George nodded. “Indeed. I must say, I was rather tempted to go rescue them, but I didn’t want to ruin our chances at getting on the inside of Chu’s plans. I believe we all agree that Chu would not put them in total danger—not yet, anyway. It appears he’s running them through some sort of test, and I can’t imagine he’d waste their potential by letting one of the Grinders kill them so easily. They serve us best as spies—albeit unknowing spies—at the moment.”

“That’s a big risk on your part, it is,” Mothball said, the most accusatory thing Sato had ever heard her say to George. The tall woman loved those kids like her own children. Sato felt a little jealous; she didn’t seem to care so much for him.

“That’s neither here nor there,” George responded. “I was right to wait. They’ve been winked to the Sixth by Chu, where they seem to be safe and sound for the time being.”

“What was that you said about a bizarre incident?” Sato asked.

“I can’t say for sure. There was a surge in Chi’karda in that area, some kind of great disturbance that caused a Ripple Quake in one of the fragmented Realities. If I had to guess, I’d say Chu destroyed one of the training tunnels in order to wink them out. That glass is particularly resistant to Barrier Wands.”

“But how would he do that?” Rutger asked.

“Well . . . that brings us to our next item of discussion.” George looked over at Sato. “Based on the information Sato has gathered, combined with the evidence of our spies and the disturbances we’ve seen this past summer, I believe Chu has built some sort of superweapon that contains more simulated Chi’karda power than anything ever built previously. I believe it’s responsible for some of the odd things happening to Tick and the others, as well as for spreading the plague of insanity.”

Everyone turned to look at Sato, as if he would follow this up with a brilliant statement supporting George’s theory.

“Everything points to that,” he said, unable to think of anything else. George had said it better than he ever could.

“We can dig more into the details later in the meeting,” George continued, “but I want to put something on the table now before we say another word. It’s rare that I must give an assignment as terribly important as the one I’m about to ask of Sato.”

Sato’s mind had been drifting, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “What was that? An assignment?”

“Yes, a mission of sorts.”

Sato swallowed. He felt as if the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees. “You want me to . . .” He had mentioned the possibility of sending someone to gather samples, but he’d never guessed the old man would choose him.