“Bah, that’s the same load of crap that the Elizabots dump on every new convert. I didn’t buy it then, and I sure don’t buy it now.” Star snorted, or made as good an imitation as a vocoder could produce. “All right, so say I scan your sister, and every other member of your group who wants it. What then? You’re still gonna need automechs to put them in, unless you’re thinking of starting your own Library.”

“True, that’s a bit of a challenge,” Jason admitted. “But I’ve got some plans about that.”

“I’m damned sure not going to help you raid an Aegis ’mech stockpile,” Star warned him. “They’ll have revoked all my clearances by now anyway.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Who wants to go head to head with the United Nations? Apart from the Lorduns, anyway.” Jason chuckled. “But when you get right down to it, what’s a ‘mech but a fancy machine? There’s nothing magical about ’em. If you have the CAD files, any CAM facility can crank them out.” He grinned. “So we’ll just have to ‘borrow’ one for a while, that’s all.”