In her position of Overseer of the Cassius project, Orlandine was allowed limited knowledge regarding Jain nodes. The initial source of this knowledge, however, still remained concealed from her. She knew these nodes contained compacted Jain nanotechnology that activated upon the touch of intelligent technical beings. She knew they then grew organic technology, and that the intelligent being affected became both host to and master of it -the level of each state dependent on other unknown factors. It was hideously dangerous because initiated thus by a host, this technology could proceed to access and control any other technology both physically and informationally, seizing control, wreaking destruction, growing and taking over anything or anyone else with which it came into contact. The AIs had told her this much, because Jain technology represented to the project one danger of which she must be aware. She was glad to have been made aware. Very glad.

Orlandine opened her eyes. It was all getting rather messy out there. ECS agents would be rattling around the Polity like disturbed hornets, and at some point they might find a trail leading to her, though she had not yet done anything seriously wrong.

She closed her eyes again and turned her attention to the messages coming through her subpersona’s filters. Many were messages from other haimans scattered around the Polity: some requesting information, some offering it—the usual constant exchanges. One message from her mother, back on Europa, concerned updates of family news and veiled queries about her work, her life. She had not actually seen the woman in thirty years. However, her mother remained persistent and proprietary because of her own choice way back to adapt Orlandine genetically to the newer haiman technologies. Orlandine felt herself to be mature enough not to reject such contact outright, but still assigned the message to a subpersona for reply. Then her attention fell on one message with no personal signature—strange that it managed to get through. After preparing due safeguards, she opened it and found just a single line of text:

‘They will learn about the gift.’—a secret admirer.