They were hospital rooms, of course, with medical monitoring equipment removed and an extra chair and rollaway garment rack added.

As if we were packing several changes of clothes, Rachel thought. They each carried half a dozen versions of the same basic outfit; fashion was not a big deal among the HBs. No one had tried to use the proteus to make a sport coat or a little black cocktail dress.

The whole suite looked more appropriate to the prison ward of some white-collar American jail. The feeling was enhanced by the presence of two armed guards at the nurses’ station.

“There are bathrooms in two of the rooms,” Remilla said. “They have safety railings, of course. We weren’t able to remove them without rebuilding the facilities.”

“That we can deal with,” Rachel said. “Anything will be better than the accommodations aboard Adventure.” The onboard “bathroom” had been a curtained-off set of covered buckets on the cargo deck.

She wondered about Melani Remilla—was she married, did she have children? Was she a real engineer or scientist, or a policy wonk or political appointee? She looked like the former—a bit dowdy and distracted—but acted and sounded like the latter.

And did any of that matter? With luck, Rachel and team would be on their way elsewhere within a day or two, even if Sanjay had to remain behind. There would be other political operatives, flacks, and wheeler-dealers to confront—

“There are so many questions I want to ask you.”

Remilla had been silent for so long that the sound of her voice, echoing in this empty hallway, startled Rachel. “I feel the same.”

“Which is why we scheduled the group briefings and various conferences . . .” Remilla’s voice trailed off.

“You want to ask me something in private, and it feels as though you’re cheating the rest of the committee.” Rachel was aware that she had the bad habit of finishing other people’s thoughts. The high degree of accuracy had failed to make it one of her more popular habits.

But Remilla seemed relieved. “What do you really want to do here?” she said. “You aren’t equipped to explore—”

“We will be doing some sightseeing.”

Remilla made a skeptical face. All right, Rachel thought. Tell her. “We want to visit Texas, the U.S.”

“That’s what I feared.”

“It can’t be a surprise.”

“I understand perfectly—if I’d been taken from my home twenty years in the past, I’d want to visit. But you heard your father-in-law. Texas and the U.S., they are not what you remember. You won’t be welcome.”

They were about to leave the suite and go back to more public areas. Rachel took Remilla’s arm. “And now, a private question from me to you,” Rachel said.

“That’s only fair,” Remilla said, visibly bracing herself.

“The entities that control the Free Nations . . . how have you been able to stop their spread?”

“You heard Taj: a combination of embargo, fences, and other barriers, occasional conflicts. But, truly? I’m not at all certain that we have. I think they remain ‘contained’ because they choose to.”

“Which leads to, why?”

“That is the single question that obsesses us all, every government, every scientific body. The Aggregates are working on something big, and likely very nasty.”

“What does that mean?”

“The best current theory is that they are building a giant energy weapon that they can use to strike anywhere on the globe, essentially destroying cities and defenses from thousands of kilometers distant—”

“Then moving in?”

Remilla shrugged. “That would be the idea. It’s what seems to be obsessing and paralyzing our military, because they have no way of counteracting it.”

“What about destroying this energy weapon? It’s one giant installation, right?”

“Yes, located deep in the heart of Free Nation U.S.”

“India had nuclear missiles twenty years ago.”

“And still possesses a handful, but they are all twenty years old . . . and likely to be easy pickings for Aggregate countermeasures.”

“So taking a few shots at them would do nothing except get them angry.”

“‘Stirring the hornets’ nest’ is the phrase that keeps coming up.”

“What do you think?”

Remilla thought for a moment. “I’m not sure it is an energy weapon. There is also a great deal of other data about huge buildups of conventional weapons . . . especially land vehicles.”

Rachel found that image troubling, and also strange. “So they’re planning to invade Mexico?”

“Mexico is already a Free Nation, though there are pockets where even the Aggregates don’t go,” Remilla said. “But they could use ships to transport these vehicles to Asia.”

“It sounds as though you really don’t know.”

“The matter is above my pay grade, as they say.”

“Then how about this matter, at our level,” Rachel said. “How well do you know Commander Kaushal?”

Rachel’s experience with politicians was limited to the HB Council, but even that relatively limited pool had trained her to recognized wariness and hesitation. She could tell that Melani Remilla’s eyes narrowed some fraction of a centimeter—about the same distance her eyebrows rose—even as she said, in a voice that betrayed no change of attitude, “Why do you ask?”

“He seems cautious and controlling.”

“He’s a military man.” Now the ISRO official’s expression changed from wariness to something like bemusement.

“My father-in-law is a general, too,” Rachel said. “This isn’t a case of military-versus-civilian. One of our crew is in dire medical condition and we aren’t being given timely information, we aren’t being allowed to see him. We are being treated like prisoners.

“I understand his concern for the . . . safety of Earth,” Rachel said, feeling as though Melani Remilla could do with a reminder. “But we are six people, one of them a teenager. You’ve already performed medical examinations; we aren’t carrying a plague from space. In fact, given where we’ve lived for the past two decades, we are more likely to catch some terrestrial bug.

“So think of us as free human beings you welcomed to your lovely nation . . . to your planet . . . who have certain tasks they wish to accomplish, and a limited time in which to accomplish them.”

“I’m sure Kaushal can be persuaded to accommodate you,” Remilla said, “with one exception.” Rachel had a good idea what the exception was, but she forced Remilla to state it. “He will never allow you to go to the U.S.”

“I didn’t realize it was up to him.” She smiled, though she wasn’t feeling the humor of the moment. “In fact, I thought it was up to you and ISRO, or possibly this Mr. Kateel and the local government.”

“ISRO won’t stand in your way, but Kateel wishes he and the local government had never heard of you, so he is likely to support the Indian Air Force, which in this case is Kaushal.”

“Why does he care?”

“He thinks you might start a war. Given that Aggregate-controlled U.S. warships came close enough to our coast to shoot at you, I must confess that he has a point.”

Rachel smiled. Kaushal was actually quite correct. Well, as her father used to say . . . it’s better to know who your enemy is as early as possible. “In that case,” Rachel said, “please tell Wing Commander Kaushal that we are grateful for his hospitality and that we have no expectation that he will help us travel to the U.S.”

“Which means that you will depend on others?”

“At this moment,” Rachel said, and she was quite truthful, “I don’t know who that would be.”

Both women had asked their questions and now seemed lost with each other. “Your daughter,” Remilla finally said. “Is she enjoying the Beta unit?”

“Very much,” Rachel said. “If she hasn’t said thank you, she will.”

Yahvi’s obvious fascination with the Beta actually surprised Rachel—her daughter had zero experience with recorded music, and damned little with music of any kind beyond unaccompanied singing. The number of instruments among the HBs was three: a guitar, a flute, and a harmonica. There were a few guitar players in the population, and several who had self-taught over twenty years. But overall, musical instruments were as high on the 3-D printer priority list as fashion accessories, which was to say not very.