'Yes. What's the problem?

'No problem. I need some information on one of your crew: Kent Vernon.

'Oh him.

'That doesn't sound good.

Donald gave her a roguish grin. 'Navy service sounds very grand, but I was actually in the Exploration Division. We fly science missions, not combat. That allows a — he paused — broader range of characters than the regular Navy. Vernon might have been helpful analysing the generator lattice shells, but he certainly wouldn't have been any use in a regular Navy position. He wasn't the most popular person on board the dear old Poix.

'Why not?

'Don't get me wrong. He performed some valuable work. However, his social skills were somewhat lacking. Quite surprisingly so given he was Higher. It rather shocked some of the crew, they weren't used to making allowances like that.

'If he was that disruptive how did he get a commission?

'It was a science commission, he wasn't strictly Navy at all. Specialist are given temporary commissions for the duration of their missions. I was warned about his nature while the mission was drawn up.

'Yet you allowed him to take part.

'The captain has some discretion. I accessed his file and thought he could make a valid contribution; he was very highly qualified in his field. That had to be balanced against any personal disruption he would make. Ultimately, I agreed to him joining us because it doesn't hurt to shake things up every now and then.

'Strange attitude, she observed. 'You're on a difficult and important mission a long way from home in what is still technically a war zone, and you choose to take along a potentially disruptive influence.

'It was a judgement call. I made it because we'd had two previous missions at Dyson Alpha; my crew knew the routine. It was never a physical danger having him on board. Worst case scenario, which we always had to plan for, was the barrier collapsing while we were there. Vernon would just be shoved in his cabin and told to stay there while we did what we could to prevent Prime ships from escaping. Even then, the Poix would be assigned a third line defence position. To this day the Navy maintains some serious firepower outside the Dyson Pair. Ozzie help the Primes if they ever do crack out and make a break for it.

'So did you make the right judgement? Paula asked.

Donald gave an expansive shrug. 'There is no right answer to this. The mission gathered a lot of data, but I wouldn't necessarily want him on board again. In a strange way it helped crew morale afterwards. In my final two missions there was always a lot of talk about how difficult that mission was.

'Bonding in the face of adversity?

'Something like that. Though I wouldn't want to make out it was some terrible trip into hardship. It wasn't. He's just different from the rest of Highers, which isn't a crime. So what's your interest in Vernon after all this time?

'He wasn't quite who he claimed to be.

Donald gave her a long stare. 'In what possible way?

'I believe he was carrying out his own agenda, possibly on behalf of an ANA Faction.

'What agenda?

'That's why I'm here, to see what you can tell me.

'I'm sorry, but my immediate answer to that is: very little. Even taking his attitude into account it was a perfectly routine mission. We gathered data on the Dark Fortress for eight months and came home.

'There was no abnormal event? Nothing out of the ordinary?

Donald's eyes flickered as he delved down into memories long ago shunted into a storage lacuna. 'Not a thing.

'So what exactly was the mission?

'Monitor and analysis of the inner two lattice spheres inside the Dark Fortress. Which we accomplished successfully.

'Were there any breakthroughs or revelations about the Dark Fortress?

'Not due to us. The damn thing is still an enigma. We don't understand how it generates a force field large enough to envelop an entire star system; the mechanism is peculiar. Though they are making headway on the field itself these days, I gather. I don't really stay current.

'Did Vernon want to take anything further; perhaps some persistence that at the time you wrote off to his personality?

'He was always on about the factory.

'Factory?

'Whatever the Anomine used to build the Dark Fortress itself. He contended that if we could examine that we'd solve the entire generator and its principles. Logically, he was quite right. But that wasn't our mission.

'I see. Has there ever been a mission to examine the factory?

'No. Because we don't know where the factory is.

'So did Vernon want to go and search for it?

'Yes. I wouldn't mind doing that myself, actually. That would be quite something, wouldn't it? A structure that builds machines the size of a small gas-giant. Finding that would be enough to yank me back out of retirement.

'I'm sure. Paula hesitated, not trusting a word he said. 'Did Kent Vernon modify the observations you were making?

'Constantly, that's what the science team are there for. One set of results leads them off to investigate some other aspect. Within the overall mission parameter, the monitoring process is very fluid. We'd just be a simple sensor relay otherwise.

'What was Vernon's specific field?

'Quantum signature. He was there to determine the sub-physical nature of the lattice sphere composition.

'So in that field did he want to do anything he shouldn't have done?

'No. We've got a pretty broad leeway when it comes to observations. Just about the only thing the Navy prohibits is trying to take a physical sample of a lattice sphere — not that they are all strictly physical. A stupid restriction if you ask me, but I don't make the rules.

'Stupid how?

He gave her a curious gaze. 'You took part in the Starflyer War. Ozzie and Nigel Sheldon set off a couple of quantumbusters inside the Dark Fortress, and it's still working. That is one extremely tough mother. Shaving a nugget off isn't going to break it.

'Good point. Paula activated a layer of specific-function biononics on the skin surface of her right palm.

'You have a good relationship with ANA, you might want to tell it that someday, Chatfield said.

'I'm sure it has its reasons.

'Yeah.

Paula stood, and held out her right hand. 'Well, thank you for your time, Captain.

'Not at all. He shook hands warmly. 'Was I of any use?

Her biononics sampled the dead cells of Chatfield's outer epidermal layer. 'I'm not sure. There was a second when she thought he might activate his combat enrichments. It passed. Even so, old fashioned instinct made her uncomfortable turning her back on him as he showed her out.

As soon as she got back into her taxi capsule she opened an ultra-secure link to ANA: Governance. 'He's an Accelerator.

'What makes you say that? ANA: Governance asked.

'He admitted a possible error and accepted the blame. Standard sympathy-grab manoeuvre. But his real mistake was a fundamental one. When I said Vernon had an agenda for a Faction, Chatfield asked what the agenda was, not which Faction. She held up her right hand, turning it to examine the palm. There was nothing visible, but the biononics were already feeding a stream of sequencing data down the link. 'I'm sending you his DNA. Run it against every file you have. Specifically, people involved with Government and Navy.

As before, the speed of the reply was near instantaneous. It impressed Paula exactly how much attention ANA had devoted to the analysis. Her u-shadow would have taken at least a minute to run the comparison.

'That instinct of yours is quite something, ANA: Governance said.

'Really?

'There is a twenty point spread marker similarity with a Captain Evanston.

'Not identical, so it's either family, or…

'Or he had a DNA resequence for that assignment.