She suddenly looked distressed. ‘I remember – I think I was… So, I remember worrying. They seemed to be all over our movements. Remember when we talked, at the Bastion? I was due to head back then, and when I did, my contact was missing. Dead, most likely. But we’d been careful. So, I remember thinking that my veil-link might have been breached. It happens, I guess – they crack a protocol, or something. I did some work, sent a trace back to the analysers, but got no reply. Then I had to go after one of the First, who I knew was deep into something on the Colossus platform – one of the big receiving discs. But I couldn’t find him, and I’d taken on Rovach for protection, because it was getting snaky up there.’

She needed to drink again. Her words tumbled out a bit, her parched lips moving quickly. Her hands, lying on the coverlet, twitched a bit.

‘So, we got a call. From Silka, a Vidora First Circle working up there too.’ She smiled. ‘She had oversight of the Yezan cell – the one I put you up for? Small world. Anyway, I knew that was fake, or a mistake, because she was dead. All part of what I was working on.’

Zidarov frowned. ‘Dead? Are you sure?’

‘Sure as sure. There’d been a lot of cabal run-ins – ­remember what I said about the balance breaking? It’s why I wanted Rovach. So I knew this was something else, and went carefully.’ Her expression crumpled a bit. ‘Not carefully enough. We were jumped. Heavy armour, heavy weapons. I should have got a squad in. And now… Rovach…’

‘Don’t get agitated,’ Zidarov said, as gently as he could. He was bursting with questions now, but forced himself not to blurt them all out at once. ‘He was a professional. These things… they happen.’

She blinked heavily. ‘That’s all I remember. Getting out of the groundcar, lots of guns. Shredder rounds, I think.’

‘They were. And they did enough to put you down hard.’

‘I remember it hurting.’

Zidarov laughed. ‘I’ll bet.’ He leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘Did you see anything at all? Any identifiers?’

‘It was dark. They came out so quick. They weren’t exactly advertising themselves.’

‘But you thought the Vidora might have cracked your veil-link?’

‘The analysers could tell you that.’

‘So it might have been them? Yuti told us it wasn’t.’

‘Yuti? Fuck. Has he been in here?’

‘This thing kicked off quite a storm.’

Borodina’s eyes widened a bit, then she chuckled weakly. ‘Hells, I don’t know. I really don’t.’

‘The other thing he said was that Silka was killed by one of ours. They’ve been… busy, since this happened.’