"There was definitely an outlaw instruction beamed up to the Merlin, shutting it down. Seven seconds are missing from the uplink's log, an hour before the shutdown. He said it was a very sophisticated interruption. They probably wouldn't have spotted it if you hadn't told them to search for it. They're reviewing the Institute's 'ware memory cores to see if someone snatched the Merlin codes. But so far they haven't found any trace of a breach. He says whoever did it must be the best hotrod in existence, covering their tracks like that. The Institute 'ware has premier-grade data-guardian programs, the security programmers thought they were unbreakable." Greg was staring at her, confusion and disbelief tugging at his face. Lost. "Something wrong?"

"Ranasfari can't have said that. It doesn't fit."

Seeing him like this, exhausted, wounded, and cripplingly despondent she felt an overwhelming surge of affection for him. The case had been taxing him; punished by the gland, driven by his own ruthless brand of determination, beaten up by Kendric's bastards. Maxed out. All she wanted to do was help, ease the burden. If only he didn't have this stupid code of his, always giving a hundred per cent. It was too much of him.

"Well, Ranasfari did say it. And it's time you were in bed, Greg Mandel."

"No, no, you don't understand. The blitz was a vengeance attack."

"Yes, you said. You proved Kendric ordered it."

"Yeah, well, sort of."

"The Merlin," she said, beginning to understand.

"If the Merlin was deliberately sabotaged," he said, "then the blitz was part of a kombinate spoiler operation."

"You are concussed. There's nothing to say the Merlin shutdown couldn't be vengeance, too. Kendric wanting to wipe Philip Evans, and damage Event Horizon at the same time by undermining confidence in the giga-conductor cells. Hit Julia from both sides at once. After all, we know he's already used a top-grade hotrod against Event Horizon to pull the security monitors. He probably used the same hotrod to shut down the Merlin."

"Oh, yeah, right."

It was obvious he wasn't convinced. She began to speak with slow deliberation, voicing her thoughts almost as they formed. "The motive for launching the blitz depends on whether Kendric knew of Philip Evans's NN core. If he did, it was him out for vengeance; if not, it was a kombinate spoiler. Right?"

"That's about the size of it."

"Good. So, how bright is Katerina?"

"What?"

"Don't you see? It all hangs on her, whether or not she knew about the NN core. And from what you've told me about her before she met Kendric, she sounds like the all-time champion bimbo. Could she have worked out what was going down at Wilholm?"

His eyes closed, face pained. "Dunno. She had a good education."

"Means nothing. Who would know if she's got enough brains?"