Passing over the still, frozen body of the human - even that hadn’t provided any sport - Commander Risingmoon Parchseason IV of the Farsight tribe and the battleship Xenoclast - on secondment to the alien ship Attitude Adjuster - unholstered one of the external weapons on his own suit and blasted the small figure into a thousand pieces, scattering fragments of frosty pink and white across the cold floor of the hangar like a small, delicate fall of snow.

7 - Tier

7

Tier

I

I

Such investigations took time. There was the time that even hyperspacially transmitted information took to traverse the significant percentages of the galaxy involved, there were complicated routes to arrange, other Minds to talk to, sometimes after setting up appointments because they were absent in Infinite Fun space for a while. Then the Minds had to be casualed up to, or gossip or jokes or thoughts on a mutual interest had to be exchanged before a request or a suggestion was put which re-routed and disguised an information search; sometimes these re-routes took on extra loops, detours and shuntings as the Minds concerned thought to play down their own involvement or involve somebody else on a whim, so that often wildly indirect paths resulted, branching and re-branching and doubling back on themselves until eventually the relevant question was asked and the answer, assuming it was forthcoming, started the equally tortuous route back to the original requester. Frequently simple seeker-agent programs or entire mind-state abstracts were sent off on even more complicated missions with detailed instructions on what to look for, where to find it, who to ask and how to keep their tracks covered.

Mostly it was done like that; through Minds, AI core memories and innumerable public storage systems, information reservoirs and databases containing schedules, itineraries, lists, plans, catalogues, registers, rosters and agenda.

Sometimes, though, when that way - the relatively easy, quick and simple way - was closed to the inquirer for some reason, usually to do with keeping the inquiry secret, things had to be done the slow way, the messy way, the physical way. Sometimes there was no alternative.

The vacuum dirigible approached the floating island under a brilliantly clear night sky awash with moon and star light. The main body of the airship was a giant fat disk half a kilometre across with a finish like brushed aluminium; it glinted in the blue-grey light as if frosted, though the night was warm, balmy and scented with the heady perfume of wineplant and sierra creeper. The craft’s two gondolas - one on top, one suspended underneath - were smaller, thinner disks only three storeys in height, each slowly revolving in different directions, their edges glowing with lights.