He licked his lips and tried to work up some saliva in his dry mouth, then announced, ‘The King of Hearts AI sends its regards. It wanted you to know it did not acquire any nasty Jain technology, so there’s no reason for you to chase after it and blast it into component atoms.’

‘That was remarkably quick,’ replied a voice just hinting at the massive intellect behind it.

‘That you, Jerusalem?’ enquired Cormac.

‘You already guessed that,’ replied the disembodied voice of the AI that controlled the titanic research vessel Jerusalem.

Underneath Cormac, the surgical table slowly folded upright, moving him into a sitting position. Peering down at himself he saw that he wore a skin-tight garment, his hands similarly clad, and the pressure around his face and head confirming that no part of his body remained uncovered.

‘Very strange pyjamas,’ he observed.

‘Cell welding, while wonderfully efficient, does have its limitations. Also, your spacesuit was breached and you lost nearly half your skin to vacuum freezing. This garment assists regrowth while allowing you to move about unhindered. It is my own invention.’

Cormac glanced around. He lay in a typical ship’s medbay. The pedestal-mounted autodoc had now retreated into an alcove beside a bench extending from one wall, which held a nanoscope, a chain-glass containment cylinder, genetic scanner and nanofactory unit. By the bench stood a chair on which lay a familiar design of note-screen.

‘Where’s Mika?’

‘Sleeping.’

Cormac nodded and swung his legs off the surgical table. Now moving, he could feel the wrongness. He felt tired and weak, parts of him began to ache, and something felt odd about. . . everything.

‘What did you need to do to me?’

‘All relevant information is available to you via ship server. Why don’t you find out from there?’

A test perhaps? Cormac closed his eyes and sought mental connections via his gridlink. In something almost like a third eye he observed the optical cues for connection, but felt no actual linkage.

‘I’m offline.’

‘Yes, the damage to your brain was severe, and to remove Jain filaments from it and run a counteragent through would inevitably cause even more damage. I downloaded you, then reloaded you after I finished making repairs. Your link, because of the possibility it contained Jain informational viruses or worms, I completely wiped and reformatted. I similarly screened all your memories and thought structures.’

Cormac felt a clamminess.

Am I really Cormac now?