be

was shut down

signal that someone had just entered Weldon’s private nonspace conduit over there from this end. That was not normal, and the conduit was immediately sealed off at both exits. One more overlapping precaution, you see . . . and that just happened to be the one that paid off!”
Arlene frowned. “But what did . . .”
“Well,” Harding said, “there were still a number of questions to be answered, of course. They had to be answered fast and correctly or the game could be lost. Nobody expected the rogue to show up in person at the Cleaver Project. The whole security island could have been destroyed in an instant; we knew he was aware of that. But he’d obviously made a move of some kind—and we had to assume that the diex projector was now suspended in the conduit.
“But who, or what, was in there with it? The project guards had been withdrawn. There’d been only the three of you on the island. The rogue could have had access to all three at some time or