‘We have an assortment of interesting toys and we have our delivery system,’ said Pelter.

‘What sort?’

‘A stealthed dropbird of Polity manufacture. I am told it was stolen piece by piece from an ECS base. It’s old, but it will serve. Now—’ Pelter looked at him ‘—did you deal with the other matter?’

‘Jarvellis didn’t let out any information concerning us. Neither by aug, her ship computers, nor auto manifest. She had all bets covered, as always. I believe her. She’s smuggled weapons successfully for decades. You don’t manage that under the noses of ECS without sealing every data leak.’

Pelter shook his head. ‘That doesn’t concern me. What about our transport?’

‘It doesn’t concern you? . . . We have to know how the information got through, Arian. We could be walking into a shitstorm here.’

‘It doesn’t concern me because I now know.’

‘Know what?’

‘Don’t concern yourself. I have it covered. Now, transport?’ said Pelter.

They halted almost in the middle of the room. Stanton glanced round at the raucous drinkers and saw the looks flung their way, then he looked towards the restaurant platforms ahead of them.

‘Perhaps we should save this,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Pelter. ‘I want to know now what you have arranged.’

‘OK, OK.’ Stanton stepped closer and lowered his voice. He saw that Crane moved closer as well, and knew it wasn’t because the android wanted to join the conversation.

‘With a dropbird, life support for the six of us, and other supplies not yet detailed, Jarvellis says it’ll have to be a full charter. We’ll need both holds and she won’t have room for any other cargoes. Also, she’ll need to service the split seals on the A hold for loading and then deployment of the bird . . . A straight million.’

Stanton waited for Pelter to explode, but was surprised and puzzled by his reaction.

‘Fine,’ Pelter said, and moved on. ‘We’ll get rooms in the nearest metrotel while the work is being done. How long will the service take?’

‘Couple of days, solstan . . . that’s the reason for the high price, you see: a lot will go on the maintenance and bribes. They can block you if you don’t pay.’

‘There is no need to explain,’ said Pelter as they reached the stairs to the restaurant.