The old man pointed down at Cormac’s seat belt. Cormac fastened it across. You did not need belts in executive class; shockfields did that job. You did not have to put up with obnoxious old men either. He lay back and breathed a controlling breath, tried access again and got a sluggish response. Schematics of some sort of engine flashed up in his visual cortex. He had not asked for that. He opened his eyes again when he felt the distinctive twisting in his inner ear as the AG of the delta-wing engaged and it lifted from the ground. He listened to the rushing of wind as the wing shot forwards and immediately began to tilt up. Through the elliptical portal on the front surface of the wing, before their seating section, he saw grey cloud coming at them like a falling wall. Viewed through the portal behind, control towers dropped away as the wing turned up to forty-five degrees. AG re-aligned and the acceleration increased. The shuttle punched through the wall of cloud.

‘Now this is what I call technology!’

Cormac glanced at the old man, hoping he was not being addressed this time.

‘Better than a bunch of moronic nanocircuits!’

Cormac closed his eyes.

Runcible AI. I am in transit. Please reply.

There was that inexplicable delay, but this time he received his reply.

<Horace Blegg will brief you once the shuttle is out of the well. He will contact you.>

Cormac kept his eyes closed. He did not want to open them. Horace Blegg: the prime human agent of Earth Central, AI and government. He was called ‘Prime Cause’, and he only turned up when something critical was happening. Cormac clicked a few key facts together. Blegg was reputed to be Japanese. There were not many of them to be seen since the great ’quakes had sunk the islands. The story went that Blegg was a naturally occurring immortal from the pre-space age, that he was apparently the survivor of one of the first fission explosions on Earth. Rumour and fantasy stuck to the man like burrs to a dog. He was a legend.

Cormac opened his eyes and glanced at the old man. The old man winked at him.

* * *