The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [75]
‘So I see,’ Harry said.
‘This concludes our transaction,’ said Vayosh. ‘Till our next encounter, then.’
With that the strange entity rose straight up, crossed the night–street boundary and turned back into a whirling knot of radiance which disappeared amongst the angular shadows.
‘Is he an AI?’ Julia said.
‘Apparently, Vayosh was at one time a virtual cognitive model in an Ufan-Gir military lab. Bootstrapped itself into awareness, escaped into the tiernet and it’s been trading secrets and updating itself ever since … for however long that’s been.’
Harry had been scanning through the data received from Vayosh, light from his palm reflecting from his face. Now, frowning, he curled the fingers into a fist and glanced at Julia.
‘Interesting – much of the Sacrament’s net traffic is regular astrograv updates from subspace beacons and regional star system casters. But there were two responses to requests for a large number of precise star locations. How many missiles did this Talavera say she was planning to launch?’
‘Five hundred,’ she said uneasily.
Harry nodded. ‘That’s how many stars are in their location request.’
‘She said … ’ Julia paused, horrific possibilities hovering at the edge of her comprehension.
‘You’ve already said that you suspected deceit on her part,’ Harry said. ‘So tell me – what effect would one of these anti-dark matter missiles have on an ordinary main-sequence star?’
‘If the missile were larger than she told me,’ Julia said. ‘If the cladding vessel’s surface was deeply incised to increase the reactive area … it would make a sun go nova. Every living thing in the same system would die.’
‘Five hundred supernovae,’ Harry said. ‘Now that sounds like the Chaurixa. But it raises the question of who they’re doing this for, because they are not in the habit of initiating their own campaigns of mayhem and death.’
Talavera’s words came back to her with perfect clarity – You’ve no idea how powerful he is, or how powerful he’s going to make me. Do you have someone like that … She gave a full account of that last encounter, even including the detail about those smoky black snakes. When she mentioned them, Harry’s gaze grew intense and serious.
‘I’ve heard of these things before,’ he said. ‘They’re called vermax and they originate from dangerous lairs deep down in hyperspace. I know someone, well, an AI called Reski Emantes, who has connections with a very significant power down there.’
‘And where do we find this AI?’
‘Earth.’ Harry laughed. ‘Ready for a trip to the cradle of Humanity?’
‘Lead the way,’ Julia said, smiling, suddenly looking forward to this unexpected destination.
KAO CHIH
The Shyntanil attendants put him in an upright metal framework full of rods, plates and shackles which they used to hold him in place. Most of his outer garments were stripped off, exposing bare skin to curved cold sections and restraining straps made from some heavy, rough material. Soon every limb was gripped fast, as were his head and jaw, chest and midriff. Then came the medication. Grimy vials of something purplish-brown were clamped to the main frame at head height and from them lengths of opaque stained tubing ran down his arms to where the needles were inserted into stinging incisions.
Part of him wanted to wail and beg but he knew that it was pointless to look for compassion from such creatures. They stank of death and their entire ship was a tomb where corpses moved and marched and fought in a withered semblance of life.
Nothing was said as the attendants tipped him back and wheeled him out and along a rust-streaked corridor through sluggish retracting doors then down a sloping section to a bright-lit, low-ceilinged deck. Before him stretched a passageway lined with tall recesses, many of which were occupied by similarly restrained captives. Some looked alive, others had a deathly pallor. Kao Chih would have focused on these passing details