“No one back on Stateless knows that Wu is involved – do they? And anyway … Wu could have infected Mosala with a bioweapon, days ago. Do you think they would have confessed everything, on camera, if the assassination wasn’t already a fait accompli ? They wanted to ensure that they’d receive due credit, they had to get in early and avoid the rush – before everyone from PACDF to EnGeneUity comes under suspicion. But it would have to be the last thing they’d do, before confirming that’s she dead, and fleeing Stateless.” Meaning that nothing I’d said above deck could have made the slightest difference? Not quite. They might still have furnished an antidote, their own pre-existing magic bullet.

Kuwale fell silent. I listened for distant voices or footsteps, but there was nothing: the creaking of the hull, the white noise of a thousand waves.

So much for my grandiose visions of rebirth through adversity as a fearless champion of technolibération . All I’d done was stumble into a vicious game between rival lunatic god-makers – and been cut back down to my proper station in life: conveyor of someone else’s messages.

Kuwale said, “Do you think they’re monitoring us, right now? Up on deck?”

“Who knows?” I looked around the dark hold; I wasn’t even sure if the faint gray light which might have been the far wall was real, or just retinal static and imagination. I laughed. “What do they think we’re going to do? Jump six meters into the air, punch a hole in the hatch, and then swim a hundred kilometers – all dressed as Siamese twins?”

I felt a sudden sharp tug on the rope around my hands. Irritated, I almost protested aloud – but I stopped myself in time. It seemed Kuwale had made good use of an hour without vis wrists jammed between our backs. Working some slack into vis own bonds – and then hiding the loop between vis hands … which in turn might have helped ver keep them slightly apart, when we were tied together again? Whatever houdini ve’d used, after a few more minutes of painstaking manipulation the tension on the rope vanished. Kuwale pulled vis arms free of the space between us, and stretched them wide.

I couldn’t help feeling a rush of pure, dumb elation – but I waited for the inevitable sound of boots on the deck. IR cameras in the hold, monitored non-stop by software, would have registered this transgression easily.

The silence stretched on. Grabbing us must have been a spur-of-the-moment decision when they intercepted my call to Kuwale – if they’d planned it in advance, they would have had handcuffs, at the very least. Maybe their surveillance technology, at short notice, was as down-market as their ropes and nets.

Kuwale shuddered with relief – I envied ver; my own shoulders were painfully cramped – then squeezed vis hands back into the gap.