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"Hunte Wen is not recoverable, I'm afraid." She opened a window on medical imagery. To a Qeng Ho physician it might have looked like a simple brain diagnostic. To A
"So we'd end up with a vegetable?"
"No. If we back out and undo the Focus, he'll have the personality and most of the memories of before. He just won't be much of a physicist anymore."
"Hmm," said Nau, considering. So they couldn't just deFocus the Peddler and have the outside expert Reynolt needed.And I'll be damned if I'llrisk deFocusing the third fellow. Yet there was a very tidy solution, that still made good use of all three men. "Okay, A
Another shrug. Reynolt had no false modesty, but she also didn't realize how very good she was.
"As for Hunte Wen," Nau continued. "He's done his best for us, and we can't ask for more." Literally so, according to A
Ezr Vinh was staring, openmouthed. The other Peddlers looked almost as shocked. There was a small risk here; Hunte Wen would not be the best proof that Focus could be reversed. On the other hand, he was obviously a hardship case.Show your concern: "We've run Dr. Wen for more than five years straight, and I see he is already middle-aged. Use whatever medical consumables it takes to give him the best health possible."
It was the final agenda item, and the meeting didn't continue for long after that. Nau watched as everyone floated out, jabbering to one another their enthusiasm about Li's discovery and Wen's manumission. Ezr Vinh left last, but he wasn't talking to anyone. The boy had a glassy look about him.Yes, Mr. Vinh. Be good, and maybe someday I'll free the one you careabout.
SIXTEEN
Things got very quiet during the Tween Watch. Most Watches were multiples of an Msec, with overlap so people could brief the new Watch on current problems. The Tween was no secret, but Nau officially treated it as a glitch in the scheduling program, a four-day gap that appeared between Watches every so often. In fact, it was like the missing seventh floor, or that mythical magic day that comes between Oneday and Twoday.
"Say, wouldn't it be great to have Tween Watches back home?" Brughel joked as he led Nau and Kal Omo into the corpsicle stacks. "I did security at Frenk for five years—it sure would have been easier if I could have declared time out every so often, and rearranged the game to suit my needs." His voice sounded loud in the hold, the echoes coming back from several directions. In fact, they were the only ones awake aboard theSuivire. Down on Hammerfest, there was Reynolt and a contingent of waking zipheads. A skeleton crew of Emergents and Peddlers—including Qiwi Lisolet—were working the stabilization jets on the rockpile. But, zipheads aside, only nine people knew the hardest secrets. And here between Watches, they could do all that was necessary to protect the pod.
The interior walls of theSuivire 's coldsleep hold had been knocked out, and dozens of additional coffins installed. All of Watch A slept here, almost seven hundred people. Watch trees B and Misc were on theBrisgoGap, while C and D were aboard theCommon Good. But it was A's Watch that began after this Tween time.
A red light appeared on the wall; the hold's stand-alone data system was ready to talk. Nau put on his huds, and suddenly the caskets were labeled by name and affiliation. Everything looked green.Thank goodness. Nau turned to his podsergeant. Kal Omo's name, status, and vital signs floated in the air beside his face; the data system took its duties very literally. "A
"Yes, sir." There was a faint smile on the man's face as he turned and coasted out the door. Kal Omo had been through this before; he'd helped create the hoax aboard theFar Treasure. He knew what to expect.
And then he and Ritser Brughel were alone. "Okay, have you found any more bad apples, Ritser?"
Ritser was gri
"I've been ru
The Peddler coffins had wide, curved windows, and an internal light. Even without the display label, Nau would have recognized Pham Trinli. Somehow, the guy looked younger when his face was inanimate.
Ritser must have taken his silence for indecision. "He knew about Diem's plot."
Nau shrugged. "Of course. So did Vinh. So did a few others. And now they're known quantities."
"But—"
"Remember, Ritser, we agreed. We can't afford any more casual wet-work." His biggest mistake of this whole adventure had been in the field interrogations after the ambush. Nau had followed the disaster-management strategies of the Plague Time, the hard strategies that were shrouded from the view of ordinary citizens. But the First Podmasters had been in a very different situation; they'd had plenty of human resources. In this situation...well, for the Qeng Ho who could be Focused, interrogation was no problem. But the others were amazingly tough. Worst of all, they didn't respond to threats in a rational way. Ritser had gotten a little crazy, and Tomas hadn't been far behind. They had killed the last of the senior Peddlers before they really understood the other side's psychology. All in all, it had been quite a debacle, but it had also been a maturing experience. Tomas had learned how to deal with the survivors.
Ritser smiled. "Okay. At least he's good for comic relief. The way he tries to suck up to you and me—and pompous at the same time!" He waved at the racked corpsicles. "Sure. Wake 'em all per schedule. We've had to explain too many ‘accidents' as it is." He turned back toward Nau. He still wore a smile, but the bottom light made it look like the grimace it really was. "The real problem isn't with Watch A. Podmaster, in the last four days, I've discovered clear subversion elsewhere."
Nau stared at him with an expression of mild surprise. This was what he'd been waiting for. "Qiwi Lisolet?"
"Yes! Wait, I know you saw the face-off I had with her the other day. The pus-sucker deserves to die for that—but that's not my complaint to you. I have solid evidence she's breaking Your Law. And she is in league with others."
Nau actually was a bit surprised by this. "In what way?"
"You know I caught her in the Peddlers' park with her father. She had shut the park down on her own whim. That's what made me so angry. But afterwards...I put my snoops on her. Random monitoring might not have noticed it for several more Watches: the little slut is diverting the pod's resources. She's stolen output from the volatiles distillery. She's embezzled time from the factory. She's diverted her father's Focus to help her with private ventures."