Foster: “You’re sure they’re working for someone?”

Papadelias: “I know who, I know how, I know since when, but what I have won’t convince a judge. If you give me that recording I can land the bosses, and probably get Cato and a couple of the others to testify against them and get lighter sentences as a consequence. That way the parties truly responsible get what they deserve, the killing stops, and those who were forced unwillingly into doing the dirty work get the more lenient justice they deserve. It’s your call, Foster. Justice is a lot less blind in our day but a sword is still a very clumsy instrument. It’s up to us to guide the blade.”

Foster: “Tell me what you know.”

Papadelias: “What?”

Foster: “You said you know who, how, and since when, so prove it. Tell me. You haven’t even directly said what crime it is we’re talking about.”

Papadelias: “I can’t tell you, it’ll prejudice you as a witness.”

Foster: “I’m not going to testify. If there were a recording and I did give it to you, I’d agree to give a written deposition explaining how I got it, but that’s it. I won’t take the stand against a parishioner, the precedent would rip the Sensayers’ Program apart, and no law, certainly not Cousins’ Law, can make me do it.”

Papadelias: “No chance your conscience will make you, is there?”

Foster: “Not likely when you won’t even tell me what cause I’d be supporting.”

Papadelias: “Fine, you want it spelled out, you got it, but if you breathe a word of this to Julia or anyone but me, you’ll be under arrest faster than you can say Greenpeace-Mitsubishi Merger, clear?”

Foster: “Clear.”

Papadelias: “Two hundred and forty-four years ago, the Six-Hive Global Transit Network, developed by the two Olympian doctors Orion Saneer and Tungsten Weeksbooth, started using Mitsubishi-trained Cartesian set-sets. They rapidly discovered that set-sets hooked to the transit computers could identify people whose deaths would solve big tensions in world history, or help their Hive. The Mitsubishi and Olympians, later Humanists, made a deal to use this system for their mutual benefit against the other Hives. The Europeans got on board in the twenty-three thirties, forming what I’m calling the Saneer-Weeksbooth Set-Set Transit System Three-Hive Secret Alliance—O.S. for short—which has thus far claimed two thousand, two hundred and four victims, and will claim more if you don’t help me end it.”

Foster: “O.S.?”

Papadelias: “That’s what I’ve nicknamed our assassins.”

Foster: “Why O.S.?”

Papadelias: “It’s easier to pronounce than S.W.S.S.T.S.T.H.S.A. The head of the bash’ always has the initials O.S. Before Ockham Saneer the last leader was Ockham’s mother Osten Saneer, before that Oyuki Sniper, Oleisia Sniper, Napoleon Weeksbooth Saneer who went by Ollie, before that Rong Oakhart Shen, Kiran Omi Saneer, Omid Saito, always O.S., back twelve generations to Orion Saneer, who put the system together. Even Sniper’s full name is Ojiro Cardigan Sniper, and Thisbe is Thisbe Ottila Saneer. So, O.S.”