“Then what was all that nonsense Korchow was spewing back there about designations and categories? How many Arkadys are there, anyway?”
Moshe’s question again. But it sounded different on Osnat’s lips.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “There were six hundred in my cohort.”
“And when you meet another one of them, he’s just—”
“Arkady.”
“Except for this Arkasha person.”
“Korchow was exaggerating a bit there.” Arkady shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a nickname. He’s not the only person who ever had a nickname.”
Osnat hesitated visibly, took a breath, and let it out on a repressed sigh. “What’s the deal with Korchow, anyway?” she asked in a tone that made him think it wasn’t the question she’d meant at first to ask. “I didn’t think any of the Syndicates even made a K Series.”
“They don’t. Korchow’s just a name for humans to use. His real name’s Andrej.”
He could see her puzzling through that one.
“It’s phonetic. KnowlesSyndicate is authorized for more A Series than any other Syndicate. And there aren’t a lot of names with AK. It’s a joke, of sorts.”
“Not a very funny one.”
“Most KnowlesSyndicate jokes aren’t very funny, except to them. They’re spies. What do you expect?”
It was weeks before he understood the full import of the raised eyebrow that comment earned him.
“So I take it Arkady isn’t a KnowlesSyndicate name?”
He blinked in surprise and mild offense, then told himself that all constructs probably looked alike to humans. “Rostov. I’m a researcher. A scientist.”
A forager after knowledge, one of his teachers had liked to say. Arkady always thought of that phrase when he saw ants at work.
He glanced across his cell, reassuring himself that the little honey-pot ants he’d lured into his prison were still with him. They ought to be; he’d been sharing a sizable portion of his scanty meals with them. And what sensible swarm wouldn’t opt for a plentiful and reliable food source in this easy-to-navigate, predator-free landscape of linoleum tiles? Arkady’s arrival had single-handedly turned the marginal territory of a small young swarm into prime habitat, and he took some satisfaction from imagining their nests’ frenetic expansion, with foragers passing the fruit of their foraging on to the nestbound minor workers, and the queen lying vast and fertile at the heart of her brood.
“So, fine. You’re not a spy,” Osnat snapped. “Then why are you working for Korchow?”
“Why do you take Moshe’s orders?”
“Taking orders is what soldiers are for.”
“But you’re not a soldier anymore.”
A momentary hesitation. “No.”
“You’re—is the word employee?—an employee of GolaniTech. Along with Moshe. And you both work for Ashwarya Sofaer. Why?”
Her lips tightened in annoyance. “Because she pays us.”
“But Moshe treats you differently than the others. Why?”
A slow, mocking smile spread across her face. “If you’re asking have I slept with him, the answer’s no.”
“Even though you’re a workpair?”
“You seem to have a pretty odd idea of office etiquette, if you don’t mind my saying so. And does everyone in the Syndicates expect complete strangers to answer personal questions on demand?”
“There are no strangers in the Syndicates. We’re all brothers.”
“Sure you are. You and the Interfaithers and every other wacko religious cult in the history of the universe.”
Her eyes wandered restlessly across the room.
“Ugh!” she said. “Fucking ants.” And before Arkady understood what she was about to do, she strode across the room and began stamping out his little foragers.
He leapt up, so horrified that all speech, all thought, fled his mind. He crossed the room in two steps and knocked her sideways and grabbed her arm to keep her away from them.
At which point the world turned upside down and exploded.
He must have caught her completely by surprise, he realized later, or she wouldn’t have hurt him so badly. When the pain receded, he was sitting on the bed with no idea how he’d returned there, panting, and feeling like his stomach and kidneys were about to burst. And Osnat was holding a wet towel to his jaw.
“I’m really, really sorry, Arkady. Of course. Ants. Shit. I didn’t even stop to think. Are you all right?”
She looked sick. He felt as if he were seeing, for the first time, the woman inside the soldier. No, he corrected himself. Not the woman inside the soldier, but the woman who was the soldier. Because there was no inside or outside with Osnat, no layers under layers. That was what had drawn him to her from the beginning, though he could only now put words to it.
“I’ll get you new ants, Arkady. Okay? I’ll go outside and trap the little fuckers. I’ll buy you a damned ant farm. Whatever you want. Just don’t look like that, for God’s sake.”
He smiled, making an effort. “The ants will be back. It’s their gift.”
He thought she would leave after that, but she didn’t. Instead, they both stared at the river of ants, significantly thinned by the carnage Osnat’s boot had wreaked, but still moving according to the unfaltering guiding logic of the superorganism.
“By the way,” he said, “you still haven’t answered my question.”
“What questio—? Oh. No, there’s nothing between Moshe and me anymore. Nothing like that, anyway.”
“Why not?”
One coppery eyebrow lifted in amusement. Obviously she was recovering her composure. “I didn’t explain it to him. What makes you so special?”
“Nothing.” Arkady closed his eyes and put a hand up to feel the rising lump above his cheekbone. “Nothing at all.”
Osnat put the towel back up to his cheek. “I’m sorry I hit you. I really am.” She laughed her laugh-not-to-cry laugh. “You’re having a pretty rough time of it, aren’t you, boychik?”
“Is it going to get better from here on in, do you think?”
“It’s going to get worse.”
“I don’t know if I can take it.”
“Most people can take a lot more than they think they can.”
He looked up at her. What could he tell her that would help Arkasha, if, please God, Arkasha still needed help? How could he hope to sway her, move her?
“Help my friend, Osnat. Please. He’s a good person. He deserves your help.”
She stood up, frowning, and pressed the towel into his hand. “Keep it on the bruise and keep running cold water on it every few minutes. It’ll make a big difference.”
“Osnat—”
“And don’t fool yourself into thinking you have some kind of relationship with me, Arkady. I’m not your friend. I’m not looking out for you. And pretending different is just going to make things harder on both of us.”
She was leaving, he realized. The conversation, which had never really gone anywhere in the first place, was over.
“No, Osnat! Wait!”
She turned in the open doorway to face him. “I feel bad for you. And I feel like a monster for hitting you just now. But I can’t afford to let things get personal. I’m here because they pay me to be. I take Moshe’s orders because I’m paid to take them. It’s not personal. None of it’s personal. I made that choice a long time ago.”
“And what if Moshe orders you to kill me?” He hadn’t meant it to be a question, but there it was, naked enough to make him cringe.
“Do you want me to lie to you?” Osnat asked. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who wants to be lied to.”
They crossed into Palestine twenty minutes before the border closed in a dusty, stinking, gasoline-powered minivan that Arkady suspected was older than KnowlesSyndicate.