Rove nodded. There was the faintest tremor about his eyes that told Lucas how long he’d been pushing himself, how tired he was, how tense. His plan was like a steel trap that he was holding open, waiting for the perfect moment. The thought brought an unexpected stab of sympathy for his boss. The path of self-interest wasn’t necessarily effort free, after all. Rove was one man pitting himself against the whole of creation.

“Charen seems to think everything is in order,” Rove said. “But we may need to move quickly, when the moment arrives, and I have no doubt our fellows here will get in the way.”

“I’m ready, sir,” Lucas confirmed. “You’re happy this Charen can deliver, though?”

“Charen is in deep with the ice-computer that these cavemen use to get from place to place,” Rove replied, closing his eyes. If he’d been fresher, he wouldn’t have said so much. “She’s in so deep that she’s in suspended animation at round about zero degrees centigrade in my secure facility back home. She has been for a couple of years now—but that just means she can communicate constantly with the ice- machine. It’s what she would have wanted, probably. It gives her unparalleled access, and she’s tractable enough in that state. And she’s almost like a computer herself. She doesn’t have any desires, really, little enough conscious volition. She just does what she’s told—because as far as she’s concerned she’s already achieved her nirvana, the thing she was always chasing. She thinks she’s found God, poor deluded soul.”

Lucas stared down at him, feeling the shift in his innards brought on by this latest revelation. It was one more sin to add to the ledger of things he was enabling. “So what good is she?”