“—just don’t understand, Sherkaner. You are a brilliant person. How can you behave like such an idiot?”
Victory Junior hesitated, almost backed out of the darkened hall. She had never heard Mom sound quite so angry. It… hurt. On the other hand, Gokna would give anything to hear Viki’s report-of-action. Viki moved silently forward, turned her head sideways to peek through the narrow gap. The lab was pretty much as she remembered it, full of oscilloscopes and high-speed recorders. The covers were off some of Jaybert’s gear, but apparently Mom had arrived before the two got into any serious electronic dismemberment. Mother was standing in front of Daddy, blocking his best eyes from seeing Viki.And I bet I’m near the center of Mom’s blind spot.
“…Was I really that bad?” Daddy was saying.
“Yes!”
Sherkaner Underhill seemed to wilt under the General’s glare. “I don’t know. The cobber got me off guard. The comment about little Brent. I knew that was coming. You and I had talked about that. Even Brent and I talked about it. And even so, it knocked my legs out. I got confused.”
Mom jerked her hand, dismissing the comment. “That was no problem, Sherk. You gave a good response. Your hurt came across in a caring, paternal way. And yet a few minutes later she sucked you in—”
“Except for the astronomy, I only said things we had planned for the show over the next year.”
“But you said them all at once!”
“…I know. Pedure started talking like a bright, curious person. Like Hrunk or people here at Hill House. She raised some interesting questions and I got carried away. And you know? Even now… this Pedure is smart and flexible. Given time, I think I could have won her over.”
The General’s laugh was sharp and unhappy. “God Below, you are a fool! Sherk, I…” Mom reached out to touch Daddy. “I’m sorry. Funny, I don’t chew out my own staffers the way I do you.”
Daddy made a kindly sound, like when he was talking to Rhapsa or Little Hrunk. “You know the reason for that, dear. You love me as much as yourself. And I know how much you chew on yourself.”
“Inside. Only silently, and inside.” They were quiet for a moment, and Little Victory wished that she had lost her recon game with Gokna. But when Mother spoke again, her voice was more normal. “We both screwed up on this.” She keyed open her travel case and picked out some papers. “Over the next year, ‘The Children’s Hour’ was to introduce the virtue and the possibility of life in the Dark, on schedule with the first construction contracts. Someday, we knew there would be military consequences, but we didn’t expect anything at this stage.”
“Military consequences now?”
“Deadly maneuvering, anyway. You know this Pedure cobber is from Tiefstadt.”
“Sure. Her accent is unmistakable.”
“Her cover is good, partly because it’s mainly true. Honored Pedure is Cleric Three in the Church of the Dark. But she’s also midlevel intelligence with Action of God.”
“The Kindred.”
“Indeed. We’ve had friendly relations with the Tiefers since the war, but the Kindred are beginning to change that. They already have several minor states in their effective control. They’re a legitimate sect of the Church, but —”
Far down the corridor behind Little Victory, someone turned on a hall light. Mom raised a hand and stood very still.Oops. Maybe she had noticed a faint silhouette, familiar grooves and armored fluting. Without turning, Smith extended a long arm in the direction of the eavesdropper. “Junior! Shut the door and get yourself back to your room.”
Little Victory’s voice was small and abashed. “Yes, Mother.”
As she slid the utility door closed, she heard one last comment: “Damn. I spend fifty million a year on signal security, and my own daughter is running intercepts on me—”
Just now, the clinic under Hammerfest was a crowded place. On Pham’s previous visits, there had been Trud, sometimes another technician, and one or two “patients.” Today—well, a hand grenade would have caused more turmoil among the Focused, but not by much. Both the MRI units were occupied. One of the handlers was prepping Xopi Reung for MRI; the woman moaned, thrashing against his efforts. Over in a corner, Dietr Li—the physicist?—was strapped down, mumbling to himself.
Reynolt had one foot hooked over a ceiling stay, so that she hung down close to the MRI without getting in the way of the techs. She didn’t look around as they came in. “Okay, induction complete. Keep the arms restrained.” The tech slid his patient out into the middle of the room. It was Trixia Bonsol; she looked around, obviously not recognizing anyone, and then her face collapsed into hopeless sobbing.
“You’ve deFocused her!” Vinh shouted, pushing past Trud and Trinli. Pham anchored and grabbed, all in one motion, and Vinh’s forward motion reversed, bouncing him lightly against the wall.
Reynolt looked in Vinh’s direction. “Be silent or get out,” she said. She jerked a hand at Bil Phuong. “Insert Dr. Reung. I want—” The rest was jargon. A normal bureaucrat would certainly have kicked them out. Anne Reynolt really didn’t care, as long as they didn’t get in her way.
Silipan drifted back to Pham and Vinh. He looked subdued and grim. “Yeah. Shut up, Vinh.” He glanced at the MRI’s display. “Bonsol’s still Focused. We’ve just detuned her linguistics ability. It’ll make her easier to… treat.” He glanced at Bonsol uncertainly. The woman had bent in on herself as far as the restraints would permit. Her weeping continued, hopeless and inconsolable.
Vinh struggled briefly in Pham’s grasp, and then he was still except for a tremor that only Pham could feel. For a second it looked like he might start bawling. Then the boy twisted, turned his face away from Bonsol, and screwed his eyes shut.
Tomas Nau’s voice came loud in the room. “Anne? I’ve lost three analysis threads since this outage began. Do you know—”
Reynolt’s tone was almost the same she had used with Vinh: “Give me a Ksec. I have at least five cases of runaway rot.”
“Lordy… keep me posted, Anne.”
Reynolt was already talking to someone else. “Hom! What’s the story on Dr. Li?”
“He’s rational, ma’am; I’ve been listening to him. Something happened during the radio show, and—”
Reynolt sailed across the room to Dieter Li, somehow missing techs, zipheads, and equipment. “That’s bizarre. There shouldn’t have been live crosstalk between physics and the radio show.”
The tech tapped a card attached to Li’s blouse. “His log says he heard the translation.”
Pham noticed Silipan swallow hard. Could this be one of his screwups? Damn. If the man was disgraced, Pham would lose his pipeline into the Focus operation.
But Reynolt still hadn’t noticed her AWOL technician. She leaned close to Dietr Li, listened for a moment to his mumbling. “You’re right. He’s stuck on what the Spider said about OnOff. I doubt he’s suffering from real runaway. Just keep watching him; let me know if he starts looping.”
More voices from the walls, and these sounded Focused: “…Attic lab twenty percent inchoate… probable cause: cross-specialty reactions to audio stream ID2738 ‘Children’s Hour’… Instabilities are undamped…”
“I hear you, Attic. Prep for fast shutdown.” Reynolt returned to Trixia Bonsol. She stared at the weeping woman, her look an eerie combination of intense interest and total detachment. Abruptly she turned, her gaze skewering Trud Silipan. “You! Get over here.”
Trud bounced across the room to his boss’s side. “Yes, ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” For once there was no hidden impudence. Vengeance might be unthinkable to Reynolt, but her judgments were ones that Nau and Brughel would enforce. “I was checking out the effectiveness of the translations, ma’am, how well laypersons”—namely the patrons of Benny’s booze parlor—“would understand her.”
The excuses were lost on Reynolt. “Get an offline team. I want Dr. Bonsol’s log checked out.” She leaned closer to Trixia, her gaze probing. The translator’s weeping had stopped. Her body was curled in a quivering tetany. “I’m not sure if we can save this one.”
Ezr Vinh twisted in Pham’s grip, and for a moment it seemed he might start shouting again. Then he gave Pham a strange look and remained silent. Pham loosened his grip and gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder.
The two of them stayed silent, watching. “Patients” came and went. Several more were detuned. Xopi Reung came out of the MRI much like Trixia Bonsol. Over the last few Watches, Pham had had plenty of opportunity to watch Silipan work, and pump him about procedures. He’d even got a look at a beginning textbook on Focus. This was the first time he’d had a solid look at how Reynolt and the other technicians worked.
