He began probing, feeling out the network – gritting his teeth at a familiar stab of pain in his head – and started recording large chunks of code to then run through the processors lodged inside his skull. This was slow progress, however, because though he realized a lot of the activity he was currently picking up would involve tactical information and attack orders, that stuff only gave him a vague lever for code-cracking.

‘You’ve made a miscalculation based on badly collated data,’ Smith explained, arrogantly confident of his own abilities.

‘You think so?’ Saul asked, probing behind the Director’s latest words to where they’d passed through the same coding as served the entire station’s network. Just eight words and one contraction enabled him to crack 18 per cent of the overall coding of voice and text transmission, and also enabled him to recognize the image files of visual feeds, but he was getting nowhere with the hardware instructions to cams, readerguns, and other station security devices.

‘It would appear you are now heading for Tech Central, expecting to seize control there. That could be considered amusing if it were not for the people’s resources I must expend just to deal with you.’

Smith’s love of verbiage had now given Saul a further 47 per cent of all voice and text transmission, then, within a few seconds, he had all of it. He erased all recorded text and voice data from his mind so as to concentrate on the rest, his head immediately feeling less congested. At the same time he realized that, whilst he had partially penetrated Smith’s comlife element, Smith had been probing him likewise in an attempt to crack the ten-digit code keeping the robots secure.

‘You’re not in Tech Central?’ Saul enquired, pretending ignorance.

‘That’s not the kind of information one should volunteer to an opponent.’

Saul supposed Smith must think him really stupid, assuming that Saul believed that, by taking physical control of Tech Central, he would thereby gain control of the station. He’d never thought that for an instant, of course. Having expanded himself just as Malden and Saul had, Smith could control the station from any location he chose, and therefore it was him Saul needed at gunpoint, or dead. He probed deeper still, trying to get a handle on visual feeds being routed from the same source as Smith’s voice. And that’s when Smith pounced.