There were safer ways to do this, layer upon layer of security protocols, shell upon shell of vacuum and armour, and even layers of automated weapons. She could in fact have automated everything here and studied the node from a few thousand miles away. However, it seemed to her that now its only method of affecting the outside world was informationally via the optic cables leading from the sensory heads, which it could do even if she was a long way away and even if every gun in the Polity was pointed at this thing. But this present set-up was similar to the one she had used back at the Cassius Project, when she accepted that, in studying something like this, certain dangers were inherently unavoidable, and before she got scared, destroyed all her equipment there, and returned the node to its case in her quarters. Orlandine rubbed her two human hands together. Time to go to work.

Rather than go immediately into some virtuality to assess scanning data, she clambered down the rungs to the floor, then stepped over to where skeins of optic cable connected to the computer hardware and screen through which she controlled the nanoscope, disassembler and submolecular scanner—all three now working synergetically. For her initial scans she decided not to connect herself directly to these devices, so instead employed a simple touchboard and interactive screen system. Using the board she called up an image of the node, laid a grid over it, and focused down on one single square. This square then divided into a grid from which she selected another square, then down and down in size until she could see actual molecular structures, then back to reveal the nodal landscape. She next set previously constructed programs to analysing the structures detected. As expected, this was like trying to understand an entire civilization from a pot shard.

Too slow.

Orlandine shrugged to herself. This exercise was only to see how the Jain node might react to investigation. As yet it remained inert. She continued scanning different areas of it but revealing only what she had found before: pores twenty angstroms wide with chain molecules coiled inside each like a jellyfish sting; isotopic gold threads; a matrix of photo-optic and piezoelectric compounds linked by s-con carbon fullerene nanotubes. These it used to first sense its host, then begin taking over. Finally, after hours of investigation necessarily distanced by console and screen, frustration drove her to move in closer—something she had not risked before.

First she removed the console from the equation and began controlling the equipment by radio emission from her carapace, then impatient with this she plugged direct optic links into it. Subsequently, the screen definition and speed began to annoy her, so she projected the images directly into her visual cortex. It was then but a small step to move on into a virtuality.