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dozen new technologies—high-efficiency osmotic filters, stress-resistant thin-film polymers more biologically inert than anything we have . . . it’s a coup d’etat.”
    â€œHigh praise.”
    â€œNo, I mean
literally
. The Works Trust has been foundering on Isis for two decades, and the problems only get worse. If Devices and Personnel can step in and make Isis a paying proposition in one swift stroke, they might garner enough Council support to oust the WT hardliners.”
    All this left Hayes feeling impatient and uncomfortable. “Earth politics, Elam. What does it mean to us?”
    â€œIf it works, it means we get a whole new crop of kachos with new priorities. Best case. In the long run, it might mean permanent settlements. It might mean Isis gets rapidly strip-mined for its biological and genetic resources. It would almost certainly mean a lot less Kuiper involvement.”
    â€œWould it?”
    â€œWell, why are we here? Partly because the Works people can exploit our scientific savvy without being beholden to Devices and Personnel. Partly because we’re accustomed to living and working in small groups in enclosed environments. If Devices and Personnel is prepared to open up Isis to anyone with one of their environmental interfaces—and if they can do that without a humiliating liaison with the Kuiper Republics—then they blow the Works Trust out of the water. And us besides. Not to mention the future of genuine science on this planet. They won’t disseminate knowledge,they’ll
patent
everything they learn. And bypass us on the way to the stars.”
    â€œYou suppose Zoe is aware of all this?”
    â€œZoe is a cat’s-paw. She thinks it’s all an exozoology project. But Devices and Personnel owns her. Read her file again—the fine print. She was decanted and raised in a high-class D and P crêche until the age of twelve. Then, suddenly, she was dumped into a Tehran orphan ranch along with four clonal siblings.”
    â€œA lot of people get shunted off-line like that. Bureaucracy.”
    â€œYeah. But check the date. August of thirty-two—the Works Trust has half the high staff of D and P arrested for sedition. A power struggle. September of thirty-two, Zoe and sibs are dumped in Tehran. January of thirty-five—another staff shake-up, this time in the Works Trust itself. A bunch of Devices and Personnel kachos are reinstated, hauled back from the rehab farms and declared heroes. March, of thirty-five, D and P collects Zoe from the orphan farm.”
    â€œJust Zoe?”
    â€œHer sibs didn’t survive. Iranian orphan farms aren’t exactly the Lunar Hilton. All Zoe knows is that she was rescued. They bought her loyalty, cheap.”
    â€œCheap for them. It must have been traumatic for her.”
    â€œCan’t you tell?”
    He nodded. “She’s not exactly well-socialized.”
    â€œShe’s a victim and a tool, raised on promises and theory and thymostats and bullshit. Some advice? Don’t get attached.”
    I’m not attached, Hayes thought. To anything. “She’s a long way from home, Elam.”
    â€œNot as far as you might think. She has a keeper, a Devices and Personnel kacho named Avrion Theophilus. He was her trainer, her teacher, and her surrogate father after Tehran. And according to this agenda, he’s coming to Isis.”
    Night fell, reflected on a dozen screens throughout Yambuku. Hayes had a session with Dieter Franklin. The tall planetologistdrank too much coffee and took his pet theories, something about the microtubule structure of Isian microcells, out for a walk. It was interesting, but not interesting enough to keep Hayes up past midnight.
    The station was quieter after dark. Curious, Hayes thought, how we all pace ourselves to these circadian rhythms, even though the Isian day-clock ran a couple of hours slow. He walked the corridors of the core once around, a