Nathan looked at the man across the desk with guarded irritation, but Jason Vaisou gave back only a bland, complacent smile. This was the third time he'd met with him, and he liked him less each successive visit. He didn't know what Vaisou's title was. Psychiatrist, on occassion. Teacher, when it suited him. Monitor would probably have been the occupation Nathan would have assigned to him, if asked, but the ever-present holster beneath his arm made him suspect that there was another duty Vaisou was required to fulfill from time to time, when his other duties were no longer necessary.

Executioner.

If Vaisou had been cold, or professional, or withdrawn, Nathan might have disliked him less, but he always insisted on speaking to him as if he had good reason to expect Nathan's confidence. He asked him questions and laughed and joked like Nathan was a reticent child in summer camp, and it didn't matter how little he responded. If anything, Vaisou seemed more friendly and engaging when Nathan was the least interested in cooperating.

How was he adjusting?

Nathan Terrence was not unfamiliar with psychiatric profiling. In the time he had spent at Charybdis, doctors had often asked how he was feeling. They asked questions about his health, they asked his opinions on his thoughts and emotions, or they ran tests, or had him take tests, or gave him hypothetical situations and asked what he might do. They did not ask him how he was adjusting. That was for them to determine.

Vaisou had made enough playfully snide commentary during their previous meetings to assure Nathan that he was completely familiar with his history. This was just another joke, and from the expression on his face, one Vaisou found immeasurably amusing. Nathan did his best to curb his growing irritation and decided he wasn't going to play this man's game today.

"Fine," he said shortly, not quite clipped enough to be rude.

The tall man nodded in what could only be described as an enthusiastic, pleased manner. "Good, good. Enjoying yourself?"

Nathan could not keep his eyebrows from raising incredulously, and gritted his teeth to keep from glaring. "Sir?" His voice was less controlled than his features, and there was an edge there that made Vaisou grin like an idiot. "Are you enjoying your classes? Do you like your teachers? How can we make you more comfortable?"

His classes. He had been bored at first, when they placed him into some of the same basic classes he'd been enrolled in at Command School (for the few weeks he'd attended). When they pulled him out after the first week and began to ask pointed questions about the teachers and the students, it began to become more interesting. They were using him as a silent spy. What the teachers and students might have done one way under the watchful eye of an IA official they did quite differently by themselves. It was extremely low-level work, and he never found out the results of his reports, but he found himself unwillingly intrigued by the process. The people who interrogated him for answers discovered he had an eye for detail and learned very quickly what to look for, and their questions became more specific and complicated.

It was...fun.

His teachers. Vaisou was probably referring to the people who debriefed him after each assignment. They all had a similar hardness about the features, and they were all good at their work. They treated him as an outsider, but not as a child. That would have reduced the amount of information they could pull out of him. Being treated like a machine was far easier to deal with than being mocked as an infant.

Comfort. He wanted Katera.

"Yes. No. You can get me a desk, a gym card and a pass for the station."

This time the laughter was genuine instead of the syrupy chuckle he normally drew, and Vaisou's face went from blandly friendly to a cynical smirk. "You don't want much, do you?" he asked sarcastically. Nathan stayed silent, and the smirk faded, replaced by the first serious look on Vaisou's face he'd ever seen. The man leaned forward and folded his hands in front of him on the desk. "I might arrange that. Mr. Terrence, you're a problem for me. The late Col. Von Starnburg recommended you for the IA program, but it has since become apparent he was not in full possession of his faculties at the time. You show some interesting potential, but your background is hardly complimentary. In short, I am tired of going to the trouble to keep you prisoner here. There is little point in advancing your education any further if it's not going to be worth my time."

"I am inclined to send you Earthside and let Charybdis deal with you, but several of my colleagues do not agree. They think, properly motivated, that you could do a great deal of good for the IA." His face remained grimly serious, but his lips twitched slightly at the word good. "I know everything about you, Terrence. I know about Callenstrom and the burn. I know about Iddantel and Ivemey. I know what you told our investigator at the BattleSchool was true, and he knew it too. We sent you anyway."

Nathan felt winded, like someone had punched him in the stomach, and he forgot all about trying to regulate his features and stared at Vaisou in blank horror. No one at Charybdis had ever given the slightest indication that they believed his story. After the labs, after the treatments, he'd almost ceased to believe it himself. Wick, Dante, Katera...they had believed him, two because they knew, and one because she loved him.

"You...you knew." His body was rigid, his eyes wide as he tried to grasp what the man was saying. They had known all along, they'd sent him to hell when they knew what had happened, and left him there to rot. It was pure chance that he had come up for rehabilitation when he -

The blankness left his features, and something darker took its place. His knuckles were white where they gripped the armrests, and he looked at Vaisou with a hatred intense enough to keep him from breathing. Vaisou looked unimpressed. "You knew, and...you sent me anyway. And then brought me back." It was a statement now, bitter and cold, and it took real effort to unlock his jaws long enough to ask the question he knew the man wanted him to ask.

"Why?"

Vaisou settled back into his chair nonchalantly. "We were interested in a different possible recruit at the time. She displayed remarkable potential in getting you iced - all the evidence was against you. We do not advertise it, but we do have cameras monitoring the commander's quarters. There was not a single interaction between you and the other students that was not carefully reviewed afterwards. You should be grateful we took an interest. Without our prodding, Reynolds never would have rushed your treatment as she did. It could have been much worse.

"As it was, until Von Starnburg made his initial report, we didn't pay much attention to you. Callenstrom was our primary candidate. Your return was constructed as a challenge for her, and she showed considerable ingenuity, but the IA has limited resources. We are allowed only a very few recruits from the Command School, and von Starnburg made the decision between yourself and Callenstrom on his own initiative. If I send you back to Charybdis now, you will have effectively cost me twice what your potential is worth. That is unattractive; however, my superiors expect a certain quality from the candidates I offer, and if you can't meet that," Vaisou shrugged, "then it doesn't matter."

Nathan's head whirled as he tried to absorb too many answers at once. They knew. They wanted Wick, and that's why they sent me to Charybdis. That's why they brought me back, and if it wasn't for Windhaven and von Starnburg, I'd be dead now.

"Naturally, we'd prefer to get some use out of you, if possible. Your instructors have given good reports of your progress, but you could be biding your time to try to escape. For now, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and offer you a deal. Are you hearing this, Nathan? Is this getting through?"

The man's voice was suddenly sharp, and Nathan was jolted back into focus. "Yes," he said softly. They tried to kill me, and now they're proffering terms. He watched Vaisou with all the trembling upset he could project and began to gauge the distance between his own chair and the one behind the desk. Five feet, perhaps less. He could clear it before Vaisou got anywhere near his holster.

"You work for us, no restraints, and no incidents, and I'll see to it that Quistin is assigned Command Post duty when she graduates."

Katera.

Vaisou suddenly had his undivided attention, and knew it. The other man's face softened into a sardonic smile. "That's right. She's recovered nicely since you left, though it was a little uncertain at first." It got through, god, it got through. Thank you, Sol. "Not much of a talker, but you probably don't want her for her conversation, eh?" Nathan bared his teeth in a snarl, and that earned him a bigger smile and an amused chuckle. "Her father seems pretty adamant about keeping her out of your reach. Can't imagine why, upstanding young man like yourself." The smile faded, and Nathan twisted his anger back down inside and swallowed. "You do your part, and you get Quistin. You don't, and you get Charybdis. Is everything clear?"

He had no choice. Nathan nodded slowly. You'll pay. But not until she's safe. Not until she's with me again.

Vaisou looked him over and grunted in acknowledgement. "Then let's see what you can do for us, Mr. Terrence. Talk to the secretary outside. She has my instructions." Nathan had to concentrate to make himself stand, to tear his gaze away and walk towards the door.

"And Nathan," called Vaisou from behind him. He paused, and half turned, too numb to do more than stare.

"Smile."

Vaisou's voice drifted to him from the hallway, and Nathan stiffened a little. He didn't like the sound of that. Even so, when the man stepped into the small briefing room Nathan's face was the same resolute, slightly grim mask he had worn in front of Vaisou ever since he'd known what it was he was working for. Since it had become clear to him what was at stake, Nathan had not allowed Vaisou any emotional output at all, when he could prevent it. Such things only got in the way, and they were sacred.

There was only one person Nathan would ever reveal his feelings to again, and she wasn't here.

Vaisou greeted him with a jovial smile, as always, and Nathan nodded slightly, as always. He almost didn't mind it anymore. It was stable. It was solid. It was constant. Wearing a mask was much easier when everyone else wore them too. Besides, if Vaisou was smiling, whatever he had to tell him was not going to please him, and to have that method of prediction made him feel more in control, even if the forecast was not a good one. Of course, nothing Vaisou told him ever pleased him. If it was something decisive, or something that he was going to be punished for, Vaisou would be serious. Nathan had only seen him serious twice since his arrival, once during the discussion and once after his attendance at the interview of that Wolf spy Abrams who'd managed to slip his restraints and attack the interrogator. Apparently, he had been expected to intervene.

Nathan did nothing he wasn't specifically told to do.

The repercussions had been...unpleasant. Nathan did not mind Vaisou's smile much at all.

"Good morning, Mr. Terrence," he said cheerfully, and took a comfortable seat. It only took a moment of expectant staring from Vaisou before he responded as expected. "Good morning, sir." His response was nothing more or less than formal, and Vaisou took no note of his lack of enthusiasm.

Business as usual.

"Well, I assume you're eager to learn the purpose of my visit this morning, Nathan. Isn't every day a fine young man like yourself completes his nursery training. Excited?" Nathan's eyes narrowed slightly, but his pulse immediately increased. Finished. He was finished, or almost. They had never given him any idea of his progress, but he knew how long he'd been here. They'd given him increasingly difficult tasks and tests over the past four years, and he'd silently done all they asked him to do. Complaint would have slowed his ascension, and so he made none.

Now it was almost done, and Kat would be graduating soon, if she hadn't already. Now he would be free.

He leashed his enthusiasm immediately. If there was one thing his IA training had taught him, it was that no one was ever really free. There were only differing levels of dependence. Everyone required something. Everyone needed something, and to get what you wanted from someone, you needed only to provide what that person needed...or offer to refrain from depriving them of it.

Whatever this man asked him to do now, he would do, because Nathan needed Katera. Freedom was an illusion. He would have her. That was enough.

"Yes," he replied softly, but there was enough energy behind that word to give his voice more life than it normally contained. Vaisou nodded approvingly. "Well, normally, Nathan," the man said, his tone lowering confidentially to indicate he was sharing, "we have a routine case that we ask our students to handle for us - something simple, you know, something..." Vaisou hesitated, waving his hand airily to summon the correct word. "...light." The grin returned, and despite his new eagerness, Nathan began to feel a little nervous.

What can they do that hasn't been done? I will be in charge. What can they ask me to do that I won't, to see her again? Nothing.

"You see," Vaisou said almost apologetically, "we have a situation, and it needs to be handled. Quickly. The subject is...oh, a little younger than you, I'd wager, and we feel she'd respond best to a peer." That nervousness diminished somewhat. Nathan had attended female and male interrogations. At first, it had been difficult. The women almost always cried, and he had nearly gotten himself into trouble when one of the interrogators had attempted to strike a particularly reluctant female prisoner. If the woman had not cracked afterwards as quickly as she did, he could have faced formidable consquences.

As it was, they watched him extremely carefully, and before the month was out he had, to his disgust, attended three other similar "interviews". Two of them turned violent, and had he not been in a separate viewing room for the first, it would have become still more violent. Vaisou had seen him afterwards, asking solicitously if Nathan felt he could handle viewing female criminals being treated roughly. It was the only time since Vaisou had dispensed his terms that Nathan had come near breaking composure, and that evening, alone in his room, he had been forced into serious contemplation.

He held no misconceptions about the guilt or innocence of the people the IA interrogated. They questioned whoever they felt they needed to question to obtain the information desired. It was not a matter of guilt or innocence. The people questioned almost always had a fairly decent chance to cooperate peacefully before violence was inflicted. If it was important enough to them not to be injured, they would tell. If it was important enough to them not to tell, they would be injured. These things happened with or without his interference, and no change would be made dependent upon how he decided.

The things that did depend on it were the things that he needed. Katera depended on it. The only thing his reticence would bring him would be Charybdis. The only thing his participation would bring him was Katera.

Katera, and guilt. But what difference would it make? As Vaisou had not-so-subtly mocked him, Nathan was far more guilty than those interrogators were. They were merely performing their job function. Nathan had simply lost his temper. They were required to do it. Nathan had done it recreationally. For fun.

His soul couldn't get much blacker. After he had Katera, maybe he would have the chance to become more moderate. He would have his life with her to spend, to make up for what he'd done to her and to others with his love for her. Until then...until then, he would do whatever he had to. Everyone who stood between him and Katera - Vaisou, his instructors, the prisoners - they were obstacles. They were enemies.

They were Wick.

The second interrogation he had still struggled for icy composure, but he hadn't struggled against an urge to leap into the fray and defend the woman. It had merely taken much of his concentration and willpower to keep from smiling.

He hated it, in himself and in others, but he would do what he had to. If Vaisou needed further demonstration, Nathan was willing to provide it.

Vaisou lifted a desk from his briefcase, activated the display and then turned it, that Nathan might read it more easily. "Her name is Clara McKendrick. She'll be twenty years old next week. She was a promising student at Palani University earthside until last year, when she apparently formed an association with Phillip Highland, one of the -" "I know the name," Nathan interrupted smoothly as he began to scan the document. "Sympathizer-turned-strategist for the SA chapter of the Wolves. Alleged to have been the mind behind the destruction of Lunar Outpost IV two years ago." Nathan looked at Vaisou with unwilling curiousity. "Was he?"

Vaisou grinned, of course. "Oh, yes. He made it his special pet project to remove our presence from the moon completely. In fact, we found out he had designs on Outpost VII as well just last week, and Ms. McKendrick's unexpected stay with us was mostly...insurance. She came quietly enough. This is the second occasion she's spent time with us. Last time we had her in less than adequate facilities, and a small group of Wolves forced entry and helped her to escape. It should be noted," he added conversationally, "that Highland knew she was incarcerated, and didn't bother coming himself."

Nathan said nothing to his, but a single fair eyebrow raised a millimeter as he continued to look through the file.

"On the subject of Outpost VII," Vaisou continued inexorably, "you'll be glad to know that one of our marine patrols positively identified and killed one Phillip Highland at about 4:00 standard time this morning. Sadly, the Marine AIT doesn't have much of an intelligence prerequisite, and Highland was on his way out. He has traditionally placed the most important structural explosives himself, apparently. Not terribly intelligent, for an intelligent man." Vaisou shrugged. "To summarize, Outpost VII is now being quietly evacuated, but we need to know the location and detonation time for those explosives, if there is a timer. If there's a trigger, we need to know that. Frankly, we need to know quite a bit, and we have very little information to go on...and we feel certain that, properly persuaded, Ms. McKendrick could provide you with anything we need to know.

"That persuasion won't be easy. You've read over her information. McKendrick has been following this man around like a faithful pet since they met, and that kind of loyalty is hard to crack. She doesn't know about his death. That would only complicate matters at this point. I don't envy you, Nathan, but if you succeed, you're done. If you fail..." Vaisou shrugged again. "We lose approximately 2000 viable IF employees and $200 million dollars' worth of equipment, and you're done." The man's look left Nathan no confusion about the definition of the second done. All or nothing.

Before him on the desk was a very large monitor, capable of displaying ten camera feeds simultaneously. At the moment, however, it displayed only one, and it held all of his attention. On the screen an older man in a faded blue jumpsuit sat slumped in a metal chair in one of the interrogation rooms while a younger man leaned against the edge of the conference table and talked to him. There was no sound; the audio track had been removed. There wasn't anything in this rendition that he hadn't grasped the second time through the recording, but he watched it until the young man left and the old man was escorted out before he ran it back once again.

What are you after, Terrence? I would have put him in the same room, but I wouldn't have put you in there with him.

Vaisou was a careful man. He did occasionally make wagers with himself, but he always won them. Terrence had been a risk when he'd been brought in, but since then he'd been anything but. The boy just wanted to get along, and Vaisou needed someone to handle delicate matters for him without asking any questions. It was a good arrangement, especially for him. Terrence was an above average interrogator - nothing exceptional, nothing the training couldn't give him except an overactive need to excel, but an excellent tool for his shelf nonetheless. He was occasionally aware that his prodigy was not as content with his situation as he would have liked, but it had never seemed to be serious enough to require any attention.

Now he was feeling uncertain, and Vaisou did not like to feel uncertain.

He paused it somewhere in the middle of the interrogation. Madahar looked nervous. He kept glancing toward the camera. Terrence stood with his back to the camera for much of the conversation, and he couldn't gather enough from Madahar's replies to gain the gist of the conversation. The old man always looked down when he spoke, and it made it difficult to read his lips; however, there were only so many subjects that could make an old mole like Madahar sweat, and Vaisou couldn't think of one that he approved of Terrence knowing.

Vaisou had been assigned to interrogate Gurcharan Madahar about a relatively routine discrepancy in his department's funding. Madahar had been a lackey in the lower levels of the accounting department, a position that didn't really afford any genuine opportunity for security risk. It was pure luck that Vaisou had happened upon a rather cryptic and (when decoded) incriminating message from one of his superiors that betrayed who his true employers were. As young and eager as he had been for personal gain, Vaisou had still recognized the opportunity for a tool when one presented itself. Madahar's testimony in the matter of the discrepancy took some retooling, but the net result of that testimony absolved Madahar of all guilt and hinted in the softest, gentlest terms that his aforementioned superior might have more information. Everything went according to schedule: Madahar's superior was found out as an agent of the Wolves and Vaisou got the credit, Madahar got a commendation and a promotion, and every now and then Vaisou called upon him for a favor or two.

It was an agreeable arrangement, and he had been most displeased to discover that his old acquaintance had been a little sloppy and gotten himself into trouble. The official charge was the same as before - a relatively small accounting issue. Unfortunately, the duties of his position required that he delegate much of the minor work to his subordinates, and he hadn't seen Madahar's name on the lists until the interrogation was already complete. The problem was that shortly afterward, Madahar had delivered a resignation letter to his commanding officer and left the station in what looked a lot like a rush, and Vaisou had no way to know why.

He changed his display to show Terrence, who appeared to be working industriously in his office. His frown deepened and then smoothed itself out. He opened a message window and requested some information from his secretary on the current whereabouts of Captain R. Quistin.

Lunchtime came and went. Owen invited him and he declined, explaining that he had work to catch up on. There were transfers, resignations and shipping invoices to process, all flagged by the monitors as worthy of the IA's attention. It was dull work for the most part, but Mode didn't mind dull. Today, he didn't mind anything.

He was done with the transfers and into the shipping invoices when a misfiled transfer caught his eye. It had been labeled under a shipping invoice, as if it were cargo, but the cargo listed was a person. An ex-officer, in fact.

Q U I S T I N , R O B E R T

It listed the delivery location as a room number in the barracks that served the guests at the command post.

He opened the proctor logs and verified that one Robert Quistin - formerly a captain in the IF - had checked into suite E9. There was no information logged about the duration of his stay or the party he would be visiting. There was no information at all on what the former captain intended to do while he was there, but Mode felt he could make an educated guess.

He sat back slowly from the computer and stared at the screen. He'd sent the man away - permanently, he'd thought - and for more than six years they'd been left in peace.

You can't have that, Quistin. I don't know why you're here, but I'm not going to let you take that away.

He sent a brief e-mail to Owen, explaining what he could and what he intended. He sent another to his wife's home account, including the link to the public proctor log and telling her that he loved her. She would get home before he did, and he didn't want her doing anything drastic before he'd had a chance to assess the situation himself.