“Oh, yes.” Jay grinned. “And then people get really paranoid. I mean, we’ve got these warp ships disappearing off to heaven knows where and not coming back. And people are saying, well, where are they going? Maybe there’s something waiting out there and the AIs are using the ships to carry messages to it. And if they’re sending messages, what do those messages say?”

Jay gave a huge yawn and leaned back again in her chair.

“Or maybe we’re just being paranoid. So, that’s what we mean when we say, ‘Should we trust the AIs?’ Are you up to speed now, Constantine?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

– Except we didn’t want her opinion. I want to hear what Gillian has to say. She’s the one who was out there in the comet belt with the extra-solar AIs. See if you can get her to speak, Constantine.

“I’ll try, Red,” muttered Constantine.

Gillian looked from Jay to Constantine. Her eyes narrowed as she watched his lips move. After the briefest of frowns, she took up her report.

“Ms. Apple is broadly correct in what she says,” Gillian said carefully. “The AIs are helping us to construct warp drives. Principally, they are helping us shape exotic matter into the necessary form for warp drives. A working warp drive appears to be within our reach. We have seen the evidence. Ships are vanishing. So, I’m here to help decide: What happens next? If we decide to do nothing, we run the risk of the other companies getting ahead of us. If we decide to press ahead, we always have the question hanging over us: Just who are we really working for? Ourselves, or the AIs?”

She paused, leaving the question hanging in the air.

Marion Lee spoke. “Okay, thank you, Gillian. Now that Constantine and Masaharu understand the AI problem, perhaps Jay could let us know a little more about her work in orbit.”

– Look at Jay’s attitude, said Blue.-Relaxed, arrogant. Look at the way she holds her hands behind her head. She’s part of this. Not like Gillian. She didn’t trust you. She’s not high enough up in the company to have heard about ghosts.

Jay yawned. “Well, what can I say? We’re one hundred percent ready. Have been for eighteen months now. As soon as this place is completed, we can get the volunteers in here and we can start training up our colonists. To be honest, we’ve done so well up in the Orbital that we could probably launch them now.”

Jay winked at Constantine. “We could have launched already, and no one would have known.”

She glanced across to Marion. Marion nodded and looked to the Japanese man, who had been sitting patiently, waiting his turn.

“Masaharu, any news from Mars side?”

Masaharu had lined up his console exactly with the edge of the table. His glass of water was placed behind it. His hands rested neatly on either side. He gazed down at the table as he spoke in a soft voice.

“We have nothing new to report. The Mars factory retains, so far as we can ascertain, one hundred percent integrity. Everything in the Orbital is of one hundred percent Mars manufacture, as Jay can confirm.”

He lapsed into silence, one hand reaching out to move the glass slightly closer to the console.

Marion turned to Constantine. “There we are, Constantine. Do you have anything to add?”

He paused for a moment in case any of his extra intelligences had something further to say. Nothing. Was this finally it? Was the work of the past two years nearly done? He took a breath, ready to speak. Someone interrupted him.

“Hold on. I don’t like this. Why are we deferring to this man’s opinion? He hasn’t told us who he is yet.”

Gillian’s eyes burned with anger. Her skin was orange with a spacer’s anti-SAD tan, her accent a result of that strange polyglot that evolved when international teams lived in close proximity for extended periods.

She turned and pointed an accusing finger at Constantine, bangles jingling and jangling.

“The question I’d like answered is, what are you doing here?”

Silence fell as four pairs of eyes gazed at Constantine, but he felt no urgency to answer just yet. He ran his finger along the dull grey metal of the tabletop, conscious of the austerity of his surroundings; bare, grey metal walls, red plastic molded chairs, the black rubberized surface on the floor. Everything in the room had been built the old way, with no attempt at VNM construction. It couldn’t be risked; no hint of circuitry that might act as a transmitter or listening device could be allowed into this room. Was it safe to speak? As safe as it could ever be, he guessed.

“Well?” demanded Gillian. Constantine sat up a little straighter.

Jay laughed suddenly. “Oh, Gillian. I can see that you spend too much time on your job and not enough engaging in office politics. Someone has paid for you to travel millions of kilometers across the solar system, booked a shuttle so you could get Earthside just in time for this meeting, and you seem to think so highly of yourself you don’t find this unusual.”

Constantine felt a funny little stirring in his mind. He tilted his head, feeling for it, but it had gone.

Jay continued. “When you get summoned to a meeting where a mysterious stranger keeps asking questions, it can only mean one thing. You’re in the presence of a ghost. Just how far away is the Oort cloud?”

She waved a dismissive hand at Masaharu, who had looked up at her rhetorical question.

“I didn’t want the answer in kilometers, Masaharu. Listen, girl, you’ve obviously got some talent to have got this far. Someone clearly likes you. They don’t send just anyone to one of these meetings, but if you want to rise any higher in this organization, you’ve got to learn how people operate.”

– You’ve got to hand it to Gillian, said Red.-Look how she’s holding her composure. I can hear her toe tapping inside her shoe. That’s about it for the nerves. Jay’s right. She is good.

Jay continued. “You think this company is all about machines and VNMs and money. That may be true, but it’s the people inside it who pump those things around. They’re the bloodstream. And who moves through that bloodstream, checking that everything is healthy and looking out for infections?” Jay nodded toward Constantine. “Him.”

Gillian looked from one to the other, then folded her hands gently in her lap. Bangles jingled on the white material of her shift. “You may be right, Jay. Maybe I have spent too long in the Oort cloud. However, my conscience is clear. My time there has been spent working to the good of the company and for all humanity. I’m not worried about spies.”

“I’m not a spy,” said Constantine simply.

Gillian flashed him an angry look. “I don’t care what you are. I came here for advice. You say I don’t spend enough time worrying about other people,” she turned her angry look toward Jay, “but that’s because I think we have far more urgent things to worry about. We have it in our power to unleash something we do not understand upon the universe. AIs! Admittedly more intelligent than ourselves and with the power to replicate themselves. For all we know, we may have already let the genie out of the bottle. I think that at times like this, personal advancement counts for little.”

Marion tapped a glass on the table. The dull thudding gradually captured their attention. “Thank you. Gillian. No one is questioning your integrity. I think it’s fair to say that we all understand the problem as well as you do.”

“What about him?” Gillian pointed her finger accusingly at Constantine. “He claimed to know nothing about working hyperdrives or AIs when this meeting started. Was that a lie, too?”

Constantine bowed his head slightly. “I’m sorry, Gillian. I deliberately misled you. I was trying to get a handle on what you believed was happening out there.”

“Why? Because you don’t trust me?”

“No. Well, not exactly. What if the AIs had manipulated you in some way? What if you were acting for them, even unwittingly?”