Polity Agent

‘But we see, by what occurred in the Small Magellanic Cloud, that a prior infestation here should have resulted in billions of Jain nodes spread throughout space. We have run simulated spread patterns predicated on the extinction dates—with a large margin of error—of each of those three races. Thus far a Csorian node has been found which bears some resemblance to Jain technology, but is not a racially destructive device. No true Jain nodes have as yet been found.’

Blegg grimaced and peered suspiciously towards where he knew the cameras were mounted inside the chamber.

‘Honestly—not one,’ insisted Earth Central.

‘So,’ said Blegg, ‘the Jain met their Waterloo five million years ago; the Csorians disappeared a million years ago; and the jury is still out on the Atheter. I believe even you AIs are still debating the veracity of that half-million-year-old find? Anyway, it would seem that either the Atheter or the Csorians managed to survive Jain technology and wiped it out in this part of the galaxy.’

‘That would have been the Atheter. We are now more than ninety per cent certain those remains are genuine. The point, however, is still moot, and not entirely relevant to our present situation.’

‘But it would be interesting to know what did happen to the Atheter. They might still be about, you know. With the earliest find relating to them dated at three million years old and that other at half a million, they showed a degree of longevity…’

Ignoring this point, EC enquired, ‘You inspected the wreck?’

Blegg nodded. ‘Every last retrievable fragment was found and is currently being studied under the supervision of the AI Geronamid. Obvious signs of technology developed from Jain tech, but no nodes. If the Maker brought them here, it offloaded them somewhere long before Dragon destroyed its ship. What about the other end?’

‘The Not Entirely Jack is currently en route to Osterland.’

‘You followed my suggestion?’

‘Yes, dracomen are aboard it to be deployed in any ground-based military actions. Agent Thorn controls the mission.’

‘Cormac?’

‘Currently aboard the Jerusalem, en route back to Cull to interrogate Dragon.’

‘And Polity defcon status?’

‘Full scanning in all critical areas. All runcible AIs are now cognizant of how to protect themselves from Jain tech subversion, and are updating their security. The old military spaceyards from the Prador War are being reopened. Ship production elsewhere is at optimum and all new ships are being outfitted with gravtech weapons.’

‘Then my place is four hundred and seventy-two light years from here,’ said Blegg.

‘And why would that be?’ asked the AI.

‘I feel I should take a long hard look at the excavation on Shayden’s Find. It occurs to me that if the Atheter managed to destroy every Jain node in this region of the galaxy, then they knew how to find them.’

Blegg stepped away again, located himself in U-space, and his next pace took him into the runcible embarkation lounge ten miles away from the museum on Earth’s moon. A woman, who was petting a large Alsatian bearing a cerebral augmentation, glanced up at him in a puzzled way. Only the dog itself gazed at him with infinite suspicion. He turned himself slightly, putting himself out of phase with the world, and strode off towards the runcible. Ahead of him he watched a man step through the Skaidon warp and disappear, and Blegg did not hesitate to follow. Then, just at the last moment, he paused. Why had it never before occurred to him that the device might not be reset to his own intended destination when he stepped through? And why did that occur to him just now? He shrugged. Stepped through.

— retroact 1 -

Yamamoto said someone just parachuted from a B52, and in his excitement stood up from his desk. A wire sparked along the classroom wall, and white light, so bright it seemed to fill the mind like some hot liquid, glared in through the windows. Hiroshi turned to Yamamoto as the world shifted sideways. Glittering hail stripped the standing boy bare, peeled the skin off his raised arm, then the window frames and the wall shredded themselves across the scene, slamming the boy to one side as if he had just stepped in front of a hurtling train. Hiroshi saw glass just hanging in the air, and felt what came to be called the hypocentre opening wider like some vast eye. Some continuum, permanence just to one side of the world, was impacted, dented. Everything went black… then Hiroshi opened his eyes to the rainbow. They called it the mushroom cloud, yet such colour did not make him think of fungi. He lay upon the hot skin of some dragon, its huge scales rough against his back. A wall of fire rose to his right, seemingly burning without fuel. He sat upright, naked, and inspected his body. His elbows were grazed, but that was all. He was sitting on a complete section of the school’s tiled roof, but the school itself rose no higher than he could normally stand. The heat was intense and smoke wisped from the wreckage.