There were separate archives for several intimidatingly large projects, too, more extensive than anything she had examined so far. Deep oceans of numbers and transactions where anything might lurk. She knew that she needed to review them from top to bottom, because the supplies for the camp could have come from anywhere, but she also knew that even with the help of her accountancy tools it would take several moonspans to comb through everything, and she was running out of time. She couldn’t keep up the pretence that she was helping Special Operations indefinitely. Pretty soon she would have to go back to her ordinary duties, and even if Mitkos didn’t revoke her access privileges it would take for ever to complete a global search in her spare time.

Meanwhile, Iryn Moonsdaughter, armed with far greater resources, was pursuing her own investigation, and Goodwill was trying to track down the map. Ysbel hadn’t heard anything from him so far and wanted to believe that his silence meant that all was well. That he hadn’t fallen foul of native authorities, or abandoned his quest. Although given what she knew about him, it was unlikely that he’d give up so easily or quickly. She wished that she had established a way to stay in contact with him, but when they had parted he had said that he did not know where he would be staying in Concord or if his investigation would take him elsewhere, so they’d agreed that if and when it became necessary he would reach out to her via the Ogres Grave station. She realised now that it gave him asymmetrical control over their relationship, that he could cut her out of anything he found.

Ilan called and told her that, just as he’d thought, a global search of his agency’s internal records hadn’t turned up any evidence of pre-First Contact surveys, or any kind of expedition to the drowned city. She arranged to meet him anyway, hoping to patch things up between them, although it felt more like duty than desire, and it didn’t help her mood when he turned up a good half an hour after the agreed time. She’d become used to his poor time-keeping – it was part of his easy-going manner – but felt a growing irritation while the minutes ticked by.