The inner airlock door finally sighed open and Senator Corso entered the lab in the company of a woman he felt certain he had never seen before, but who looked familiar. After another moment, he recognized her from news archives as Dakota Merrick.

Her eyes were wide and dark, and she hardly seemed to blink. Her hair stood up in spiked tufts, giving the impression of someone who didn’t get much sleep, and she was attractive, in a half-starved-looking sort of way. Had she, he wondered, already been on board the frigate when they arrived?

‘Dakota, this is Nathan Driscoll,’ said Corso, fixing Ty with a peculiar stare, as if to put particular emphasis on Ty’s nom de guerre. Corso had so far spoken to Ty only when absolutely necessary, and as on those occasions the Senator’s distaste for him remained entirely evident. ‘Nathan’s responsible for the original research that led us to the Mos Hadroch. Without his help, we wouldn’t have got this far.’

Ty nodded wordlessly to Dakota, and crossed his hands on his lap so that the ring he had been given by the Consortium agent, and which he wore on his right hand, was hidden under the left palm.

He heard that high-pitched static-like sound again, but it rapidly increased in pitch until it passed beyond his ability to hear it. He saw Merrick wince in that same moment, pressing the fingers of one hand against her temple.

She heard it too, he realized. A glance at the Senator confirmed that he appeared unaware of her distress.

‘I think it’s time we had a look at exactly what we came here for,’ said Corso. ‘Mr Driscoll?’

Ty nodded and stood up. ‘This way,’ he said.

They passed through another room, then came to the isolation chamber containing the Atn’s remains.

Ty tapped some commands into a terminal mounted next to a sheet of polycarbonate armoured glass, through which the alien remains were visible. A moment later a long robot arm slid out from a recess in the chamber’s ceiling, turning this way and that as it reached downwards, its machine-fingers spreading wide, each one of them tipped with a different kind of probe or instrument. It came to a halt just a few inches above the dead alien’s carapace.

Ty inhaled deeply and stared at the alien body through the glass. I’ve waited a long time for this, he thought, then he exhaled slowly.

He quickly typed more commands into the terminal, and in response the upper right corner of the window darkened to show an image of the Atn’s remains as seen from directly above. After another moment, this image was replaced by a series of vague outlines rendered in grey, which constantly shifted and altered.