Kira thought back on her list of the Trust. “Jerry Ryssdal,” she said. “He was one of you, too. Where is he?”

“South,” said Vale solemnly. “In the heart of the wasteland.”

“How can he survive?”

“Gene mods,” said Vale. “He came here once, in the night, and I barely recognized him—he’s more . . . inhuman, now, than even the Partials are. He’s trying to cure the Earth, so there’s something left for the meek to inherit; I told him he’d do better helping me cure RM, but he was always single-minded.”

“And there are two more back east,” said Kira. “Two factions of Partials are led by members of the Trust: Kioni Trimble and McKenna Morgan.”

“They’re alive?” His eyes were wide, his jaw open. Kira couldn’t tell if he was glad to hear it or not. “You say they’re leading the Partials? That they’ve sided with them, against the humans?”

“I think so,” said Kira. “They . . . I’ve never met Trimble, but Dr. Morgan’s gone completely mad, kidnapping humans and trying to study them so she can cure the Partial expiration date. She didn’t know about it until Partials started dying, apparently, but she’s convinced she can solve it with human biology.” And with me, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. She still didn’t know what she was, or what Vale would do when he found out. And she had to ask him. She felt torn between paranoia and desperation.

“Trimble knew about our plan,” said Vale. “Morgan and Jerry didn’t; they designed most of the Partials’ biology, but we weren’t sure we could trust them with the issue of the Failsafe, and since it didn’t touch their work, we didn’t need to.”

“Who are the others?” asked Kira.

“What others?”

“I found all those names in my research,” said Kira, “but I never found yours, and I’ve heard of two others that I still don’t know anything about.”

“My name is Cronus Vale,” he said, and Kira nodded in recognition.

“Cronus I’ve heard,” she said, and shot Vale a careful glance. “Dr. Morgan seems to think of you as a threat.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve met her.”

“It was not the most pleasant experience of my life.”

“She’s petty and arrogant and heartless,” said Vale. “By the end, she had all but given up on humanity as a species.”

“That sounds like her.”

“If she ever finds this place,” said Vale, “we’re all doomed. My philosophies are, as you’ve seen, somewhat opposed to hers.”

“You’re trying to protect humanity, even if it means the enslavement of the Partial race,” said Kira, and the truth was beginning to dawn on her. “What happened to your ideals? What is your plan now? For the survival of both races?”