Shaking his head, he turned back to Deet. “Are you telling me the network is encrypted?”

“It’s like encryption,” Deet said, “but different. It’s more like a confusing transportation system. If I had the right map, I could . . .”

He trailed off for a moment. In fact, Rogers’ droid companion became so quiet that Rogers thought he’d lost power. But since the ship’s gravity generator was obviously still working, that wasn’t possible. Deet’s eyes went from their normal bright blue to a sort of dim cerulean, then came back again.

“Deet? Are you still there?”

“I found the road map,” Deet said, his digitized voice breaking up as though he was at the far end of a bad radio transmission.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rogers asked. “Are you actually using metaphors?”

“I’m learning,” Deet said. “Actually, I’m learning quite a lot. Right now.”

“About what?”

“For one thing,” Deet said, “this isn’t part of the ship’s network. It’s not part of the backup system, either. It appears to be completely separate. And it’s not controlled by humans.”

Rogers felt his stomach start to sink, like the feeling he got when he realized someone knew he was cheating them. He asked a question, but somehow, he felt like he already knew the answer.

“Who built it?”

“Artificial intelligence,” Deet said. “Droids. The top part of the intelligence documents that Lieutenant Lieutenant McSchmidt has been reading is the access codes to get into the network and point to specific updates that are priority downloads for any droid connected to the closed system.”

“That doesn’t sound like something Klein would authorize,” Rogers said.

“Actually,” Deet said, “Klein did authorize it. It was part of a sweeping set of changes to help the 331st prepare for the imminent conflict with the Thelicosans. Which, by the way, isn’t actually going to happen. The intel has been faked. By the droids.”

“What’s going on over here?” McSchmidt called as he walked over. “Is your little droid friend finding out anything interesting?”

Rogers slowly turned to face McSchmidt. His fear must have shown on his face, because the intel officer stopped as soon as Rogers turned around.

“Yes,” Rogers said. “I’m learning that we are, all of us, completely screwed.”

“What do you mean, you can’t talk about it?” McSchmidt asked.

All five of them were walking briskly down the hallway of the commissary deck, Rogers trying to keep his head down and his mouth shut. He’d asked Deet to download every scrap of data he could from the closed network and had asked him no fewer than sixteen times if it was possible any of the other droids would know of his intrusion. Deet had explained, every single time, that his login information would be stored in the database. Of course they’d know.

“I mean they’re listening,” Rogers whispered. “They have ears all around us. Don’t you understand?”

McSchmidt, the Viking, and Mailn all exchanged uneasy glances.

“Have you been spending too much time in your room?” Mailn asked. “I hear a lot of time in freefall can start to make you, um, see things.”