"The Diet will use that small kindness to your memory to argue that the Householdings don't consider the kill immoral anymore." He let that sink in and then added, "Until now, the Diet has been a bunch of disenfranchised and bitter paranoids ranting and raving in a corner. But since Mairis's announcement that he's running for World Controller to abolish the borders within two generations, money and recruits—real professionals—have been gravitating to the Diet organization, and it's growing. Now is the time to put a stop to them."

"By convincing them that Laneff is in a Last Year House?" asked Bianka incredulously.

"Right," answered Yuan. He turned to Laneff. "We set them up. They self-righteously attack a facility for the helpless. Media coverage demonstrates Laneff was not there, has never been there, and no secret Gen pens are being kept to supply juncts with kills. The Diet is shown to be the hysterical paranoids they really are."

"Suppose somebody gets hurt?" asked Laneff.

"I have my spies in their organization. Mairis will be warned in plenty of time."

"All right," agreed Laneff. "I'll go along." It crossed her mind that if she didn't, Yuan might be less enthusiastic about supplying her lab with all the expensive things she'd requisitioned. Pretending she wasn't herself for a few minutes was a small price to pay for being able to do her work. The Diet represented the kind of Gens who raised their children without preparing them for changeover, and then condemned the changeover victim for killing. That was what she'd dedicated her life to stopping. "What do I do?"

Yuan answered, "Discernment is one channel's trick I'll bet you, with your sensitivity, can do almost as well as a channel can—at least on anyone not a trained Donor."

Discernment, the art of detecting truth in a Gen's nager, or diagnosing an ailment, was indeed one of Laneff’s talents. She nodded.

"All you have to do is watch Polk's nager as I interrogate him."

Bianka interrupted. "That man's nager is vicious. I'd want to be there, too."

"Fine," he said, looking to Nen, "if you'll go along."

"Sure. I wouldn't let Bianka go in there alone."

Laneff felt that Yuan's nager alone would be enough to protect her and any army of renSimes from a non-Donor Gen, but she didn't say anything.

Yuan led the way through the infirmary offices and down a long narrow corridor lined with double-insulated doors and shiny tile walls and floors. The door at the end of the hall opened to reveal a room not unlike the one where Laneff slept.

It was plastered and painted in light pastels. The furniture was gypsy wickerwork. Polished aquamarine ceramic tile floors reflected it all, as if they were standing on water. On the hospital bed lay the pilot from the chopper, his head swathed in white bandage, one wrist chained to the bed frame. Over his lap, a standard bed tray held the remains of a meal.

Bianka took the lead. "I see you're eating at last," she said in-English.

"Decided you wouldn't try to poison me after all this, even if you don't give me any real food," he answered in a heavy out-Territory accent. Then his gaze centered on Laneff,

The jangle of alarm in Polk's nager at sight of Bianka's tentacles rose to a shrill scream of panic at Laneff’s. Yuan was off to one side, behind Bianka, functioning in his working Donor's mode and allowing her to zlin the prisoner. Jarmi at her side was comforting, but only the fact that Laneff wasn't in need kept her from reacting to the Gen panic.

Yuan said, "Hajene Farris, please zlin him carefully when he answers." He moved as Bianka and Nen shifted position in a feat of professional field management that left a sheltered window for Laneff to zlin Polk without suffering the full brunt of his nager. It was, of course, lost on Polk.

"What is this?" challenged the prisoner,

"Consider it your trial," replied Yuan evenly, "Do you know who I am?"

"You're the guy we figure runs this outfit."

Yuan glanced at Laneff, asking with his nager if the Gen spoke truth. She nodded as the prisoner considered Yuan from a different angle. "You're the guy that hit me!"

As if in reflex, he lunged up off the bed, swinging his right fist at Yuan's nose. But the handcuff stopped the swing, sending a screaming pain through the Gen's nerves.

Without prompting, Jarmi seized Laneff’s hand and let the tentacles clutch her arm. Simultaneously, Bianka moved closer, fogging Laneff’s window with a selyn field that cut the intensity of the Gen's emotions. With a free tentacle, Laneff signaled that she was all right, and everyone resumed their positions as Polk subsided to a sullen anger.

"Distect traitor!" spat the prisoner.

"Distect Loyalist," corrected Yuan mildly. "Someday, if you're reasonable about things, I'll take you into the gym and give you a fair

fight. I don't like hitting a man unawares—but I don't like dying even more. To business."

The Gen's lips clamped shut, a look of grim determination on his face that didn't match the fright in his nager.

"How many Distect bases have your people identified?"

Silence.

Yuan consulted Laneff with a glance, and Laneff read Polk's silence. "A few at least," she said.

Polk sat up straight, ignoring the renewed throbbing in his head. "She can read minds!"

Laneff was shocked. She'd thought that stupidity had died out a hundred years ago. But Yuan let a secret smile play over his features as he asked, "Where are they located?"

Again silence.

"He's afraid you'll get it out of him," supplied Laneff.

"I will," answered Yuan. "With drugs, if necessary."

"Just have that witch pluck it out of my mind!"

"Nobody could do that, you idiot. She's reading your nager. Any Farris channel could do as well."

"Farris," repeated Polk eyeing her, fear crystallizing into belligerence. "You go tell that Mairis he's not going to learn anything from me! You—and all his kind—are going to be stopped before you've made the whole world into a Genfarm!"

Laneff hadn't really believed Yuan's sketch of Diet psychology until she heard that. She recovered as Yuan glanced at her. "It's bravado," she reported.

"But how did he know?" asked Yuan, then rounded on the Gen. "How did you know Mairis sent her here!"

A cagey reserve came over the prisoner. "We know a lot more than that about your operations!"

Yuan turned on Bianka, his expression ferocious but his nager ringing with unsung laughter. "Did you tell him about Laneff?"

Bianka feigned fear, shrinking from Yuan. "No, not me!"

"We know all about Laneff!" claimed the prisoner.

But he was lying, and Yuan didn't require her to tell him that. He bore down on Nen. "I'm going to find the Diet spy who got in here and talked to him. You get me a list of every guard assigned to this room!"

"Yes, Sosectu," answered Nen wide-eyed.

Then Yuan stalked over to Laneff. "You told me there was no chance of a leak at that Last Year House! You don't expect me to send one of my Gens in there for Laneff if the place is swarming with Diet spies! You go back and tell Mairis—" He tossed a cautious glance over his shoulder at the prisoner. "Bianka, drug him. I don't want any slipups. I'm going to have it all out of him—now." Then to Laneff, he said with sweet deference, "Hajene Farris, would you please accompany me to my office?"

Outside, Yuan was in high spirits. "You're a great actor, Laneff. You should have been on the stage! That was glorious!"

"Yuan, he fears those drugs. Perhaps he's allergic—"

"Don't worry, Bianka's checked that. He fears drugs because he knows he'll babble out everything—and he's one of their best pilots, so he probably knows the locations of every one of our places they've found. Ha! He knows the location of every one of theirs! And I'll have them all!"