“I’m sure the entire Nexus needs a Talsit session,” Farren Siliom said, pressing on the bridge of his nose. The president glanced at Lanier, seemed to dismiss him with a leisurely blink, then focused his attention on Mirsky. “The Hexamon considers itself an advanced society, whatever our self-ordained limitations…but I find it very hard to believe our work could have such far-ranging consequences.”

“You are at a crux,” Mirsky said.

“So you claim. We are not complete innocents, however. I well remember Olmy’s deceit before the Geshels some years back, when he brought the Engineer back to us. He did all true Naderites a service. But is this another kind of deceit, another manipulation?”

“The truth of my story should be obvious,” Mirsky said.

“Not so obvious to someone who has spent the last ten years fighting a tide of sympathy for re-opening. Fought with the Engineer by my side, although that seems difficult to believe now.”

Lanier swallowed. “May I sit?” he asked.

“By all means,” Farren Siliom said. “My irritation obscures my manners.” The president ordered a chair to be formed for Lanier, and as an afterthought, ordered chairs for them all. “We’re going to talk for some time,” he told Korzenowski.

“I’m a reasonably practical man,” Farren Siliom continued, “as practical as a politician can be in charge of a nation of dreamers and idealists. That’s what the Hexamon believes it is; has been for centuries. But we’ve also been hard-headed, strong and willful. We met the challenge of the Way once. But we nearly lost to the Jarts, and they have had decades since to refine their tactics. We all believe they’ve occupied the entire Way—don’t we?”

Lanier was the only one to abstain from agreeing. He felt like a dwarf among giants here; again old, a fifth wheel.

“Do you understand my confusion?” Farren Siliom asked Korzenowski.

“Yes, I do, Ser President.”

“Then clear it up for me. You’ve been convinced, but do you swear to me by the Good Man, by the Stars and Fate and Pneuma, that you are not involved in a plot to re-open your creation, and you have not somehow fabricated this entire episode?”

Korzenowski regarded the president for several seconds in offended silence. “I so swear.”

“I regret calling your integrity into question, Ser Korzenowski. But I must be absolutely certain. You had no prior knowledge of Ser Mirsky’s return?”

“I half-expected something of this sort; I cannot say I believed it would happen. No, I did not have prior knowledge.”

“You are convinced the Way has done this damage?”

“Not damage, Ser Minister,” Mirsky said. “Obstruction.”

“Whatever. You are convinced?” He stared sharply at Korzenowski.

“Yes.”