to offer her coffee, which she took with trained grace, and set down to ignore.

Ng suppressed the urge to summarize, and left that to Krajno. Best to keep him busy and feeling useful until the inevitable grip of grief. Ng forced herself to acknowledge that inward gulp of worry, of bracing for the worst, that never failed whenever something happened to a colleague. She observed Krajno's steady hands, his concentration as he spoke. Hurli revealed absolutely nothing as she listened and watched the holo; Totokili's scowl deepened as if the summary was somehow a personal affront.

Then a silence fell, the abstract silence of minds racing around and around the spin-axis without any landing. Ng was about to ask Hurli what she thought, just to get them focused onI was going through your catalog the other day, I chanced upon an opera I haven't heard for years: _The Tragic History of Macclom Singh_."

The surgeon paused, then gave a thin, humorless smile. "I'm not surprised that it had fallen from favor—the late Aerenarch could hardly have found its message comforting."

Sadness washed through Omilov. _Even Rifters recognized the danger that Gelasaar could not see._

"Very well, Sebastian, _Tragic History_ it shall be. There may be a lesson in it for these times. Osri, does that suit you?"

"Thank you," he replied with slightly absent politeness, "but I think I'll retire."

"My son has never developed a taste for opera," Omilov said. "Perhaps we can save it for another time."

"No, Father. I really do want to retire," Osri said, and was gone