Ty pointed to the monochrome images. ‘This is from a multisystem scan I managed to run on the thing’s body before they locked me out of the lab,’ he explained. ‘X-ray, muon, the works. Look here.’ He pointed to a black shadow at the core of the image. ‘There’s something lodged inside the Atn’s carapace, but it’s completely opaque to everything I can throw at it.’

‘And that’s the Mos Hadroch?’ asked Corso.

‘I’m rather hoping it is, yes,’ Ty replied, glancing at the Senator.

Merrick was frowning, clearly distracted by something. ‘It’s the Mos Hadroch, all right,’ she said. ‘It’s been scanning me from the moment we walked into this lab.’

The two men stared at her.

‘I’m serious,’ she continued. Her eyes lost focus for a moment, and Ty thought she might faint. ‘I think it’s trying to find information about the swarm.’

‘Maybe bringing you here wasn’t such a good idea.’ Corso began moving towards her.

She put up a hand. ‘Wait, Lucas.’

‘What does it want to know?’ asked Ty, deeply fascinated.

She moved back against one wall, pressing a hand against the bulkhead behind her. ‘The swarm’s purpose,’ she replied. ‘Its reason for being.’

‘Do you actually know that?’ Corso asked, just beating White-cloud to it.

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘There are millions of swarms scattered all across the face of the universe, all in long-range contact with each other via tach-comms. They want to manipulate the underlying structure of reality.’

Corso laughed dismissively. ‘Come on, that’s ridiculous. Who ever—?’

‘It’s not ridiculous,’ Ty interrupted him. ‘Not if they’re Wheeler-Korsh engines.’

Corso shook his head. ‘Wheeler what?’

A hypothetical technology that manipulates the fundamental properties of space at its lowest possible level, where matter and information cease to be distinguishable,’ Ty explained, glancing back into the chamber. He touched the terminal and several tiny cutting tools swung down until they almost touched the carapace. Wheeler-Korsh engines? Incredible. ‘And if matter is only an expression of information,’ he continued, ‘then the universe itself is ultimately programmable, an infinitely complex computational system. Subatomic particles aren’t really anything more substantial than a collection of data concerning spin, angle of momentum, location . . . that kind of thing. Some might say that this means there is no such thing as death, only iterations of a program that started running at the beginning of time.’

‘That sounds almost like religion,’ said Dakota.

Ty froze for a moment, realizing how close he was coming to describing Uchidanism. ‘It’s pure speculation, of course,’ he said, turning and forcing a smile. ‘Unless one actually finds a Wheeler-Korsh engine, in which case it ceases to be just speculation.’

‘It sounds pretty far-fetched,’ said Corso, glaring.

Ty ignored him. ‘How did you find this out?’ he asked Dakota.