“Oh, try me,” Sasha Blaine said. “The Architects were able to pick up morphogenetic signals and human souls. I wouldn’t think that episodes of The Simpsons would be a real stretch for them.”

Dale turned to her. “I don’t claim to have mastered the search engine, but I have learned this: Anything that was transmitted anywhere near Earth in the past twenty-four years, ever since Keanu entered the solar system, is here somewhere, stored and theoretically retrievable. I’m not just talking television and radio, but ham radio signals and telephone calls. Billions of telephone calls. Internet posts that went wireless. Obviously, I could only access a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of any of it, and I can only read or understand a tiny bit of that.

“Another thing: Terrestrial encryption means nothing to the Architects and their software.

“It just boggled my mind when I realized what it was doing. It still does, because, FYI, Keanu is still recording.”

Jaidev spoke. “You still haven’t told us how and where you learned about Rachel’s landing and these threats.”

“Landing news is everywhere outside India, nonofficial but public transmissions. You could see and hear those if your old antenna were working.

“The threats? That’s more subterranean, various blogs and other links. But convincing. A source I trust.”

Harley looked at Sasha Blaine, who looked away, through the curtain.

Then Harley looked at Jaidev, who stood up. “Deal with this.”

And the Bangalore engineer-leader walked out.

“What does that mean?” Dale said. “That’s it?”

“Sorry, Dale,” Harley said. “You’re not going anywhere for a while.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re a . . . security risk.”

“Be serious.” Dale knew Harley well enough to know that Harley was serious, and felt stupid about it.

“You’ve stepped in something.”

“I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me what.”

“Nope.”

“You’re not even interested in what information I have?”

“Oh, we’re interested. We want you where you can be questioned.”

Dale wanted to laugh. “What are you going to do . . . clap me in irons?”

Harley said nothing but looked past Dale toward Sasha, and the curtain.

Which had parted, revealing three serious-looking young people, one woman and two men, who were there to take Dale Scott into custody.

THE LATEST:

Word from various places in India confirms arrival of the Keanu folks, including a Sentry! (Can’t wait to hear the explanation for that.)

One of the crew is badly injured and reportedly not likely to survive.

All are temporarily sequestered at an air base north of Bangalore, near the site of their landing.

Crowds are being kept at bay, but the whole operation leaks like an old boat—good for us, but potentially bad for the Keanu folks. Not only are they fat targets for the Aggs, but anyone on the Indian subcontinent who has a religious gripe with them, and this appears to be a good number.

Well, we warned them to stay away, right? Anyone remember that?

But, since they’re here . . .

COLIN EDGELY TO THE KETTERING GROUP,

APRIL 13, 2040

YAHVI

The first night was awful. Partly it was the weight of the hours, the isolation, the creepy interior of the hospital, the presence of guards . . . combined with Rachel’s motherly iciness.

Mostly, though, it was the food. Everything Yahvi had eaten in her life had been produced in the Keanu human habitat, either grown from existing stock the HBs had discovered—some of it not remotely terrestrial—or from prototypes engineered by the proteus after considerable trial and error. And while there were spices and curries suited to the tastes of the Bangalore majority, none of it prepared Yahvi for the variety of exotic dishes she was now supposed to consume.

Half of the food on the table appeared to have non-Indian origin, too. There was some kind of rice dish topped with sliced circular items that Yahvi suspected were meat of some kind. They must have been, because Xavier and even Rachel greedily dug into it. “Not bad for Bangalore jambalaya,” Xavier said.

There were even boxes of food from places with names like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut. “Where on Earth did you get these?” Rachel said.

“Come on, baby,” Pav said, “there were franchises in Bangalore when I lived here.”

“I just wonder who the franchise money goes to these days,” Xavier said. “Those were American companies. Are we supporting the Reivers by eating this?” It was clear he wasn’t expecting an answer, as he happily tipped a flat, wedge-shaped object toward his mouth and bit into it. “God, pepperoni,” he said, his mouth full. “You know, I could never get this quite right in the habitat.”

“Or pastrami or steak or any red meat,” Rachel said.

“Not even chicken.”

The HBs had few animals, for one thing. For another, the idea of slaughtering any for food was repugnant to most of the imported population—and as far as Yahvi knew, everyone in her generation.

She wasn’t going near the hut pizza or large mack or whatever the supposed “American” food was. Dealing with the Indian cuisine was bad enough.

So she picked at her food and soon gave up the effort. As any mother would, Rachel noticed. “There’s nothing you like?”

“No.”

“Not even the naan?”

“It’s not like they make it at home.”

“It’s just got onion in it.”

“What’s onion?”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “You know what onion is . . .” She tasted another dish that Yahvi had rejected. “Oh, never mind; that’s coconut.”

“What is that and why would anyone eat it?”

Xavier laughed. “Try this,” he said, holding out a dish that had a whitish tube-shaped object smothered in other items. “It’s a plantain. Kind of like a banana.”

“I never had a banana, so . . .”

Rachel forced a smile. “Why don’t you just eat what looks and tastes good? It’s not as though you’ll starve.” Then she turned back to Pav and Taj.

Yahvi ventured a few more bites, then picked up the Beta unit and walked out. All through the day, the conference room had begun to feel exactly like the flight deck of Adventure. Which was a place she found interesting at first but soon began to loathe.

Not that the halls of the Yelahanka Air Base hospital were a great improvement over the conference room. Rachel had told her she could go “anywhere,” except for the surgeries and recovery rooms, and the loading dock, and the entrance. Well, she could probably walk up to the entrance—but she couldn’t go out.

Not that she wanted to go out. The conference room was only a few meters from the reception desk and the main entrance. Yahvi lingered there behind the door, looking through the window, watching things for a few moments. There was an Indian Air Force guard at the desk, with another pair seated on opposite sides of the small lobby. All three men looked bored; Yahvi suspected that one of the men in the chairs was actually asleep.

Beyond them, a set of glass doors showed very little, except that night had arrived.

What if she did just walk past the guards and out into the night? Then what? She knew that the hospital was located in the heart of a large base, so leaving it would require a long walk . . . possibly the longest walk in a straight line she had ever made.

What lay outside the fences and gates? Stores? A highway? Homes? Empty fields? Her parents might know; her grandfather would certainly know, but what good would the information do her? Any real “exploration” would require mechanized transport, and she had no access to that. (Until riding in the Jeep from the landing site to the hospital, Yahvi’s only experience with vehicular travel had been in the Keanu trolley while working on Substance K collection.)