I nodded. Gratifying though the news was, it made sense. We’d hit Millsport across the earlier part of the week, split into half a dozen separate groups, arrivals co-ordinated days apart. Fake ID at Little Blue Bug standards of impenetrability and a variety of different transport options ranging from cheap speed-freighters to a Saffron Line luxury cruiser. With people streaming into Millsport from all over the planet for the Harlan’s Day festivities, it would have been either very bad luck or very bad operational management if any of us had been picked up.

But it was still good to know.

“What about security up at the Crags?”

Isa shook her head. “Less noise out of there than a priest’s wife coming. If they knew what you had planned, there’d be a whole new protocol layer and there isn’t.”

“Or you haven’t spotted it,” said Mari.

Isa fixed her with another cool stare. “My dear, do you know anything at all about dataflow?”

“I know what levels of encryption we’re dealing with.”

“Yes, so do I. Tell me, how do you think I pay for my studies?”

Mari Ado examined her nails. “With petty crime, I assume.”

“Charming.” Isa shuttled her gaze in my direction. “Where did you get her, Tak? Madame Mi’s?”

“Behave, Isa.”

She gusted a long-suffering teenage sigh. “Alright, Tak. For you. For you, I won’t rip this mouthy bitch’s hair out. And Mari, for your information, I am gainfully employed nights, under a pseudident, as a freelance security software scribe for more corporate names than you’ve probably given back-street blowjobs.”

She waited, tensed. Ado looked back at her with glittery eyes for a moment, then smiled and leaned forward slightly. Her voice rose no higher than a corrosive murmur.

“Listen, you stupid little virgin, if you think you’re going to get a cat fight out of me, you’re badly mistaken. And lucky too. In the unlikely event that you could push my buttons sufficient to piss me off that far, you wouldn’t even see me coming. Now why don’t we discuss the business at hand, and then you can go back to playing at datacrime with your study partners and pretending you know something about the world.”

“You fucking whor—”

“Isa!” I put a snap into my voice and a hand in front of her as she started to rise. “That’s enough. She’s right, she could kill you with her bare hands and not even break a sweat. Now behave, or I’m not going to pay you.”

Isa shot me a look of betrayal and sat back down. Under the harlequin face paint, it was hard to tell, but I thought she was flushing furiously.

Maybe the crack about virginity had touched a nerve. Mari Ado had the good grace not to look pleased.