‘Where are you?’ asked Martinez. ‘We can see your spiders, but we can’t see you. You need to stay in sight at all times, Nathan.’

‘I’m fine. Sorry,’ Ty replied, a little too hurriedly. He swallowed and forced himself to sound calm, or they would suspect something was wrong. ‘I’m . . . I thought some of the stern drive-spines might have got more damaged than we thought. So I figured it might be better to check them out, just in case. I’ll be right back.’

‘Well, okay,’ said Martinez, doubt evident in his voice. ‘We’re heading up to one of the middle hull sections. Mr Corso’s currently picking up some fail signatures from up that way, and we’re off to take a look. We’ll see you there in . . . make it five hundred seconds from now. Got that?’

‘Got that,’ Ty replied and cut the connection.

The avatar was gone, and the screen had turned black. If he wanted answers, Ty was going to have to find them somewhere else. He re-secured his helmet, cursing and muttering as he twisted around in the confined space, then paused just as he was about to pull his glove back on.

He left the same glove spinning slowly in the air, as he pulled the other one off as well. Then he tried to slide the data-ring off his finger.

The moment he worked it up to his knuckle, a deep, primal terror washed over him like a black tide. Worse, the ring actually became tighter, rather than looser, as it was designed to do when removed.

Ty gritted his teeth and once again tried to work the ring past his knuckle. It could only get so tight, after all.

Something like an electric current surged up his spine before exploding inside his skull. He writhed in pain, his head feeling like it was on fire, twisting around in the zero gee like a trapped animal.

When this pain finally subsided, the knowledge of how thoroughly he had been duped became unavoidable. He had suspected as much when he first encountered the avatar, but had been so desperate to escape from the residency and from Marcus Weil that he had ignored his own instincts.

Worse, he now had a pretty good idea what had been done to him.