‘Morag has had an idea,’ Pagan said. I turned to her expectantly.
‘We had an idea,’ Morag said.
‘Well it was more of-’ Pagan began.
‘Move on,’ I suggested.
‘Gregor still has his interface plugs,’ Morag pointed out. ‘We drill through the cocoon and insert a port into him and talk to him in the net.’
‘Can’t you do it wirelessly?’ I asked.
Pagan shook his head. ‘We’ve been trying. Whatever internal ware he uses as a receiver is not accepting incoming transmissions.’
‘And you can’t override it?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Possibly, but I don’t know how much is normal ware and how much is Themtech, and I’m assuming you know what happens to people who try to hack Themtech?’
‘They end up like Vicar?’ I said.
‘At best, and I don’t want to end up like him.’
I looked over at Morag. ‘Wouldn’t you be more compatible?’
Morag opened her mouth to answer but Pagan got there first.
‘Possibly, but if we drill into the cocoon then there’s no risk.’
‘To you perhaps, but it might trigger off some kind of defence system. If that thing is transforming then what’s to say you’ll even be able to find the port?’
‘We’re sending it through on a modified snake,’ Morag answered. Snakes were remotely controlled delivery devices for monofilament fish-eye cameras, old technology. Most people used mites or crawlers these days, but most special forces types still had them around in case they came in useful.
‘Okay, but what’s to say you won’t harm Gregor?’ I asked. ‘The cocoon is after all a protective casing, I’m guessing.’
Both of them weren’t sure what to say. ‘We need to know,’ Morag finally asserted. ‘He shouldn’t have cocooned himself without telling us what the plan was.’
‘Agreed, but if we kill him, we’ll never know,’ I said.
‘So we turn around, which we’re already considering anyway,’ Pagan replied. I fixed him with a glare from my lenses.
‘He’s still a friend of mine,’ I reminded him, though I’m guessing my near corpse-like appearance made me less scary than I used to be.
‘Understood, but he seemed pretty robust. He is after all part alien killing machine. When we get to Sirius we’re not going to be able to hang around for too long, stealth or no stealth. If They don’t find us, the Cabal will.’ He was overstating the point; finding a ship in something as big as space was actually quite difficult.
‘What are you looking for, my permission?’ I asked. Both of them looked a little guilty. ‘You’ve already decided to do this.’ Pagan nodded. I sighed. ‘Fine,’ I said, a little pissed off. ‘Can you at least make sure I’m there when you talk to him?’
‘That’s kind of why we’re here,’ Morag said. She moved over to the bed and, as gently as she could, rolled me over. I found myself staring at the bulkhead. This saved me from having to see the grimace on Morag’s face when she saw my bedsore-covered back, the bleeding sores from the radiation sickness, and smelled the rank smell of someone dying. I felt her plug in the wireless net interface.
‘We’ll call when we’re ready,’ she said and the pair of them left.
The net was tiny on the Spear. Strictly speaking, it could have been any size, but it only existed in the Spear’s own systems. The net representation of the ship was odd. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a skeletal spearhead or the long skull of some kind of mythical beast. Symbols, not unlike the veves Papa Neon used, were inscribed in the bone, though they would change, morphing into other symbols as you looked at them. This was encrypted information from the ship’s operating systems. A huge and largely featureless desert surrounded the net representation of the Spear – presumably this was to symbolise space. The sky was a beautiful rendering of a desert sunset. Different virtual areas of the ship were represented as smooth caves of bone. In one of these caves Morag and Pagan had set up the pub environment that they’d built from Gregor’s subconscious. It looked a little weird among all the polished bone.
The icon I had was actually a pretty good rendering of me, if I’d had no cybernetics or radiation poisoning. This time I thought to check in the mirror behind the bar what colour Morag had made my eyes. She’d made them green; it didn’t look right.
Gregor’s icon was similar to mine, a good rendition of him back when he was human, sans cybernetics. I was relieved to see he wasn’t a Smiler any more. I guess irrational tribal allegiances die hard. Morag was there. She was Black Annis again. I think I’d preferred the Maiden of Flowers or whoever the prettier one had been. Pagan was there in his Druidic icon. All of them were sitting at a table in the centre of the otherwise deserted bar. I walked over and joined them. There was already a glass of virtual whisky on the table. I took a sip; it was well programmed but ultimately pointless.
‘I thought you’d pop like a balloon when they drilled into you? How’d it feel to be violated?’ I asked. Gregor just stared at me. I sighed, or rather the animated virtual representation of me sighed. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I asked.
‘What’s necessary,’ he said.
‘Don’t give me that cryptic shit; you know as well as I do we can’t afford it,’ I said. He should know better.
‘I apologise. It was necessary for me to begin the transformation-’
‘Into what?’ I asked.
‘A form more useful for the job.’
‘How’re you going to look?’
‘Different,’ he said.
Morag and Pagan were just watching.
‘You needed to tell us about the job before you did that,’ I said.
‘I apologise. I realised I was cutting things pretty fine as regards the transformation, but you’re right. I knew that you’d eventually find a way to contact me,’ he said.
I just looked at him. I felt like really having a go at him but there wasn’t a great deal of point. That didn’t change the fact that I was pissed off with him.
‘So what’s the job?’ Pagan finally asked, breaking the tension.
Gregor looked over at him. ‘EVA into the heart of the Teeth.’
‘Penetrations like this have never worked before. I don’t see any reason why they should start working now,’ Pagan said.
‘Because I will be broadcasting a Them biometric signature. They will literally have to identify you by sight to compromise you,’ Gregor told him.
‘Part of your transformation?’ Morag asked. Gregor nodded.
‘You’re turning into one of Them.’ I said. I needed to remember that regardless of how much Gregor looked like Gregor in the net, not only was his body changed but the way he thought was as well. He wasn’t us or Them but something in-between.
‘Not exactly,’ he said. I was getting sick of this.
‘If you can disguise yourself then why not go alone?’ I asked.
‘I cannot disguise myself as one of Them. It’s not as simple as shifting form. I will be broadcasting a biometric field which will disguise us from Their sensors, but They’ll still be able to ID us visually.’
‘So be sneaky,’ I suggested. I was trying to remember how we’d been talked into this. Gregor was beginning to look somewhat exasperated.
‘We will get caught. Remember, They’re effectively a hive mind. I am not part of that. We will eventually be compromised and I will need your firepower. Also, Crom could affect me and I cannot risk infection. You will need to dispose of it.’
‘If Crom infects you?’ I said.
‘You need to ask?’
‘What exactly is Crom and how is it being delivered?’ Pagan said.
‘About twelve years ago the Cabal seeded the entire belt with unmanned probes manufactured from Themtech. They were organic and broadcast a Them biometric pattern. They were very small but even then Their defences caught and destroyed a lot of the probes but enough got through. They secured themselves as close to major concentrations of Them as they could get. Very basically they were nanite factories producing Crom and sophisticated receivers. When the Cabal is ready they will send a transmission which will release what are effectively smart spores.’