Clarke snorts. "That's just great, Ken, but in case you haven't noticed not everybody shares your sense of restraint. You think Grace is going to wait until the facts are in? You've given her all the credibility she ever wanted, she's out there right now passing all kinds of judgment and—"

—And you went to her first, you fucker. After all we've been through, after all these years you were the one person I'd trust with my life and you confided in her before you—

"Were you even going to tell me?" she cries.

"It wouldn't have served any purpose."

"Not your purpose, perhaps. Which is what, exactly?"

"Minimizing risk."

"Any animal could say that much."

"It's not the most ambitious aspiration," Lubin admits. "But then again, 'destroying the world' has already been taken."

She feels it like a slap across the face.

After a moment he adds, "I don't hold it against you. You know that. But you're hardly in a position to pass judgment."

"I know that, you cocksucker. I don't need you to remind me every fucking chance you get."

"I'm talking about strategy," Lubin says patiently. "Not morals. I'll entertain your what-ifs. I'll admit that Rowan might be telling the truth. But assume, for the moment, that she isn't. Assume that the corpses have been waging clandestine biological warfare on us. Even knowing that, would you attack them?"

She knows it's rhetorical.

"I didn't think so," he says after a moment. "Because no matter what they've done, you've done worse. But the rest of us don't have quite so much to atone for. We don't think we do deserve to die at the hands of these people. I respect you a great deal, Lenie, but this is one issue you can't be trusted on. You're too hamstrung by your own guilt."

She doesn't speak for a long time. Finally: "Why her? Of all people?"

"Because if we're at war, we need firebrands. We've gotten lazy and complacent and weak; half of us spend most of our waking hours hallucinating out on the ridge. Nolan's impulsive and not particularly bright, but at least she gets people motivated."

"And if you're wrong—even if you're right—the innocent end up paying right along with the guilty."

"That's nothing new," Lubin says. "And it's not my problem."

"Maybe it should be."

He turns back to his board. The display springs to light, columns of inventory and arcane abbreviations that must have some tactical relevance for the upcoming campaign.

My best friend. I'd trust him with my life, she reminds herself, and repeats the thought for emphasis: with my life.

He's a sociopath.