The only other occupant of the room was the facility’s medi­cae senioris, a man named Hiero Vipa. His skin had a faint brown-orange tinge to it, and his thinning hair was white-silver. His forehead was high, his chin receding. He wore a white coat, and had the bulges of subdermal implants across his jowls.

‘Probator,’ he acknowledged, looking up from a dataslate. ‘His Hand.’

‘His Hand.’ Zidarov stared at the cot the whole time. He remembered how she’d looked, at her desk. So keen. ‘Tell me how it is.’

Vipa sniffed. For a medicae, he never looked very healthy. ‘Induced coma. Right now, this chamber is doing the living for her. She lost a lot of blood. She was shot, we think, more than a dozen times. They were shredder rounds. How she stayed alive through that, without armour… She’s a tough one. I’d hate to lose her.’

‘I’d hate that, too.’ Shredder rounds. Throne. ‘Ballistics get anything to work with?’

‘If you’re asking me to tell you who did it, no. I mean, they’d have to have been well resourced. These weren’t gutter-filth.’

‘Vidora?’

‘Very possibly. Or any one of a hundred other outfits.’ Vipa shook his head sadly. ‘No shortage of such weapons, not down there.’

Zidarov edged a little nearer, trying to get a view of Borodina’s face. Her mouth was distorted by the two segmented cables that ran down her throat. The skin, what he could see of it, was bruised. Her eyes were closed.

‘Do we have anything else?’ he asked. ‘Anything from the verispex?’

Vipa raised an eyebrow. ‘Your department, I’d think, probator.’

‘I’m not meant to be going anywhere near this.’ He looked up him. ‘But I’d be grateful.’

Vipa shrugged. He was a cold soul, numbed by his work, but not an entirely unfeeling one. ‘They wouldn’t have told me, if they had much. And I don’t think they do. But, I can tell you what I heard – it wasn’t a drive-by. They think the groundcar was stationary, its doors open, when the shooting started. So maybe the probator stopped someone.’

Zidarov thought on it. ‘Or maybe it was a meeting.’

‘Only something I heard.’

Zidarov nodded. ‘Thanks, though.’

‘For what good it’ll do.’

Zidarov made to leave. Vipa looked down, and as he did so, Zidarov made a quick gesture over her body – a tilt of the right hand, swivelled back again. Vipa didn’t see it. Then he was moving towards the doors, ready to brave the sanctioner again.

‘It’ll be worth something if you keep her alive, medicae,’ he said, with feeling. ‘So, just… keep her alive.’