"And I'm imputing motives to her that are really my own?"

"That might have indeed been within her, however buried. You can see them where we can't, but we can see what you can't."

It was like the infinite tangle of responsibilities she had seen before when contemplating Jarmi's death. Digen's death, too, had been the result of decisions and responsibilities made by Shanlun, Mairis, herself, and even Digen, reflecting infinitely in all directions, ultimately becoming a single Unity. In both cases, she had made decisions that had led to disaster by long, involved chain reactions. Things she started to do just didn't come out right.

"Can you see what's wrong with me?" whispered Laneff.

"No," he answered quietly. "You are inside your own candlebox, you alone determine the distortions in the reflections you see. Look out around you, and see yourself."

She looked.

She looked at every crucial decision in her whole life. She had begged and pleaded, and prayed to God to be allowed to go and visit Fay Ravitch. And that had led to her killing in First Need. From that day, she had regarded herself as handicapped because of being renSime and disjunct, vulnerable to the temptation to kill. She had compensated for that handicap by always playing it safe around Gens, always opting for the safest transfer.

She'd played it safe when she accepted Mairis's suggestion of going into the visitors' box, rather than onstage beside Shanlun. She'd played it safe when she'd let Yuan take her to his headquarters, promising her a Gen whom she couldn't kill, but who could satisfy her and keep her alive. She'd played it safe coming to Thiritees, where there was a channel good enough to handle her, and Shanlun whom she certainly couldn't kill and who claimed he could satisfy her —and Jarmi, too. She'd played it safe choosing Jarmi the first time, but that had led to her getting pregnant so that Shanlun had to go out into danger which had probably taken his life. And she'd played it safe choosing Jarmi over Azevedo, and that had led to her killing Jarmi.

By failing to risk herself, she was murdering those around her.

A plan was forming, a daring plan, a harebrained scheme that any real scientist would be ashamed of hatching. But it would cut ten years of throat-clearing out of the process of airing her results in the proper journals. If she was right, she and the baby would live, and never kill. If she was wrong, they'd both die, but nobody else would have to.

If she won this gamble, the whole world would see that the kill wasn't the essence of the renSime. It had been Digen's dream, and Shanlun's, and Jarmi's. It was Mairis's life's work, and he had a chance to succeed if she could show concrete results: one adult junct dis– juncted. And with that success on record, her project to identify Simes before birth was as good as completed. Those were stakes big enough to be worth a couple of more lives. So many had died in senseless violence already.

"Yuan was right. I was hiding my work. I hadn't given a single thought to my next transfer, because the whole idea scared me. I knew what I had to do—and I knew I wouldn't do it."

Azevedo waited, one hand spread over her lab notes, the other resting on his knee. When she didn't go on, he prompted, "And what do you have to do?"

She couldn't read a thing in his nager. So she took her courage in hand and said, "No matter what, you would be giving me my next transfer. But I've decided you're going to take moondrop with me, and be Gen to me. Not after the baby is born. Now. This transfer is going to be it for me. I'm not hiding anymore."

"You'd sacrifice your child—"

"No! I will take K/B! Azevedo, the preliminary tests show that it is absorbed onto Gen brain surface, molecules fixing themselves in a – definite array. My work has shown that K/A fixes onto Sime fetus placenta, inhibiting or even cutting off selyn flow to the fetus. That means K/A is the abortifacient fraction of kerduvon. There might be other chemicals in it that contribute to that effect, so I'm opting for pure K/B, which my theory says must be the disjunctive agent."

"And what if the impurities contribute to or control the disjunctive effect?"

"You said yourself it works better, safer, when it's purest."

"That has been our experience," he conceded, but argued, "But there's no reason to do it now. We can save this as a last resort, continuing the research to improve our understanding. I've sent another messenger to Mairis—while you were so ill. The security cordon was so tight she couldn't get through at all. Rumor is that a big Diet attempt on Mairis's life is cooking. So I sent a messenger to your father. Sat'htine can surely find us a Farris expert who can handle your case. We've been lucky so far you haven't suffered complications. Why try to precipitate them? I'd have a hard time facing your father's expert if I'd participated in a drug experiment with you– and made matters worse."

They argued for hours, but Laneff was adamant, the fire of her new vision of herself driving her. She'd never felt so sure about anything before. But Azevedo, too, was intransigent. She'd never thought to meet up with such entrenched scientific orthodoxy in the midst of a gypsy camp.

At last, she stood, gesturing with hands and tentacles as she paced. "You're not the only channel in this outfit trained to handle that stuff, and there are Gens who know how, too! I'm not going to be stopped this time!" She started toward the lab door.

He called after her, "Whatever you do, don't try to involve Yuan in this. He has the nageric power, but a total lack of the control necessary. He'd leave you both insane."

If, she thought, K/B itself is responsible for the hallucinations– which hasn't been established.

Frustrated, disconsolate, she stalked out into the halls to walk off the spurt of fury that had built when Azevedo had denied her. I feel betrayed. It's nonsense. He'll do my transfer–even if only his way. And he thinks he's not Tecton! Ha!

She realized she knew not a soul she could go talk to. She regretted not paying more attention to the language lessons, trying to develop contacts among the other students. And her feet knew only one path through the sprawling building: the one to her apartment.

She found the newspaper outside the door. She usually had no time for it, but she took it inside and threw herself onto the floor cushions in the sitting room to read. All the news seemed strange, continuations of events she'd never heard of. But when she got to the back page of the world political news, she stared.

Mairis's face leaped out of the page, paired with the photo of a woman she'd never seen before. The caption identified her as Hajene Malry Remuns, a newly declared candidate for World Controller. She was calling people to come back to traditional basics in Sime government, not to take risks with the world balances achieved at such great cost to our ancestors.

She wasn't opposing Mairis directly. He never mentioned her in the interview published with the pictures. But they stood for opposite paths. With a shock, Laneff realized the election was barely a week away now. And the published polls suddenly indicated Mairis was trailing Remuns by nearly 20 percent.

In a sidebar, Laneff found itineraries for the two candidates. The day after tomorrow, Mairis would be touring the Embankment—the Sime~Gen mixed-law experiment. Here! The day she ought to be having transfer.

She punched up the newspaper service on her own screen and discovered that the parade route of Mairis's tour would pass right by their court. There was no mention of Shanlun.

I have to see Mairis. He has to know about Shanlun, and the baby– even if none of us survive.

Visions of herself being shot crashing his security lines danced through her head, but she dismissed them. She grabbed up the paper and plunged out the door, heading down to the lab to find Azevedo. This changes everything!