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He tried to keep his voice in an even, persuasive tone, but what came out sounded half-panicked even to his own ears.Dear Lord of Trade, I can'tlose her now! "I know. You're still identifying with the Spiders. We're the aliens to you."
She touched his shoulder. "A little. During the first stages of the deFocus, it was like wakinginto a nightmare. I know how humans look to Arachnans. Pale, soft, grublike. There are pests and food animals like that. But we aren't as gruesome to them as the reverse." She looked up at him and her smile was momentarily wider. "The way you have to turn your head to see is endearing. You don't realize it, but any Arachnan with paternal fur on his back, and most females too, are enthralled when they talk to you close up."
Like the dreams he had had groundside. In Trixia's mind, she was still part Spider. "Trixia, look. I'll come and see you every day. Things will change. You'll get over this."
"Oh, Ezr, Ezr." Her tears floated into the air between them, but she was crying for him and not for herself or for the two of them. "Thisis what I want to be, a translator, a bridge between you all and my new Family."
A bridge.She's not out of Focus. Somehow Pham and A
He caught A
Reynolt's face seemed even paler than usual. He suddenly guessed that she'd been waiting for him. "You know there's no way we can destroy the virus, Ezr. Tune them down, make them dormant, yes, but..." Her voice was tentative, utterly unlike the A
"You know what I mean, A
A
"Bring her all the way back, A
Reynolt's mouth twisted, as if stifling physical pain. "The structures are so deep. She'd lose knowledge she's gained, probably her born language talent. She'd be like Hunte Wen."
"But she would befree ! She could learn new things, just like Hunte has."
"I—I understand. Till yesterday, I thought we could bring it off. We were down to triggering the last restructuring—but Ezr, Trixia doesn't want us to take it any further!"
That was just too much, and suddenly Ezr was shouting. "By damn, what do you expect? She's Focused!" He brought his voice down, but the words had the intensity of deadly threat. "I know. You and Pham still need slaves, especially ones like Trixia. You never meant to free her."
Reynolt's eyes grew wide and her features flushed bright red. It was something he had never seen in her, though Ritser Brughel had always turned that shade when he climbed into a towering rage. Her mouth opened and shut but no words came out.
There was a solidthump on the office wall, someone arriving in a hell of a hurry. An instant later, Pham came through the door. "A
Pham shut the door quietly behind her. When he turned back to Ezr, his expression was not gentle. He jerked a finger at the seat in front of Reynolt's desk. "Tie down, mister."
There was something about his voice that froze Ezr's rage, and forced him to sit down.
Pham settled himself by the other side of the desk. For a moment, he just stared at the younger man. It was strange. Pham Nuwen had always had a presence, but suddenly it felt like before this, he had never really turned it on. Finally, Pham said, "A couple of years ago you gave me some straight talk. You forced me to see that I was wrong and that I must change."
Ezr stared back coldly. "Looks like I failed."You're in the slave businessanyway.
"You're wrong, son. You succeeded. Not many people have turned me around. Even Sura couldn't do it." A strange sadness seemed to flicker across him, and he was silent for a moment. Then, "You've done A
"Not likely! You two have things so neatly rationalized. DeFocusing is just too expensive for you."
"Um. You're right, it's expensive. It's been a near calamity. Under the Emergent system, the zipheads were supporting virtually all of our automation, their work mixed seamlessly with the real machines'. Worse, all the maintenance programming in the fleet has been done by Focused persons; we're left with millions of lines of incoherent junk. It will be some time before we have our old systems working well....But you know that A
"Y-yes."
"Then you know that she would die to give the Focused freedom. It was her one no
"So because they want to be slaves, we leave them that way?"
"No! But a Focused person is a still a human being, not too different from certain rare types that have always existed. If they can live on their own, if they can clearly express their wishes—well at that point, you have to listen....Until about half a day ago, we thought everything was going to be okay with Trixia Bonsol. A
They sat in silence for a moment. The most terrible thing was, Pham might not be lying. He might not even be rationalizing. Maybe they were just talking about one of life's tragedies. In that case, Tomas Nau's evil would ride Ezr for the rest of his life.Lord, this is hard. And even though Reynolt's office was brightly lit, it reminded him of that dark time in the temp's park, right after Jimmy was murdered. Pham had been there too, and giving comfort that Ezr couldn't understand. Ezr wiped his face with the back of his hand. "Okay. So Trixia is free. Then she's also free to change in the future."
"Yes, of course. Human nature will always be beyond analysis."
"I waited half my life for her. As long as it takes, I'll wait for her."
Pham sighed. "I'm just afraid you might do that."
"Huh?"
"You're one of the more dedicated types I've met. And you have a talent for people. More than most, it was you who kept the Qeng Ho going in the face of Nau's thuggery."
"No! I could never stand up to the man. All I could do was nibble around the edges, try to make things a little less hellish. And it still got people killed. I had no backbone, no admin ability; I was just an idiot that Nau could use to keep better people in line."
Pham was shaking his head. "You were the only person I trusted for conspiracy, Ezr." He stopped abruptly, gri
Ezr looked up. "Of course. So?"
"I've seen a lot of hotshots." A lopsided grin. "Sura and I founded many of the Great Families in this end of Qeng Ho space. But you measure up, Ezr Vinh. I'm proud we are related."