The next morning a helicopter flew low over the Minang village, and while that might have been innocuous—logging companies had been surveying these hills for the past couple of months—it unsettled the villagers and caused Ibu Diane to suggest that they move quickly. Staying was riskier than leaving, she said.

"Where are we going?" Lise asked.

"Over the mountains. Kubelick's Grave. Turk will fly us there, won't you, Turk?"

He appeared to think about it. "I might need a crowbar," he said, cryptically. "But yeah."

"We'll take one of the village cars back to the city," Ibu Diane said. "Something inconspicuous. The car you came in is a liability. I'll ask one of the villagers to drive it up the coast road and leave it somewhere."

"Do I get it back when all this is finished?"

"I doubt it."

"Well, that figures," Turk said.

* * * * *

The authorities had ways of tracking people in whom they were interested, Lise knew. Tiny RF tags could be planted on a vehicle or even in an item of clothing. And there were more arcane, even subtler devices available. The Minang villager who drove their car north also took with him their clothing and other possessions. Lise changed into a floral-print blouse and muslin pants from the village store, Turk into a pair of jeans and a white shirt. Both of them showered in Ibu Diane's clinic. "Be especially careful of your hair," Diane had instructed them. "Things can be hidden in hair."

Feeling simultaneously purified and paranoid, Lise climbed into the rust-spackled vehicle Diane had arranged for them to drive. Turk took the drivers seat, Lise buckled in next to him, and they waited while Diane said goodbye to a dozen villagers who had gathered around her.

"Popular woman," Lise observed.

"She's known in every village up the north coast," Turk said. "She moves between a whole bunch of these communities, expat Malays and Tamils and Minang, season by season, helping out. They all keep a place for her and they're all protective of her."

"They know she's a Fourth?"

"Sure. And she's not the only one. A bunch of these village elders are more elderly than you might think."

The world was changing, Lise thought, and no amount of rhetoric about the sanctity of the human genome was going to stop it. She pictured herself trying to communicate that truth to Brian. A truth he would no doubt refuse or deny. Brian was adept at patching cracks in the foundation of his faith in the good works of Genomic Security. But the cracks kept coming. The edifice trembled.

Ibu Diane Dupree levered herself into the car with elaborate caution and fastened her threadbare seat belt. Turk drove slowly, and the crowd of villagers followed for a few yards, filling the narrow street.

"They don't like to see me go," Diane said. "They're afraid I might not come back."

* * * * *