"The other stations are clean, as far as we can tell. It's just that one little spot on Juan de Fuca."

"It figures," Scanlon said.

"What does?"

"They never got a break, you know? They've been fucked over since they were kids. And now, the only place in the world this bug shows up, and it has to be right where they live."

Rowan shook her head. "Oh, we found it other places too. All uninhabited. Beebe was the only—" She sighed. "Actually, we've been very lucky."

"No you haven't."

She looked at him.

"I hate to burst your balloon, Pat, but you had a whole construction crew down there last year. Maybe none of your boys and girls actually got wet, but do you really think ßehemoth couldn't have hitched a ride back on some of their equipment?"

"No," Rowan said. "We don't."

Her face was completely expressionless. It took a moment to sink in.

"The Urchin yards," he whispered. "Coquitlam."

Rowan closed her eyes. "And others."

"Oh Jesus," he managed. "So it's already out."

"Was," Rowan said. "We may have contained it. We don't know yet."

"And what if you haven't contained it?"

"We keep trying. What else can we do?"

"Is there a ceiling, at least? Some maximum death toll that'll make you admit defeat? Do any of your models tell you when to concede?"

Rowan's lips moved, although Scanlon heard no sound: yes.

"Ah," he said. "And just out of curiosity, what would that limit be?"

"Two and a half billion." He could barely hear her. "Firestorm the Pacific Rim."

She's serious. She's serious. "Sure that's enough? You think that'll do it?"

"I don't know. Hopefully we'll never have to find out. But if that doesn't work, nothing will. Anything more would be— futile. At least, that's what the models say."

He waited for it to sink in. It didn't. The numbers were just too big.

But way down the scale to the personal, that was a whole lot more immediate. "Why are you doing this?"

Rowan sighed. "I thought I'd just told you."

"Why are you telling me, Rowan? It's not your style."

"And what's my style, Yv—Dr. Scanlon?"

"You're corporate. You delegate. Why put yourself through all this awkward one-on-one self-justification when you've got flunkies and döppelgangers and hitmen to do your dirty work?"

She leaned forward suddenly, her face mere centimeters from the barrier. "What do you think we are, Scanlon? Do you think we'd even contemplate this if there was any other way? All the corpses and generals and heads of state, we're doing this because we're just plain evil? We just don't give a shit? Is that what you think?"

"I think," Scanlon said, remembering, "that we don't have the slightest control over what we are."