“I can’t divulge all of the context yet, I'm afraid. The situation is very delicate, involving a dispute between two species. And because of the distances involved, the less information that’s sent through relays, the better.” Wallace leaned back, quickly glancing towards where the door would have been.

“But what I do know is that these things took control of comm arrays attached to this factory system and began pinging nearby systems. It says they also disrupted the early stages of a Ga’Brosh tournament on a nearish Orbital, and-”

“Hold on.” Freyr held out a hand. “A, umm…thing, did that inside the Cradle too. It found the Navigator on Rothia after it finally decoded a message carved into Rothian DNA. Took control of comm arrays, I mean.” One of Wallace’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “Ah… is that so?”

“Mmmhmmm. These beings have never generated matter outside of their shells before though. If they’re connected, it's a big step forward. How big are we talking?”

“I, ah..”

“Computer, add a credit card for scale.”

A physical payment chip appeared in the hologram next to the hacker bug, dwarfing it. “So they’re nanobots - intriguing…”

“Quite. That’s why I brought this to you. Is it worth investigating?”