After her surprisingly extended jaunt to see Hassipura’s sandstreams, Tefwe had ridden off again on the aphore Yoawin. The ship had Displaced both of them as soon as they dropped more than a couple of metres beyond the pass, depositing a very confused aphore straight back into its stables in the livery at Chyan’tya.

Tefwe went back to the ship, where her mind-state was, finally, read and transmitted to the Rapid Random Response Unit half a day before it reached the planet of Cethyd, while it was still checking and re-checking its Displacer components, testing the system with dummy payloads and planning its brake points and loop-return profiles.

Tefwe shook her head. “Is this really necessary?”

“This would represent an absolute minimum,” the boxy ship drone told her.

Tefwe looked down at herself. The ship had insisted she wear what appeared to her like a grossly over-spec’d suit. She looked, she thought, like she’d been dipped in a thick layer of sticky mercury.

The suit was only about five or six millimetres thick and seemed to weigh almost nothing, plus it thinned so much over her hands and especially her fingers that she half expected to see her fingerprints through the silver covering, but it was meant to be terribly effective. Well, once the helmet component had rolled up, it was just a roll round her neck at the moment, like a thick metallic scarf. Obviously the tech had moved on since the last time she’d needed to be protected at anything like this level.

“What exactly is this?”

“That is a full-survival/light-battle suit, two layer.”

“What’s a light battle? Is that a skirmish or something?”

“It will keep you safe and well, even if the Displace is very slightly off, and protect you against unwelcome attentions, should locals take exception to you.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Who knows? Some people are just primitive.”

“This isn’t really about the locals, is it? This is in case the other lot – the Oglari – in case they spot me, or their bosses.” Tefwe had woken with a full briefing effectively downloaded and digested inside her head.

“We are trying to protect you as well as we can, Ms Tefwe,” the ship told her. “Ideally I would put you down in a more aggressively profiled suit and inside a supporting capsule – at least – with a full drone and missile screen, exactly where you need to be; however, our intelligence is that such a force, in such a location, would be very likely both to be sensed on emplacement and to give cause for severe diplomatic unpleasantness if discovered. Hence the suit.”

“Can I put ordinary clothes over it?”

“They’ll burn off if the Displace is even slightly out. The suit is able to mimic the appearance of clothing.”

“I’d prefer ordinary clothes. Can’t I carry them inside the suit or something?”

The drone made a sighing noise.