Polity Agent

Horace Blegg considered the universe as a web of lines interconnecting nodal points which, studied with sufficient intellect, would reveal its holistic nature. How fated is this particular node? He did not personally believe in determinism, but some coincidences seemed almost too coincidental to ignore. He walked out along a gravplated platform to a viewing blister in one half-completed section of the giant ship’s outer skin. To his left he observed the muted glare of ion engines which maintained the vessel’s position in the planet’s shadow. The engines were necessary for correction because the ship’s mass was perpetually changed by materials being brought in through four internal cargo runcibles. Also many smaller vessels docked and undocked all the time, changing its vector. In two days the ship would be completed, and by then, hopefully, it would no longer be necessary to keep it this close to the world in order to relay the thousands of tonnes of equipment coming through the runcibles, and then it could move out into a more comfortable orbit around the sun. Just down to his right he observed the shuttle he had requested, now docking, but there was no hurry.

‘A space tug will arrive in thirty hours,’ said the Golem beside him, which was telefactored from the ship’s newly initiated AI: Hourne—named after one of those who had discovered the nature of the object below, just as the world itself was now called Shayden’s Find, and the sun was called Ulriss.

Down below, the single rocky slab was the planet’s only enduring feature, drifting around on the mostly molten surface like a miniature tectonic plate. Huge autodozers were clearing the millions of tonnes of ash built up on its surface over millennia of constant eruptions. A slab like this would not have survived for so long on such a world but for one circumstance: the magma had accumulated and solidified around a large flat object unaffected by the heat. Others had discovered this object and listed it as a purely natural phenomenon. The woman Shayden, and her two male companions, had come here to study it and found that some fragments of its incredibly tough and durable substance had broken away—enough for them to retrieve and study thoroughly. This substance, something like diamond, also bore certain similarities to memcrystal. Shayden—out of curiosity—attached an optic interface to one piece, and the reams of code feeding back through it astounded her. She realized instantly she had discovered something very important. She also realized that her private business did not have the resources to study this discovery as it should be studied. She returned to the nearest Polity world and reported her find. Before the AI on that world was prepared to commit resources, it needed confirmation so Shayden, Ulriss and Hourne returned here with a Polity Golem called Cento, whose presence cost them their lives.

‘Some lifting job down there,’ Blegg observed.

The Golem stepped forwards and pointed to an area of chain-glass before them. An image appeared—doubtless projected by laser from the Golem’s eye. ‘The artefact is shaped so.’ Blegg observed a fat comma. ‘We believe it is the inner part of an original spiral. Where the crystal is actually breaking down is along that flat leading edge, so we project that it was once like this or larger.’ The comma grew like a snail adding shell, winding out and out. Then this activity paused for a moment, before the growth retreated to its original shape. ‘Thermally protected gravmotors are currently being positioned underneath the object here.’ A multitude of dots appeared like a rash all over the comma shape. ‘And we are introducing sheer planes in the underlying rock so the artefact should separate from it upon lifting.’

‘What about structural integrity?’ Blegg asked.

Now a grid appeared over the shape. ‘Ceramal beams attached directly to the object using high temperature resins,’ the Golem explained. ‘That will be done once we have removed all the ash and rock still resting above it.’

Cento, that other Golem who had come here, being one of the two Golem who tore apart the brass killing machine Mr Crane, had kept a souvenir, Mr Crane’s arm, to replace one of his own that the killing machine tore away. But who would have thought that Skellor, who had no real previous connection with Mr Crane, would want to resurrect that deadly machine, and would be prepared to come to a place like this just to find a missing part? Cento survived the encounter; the humans did not. Mr Crane threw Ulriss into a river of magma, the other two were left exposed unsuited on the surface.