“The people, definitely not; you need a Presence,” the marshal said, with the air of one addressing somebody who really ought to have been watching their own infomercials over the last umpteen years. “The AIs, almost certainly not. It takes time, preparation. Even for an AI there’s some sort of blissed-out, trance-like state that has to be achieved first before they can haul themselves in by their own bootstraps. Unlikely, in the circumstances.”

“Mmm, mmm,” the septame said, rubbing his face. “Good, good.” He had been looking away. “So the attack, it could be blamed on somebody else?”

The marshal took a moment before answering. “Yes, it could,” she said, slowly. “Though the plausibility spectrum might be a little …” she looked up to the domed ceiling of the room “… restricted, shall we say?” She looked back at the septame. “Why, did you have anybody particular in mind?”

“The Ronte?”

“The Ronte?” the marshal said. She frowned. “I thought we just made them our official Bestest Friends, Scavenger class.”

“I think you’ll find that is still conditional.”

“In a way that they don’t know about?”

Banstegeyn waved one hand. “Not your concern, Marshal. Is it plausible?”

Chekwri sat back, looked thoughtful. “Not really. Their main force is far too far away – unlikely even to get here before the Subliming – their tech is inadequate and their motive … I can’t even think what their motive might have been.”

“The Ronte with Culture help?” Banstegeyn suggested.

The marshal actually laughed. “Forgive me, Septame,” she said, one hand held out to Banstegeyn, though nothing else about her demeanour seemed apologetic. “Well, that would fill the tech gap, if we can put it that way, but I suspect the plausibility spectrum window just closed to zero.”

“No story we come up with needs to last very long, though,” Banstegeyn said, his face set in an expression of some displeasure. “Just until the Subliming.”

“Septame, one like that is going to struggle to last to the end of the sentence that first articulates it.”

“But there might have been a Culture ship there, at the Sculpt planet,” the septame said.

“The Uagren was aware of something performing a manoeuvre called a crash-stop into Izenion system, about four hours after the attack. Just from the implied initial velocity involved it reckoned if it wasn’t one of ours it must be a Culture ship. Even then, hard to find a plausible contender. Most likely it was something called the Mistake Not …, but if it was, the fucker’s even faster than we thought.”

“So we could – maybe – claim it had a part in the attack, couldn’t we?”

“Not really. Unless the Culture has finally invented a time machine.”

The septame’s face suddenly assumed a hard, unforgiving expression. “I don’t think,” he said icily, “this is an issue to be made light of, Marshal Chekwri.”

“Septame,” the marshal said levelly, “I am not the one coming up with laughable ex-post-facto combat scenarios.”