Dragon receded from the doors. A purple flash ignited space and a charred hole fifty metres across appeared in its scaled hide. Cormac watched for a moment, then removed a black cylinder-section from his pocket, with a miniconsole on it. He poised his finger over a flashing touch-plate.

‘That’s a—’ began Thorn.

‘Remote detonator, yes,’ said Cormac impatiently, then asked, ‘Distance, Hubris?’

‘One kilometre. Mark. One and one half kilometres . . .

The proton guns fired again, but this time the purple flare was not on Dragon’s surface. It ignited over an invisible membrane and did no damage.

‘Dragon preparing to return fire.’

They could all see the ripples crossing its surface.

‘Distance?’

‘Three kilometres. Mark. Four and a half. Mark. Six kilo—Fire imminent! Fire imminent!’

Cormac pressed his finger down. Everything under that membrane turned to light. The membrane broke and the screens whited out. Hubris bucked and they were flung to the floor.

Epilogue

Epilogue

The bleak sun inched above the horizon and a new day fell across the ruination that surrounded the complex. Above the corroded-bronze sky Samarkand was gaining yet another feature; a spreading orbital cloud of frozen gobbets of flesh, pieces of bone and metal . . . Dragon remains. Hubris, poised geostationary above the complex, watched this cloud spread with an aesthetic appreciation only available to AIs having the full spectrum of senses it possessed. With another fraction of its sensorium it listened in through the computer of the departing mini-shuttle. In a completely disconnected way it knew that it too was being used in this way, by a mind as many orders of magnitude greater than it, than it was of the computer.

* * *

‘It woulda looked at everything y’said and did,’ said Blegg, then he chugged down a large cup of whisky and grinned wickedly.

With his own cup resting on his knee, Cormac stared down at the floor of the shuttle with the unseeing gaze of exhaustion. He was finding it difficult to grasp that his plans had paid off.

Eventually he spoke. ‘I guess it’s a case of knowing who your enemies are.’

Blegg looked at the bottom of his cup in annoyance, took out his flask, shook it, and then smiled benevolently. Cormac had never known anyone like him. He probably knew exactly what had happened, yet managed to appear completely unconcerned. A strange man was Blegg. He rested his head back and closed his eyes.

It seemed only a minute had passed before Blegg was shaking him awake. He looked up at the screen and saw that the shuttle was coming down on the edge of the complex, in a storm of CO2 crystals. He waited until he felt it touch down before he spoke.

‘Aiden, ask Samarkand II how the stage-two runcible’s coming along.’

The Golem got up from his pilot’s chair as if he had not heard. Samarkand II answered the question over the shuttle’s speakers.