"I'm not going under. I'm not. I knowwhat they did." He took a deep breath and drew Grant closer, hugged him, leaned against him, exhausted. "I'm doing all right. Maybe I'm doing better than I have been in the last six years."

Grant looked at him, pale and panicked.

"I swear," Justin said. He was beyond cold. Frozen through. Numb. "Damn," he said. "We've got time, don't we?"

"We've got time," Grant said. And pulled at him. Come on. You re freezing. So am I. Let's get inside."

He got up. He threw the rest of the food to the fish, stuffed the napkin into his pocket with numb fingers, and walked. He was not thoroughly conscious of the route, of all the automatic things. Grant had no more to say until they got to the office in Wing Two.

Then Grant lingered at the door of his office. Just looked at him, as if to ask if he was all right. "I've got to run to library."

He gave Grant a silent lift of the chin. I'm all right. Go on, then.

Grant bit his lip. "See you at lunch."

"Right."

Grant left. He sat down in the disordered little office, logged on to the House system, and prepared to get to work. But a message-dot was blinking on the corner of his screen. He windowed it up.

See me first thing, my office,it said. Giraud Nye.

He sat there staring at the thing. He found his hand shaking when he reached to punch the off switch.

He was not ready for this. Psychprobe flashed into his mind; all the old nightmares. He needed all his self-control.

All the old reflexes were gone. Everything. Hewas vulnerable. Grant was.

He had whatever time it took to walk over there to pull himself together. He did not know what to do, whether to route himself past the library and try to warn Grant—but that looked guilty. Every move he could make could damn him.

No, he thought then, and bit his lip till it bled. It flashed back to another meeting. A taste of blood in his mouth. Hysteria jammed behind his teeth.

It's started,he thought. It's happened.

He turned the machine on, sent a message over to Grant's office: Giraud wants to see me. I may be held up on the lunch. —J.It was warning enough. What Grant could do about it, he had no idea.

Worry. That was what.

He shut down again, got up, locked the office, and walked down the corridor, still tasting the blood. He kept looking at things and people with the thought that he might not be back. That the next thing he and Grant might see might be an interview room in the hospital.

ix

Giraud's office was the same he had always had, in the Administrative Wing, the same paneled and unobtrusive entry with the outside lock—more security than Ari had ever used. Giraud was no longer official head of Security. He was CouncillorNye these days—for outsiders' information. But everyone in the House knew who was running Security—still.

Justin slid his card into the lock, heard it click, set for his CIT-number. He walked into the short paneled hall and opened the inside door, on the office where Giraud's azi Abban was at his accustomed desk.

That was the first thing he saw. In the next split-second he saw the two Security officers and Abban was rising casually from his chair.

He stopped cold. And looked at the nearer of the azi officers, eye to eye, calmly: Let's be civilized.He took the next quiet step inside and let the door shut at his back.

They had a body-scanner. "Arms out, ser," the one on the left said. He obliged them, let them pass the wand over him. It found something in his coat pocket. The officer pulled out the paper napkin. Justin gave him a disparaging look in spite of the fact that his heart was going like a hammer and the air in the room seemed too thin.

They satisfied themselves he was not armed. Abban opened the door and they took him through it.

Giraud was not the only one there. Denys was. And Petros Ivanov. He felt his heart trying to come up his throat. One of the officers held him lightly by the arm and guided him to the remaining chair, in front of Giraud's desk. Denys sat in a chair to the left of the desk, Petros to the right.

Like a tribunal.

And the Security men stayed, one with his hand on the back of Justin's chair, until Giraud lifted a hand and told them to leave. But Justin's ears told him someone had stayed when the door had shut.

Abban, he thought.

"You understand why you're here," Giraud said. "I don't have to tell you."

Giraud wanted an answer. "Yes, ser," he said in a muted voice.

They'll do what they damned well please.

Why have they got Petros here? Unless they're going to run a probe.

"Have you got anything to say?" Giraud asked.

"I don't think I should have to." He found a tenuous control of his voice. Dammit, get a grip on things.

And like a wind out of the dark: Steady, sweet.Don't give everything away.

"I didn't provoke that. God knowsI didn't want it."

"You could have damn well left."

"I left."

"After."Giraud's face was thin-lipped with anger. He picked up a stylus and posed it between his fingers. "What's your intention? To sabotage the project?"

"No. I was there like everyone else. No different. I was minding my own business. What did you do, prime her for that show? Is thatit? A little show? Impress the Family? Con the press? I'll betyou've got tape."

Giraud had not expected that. He gave away very little. Denys and Petros looked distressed.

"The child wasn't prompted," Denys said quietly. "You have my word, Justin, it wasn't prompted."

"The hell it wasn't. It's a damn good show for the news, isn't it—just the sort of thing that makes great fodder for the eetees out there. The kid singles out the killer's replicate. God! what a piece of science!"

"Don't bother to play for a camera," Giraud said. "We're not being taped."

"I didn't expect." He was shaking. He shifted his foot to relax his leg, to keep it from trembling. But, God, the brain was working. They were going to haul him off for another session, that was what they were working up to; and somehow that shook the fog out of his mind. "I imagine you'll work me over good before I get to the cameras. But it'd be sloppy as hell to have me on the tape in that party and dropping right out again. Or turning up dead. Makes a problem for you, doesn't it?"

"Justin," Petros said, a tone of appeal. "No one's going to 'work you over.' That's not what we're about here."

"Sure."

"What we're about," Giraud said in a hard, clipped voice, "is one clear question. Did youcue her?"

"You find your own answers. Write down whatever you want. Look at the damn tape."

"We have," Giraud said. "Grant had eye contact with her. So did you, right before she moved."

Attack on a new target. Of course they got around to Grant. "What else were people looking at? What else were we thereto look at? I looked at her. Did you think I'd come there and not?You saw me there. You could have told me to leave. But of course you didn't. You set me up. You set up the whole thing. How many people in there knew it? Just you?"

"You maintain you didn't cue her."

"Dammit, no. Neither of us did. I asked Grant. He wouldn't lie to me. He admits the eye contact. He was looking at her. 'I got caught at it,' was the way he put it. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't mine."