sweating in his environment suit and watching in panic the count trickling away on the air-supply indicator displayed in the bottom corner of his visor, called up a specific viral subprogram in his aug. It was getting easier to do this now. No longer did he feel the crystal matrix AI as something separate from himself — it was he who was remembering the program, and he who was opening the soft link to the security drone.
The link established itself with a click that was almost audible to him. He felt the subprogram uploading through it, and he observed that program draining from the temporary memory spaces in his crystal matrix aug like acid from uncorked carboys. Letting his attention follow it through, he observed the drone's internal defences spiralling out like informational smoke, and in virtual space he erased them. Then he killed the drone and withdrew, subverting its uplink to Occam, to leave only a program to respond to the constant query signal from the ship's AI that the drone was still functional.
Skellor let out a gasp and reached down to fumble for the shut-off button. Around him, the air flickered and he was revealed standing by a stack of crates below the drone. Looking down at the chameleonware generator on his belt — an object like a large white snail shell with a touch-console mounted in its mouth — he noted that he had shut it off just minutes before it would have done so itself. He rested his hand against its glossy surface and felt the heat of it — he had not yet found a way of running a personal generator for longer than a few hours without overloading it, as the power required to run such a device was huge.
He moved away from the crates to stand before the shimmer-shield, still keeping an eye on his air supply. Probing into the walls of the hold, he soft-linked, but was gratified to discover that the shield only linked back to Occam to inform the ship AI that it was functioning, not whether someone had stepped through it. Skellor then stepped through, the shield tugging and pressing against him so that it felt as if he were pushing through thick jelly. Once he was through, another display in the corner of his visor, which heretofore had only read 'Argon', now showed that the usual mix of breathable gases surrounded him. He removed his mask and took a deep breath of air redolent of metals and warm electronics, which was always the recognizable taint of ship air. Moving to the wall of the hold, he sat and closed his eyes to more closely explore his relationship with his crystal matrix AI, and found that, of course, it was killing him.
It was a given that direct interfacing with an AI would kill the human participant by blowing each synapse like a fuse in an increasing cascade, and would also drive the AI into its own particular version of insanity. For centuries, researchers had tried to construct AIs more amenable to the joining, but had always failed. This was unsurprising as such a joining was comparable with attempting to weld a lump of steel to a candle — it didn't matter what you did with the steel: the welding process would always be too hot for the candle wax. Skellor's answer to this conundrum was that you didn't weld, you used glue instead. Presently he had yet to use the glue — and the AI had yet to completely burn him out, because it was not fully online. He had also only been directly interfaced for an hour before that bastard Polity agent had turned up.
Now it was time for Skellor to use the glue.
The egg-shaped container he cupped in his hand was as much Jain technology as was its contents, for the contained nanotechnology would overrun even an inert material. Lining the inside were billions of nano-constructs whose sum purpose was to deliver the message 'not yet' to the living node they surrounded. Skellor turned the egg so it stood on its end, and linked through to it. Immediately he felt poised at a portal into a vast space crammed with a tangle of glittering and vastly
The link established itself with a click that was almost audible to him. He felt the subprogram uploading through it, and he observed that program draining from the temporary memory spaces in his crystal matrix aug like acid from uncorked carboys. Letting his attention follow it through, he observed the drone's internal defences spiralling out like informational smoke, and in virtual space he erased them. Then he killed the drone and withdrew, subverting its uplink to Occam, to leave only a program to respond to the constant query signal from the ship's AI that the drone was still functional.
Skellor let out a gasp and reached down to fumble for the shut-off button. Around him, the air flickered and he was revealed standing by a stack of crates below the drone. Looking down at the chameleonware generator on his belt — an object like a large white snail shell with a touch-console mounted in its mouth — he noted that he had shut it off just minutes before it would have done so itself. He rested his hand against its glossy surface and felt the heat of it — he had not yet found a way of running a personal generator for longer than a few hours without overloading it, as the power required to run such a device was huge.
He moved away from the crates to stand before the shimmer-shield, still keeping an eye on his air supply. Probing into the walls of the hold, he soft-linked, but was gratified to discover that the shield only linked back to Occam to inform the ship AI that it was functioning, not whether someone had stepped through it. Skellor then stepped through, the shield tugging and pressing against him so that it felt as if he were pushing through thick jelly. Once he was through, another display in the corner of his visor, which heretofore had only read 'Argon', now showed that the usual mix of breathable gases surrounded him. He removed his mask and took a deep breath of air redolent of metals and warm electronics, which was always the recognizable taint of ship air. Moving to the wall of the hold, he sat and closed his eyes to more closely explore his relationship with his crystal matrix AI, and found that, of course, it was killing him.
It was a given that direct interfacing with an AI would kill the human participant by blowing each synapse like a fuse in an increasing cascade, and would also drive the AI into its own particular version of insanity. For centuries, researchers had tried to construct AIs more amenable to the joining, but had always failed. This was unsurprising as such a joining was comparable with attempting to weld a lump of steel to a candle — it didn't matter what you did with the steel: the welding process would always be too hot for the candle wax. Skellor's answer to this conundrum was that you didn't weld, you used glue instead. Presently he had yet to use the glue — and the AI had yet to completely burn him out, because it was not fully online. He had also only been directly interfaced for an hour before that bastard Polity agent had turned up.
Now it was time for Skellor to use the glue.
The egg-shaped container he cupped in his hand was as much Jain technology as was its contents, for the contained nanotechnology would overrun even an inert material. Lining the inside were billions of nano-constructs whose sum purpose was to deliver the message 'not yet' to the living node they surrounded. Skellor turned the egg so it stood on its end, and linked through to it. Immediately he felt poised at a portal into a vast space crammed with a tangle of glittering and vastly
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