“Turk can’t pilot an aircraft until his node is functional enough for him to gain access to the vehicle’s controls. But once the node is fully functional, he won’t be willing to leave. I assume you understand how narrow that window of opportunity is.”

“Obviously, but—”

“Right now Turk sees himself as facing a choice between escape and bondage. Once the node begins to influence his brain, it may seem more like a choice between escape and forgiveness.”

Forgiveness for what? I wondered but didn’t ask.

“The point is, I can warn you when he’s close to that line. And I can help by diverting the attention of the Coryphaeus at the critical time. We can talk about it in more detail later on, but I want you to know you have a friend and an ally. I hope you’ll think of me that way.”

He sounded so much like a precocious child who wanted to be liked that I almost forgot to be afraid of him. But when he stood up and moved toward the door I nearly panicked. “Wait! The Network surveillance in this room, is it turned off permanently?”

“No, I’m sorry. There are limits to what I can do. Unless I’m physically present, you should assume the Network is listening.”

I forced myself to stand close to him. The skin on the right side of his face was seashell-pink and almost poreless, imperfect because it was too perfect. His eyes were softly radiant. “One more question.”

“What is it?”

“Are you—you know, what they say you are?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“What the prophecies say you are. Can you really talk to the Hypotheticals?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

*   *   *

Less than an hour later Oscar showed up at the door, obviously distraught. He knew Isaac had been here, and he was maddeningly curious about what Isaac might have said, but he couldn’t access a Network record of it. He demanded an explanation.

I had known Oscar reasonably well back when I was Treya, training for liaison duties. Oscar had always had a serene confidence in the purity and purpose of his work. There was a Voxish saying: “He rises and falls with the tide,” describing someone who tracks the needs of Vox Core and caters to them uncomplainingly. That was Oscar. But lately his serenity had begun to fray at the edges. The fact that Isaac had chosen to meet privately with a nodeless apostate—and to enforce that privacy even against the Network’s routine surveillance—had sabotaged his finely honed sense of order.

I told him Isaac had wanted to reminisce about the twenty-first century.

“Anything you might know about the past he can easily access for himself.”

“Maybe he was curious about me. I don’t know. Maybe he felt like speaking English for a little while.”