This particular bay comprised a narrow area lined along its two longer sides by numerous one-man inspection pods—globular affairs containing one seat, simple controls, and ionic directional thrusters. A maglev strip ran down the centre of the floor towards a far airlock. Passing many empty spaces for pods, Orlandine strode along briskly until she reached the first of them on one side, turned and stepped through its open side door. Automatically, as soon as she plumped herself down in the seat, the door closed and the pod manoeuvred out on to the maglev strip. She strapped herself in, and rather than control the vehicle through her carapace as the signals might be traced, took hold of the manual joystick. With a low hum the pod buoyed up on the maglev field and wafted towards the airlock, which consisted of an inner shimmer-shield and an outer hard door. The pod slid through the shield, halted while the iris door opened, then fell out into the night.

Above her the Heliotrope rested in docking clamps, attached to the station by various umbilicals. The long sleek ship terminated at its prow in a forked pincerlike extrusion. This was for manipulating large objects in space, and was another reason why Orlandine had chosen this particular ship. Turning her pod over so that the side of the station now appeared as a plain of steel below her, she pushed the joystick forwards. Drawing close she sent a simple signal, and an irised lock opened in the vessel’s hull. Soon she manoeuvred the pod to dock, then abandoned it to enter, and finally take her place in an interface sphere inside the ship.

‘How may I help you?’ asked the ship AI.

‘Take us out,’ she replied. ‘I need to take some direct ionization readings.’

Opening herself into the ship’s systems she observed the umbilicals detaching like flaccid worms. Autohandlers had loaded the last few items requested only minutes ago. Clamps detached and the slight spin of the station cast the ship adrift. Now clear of it, she observed the Cassius Station in all its might.. Ovoid and gigantic, the thing was 200 miles from top to bottom and 150 miles wide, yet in itself it was but a single component that would be later fitted into the Dyson sphere, along with millions like it. Orlandine focused on the equator while selecting certain crucial programs from her files—only slightly different from those she had used to kill Shoala’s systems. The detonation lay only three minutes away. To delay until after that would be to forewarn this ship’s AI.