‘I guess. And even if I did-’

‘You wouldn’t tell me? Fine. And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’ Josef’s eyes were searching her face.

‘Perhaps…’

‘Yes?’

‘No, Josef, there’s nothing else I can think of.’

He obviously wasn’t satisfied with this answer, but she couldn’t find any real reason to burden him with the truth. Assuming he would even believe her, which struck Dakota as unlikely.

‘OK,’ he said at length. ‘I can’t help thinking I might come to regret this, but I’ll see what I can do for you.’

She tried not to look too obviously relieved.

Dakota woke from a dream-filled sleep to find that already fourteen hours had passed since her meeting with Josef.

In the meantime she’d found herself a room-cell would be a more accurate description-in an echoing warren of twenty-four hour rentals that accepted anonymous payment. She could have stayed on the Piri Reis, of course, but Mesa Verde’s docks would be Bourdain’s first port of call if he came looking for her.

When she woke, it was from a nightmare of being incarcerated in a tiny space at the centre of Bourdain’s Rock that got steadily smaller and hotter, squeezing in around her until she couldn’t breathe. The room she’d hired was too small to stand up in, and for a few moments she panted asthmatically, staring up at a ceiling that was far too close, until she got her bearings.

Her thoughts smoothed out as her implants soothed her jagged brain waves, and she began to breathe more easily. Her Ghost informed her that Josef wanted her to return to his office. Apparently he’d found something suitable for her.

The dream had felt so real she felt half-sure she’d find the door out of her rented room locked when she tried to open it. Crouching to stop her head bumping against the ridiculously low ceiling, she felt an irrational wave of relief when the door opened smoothly on to a busy public corridor.

‘My name is Gardner. David Gardner.’

Gardner stood up and nodded politely to Dakota as she entered Josef’s office. He had close-cropped hair that she suspected he’d allowed to grow grey just enough to lend him a certain air of authority, and his dress was just this side of conservative. She thought there was something cold in the way his pale, milky eyes appraised her.

‘I’ve already explained how you’re looking for work, Mala.’ Josef took her by the elbow and guided her to one of the couches directly facing Gardner as he resumed his seat.

Dakota noticed the way Josef was subtly deferential towards the other man, the way Gardner sat with his arms draped across the back of his chair in a pose making him seem so much at home. It was as if they were in Gardner’s office, rather than Josef’s.

‘You’re a machine-head,’ Gardner stated flatly.

Dakota glanced at Josef, who nodded go on to her as he took a seat to one side of them.

‘Yes.’

Gardner nodded thoughtfully, as if carefully considering this information. ‘Josefs explained to me you weren’t anywhere near Redstone when those massacres took place. Nevertheless, I’m sure you understand why it’s important I ask you how well your artificial immune system can be trusted to protect you.’

Dakota knew Gardner was referring to her Ghost’s ability to react to and then prevent hostile intrusions. She glanced sideways at Josef, but he was carefully avoiding her gaze. She wondered how worried that should make her.

‘It’s the best available,’ she replied. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

Dakota wondered if she saw a glint of amusement in Gardner’s eyes. ‘Yet there are never total guarantees, are there? History can repeat itself.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dakota said, turning towards Josef, ‘but who the hell is this?’

Josef leaned over and put a hand on her arm. ‘Just listen to him.’

Gardner continued as if she had said nothing. ‘There must be very few people, apart from others like yourself, whom you can fully trust. I gather it’s quite a wrenching experience to lose your Ghost implants.’

‘It is,’ Dakota replied levelly. ‘It’s the worst thing you could imagine.’

Gardner chuckled and glanced at Josef, who smiled tightly. Internal alarm bells that had nothing to do with her Ghost circuits were starting to clamour inside Dakota’s head.

Gardner leaned forward. ‘Let’s not beat about the bush here, Miss Oorthaus. I understand you are used to dangerous work, and the job I specifically require a machine-head for may prove very dangerous indeed. But ultimately extremely profitable.’

‘I appreciate that, Mr Gardner, and my piloting skills are the best. But you’re going to have to tell me just what it is you need me to do.’

‘You are familiar with colonial surveys?’

Ah, that was it.

Because humanity, in the form of the Consortium, was restricted by the Shoal to travel only within a bubble of space a few hundred light years across, potentially habitable worlds within that bubble were becoming a precious and dwindling resource. In fact, most of the systems to be found within that bubble of space did not contain any Earth-like worlds. In those systems that did, few of the worlds were life-bearing, and even fewer of those were capable of supporting human beings unaided.

Competition for such limited resources was subsequently extremely fierce-and occasionally deadly.

It was not unknown for claim-jumping to take place. Rival groups chasing after the gradually dwindling number of colonial contracts could separately find their way to a promising system via coreship and, by the force of arms, prevent another colony from being set up there. The Shoal appeared to care little whether such armies were carried across space in the Shoal coreships so long as they themselves were not threatened.

Most such incidents of colonial rivalry ended in decades of litigation, while Consortium warships remained in orbit above those barely habitable worlds until such time as the courts decided who should get which contract. The origins of the Consortium itself lay in arbitrating such conflicts: disparate private enterprises had been merged under a general UN charter, and an administrative Council set up to oversee exploration and exploitation in an attempt to bring order to an otherwise chaotic interstellar land-rush.

The precursors to such contracts were colonial surveys, whereby the potential colonists could raise funds to send ships and survey teams to assess the likely costs and time-scales for establishing viable settlements. Such expeditions were particularly prone to piracy.