Waela scrambled up behind Lavu, leaving Thomas to follow. They were already inside when he reached the open hatch. He paused there to peer along this craft he would command. In a way, it was a small Voidship. The stabilizer fins were like solar panels. Exterior sensors for all of the cardinal directions were like a Voidship’s hull eyes. And every known weak point had been multiple-reinforced.

Backup systems piled on backup systems.

He turned, found the top rung of the access ladder with a foot and stepped down into the gondola. It was red-lighted gloom there with Lavu and Waela already at their positions. Waela was bent over her console, checking her instruments, leaving the line of her left cheek visible to Thomas in the red light. How tender and beautiful that line was, he thought. Immediately, he suppressed a cynical laugh.

Well, my glands are still working.

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, “Where is Abel, thy brother?” and he said, “I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” and He said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground.”

—Christian Book of the Dead, Shiprecords

“ANYTHING GOES here?” Legata asked.

She studied Sy Murdoch carefully as he thought about the question. He was taking too long to answer. She did not like this man, the pale eyes which defied everything around them. He kept the lab too bright, especially this late in the dayside. The young E-clones huddled against a far wall were obviously terrified of him.

“Well?”

“That takes a little thought,” Murdoch said.

Legata pursed her lips. This was her second visit to Lab One in three diurns. She did not believe the reasons for this one. Oakes had pretended anger that she had not penetrated every element of the lab, but she had sensed the flaws in his performance. He was lying.

Why had Oakes sent her back here? Lewis was no longer out of contact. What did those two know that they had not shared with her? Legata felt anger at the frustrating unknowns.

Murdoch moved cautiously. Oakes had ordered Legata sent through the Scream Room, an “exploratory,” but had warned: “She is frighteningly strong.”

How strong? Stronger than me?

He did not see how she could be. Such a bouncy little thing.

“I asked you a simple question,” Legata said, not bothering to conceal her anger.

“Interesting question, but not simple. Why do you ask it that way?”

“Because I’ve seen the lab reports to Morgan. You’re doing some strange things here.”

“Well . . . I would say that there are few limits here, but isn’t that the basis for discovery?”

She replied with a cold stare, and he went on.

“There are few limits here, so long as Doctor Oakes has a complete holorecord of what we do.”

“He has us on holo right now,” she said.