I was right and Abbot was flat wrong. They’ll come to Earth and exterminate us like vermin, and never tell us why.

Titus doubted Earth really was this mysterious planet of telepathic spies. Dreaming couldn’t be that exotic a talent. But as long as H’lim believed it was, he wouldn’t risk the anti-luren laws of the galaxy. He put his other hand over H’lim’s. “Abbot doesn’t care about the Taurus window or my targeting program now. He knows that to cross the galaxy, your ship had to use a spaeewarp, not a straight line, which means he doesn’t need the Taurus window, so never mind the window closing for the Eighth—gone to the Eighth!”

“Across the surface? In sunlight?”

“Abbot can do anything he sets his mind to.” The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. “He’s been planning this for days. He Influenced the hiding place of the transmitter out of me the morning after we lost the landline to the Eighth. He must have found out I got his observatory transmitter, though how he’d know his message never went out.” He shrugged.

“He’s your First Father. You understand him. Go on.”

“If we’re across the galaxy, it’ll take a long time for an answer, so he’s decided the secessionists have to win the war, which is the reason he framed you. He killed Mirelle so he’d have the strength to cross the surface, but he framed you for it, so the W.S. would lose the war.”

H’lim nodded. “If I’m really a monster, then my backers are discredited and the W.S. falls. But why? Why would he want that?”

“If the W.S. wins, order will be restored because it can run the world. But if the handful of small countries that have seceded win, they’ll lose control. Economic and political chaos will break up the giant databases that interfere with Tourist activities.”

“I see. He’s playing for very high stakes. He must feel he’s sacrificing minor game pieces-Mirelle-and me.”

“And me!” He’d have planned another trap to keep Titus busy, which meant using Inea as bait somehow.

Titus remembered the look on her face that morning when H’lim had shown them the booster. “Mirelle! That’s what Inea had in mind!” Titus slewed his chair about to face H’lims vidcom. “Did you show her how to use the booster?”

“A few days ago. How did you know?”

“Oh, I know that woman’s face! I should have realized. Not that it would have done any good. She never does what I tell her to! Why’s this taking so long!”

“Calm down. The tonic has speeded up your synapses. We’ve only been speaking for a few minutes.”

Checking the time, he saw it was so. The gym records came onscreen, showing Inea and Mirelle had been in the centrifuge, but had quit early. Mirelle had been in bad shape. He hit EXIT. “She was in Mirelle’s room when Abbot arrived. She’d given Mirelle the booster. Abbot would have been livid at her transgressing his Mark.” He turned haunted eyes on his luren son. “H’lim, would he have killed her, too?”

H’lim’s lips compressed. “Titus, maybe Abbot didn’t kill Mirelle. Maybe Inea did.”

With numb fingers, Titus keyed for Mirelle’s room, trying to recall how Abbot’s override worked. If he could get a picture– suddenly, the vidcom lit up with an incoming call. Titus hit ACCEPT, and the screen cleared to show Inea leaning into the pickup, a gag across her mouth, her hands bound behind her. She was seated, and from the way she was trying to poke at the keys with her nose, Titus thought she must be bound to the chair. The color scheme behind her indicated it was Mirelle’s room.

Her eyes rose to the screen as Titus made inarticulate sounds. H’lim bent over his shoulder. “Abbot did this?”

Vocalizing strenuously, she nodded. Titus felt H’lim’s bony fingers dig into his shoulder and knew what the decision had to be. “Close down,” he ordered her, “and get out of range of the pickup. We’ll be there soon.”

At her relieved nod, he cut off. “Is there an enzyme that will eat bone? And not ruin the water recycling plant?”

H’lim thought a moment, then he, too, fixed on the bathroom door. “Yes,” he choked, “and Abbot knew about it.”

“Where is it?”

“A storage room Andre and I both use, near our labs. Yesterday, there was enough to decompose her body.”

“That is where the other booby trap set for you would be. Mirelle’s room-or maybe Inea herself-will be trapped for me. I’m going to need your help.”

H’lim paused, looking at the bathroom door. “It would be convenient if the body just disappeared without a trace.”

“That is the way Abbot expects you to react, and that’s the last worry we can afford to have. Let the W.S. lose the war and the secessionists execute all of us, but that message must not go out.”

Momentarily, H’lim assumed a preternatural stillness, then replied, “Yes. You’re right, of course.” When he moved again it was with all the bustle of an animated human.

It was the work of a moment for H’lim to cast his Influence around the guards. Titus marveled at the powerful but subtle touch the luren now used to mask their passing from all human eyes, but when he commented, H’lim said, “I can’t keep this up too long. Earth humans are just too sensitive. But of course, now I understand why that is.”

Titus didn’t have a chance to inquire. Mirelle’s door was before them. He and H’lim both went over it, looking for Abbot’s traps. Mirelle had given them the threshold before, so when H’lim picked the lock they had no trouble slipping inside. Inea, still bound to the chair, hopped it across the room, calling mutedly through the strip of sheet gagging her.

The chair itself trailed a twist of sheet that had tethered it to the kitchen sink fixture. Another piece of sheet lay across the sink, frayed end draped nearly to the floor. Titus inserted his fingers and tore the gag across, then pried the wrist and leg bonds away.

Instead of the torrent of gratitude and narrative Titus expected, Inea grew very still as she gazed up at H’lim. As Titus knelt, rubbing circulation back into her feet, Inea said, in a voice and cadence eerily like Abbot’s, “I submit, Senior, that Titus Shiddehara has violated law and custom in permitting me to act uncontrolled and thus to endanger all his kind on Earth.”

Titus hurled the bonds down , “That’s his trap! He’s Influenced her! Lord knows what else she’ll say and to whom!

There was a glassy, unfocused look in her eyes as H’lim knelt to examine her. “That may be all he left for us.”

“Not if I know Abbot. He no longer expects you to enforce the letter of our laws.”

“Doesn’t his using Influence over your Mark constitute a capital offense as well?”

“No. He’s my father, and he’s only scripted her to expose me-probably to any other luren as well as to Colby, though what she’d tell Colby I don’t know.”

H’lim cradled Inea’s jaw in his hands and inspected her eyes. “I can counter it. It’s very superficial.”

Titus reached forth with his own senses to confirm that, swallowing against the ache in his gut. “Yes. Abbot’s always scrupulously legal.” He removed H’lim’s fingers. Titus could see that ferreting out all the triggers Abbot had left would be a delicate job if he wanted to have all of Inea there when he finished. “Stand clear.”

When H’lim had moved back, Titus administered the Influential equivalent of a sobering slap, and Inea blinked hard, twice, shook her head, and gazed at Titus as if he had no right to appear out of thin air. Quickly, he explained what Abbot had done to her. “I can undo it when you’re ready to let me, or H’lim can, but it will take hours. Inea, we don’t have hours-”

She suddenly turned white, rose, and lurched to the bathroom where she shut herself in. The sound of water running almost covered the sound of retching. Titus picked up the bonds and shoved the chair out of the middle of the floor, starting after her. “Did I hurt her bringing her out of it so fast?”