'Merrick nearly killed you not so long ago, Hugh Moss. She told us that herself, while in a drug-induced trance. We… were concerned about your actions if we gave you direct access to either her or Corso.'

'You thought I'd take my revenge on her, even at the risk of losing my Perfumed Gardens after all these years?' He cast his gaze around the rusted and foliage-dense walls surrounding them. 'I like to think I'm a little more pragmatic than that.'

'Your point is taken,' the proxy replied, with maybe a hint of brittleness beyond the normal artificial tones of the interpreter. 'However, certain circumstances dictate-'

'What circumstances?' Moss barked.

'Certain circumstances dictate the need for haste. My Queen has therefore ordered that a new strategy, suggested by Corso, should be pursued. In the meantime, you will return with us once more to Ironbloom, and yourself interrogate Merrick. If you can't find some way to force her to cooperate with us, then she'll die… but not by your hands. And my Queen has also decreed that your failure would result in the immediate loss of her patronage and the confiscation of this facility, along with all your research materials.'

Moss smiled grimly. He glanced down at his clawlike hands, the sight of them hateful and disturbing in the way the skin stretched over the bones beneath. For a moment, his sense of self-loathing gave way to a sense of wonder; for the one thing he'd sought all these years was about to fall into his murderous grasp.

The Bandati Queen and all her kind could rot in hell for all he cared; what mattered more than anything was the derelict. If he could gain control of it, his greatest desire – the destruction of the entire Shoal species – might actually, finally, be within his grasp.

One Shoal-member in particular had featured in many of his revenge fantasies over the years. He'd got so close to him that time on Bourdain's Rock, so close… and then that bitch Merrick had stolen his chance to finally confront and kill Trader in Faecal Matter of Animals.

'Very well.' A smile of genuine pleasure twisted the corners of Hugh's lips. He enjoyed a frisson of pleasure in the knowledge that neither the proxy nor the Queen she served had any idea just how well they were serving his own aims. 'I can certainly give you results, but are there any limitations on my methods of interrogation?'

The proxy's reply was blunt. 'She's of no use to us unless you can find a way to extract the information we need.'

'Pick her brain apart, then. It'll kill her, but you'll have what you need.'

'But then it might also kill her before we get what we need. You well know such invasive measures are far from certain. Therefore see that you do not fail us, Hugh Moss.'

'I won't,' Moss replied, his smile still feral.

An exquisite plan of action was already forming in his mind. Seven By the next day, Corso had vanished from Dakota's cell.

Dakota sat up, coughing to clear her throat, and moaning softly as a fresh migraine headache committed assault and battery on the inside of her skull. And yet, for all that, it was once again quantitatively less debilitating than the last one.

She shook her head, feeling unusually drowsy as she glanced around the cell several more times. She was alone, and found she couldn't make up her mind exactly how she felt about that. She'd been angry with him earlier – more angry than she'd thought she could ever feel about another human being.

But at least there had been someone else there with her.

Her head felt so muzzy she was sure they must have drugged her into unconsciousness before removing Corso. Or, perhaps, Corso being snatched away after she herself had failed to behave like a good lab-rat was the most obvious explanation.

She crawled over to the lip just beyond the door-opening. Lying on her stomach with both hands gripping the edge, she stared down, wondering if maybe, just maybe, he'd taken the easy way out of incarceration and merely jumped.

She saw only the river, like a twisting silver mirror under the creeping light of dawn, winding its way between buildings huddled up against each other. Maybe he was down there, but she couldn't bring herself to believe he was even distantly capable of committing such an act of self-destruction.

What now? she wondered, pulling herself back inside and peering into the relative gloom of her cell, which seemed so much more austere and grim now Corso was gone.

She stared at the ambrosia pipe protruding from the rear wall and felt an overwhelming conviction that, with Corso gone, they'd have reintroduced whatever vile substance had previously kept her docile.

Back on the diet, then.

She suddenly felt the orbital facility above Blackflower come back into direct line-of-sight. In that moment she opened herself up to the derelict Magi starship trapped inside it, its presence settling once again into the circuitry of her implants like a weary traveller collapsing into the embrace of a familiar armchair.

Dakota closed her eyes and grinned like a cat. And to think the Bandati thought she was their prisoner! She was freer than her gaolers could ever imagine, for, even with her physical body trapped here for the moment, her mind could walk through the walls confining her at any time.

She rapidly fell into a half-trance as her mind joined more fully with the derelict. She could sense the shift and flow of information throughout the facility that contained it like a storm of fireflies circling a sleeping animal, while the gentler presence of the Piri Reis was still on board a Bandati ship docked within the Blackflower facility.

She became gradually aware that more machinery was being unloaded and carried inside the derelict. Dozens of Bandati were working at moving heavy equipment through fresh breaches in the hull, lifting chunks of metal and plastic off pallets and then assembling them in those few interior spaces to which they'd already gained entry.

The Bandati were further inside the derelict than they had managed before – far deeper than was acceptable.

Corso, damn him, had to be responsible.

She reached out to the derelict. It began to cut off the passageways the Bandati had already penetrated, isolating their exploratory teams, tearing both them and their equipment apart.

The last of them would be dead within minutes. But, even more than before, the need to escape – to find some way off Ironbloom before Corso could do any more harm – had become paramount to her.

Piri?

Her ship now made itself known to her as a dimly sensed but familiar presence. Her human brain wasn't up to imagining the insanely complex web the derelict had spun, subverting the communications systems of an entire solar system to its own end, despite being itself heavily damaged and running at minimal capacity.

‹Please note that arrangements are proceeding as expected, Dakota. According to Darkwater's maintenance records and supply schedules, a blimp train will pass close enough to your tower to be subverted without attracting undue attention, in precisely fourteen and a half hours.›

I'll be ready. How long have the Bandati been as far inside the derelict as they are now?

‹The first set of analytic equipment was assembled and placed within the derelict approximately three t-hours ago, Dakota.›

Damn Corso and his protocols.

You could have let me know before now, Piri. This is extremely bad news.

‹That was not possible, Dakota. You were removed from your current location and returned to it only within the last t-hour.›

What?

‹You were no longer in your cell. I tracked you to a large atrium at the centre of the tower within which you currently reside. Lucas Corso left your current location at the same time, but he does not appear to have been returned to his own cell.›