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"The colors?"
"Those show current drug secretion by type....Now, what I want to do..." More commands, and Pham had his first look at the toroid's user manual. "...is change the output and firing frequency along this path." His little marker arrow swept along one of the threads of light. He gri
"I don't see any change in the brain map."
"You won't till I turn off active mode. You can't image and modify at the same time." He paused, watching the step-by-step in the manual. "Almost done....There! Okay, let's see the changes." There was a new picture. And now the glowing thread of lights was mostly blue, and frantically blinking. "It'll take a few seconds to settle in." He continued to watch the model as he talked. "See, Pham. This is what I'm really good at. I don't know what you could compare me to in your culture. I'm a little like a programmer, but I don't code. I'm a little like a neurologist, exceptI get results. I guess I'm most like a hardware technician. I keep the gear going for all the higher-ups who take the credit."
Trud frowned. "...Hunh? Pus." He looked across the room at where the other Emergent was working. "Bil, this guy's leptin-dop ratio is still low."
"You turned off the field?"
"Of course. Basal-five should have retrained by now."
Bil didn't come over, but apparently he was looking at the patient's brain model.
The line of blue glitter was still a jumble of random change. Trud continued, "It's just a loose end, but I don't know what's causing it. Can you take care of it?" He hooked a thumb in Pham's direction, indicating he had other, more important business.
Bil said, dubiously, "You did sign for it?"
"Yes, yes. Just take care of it, huh?"
"Yeah, okay."
"Thanks." Silipan gestured Pham away from the MRI gear; the brain image vanished. "That Reynolt. Her jobs are the trickiest, not by the book. Then, when you do it the right way, you're likely to end up in a heap of trouble."
Pham followed him out the door and down a side tu
"The carvers make only fifty centimeters' progress every Msec. But the art brings some of the warmth of our past."
Warmth?"Reynolt wants things pretty?" It was a random question.
"Ha. Reynolt couldn't care less. Podmaster Brughel ordered this, per my recommendation."
"But I thought Podmasters were sovereign in their domains." Pham hadn't seen much of Reynolt on prior Watches, but he had seen her humiliate Ritser Brughel in meetings with Nau.
Trud continued on for several meters, not speaking. His face quirked in a silly smile, a look he sometimes got during their bull sessions at Be
Pham let his glower fade to blank astonishment—which also happened to be his true reaction. "But...she's ru
Silipan shrugged. His smile had changed to something sour. "Yeah. She gives me orders. It's a rare thing, but it can happen. I'd almost rather work for Podmaster Brughel and Kal Omo except that they play so... rough." His voice trailed off nervously.
Pham caught up. "I think I see," he lied. "When a specialist gets Focused, he fixates on his specialty. So anartist becomes one of your mosaic carvers, a physicist becomes like Hunte Wen, and a manager becomes, uh, I don't know, the manager from Hell."
Trud shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. See, technical specialties Focus well. We got a seventy-percent success rate even with you Qeng Ho. But people skills—counseling, politics, perso
"No. A
But that's not how it turned out. My guess is, she was already close to being a monomaniac. It was one chance in a billion, but Reynolt's management abilities survived—even some of her people skills survived."
Up ahead, Pham could see the end of the tu
"You don't seem to care if she knows your opinion."
Now Trud was smiling again. "Of course not. That's the one plus of my situation. She's almost impossible to fool on things directly related to my job—but outside of that she's like any other ziphead. Why, I've played some pus-fu
"Watch her close. You'll see what I mean."
If Pham had known about A