"But the thing that’s really got me stumped," Yunupur continued, "is this switch from Ooloms to Freeps. It wouldn’t be so odd if Pteromic B infected both races — that’s business as usual for germs, expanding their range of targets. But why should it immediately stop affecting Ooloms? That’s counterproductive evolution-wise."

He frowned for a moment, then let his face ease to a laugh. "See? I’m not cut out for this disease research stuff. An epidemiologist would just say random mutation can have bizarre effects. Microbes don’t have deliberate purpose in mutating. Changes just happen. Accidents. Flukes. A miniscule shift in DNA can have a huge impact in actual behavior, but there’s no conscious plan."

I glanced at Tic. As I expected, he’d gone all pensive. Never tell him microbes didn’t have a conscious plan.

Getting out of the hospital came off as a fancy song-and-dance number from some cast-of-thousands show.

The cast = police, proctors, Festina, and Lynn, plus a mob of overacting extras who’d be listed in the credits as The Media Wolfpack (Print, Broadcast, VR, and Other).

The dance = a phalanx of ScrambleTacs surrounding the lead characters (including that blushing blond starlet, Faye Smallwood), all pushing forward through a battalion of journalists who jostled each other for room to thrust out their microphones, their cameras, their VR bobbins, their precious pretty faces, their hard, determined chins.

The song = who, what, where, when, why, can you confirm, is it the truth, do you deny, rumors have claimed, no comment, no comment, no comment. "Oh," sings the chorus, "the public’s right to know…" While subtitles read across the bottom, "The media’s bone-on to win…"

Winning. That was the thing. To score points in some game only reporters care about. To get the quote, sound bite, money shot. To get the scoop… as opposed to getting the news, which sure as sweat wasn’t happening where we were. Other people were now in charge of the important stuff; those of us at the hospital had been out of the loop for a full day.

Had Maya been found? We didn’t know. Were other Freeps infected with the plague? Didn’t know that either. Had anyone figured out where the androids came from, how they’d been reprogrammed, or what Iranu was doing in the mine? Good questions all, that someone was surely investigating… but not us.

We were out of it. Me, I was on pothole patrol. So why did people so fiercely want to snag my picture? I was just a chump on the sidelines, a neophyte proctor who rightly got replaced by more experienced folk as soon as the Vigil realized the stakes were serious.

But in all the brouhaha, I could make out a key phrase repeated by almost every reporter. "Henry Smallwood’s daughter." The plague was back, and here I was, afloat in the circumstantial stew. I wanted to scream, It’s just coincidence! This has nothing to do with Dads. I didn’t even know who Dads was anymore — too many mysteries had got tangled up around him in the past few days.

The ScrambleTacs shoved forward, sweeping us all into a police van. We drove off, not going anywhere useful, just getting away.

In the back of the van, Festina whispered, "Are you really at loose ends?"

I reached out with my link-seed before I answered. Yes. The Vigil had assigned me, neat-filed and official, to Traffic Roads. "Depends how you define loose ends," I told her. "I’ve got road crews to check out… the snowplow-maintenance garage… the vehicle-safety inspection center…"

Festina smiled faintly. "It so happens I know a potentially unsafe vehicle that needs inspection."

"Yes?"

"Oh-God’s," Festina whispered. In her hand she held a black-button communicator, the kind visitors from offplanet carry when they don’t want to tune their wrist-implants to the frequency of our world-soul. "Our fast-flying friend just called me. Says he wants to talk."

"Chat-talk?" I asked. "Or do you think he has real information about something?"

"Who knows?" Festina muttered. "Oh-God has connections. And he’s a Freep. A fellow Freep like Iranu might have hired Oh-God as a driver, for clandestine trips around the Great St. Caspian countryside."

"I would never hire Oh-God as a driver."

"He’s usually not as bad as the other night. I mean, he always drives like a maniac, but he generally doesn’t hit anything. His hands were just cold…"

Her voice trailed off.

"It wasn’t so very cold," I said. "Not by Great St. Caspian standards."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Festina replied. "Do you suppose he had… some other problem? If he really did come into contact with Iranu…"

"One Freep could infect another," I said. "And with Pteromic A, little muscles in the hands were the first things to go slack." I looked around at the others in the van. Tic. Cheticamp. "We should report this."

"Not yet," Festina whispered. "Oh-God is one of my people. I don’t want to bring the police crashing down on his head unless it’s necessary. Certainly not if he’s just getting rheumatism or some Freep equivalent." She glanced at her communicator again. "Oh-God’s place is only half an hour south of town. You and Tic come with me, see what’s up. If we find anything you need to report, do what you have to do."

I nodded and looked across the van at Tic. For all the loud rattle of the van and the bustly conversation of people talking about going home, Tic’s ear-lids were both wide-open. His hearing pitched up to maximum.

He nodded at me and mouthed the word Yes.

The police dropped us off at a hole-in-the-wall precinct station with no reporters in sight. We shook hands, said good-byes. Cheticamp and Yunupur hurried off, pretending they had things to do.

Five minutes later, my Egerton arrived with a skimmer — bright yellow with E. C. HAULING painted in rainbow letters on every flat surface. E. C. = Egerton Crosbie. Which got me thinking about Sharr again, and how I’d been irritated/irritable with her for nigh-on thirty years, even though she was officially my sister-in-law. Must have been a hard strain on Egerton… so I gave an extra strong squeeze as I hugged him hello. Lynn said, "Faye’s heading into trouble again." I hadn’t talked to her about going to Oh-God’s. "How do you know?" I asked.

"Because half an hour ago you were mope-in-the-mouth depressed, thinking you’d been cut out of the action. Now you’re looking all smug and bouncy." She gave me her best long-suffering smile and kissed me on the earlobe. "Incorrigible, our Faye."

"Should we talk about this?" Egerton asked. He was a lovely, serious man — baffled by me most of the time, but blessed loyal and protective. The one time I needed to be bailed out of jail, I called Egerton instead of Winston. Winston would have started plea-bargaining the second he walked into the room; Egerton just kept saying, "I know she didn’t do it," till the police put me into his custody.

"We don’t need to talk," Lynn told him, smiling. "Faye explained everything last night. She’s got a guardian angel. Or a guardian whatsit, anyway."

Egerton furrowed his brow, big-brother anxious.

"Don’t worry," I said, "I’m not relying on a guardian whatsit to get me out of trouble. There won’t be any trouble. We’re just going to talk to a friend of Admiral Ramos. So…" I gave him my best golden-girl smile. "Can I borrow the skimmer? Please-please-please?"

Egerton sighed.

Dusk was drawing in as we flew over Oh-God’s "hacienda" — a two-dome compound in the middle of boreal forest, bristly cactus-pines crowding thick up to the edge of the cleared space. There were no ground roads anywhere near; the closest that civilization came was the Bullet tracks, some five kilometers away.