‘A product of a Jain-based organic technology. It seems to be totally formatted for covert operations: sophisticated chameleonware, damped drive and thrusters. The hull is metallo-organic matrix—not heavily armoured but probably capable of rapid self-repair. To find out anything more about it would require active scan, which could be detected.’

‘That’s all I need to know, thanks.’ Cormac eyed Blegg. ‘If we capture this creature, we’ll need to quarantine it, then somehow deactivate the tech it is using, then’—he shrugged—‘interrogate it?’

Blegg just waited inscrutably silent.

Cormac continued, ‘I think the preferable option would be to find out where it came from, because certainly it is not working alone . . . Jack, I want weaknesses introduced into the blockade.’ In his gridlink he selected the locations, and gave the precise parameters for each weakness. ‘Out from there we lay EM mines. It won’t go for that one if it has any sense. Now, move the NEJ over here.’

‘What are you planning?’ Horace Blegg asked.

Cormac glanced at him, then said, ‘Jack—kill the hologram.’

The internal scene from the Dyson segment disappeared. Now they were standing on the glassy floor of the bridge.

Cormac considered his reply to Blegg for a long moment, then said, ‘We let the Legate go.’

The Legate still did not understand. Skellor had been a success -a trial run providing information about how the Polity would respond to Jain attack for, after all, Erebus needed to know nothing more about Jain technology itself. Admittedly the situation on Coloron had been hurried, since the Legate had intended to provide Thellant with a Jain node some years hence. And yes, Orlandine now seemed a dismal and worrying failure. But why so endanger a covert mission by sending the Legate here? It made no sense.

As it relayed all the recent updates of events on Coloron from its probes and U-space transmitters, all around that planet, and then fully apprised Erebus of the situation here, the Legate expected to receive in return a self-destruction order. The attack ships searching the segment were all now closing in, and soon there would be little chance of escape. Orlandine, before cutting communication, had kindly informed the entity that she had provided ECS with the solution to this ship’s present chameleonware configuration. No time to change that configuration now. Angry, it felt the urge to betray her presence here, if she had not already done so herself. However, though the Legate considered the experiment with her to be a failure, she might still damage the Polity.

‘Attempt to return,’ came the U-space reply from Erebus—a totally unexpected instruction.