away all of us started experiencing these weird dreams. The Maker toned down its projection for a while, then requested a Golem chassis and some stock syntheflesh. It took this into the area it occupied—a spherical zero-G chamber it had made secure against scanning—then after two days the Golem walked out. We didn’t know if it was telefactored from inside the chamber or if the Maker now occupied it somehow. Not then we didn’t. But from that moment the Golem became the Maker to us.’
‘What about the appearance of the Golem itself?’ Cormac asked.
‘Male, dark hair, red eyes—very dramatic. Of course then it renamed itself.’ Chaline gave a cynical shake of her head. ‘Called itself, himself, Lucifer.’
Cormac placed his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them. ‘Do I detect something of Dragon’s humour there?’
‘I don’t know. Humour or hubris—you tell me.’
‘Tell me about the dreams.’
‘Mostly of hiding and being terrified, very often after either running, crawling or swimming—never really clear.’ She gestured over her shoulder. ‘Graham, the haiman sent along to study Maker/human interaction aboard the ship, approached Lucifer about that phenomenon. The dreams stopped immediately afterwards—about a month before we went into coldsleep. I think Graham regretted that, those dreams being yet another source of data, but the rest of us were glad. Graham then, of course, had us describing all those dreams in detail. He was particularly happy with me,’ she tapped her temple, ‘because I’d recorded some of mine.’
‘And did Graham come to any conclusions?’
She nodded. ‘He reckoned we’d picked up stuff from its subconscious and that the activities we dreamed were of some creature dragging itself across mud to escape predators. He theorized that the Makers were some lifeform much like mudskippers, either that or we’d picked up stuff from their presentient past—the Maker equivalent of the reptile brain.’
Cormac grimaced: it somehow figured that such a creature would project the facade of a godlike alien seemingly constructed of light.
‘Did Lucifer go into coldsleep too?’ he asked.
‘According to Graham, he had enough equipment in his chamber to build something. And Lucifer declared he would be going into hibernation—that’s how he put it. You’d think so, as eight hundred years is a long time.’
‘So then the Victoria arrived at the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Maker civilization?’
‘There was no Maker civilization,’ Chaline replied.
Cormac sat back. ‘Ah.’
‘The first thing we saw was a giant space station crammed with hard organic growth—like some plant had germinated inside it, sucked out all the nutrient, and then died. We started our approach to that place and all our meteor lasers started firing. Space all around it was filled with clouds of small hard objects—the size of a golf ball and incredibly dense. Lucifer told us to pull away, or we would die.’
‘Jain substructure, and Jain nodes.’
She stared at him questioningly.
‘Jerusalem, can you update Chaline on recent events: specifically Skellor and his subversion of the Occam Razor? And related matters Jain?’
Chaline tilted her head and pressed her fingertips against her temple. Cormac got up and walked over to a nearby dispensing unit, sending his request to it, via his gridlink, before he even got there. A cup of hot green tea awaited him. He took it up and sipped, remaining by the dispenser. It would take Chaline about five minutes to absorb all the information. When he finally finished his tea and returned to his chair, she was shaking her head.
‘Exactly the same. We found ships, and then we found a whole world infested like that.’ She looked up. ‘But it stops, you know? Sentient life sets this Jain technology growing, it takes something,
‘What about the appearance of the Golem itself?’ Cormac asked.
‘Male, dark hair, red eyes—very dramatic. Of course then it renamed itself.’ Chaline gave a cynical shake of her head. ‘Called itself, himself, Lucifer.’
Cormac placed his elbows on the table, interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them. ‘Do I detect something of Dragon’s humour there?’
‘I don’t know. Humour or hubris—you tell me.’
‘Tell me about the dreams.’
‘Mostly of hiding and being terrified, very often after either running, crawling or swimming—never really clear.’ She gestured over her shoulder. ‘Graham, the haiman sent along to study Maker/human interaction aboard the ship, approached Lucifer about that phenomenon. The dreams stopped immediately afterwards—about a month before we went into coldsleep. I think Graham regretted that, those dreams being yet another source of data, but the rest of us were glad. Graham then, of course, had us describing all those dreams in detail. He was particularly happy with me,’ she tapped her temple, ‘because I’d recorded some of mine.’
‘And did Graham come to any conclusions?’
She nodded. ‘He reckoned we’d picked up stuff from its subconscious and that the activities we dreamed were of some creature dragging itself across mud to escape predators. He theorized that the Makers were some lifeform much like mudskippers, either that or we’d picked up stuff from their presentient past—the Maker equivalent of the reptile brain.’
Cormac grimaced: it somehow figured that such a creature would project the facade of a godlike alien seemingly constructed of light.
‘Did Lucifer go into coldsleep too?’ he asked.
‘According to Graham, he had enough equipment in his chamber to build something. And Lucifer declared he would be going into hibernation—that’s how he put it. You’d think so, as eight hundred years is a long time.’
‘So then the Victoria arrived at the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Maker civilization?’
‘There was no Maker civilization,’ Chaline replied.
Cormac sat back. ‘Ah.’
‘The first thing we saw was a giant space station crammed with hard organic growth—like some plant had germinated inside it, sucked out all the nutrient, and then died. We started our approach to that place and all our meteor lasers started firing. Space all around it was filled with clouds of small hard objects—the size of a golf ball and incredibly dense. Lucifer told us to pull away, or we would die.’
‘Jain substructure, and Jain nodes.’
She stared at him questioningly.
‘Jerusalem, can you update Chaline on recent events: specifically Skellor and his subversion of the Occam Razor? And related matters Jain?’
Chaline tilted her head and pressed her fingertips against her temple. Cormac got up and walked over to a nearby dispensing unit, sending his request to it, via his gridlink, before he even got there. A cup of hot green tea awaited him. He took it up and sipped, remaining by the dispenser. It would take Chaline about five minutes to absorb all the information. When he finally finished his tea and returned to his chair, she was shaking her head.
‘Exactly the same. We found ships, and then we found a whole world infested like that.’ She looked up. ‘But it stops, you know? Sentient life sets this Jain technology growing, it takes something,
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