“I’m sure I have no idea what’s going on there at the moment.”

“Odd. I do.”

The Earther ship was definitely monitoring conversations.

And this Mr. Gide sounded primarily interested in Marak. Why? was the salient question, beyond the obvious, that Marak always had that kind of importance to Earthers, to Outsiders and ondatalike.

But for what purpose?

“He’s in a difficult position, at the moment,” Gide said, “while the land is shaking itself apart. The Refuge would like him to return to camp and wait for rescue. He refuses and seems intent on risking his life. Do you think if you were on duty, you could persuade him to return to camp and accept rescue?”

“I can’t discuss my work, sir.” He had to use his head, get something outof this Gide, and not give anything away. “You haven’t created this situation, have you, sir?”

“Cause an earthquake? Split a continent? Hardly.”

“I have to take your word.”

“Impertinent fellow.”

“Not intentionally, sir. If you can do it, if you did do it, I’m curious to know how.”

“Are you tapped in? Is that how you say it? Are you tapped in right now, spying for Brazis? Are you asking his question?”

“Not at the moment, no, sir.”

The shell moved, a whirr of gears. A hand extruded and gestured toward the elegant reception room, beyond two broad, white-columned arches. “A chair. Do sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Let’s talk frankly about the situation down there.”

He didn’t budge from the hallway, maintaining his avenue of escape. “No, sir. I’ve said as clearly as I can that I can’t talk about it. I know you’re comfortable. And I’m comfortable standing.”

“Obstructionism can’t improve relations.”

“I’m not obstructive, sir.” He remembered his instructions. “I’d be quite happy to take all your questions and see if I can get permission to answer.”

“Permission from the Chairman.”

“Yes.”

“Not from the governor?”

“I take orders only from the Chairman, sir. Chain of command. I’m here as a courtesy. An offer of good faith.”

The arm and hand retracted, resorbed. The face frowned. “Well, let me be honest, and you can relay this to your Chairman. We’ve heard claims the remediation is actually making progress, that this prospective sea will issue forth new changes, a shallow sea, where life can breed in abundance, flowing out onto the land. That global weather will change, bringing rains to the arid midcontinent.”

“I can’t talk about that, sir.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you’ve heard such speculations.”

“That falls under the job prohibition, sir. I can’t discuss it.”

“Changing the world. But it might allow nanoceles that may have survived the hammerfall to proliferate and modify themselves again.”

“I couldn’t predict, sir, but again, I’m not—”

“Yet such nanoceles remain in the environment down there. And up here. Even in you, for instance.”

“I don’t understand the biology of it, sir. But I’m not like Marak.”

“Not immortal.”

“Far from it, sir.”

“Yet Marak himself and his generation…are immortal.”

“So far, the nanoceles just keep repairing them, whatever goes wrong. But that’s what I hear. I don’t know.”

“So Marak and his generation now pose one of the chief sources of recontamination in this new remediated world, don’t they? Yet we understand the plan is never to do away with them. Is this true?”

“I have no idea about that, sir.” All that was, in fact, way over his head. There was no way to scrub out a nanocele. None that he knew about. And terminate Marak, and Ian, and the rest? Unthinkable. “Immortals do die of accident. I understand no few have died.”

“Mostly by mental collapse, so I hear. Suicide.” The shell moved, started forward, went through that arch between the columns, spun about. “But even given that slow purge of the world, a written archive remains. And a living example of that technology, even beyond Marak and his relatives, in the person of a First Movement survivor with no motive to love her containment. A treasure-house of survivals, and a library with the informational key to its data, all of it in reach of Outsider researchers who themselvescontain those pre-Hammerfall nanoceles. Is that a good situation? Has that ever been a good situation?”

“I have no idea about such matters, sir.” Not a brilliant answer, but it was all he had.

“Listen to me, boy.”

“I assure you I’m listening very closely, sir.”

“You know it’s against the Treaty to lift that technology off the planet. Don’t you?”

“I’m very sure it’s against the law, sir. I can’t imagine anyone doing it.”

“What if I were to tell you I can prove your associates in the Project have illegal information? That data of that kind isbeing rescued, illicitly, from the planet?”

“I don’t know any such thing, sir.” He was cold clear through, half understanding what the man was talking about, as if all the words were there, hanging in the air, but they just wouldn’t make sense in the real world. “I don’t know about any such thing, but if there is proof, I’m sure the Chairman would like to hear it.”

“Are you sure he would? Are you in any position to be sure?”

“Only the position of someone who’s grown up here, who can’t imagine anybody doing that or wanting to do that for any sane reason. I never heard of anybody smuggling data, sir. I don’t think they could, physically.”

“Unless it were officially sanctioned.”

“I’m sure not,sir. Work is monitored to the hilt. I can’t think how anything of that sort could ever go on without somebody knowing. Management wouldn’t. They wouldn’t. There’s just too much at stake.”

“Oh, a great deal is at stake. You’re quite right in that. But we’re not necessarily dealing with you and me, are we? Marak dates from the foundations of modern civilization. How do we possibly say we understand him?”

“I can’t say anything I know, sir. It’s a restricted area.”

“Come now, how sane can one remain, in that kind of age? How can memory function? And, older than Marak, the Ila. An individual of questionable sanity and absolutely certain motives for getting her contamination off the planet and back into the universe.”

“I don’t know that. I don’t know any such thing. Marak’s sanity is absolutely solid. And I don’t deal with the Ila, but she’s just—perfectly fine. I’ve never heard there’s any question of her well-being.”

“Sane, and immortal. You maintain so, on your personal observation. Do sane, and immortal, possibly go together in any mind?”

He was being backed into a corner. Harried. Distracted. “The churchsays it does. Doesn’t it, sir?”

“Blasphemy, Mr. Stafford?”

It was like talking to his father. But you didn’t get anywhere with him by backing up and backing up until you had no room at all. “No, sir, I believeimmortality and sanity can coexist. I’m the one that believes that. Personally.”

“You think of Marak as a god?”

“I can’t talk about the job, sir. Sorry.”

“Nonsense. You’ve been discussing it. No reason to back off now. You have an intimate, personal acquaintance with one of the most unusual minds alive, and I ask you, doeshe impress you as sane?”

Small breath. “As sane as anyone I know.”

“Ah, so you can talk about the job.”

“I don’t want you to take a misconception away from this interview. I’m sure that wouldn’t be useful to you or to the Director, sir.”

“So.” The face smiled. “Do you like Marak?”

Deeper and deeper. This man was doing exactly what Brazis had warned him about, gathering data by his silences as well as his statements, by the readout of truthers inside that shell. He wanted out of here.

“I’m not appointed to like or dislike anyone, sir. I just do my job.”

“New to that job, as I understand.”

The predicted direction. The pressure went off. And he didn’t dare trust it. “A year or so.”