Free The Engineer Reconditioned by Neal Asher Page B

it want to go there?" asked Abaron.
    Chapra glanced at him and saw that he was staring intently at the Jain. His fear was gone. There was hungry fascination in his regard.
    "Why I wish to go to the surface is not relevant. Under Polity law you do not have the right to detain me, and I can also demand transport to the nearest habitable planet, which for me is Haden." Both Chapra and Abaron stared at the girl for a long moment. It was pointless asking how she ... it, knew so much about Polity law.
    "You are aware of the threat posed to you by the Separatist ship?" she asked.
    "I am aware that on this ship I am in greater danger than I would be in the sea below. None of your kind have scanners sensitive enough to detect me in that sea, and should a search be initiated I would much more easily be able to evade it or defend myself."
    "Solves a couple of problems," said Abaron. "The Jain can hide from them down there and they've no reason to attack us without the Jain aboard."
    Chapra glanced at him. He was naïve and in this situation that could be dangerous. "They are not coming here to kill the Jain just because they're xenocides, but to prevent Jain technology getting into Polity hands, which they'll view as just a bigger stick for ECS to beat them with. They won't risk letting us get away. Even with the Jain gone we might already have learned something vital or have acquired some super-science device. There is no doubt that they will try to destroy this ship."
    "Then we have to run," said Abaron, taking the lecture well.
    "After dropping our friend off," said Chapra, then, "Box, do you have a shuttle ready?"
    "Yes," said Box. "Judd will pilot it. The Jain will depart when its machine is small enough to transport."
    "I do not require a pilot," said the girl/Jain.
    "The shuttle is Polity property and requires a Polity pilot." Chapra wondered about that. Why did Box want Judd as a pilot? The Golem certainly would not be coming back before the Separatist ship arrived. To try and keep track of the Jain? Or was Judd's purpose more sinister? Maybe the people on that other ship had come here to kidnap and steal rather than kill and destroy. Chapra was sickened by the thought of Separatists getting hold of Jain technology. How much would Polity AIs dislike that prospect? Would they be prepared to kill the Jain to prevent it?
    And who was to say the Jain would not go willingly? What did it care about human politics?
    The Jain, through the girl, said no more. Its tentacle detached and it slid into the water. The girl staggered then regained her balance. Her face took on a more juvenile appearance. She smiled at Chapra and Abaron, then sat down on the edge of the jetty and dangled her feet in the boiling water. The Jain wrapped itself around its machine almost as if sulking.
    The Vorstra runcible sat under a clear dome in a lunarscape etched with sharp-edged shadows. Lakes of silver dust patched the surface, their source the slow crumbling of crowded rock spires. Normally this was a place of interminably slow change and stillness, but now the lakes were moving under the influence of another moon.
    Alexion Smith stood before the bull's horns of the runcible, a carry sack slung over one shoulder, and his hand in the pocket of his baggy trousers. His associates often said he was as much an anachronism as the things he studied. Such criticism was far from his mind at that moment. He gazed up through the dome at a distant silver sphere, and replayed in his mind a comment made by a harried-looking runcible technician:
    "Damned thing's perturbed our orbit, but they said they'd reposition us before moving off." The Cable Hogue was huge. Alexion had never seen any ship this size, had thought them only the product of holofiction producers and conspiracy theory junkies. With a shake of his head he stepped up onto the black glass dais and through the shimmer of the Skaidon warp. Shortly afterwards the Vorstra moon shuddered in its orbit and the Hogue