'I'm a performing animal,' Leif said, spitting the words out with some force. 'My father was a language teacher. He's been using me to experiment on for years. I'm his hobby. I never had a day of my life that wasn't full of rules and grammar and exercises. He drilled me until I was perfect at everything but saying what I really thought of what he was doing to me. Finally I got tired of being hit for mishandling the optative.' Leif turned his head away. 'He can sit home and do it to my little sister now, if he likes, but I've had enough of it. Meanwhile, if I'm stuck being good with languages, fine. I might as well make some money out of it.'
'And your father is where?'
'Like I care.'
'I ask for information's sake.'9
'New York. He teaches at Berlitz.'
Vaud looked at the table, as if reading something there that Leif couldn't see. 'And you do not foresee a reunion with him in the near future.'
Leif laughed hollowly. 'Boy, do I not.'
'Your mother?'
'She died when I was six. I think she couldn't stand it, either-life with him, I mean. They took her to the hospital suddenly one afternoon. They told me it was a heart attack, but I knew about her sleeping pills. There were a lot of them missing afterward.'
'My sympathies,' Vaud said smoothly enough, though it seemed obvious to Leif that they were elsewhere. 'Dal- ana hewi m-iet rhunnet?'
Leif cocked his head, then shook it. 'I don't have any of the Native American languages, sorry. My dad never cared about those. He said the orthographies were too artificial.' Leif made a face.
'As regards that he may have had a point,' Vaud said, 'but it makes little odds to us. So. Meliankele nou moustei rhev'emien?'
'Kai ton emen,' Leif said, correcting Vaud's pronunciation. If he was going to use an idiom that had been forged on Crete, he might as well say the word the way the Cretans said it.
Vaud raised his eyebrows and spoke another phrase, this time in what Leif recognized as Tagalog, but couldn't otherwise understand. He answered in Filipino pidgin. It went on that way for about half an hour, leaving the more esoteric languages and getting into considerable detail in Russian and French, before Vaud finally sat back in his chair and looked down at the table one more time.
After a moment he said, 'I take it from the fact that you sought and came to this interview in the first place that you would not be averse to doing some work on the outside.'
'This place is boring me stiff,' Leif said. 'And the counselors are beginning to get on my nerves. Out would be good.. and something to do that wasn't school would be good, too.'
'Your talents,' Vaud said, 'seem considerable. There is a possibility we could use someone like you. Naturally, I must consult my colleagues in this regard, and they will want to look you over.'
'Who's running this business,' Leif said, 'you or them?'
Vaud's lips, if possible, drew into an even thinner line than they had been manifesting already. 'We are a cooperative venture,' he said, 'and my colleagues have a right to voice their opinions. Can you be here around this time tomorrow?'
Leif thought about it for a moment. 'I don't see why not.'
'I would prefer a more concrete commitment,' Vaud said; the tone of voice was soft enough, but the look was sharp. 'If your father has treated you harshly, that is some cause for regret, I grant you. But there is no reason to be less than civil or forthcoming with those who seek to treat you less harshly, indeed who seek to put your talents to some use.'
Leif considered it time to show a little nervousness. He swallowed. 'I'll be there.'
'Very good. Be prompt.' He glanced behind Leif, and the featureless blueness that had been swirling around him now parted to show the sunshine on the Barenplatz again.
'Good day, Mr. Dawson.'
'Bye,' Leif said, and went out the door. It closed behind him.
He exited from the Breathing Space virtual environment, waited for the header-strippers and other anony- mizing functions that Mark had attached to his virtual persona to undo themselves, and then glanced around him. The ice cave looked a little dim. It was a function of some of the filters and protections Mark had applied to it to make sure that no one at Vaud's end of things could tell that Leif was coming in through anything but a certified Breathing Space connection.
Abruptly the dimness cleared away, and Megan and Mark were standing there, looking at Leif. 'Did you get it?' he said to Mark.
'It's all down in memory,' Mark said, 'in triplicate.'
'You said you were going to try to run a trace on that guy while the interview was going on,' Megan said. 'Any luck with that?'
Mark shook his head. 'He's got as many layers of an- onymization wrapped around him as you had. As far as I can tell, he didn't have much in the way of detection running. He shouldn't have been able to tell much about your connection. In fact, he may not have been trying… if he assumes you're coming in from Breathing Space, he probably thinks he knows their system so well he doesn't have to bother.'
'If,' Megan said.
Mark shrugged. 'We can't tell for sure, so there's no point in worrying about it.
Megan was looking at Leif. 'Are you okay? You look a little rocky.'
'No, I'm fine. I just-' Leif laughed. 'You'll think this is funny. But I hate lying. I'm no good at it. At least, I always think I'm not, though the people around me don't seem to pick up on that.'
'Was he impressed?'
'I think so. There's going to be another interview.'
'Same 'street corner'?' Mark said from his workspace.
'As far as I could tell. He didn't give me any directions.'
'Good,' Mark said. 'We'll need to record that one, too, since he didn't actually offer you any work or go into details about it… just said he might. But that'll be all we need to sink him, Megan.'
'Not quite all,' Megan said. She looked over at Leif. 'It's not like I don't think you can handle what's coming up. I know you can. But now we're getting close to material that could get really hot… and I think if we don't go see James Winters first, before the second interview, he's going to be really, really cranky.'
Leif nodded. 'So let's call the man in the morning,' he said, 'and make an appointment. We're gonna catch us some big fish.. and we'll let Winters bring some tackle of his own.'
Chapter 8
The view of James Winters's office, early the next morning, was probably not too much different from that of anyone else in Net Force: plain institutional desk and chairs and 'filing cabinets,' slightly dusty Venetian blinds drawn against the sun coming in the windows this time of day, the desk all scattered with solid datacarts and printouts and scribbled notes. But the ordinariness of it was a surprise, since Winters was fairly highly placed in that organization. Indeed, some people who didn't know better would probably wonder why someone with such career prospects, a decorated Marine as well as a very senior member of the organization, would have taken on such a relatively unimportant job as running the liaison office to the Net Force Explorers. Just a bunch of kids, after all.. But Megan knew that this man did not hold the thousands of 'kids' he worked with as some kind of ornamental junior auxiliary or publicity stunt. He was as serious about his commitment to the online world and the business of making it safe and keeping it that way as he knew they were. It made dealing with him a touch easier… because he was a man of formidable personality, a little scary sometimes. Megan never went into his virtual 'office' without twitching a little, for he expected his contacts among the Explorers to behave as professionally and proficiently as his senior agents. The idea seemed to be that, if the Explorers were careful and lucky, they would be senior agents some day… so getting a head start on the expected behavior was a good idea.
Megan's problem at the moment, as she and Leif waited in her workspace 'on hold,' looking at a dimmed-out
