And then there was the item that stood a little down from all the others: Recusal Advisements, that is, team members who might somehow compromise this watch. Normally, that was the most paranoid list of all — but his crew would see no cloud of detail here, not even links. Such advice was Eyes Only for himself and his backups. In practice, if there had been any serious problems there, they would have been taken care of well before this briefing.

"Questions?"

He looked around. There was a moment of silence, marines drinking in the details of the moment, answering a lot of questions for themselves. Then the young slang-slinger spoke up. "Sir, the equipment, is it the same as for a technical-threat overseas mission?"

Bob looked back into the young eyes. "The boost gear is lighter than usual… That's the only difference, Corporal. We're here to protect, but ultimately that means to protect the whole country." The whole world, some would say . "So, yes, we're carrying a full strategic load." He leaned back and gave a look that included all his marines. "I don't expect any problems. If we pay attention and do our jobs, this will be just another peaceful evening for the people of California."

He dismissed the crew, and the room shrank to its true dimensions. Patrick Westin had a few follow-up questions about squad deployment, and then his image departed, too. Bob Gu turned down his augmentation and for a brief moment there was just his table and chair, sitting by the coffee machine. On his right was the doorway that led to real hardware. With luck, he wouldn't see any of that tonight.

Bob — > Alice: Are you cool?

Alice — > Bob: Cool and clear. The UCSD thing will be good practice for my lab audit. Talk to you after. That is, after the watch was complete. Tonight Alice was top analyst; if she weren't currently Trained for the audit, she might have been the operational commander. She was one of only a handful of people qualified for both jobs. In either role, she was a joy to work with — as long as he didn't have to think about the sacrifices that made her performance possible.

He finished his coffee and brought back his visuals, now fully customized. He checked again with Cheryl Grant. She was ready to go. Okay, for the record:

Gu — > Grant: I take the watch, ma'am. He and Grant exchanged salutes. The clock was started. His squads settled into total alertness. They would have to stay that way for four hours — not a long time, but about the longest you could remain watch-alert without drugs.

Bob's job was different. He was like a sheepdog running around the outside of the flock, skittering from topic to topic. He watched where marines and analysts were spending their time. This was partly to stay ahead of hot spots, partly to detect attentional holes. For a moment, he looked down from a popular-press viewpoint over UCSD. This… event… was going to involve a lot of demonstrators, many of them physically present. And network stats showed that a flash crowd situation was possible on top of that. He wondered if Miri was surfing this.

The thought brought him back to the moment. He looked again at the Recusal Advisements. Half of his marines had relatives enrolled at UCSD. That was the big problem with a local snoop. Three of his people were actually part-time students at UCSD. The slang-slinger had a hobby of Scoochi decoration that involved a number of Bangalore fans. If this hadn't been the kid's duty night, he'd be down there on campus right now. But the analysts had done a minute-by-minute on the young fellow, going back fourteen months. There were some illegalities, some enhancement drug abuse, but nothing that would affect the mission.

Bob had searched the entire recusal tree. Now he ran off its pointers, boring deep. Dad didn't show up. And I was sure he'd be mixed up in the Librareome thing . Not that that would be serious grounds for recusal. He was skittering too far afield, a common problem for commanders with latitude —

Xiu Xiang ? The name was vaguely familiar, but it wouldn't have popped out at him if his own name hadn't been in the item. Xiang was one of about three hundred thousand people in CONUS Southwest who were currently of interest for tinkering with hardware. Much of that was illegal, of course; such people could be thrown to the FBI. But it was more productive simply to track them. Most of these people were benign hobbyists or intellectual-property cheats. Some were the hands for terrorist cults. And some were the analyst smarts behind those cults. Xiang had the intelligence and training to be in this last category, but so far the most interesting thing about her was the range of toys she had built, a regular museum of oddball electronics. And she was in one of Dad's classes. That connection was marked "tenuous."

But there was also a reference to Rainbows End Rest Home… This woman was Mom's roomie! And all this time he'd worried about how dull life must be for Mom nowadays. What a team: the mad scientist and his mother the shrink and — Whafs this ? Weeks of do-it-yourself snooping that Miri and Mom and this Xiang had run on Dad. A dozen surmises rose to mind, and — Mission, mission, keep your eyes on the mission . He resolutely pushed all the personal issues aside. The main thing this proved was the stupidity of running watches with local personnel.

Bob grabbed another coffee and settled back to watch the views of UCSD and the night's other hot spots. In the modern military, losing concentration was much the same sin as falling asleep on duty. It was time to get in the groove.

And still, a tiny internal voice did its best to distract: What in heaven's name have Miri and Mom been up to ?

Monday, 5:00 p.m. Finally .

Twilight was still colorful in the sky over La Jolla Shores when Robert drove into the traffic loop north of Warschawski Hall. He headed east on foot, toward the Geisel Library.

"Ready for the big night, my man?" That was the Stranger-Sharif, walking beside him. Passersby didn't seem to see his green-faced companion.

Robert gave the Stranger a sour look. "I'm ready to see you deliver."

"Don't worry. If we succeed tonight, you'll have your peculiar genius fully back, my word on it."

Robert grunted. Not for the first time he speculated on the lunacy of the terminally desperate.

"And don't look so discouraged, Professor. You've already done your hardest part. Tonight it's mainly Tommie Parker who has to get things straight."

"Tommie? I wonder."

"You wonder?" The Stranger's smile broadened. "So you've identified Tommie's 'miracle design bureau'? Poor Tommie. He's the only one of you who thinks he's running free. In fact, he thinks I'm just one of his best collaborators. See, I can be nice when that's absolutely necessary."

There were as many people here as Robert had ever seen on a campus evening in his grad-school days. Up ahead, in the direction of the library, light hung in the sky, brighter than the twilight behind them. Looking down from the tops of the eucalyptus trees, Robert could see crowds along the esplanades south and east of the library. There seemed to be several groups, not mixing. "What's going on?" That must be the distraction Tommie had promised; it was far larger than Winnie's Librareome demonstration.

"Heh. I've planned extraordinary festivities around the library tonight; almost everybody's invited, especially staff from General Genomics labs. But not you. I suggest we detour around the library."

"But that was the rendezvous point — "

"It's already too busy. We'll head for Pilchner Hall direct. This way, please." The Stranger pointed to the right, into dark eucalyptus trees.

Meantime, in the GenGen labs…