Startled, Maddox quit peering outside and noticed Brigadier Mary O’Hara, the commander of Star Watch Intelligence, staring at him from the tiny dash screen. She had gray hair and a matronly image, and a reproving frown.

“Ma’am,” Maddox said. “This is a surprise.”

“So is your lack of judgment, Captain,” O’Hara said.

Maddox pursed his lips, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Riker gave him an I-tried-to-tell-you look. The captain was surprised he hadn’t noticed the screen being on as he’d entered. Could the drug still be having an effect on him?

“What happened tonight?” O’Hara asked him.

Maddox gave her a rundown of the situation, including his time in the Lin Ru.

“An android that looks like the Spacer ambassador,” O’Hara said. “That’s strange and ominous.”

Maddox nodded absently.

“Surely you see the connection, Captain,” O’Hara said.

“Connection?” he asked.

“With Professor Ludendorff,” she said.

“Ah. Yes, of course,” Maddox said. He should have seen it right away. The drug definitely still hindered his thinking.

During the Destroyer Incident, Starship Victory had been in the Xerxes System. The system contained a Builder pyramid. Fully functional Builder drones had appeared as well as New Men star cruisers. The New Men used the silver pyramids sprinkled throughout Human Space and in the Beyond to make one hundred light-year jumps. The pyramids contained Builder technology, as did the star cruisers. The point of the Iron Lady’s comment was Professor Ludendorff in particular. When the professor had gone to an asteroid base in the Xerxes System, he or the Builders, someone in any case, had made a switch with Ludendorff. A nearly comatose android looking like the professor had returned to Victory. Was there a connection to the Ludendorff android with the Esquire Noble one here in Shanghai?

“Have the Spacers been compromised?” O’Hara asked.

“That’s a serious allegation,” Maddox said, remembering with a grin that the Provost Officer had used the same term against him.

“You find that amusing, do you?” O’Hara asked.

“No, Ma’am,” Maddox said. “It’s dreadfully serious, if true.”

“Whoever is using androids fooled us once already. Without the assassination at headquarters—we might never have learned the truth about Ludendorff.”

An assassin among Lord High Admiral Cook’s guards had shattered the Ludendorff android’s head while in the custody of Star Watch. The act had saved the Commonwealth from giving high command to an android.

“This could be a much greater problem than I realized,” Maddox said thoughtfully. “If an android is running the Spacer embassy…”

O’Hara waited.

“If the Builders, or whoever, have slipped an android into Spacer high command, why use that android to capture me? That’s too small of a prize, considering the risk.”

“I can think of plenty of reasons why,” O’Hara said. “The most obvious is to make a switch. In fact…”