“Because many of them would react like you have,” he said, “and some would try to punish the Partials further.”

“You don’t know me very well, Doctor, but I’m not really the kind to stay quiet about things I don’t like.”

“But you are good at keeping secrets,” he said.

Kira glanced at him sideways. “You’re talking about Samm?”

“Do you have other secrets, too?”

Kira studied him a moment, trying to see if he knew, or even suspected, what she was. Probably not, she decided, or he would have asked why I’m not affected by the Partial sedative. Unless he knows more about me than I do. . . .

Of course he knows more, she thought, he’s part of the Trust. He knows everything we came here to learn. I can’t stop what he’s doing by myself, not now, but if I get the answers I need, I may not have to. She pondered a moment longer before speaking.

“I’ll keep your secret—for now—but you have to give something to me.”

“The cure?” he asked. “As you can see, it’s the same cure you’ve already discovered—and, as I told you before, it’s not exactly portable.”

“Not the cure,” she said. “It’s evil, and whatever you’re about to show me won’t change my mind about that.”

“We’ll see,” said Vale.

Kira persisted. “What I want is information.”

“What kind of information?”

“Everything,” she said. “You helped build the Partials, which means you know about RM and expiration, the Failsafe. I want to know what your plans were, and how everything fits together.”

“Whatever information I have is yours,” he said. “In exchange, as you said, for secrecy.”

“Agreed,” said Kira.

“Good,” said Vale, stopping beside a door in the hallway. “But first, we go up.”

Kira read the label on the door. “‘Building Six.’ That’s the one you converted to a hospital.”

“It is.”

“I’ve already seen the hospital.”

Vale opened the door. “What you haven’t seen is the baby born this afternoon. Follow me.”

He climbed a set of stairs, and Kira followed, suddenly nervous. Of course there would be a new baby—why else would he go to the spire to retrieve a syringe of the cure? Her stomach tightened involuntarily; she had spent so much of her life in the East Meadow hospital, toiling in maternity while infants died and mothers wailed in despair, that she couldn’t help but feel the same tension again. But it was different now—Vale had the cure. This child wouldn’t have to die. Except she knew where the cure had come from. She closed her eyes and saw the Partials’ gaunt, withered faces. Keeping them like that was wrong, no matter what Vale said to excuse it. And yet . . .