Sobon moved stiffly, de-spite the rest and the ar-ti-fi-cial nerves and ac-tu-a-tors he''d graft-ed into the "body" that the Founder had giv-en him. It was... nowhere near a prop-er med-ical fix, but Sobon had en-tered bat-tle with a worse body. Once. That had not end-ed up a suc-cess-ful bat-tle, ex-cept by the clas-sic mil-i-tary stan-dard: any bat-tle you sur-vive is a suc-cess-ful one.


    Sobon was un-sure whether this cur-rent mess would count as suc-cess-ful, in the end, even by that low stan-dard. Then again... he''d died sev-er-al times al-ready, and was still here.


    The Founder was not in the out-er, Djang-fac-ing part of its spaces, but Sobon did not hes-i-tate to pass into the cor-ri-dor that had un-mis-tak-ably been left open for him. The Founders'' ''fa-cil-i-ty'' was a hy-per-ge-o-met-ric en-ti-ty in its own right--it ex-tend-ed right out of nor-mal space, not mere-ly ex-ist-ing with-in a pock-et di-men-sion, but ex-tend-ing up into lay-ers of aether space, and Sobon knew that the Founder would not have left the open-ing in a state where he could en-ter if it was not an in-vi-ta-tion. The Founders, af-ter all, could wrap physics and re-al-i-ty around their fin-gers, cre-at-ing and al-ter-ing mat-ter in ways that de-fied any less-er users of aether.


    Pass-ing into the an aether di-men-sion for the first time felt to Sobon not un-like the first time he had ever used aether--a pe-cu-liar sen-sa-tion of a loss of con-trol, as though new things were pos-si-ble, and some deep-er part of him had nev-er pre-pared for these pos-si-bil-i-ties, could nev-er have pre-pared for them. And yet... Sobon could also feel a part of his psy-che that was dis-tinct-ly up-set that he could sim-ply walk into... what di-rec-tion was he go-ing any-way?


    A syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence of some sort re-spond-ed, the data not so much pulsed as wo-ven through the hall-way like a pass-ing rib-bon. Sobon was in-deed sim-ply trav-el-ling through nor-mal, three-di-men-sion-al space, but also, the fa-cil-i-ty''s ori-en-ta-tion was tech-ni-cal-ly deep-er into left-right aether spin plane. The fur-ther he trav-elled into this branch of the fa-cil-i-ty, the deep-er he trav-eled into Left-right aether space, though that ab-stract con-cept was de-cep-tive and not use-ful in-for-ma-tion.


    Sobon, rather than chal-leng-ing ei-ther that in-for-ma-tion or his own re-ac-tion to it, filed the data away as true in his mind and moved on.


    Sev-er-al times, Sobon felt sure that he had come to an in-ter-sec-tion, but every path-way but the in-tend-ed one was sealed. By some trick, every time that hap-pened, Sobon thought he was go-ing straight, though he knew that must not be so. As be-fore, he re-fused to chal-lenge the ap-pear-ance; it was doubt-less a se-cu-ri-ty mea-sure, and Sobon had no in-ter-est in fight-ing the se-cu-ri-ty of a Founder fa-cil-i-ty, au-to-mat-ed or oth-er-wise.


    Those in-ter-sec-tions, how-ev-er, only served to high-light the one odd-i-ty of the trip: a sealed side door, with a holo-rib-bon say-ing "No ad-mit-tence." Sobon stud-ied it long enough to be cer-tain it meant what it said, and moved on, feel-ing less and less cer-tain about the fa-cil-i-ty and his place in all of this.


    When at last he found the Founder, the crea-ture was stand-ing in what Sobon knew must be some sort of mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion, a holo-graph-ic lift that sur-round-ed them with del-i-cate aether threads, threads that must rep-re-sent both con-trols and in-for-ma-tion. From Sobon''s own per-spec-tive, the mass of data around the Founder was un-rec-og-niz-able, but he had no doubt that the Founder was be-ing giv-en every-thing it need-ed to un-der-stand the in-for-ma-tion.


    "Sobon of Crest," the Founder said, with-out piv-ot-ing in place or oth-er-wise phys-i-cal-ly ac-knowled-ing him.


    "Founder." Sobon paused. "You nev-er did give me your name."


    "Nor do I in-tend to. Lin-guis-ti-cal-ly, for our peo-ple, our pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty be-comes our iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as we are noth-ing more than that pro-fes-sion at any giv-en mo-ment. Sim-i-lar-ly, our no-table his-to-ry, in-clud-ing crimes, be-come ad-e-quate sub-sti-tutes for an iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as they are un-am-bigu-ous." Gen-tly, so gen-tly that Sobon might have missed it, the Founder pressed them-selves back with aether force, dis-en-gag-ing from the holo-graph-ic mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion. "In the Founders'' lan-guage, ap-pro-pri-ate names for me would in-clude ''In-tern'', ''Be-tray-er'', ''Mur-der-er'', ''Liar'', ''Fool'', ''Ma-nip-u-la-tor'', and oth-er, less of-fi-cial and less po-lite vari-ants. To me, you re-main ''Crestan,'' though I un-der-stand that you pre-fer an ex-plic-it iden-ti-ty mark-er."


    Sobon found that de-tail of the Founders'' cul-ture both ir-ra-tional and ir-ri-tat-ing. "I do," he con-firmed, not both-er-ing to hide the ir-ri-ta-tion in his voice. "Isn''t your pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty ul-ti-mate-ly am-bigu-ous in most cir-cum-stances? To a col-league, or oth-er per-son of sim-i-lar stand-ing?"


    "You for-get that as a cul-ture, we speak with in-tent, as much as words," the Founder said, sound-ing mild-ly amused. "If we have any need to dis-am-biguate, the in-tent of the word con-veys the specifics. When do-ing so, the word it-self is su-per-flu-ous, but it re-mains... po-lite, to sum-ma-rize the in-tent in a sin-gle word. It is an ex-er-cise in brevi-ty and holis-tic in-tent."


    Sobon rubbed his... or rather, he still had Alas-si''s head on this pup-pet body, as grotesque as that felt. Was he rub-bing her head? He hat-ed this whole sit-u-a-tion, though he had lit-tle doubts things would re-main screwed up for a long time. "I wish I had more time to rest," Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, "but I get the im-pres-sion we don''t have that time. And pre-sum-ably, that means we don''t have the time to waste on idle chat-ter."


    "Time flows strange-ly when fate is ma-nip-u-lat-ed," the Founder said, "a fact that you sure-ly know. But you also, to my cha-grin, are not wrong. There have been at-tempts to break into this fa-cil-i-ty from the ''oth-er end'', at-tempts that will some-day suc-ceed." The Founder ges-tured, and with a hiss and a qui-et thunk, the door be-hind Sobon closed--and an-oth-er, near-by, opened. "Come, let us dis-cuss more com-fort-ably."


    Sobon turned and stud-ied the door be-hind him, but was con-fi-dent when he turned that the noise it had made in clos-ing was en-tire-ly for his ben-e-fit. So he fol-lowed the Founder into some-thing like a con-fer-ence room, if the Founders as a so-ci-ety had any need to ded-i-cate whole rooms to such a ba-sic con-cept.


    It was, func-tioan-l-ly, a very ba-sic room in-tend-ed for sev-er-al rest-ing peo-ples, but laid out specif-i-cal-ly for pre-sen-ta-tions, and with some mi-nor tools whose pur-pose beamed them-selves into Sobon''s mind with in-tent. In re-al-i-ty, there were only three ba-sic types of tools here--the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, which could be queried for in-for-ma-tion, a pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus for for-mat-ting and pro-ject-ing in-for-ma-tion, and the cir-cu-lar glyphs on the floor whose self-iden-ti-ty trans-lat-ed in Sobon''s mind to [float-rest].


    The Founder took one of these, and im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan re-lax-ing in open air as they had when Sobon had first met them, and so Sobon moved into an-oth-er of the cir-cles, to find that his body was pressed up-wards--from with-in, and even-ly, in ways that might have been com-fort-able to any-one else. Sobon blinked, try-ing to study the sen-sa-tion and the aether flows around him, but his nerves and aether sens-es were still itchy and burn-ing, a re-sult of the pa-thet-ic half-body he still resided in.


    The same day he had met this Founder, his body had been ripped mer-ci-less-ly to pieces by a Djang man, some rel-a-tive of the Djang Roy-al Fam-i-ly who was out of pow-er and re-bel-lious. The man''s chains had ripped out his bones and even pulled the spine straight out of his brain stem, all the while some-how not do-ing quite enough dam-age to kill him out-right. The bas-tadr had even seemed to be-lieve he would get away with it, but--well. The Founder was pre-tend-ing, quite suc-cess-ful-ly, to be the Di-a-mond Lord, supreme ruler of the world, and had re-quest-ed Sobon''s pres-ence. To have done so much to the Di-a-mond Lord''s guest was... un-wise.


    Sobon didn''t know what had hap-pened since, but it didn''t take much imag-i-na-tion. Ei-ther the man would sub-mit and be judged for what had hap-pened, or he would fight. De-pend-ing on who else he dragged into the mess, it might al-ready be over, or it might drag into a war. That sound-ed ex-treme--Sobon''s own in-stincts were that the man would be swift-ly brought to jus-tice--but Sobon had learned too well that jus-tice didn''t work cor-rect-ly in this world. It was en-tire-ly too like-ly that he would show up with some kind of larg-er army, de-clar-ing his own cause just and de-cry-ing Sobon as some kind of mon-ster for dar-ing to de-fend him-self.


    It wouldn''t be the first time, and Sobon had only just ar-rived on this damned plan-et a few weeks ago.


    "I sup-pose these rests aren''t as much val-ue to you as I would have liked," Sobon heard the Founder say, and he brought his at-ten-tion back to it, as it float-ed across form him. "It is a gen-uine pity. I''ve sam-pled the seat-ing of the child races, specif-i-cal-ly those rat-ed most com-fort-able by their re-spec-tive so-ci-eties, and none of them come with-in thir-ty per-cent of a float-rest. Even less-er at-tempts to per-form the same gen-er-al tech-nique, by those of less-er aether, can-not com-pare. I sup-pose it is sim-ply the... en-ti-tle-ment? I sup-pose we are sim-ply too used to com-fort be-ing a solved prob-lem."


    "It doesn''t do much for me," Sobon agreed, try-ing to keep the frus-tra-tion from his voice. "The sit-u-a-tion?"


    With-out ges-tur-ing, the Founder flick-ered im-ages into the space be-tween them, and Sobon found when he looked that the aether pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus was also avail-able to him, though the con-trols were un-fa-mil-iar. Ei-ther way, the in-for-ma-tion that the Founder pre-sent-ed be-gan to mu-tate in ways Sobon sus-pect-ed were for him alone, as the fa-cil-i-ty or its AI ad-just-ed to what Sobon him-self knew or could un-der-stand, and added and re-moved in-for-ma-tion to not over-whelm or un-der-in-form him.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "This is us, and this is this world," the Founder said, show-ing the plan-et, its fa-cil-i-ty, and a vague net-work be-yond. "Ac-cord-ing to our data-base, your species un-der-stands this sys-tem as Rex-hai, and thus the plan-et is Rex-hai 2, but there''s no rea-son for you to know the name. It is with-in Founder space, and not par-tic-u-lar-ly close to Im-pe-r-i-al con-trolled space."


    "Why did it the Ri''lef ressurec-tion pro-to-cols find me, then? As op-posed to any-one else?" The map, once dis-played, made any hint that this was sim-ply co-in-ci-dence be-yond im-prob-a-ble.


    "Ob-vi-ous-ly it didn''t." The Founder ges-tured, not with their hands, but with a holo-graph-ic pres-ence that merged seam-less-ly into the pre-sen-ta-tion, and the yet-un-la-beled net-work was high-light-ed. "You are... a mo-ment... ap-par-ent-ly the ap-pro-pri-ate term is ''a hack at-tempt''. Founder fate mag-ic chose you as an en-ti-ty like-ly to en-sure that this sit-u-a-tion was re-solv-able." The Founder swiveled to-wards Sobon, some-what, and their pres-ence, some-where above and around them, changed pos-tures, too sub-tly for Sobon to make out any de-tail. "I should clar-i-fy--not my fate mag-ic. It was an in-tru-sive ac-tion tak-en by the net-work, and like-ly not the only one. There have cer-tain-ly been oth-er and var-i-ous in-tru-sion at-tempts since then."


    "I hope not more un-for-tu-nates be-ing born into this world," Sobon said, men-tal-ly reach-ing for the pro-jec-tion, and ma-nip-u-lat-ing what he un-der-stood as his own copy of it. But al-though he prod-ded at the mod-els, no new in-for-ma-tion was sur-faced.


    "Per-haps some," the Founder ad-mit-ted, and al-though their voice and in-tent gave noth-ing away, Sobon was sure that the state-ment was eva-sive, and pre-sum-ably a non-ad-mis-sion. "But the mat-ter of con-se-quence is this: the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion will con-tin-ue, and es-ca-late, un-til there are re-sults. Giv-en that you seem to gen-uine-ly want to fix this bro-ken world, I can con-tent my-self with let-ting you be the... con-se-quen-tial fac-tor, in me choos-ing to give my-self over to them."


    "Be-cause the next at-tempt won''t care about the con-se-quences to the plan-et?"


    "Or about my life, or yours." The Founder''s pre-sent-ed holo-grams flick-ered, and Sobon though they were in-ex-pert-ly con-ceal-ing things. He pressed light-ly at the pre-sen-ta-tion, try-ing to ma-nip-u-late it men-tal-ly, but his aether sens-es were sim-ply not dex-trous or sen-si-tive enough, not any-more, and he pushed it away in frus-tra-tion. The Founder stud-ied him, and then, per-haps out of pity, the pre-sen-ta-tion opened up, re-veal-ing faces, iden-ti-ties.


    There were two of them, and while Sobon didn''t know them, he could rec-og-nize their ori-gins. One was an in-de-pen-dent sys-tem not too far from Crestan space, while an-oth-er was a known Founder''s Child race, one as-so-ci-at-ed with their wargames. Like most Founder''s Child races in their wargames, their so-ci-ety had both evolved and de-volved, as they un-der-stood one of theirs would be cho-sen every ten years to par-tic-i-pate in [The Game]. And if a [Play-er] of [The Game] came to their world...


    It would not end well, one way or an-oth-er, but be-ing pre-pared was far wis-er than not.


    "The peo-ple be-hind these ma-nip-u-la-tions are, broad-ly, per-form-ing sim-i-lar ac-tions to what I thought I would be per-form-ing when I came here, though they are ex-pe-ri-enced and adept, while I was young and naive. I at-tempt-ed to in-ter-fere with the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion in each case, which is... most like-ly why the third can-di-date was even nec-es-sary. I had hopes that there would be a bet-ter res-o-lu-tion, but my re-sis-tance was proof that in-ter-ven-tion was nec-es-sary."


    Sobon stud-ied the iden-ti-ties, but the ex-pla-na-tion felt lack-ing. "You said they were still try-ing to break in."


    "Yes. Agents of fate car-ry the essence of their ma-nip-u-la-tor with them, and that in-cludes you. The fact that you en-tered this fa-cil-i-ty--with my per-mis-sion--will ac-cel-er-ate their at-tempts to break into the sys-tems and re-gain con-trol. In that way, when you said that we had lit-tle time, you were quite cor-rect." The Founder didn''t move, phys-i-cal-ly, but their pro-jec-tion en-tered into the pre-sen-ta-tion again, its fin-gers steepling and eyes nar-row-ing, show-ing a de-vi-ous side that their phys-i-cal ap-pear-ance en-tire-ly masked. "Thus we need to dis-cuss the fu-ture, Sobon of Crest."


    "So dis-cuss it," Sobon said, push-ing the ex-ist-ing pre-sen-ta-tion away.


    "My in-tent is to give my-self over to them," the Founder said, "and by so do-ing, es-tab-lish that the sit-u-a-tion is con-trolled. How-ev-er, I will be un-able to lie to the Su-per-vi-sor that I will con-tact, as a mat-ter of aether pow-er and sen-si-tiv-i-ty. If the sit-u-a-tion is not un-der con-trol, with-in cer-tain stan-dards, then they will con-tin-ue with more hasty and con-se-quen-tial ac-tions, ac-tions that will taint the on-go-ing plan-e-tary ex-per-i-ment to such a de-gree that the ex-per-i-ment''s end is guar-an-teed."


    Ex-per-i-ment. Sobon didn''t need the pre-sen-ta-tion to trans-late the Founder''s in-tent, but it did, spelling it out with di-a-grams and sec-tions of text tai-lored to his own ed-u-ca-tion. The Founders had cre-at-ed this world and ma-nip-u-lat-ed its form, all so that they could watch and see what hap-pened. But if they thought the ex-per-i-ment was over, or would pro-duce an un-de-sir-able re-sult... they had no prob-lem with wip-ing the ex-per-i-ment away and start-ing an-oth-er one.


    They would dis-pose of the failed ex-per-i-ment--a very po-lite way of phras-ing geno-cide, Sobon though, sup-press-ing the anger that rose with-in him. And even if that didn''t in-clude Sobon, and even if Sobon could ar-gue for the lives of Ki''el, and Lui, and Mian, and oth-ers, that still left... what? Tens, hun-dreds of mil-lions? A bil-lion peo-ple? Sobon didn''t query the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, didn''t want to know. Plen-ty of them would de-serve death, but all of them?


    What frac-tion of a bil-lion peo-ple had to be worth sav-ing? Sobon re-fused to let it be a mat-ter of num-bers. "It''s re-pul-sive," he said out loud. "In-fu-ri-at-ing."


    "Yes," the Founder said. "But the sin isn''t the killing, Sobon of Crest. The sin is cre-at-ing some-thing in-tel-li-gent only to de-stroy it."


    Sobon shook his head--but had to ad-mit, that was pos-si-bly the truth. "We can''t get into that kind of talk right now," he said, forc-ing his thoughts back to the mat-ter at hand. "What you want is for me to find a way to sta-bi-lize things so that you can say hon-est-ly that they are sta-ble."


    "An ad-e-quate sum-ma-ry," the Founder replied. "The stan-dards that we must meet are that the Fa-cil-i-ty is neu-tral-ized, that no fur-ther con-tact be-tween my-self and the in-hab-i-tants be per-formed, and that the lo-cal po-lit-i-cal sit-u-a-tion can-not pose a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty or the ex-per-i-ment as a whole." There was a pause. "The last is more com-pli-cat-ed than it ap-pears."


    Sobon frowned. Al-though he thought he grasped the sit-u-a-tion pret-ty well, that state-ment didn''t give him an im-me-di-ate an-swer. "Why?"


    "This in-for-ma-tion is priv-iledged, but I will al-low it, on my per-son-al mer-its," the Founder said, and Sobon thought it was talk-ing to the Fa-cil-i-ty''s in-tel-li-gence more than to him. "The fa-cil-i-ty con-trols a num-ber of spe-cif-ic high-or-der aether al-loys, if you will par-don the mis-ap-pro-pri-at-ed term. Among the most con-se-quen-tial are [mor-pho-log-i-cal], [con-va-les-cent], [meme-graph-ic], and [meme-clas-tic]. I will give you a few mo-ments to con-sid-er the terms."


    Sobon re-viewed the in-tent, us-ing the pre-sen-ta-tion soft-ware as a re-place-ment for his own dam-aged men-tal aug-ments. Mor-pho-log-i-cal aether was a spe-cif-ic fate ma-nip-u-la-tion that pre-pared bod-ies and spir-its to mu-tate--and ide-al-ly, mu-tate suc-cess-ful-ly. Its pres-ence made so-ci-eties more di-verse, and its ab-sence made so-ci-eties self-sim-i-lar, stale. Con-va-les-cent aether was its spin-in-verse--an en-er-gy that brought things, on a large scale, back to where they had been pre-vi-ous-ly. They were com-pli-cat-ed, fate-based aethers, and could co-ex-ist, even side-by-side; how-ev-er, they were also in-cred-i-bly pow-er-ful, and the amount of each, let alone both, would shift the course of so-ci-eties.


    Meme-graph-ic and meme-clas-tic were sim-i-lar-ly op-po-sites. Meme-graph-ic aether was a high-er aether as-so-ci-at-ed with prophe-cy, div-ina-tion, and more broad-ly, the gath-er-ing and dis-sem-i-nat-ing of in-for-ma-tion, and its pres-ence in so-ci-ety would lead to peo-ple jump-ing to the right con-clu-sion es-sen-tial-ly with-out cause. Meme-clas-tic aether, on the oth-er hand, sup-pressed thoughts and in-for-ma-tion, and could force peo-ple into ig-no-rance and fool-ish acts even when the an-swers were ob-vi-ous and read-i-ly avail-able.


    Sobon stiff-ened as he stud-ied the four terms. He al-ready knew that the Founders ma-nip-u-lat-ed the course of worlds and cul-tures, and the Ri''lef had said much of this in dif-fer-ent ways, but... hav-ing it laid out in front of him was still vis-cer-al-ly up-set-ting. How much of his his-to-ry, and every oth-er cul-ture that Sobon knew of, had been changed just by the ex-is-tence, or the lack, of cer-tain types of aether? Aethers that fa-cil-i-ties like this ex-ist-ed to ma-nip-u-late?


    "We can dis-cuss the of-fen-sive na-ture of these fa-cil-i-ties an-oth-er time," the Founder said, af-ter some mo-ments of Sobon con-tem-plat-ing in si-lence. "What you need to un-der-stand is that these aethers are be-ing pumped into the plan-et from this fa-cil-i-ty through ex-traspa-tial nodes. There are, quite lit-er-al-ly, lo-ca-tions in this world rich-er in mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy than any-where else. Rich-er in meme-graph-ic and con-va-les-cent en-er-gies. Ar-eas where im-pos-si-ble things sim-ply hap-pen, and ar-eas where some tru-ly un-for-tu-nate peo-ple sim-ply can-not un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing around them."


    Sobon closed his eyes, think-ing. The top-ic of con-ver-sa-tion was still... yes, why the sit-u-a-tion posed a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty. "The lo-ca-tions where peo-ple can more eas-i-ly di-vine the truth are also lo-ca-tions di-rect-ly con-nect-ed to this lo-ca-tion."


    "Cor-rect." The Founder pro-ject-ed a map of the world, with the fa-cil-i-ty and a dis-tri-b-u-tion net-work high-light-ed. "Sim-i-lar-ly, mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy is re-lat-ed to tran-scen-dent aether and qi abil-i-ties. Peo-ple born in cer-tain places, or which spend long years in cer-tain places, are able to gain abil-i-ties com-pa-ra-ble to the Di-a-mond Lord. What they lack is prop-er ed-u-ca-tion. And in cer-tain places, peo-ple gain in-cred-i-ble in-sight. The two to-geth-er will in-evitably lead to new peo-ple with the strength to break into this fa-cil-i-ty."


    "It is rea-sons like this why my peo-ple al-ways raise a few in-di-vid-u-als with suf-fi-cient in-sight to rule the rest of the civilza-tion," the Founder said, their pro-jec-tion shift-ing to be dis-tant and cyn-i-cal--Sobon got the im-pres-sion they didn''t agree with the choice at all. "There are var-i-ous hy-pothe-ses about how these en-er-gies should be used, and how the cho-sen lead-ers should be raised; hy-pothe-ses that have lead to var-i-ous ex-per-i-ments. This world is one of a great many with a de-lib-er-ate-ly war-like his-to-ry, where the world is in-tend-ed to see the One Leader as a be-ing meant to be over-come. But... you have al-ready seen, have you not, that they do not see it that way?"


    Sobon turned his at-ten-tion back to the Founder, fi-nal-ly be-gin-ning to un-der-stand. "The were told long ago, in a prophe-cy, that space aliens would de-stroy their civ-i-liza-tion."


    "A mis-un-der-stood prophe-cy, if that re-flects how it was told to you," the Founder said. "But yes, this world is led to be-lieve that the Di-a-mond Lord shields them from an evil from be-yond. De-pend-ing on if and how we re-veal that the Di-a-mond Lord has been killed, and by a be-ing from be-yond the world..."


    Sobon closed his eyes and sighed. "Okay. I get it. We need a plan be-fore we act." He leaned for-ward. "How long do we have, and what oth-er as-sets do we have? What oth-er con-trol over the sit-u-a-tion?"


    The Founder''s pro-jec-tion of them-selves twitched slight-ly, into what Sobon de-cid-ed was a smile, and they be-gan talk-ing de-tails. It was a dif-fi-cult and dan-ger-ous sit-u-a-tion... but he couldn''t leave it at that. They would fig-ure some-thing out. They had to.


    What-ev-er dif-fi-cul-ties this plan-et had, Sobon re-fused to be-lieve geno-cide was an ac-cept-able op-tion.