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Next she landed Heliotrope on the smallest of the eight moons orbiting this sun’s single planet — the gas giant. This moonlet was geologically active, though what erupted in plumes up to five miles high from its icy volcanoes was not magma but liquid nitrogen, dust and methane compounds. The temperature here rose only forty degrees above absolute zero. There were lakes on the moonlet’s surface and sometimes it rained, but water was as solid as iron and instead the stuff that fell from the blue and green clouds to gather on the surface was liquid methane and ethane.
Because of these low temperatures, what with the sun being a glowing orb only slightly larger than the other stars, there was a lack of energy for Orlandine to utilize. A particular one of the higher-energy worlds closer to the giant — a moon sufficiently heated by geological activity for it to geyser boiling sulphur and for liquid water to sometimes flow on its surface — might have been a more suitable choice. However, that same geological activity made it a dangerous place, and she had decided to conduct a lengthy study of it before relocating there. She confidently chose this world first because already she had experience of using her Jain technology in a low-temperature environment, on the occasion of blowing up a similar moonlet.
Before attempting anything else, Orlandine used the ship’s drill to grind down a few feet into the surface and plant a seed which, powered by Heliotrope’s fusion reactor, germinated and began to sprout Jain tendrils. These began boring through the surrounding rock and ice, using microscopic drills, and to in turn sprout nanotubes which periodically grew quantum processors the size of salt grains along their route. In time this structure would begin to find power sources like radioactives, areas of geothermal activity and reactive chemicals. Once she was sure it was busily working as required, Orlandine decided to go outside.
Orlandine’s carapace — a ribbed metal shell attached to her back from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine, loaded with the advanced technology that made her haiman — was now permanently bonded to her body by the mycelium she had used to increase her capabilities close to those of a major AI, but she hardly noticed it now. The spacesuit she wore — and had only removed once to tend to a wound she had received while preparing that previous icy moonlet for destruction — was specially made for haimans and incorporated the carapace. Similarly it incorporated the cut-down assister frame she also wore: a device that plugged into the carapace and presented two metal arms at just above waist level, and of which she possessed greater and more accurate control than over her own arms of flesh, bone and blood.
She began disengaging herself from Heliotrope’s interface sphere. This took a little while because she needed to physically disco
The door into the interface sphere whoomphed up from its seals and slid aside, and she pulled herself up and out into the corridor beyond. At the end of the corridor she entered her living area, then headed towards the airlock. A series of brief mental instructions started the airlock ahead of her cycling open and simultaneously closed up her spacesuit. The segmented back of her spacesuit helmet rose up between her head and the petals of her sensory cowl, while the ribbed chainglass visor rose up from the front of her suit collar to engage with the helmet at the apex, its segments locking together to give an optically perfect finish. She now considered the possibility of installing a shimmer-shield as a suit visor, since it would be more convenient, and as she entered the airlock, then finally stepped outside, a thought set automated machines within the ship to work on this possibility.
Shutting off all but her human sight, Orlandine saw only shadows. However, light amplification revealed thick ice underfoot, eaten away in places to show numerous laminations glittering in rainbow colours. Sca
Orlandine experienced a fraction of a second’s confusion, then she realized the signal was coming simultaneously from the two Polity watch stations, for it seemed they had noted something unusual. Momentarily she feared the phenomenon they had detected might be herself, and that something had gone wrong with the mycelia she had seeded in them. But reviewing the data and transmitted images soon dispelled this notion.
It was coming in fast, impelling itself through vacuum using some form of U-space tech Orlandine recognized but had yet to analyse and understand herself. It was one of Erebus’s wormships: a great Gordian ball of wormish movement miles across. A brief flash, and one sensory feed went out. From the other station Orlandine observed a flare grow then wink out from the location of the blinded station. She turned back to the airlock, quickly ascertaining that the first station had been hit by a microwave beam. By the time she was back inside Heliotrope, the other station was gone too.
Within her ship’s interface sphere she swiftly reco
Having destroyed the two watch stations, the wormship had opened out its structure and was now launching rod-shaped devices which were accelerating in groups of three or four towards each moon. There were numerous reasons why it might be doing so, and she decided to take a closer look. She was invisible after all.