Part Two

When Paolo woke and joined ver in the scape, Yatima said, "I’m trying to decide what we should tell them. When they ask why we came after them."

Paolo laughed grimly. "Tell them about Lacerta."

"They’ll know about Lacerta."

"As a blip on a map. They won’t know what it did. They won’t know what it meant."

"No." Yatima gazed at Weyl, at the center of the blue shift. Ve didn’t want to antagonize Paolo with questions about Atlanta, but ve didn’t want to shut him out either. "You know Karpal, don’t you?"

"Yes." Paolo accepted the present tense with a faint smile.

"And wasn’t he on the moon, running TERAGO "

Paolo said coldly, "He did everything he could. It wasn’t his fault the whole planet was sleepwalking."

"I agree. I don’t blame him for anything." Yatima spread vis arms, conciliatory. "I just wondered if he’d ever talked about it. If he ever told you his side of things."

Paolo nodded grudgingly. "He talked about it. Once."