“Got a minute?” she said.

“The model run—”

“Is garbage.” She took his arm. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Come on, sweetie, let’s go to my office.”

“I should change parameters and do another case.”

“It can wait. Me, I think we could easily take the rest of the day off.” Kate was leading the way along a narrow, dingy corridor. “If the Seine performs as advertised, tomorrow everything changes.”

“The run results can’t be any better than the models. The Seine won’t change them.”

“Runs also can’t be better than their inputs. The Seine will draw from every data bank in the System, no matter where it is. At the moment we’re starved for Belt data. Suppose that’s the missing ingredient?”

They had reached Kate’s office. It was twice the size of Alex’s, and as cluttered as his was empty. In pride of place on one wall, where Kate would see it whenever she looked up from her work, was a hand-embroidered cloth. Within an elaborate floral border were the words, “Prediction is difficult, especially of the future.”

Alex slumped into the chair opposite Kate, accepted a tumbler of her made-to-order carbonated drink, and said abruptly, “What do you want to talk about?”

“You. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Lie Number One. Every time you meet your mother or anybody in your immediate family, you can’t think straight for hours. No, make that days.”

“So why did you insist that I talk with her?”

“Suppose I’d put her off until later. Would you have been able to work, or would you have worried all the time until she did reach you?”

When Alex said nothing, Kate went on, “You know, your mother just offered you what most people who work here would die for.”

“You tapped in to a private conversation!”

“I might have. Most of it I knew already. Anyway, you were talking in working hours, so I could claim the right. But don’t let’s get sidetracked. Me, I need to earn a living. I have to work, and I have to put up with bureaucratic bullshit. I even generate some myself, though I try to keep it down. But you don’t. You could walk out tomorrow. You’d have the freedom to work on what you want, when you want, where you want. There’d be nobody like me to pester you for reports.”