For the second time, Yellowsnake did as he was asked, and did think a bit harder.

Zidarov let him. He knew he’d be assessing a number of things. How likely it was he’d be shunted up to the chasteners. How likely it was he could hold out there for long. Whether he had anything to trade, anything that could extract him without violating the Ghaan prohibition on substantive snitching.

Eventually, he took a weary breath. ‘Look, this is what I can give you. I’ve got nothing on those shootings. We made a mistake, or you made a mistake – either way, you’ll be getting a call from Yuti soon. But the boy. I don’t know. He did want to try his hand, and he said he did have slate. But it wasn’t my area of expertise. All I did was tell him where to go, who to speak to. I don’t know if he did. Maybe he got into something he couldn’t handle. But if you ask me, that’s not likely. He was flash, he was stupid, and we don’t work with stupid. So I really don’t know. I think you need to look elsewhere, but that’s your job.’

Zidarov noted it down. ‘Who did you send him to?’

‘The sector First, Silka. But she’ll be long underground now, unless you already have her. Like all the First. That’s what happens, when you send your dogs in.’

‘I’ll look into it.’

Yellowsnake smiled. ‘Don’t think it’ll do you much good.’

Zidarov snapped the dataslate off, and stood. ‘We’ll see, won’t we? You just keep on running. We’ll keep on finding you.’

But he was right, of course. Silka, the Vidora First Circle operative Yellowsnake mentioned, was out of reach, at least for the time being. The entire organisation had gone to ground, shuttering up known safe houses, running for the under-hab levels where it took a long time to find anything and anyone, pulling out of even the most lucrative shakedowns while the storm raged. Vongella had hit them hard, and it was costing them, but there was a price for that. The head of the Urgeyena branch, the man known as Yuti One, was similarly out of reach, as were his lieutenants. Mauls could always clear out the rubbish at the bottom of the pile, as they did from time to time, but the brains were harder to get at.

Zidarov put in a request to bring Silka in, knowing that it would languish a long way down the queue. His best hope was that Vongella wanted the Terashova business concluded quickly, and might be able to speed things up, but he didn’t place any store by it.