"Not now," Szilard said. "This isn't the place for it. I wanted to talk to you about one of your new soldiers. The Kite has three new recruits, and two of them will be under you."

Sagan bristled. "They will, and that's a problem. I had only one hole in my squad, but I have two replacements. You took one of my veterans to make room." Sagan remembered the helpless look on Will Lister's face when his transfer order to the Peregrine came through.

"The Peregrine is a new ship and it needs some experienced hands," Szilard said. "I assure you there are other squad leaders on other ships just as irritated as you. The Kite had to give up one of its veterans, and as it happens I had a recruit I wanted to place under you. So I had the Peregrine take one of yours."

Sagan opened her mouth to complain again, then thought better of it and clammed up, stewing. Szilard watched the play of emotions on her face. Most Special Forces soldiers would have said the first thing that came into their heads, an artifact of not having social niceties banged into their head through a childhood and adolescence. Sagan's self-control was one of the reasons why she had come to Szilard's attention; that and other factors.

"Which recruit are we talking about?" Sagan said finally.

"Jared Dirac," Szilard said.

"What's so special about him?" Sagan asked.

"He's got Charles Boutin's brain in him," Szilard said, and watched again as Sagan fought back an immediate visceral response.

"And you think this is a good idea," is what eventually came out of her mouth.

"It gets better," Szilard said, and sent over Dirac's entire classified file, complete with technical material. Sagan sat silently, digesting the material; Szilard sat, watching the junior officer. After a minute one of the mess staff approached their table and asked if there was anything they needed. Szilard ordered tea. Sagan ignored the waiter.

"All right, I'll bite," Sagan said, after she was done examining the file. "Why are you sticking me with a traitor?"

"Boutin's the traitor," Szilard said. "Dirac has just got his brain."

"A brain that you tried to imprint with a traitor's consciousness," Sagan said.

"Yes," Szilard said.

"I submit the question to your attention once more," Sagan said.

"Because you have experience with this sort of thing," Szilard said.

"With traitors?" Sagan asked, confused.

"With unconventional Special Forces members," Szilard said. "You once temporarily had a realborn member of the CDF under your command. John Perry." Sagan stiffened slightly at the name; Szilard noted it but chose not to comment. "He did quite well under you," Szilard said. This last sentence was a bit of an ironic understatement; during the Battle of Coral, Perry carried Sagan's unconscious and injured body over several hundred meters of battlefield to get her medical attention, and then located a key piece of enemy technology as the building it was in collapsed around him.

"The credit for that goes to Perry, not me," Sagan said. Szilard sensed another play of emotion from Sagan at Perry's name, but again left it on the table.

"You are too modest," Szilard said, and paused as the waiter delivered the tea. "My point is, Dirac is something of a hybrid," he continued. "He's Special Forces, but he may also be something else. I want someone who has experience with something else."

" 'Something else,' " Sagan repeated. "General, am I hearing that you think Boutin's consciousness is actually somewhere inside Dirac?"

"I didn't say that," Szilard said, in a tone that implied that perhaps he had.

Sagan considered this and addressed the implicit rather than the expressed. "You are aware, of course, that the Kite's next series of missions will have us engaging both the Rraey and the Enesha," she said. "The Eneshan missions in particular are ones of great delicacy." And ones I needed Will Lister for, Sagan thought, but did not say.

"I am of course aware," Szilard agreed, and reached for his tea.

"You don't think having someone with a possibly emergent traitorous personality might be a risk," Sagan said. "A risk not only to his mission but to others serving with him."

"Obviously it's a risk," Szilard said, "for which I rely on your experience to deal with. But he may also turn out to be a trove of critical information. Which will also need to be dealt with. In addition to everything else, you're an intelligence officer. You're the ideal officer for this soldier."

"What did Crick have to say about this?" Sagan said, referring to Major Crick, the commanding officer of the Kite.

"He didn't have anything to say about it because I haven't told him," Szilard said. "This is need-to-know material, and I've decided he doesn't need to know. As far as he knows he simply has three new soldiers."

"I don't like this," Sagan said. "I don't like this at all."

"I didn't ask you to like it," Szilard said. "I'm telling you to deal with it." He sipped his tea.

"I don't want him playing a critical role in any of the missions that deal with the Rraey or the Enesha," Sagan said.

"You'll treat him no differently from any other soldier under your command," Szilard said.

"Then he could get killed like any other soldier," Sagan said.

"Then for your sake you'd better hope it's not by friendly fire," Szilard said, and set down his cup.

Sagan was silent again. The waiter approached; Szilard impatiently waved him off.

"I want to show this file to someone," Sagan said, pointing to her head.

"It's classified, for obvious reasons," Szilard said. "Everyone who needs to know about it already does, and we don't want to spread it around to anyone else. Even Dime doesn't know about his own history. We want to keep it that way."

"You're asking me to take on a soldier who has the capability to be an immense security risk," Sagan said. "The least you can do is let me prepare myself. I know a specialist in human brain function and BrainPal integration. I think his insights on this could be useful."

Szilard considered this. "This is someone you trust," he said.

"I can trust him with this," Sagan said.

"Do you know his security clearance?" Szilard asked.

"I do," Sagan said.

"Is it high enough for something like this?"

"Well," Sagan said. "That's where things get interesting."

"Hello, Lieutenant Sagan," Administrator Cainen said, in English. The pronunciation was bad, but that was hardly Cainen's fault; his mouth was not well formed for most human languages.

"Hello, Administrator," Sagan said. "You're learning our language."

"Yes," Cainen said. "I have time to learn, and little to do." Cainen pointed to a book, written in Ckann, the predominant Rraey language, nestled next to a PDA. "Only two books here in Ckann. I had choice of language book or religion book. I chose language. Human religion is…"—Cainen searched his small store of English words—"… harder."

Sagan nodded toward the PDA. "Now that you have a computer, you should have more reading options."

"Yes," Cainen said. "Thank you for getting that to me. It makes me happy."

"You're welcome," Sagan said. "But the computer comes with a price."

"I know," Cainen said. "I have read files you asked me to read."

"And?" Sagan said.

"I must change to Ckann," Cainen said. "My English does not have many words."

"All right," Sagan said.

"I've looked at the files concerning Private Dirac in depth," Cainen said, in the harsh but rapid consonants of the Ckann language. "Charles Boutin was a genius for rinding a way to preserve the consciousness wave outside of the brain. And you people are idiots for how you tried to stuff that consciousness back in."