Neal Asher: The Line of Polity

"Still no sign of Skellor, and we've got probes out as far as twenty kilometres in every direction," said Gant, over Cormac's comlink.

"What about the stratospheric probes?" Cormac asked.

"No sign of a ship, and they've covered most other possibilities. They've been surveying from the moment we arrived," Gant replied.

"Could be under another chameleonware shield."

"Yes, there is that."

Cormac looked around for Gant, and spotted him over by one of the barracks buildings, where a team was stripping out and crating everything, including those damned coralline fragments. He considered going over and joining the Golem, then rejected the idea. He had to find out what all this was about, why Tomalon was being so difficult. Then he would find out what the hell Skellor had been up to.

Jain … Cormac tasted the word as he walked to the shuttle. The name had been that of a member of an ancient Hindu sect believing the material world eternal, and seemed suitable for a race with a seemingly numinous technology. It was also suitably ironic considering the race no longer existed. The first fragmentary coralline artefacts had been discovered before Cormac's birth and had immediately been a sensation, for though alien life was common in the Polity, sentient alien life was rare. Interest had waned when the fragments were dated at over five million years old, then resurged when further examination revealed some of them to be the product of advanced nano- and even pico-technology. That discovery had consequently impelled huge advances in Polity technology. Ever since, the hunt had been on for similar remains, but the sum total of fragments found weighed less than ten kilos. Of the Jain themselves, little more was known than that they had occupied many worlds, had actually rearranged solar systems to suit their requirements, and were now gone. No one knew what a Jain looked like. It was speculated that like humans they had adapted themselves to their worlds when the reverse could not be done. And knowing of what those aliens had been, capable, AIs and humans alike expressed the sentiment that perhaps it was a good thing that they were no longer around.

"Tomalon, can't you transmit the message down here to me?" Cormac asked, suddenly feeling frustrated.

"No," replied the Captain of the Occam Razor . "It is for your eyes only and it cannot be retransmitted. You have to come here to read it."

"You say there's no information as to why we have to pull out so fast?"

"None, unfortunately."

"What about Occam, has it got anything to say?" Cormac asked, as he reached the lock of the shuttle. The lock irised open and he stepped inside. He was removing his breathing gear and goggles when the Captain's reply came through the shuttle's comlink — the craft's hull otherwise being impervious to radio transmissions.

"Occam says that Earth Central is aware of the importance of capturing Skellor."

"That's it?"

"That's it," Tomalon confirmed.

Cormac dropped into the seat next to the pilot, and turned to the woman herself. She was Golem, he realized almost immediately. She watched him enquiringly until he impatiently pointed upwards, before strapping himself in — this being a military craft it did not have the luxury of internal grav-plates. She cursorily scanned the instrumentation then lifted and tilted the joystick. With a deep AC hum the craft rose and turned, the screen polarizing as it partially faced towards the sun. To one side Cormac saw the heavy-lifter coming down to collect, piecemeal, the entire Separatist base. For someone the future would involve a great deal of deep forensic scanning, as they extracted every mote of available information concerning what Skellor had been up to from the material of this base. And the deepest and most rigorous scanning would certainly be concentrated on those small fragments of coralline material.

The sky turned from an inferno to that abrupt blue twilight, as the shuttle outdistanced the sun and continued to ascend. Soon stars became visible, their light punching through the glassy sculpture of a not-so-distant nebula.

"The Occam's coming up," said the pilot, pointing at a distant speck, perhaps emulating discomfort at Cormac's silence.

Cormac felt himself relenting: it wasn't her fault that this mission was being screwed, whether she was Golem or not.

"You know," he said, "when I was first shuttled out to that ship, the pilot pointed it out to me then." She looked at him inquiringly and he went on, "More precisely she said, 'We'll be there soon, and I suggested the figure of twenty minutes. When she told me forty minutes, I was quite surprised — I hadn't realized just how big the damned thing was."

She nodded her agreement. "The Occam Razor is a delta-class dreadnought."

Cormac continued, "You discover, in such situations, that you still have the capacity for awe." He watched the speck as it grew in the screen. Later he discovered his capacity to feel awe was undiminished. The Occam Razor hung utterly still in space: a golden lozenge spined with sensor arrays and weapons, four kilometres long, and one and a half wide, and one deep. He felt a moment of disquiet when he remembered that this was not the largest of the Earth Central Security dreadnoughts. It took its place in the Greek alphabet after three other classes.

"You have to wonder how big alpha-class dreadnoughts are," he said, as they passed below a sensor array the size of a cathedral.

"That's something we'd all like to know," said the woman. Cormac glanced at her in surprise: it was not often that a Golem admitted to any lack of knowledge. She went on, "Information on alpha and beta dreadnoughts is restricted. But I know that the gamma dreadnought Cable Hogue is not allowed to orbit any world with seas."

Cormac looked at her and waited.

"Tides," she explained. " Cable Hogue masses the same as Earth's moon. It's a lot bigger, though."

"Shit."

"Of course, it's only a dreadnought. There are reputed to be others."

"Let me guess: planet breakers? Popular fiction has a lot to answer for."

The Golem woman just stared at him for a moment, before manoeuvring the shuttle into an open bay. A gnat flying into a lion's mouth. And this lion had sharp claws indeed.

Disembarking from the shuttle, Cormac gazed around at the huge cavern of the shuttle bay and at the activity therein. There were other shuttles clamped to the acres of ceramal flooring, and a maintenance team was working on one of these — a team consisting of humans, Golem, and various esoteric designs of robot. As he moved out across the floor, one of these devices — a remote drone — flew an erratic course towards him.

Once the drone was close he said to it, "I want you to take me to the bridge." For he had already experienced disorientation at the shifting of the internal structure of the ship. Occam, the ship's AI, often rearranged that structure for supposed optimum efficiency, though Cormac suspected the intelligence had other reasons.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said the drone impatiently, and began its wavering flight away from him. He stared at it in annoyance, and it halted ten metres away. "Come on then," it said, and a clawed arm folded out from its flat body and gestured impatiently for him to follow. He did so, remembering that warship AIs and their various subminds were reputedly cranky. It had something to do with getting a shitty deal as far as employment was concerned. A ship like the Occam Razor was effectively its controlling intelligence's body, and was built for wholesale destruction and slaughter. Occam, the AI, spent most of its time twiddling metaphorical thumbs.

The drone led Cormac to a drop-shaft, up which he was propelled at more than usual speed. The drone hovered near him like the carapace of a crab, its metal arms folded underneath. For all that it only had black button eyes evenly spaced round its rim, it seemed to be glaring at him disapprovingly. The irised gravity field slowed him at the requisite level, and the drone led him out into Tomalon's abode.