“Is it possible the evolvons have been planted since we left Mars or arrived on Earth?” Bithras asked.

“Very unlikely. I have not been accessed by specialists for repair, which would be the only way they could be planted after my incept date.”

Bithras folded his hands on his knee. “If you have these… evolvons, then Alice One has them as well.”

“Most likely,” Alice said.

“They were copied from her to you. And they escaped our most expert traces. That means they were planted by the manufacturer, right here on Earth.” “ The implications were jolting.

“I apologize for my inability to be trustworthy,” Alice said.

“No need to apologize,” Bithras said. “We’ll remove the evolvons — ”

“Jill does not believe that can be done without great care to avoid damaging my personality. They are imbedded in key routines.”

“Do you know what will activate them?” I asked.

“No,” Alice said.

“Can you guess?” I pursued.

“Specific triggering codes delivered by any of my inputs,” Alice said.

“They are sabotage,” Bithras observed, “waiting to happen.”

“Who’s responsible?” I asked.

“Earth,” he said, lips curling. “Sane, wonderful Earth.”

Bithras sent an emergency message to Mars, contents unknown to us, and returned to his bed, exhausted, soon after. Allen and I stayed up, ordered a bottle of wine, and sat drinking, talking with Alice .

“The most important thing,” I said, finishing the first glass, “is whether Alice wants to continue working with us.”

“Bithras and I have discussed this,” Alice said.

Allen and I felt tired and sad and discouraged, as if suffering through an illness in the family. What was dying rapidly was any joy we might have had, coming to Earth; any feeling of value as representatives of Mars, any sense of self-worth whatsoever. We were isolated, our friend was compromised in such a way that we could no longer have faith in her…

“What did Bithras say?” I asked softly.

“He believes I should carry on with my duties. I will of course be glad to continue.”

“Can you tell… ?” Allen asked, not finishing.

“I will not know when or if an evolvon is activated. This I have told Bithras.”

“Everything we set out to do is being scuttled,” Allen said, twirling his glass in his hand. “We can’t trust anybody or anything here.”

“They’re frightened,” I blurted. I had not mentioned my conversation with President Muir; I had not wanted to leave any impression that I was trying to conduct diplomatic inquiries on my own. And the conversation itself had not made much sense to me, had no context, until now. “They’re afraid of what we can do.”

“What can they possibly be afraid of?” Allen asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t figure it out.” I described my visit to the Omphalos. When I finished, Allen whistled and poured himself another glass.

“ Alice ,” he said, “does any of this make sense to you?”

“If I model the situation correctly, we are in the middle of changing political strategies,” she said. “Earth obviously prepared decades ago for unexpected situations by placing evolvons in thinkers shipped to Mars.”

“Perhaps all thinkers,” I said. “Maybe that’s why Jill analyzed you… She suspects something, and she doesn’t approve.”

Abruptly, the image of Alice Liddell appeared, sitting beside Allen on the couch. He jumped. “Sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to startle you.”

“What could possibly have changed their strategy?” I asked.

“Bithras received a communication from Cailetet, a copy of a text message from Stanford University sent to the Olympian research group on Mars,” Alice said. “He discussed it with Casseia.” Alice projected the message for us.

“We’ve established strong link between time tweak and space tweak. Can derive most special relat. Third tweak discovered may be co-active but purpose unknown. Tweak time, tweak space, third tweak changes automatically. Probably derive general relat. as regards curvature, but third tweak pushes a fourth tweak, weakly and sporadically… Derive conservation of destiny? Fifty tweaks discovered so far. More to come. Can you share your discoveries? Mutual bennies if yes.

“Still sounds like gibberish,” I said.

“There have been no further messages from Cailetet,” Alice said. “They’re stonewalling on the unification proposals, and they’ve rejected Majumdar’s offers to join in the Olympians’ physics research.”

‘That’s new,” I said. ”Bithras hasn’t told us about that.“

“Bithras keeps many worries to himself.”

“Does the message mean anything to you?” Allen asked Alice .

“Bell Continuum theory treats the universe as an informational array, a computational system. The Olympians applied for grants with abstracts on such theory. Some of their applications were sent to Earth, one to Stanford, where they established communications with the group that sent this message.”

Alice projected LitVid reports on related topics from the past year. The Stanford group had published only three public papers in the past ten years, none of them dealing with the Bell Continuum. Alice concluded the display by saying, “Bithras has been unable to rent key papers and research vids related to the Bell Continuum, and has found only popular references to the topic of ‘descriptor theory.’ ”

“Why didn’t Bithras tell us?” I asked.

“I believe he did not think it was terribly important. But your visit with President Muir would interest him. Her instincts appear sound.”

“Something’s going on?” Allen asked.

“Perhaps,” Alice said.

“Something big enough to make Earth change course and reject our proposal?”

“It seems possible,” Alice said. “Casseia, in the morning, you should tell Bithras about your meeting with the ex-President.”

“All right,” I said, staring at the coffee table and my empty glass of wine.

“I believe he will ask you to speak with Charles Franklin.”

I shook my head, but said, “If he asks.”

I told Bithras about my meeting with Muir, and about our suspicions. He asked.

I took a walk alone on the banks of the Potomac in the hour before dawn. The air brushed clear and cool against my bare arms. The sky above the river sparkled a starry, dusty blue. Combs to the south and east shaded the river even after dawn colored the sky deep teal and edged the few wisps of cloud with orange. I walked along the damp stone path, enjoying the mingled scents of honeysuckle and jasmine, giant roses and thick-leafed designer magnolia bushes, blooming in the hectares of gardens beneath the combs. Arcs of steel and mesh guided bougainvillea over the walkway, creating tunnels of deeper shade lighted at foot level by thin glowing ribbons twined around stone pillars. Artificial sun slowly brightened the gardens. Thumb-sized bees emerged from ground hives, intent on servicing the huge flowers.

The last thing I wanted was to intrude on Charles, ask him questions he would not want to answer, be indebted to him. We had caused each other enough distress in our short time together. Besides, what questions would I ask?

I had studied physics texts and vids in the past few sleepless hours. There was mention of the Bell Continuum and the universe as a computational system — mostly in the context of evolution of constants and particles in the early stages of the big bang. I knew enough about academics to pick up the general impression that these theories were not highly favored.

Was Charles’s group of Olympians (what an arrogant name!) alarming politicians on Earth with talk, or had Earth discovered something it didn’t want Mars to know?

I sat on a warmed stone bench, face in hands, rubbing my temples with my index fingers.

I had already composed my message to Charles: pure text, formal, as if we had never been lovers.