“You know perfectly well why. What else could we do? For goodness’ sake, Feira Ile is Ayacucho’s SD chief; and Malindi is president of the Merchant’s Association; and both of them sit on the Dorados governing council. I could hardly authorize their abduction.”

“I suppose not,” she sighed.

“It’s not as if they can tell people what they were doing, or even that they were there.”

“Don’t count on it. They’re certainly above the law here; and if any word of Mzu does leak out it’ll inflame the nationalist sympathy.”

“I think we had better assume it will do. Cabral will make sure of it. After all, he voted to help her retrieve the Alchemist.”

“Yes.” She let out an exasperated groan. “God, we walked right past her!”

“Ran past,” Samuel corrected.

Monica glared at him. “Any sightings?”

“None at all. However we are losing an unusual number of spiders.”

“Oh?”

“Children are going around killing them. It’s some kind of organized game. Several day clubs are running competitions to see who can find the most. There are cash prizes. Clever,” he acknowledged.

“Somebody’s well organized.”

“Yes and no. Children are a most peculiar method of attack, the numbers they can eliminate will inconvenience us rather than block us. If it was another agency that discovered we were infiltrating the asteroid, they would release a tailored virus to kill the spiders.” He cast an inquiring glance. “No?”

She puckered her lips in an ironic smile. “I would imagine that could well be standard operating procedure for some people.”