On the comm, Overse said, “Is it dangerous? Should we try to remove it from the drive?”

On the general feed and comm, audible to the whole ship, ART said, The foreign device detached from my drive and ceased to function when the invading system was deleted. Further interference is not advisable.

That was definitely not menacing. Oh no, not at all.

On a private feed channel to ART, I said, You set me up, you fucker. I was still catching up on archived drone video and fifty-four seconds behind actual time, so ART ignored me.

Right, hear me out. The message packet with the World Hoppers video clip had been sent through ART’s internal comm before it went down, presumably not long after ART hid a backup copy of itself passcode-protected by my hard feed address. ART had been expecting me to be aboard at some point to run its emergency code, which would uncompress the backup and reload it into its hardware. Which meant it had sent the Targets to find me in Preservation space and given them the ability to track me via the comm I had stashed in my rib compartment.

Which meant ART had been conscious and capable of affecting events during the attack on our facility and baseship.

ART’s sudden and obviously intentionally dramatic reentrance into the general feed and comm conversation had made the humans tense. It startled Eletra into awareness. “Who’s that?” she asked, looking from Ratthi to Amena.

“It’s the … the transport,” Ratthi told her, watching the ceiling warily. “I don’t suppose you could call it a bot pilot.”

I don’t suppose you could, ART said.

Listening from the control area, Arada’s brows drew together. She asked Overse, “Could we get a display link to Medical?”

ART said, It’s better if I do it, and a holo display of Arada and Overse in the control area blossomed in the center of Medical. Scout One showed me that a corresponding display of Medical had unfolded in the control area. There was an attached sidebar in both displays showing Thiago out in the foyer area, sitting in a chair with the Targets’ screen device in his lap. He looked wary.

Okay, so: (1) I had never been able to access cameras aboard ART, except through its drones. It saw the interior of the ship through its internal sensors, which provided data (heat, density, angles of motion, etc.) that didn’t translate into visual images, at least not visual images useful to humans. I thought it didn’t have cameras in most areas. This was proof it had been holding out on me AGAIN. (2) The video effects were smoother and more polished than anything I could have done and that just made me more furious. This was a vid conference link for humans trying to figure out how screwed they were, not a professional newsfeed production. ART had dissolved the edges and corrected the color just to show off. Next it would be providing theme music and a mission logo.