He extended his hand into hers, but before he could say anything, Trevor-who had apparently been at her shoulder the whole time-nodded after the corporate emissaries. “Friends of yours?”
“Yeah, me too. I don’t think you’ve met my sister, Elena. Elena, this is-”
Her voice was a smooth mezzo. “Trevor: I do watch the news occasionally. Mr. Riordan, a pleasure.”
He looked at her directly, a little anxiously, since he had been intermittently staring at her since entering the room.
Trevor’s voice was part intrusion, but also part hint. “And
Caine became aware that he was still holding Elena’s hand, pulled his back a little too quickly, smiled to cover the awkwardness, decided that he was quite an ass and should not be allowed in public. He was vaguely aware of Opal shaking Elena’s hand and that she had just finished saying something in a sympathetic tone.
“Ms. Corcoran-excuse me: I-”
“Please: call me Elena.”
“Elena, I’m so sorry. About your father. I hardly know what to say. I didn’t know him very long, but-”
She was not smiling, only nodding: was she angry? No; just very serious. “I know. Richard-Mr. Downing-has told me a little. I can tell that my father must have liked you. And trusted you.”
And voluble Caine felt his brain lock up: what response could he make that was both reasonable and truthful? Could he really claim that he had reciprocated the trust of a man who had permitted (maybe ordered?) his fourteen-year internment in a meat locker, and who then thawed him out only to perform a politically expedient task? Could Caine claim that he had liked this august figure who also covertly manipulated people and nations and facts and events? “I only knew him a day-but I will miss him. A lot. I would like to have gotten to know him better. I think he was-a good man.”
Elena had stopped nodding. Her eyes had become very grave-but he didn’t feel any disapproval in them. Then she faced Trevor. “We should go. Richard’s meeting is in five minutes.” As she turned to leave, she looked back over her shoulder. “Thank you for coming. Please excuse us.”
Trevor, with a quizzical look after his sister, shrugged an awkward farewell, and followed Elena’s abrupt exit. Opal stood looking after them.
“
“Uh-no. Why?”
Opal smiled sideways at him. “I guess it just looked like you wished you
“Yes, but you can still critique my form over dinner.”
“Oh-you mean you’re hoping I’ll give you a raincheck for the dinner you
“Yeah.” He hefted the softcast meditatively. “Sorry. I was…uh, detained.”
“Well, I guess I’ll give you another chance-but no more lame excuses about homicidal intruders and emergency surgery, okay?”
Caine nodded, saw they were among the last people in the room. “Well, I suppose we ought to head to Downing’s briefing.”
“I suppose.” Opal looked back at the memorial flame as they walked toward the exit. “So strange.”
“What is?”
“Having met the admiral only once. He seemed like such a nice man-a fun man-”
“-and he seemed in good shape for his age. Amazing shape, given what I am-no,
“Well, he had cardiac problems for thirty-five years-but it wasn’t disease: it was damage.”
“Damage? How?”
“In 2083, Admiral Corcoran was the commander of the mission that went to intercept what has come to be called the ‘Doomsday Rock.’ You’ve heard of it by now, right?”
“Just that it was heading straight for us. And after that, there was a much higher commitment to space development.”
“Yeah. It gave us a good scare. The rock came straight in from the far reaches of the Kuiper belt. Normally, we would have expected a culprit from that area to be a comet. Because it wasn’t, we didn’t see it until very late.”
“Why?”
“Because comets leave visible tails of vapor and debris; asteroids do not. And it was approaching on a retrograde trajectory. Meaning less time to intercept.”
“Okay, but how did Nolan get injured? EVA accident? A crash?”
Caine shook his head. “Nothing that dramatic. Just too much acceleration. For too long.”
“So that’s what killed him, cardiac failure?”
Downing came up behind them in the hall. “No, not cardiac failure-although it looked that way at first.”
Caine glanced sharply at Downing as they entered the conference room, acoustic-damping panels lining the wall like immense gray waffles. “What do you mean? What else have you found?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
MENTOR
“We found this in Nolan.” Downing moved to the head of the conference table, dimmed the lights and snapped on the display screen. The diagram of a torso-the heart outlined in muddy maroon-faded in. A moment later-in Day-Glo green-a sinuous collection of filaments sprung into existence on the heart itself, first winding along the external walls of its chambers and then sending strands into the spine and upward from there. There was a second of silence.
“What the hell is that?” Trevor’s outburst was raw, emotional.
Downing shrugged. “We don’t know, despite a painstaking post-mortem analysis that took Bethesda the better part of two months. Even so, they almost missed it.”
Trevor gaped at the intricate windings. “They almost missed
“Yes. Because, by the time they were conducting the post-mortem, there was almost nothing left of it. This is only an approximate reconstruction of what was in Nolan when he died. By the time they were examining his body in detail, these filaments had almost totally denatured. They deliquesced even as the specialists were trying to run tests. All that was left were traces: simple proteins, amino acids, nothing definitive.”
“So, was this some kind of infection?” Elena sounded lost.
It was Opal who spoke, and with singular decisiveness. “That’s no infection. Not in the regular sense of the word. Look at how it went straight from the heart toward the spine, and braided itself up toward the skull. Excuse me, Elena, Trevor, but there’s no delicate way to ask these questions-”
Elena nodded. “Certainly; we understand.”
“-but what was found upon examination of the cerebral cortex?”
“Nothing definitive. If there was something there, it decayed before the rest of-whatever this is.”
Opal stared. “It’s a parasite,” she announced.
“Or-” The voice was Caine’s. Downing saw him staring at the screen over steepled fingers.
“Or?” prompted Opal.
“Or it’s a symbiote.”
She looked surprised and turned back to the screen. Then she nodded. “He’s right. There’s no way-looking at
