aboard a regimental fleet ground liaison craft, flying within a subsidiary tunnel space of the Girdlecity of Xown. It was late afternoon on this part of Xown; five minutes off midnight, back on Zyse.
He was lying on a couch, blinking at the ceiling light panels. He was a customised bio-plausible android, waking after having had the latest version of his guest implanted.
He was Colonel Agansu, translated and transplanted into this fresh, tireless, highly capable and perfectly unharmed new body.
It made no difference.
He knew that he had been worried about having his consciousness duplicated in this way, but he had been a fool to torment himself with such concerns. Of course the original of him, lying being put back together and regrown in the bowels of the Uagren, would always think of itself as the “real” him — he accepted this without emotion — but he knew who he was, within this body, here, now, and that there was work to be done.
Knowing that there was another iteration of himself elsewhere was mildly comforting, like having another layer of protection wrapped around him, but made little real difference.
A screen on a flex-arm swung over to inspect him. A woman’s face looked at him from somewhere remote. The doctor’s gaze flicked to one side then the other, doubtless studying read-outs. Then she said, “Well, whoever you are, whatever it is they want you to do, you’re as ready as you’ll ever be to do it. Good luck and good Subliming, brother.”
Agansu swung out of the couch. The screen seemed to flinch, withdrawing towards the ceiling as he did so.
“Thank you,” he said.
He felt the aircraft settle on a solid surface; interfaced with the craft’s systems, he knew he would be three hundred and ten metres ahead, two hundred and twenty metres away laterally and zero metres vertically from the nose of the airship when he exited. He checked his camouflage clothing, got it to impersonate something civilian and nondescript.