“I’m not sure I feel it. When you know there’s part of your mind that doesn’t belong there… It’s not exactly comforting.”

“People probably used to think the same about cardiac valves and synthetic kidneys.” His manner was sympathetic and reassuring now. She had accepted it and would cooperate once she’d had a chance to get used to it. That was the main thing.

There was a long silence while Gina thought it through. Hunt mopped up the spilled drink for her while he waited. “Is there anything we can do to unscramble it?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know. We’d like you to let VISAR analyze those patterns anyway, to see if there’s any way of recovering what was overwritten. Would you mind?”

Gina shook her head. “I’m kind of curious, too. That’s me, remember?”

“Terrific. You’ll survive. I’ll be getting along for now. I’ve got a few things to do.”

“Oh… Vic,” Gina said as he moved toward the door.

He stopped and looked back. “What?”

“Thanks.”

He grinned. “Glad you can see it that way. I’m sorry I had to get personal.”

“That’s okay.” Gina managed to muster a smile back. “Did Sandy tell you that she thought I was pretty dumb, too?”

“No. Why?”

“For chickening out of VISAR’s porno trip. She says if it was her she’d have gone for it.”

Hunt laughed and began moving to the door again. “You see?” he said. “Scientists are more curious.”

“There was something else, too.”

“What now?”

Gina’s smile widened and became impish. “The fantasy that VISAR put together out of my head.”

“What about it?”

“You were in it, too.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The Ganymeans were dubious that anything could be done to reconstruct the memories of Gina’s that had been overwritten. Nevertheless, she allowed VISAR to go over the recollections that now existed in her mind to see if it could find any seams. It processed, correlated, reinterpolated, and analyzed the data in every way that offered a shred of hope that some vestige of what she had actually experienced during the missing hours might be extracted, but the results were uniformly negative. Essentially, the elements of a pattern had been rearranged. The information carried in the previous arrangement was gone, and no amount of juggling could re-create it. As Hunt observed, it was like asking a position in a chess game to say something about the previous game played by the pieces.

All that could be said for sure was that from some time after leaving PAC with Baumer-which couldn’t be pinpointed since it was no longer possible to compare Gina’s story with his to establish where they diverged-to some time before she walked back into PAC, something had happened that was different from what she remembered. And that was probably all that would ever be known. But if a conclusive pointer existed anywhere to the organization that Cullen was looking for, that was where it lay concealed.

Then Calazar, on behalf of the Thurien-Terran Joint Policy Council for Jevlen, formally notified Garuth that a move to terminate the Ganymean custodianship of Jevlen was being actively considered. Nobody was blaming Garuth or his colleagues from the Shapieron, who, Calazar readily acknowledged, had made a magnificent attempt, under impossible circumstances, at a task whose problems had been greatly underestimated.

“We have to accept that our very different origins and the temperament that they confer do not equip us to comprehend this race, let alone direct its affairs,” Calazar said. “The entire history of our own dealings with the Jevlenese was insufficient to teach us what should have been obvious. Therefore we shall accept the counsel of those whose perception has been shaped by a better guide.”

Which was as direct an admission as could be asked for that henceforth the policies of JPC would be determined by humans, with the Thuriens effectively endorsing whatever they decided. Putting in a Terran occupation force would only be a matter of time after that.

An hour or so after Garuth announced the news, Hunt, Cullen, Danchekker, a dejected Garuth, and Shilohin assembled in Garuth’s office. Caldwell, who had confirmed to nobody’s surprise that General Shaw was a fiction, joined in from Goddard, appearing on a screen via a link through VISAR and ZORAC.

There was one last angle that Hunt could think of to try and stall things. “What are the chances, Gregg,” he asked, “of you getting back to JPC through UNSA somehow and seeing if we can get them to put a hold on it? I mean, you can see the kind of outfit we’re up against here: riots in the streets, assassinations, kidnapping and mind-editing, lethal chips in people’s heads. And Dell’s convinced he’s getting really close. It just needs another break. If this team is pulled out now, we’ll lose the lot.”

“This whole move by Eubeleus is a cover for something,” Cullen put in. “He’s not going to Uttan to grow daisies in some terraformed monastery. If we could get JPC to hold off on that, somehow, I’d feel a lot more comfortable.”

“But why would he have left at such a critical time?” Danchekker queried. “How could Uttan be more important if his designs have something to do with Jevlen?”

“That’s what I’m saying we need to find out,” Cullen answered. Then Caldwell said from the screen, “Aren’t you overlooking one small point?”

“What?” Hunt asked.

A hand flashed briefly before the image of the craggy, wirehaired face. “I’ve been sitting here listening to all this talk about whether this Eubeleus is crooked or straight, and what he plans to do on Uttan. And it’s all very interesting. But there’s one minor thing: I haven’t heard one piece of evidence, yet, that proves he had anything to do with what you’re talking about.” The others turned to exchange glances with each other. Caldwell went on. “All that we know he’s done is offer to take a big piece of the problem light-years away from the scene. That’s very nice, and it’s what JPC sees.” He gestured again. “Nothing connects him with the things that Dell’s worried about. There are only three witnesses who could have given a positive line back to him, but not one of them’s any good. Fayne’s dead; the Marin girl had her tape wiped clean; and Baumer’s a gibbering idiot. You see my problem? If Ebeleus’s aim was camouflage, he’s done a good job. I don’t have one solid fact to go back up through UNSA, trying to get the brakes put on JPC. I don’t like the feel of this either, but I can’t go stirring things up at that level on the basis of what we’ve got. There just isn’t a case.”

And he was right, Hunt conceded, slumping back in his seat. Politics was Caldwell’s business. He knew the system. If he started rocking the boat because he didn’t like the feel of things, but it turned out that he had nothing concrete to back it up, then nobody would take any notice when he did find something.

A heavy silence had overtaken the room. Garuth got up and moved across to the window to stare out at the dilapidated towers of Shiban. As a city it was falling apart; but he had developed a strange, inexplicable fondness for it. Perhaps it had something to do with its being the first place that had come anywhere near feeling like home since the Shapieron’s departure from Minerva. Had he been left in charge of it, he wouldn’t have imposed any sudden or drastic changes, he decided. He would have let it be, allowing it to seek out and evolve its own solutions at its own pace. Those were always the kinds of changes that endured, he had found. The worthwhile changes.

“And I still have the feeling that we were getting so close,” he said aloud.

Afterward, Hunt stopped by Gina’s suite to give her the news and to see how things were going.

“And when you go through it, Gregg could be right,” he told her. “Eubeleus may have nothing to do with it. We can’t make any case to JPC. Any junior lawyer with his name still wet on the door could make mincemeat out of it.”