So, it seemed Orlandine had been showing an unhealthy interest in Shoala, and apparently tried to scrub out the evidence of that. Fragmentary results revealed relationship problems between them, and that she had tried to re-engineer her personality. All a classic, almost hackneyed, scenario and, without certain other information, entirely believable. However, there was nothing in here about Jain technology or Jain nodes, so as evidence it was all constructed, false. In the end, if the forensic AI did not believe this preferred scenario, it might choose from many others, but none of them involving Jain nodes. The Legate assumed Orlandine had shared information about the node with this Shoala, or maybe he found out, and that led to her killing him. From what was here, the forensic AI would never know. The police arm of ECS would no doubt do their best to find her, but that was entirely the point: only the police arm would bother to do this. Any investigation would not involve major AIs like Jerusalem, because to ECS this was just a sordid little murder.

Orlandine panicked, grabbed the first available U-space capable spaceship, and then fled the Cassius system. Or so, the Legate gathered, went the consensus of opinion here. The entity itself felt that such behaviour just did not fit the haiman’s profile. She did not panic. She felt a huge attachment to the Cassius project, which was one of the reasons she was chosen to receive a node: she would stay put and utilize the item from here, where it would cause the most damage. Had they been wrong about that as well? The Legate disconnected from the stored crystal, withdrew its cord, and sealed the hole through the wall. Understanding that much information about the functioning of this place lay in the public domain, and therefore easily accessible, it headed all the way back to the room it had originally invaded to spy on the forensic AI. The room’s occupant still slept, so the Legate ignored him and searched, eventually finding an old computer terminal that folded down out of one wall. The work of just moments gave access to the humdrum workings of this station, and in one moment more the Legate found the manifest for the Heliotrope, and the loading times.

Orlandine took the time and trouble to refuel the Heliotrope, and load some extra supplies, before supposedly fleeing in panic. The Legate noted the nature of those supplies: a molecular catalyser, an autofactory for synthesizing polymers, sheet rolls of laminated radiation shielding. This last material interested the Legate most: just what you would need to conceal your activities from detection, not what was needed if you intended to flee somewhere remote from detection. The entity now called up on the screen a positional map of the multitude of objects orbiting the Cassius sun, stared contemplatively at this for a moment, then closed the terminal back into the wall and departed.