I translated, with embellishments. The medical staff hastened out of the room with eyes averted, abandoning their surgical tools. But this, too, was only a reprieve. The medics were almost instantly replaced by a man in a gray jumpsuit, an administrator, a manager—a man I recognized from Treya’s training sessions. He had been one of my teachers, not one of my favorites.

Apparently he and Turk had already met. “Stay out of this, Oscar,” Turk said in English.

The administrator’s Voxish name was long and decorated with honorifics, but “Oscar” was a decent approximation of the patrilineal fraction of it. Oscar spoke English, of course. His English wasn’t as nuanced as mine—he had learned it mainly from ancient textbooks and legal documents—but it was functional, and unlike me he was empowered to speak on behalf of the managerial class.

“Please calm down, Mr. Findley,” he said in his reedy voice. He was a small man, pale-skinned, yellow-haired, a couple of years past young.

“Fuck you, Oscar. Your people were about to force a surgical procedure on a friend of mine. I don’t take that lightly.”

“The woman you describe as your ‘friend’ was badly injured in the Farmer rebellion. You witnessed that injury, didn’t you? In fact you tried to stop it.”

It figured that Oscar would attempt some kind of legalistic argument, schooled as he was in ancient writs and warrants. Turk ignored him and turned to me. “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay for the time being. I won’t be, if they put my node back in.”

“That’s irrational,” Oscar said. “Surely you must see that, Treya.”

“My name isn’t Treya.”

“Of course it is. Your denial is a symptom of your disorder. You’re suffering from a pathological cognitive dissociation that cries out for repair.”

“Oscar, shut the fuck up,” Turk said. “I need to speak to Allison privately.”

“There is no ‘Allison,’ Mr. Findley. ‘Allison’ is a tutelary construct, and the longer we allow Treya to sustain this delusion the harder it will be to cure her.”

Treya herself would have deferred to Oscar without question, and I could still feel that old and craven impulse. But now it was hateful to me. “Oscar,” I said in a quieter voice.

He shot me a hard look and repeated his Voxish name with all its status markers: I was a worker, and it was an insolence to call him by his short name. “Oscar,” I repeated. “Are you hard of hearing? Turk asked you to shut the fuck up.”

His pale complexion turned red. “I don’t understand this. Have we hurt you, Mr. Findley? Have we threatened you in any way? Haven’t I served as your personal liaison in a satisfactory manner?”

“You’re not my liaison,” Turk said. “Allison is.”