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  Hubris went on. 'It is an extremely rapid process. They eat as much as is given them and convert it very quickly. They will be wholly regenerated within two days.'

  'And should we let them out then?' wondered Cormac.

  'That is for you to decide. It is relevant to note that Dragon always served its own purposes, and with little regard for human life.'

  Cormac nodded, more to himself than the ship AI. He remembered the two-kilometre perimeter around Dragon on Aster Colora. Dragon had said, 'No machines inside this perimeter.' People had tried, as people do, and that perimeter had become a ring of smashed vehicles, some still containing human remains.

  Where are you, Dragon? What do you want?

  Cormac turned as the door slid open behind him and Chaline walked in. She looked as tired as he felt, and obviously had the same intention in mind. She got herself a drink from the autobar, then slumped into the seat next to him. As she sipped her drink she studied him with an intensity he found unnerving. He felt compelled to talk.

  'Couldn't sleep?' he asked.

  'No.' She turned away with a slight smile and rubbed at her eyes with her forefinger and thumb. 'I was readying a probe to go into the blast-site and search out some fragments of the runcible buffer. It seems there's a chance it was not all vaporized.' She looked up at the screen. 'How are our friends getting on?'

  Cormac told her what Hubris had told him.

  'Dracomen… I had a quick look in the reference section but all I could come up with was this text called 'The Dragon Dialogues'? It read like a philosophy thesis and ran to about ten million words. Fascinating stuff, but I don't really have the time to read it…' She turned to Cormac. 'What was this Dragon then? Not a fire-breather, I gather?'

  Cormac hesitated, and then grimaced. 'No, Dragon was the name the creature gave itself, for whatever reason… Hubris, do you have any film of Dragon?'

  'Enough to last a lifetime.'

  'Show us some, please.'

  The screen flickered and showed a contorted rocky plain below a metallic red sky. On that plain stood four vast spheres joined in a row. Pink snow was falling.

  'There's Dragon. Each of those spheres is a kilometre across.'

  'It was all alive?' asked Chaline incredulously.

  'Oh yes, very much so. Xenologists thought it might once have been mobile, but when discovered it was like this. It had pseudopods rooted into the ground for kilometres all around. It must have extracted minerals or something to feed on. No one can say for sure, but later examination of the site found the ground riddled with tunnels and lacking in certain minerals found elsewhere.'

  'Later examination?' Chaline asked.

  Cormac closed his eyes as a memory, clear as day, flashed into his mind. He remembered a fantastic road made for him, two kilometres long, marked out by pseudopods five metres high and half a metre wide, each one like a white cobra, but with a single blue crystalline eye where its mouth should have been. That had been a long walk.

  Chaline returned her attention to the screen again and continued before Cormac could answer. 'It must have been made of more than flesh and bone. At that size it would have collapsed in on itself…'

  'Alive and a machine,' said Cormac. 'There were AG readings from it, and the readings of metals, and some pretty strange radiations. It's speculated that its bones were some form of bubble metal, or that it supported itself with AG. No one got close enough to find out.'

  'Tell me more,' said Chaline, her fatigue forgotten.

  Cormac snorted and shook his head. 'It starts with the scream, doesn't it?' he said, then he looked up at the screen. 'Hubris, you might as well record this. I don't want to have to tell it again.' He turned his attention back to Chaline. 'They say you scream for a fraction of a second when you're transmitted by runcible. I didn't arrive on Aster Colora screaming. I arrived reciting a nonsense poem. I should think you know it. Don't we all?'

  And Cormac remembered, and he told her.

  (Solstan 2407)

  A scream, silent in underspace: a flicker of existence between the shadows of stars. It is known, the scream, but quince never remember. For Cormac there was merely a flash of black and red, a Dante glimpse, and he was completing his diought far from where he began it.—on mince and slices of quince, which they ate with a runcible spoon. Is that right?

  Times change: terms change, and it was an ancient nonsense rhyme. He was well aware of that as he fought to overcome the disorientation of mitter-lag.

  And the runcible spoon flicks them across the galaxy… Hah! Myths rewritten. I'm a knight in shining armour only my hardware's on the inside.

  Caught in the flaw of a jewel Cormac considered dragons. Ten seconds and 400 light-years later his mind caught up with his body. The scream was lost in a twilight place. Echoes. He stepped from the shimmer of the cusp. Down the steps from the pedestal, across the black-glass floor, then out of the containment sphere.

  'Ian Cormac?'

  'Yes.'

  The sky was metallic red, the land pink rock with black striations. The horizon was more tightly curved than that viewed from the balcony of his 200th-floor apartment in New York. You noticed things like that, just as you noticed other immediacies. He sneezed, then breathed deeply. The air tasted of salt, and silica dust coated his tongue. After a moment of deliberation he turned his attention to the speaker.

  'I am Maria,' said the girl, whose hair was red with no white light to show him different. Cormac held out his hand to silence her as his breath billowed in the chill air like lung-blood. He continued to survey the wasteland.

  He gestured back at the runcible.

  'Only one. Quince and light cargo. Few people come here,' he observed.

  'Yes, Dragon set a limit of twenty thousand visitors a year.'

  'Solstan year?'

  'No… Colora,' she said, annoyed.

  Cormac stared at her. 'I require assistance, not impatience,' he said, and waited.

  'Yes, Ambassador,' she said grudgingly, rubbing her hand on a leather-sheathed hip. Cormac accessed his link and immediately had a report up in his visual cortex. Rather than download it into his memory, he speed-read it while he studied his surroundings.

  Maria Convala. Born on Aster Colora 2376 solstan, exobiologist attached to the Earth Central study team, ambitious, has connections with the Separatist movement, is rumoured to have been involved in the third Jovian putsch…

  He smiled bleakly to himself and thought about his other operation in this sector. Earth Central had only chosen him to come here because he knew the systems, the people, those most likely to cause trouble. Even now the agents he was running were uncovering Separatist cell after cell in that razor-walk of undercover work. As soon as the first cover was blown, the whole investigation would collapse, but a huge proportion of the Separatist network would fall with it. Of course, what was going on here was different - wasn't it? Files blinked out and dropped away as he dismissed them as irrelevant. He allowed the smile to fade from his face and slid his attention to the iron slug of an AGC that had been left on hover nearby. He noted the rust streaks, and the plates welded to its underside. It was old. Such was always the way this far from Earth; things broke down, wore out, were infrequently replaced. He should consider himself lucky they had AGCs here at all. Was that why this sector was a hotbed of Separatism? Not enough luxuries?

  'Shall we go?' he said, after a pause.

  As they slid above the desolation, Cormac accessed information more relevant to his task. There was no life here but for the human colony, the sentient Dragon and the insentient Monitor (the latter two leviathans), nor had there been. There were no fossils, chalk deposits, or life-based hydrocarbons - nothing. Billions had been expended in deep-coring projects, sifting machines and lengthy geochemical studies. The questions remained: where was the ecology from which Dragon and Monitor had evolved? Was it on Aster Colora?

  Dragon had immediately communicated with those first to arrive through the seed-ship runcible, and
had been in continuous communication with the colony ever since, yet little had been learnt about it. Dragon relished oracular pronouncements and Delphic replies.

  'Has Dragon given reasons for its request?'

  'It was more of a demand than a request.'

  'Clarify that.'

  With her hand resting on the guide-ball of the AGC, Maria glanced at him. 'We have always been here on sufferance. It said, "Send me an ambassador"; there was no request.'

  Cormac noted the bitterness. As a Separatist, he realized, this put her in an intolerable position. How could she campaign for political independence while Aster Colora could not rise above colony status? He wondered just how deeply in she was and how far she was prepared to go. He didn't want to have to kill her.

  The red land flowed under the rock of the AGC until at length Cartis, like a spreading fungus, came into view. Like any tourist, Cormac booked into the metrotel. In his room he slumped on his bed and accessed Dragon/ human dialogue. Human politics were irrelevant in this case which, for Cormac, was a novelty.

  'You continue to evade our questions concerning yourself,' asked a man only just holding on to his temper.

  'Yes, this is true,' came the indifferent reply.

  'Yet for years you have had access to our information systems. You know our history, the level of our technology… You perhaps know more about the human race than any single member of it. Why will you not tell us about yourself? Surely, this is little to ask?'

  'You are correct: I know more about you people than any single member of your kind.'

  'You have not answered my question.'

  'Yes, I have.'

  'I do not understand.'

  'A very human trait.'

  'Please explain.'

  'The runcible has been developed to the stage where it is near perfect in function. Humankind can now step from star system to star system with ease. On Earth, contra-terrene power is about to be introduced. In the system of Cassius the first Dyson sphere is under construction. The matter for this project came from a planet of Jovian size, demolished by a contra-terrene missile.'

  'Do you fear us?'

  'Should I?'

  'Many assume that this is the reason for your reticence.'

  'How old are you, Darson?'

  'One hundred and seventy, solstan.'

  'It is likely that you will live to be over eight hundred years old and then only to the of ennui.'

  'Perhaps. How old are you?'

  'Do you represent your race, Darson?'

  'In the sense—'

  'No, you do not represent your race. I cannot sit in judgment on you. Send me an ambassador.'

  After the dialogue had ceased, Cormac opened his eyes and scratched at his head. He was tired; he had, after all, travelled a long way. He got off the bed and shed the clothes he had been wearing only a few hours earlier, personal time, in New York, and wondered, as always with cold humour, what the morning might bring. Of course he did not know whether it was day or night here, but such things he had for quite some time dismissed as irrelevant. He lived by personal time. It was the only way to stay sane.

  The morning brought Maria with an analysis from Darson, the Dragon expert. Cormac read it over a breakfast of spiced eggs, honey fish and two pots of tea.

  Darson's conclusion was that Dragon, in human terms, was insane. After reading it, Cormac dressed in his shabby survival suit and placed in his rucksack the single device he might need. On his way out he consigned the report to the waste disposal. Shortly he was sliding above redland, red under a bloody sky.

  'What is your opinion of Darson?'

  'He's a pompous old fart,' Maria replied, and Cormac liked her for that.

  'He believes Dragon is psychotic,' he said.

  'I am not qualified to judge,' she replied.

  Expressionlessly Cormac watched pink sleet slide off the frictionless screen of the AGC. 'You are qualified to have an opinion.'

  Maria hesitated before replying. Cormac glanced at her and could see her discomfort. She was, he knew, trying to decide how to influence him and what opinion it would be best to own. He repressed a smile. She was in a difficult position. Instructions had preceded him: no unnecessary contact, straight to Dragon, the crux. He could see that she was unnerved.

  'The dialogue with Dragon is deceptively human… Darson seems to find it difficult to accept the alien.'

  Cormac chuckled. The AGC dipped as Maria glanced at him. Unable to find any way of applying leverage, she had answered with the truth. He nodded to himself and looked ahead as she slowed the AGC and began to power it down. Before them lay the Junkyard: the tangible result of people's flouting of Dragon's rule of no machinery larger than a man within a two-kilometre radius. Many people had died here. Maria put the

  AGC on hover. Cormac tapped the com on his belt as the door slid open.

  'I'll contact you when I want picking up,' he said and left her.

  After reaching the line of smashed AGCs and hover scooters that marked the two-kilometre boundary, Cormac shouldered his rucksack and climbed a rusting hulk. Even through the snow the four spheres were visible, standing like vast storage tanks on a plain of broken rock. After a moment he clambered down the other side of the boundary, peeking in the wrecked AGC at its occupants, whom no one had bothered to retrieve. As his feet touched the ground, the ground itself moved.

  Pseudopods.

  He stood very still and waited, the taste of salt turning acrid in his mouth. Five metres to one side of him the ground rippled and a thing like a metre-wide cobra exploded into the air. Cormac dropped to avoid a flying rock, then rolled, looked up. It arched above him, a single crystalline blue eye where a cobra's mouth should have been. The ground tilted and another explosion followed. Then another. Cormac put his rucksack over his head as explosion followed explosion and he was pelted with shards of rock. Then it ceased, and he stood in the silence.

  Arrayed and curved like the ribs of an immense snake's skeleton, the pseudopods had become his honour guard. He walked down the spine.

  In the face of total disaster, defiance is the only recourse… crazy street-lamps they have here.

  Cormac allowed his mind to wander; random-access on subject:

  Monitor: Insentient autochthon of the planet Aster Colora. It has the appearance of a Terran monitor lizard, but is a kilometre long and weighs an estimated 4.5 million tonnes. It is a silicon-based lifeform with an alien physiognomy…

  Dragon… Monitor… What connection?

  Why does Dragon want an ambassador?

  Questions.

  Answers?

  Damn!

  The two kilometres unrolled and eventually Cormac came before the curving edifice of tegulate flesh within an amphitheatre of pseudopods. He noted, to one side, a piece of machinery that could have been the comlink for Dragon/human dialogue: the one exception to its rule about machines. It was scrapped. He looked up at the pink-and-red-stippled sky, half cut by the cloud-tangled flesh mountain, and he waited.

  'Ambassador.'

  The voice came from the undershadows of the sphere, resonant but conversational.

  'Ian Cormac… yes.'

  'Names. All things can be named.'

  As of skis on granular snow, a hissing issued from the undershadows. Cormac saw a swirl of movement, then a monstrous head shot towards him, propelled by a ribbed snake body. He stumbled back, fell. It rose above him; a pterosaur head with sapphire eyes.

  'Are you afraid?'

  Cormac choked back his immediate reply and said, 'Should I be?' His tone betrayed nothing of what he felt.

  The head lunged at him, then jerked to a halt two metres above him. It smelt of cloves. Milky saliva dripped on him.

  'Answer my question.'

  'Yes, I am afraid. Does that surprise you?'

  'No.'

  The head moved up and away. Cormac stood and brushed himself off.

  'I fail to see the purpose of that litde scene,' he said.

 
'You represent your race,' Dragon replied, 'and you can die.'

  More than personal, then. Cormac did not react to the implications, but steadily returned the stare of those sapphire eyes.

  'Why did you send for an ambassador.'

  'Ah… you are human then?'

  'Of course.'

  'You do represent your race?'

  'Such is my position, though I cannot speak for every individual in it.' He emphasized individual - why? He did not know; it had almost been instinctive. The Dragon head swayed, then twitched, shaking off an accumulation of snow.

  'Running round the inside of your skull is a net of mycorhizal fibre optics connected to etched-atom processors, silicon synaptic interfaces and an underspace transmitter. Evolution is a wonderful thing,' it said.

  That gave Cormac pause. Smoothly he said, 'They are the tools of my trade. I am human. I am a member of the races of homo sapiens, meaning "wise man", and a wise man will use what tools he can to make his tasks easier.'

  'I am glad you are sure of your integrity.'

  The head swayed to one side, then looked back. The tegulate skin of Dragon's body bulged and quivered as if it were taking a breath. There was a liquid groaning, then skin and flesh parted like that of a rotten fruit. Unable to hide his reaction Cormac retched at the stench that wafted from the pink vagina of a cave that appeared before him. There were more liquid sounds driven by deep rhythmic pulses. Cormac watched in fascination as a jet of steaming amniot ejected the foetal ball of a manthing wrapped in a caul. The caul burst open, spilling more of the Dragon's juices. Dracoman; Cormac named it instandy.

  'A trifle dramatic,' he managed.

  The manthing continued to moVe. It stood, showing no sign of imbalance. Again that sound: something else born; a flattened ellipse. The manthing picked it up and stripped away its caul. Legs dropped down from underneath it. Cormac could hardly believe he was seeing a table. The man approached and placed the table between them.

  'To be human is to be mortal,' said Dragon. 'Do you play chess?'