Now the guy was really worried, grasping at random explanations. Trinli seemed too dense to notice. He grinned and slapped Silipan lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You know Qiwi Lisolet is in on the deal. That means that Podmaster Nau wants the zips to be more widely used, too. We'll just say you were aboard the temp to help me with the details."

The taxi turned end for end, braking for its landing. The rockpile and Arachna tumbled across the sky.

TWENTY-FIVE

They didn't see the Honored Pedure on the way out of the radio station. Daddy was a little subdued, but he smiled and laughed when the cobblies told him how much they liked his performance. He didn't even scold Gokna for Giving Ten. Brent got to sit up front with Daddy on the way back to Hill House.

Gokna and Victory didn't talk much in the car. They both knew that everybody was fooling everybody.

When they got home, it was still two hours until dinner. The kitchen staff claimed that General Smith had returned from Lands Command and that she would be at dinner. Gokna and Viki exchanged looks.I wonderwhat Mother will say to Daddy. The juiciest parts wouldn't be at dinner.Hmm. So what to do with the rest of the afternoon? The sisters split up, separately recon'd the spiraled halls of Hill House. There were rooms—lots of rooms—that were always locked. Some of them were ones that they had never even been able to steal keys for. The General had her own offices here, even if the most important stuff was down at Lands Command.

Viki poked into Daddy's ground-floor den and the tech-level cafeteria, but only briefly. She'd bet Gokna that Daddy would not be hiding, but now she realized that today "not hiding" did not preclude "difficult to find." She roamed through the labs, found the typical signs of his passage, graduate students in various states of puzzlement and sudden, surprised enlightenment. ("Underhill Dazzle" was what the students called it: If you came away puzzled, chances were that Daddy had said something worthwhile. If you were instantly enlightened, it probably meant Daddy had fooled both himself and you with a facile misinsight.)

The new signals lab was near the top of the house, under a roof full of experimental antennas. She caught Jaybert Landers coming down the steps from there. The cobber wasn't showing any symptoms of Underhill Dazzle. Too bad.

"Hello, Jaybert. Have you seen my—"

"Yeah, they're both up in the lab." He jerked a hand over his shoulder.

Aha! But Viki didn't immediately sidle past him. If the General was already here, maybe she should get some far intelligence. "So what's happening, Jaybert?"

Of course, Jaybert took the question to be about his work. "Damnedest thing. I put my new antenna on the Lands Command link just this morning. At first the alignment was fine, but then I started getting these fifteen-second patches where it looks like there are two stations on the line-of-sight. I wanted to ask your father—" Viki followed him a few steps down the stairs, making agreeable sounds to the other's unintelligible talk about amplifier stages and transient alignment failures. No doubt Jaybert had been very pleased to get Daddy's quick attention, and no doubt Daddy had been delighted for an excuse to hole up in the signals lab. And then Mother showed up... .

Viki left Jaybert down by his office-cubby, and climbed back up the stairs, this time circling around to the lab's utility entrance. There was a column of light at the end of the corridor. Ha! The door was partway open. She could hear the General's voice. Viki slipped down the hallway to the door.

"—just don't understand, Sherkaner. You are a brilliant person. How can you behave like such an idiot?"

Victory Junior hesitated, almost backed out of the darkened hall. She had never heard Mom sound quite so angry. It...hurt. On the other hand, Gokna would give anything to hear Viki's report-of-action. Viki moved silently forward, turned her head sideways to peek through the narrow gap. The lab was pretty much as she remembered it, full of oscilloscopes and high-speed recorders. The covers were off some of Jaybert's gear, but apparently Mom had arrived before the two got into any serious electronic dismemberment. Mother was standing in front of Daddy, blocking his best eyes from seeing Viki.And I bet I'm near the center of Mom's blind spot.

"...Was I really that bad?" Daddy was saying.

"Yes!"

Sherkaner Underhill seemed to wilt under the General's glare. "I don't know. The cobber got me off guard. The comment about little Brent. I knew that was coming. You and I had talked about that. Even Brent and I talked about it. And even so, it knocked my legs out. I got confused."

Mom jerked her hand, dismissing the comment. "That was no problem, Sherk. You gave a good response. Your hurt came across in a caring, paternal way. And yet a few minutes later she sucked you in—"

"Except for the astronomy, I only said things we had planned for the show over the next year."

"But you said them all at once!"

"...I know. Pedure started talking like a bright, curious person. Like Hrunk or people here at Hill House. She raised some interesting questions and I got carried away. And you know? Even now...this Pedure is smart and flexible. Given time, I think I could have won her over."

The General's laugh was sharp and unhappy. "God Below, you are a fool! Sherk, I..." Mom reached out to touch Daddy. "I'm sorry. Funny, I don't chew out my own staffers the way I do you."

Daddy made a kindly sound, like when he was talking to Rhapsa or Little Hrunk. "You know the reason for that, dear. You love me as much as yourself. And I know how much you chew on yourself."

"Inside. Only silently, and inside." They were quiet for a moment, and Little Victory wished that she had lost her recon game with Gokna. But when Mother spoke again, her voice was more normal. "We both screwed up on this." She keyed open her travel case and picked out some papers. "Over the next year, ‘The Children's Hour' was to introduce the virtue and the possibility of life in the Dark, on schedule with the first construction contracts. Someday, we knew there would be military consequences, but we didn't expect anything at this stage."

"Military consequences now?"

"Deadly maneuvering, anyway. You know this Pedure cobber is from Tiefstadt."

"Sure. Her accent is unmistakable."

"Her cover is good, partly because it's mainly true. Honored Pedure is Cleric Three in the Church of the Dark. But she's also midlevel intelligence with Action of God."

"The Kindred."

"Indeed. We've had friendly relations with the Tiefers since the war, but the Kindred are beginning to change that. They already have several minor states in their effective control. They're a legitimate sect of the Church, but—"

Far down the corridor behind Little Victory, someone turned on a hall light. Mom raised a hand and stood very still.Oops. Maybe she had noticed a faint silhouette, familiar grooves and armored fluting. Without turning, Smith extended a long arm in the direction of the eavesdropper. "Junior! Shut the door and get yourself back to your room."

Little Victory's voice was small and abashed. "Yes, Mother."

As she slid the utility door closed, she heard one last comment: "Damn. I spend fifty million a year on signal security, and my own daughter is running intercepts on me—"

Just now, the clinic under Hammerfest was a crowded place. On Pham's previous visits, there had been Trud, sometimes another technician, and one or two "patients." Today—well, a hand grenade would have caused more turmoil among the Focused, but not by much. Both the MRI units were occupied. One of the handlers was prepping Xopi Reung for MRI; the woman moaned, thrashing against his efforts. Over in a corner, Dietr Li—the physicist?—was strapped down, mumbling to himself.