Twenty put me straight, politely. “No one expects you to film Mosala’s death. That would be impractical, as well as tasteless. We only want you to be in a position to explain to your viewers why her death was necessary.”

My grasp on reality was slipping. In the hold, I’d anticipated torture. I’d imagined, in detail, the process of being made to look like a plausible victim of a shark attack.

But not this.

I forced myself to speak evenly. “I’m not interested in an exclusive interview with my subject’s murderers.” The thought crossed my mind that half of SeeNet’s executives would never forgive those words, if they ever found out that I’d uttered them. “Why don’t you take out a paid spot on TechnoLalia? I’m sure their viewers would give you an unqualified vote of support – if you pointed out that it was necessary to kill Mosala in order to preserve the possibility of wormhole travel to other universes .”

Twenty frowned, unjustly slandered. “I knew Kuwale was feeding you poisonous lies. Is that what ve told you?”

I was growing light-headed, disbelieving; her obsessive concern with exactly the wrong proprieties was surreal. I shouted, “It doesn’t matter what the fucking reason is!” I tried to stretch my hands out, to implore her to see sense; they were tied firmly to the back of the chair. I said numbly, “I don’t know … maybe you just think Henry Buzzo has more gravitas, more presidential style. A suitably Jehovian manner. Or maybe you think he has more elegant equations.” I very nearly told them what Mosala had told me: Buzzo’s methodology was fatally flawed; their favorite contender could never be the Keystone. I caught myself in time. “I don’t care. It’s still murder.”

“But it’s not. It’s self-defense.”

I turned. The voice had come from the doorway of the cabin.

Helen Wu met my eyes, and explained sadly, “Wormholes have nothing to do with it. Buzzo has nothing to do with it. But if we don’t intervene, Violet will soon have the power to kill us all.”

Chapter 22

After Helen Wu entered the cabin, I recorded everything.

Not for SeeNet. For Interpol.

“I’ve done all I can to try to steer her onto safer ground,” Wu insisted solemnly. “I thought, if she understood where she was heading, she’d change her methods – for conventional scientific reasons. For the sake of a theory with physical content – which is what most of her peers expect of a TOE.” She raised her hands in a gesture of despair. “Nothing stops Violet! You know that. She absorbed every criticism I offered – and turned it into a virtue. I’ve only made things worse.”