Part 4 (1/2)
”Why do you want to destroy a Polity science vessel? Surely there are better military targets?”
”That does not concern you.”
Kellor pretended to think about it then nod reluctant agreement. He had noted and filed the edge to Conard's voice. That edge had not been there at the beginning. Something had changed and the mission had acquired greater urgency. If the Separatists were becoming desperate to destroy that vessel then it carried something of huge potential value. With his back to the General, Keller allowed himself a cold little smile and glanced to the squat muscular bulk of his first officer. Jurens returned his look then nodded back to Conard. Kellor turned to watch.
The General strode over to a group of four of his soldiers who had come aboard the Samurai in the first Junger. One of these was either ill or drunk and his fellows were attempting to support him. As the General approached they quickly stepped away. Conard did not hesitate. He kicked the soldier in his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es then kicked his feet away from under him. As the man lay on the deck groaning Conard reached down and pulled something from his neck and tossed it aside. Jurens stepped up beside Kellor.
”H-patch,” he said. ”Confederation soldiers like to stay stoned so's they don't have to think about what they're being ordered to do. a.r.s.eholes.”
The General, just to drive the point home, began systematically kicking in the soldier's ribs. The man probably couldn't feel it. Jurens spat on the deck and turned away. Kellor followed his first officer from the hold. He too, as a young mercenary, had suffered such officers as Conard.
PART THREE.
Alexion Smith looked neither old nor young. There was nothing fas.h.i.+onable nor particularly unfas.h.i.+onable about his appearance. He had short blond hair, a thin non-descript face set as a background for calm green eyes, and wore a ribbed and neatly patched environment suit. He looked ... utilitarian. From years of a.s.sociation Chapra knew that this was because such things as fas.h.i.+on just held no interest for him. His love was for things long dead and buried: ancient ruins and ancient bones, preferably alien ruins and alien bones. He sat now at ease in a deep armchair in a projection that occupied the air over the consoles in the control room. Behind him was a window through which could be seen a barren landscape below a sky half-filled with a red-giant sun. Weird birds drifted in charcoal silhouette.
”Alex, it's nice to see you,” said Chapra as she dropped into her swivel chair. Abaron took a seat in the background.
”It is nice to see you, Chapra, though I wouldn't recognise you. I take it you got fed up with the grey hair and sagging t.i.ts?”
Chapra grinned at the sound of a sharply indrawn breath behind her. ”I did. I find that in this form it is easier for me to get what I want. Appearance is all even in this cosmetic age. What is it, Alex? What's given you priority over half a million other callers?”
Alexion looked out his window for a moment before returning his attention to Chapra.
”I was fascinated by your discovery out there, Chapra, and supposing that the escape pod is five million years old I considered that discovery within my remit. I've been watching and paying attention ... picking up on every sc.r.a.p of information ... The evidence is mostly mythological, philological ... you know as well as I that you can excavate languages and stories as well as ruins - ”
”What's your point, Alex?”
Alexion looked at her very directly, ”Based on the construction of the escape pod - remains of one exactly the same were found in the Csorian time vault - and based on the machine it ... uses - the shape of that machine was etched into the walls of the same vault and no-one knew what it was until now - and based on thousands of other fragments of information collated by AI, there is an eighty-three per cent probability that the creature you have there is ... Jain.”
Chapra s.h.i.+vered and heard Abaron curse. She immediately wanted to object; but the Jain died out millions of years ago, they're just dust and legends and racial memories of G.o.ds ...
Alexion went on, ”In the Sarian mythos the Jain were the great sorcerers, the transformers. Their houses were said to be black water-filled boxes built in the equatorial deserts. Their symbol was the triangle. And if that is not enough, the world to which you are heading, has been posited for over a century as likely a Jain home world.”
”Okay, I'm convinced,” said Chapra. ”But how is this to affect what I am doing here?”
”The s.h.i.+p AI there, Box, is loading every Jain study, every relevant piece of information. It might help.”
”Is that it?” Chapra was beginning to feel a vague disappointment.
”They moved suns, Chapra. There are those who theorise that here we are in the backwoods of a civilization that still exists. I guess my message is: for all our sakes, don't f.u.c.k up. Ciao.” Alexion flickered out of existence.
Chapra turned to Abaron. ”This changes nothing,” she said.
Abaron nodded, but he looked scared again.
The Jain - this was how both Abaron and Chapra referred to it now, it was better than 'the creature' - took the containers from the jetty to its machine. Chapra smiled to herself. Perhaps they might never be able to speak to each other, but they understood each other. When she and Judd had collected them the containers held samples of what the Jain wanted in quant.i.ty. One of them contained a sample of only a few atoms inside a small vacuum sphere of gla.s.s. The Jain's requirements had stretched from the prosaic to the exotic. It had wanted iron, it had wanted tantalum, and it had wanted a metallic element only theorised until then. Making a few ounces of the stuff had stretched the main onboard laboratory and required five Golem to come out of stasis to a.s.sist.
”You note it only requires elements,” said Chapra.
”Confirmation that it can build all the molecules it wants, so long as it has the atoms,” said Abaron. He was being very correct and very logical, very in control.
”I wonder though ... ”
”What?”
”That metal, the Jainite, and the niobium ... I've checked. There was nothing like that in the isolation chamber, nor in the tanks.”
”They could have been present in the escape pod.”
”No. I had Box check back on every scan. We were thorough.”
”What are you saying then?”
”We missed something, or with that machine the Jain is able to synthesise atoms, even if in minute quant.i.ties.”
”It's Jain,” said Abaron, as if that was all the answer required.
Some hours later the Jain manufactured something else.
”The device is a scanner,” said Box. ”It scanned the entire s.h.i.+p with some kind of neutron burst.”
”That's not possible,” said Abaron.
”It's Jain,” said Chapra, relis.h.i.+ng the moment.
The device the Jain had built was about the size of a human head and looked like the b.a.s.t.a.r.d offspring of a whelk and the insides of an old valve radio. After using it the Jain saved one small component then fed the rest of it back into its bigger machine, its creation machine. Afterwards it fed in one of the large crustaceans. Then it came to the jetty and left something squatting there.
”This I have to see,” said Chapra, hurrying on her way. She glimpsed Abaron licking his dry lips as he reluctantly followed her. In minutes both of them were in hotsuits and walking out on the jetty. Judd strode behind them.
”It's the crustacean. It's been altered,” said Abaron, then he stepped rapidly back when the beast lifted its armoured belly up off the jetty and, walking on four armoured limbs, began to come towards them bull terrier fas.h.i.+on. After a moment Chapra moved back as well. The beast squatted down a couple of metres in front of them, waiting.
”Look at its back,” said Abaron.
Chapra did so and there saw a triangle of ridged and pocked flesh. It was the negative of the end of the Jain's tentacles, she saw this at once.
Judd said, ”This was one of the crustaceans. It has been stripped of its digestive system and now has a small organic power cell. Its sensorium has been upgraded to eighty per cent of received spectra and there are additions to its primitive brain. Its blood is heated by metallic heating elements.”
”It's a probe,” said Chapra. ”I bet the additions to its brain are memory.”
”Cannot be determined,” said Judd.
”All right, I bet there are direct links between those additions and that triangle on its back.”
After a pause Judd said, ”There are.”
Chapra turned to Abaron and tried not to notice that he had pressed himself up against the door.