It was the first private conversation they had had, and Corso clearly had not been in the mood for making friends or wasting time with pseudonyms when no one else was around. There were dark rings under the Senator's eyes, and Ty had been aware of the frenetic level of activity following their departure from Redstone, while he himself had been safely ensconced in what had now become the familiar confines of the frigate's laboratory complex.
Ty gazed around the low-lit lab as if he might find the right answer there. 'But won't people ask questions if I don't take quarters with the rest of them? I mean, there's plenty of room in the centrifuge-'
'No.' Corso stabbed a finger at Ty's chest. 'I don't want you mixing with the rest of my people.'
'All right, but what about the hull repairs? There are only nine of us apart from the alien, and drive-spines deteriorate badly over long jumps. If I don't join the repair rota with the rest of them, they're going to ask why.'
Corso clearly did not enjoy having to concede this point. 'Fine, I'll make sure you're on the rota so no one asks questions. But you stay put here the rest of the time, regardless. If anyone asks, it's because you're a selfless scientist who just can't tear himself away from his work. Just remember, Mr Whitecloud, the only reason you're still alive is because my people intervened on your behalf back at Ascension. That still doesn't mean you didn't deserve a bullet in the back of your head. So, while you're on this ship with me, you do exactly as I say or I will make life seriously fucking unpleasant for you. Am I clear?'
Ty again looked around the laboratory. 'But what if I can't figure out how the Mos Hadroch works?' he stammered. 'What then?'
Corso came up close, grabbing a fistful of Ty's shirt.
'Think of it this way, Ty. This is a chance for you to exonerate yourself. The fact is, we're all fugitives here, and chances are none of us is ever going to see home again. But if we do get out of this…' Corso let go, putting one hand on Ty's chest and pushing him away. 'If we do, then you'll still be Nathan Driscoll.'
'So you're saying you'll let me go when the time comes.'
'I'll give you a chance to disappear. But God help you if Dakota or any of the others ever work out who you are before then.'
Corso pushed himself towards the airlock and grabbed a handhold next to it. 'Let's face it,' he added, looking back over at Ty, 'it's not like you'd have anywhere to hide if they did.'
Ty laughed, and Corso stared back at him, speechless.
'Did you know I was conscripted, Mr Corso? The Uchidans put me into military R amp;D and ordered me to work on one tiny part of a project that employed dozens of researchers. I'm not denying I had at least some responsibility for what happened back on Redstone – it was easy to guess the strategists were planning something big in advance of the Consortium forces arriving, but my rank was much too low for me to be told anything more than what was strictly necessary. The people who actually planned and implemented the counter-attack were never required to face a Legislate tribunal, only the technical staff. We were scapegoats, nothing more.'
Corso pushed himself back over towards him. Ty flinched, but the Senator came to a halt a few metres away by placing one hand against a bulkhead.
'I've read your file, Ty. You can't tell me you were only following orders. It's not an excuse, never has been. Hundreds died.'
'If I could go back in time and make things different, I would. I used to fantasize about how things might have been if I'd made different choices. You said I had a chance to exonerate myself, and that's all I've wanted, all these years. I'm not a monster, Mr Corso. I just want you to understand that.'
Ty drew in a breath, and waited. The other man's expression was unreadable.
'Actions count more than words, Ty,' Corso said finally, twisting around until he faced the airlock once more. 'Find out how the Mos Hadroch works, and you'll help save a lot of lives. Maybe that'll give you the peace you're looking for.'
I hope so too, thought Ty, and watched as Corso turned and left. Ty spent the next couple of hours taking his mind off this encounter by familiarizing himself with the upgraded lab equipment before moving the Mos Hadroch out of the isolation chamber and into the main lab. Its faint iridescent glow had long since faded, along with the aural hallucinations that only appeared to affect people with some form of cerebral implant. Now it sat amidst an array of technology that could carry out a much finer analysis than the isolation chamber could possibly manage.
The artefact now sat in a cradle which had, in turn, been mounted in the heart of a gigantic multi-phase imaging unit intended for carrying out almost every conceivable type of material analysis the Mjollnir's scientific and technical staff could hope for. For the moment, some methods were out of the question: for instance, ultrasonic spectroscopy meant hitting the thing with a laser, and Ty was far from sure the Mos Hadroch would not interpret this as a form of attack and thus retaliate.
The lab even contained its own dedicated manufactory for creating yet more gadgets, should they be required; so its dedicated stacks were filled with thousands of blueprints whose components could be manufactured within a matter of hours or days.
And yet Ty hesitated, unsure where to even start. He retreated to a chair and sat staring at the artefact for the better part of an hour, quietly brooding.
I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, he finally admitted to himself.
The Mos Hadroch was, according to Dakota Merrick, alive; it was certainly more than a machine, and clearly something intelligent lurked within its outwardly inert form. But, for all the high-tech tools he had to hand, Ty rather suspected they would be about as much good as trying to reverse-engineer stack circuits by hitting them with a lump of flint.
So instead he sat and reflected, and wondered if that strange intelligence might manifest itself a second time. He settled back, aware that his adrenalin rush of the past few days was finally beginning to tail off.
He only realized he'd fallen asleep, when, several hours later, he woke to the insistent buzz of a comms panel. The lab complex had a small kitchenette, which Ty had stocked with self-heating ready meals from one of the frigate's vast and echoing mess halls. He drank water while he waited for one of them to heat, then swallowed it in a hurry before making his way to the airlock bay where Nancy Schiller and Ray Willis were already getting suited up.
'You're late,' said Nancy, who looked like she hadn't slept since they had left orbit around Redstone. He also noticed she was careful not to meet his eye. 'Where've you been, the last couple of days? Haven't seen you anywhere on the centrifuge at all.'
Ty had been wondering when a moment like this might arrive. He had expected the lifespan of their affair to last only as long as their previous voyage together. It was a matter of some consternation when he had come face to face with her inside the safe-house, after expecting never to see her again.
'In the labs,' he replied, heading for one of the racked suits and lifting it down. 'I had a lot of work to do.'
Nancy and Ray were soon ready, and they stood there with helmets in hand while Ty struggled with the lower half of his suit.
'So what exactly is there to do?' Ray asked him. 'If you're talking about the Mos Hadroch, that is.'
As it recognized that someone was wearing it, Ty's suit automatically began to adjust itself to his body, the shoulders tightening here, the legs growing a few inches longer there.
'Well,' Ty replied, 'for all we know, it might be giving out some kind of signal. Or it might contain readable data, if only I can figure out how it's encoded. But it's definitely not inert: it came to life, just briefly, when we pulled it out of the Atn's body.'