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If souards hadn’t come when Quintana stole the ter Brown’s questioning—it had no form, and so I pushed it away But there was a hts of the day faded into dreauards of rationality fell

The poisoned thought crept in upon me then, and I went from my half doze to a cold terror in less than a heartbeat

“It’s okay,” Alberto said “It’s a night hi so violently I thought it ht fail In the shadows, Alberto rolled his eyes and turned his back to me, his head pillowed by his arht I feared Quintana He was mistaken

The filthy thought that had slipped intoa trade of prisoners with Mars then they ht well still be eneive over whatever they had with the least intrinsic value The Belter guards had questioned Broice noithout the Martian present Theynot to see whether he had divined the secrets the data held, but to determine that he couldn’t

By trotting out uards that he would be of the least use to their enemies Or Quintana, by his violence and haht convince theile and volatile ego

I’d plotted htful, and easy to ould bring reward

I astonished h so much, and still be so naïve…

“Say I’ a veterinary protocol for…I don’t know For horses Should I start by trying it in pigeons?” Antony Dresden asked He was a handso heat Protogen’s intake facility looked h-end medical clinic than an administrative office Slass wall facing a nurses’ station outside able to look in on theo and reen inlay on the walls

The language in my contract imen, and I assumed this had to do with that, but it still felt odd

“I’d probably reco it in horses,” I said

“Why?”

“Because that’s the ani to develop a protocol for,” I said,up at the end of the sentence as if it were a question

Dresden’s seon data wouldn’t tell me just as much?”

“No, sir Pigeons and horses are very different animals They don’t work the same ways”