"No catch," John declared confidently, for his life had not taught him to brace for the unexpected blow. He headed toward the stairway down to the garage level. "When can I start?"

"Right away, as far as I’m concerned. But use the library system, okay? I am going to bed," Sandoz announced as firmly as he could around a huge yawn. "If I am still sleeping in October, as I devoutly hope I shall be, you have my permission to wake me up. In the meantime, you can begin with the instructional program for Ruanja — Giuliani’s got the lock codes. But wait until I can help you with the K’San files. It’s a bitch of a language, John." He put his left hand on the tabletop, rocking the arm outward to unhinge the braces, then froze, struck by a thought. "Jesus," he said. "Is Giuliani sending you out with the next bunch?"

There was a long silence. "Yeah," John said. "Looks like it."

"And you’re willing to go?"

John nodded, eyes serious. "Yes. Yes, I am."

Breaking out of the paralysis, Emilio fell back against his chair and quoted Ignatius with brittle grandiosity. "Ready to move at a moment’s notice, with your breastplate buckled."

"If I die on Rakhat," John said solemnly, "I ask only that my body be returned for burial in Chicago, where I can continue to participate—"

"— in Democratic party politics!" Emilio finished with him. He snorted a laugh, and shook his head. "Well, you know not to eat the meat. And you’re big. You may have a fighting chance if some godforsaken Jana’ata takes a fancy to you."

"I guess that’s what Giuliani thinks, too. If I bulk up a little, we’ve got the makings of a pretty decent NFL offense. The other guys are huge."

"So you’ve met them already?"

"Just the Jebs, not the civilians," John said, rejoining him at the table. "The father superior’s a guy named Danny Iron Horse—"

"Lakota?" Sandoz asked.

"Partly—French and Swedish, too, he says, and he’s kind of sensitive about it. Apparently, the Lakota side of the family’s been off the rez for about four generations, and he’s pretty tired of people expecting him to wear feathers and speak without contractions, you know?"

"Many moons go Choktaw…" Emilio intoned.

"Turns out, he grew up in the suburbs of Winnipeg, and he must have gotten his size from the Swedes. But he’s got Black Hills written all over him, so he gets that shit all the time." John winced. "I pissed him off almost immediately, telling him about a guy I know out on Pine Ridge. He cut me off at the knees—’No braids, no shades, ace. I’m not a drunk, and I’ve never been in a sweat lodge.’»

Sandoz whistled, eyes wide. "Yep—that counts as sensitive. So, that’s what he isn’t. What is he?"

"One of the sharpest political scientists in the Society, from what I hear, and it’s not like we’re short of them. There’s been talk about him winding up General one of these days, but when Giuliani offered him Rakhat, Danny left a full professorship at the Gregorian without a backward glance. He’s pumped for this."

"What about the others?" Emilio asked.

"There’s a chemist from Belfast — he’s supposed to check out that nanoassembly stuff they do on Rakhat. I just met him last week, but Giuliani’s had these guys in training for months! Who knew? Anyway, get this: his name is Sean Fein." Sandoz looked at him blankly. "Think about it," John advised.

"You’re joking," Sandoz said after a moment.

"No, but his parents were. Daddy was—"

"Jewish," Sandoz supplied, straight,faced.

"Full marks. And his mother was political—"

"Sean Fern, Sinn Fein," Emilio said sympathetically. "Not just a joke, but a lame one at that."

"Yeah. I asked Sean if it helped at all to know that I went to high school with a kid named Jack Goff. ’Not a blind bit,’ was all he said. The most morose Irishman I’ve ever met—younger than I am, but he carries himself like he’s a hundred."

"Sounds like a fun group," Emilio commented dryly. "Giuliani said he was sending out four. Who’s the other guy?"

"Oh, you’ll love this—you asked for someone who spoke Basque, right?"

"Euskara," Sandoz corrected him. "I just wanted people who were used to dealing with really different grammatical structures—"

"Whatever." John shrugged. "Anyway, he walks in—this enormous guy with the thickest hair I’ve ever seen, and I’m thinking, Hah! So that’s where all mine went! And then he says something absolutely incomprehensible, with way too many consonants. I didn’t know whether to say hello or punch him! Here—he wrote it down for me." John dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket. "How the hell do you pronounce that?"

Emilio took the paper in his right hand, still braced, moving it back and forth at arm’s length. "Playing air trombone! Can’t see small print worth a damn anymore," he noted ruefully, but then he got a bead on it. "Joseba Gastainazatorre Urizarbarrena."

"Show-off," John muttered.

"They say the devil himself once tried to learn the Basques’ language," Sandoz remarked informatively. "Satan gave up after only three months, having learned just two words of Euskara—both curses, which turned out to be Spanish anyway."

"So what should we poor mortals call him?" John asked.

"Joe Alphabet?" Emilio suggested, yawning as he unhinged the second brace. "The first name is just like Jose. It’s easy: Ho-SAY-ba."

John tried it a couple of times and seemed satisfied that he could manage, as long as nobody expected him to go past the first three syllables. "Anyway, he’s an ecologist. Seems to be a nice guy. Thank God for small mercies, huh? Jeez—sorry! I forgot how tired you are," John said, as Emilio yawned for the third time in as many minutes. "Okay, I’m going! Get some rest."

"I’ll see you tomorrow," Emilio said, moving toward his bed. "And, John—I’m glad you’re here."

Candotti nodded happily and stood to leave, but paused at the top of the stairs and looked back. Emilio, too whipped to undress, had already fallen onto his mattress in a heap. "Hey," John said, "aren’t you going to ask me what’s in the box?"

Emilio kept his eyes closed. "Say, John, what’s in the box?" he asked dutifully before muttering, "Like I give a shit."

"Letters. And that’s just the paper stuff. Why don’t you ever check your messages?"

"Because everybody I know is dead." The eyes popped open. "So who the hell would write to me?" Sandoz asked the ceiling in rhetorical wonderment. There was a hoot of genuine amusement. "Oh, John, I’m probably getting mash notes from male convicts!"

Candotti snorted, startled by the idea, but Sandoz rose on his elbows, transfixed by the sheer delicious absurdity of it, his face vivid, all the tiredness draining away for a minute. "My dear Emilio," he started and, falling back on the bed, he began to improvise, obscenely and hilariously fluent, on the broad literary theme of prison romance in terms that rendered John breathless. Finally, when Sandoz had exhausted himself and his topic and John had wiped his eyes and caught his breath, Candotti cried, "You’re so cynical! You have a lot of friends out there, Emilio."

"Indulge me, John. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I’m presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money."

Candotti laughed again and told Sandoz to say two rosaries for having spectacularly impure thoughts, and waved and started down the stairs. He was almost out the door when he heard Emilio call his name. Hand on the knob, still grinning, he looked back up toward Sandoz’s room. "Yeah?"

"John, I… I need a favor."

"Sure. Anything."

"I—. There are going to be some papers I’ll have to sign. I’m out, John. I’m leaving the Society." Sucker-punched, Candotti sagged against the doorjamb. A moment later, Sandoz’s voice went on, quiet and hesitant. "Can you fix a pen so I can hold it? Like you did with that razor, yes?"

John ascended the stairs partway and then halted, as unwilling as Sandoz to carry out this awful conversation face to face. "Emilio. Look—. Okay, I understand, I guess—as much as anyone else can. But are you sure? I mean, it’s—"