Anika

Anika put out some feelers through her contacts, but Thule didn't respond. The Auditor was willing to send a secondary to speak with them, and X-864 was willing to meet directly. Harmon's reply, when it arrived, was an extremely cryptic message, full of demands for assurances they wouldn't show up with any techpriests, and including oddly specific directions printed on a blueprint map of one of the hive sectors near his processing facility. It said he would know when they had arrived, and that failure to appear at the appointed time would be taken as conclusion of any potential business.

Echo's Search

With Anika's assistance to grease the wheels, the search went much more smoothly. One of her Kasballica fixers was able to point her to a seedy midhive shop that carried most of the things on Echo's list, though payment for it turned out to be something of an issue. The shop in question functioned on the barter system entirely, eschewing money in favour of trades. Fortunately Anika was forewarned by her contact, and arrived with produce pulled from the ship's Arboretum, and a handful of spare weapons from the armoury that wouldn't be missed. The last item on the list was a set of Landrian deep-ocean pigment powders, which Anika was able to find in an upspire fine arts store, for a truly ludicrous price. Or, what would have been a truly ludicrous price for most people. Mentioning Macharius' name alongside a not-so-subtle offer to promote the store amongst friends before they left the planet greased the last few wheels, and Echo had everything he needed by the end of the day.