“I have that honour. And you?” Tyun had been called back to the bridge from his private cabin half an hour early. It appeared the Culture ship wanted to talk and was falling back towards them, leaving the Ronte fleet to crawl on without it. Tyun watched the representation of the situation on a giant screen stretching right across the forward part of the bridge.

“I am the Culture ship Beats Working,” the voice said, in perfect, unaccented Liseiden Formal.

“Sir,” Tyun’s combat officer broke in, “a contact, registering less than ten metres in length and flagging as an unarmed civilian personnel craft, has left the Culture ship. Divergent course; peeling away. Slung and slowing.”

Tyun could see the tiny trace, curving away from the approaching Culture ship; a thread from a speck. “Could it be a warhead?” he asked.

“Technically possible, sir,” the combat officer said. “Something improvised. Big, though, for such a small craft. They’re not supposed to carry any weapons anywhere near—”

“Deploy an HRMP to track it, slow approach. Keep the platform between the new contact and us.”

“Heavy Remote Missile Platform launched, sir. Launch authority for the missiles?”

“What would you recommend, officer?”

“Zero automaticity, sir. Our direct positive command.”

“That, then.”

“Team Principal?” the Culture ship said.

Tyun clicked back to speak to the Culture ship again. “Yes?”

“I take it you’ve noticed that I have despatched my human crew in a small shuttle craft. Their identities and the craft’s course are appended. They and the shuttle are entirely unarmed.”

“Why are your crew abandoning ship?”

“I asked them to, and advised them that they ought to.”

“Why would that be?”

“In case there are any hostilities.”

“Why should there be any hostilities?”

“I believe you mean some harm to the Ronte.”

“Not at all. You presume too much. I might as well assume that you mean harm to me and my ships because you have loosed what, for all I know, might be a warhead disguised as a shuttle.”

“The shuttle craft is drawing further away from you all the time and its course is set. Also, it is demonstrably unarmed.”

“Seven minutes until the Culture ship’s in range, sir,” the combat officer told him.

“Are we in range of it yet?” Tyun asked. He checked the magnification the screen was using, shown as a logarithmically scaled bar on one side.

“Shouldn’t be, sir; not a Scree class. They’re almost unarmed.”

“And you,” Tyun asked, clicking back to talk to the Culture ship. “Are you unarmed, machine? And what are your intentions?”

“I have only very limited military capability. My intention is to prevent you engaging with the Ronte ships ahead of you.”

“What makes you think we wish to engage with them?”

“You are pursuing them.”

“Hmm. I would not care to define it as such. We are merely following them.”

“You have targeted them.”

“We have illuminated them the better to track their progress.”