‘I’ve read your file, Ty. You can’t tell me you were only following orders. It’s not an excuse, never has been. Hundreds died.’

‘If I could go back in time and make things different, I would. I used to fantasize about how things might have been if I’d made different choices. You said I had a chance to exonerate myself, and that’s all I’ve wanted, all these years. I’m not a monster, Mr Corso. I just want you to understand that.’

Ty drew in a breath, and waited. The other man’s expression was unreadable.

‘Actions count more than words, Ty,’ Corso said finally, twisting around until he faced the airlock once more. ‘Find out how the Mos Hadroch works, and you’ll help save a lot of lives. Maybe that’ll give you the peace you’re looking for.’

I hope so too, thought Ty, and watched as Corso turned and left.

Ty spent the next couple of hours taking his mind off this encounter by familiarizing himself with the upgraded lab equipment before moving the Mos Hadroch out of the isolation chamber and into the main lab. Its faint iridescent glow had long since faded, along with the aural hallucinations that only appeared to affect people with some form of cerebral implant. Now it sat amidst an array of technology that could carry out a much finer analysis than the isolation chamber could possibly manage.

The artefact now sat in a cradle which had, in turn, been mounted in the heart of a gigantic multi-phase imaging unit intended for carrying out almost every conceivable type of material analysis the Mjollnir’s scientific and technical staff could hope for. For the moment, some methods were out of the question: for instance, ultrasonic spectroscopy meant hitting the thing with a laser, and Ty was far from sure the Mos Hadroch would not interpret this as a form of attack and thus retaliate.

The lab even contained its own dedicated manufactory for creating yet more gadgets, should they be required; so its dedicated stacks were filled with thousands of blueprints whose components could be manufactured within a matter of hours or days.

And yet Ty hesitated, unsure where to even start. He retreated to a chair and sat staring at the artefact for the better part of an hour, quietly brooding.

I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, he finally admitted to himself.

The Mos Hadroch was, according to Dakota Merrick, alive; it was certainly more than a machine, and clearly something intelligent lurked within its outwardly inert form. But, for all the high-tech tools he had to hand, Ty rather suspected they would be about as much good as trying to reverse-engineer stack circuits by hitting them with a lump of flint.