"Idiots," Sagan said, and cracked the smallest of smiles, the translation of the word in Ckann coming from a small speaker attached to a lanyard around her neck. "Is that your professional assessment, or just an editorial comment?"

"It's both," Cainen said.

"Tell me why," Sagan said. Cainen moved to send files from his PDA to her, but Sagan held up her hand. "I don't need the technical details," she said. "I just want to know if this Dirac is going to be a danger to my troops and my mission."

"All right," Cainen said, and paused for a moment. "The brain, even a human one, is like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but it works for what I'm going to tell you. Computers have three components for their operation: There's the hardware, there's the software, and there's the data file. The software runs on the hardware, and the file runs on the software. The hardware can't open the file without the software. If you place a file on a computer that lacks the necessary software, all it can do is sit there. Do you understand me?"

"So far," Sagan said.

"Good," Cainen said. He reached over and tapped Sagan on the head; she suppressed an urge to snap off his finger. "Follow: The brain is the hardware. The consciousness is the file. But with your friend Dirac, you're missing the software."

"What's the software?" Sagan asked.

"Memory," Cainen said. "Experience. Sensory activity. When you put Boutin's consciousness into his brain, that brain lacked the experience to make any sense of it. If that consciousness is still in Dirac's brain—if—it's isolated and there's no way to access it."

"Newborn Special Forces soldiers are conscious from the moment they are woken up," Sagan said. "But we also lack experience and memory."

"That's not consciousness they're experiencing," Cainen said, and Sagan could sense the disgust in his voice. "Your damned BrainPal forces open sensory channels artificially and offers the illusion of consciousness, and your brain knows it." Cainen pointed to his PDA again. "Your people gave me a rather wide range of access to brain and BrainPal research. Did you know this?"

"I did," Sagan said. "I asked them to let you look at any file you needed to help me."

"Because you knew that I would be a prisoner for the rest of my life, and that even if I could escape I would soon be dead of the disease you gave me. So it couldn't hurt to give me access," Cainen said.

Sagan shrugged.

"Hmmmp," Cainen said, and continued. "Do you know that there's no explainable reason why a Special Forces soldier's brain absorbs information so much more quickly than a regular CDF? They're both unaltered human brains; they're both the same BrainPal computer. Special Forces brains are preconditioned in a different way from the regular soldiers' brains, but not in a way that should noticeably speed up the rate at which the brains process information. And yet the Special Forces brain sucks down information and processes it at an incredible rate. Do you know why? It's defending itself, Lieutenant. Your average CDF soldier already has a consciousness, and the experience to use it. You Special Forces soldiers have nothing. Your brain senses the artificial consciousness your BrainPal is pressing on it and rushes to build its own as quickly as it can, before that artificial consciousness permanently deforms it. Or kills it."

"No Special Forces soldiers have died because of their Brain-Pal," Jane said.

"Oh, no, not now," Cainen said. "But I wonder what you would find if you went back far enough."

"What do you know?" Sagan asked.

"I know nothing," Cainen said, mildly. "It's merely idle speculation. But the point here is that you can't compare Special Forces waking up with 'consciousness' with what you were trying to do with Private Dirac. It's not the same thing. It's not even close."

Sagan changed the subject. "You said that it's possible Boutin's consciousness might not even be in Dirac's brain anymore," she said.

"It's possible," Cainen said. "The consciousness needs input; without it, it dissipates. That's one reason why it's near impossible to keep a consciousness pattern coherent outside the brain, and why Boutin's a genius for doing it. My suspicion is that if Boutin's consciousness was in there, it's already leaked away, and you've got just another soldier on your hands. But there's no way to tell whether it's in there or not. Its pattern would be subsumed by Private Dirac's consciousness."

"If it is in there, what would wake it up?" Sagan asked.

"You're asking me to speculate?" Cainen asked. Sagan nodded. "The reason you couldn't access the Boutin consciousness in the first place is that the brain didn't have memory and experience.

Maybe as your Private Dirac accumulates experiences, one will be close enough in its substance to unlock some part of that consciousness."

"And then he'd become Charles Boutin," Sagan said.

"He might," Cainen said. "Or he might not. Private Dirac has his own consciousness now. His own sense of self. If Boutin's consciousness woke up, it wouldn't be the only consciousness in there. It's up to you to decide whether that's good or bad, Lieutenant Sagan. I can't tell you that, or what would truly happen if Boutin got woken up."

"Those are the things I needed you to tell me," Sagan said.

Cainen gave the Rraey equivalent of a chuckle. "Get me a lab," he said. "Then I might be able to give you some answers."

"I thought you said you would never help us," Sagan said.

Cainen switched back to English. "Much time to think," he said. "Too much time. Language lessons not enough." And then back to Ckann. "And this doesn't help you against my people. But it helps you."

"Me?" Sagan said. "I know why you helped me this time; I bribed you with computer access. Why would you help me beyond this? I made you a prisoner."

"And you struck me with a disease that will kill me if I don't get a daily dose of antidote from my enemies," Cainen said. He reached into the shallow desk moulded from the wall of the cell and pulled out a small injector. "My medicine," he said. "They allow me to self-administer. Once I decided not to inject myself, to see if they would let me die. I'm still here, so that's the answer to that. But they let me writhe on the floor for hours first. Just like you did, come to think of it."

"None of this explains why you would want to help me," Sagan said.

"Because you remembered me," Cainen said. "To everyone else, I am just another one of your many enemies, barely worth providing a book to keep me from going insane with boredom. One day they could simply forget my antidote and let me die, and it would be all the same to them. You at least see me as having value. In the very small universe I live in now, that makes you my best and only friend, enemy though you are."

Sagan stared at Cainen, remembering the haughtiness of him the first time they met. He was pitiful and craven now, and that momentarily struck Sagan as the saddest thing she'd ever seen.

"I'm sorry," she said, and was surprised the words came out of her mouth.

Another Rraey chuckle from Cainen. "We were planning to destroy your people, Lieutenant," Cainen said. "And we still might. You needn't feel too apologetic."

Sagan had nothing to say to that. She signaled to the brig officer that she was ready to leave; a guard came and stood with an Empee while the cell door opened.

As the door slid shut behind her, she turned back to Cainen. "Thank you for your help. I will ask about a lab," she said.

"Thank you," Cainen said. "I won't get my hopes up."

"That's probably a good idea," Sagan said.

"And Lieutenant," Cainen said. "A thought. Your Private Dirac will be participating in your military actions."