‘Apparently.’
‘And so, nothing can stop me going to the disintegrator,’ said Daes.
‘The intervention of the AI Geronamid can.’
Daes shivered at the mention of the name. Geronamid was the sector AI. What the hell interest would it have in a minor criminal like himself?
‘Why would Geronamid want to get involved?’
‘AI Geronamid has need of a subject for a scientific trial. This trial may kill you, in which case it would be considered completion of sentence. Should you survive, all charges against you will be dropped.’
‘And the nature of this trial?’
‘Cephalic implantation of Csorian node.’
‘Okay, I agree, though I have no idea what Csorian node is.’
The Golem stood and as she did so the door slid open. Daes glanced up at the security eye in the corner of the cell and stood also. She nodded to the door and he followed her out. In the corridor a couple of policemen glared at him with ill-concealed annoyance but showed no reaction beyond that. Outside the station she led him to a sleek gravcar styled after one of the twenty-second-century electric cars. He thought, briefly, about escape, but knew he stood no chance. His companion might look like a teenage girl but she was strong enough to rip him in half. Once they were seated in the gravcar it took off without her touching the controls and sped away at a speed well above the limit. He wondered if some minuscule part of Geronamid was controlling it.
‘You didn’t tell me. What’s a Csorian node?’
‘If we knew that with any certainty we would not be carrying out this trial,’ replied the Golem.
‘You know it’s some sort of implant.’
‘We do, but only because it was found in the body of a Csorian.’
‘A Csorian has been found?’
‘Oh yes, underneath the ruins on Wilder. The body is about a hundred thousand years old.
The node was attached to its hindbrain.’
Daes turned that over in his mind. The Csorians were one of the three dead stellar races: the Jain and the Atheter being the other two. They supposedly died out a hundred thousand years before the human race had set out for the stars. All that remained of their civilizations were a few ruins of coraline buildings and the descendants of those plants and creatures to survive from their biotechnology.
‘It was one of the last of them then,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He considered for a moment before going on. ‘Surely Geronamid should have been able to work out what this node is.’
‘Perhaps he has. Who can tell?’
Daes noted that the gravcar was well above the traffic lanes and still rising. He heard the door seals lock down and wondered where the hell they were going. When he turned to the Golem to ask her, he saw that she had called up something on the screen. Here was a creature much like a praying mantis only without the long winged abdomen. From the back of its thorax extended a ribbed tail that branched into three. At the branch point was a pronounced thickening from which grew a second pair of insectile legs.
‘It was about a metre long. We think the hindbrain had something to do with reproduction,’ said the Golem.
‘That’s a Csorian?’ asked Daes.
‘It is. We are reasonably sure that their society was much like that of the social insects of Earth; wasps, ants, hornets and the like.’
‘They had hive minds just the same?’
‘This is what we suppose.’
Daes smiled to himself. It had come as one shock in many when arrogant humanity had discovered it wasn’t the only sentient race on Earth, it was just the loudest and most destructive.
Dolphins and whales had always been candidates because of their aesthetic appeal and stories of rescued swimmers. Research in that area had soon cleared things up: Dolphins couldn’t tell the difference between a human swimmer and a sick fellow, and were substantially more stupid than the animal humans had been turning into pork on a regular basis. Whales had the intelligence of the average cow. When a hornet built its nest in a VR suit and lodged its protests on the Internet it had taken a long time for anyone to believe. They were stinging things, creepy crawlies, how could they possibly be intelligent? At ten thousand years of age the youngest hive mind showed them. People believed.
‘So a hive mind got into space long before we did. I find that gratifying to hear,’ said Daes.
The Golem gazed at him speculatively. ‘Your misanthropy is well understood. You do realize that if you’d had it corrected you would not be in the situation you are now in.’
‘I liked my dislike of humanity. It kept me sane.’
‘Very amusing,’ said the Golem, turning back to the screen. The picture she now called up was of a small ovoid with complex mottling on its surface. Daes noted it, then gazed through the windows and saw the sky becoming dark blue and stars beginning to show. The planet had now receded. He pushed his face to the window to try and get a look down at it and saw only a shuttle glinting like a discarded needle far below.
‘This is the node. We know that it contains picotech and likely biofactured connections to its host’s brain. We first thought it some kind of augmentation.’
‘Well that seems the most likely,’ said Daes, turning back.
