‘I am, yes, but if it doesn’t and looks set to approach any Polity worlds or bases, we’ll then attempt capture. I think it will run for home, and I can only—’

‘Something has occurred,’ Jack interrupted.

The bridge display changed, and once again they gazed upon the Dyson segment hanging in the clouds from the demolished gas giant. Cormac realized he now viewed a recording from one of the dreadnoughts, for he could see the shape of the NEJ much closer to the segment itself. He watched the Legate’s escape, the storm of explosions, and the subsequent winking out of the Legate’s ship, then the NEJ and other ships as they dropped into U-space. The dreadnought held station, and its view closed in on the opposite side of the Dyson segment, where something flashed away at high speed and then also winked out. The view froze, reversed, then a frame enclosed a fusion drive flame and the object it propelled. Selecting that image out, it magnified it for them. Programs rapidly cleaned up the image.

‘The Heliotrope? said Jack.

‘So she was hiding there,’ said Blegg.

Cormac grimaced. ‘Overseer Orlandine.’ He added, ‘I suppose the question we should have been asking was why did the Legate come here?’

‘And the answer?’ asked Blegg.

Cormac shook his head, then asked Jack, ‘Did the Heliotrope escape completely?’

‘It did,’ the AI replied. ‘Only two dreadnoughts remained by the segment, but the Heliotrope did not fall within range of their weapons, even if they had chosen to use them.’

A few facts came together in Cormac’s mind, and he turned to Blegg. ‘She sent us the solution to the Legate’s chameleonware so we would concentrate on that ship, thus giving her the opportunity to escape.’

‘Outstanding reasoning,’ said Blegg.

‘Outstanding sarcasm,’ Cormac replied. ‘But we should have known.’

‘The information came via the AI net,’ Blegg replied. ‘An HK program tracked it only as far as one of the Cassius stations, from where it was broadcast to us. No real way of knowing if she sent it. Do you want to go back?’

Orlandine was a haiman, who had been promoted to become overseer of a project this size, a murderer, and one quite likely to have had contact with this Legate. Yet she had betrayed the Legate to them, and there had been only one node signature detected—the one aboard the Legate’s ship—hadn’t there? Cormac felt a momentary disquiet, remembering how long it had taken to clean up that signature. Maybe as long as it took a second node to follow through its program with a host and therefore cease to be detectable as a node? This woman could be someone even more dangerous than Skellor. But an AI had once told Cormac that psychos wielding weapons, however dangerous, should not be your prime target: you should always go after the arms trade that supplied them.

‘Continue the pursuit,’ he directed.