The planar explosives detonated as one, severing thousands of structural members. The slow spin of the station caused sector A to part company with it. The sector tore out the s-con and optic cables linking Celedon to the runcible, but in the last few seconds the AI lost control of it anyway. A radio signal detonated the next explosives, taking out the spindle-side bulkheads. Mr blasted out into space. Debris and ice crystals reflected the green light of the sun. The station shuddered, that one severed segment departing it like a slice from a cake.
As calculated, the segment began to turn. Transmissions now came from it—viral attacks on the station itself. Celedon immediately shut down all its subminds, and anything else that might be vulnerable to subversion. Keeping only a few hardened cameras pointed at the departing object, the AI waited until it turned nose down to the sun, then sent the signal to start its rim fusion engine. Helium plasma briefly washed over the station as the parted segment accelerated down into the gravity well. Then it shuddered. Whatever had been trying to get through the runcible was now inside. Minutes passed, then there seemed movement on the surface. Focusing, the AI observed bright writhing objects breaking through the outer skin. As pieces began to break away, Celedon fried them with masers. The segment’s new occupant realized its danger and swiftly shut down the drive, but the segment lay deep into the sun’s gravity well now, and metal began to ablate away from it as the sun’s heat impacted. Finally it plunged into the furnace right beside the black spot. A U-space signature denatured. There came a burst of Hawking radiation as that runcible went out.
‘Observe,’ said Jerusalem, the moment Celedon reinstated coms.
From the point of impact a pattern of hexagons began to spread. It held definition for a while, then began to break apart, and finally disappeared. Celedon surveyed the damage to its station, its body, then ignited one of the remaining rim engines to pull itself away from the sun. The damage was severe, but a mere mote compared to what must have happened at the other runcible involved.
‘In eight hundred and thirty years,’ Jerusalem said, ‘and a hundred and fifty thousand light years away from here, there will be an explosion of such magnitude it will cause a chain reaction between close suns. The Small Magellanic Cloud will probably be sterilized of all life, and probably most other forms of self-organizing matter, as was the intention.’
‘Jain technology.’
‘Yes, precisely. Of course we will not see the light for a very long time.’