"But he didn't inform on you. He didn't do anything to stop it."

"No, he didn't inform on us, but we argued bitterly over it—the friendship was strained at that point."

"Strained, but not broken."

"Because despite our disagreement, he understood why the work seemed necessary. Urgently necessary." Dvali leaned closer to her and for a moment Lise was afraid he would reach out and take her hands. She wasn't sure she could stand that. "The idea of any tangible contact with the Hypotheticals—with the motivating spirit behind their vast network of machines—fascinated him as much as it fascinated me. He knew how important it was, not just for our generation but for generations to come, for humanity as a species."

"You must have been disappointed when he wouldn't cooperate."

"I didn't need his cooperation. I would have liked his approval. I was disappointed when he withheld it.

After a time we simply stopped talking about it—we talked about other things. And when the project began in earnest I left Port Magellan. I never saw your father again."

"That was six months before he disappeared."

"Yes."

"Do you know anything about that?"

"About his disappearance? No. Genomic Security was in the Port at the time—looking for me, among others, since rumors of the project had reached them—and when I heard Robert Adams had gone missing I assumed he'd been picked up and interrogated by Genomic Security. But I don't know that for certain. I wasn't there."

"Most of the people who are interrogated by Genomic Security walk away from it, Dr. Dvali." Although she knew better.

"Not all," Dvali said.

"He wasn't a Fourth. Why would they hurt him?" Kill him, she couldn't bring herself to say.

"He would have resisted on principle and out of personal loyalty."

"You knew him well enough to say that?"

"I took the treatment in Bangalore, Miss Adams, twenty years ago. I'm not omniscient, but I'm a good judge of human character. Not that there was anything especially occult about Robert Adams. He wore his sincerity on his sleeve."

He was murdered. That had always been the most likely explanation, though the details might be uglier than Lise had imagined. Robert Adams had been murdered and the men who murdered him would never come to trial for it. But there was another story inside the story. The story of his curiosity, his idealism, the strength of his convictions.

Some of these thoughts must have shown on her face. Dvali was radiating a sympathetic concern. "I know that isn't much help. I'm sorry."

Lise stood up. All she felt at the moment was cold. "May I ask you one more thing?"

"If you like."

"How do you justify it? The fate of humanity aside, how do you justify putting an innocent child in Isaac's position?