“If you’ll excuse me,” said Marcus, and realized that he was standing. He looked at the binder in his hands, unsure of what to do with it, then simply closed it and held it in front of him, wishing it was armor. He looked at the Senate, wondering if Heron was right—if one of them, or one of their aides, was a Partial agent. Did he dare to talk? Could he afford not to? “Excuse me,” he said again, starting over, “my name is Marcus Valencio—”

“We know who you are,” said Tovar.

Marcus nodded nervously. “I think I have more experience in Partial territory than anyone in this room—”

“That’s why we know who you are,” said Tovar, making a rolling motion with his hand. “Stop introducing yourself and get to your point.”

Marcus swallowed, suddenly not sure why he’d stood up—he felt like somebody needed to say something, but he didn’t feel at all qualified to say it. He wasn’t even sure what it was. He looked around the room, watching the faces of various gathered experts and politicians, wondering which of them—if any—was a traitor. He thought about Heron, and her search for Nandita, and realized that whatever he was trying to say, he was the only one who knew enough to say it. The only one who’d heard Heron’s warning. I just need to figure out how to phrase it without looking like a traitor myself. “I’m just saying,” he said at last, “that the Partials we encountered were conducting experiments. They have an expiration date—they’re all going to die—and they’re just as invested in curing that as we are in curing RM. More so, maybe, because it’s going to kill them sooner.”

“We know about the expiration date,” said Kessler. “It’s the best news we’ve had in twelve years.”

“Not counting the cure for RM, of course,” said Hobb quickly.

“It’s not good news at all,” said Marcus. “Their expiration date is like pushing us out of the frying pan and into the . . . molten core of the Earth. If they die, we die; we need their pheromone to cure ourselves.”

“That’s why we’re trying to synthesize it,” said Woolf.

“But we can’t synthesize it,” said Marcus, holding up his binder. “We could spend a couple of hours telling you everything we’ve tried, and all the reasons it hasn’t worked, and you wouldn’t understand half the science anyway—no offense—but that’s beside the point, because it hasn’t worked. ‘Why’ it hasn’t worked doesn’t matter.” He dropped the binder on the table behind him and turned back to face the senators. Seeing them again, staring at him silently, made Marcus feel suddenly queasy, and he smiled to cover it up. “Don’t everybody cheer at once, I have some bad news, too.”