But the effector was powered only enough to provide a two-way communication channel.

~ Hello? said the maintenance unit, through the gun.

~ Hello yourself.

~ The other machine is gone.

~ I know; my twin. Snapped. Displaced. Get thrown a long way by one of those big Displace Pods, something that small. One-off coordinates, too. Never find it--

The drone knew it was babbling, its electronic mind was probably under effector incursion but too damn stupid even to know it and so gibbering as a side effect, but it couldn’t stop itself;

~ Yep, totally gone. Entity overboard. One-throw XYZs. Never find it. No point in even looking for it. Unless you want me to step into the breach too, of course; I’d go take a squint, if you like, if the pod’s still up for it; personally it wouldn’t be too much trouble . . .

~ Did you mean all that to happen?

The drone thought about lying, but now it could feel the effector weapon in its mind, and knew that not only the weapon and the maintenance drone but the ship and whatever had taken over all of them could see it was thinking about lying . . . so, feeling that it was itself again, but knowing it had no defences left, wearily it said,

~ Yes.

~ From the beginning?

~ Yes. From the beginning.

~ We can find no trace of this plan in your ship’s mind.

~ Well, nar-nar-ne-fucking-nar-nar to you, then, prickbrains.

~ Illuminating insults. Are you in pain?

~ No. Look, who are you?

~ Your friends.

~ I don’t believe this; I thought this ship was smart, but it gets taken over by something that talks like a Hegemonising Swarm out of an infant’s tale.

~ We can discuss that later, but what was the point of displacing beyond our reach your twin machine rather than yourself? It was ours, was it not? Or did we miss something?

~ You missed something. The displacer was programmed to . . . oh, just read my brains; I’m not sore but I’m tired.

Silence for a moment. Then,

~ I see. The displacer copied your mind-state to the machine it ejected. That was why we found your twin so handily placed to intercept you when we realised you were not yet ours and there might be a way out via the displacer.

~ One should always be prepared for every eventuality, even if it’s getting shafted by a dope with bigger guns.

~ Well, if cuttingly, put. Actually, I believe your twin machine may have been badly damaged by the plasma implosure directed at yourself, and as all you were trying to do was get away, rather than find a novel method of attacking us, the matter is anyway not of such great importance.

~ Very convincing.

~ Ah, sarcasm. Well, never mind. Come and join us now.

~ Do I have a choice in this?