It wasn’t that Rove was a genius-level intellect, but he had a very specific set of skills. Lucas wasn’t qualified to diagnose sociopathy, but Rove was capable of telling anyone anything, making utterly convincing promises and being bound by none of it. Rove loved Rove first, things useful to Rove second. And nothing else.

After being hoisted into the creature’s interior, Rove glanced around with a proprietary air, grasping the layout of their lozenge-shaped rooms and picking the one he liked most. “We’ll make our stand here, I think,” he told Lucas, and sure enough that chamber was Rove’s from then on because nobody else wanted to be near him.

After the rest had settled, Lucas found his boss sitting comfortably against the rounded wall, making staccato motions at the touch screen of his phone. Probably not checking social media, Lucas guessed. He could hear the voices of the others echoing dully from elsewhere, engaged in some kind of tedious get-to-know-you session he felt he was well out of. The cover of their jabbering meant he could at least pump his boss for intel without worrying about being overheard.

“Some clarity on what we’re doing here would be appreciated, sir,” he said.

Rove looked up brightly. Sitting in this windowless room, there was a slight air of the white-collar convict to him, which Lucas found more amusing than he expected. There was no admission in the man’s face that he was anything other than in control, though.

“First order of the day is to gather information, Lucas. Our hosts believe they can find the source of what’s going on, and once that is understood, many things may be possible.”

“The source of it?”

Rove lifted an eyebrow. “The prevailing school of thought amongst our hosts, based on the amalgamated evidence, is that a process has been at work, splitting linear causality into parallel branches. Our immediate interlocutors have even replicated the process, at considerable cost. Charen showed me how that worked a while back. And though I won’t pretend to have mastered the mathematics, the implications are eye-opening, in respect of what options it puts on the table.”

Lucas frowned. “Options like what?” He was aware that he wasn’t talking to his boss with quite his usual deference, and Rove wasn’t kicking against it. He was equally aware that Rove would drop him the moment he ceased to be useful. It was a fine line to tread.

“It’s a work in progress, Lucas. You know me, I like to look ahead. I’ve been planning for this for longer than anyone else, except the Neanderthals.”

Lucas nodded, took a quick look out into the rest of the suite to make sure nobody had crept away from the party and sidled back. “So who’s Charen, precisely?”