“VIOLET EYES LIE.”The meaning of the first message I’d found suddenly became clear.

When NorAm created the violet-eyed superchildren, one of the “improvements” they must have made was the ability to lie under TrueFalse. They had intended to use us as spies, and the ability to lie was a useful skill for a spy to have.

“If she’s UN, she’s a danger to us,” Blue said, recalling me to the interrogation. “She can identify us.” Blue avoided looking at me, a bad sign.

Time to speak up before Blue decided how to dispose of my dead body. “You’re not the ones I’m after. My mission is to bring down Eddy Castellan; you’re incidental. Let me go and I won’t tell my employer any details about your operation.”

“They can get a description out of her under TrueFalse.” Blue continued to speak to Maroon and ignore me.

“That’s not true,” I said forcefully. “You forget: the UN has to abide by its own laws, and the lawsays the subject must give permission before TrueFalse testimony is allowed. I’ll simply refuse.”

My lack of sweat convinced Maroon. “Okay, we’ll let you go.”

“Thank you.”

On Maroon’s instructions, the pilot set the aircar down in a deserted area. “I’ll radio your location to the UN,” Maroon promised as he administered the TrueFalse antidote. “You will tell them we had no knowledge of SilverDollar’s plan?”

“I will.” I looked straight into his brown eyes and lied. I wished I could tell the UN the truth and hand the whole mess over to them, but my Loyalty chip stood in the way. Loyalty dictated that Eddy be quietly removed from his position of power in the company, not arrested. An arrest spelled embarrassment for SilverDollar. Embarrassment meant that public opinion of SilverDollar would sour and its stock would drop. Arresting Eddy could cost SilverDollar millions.

“Can I give you a piece of advice?” I asked. “This whole thing stinks. If you want to come out of it smelling better than SilverDollar, you should release the other hostages.” The Cartwright trustees would pay for Zinnia, but I wasn’t sure if Eddy would pay a ransom for Mike. I reminded myself that if Mike could escape Dr. Frankenstein he could escape from terrorists, too.

From the glances Maroon and Blue exchanged, I gathered that release wasn’t likely. The Sons and Daughters of the Stars probably needed the money.

I lifted a hand in farewell and stepped out into the desert heat. The wind from the lifting aircar blew a tumbleweed into some cactus.

For the next fifteen minutes, I tried very hard not to think about my ability to lie under TrueFalse. I paced and tried to worry about other things, like what I would do stuck in the desert without water if Maroon didn’t keep his word to radio the UN or the UN didn’t send someone to pick up their “agent.”

I tried and failed.

Next, I tried to convince myself (and therefore the chip) that, for some reason, Blue hadn’t dosed me with truth serum. That there had been a factory error in the batch of TrueFalse that my medi-patch came from. But I knew better.

The note I’d written to myself during my Loyalty Induction said it all: “Violet eyes lie.” I must have been interrogated under TrueFalse and discovered my ability to lie sometime in that memorysmudged period between kissing Mike good-bye and waking up a loyal employee of SilverDollar.

Which meant that all the violet-eyed could lie, which meant that Mike could have lied when he swore loyalty to SilverDollar.

It didn’t mean he had, just that he could have. Likely, he hadn’t known he could lie so hadn’t chanced it. Only. . . . Only I had told him about the message I’d found in my sock. In my mind’s eye, I could see his violet eyes widening with understanding.

I could hear the passion in his voice as he spoke about getting revenge on SilverDollar: “I’m going to smash them until there’s nothing left but shards.”

Mike, I feared, was not going to settle for the pallid revenge of having President Castellan fire Eddy. Mike hadn’t believed me when I’d suggestedearlier that Eddy was solely to blame for our illegal chips.

Mike was a hostage. He should be safely out of commission until this was over, but I didn’t trust him not to escape and muck things up. And if he tried to take down SilverDollar in order to save me, I was afraid of what my Loyalty chip might make me do.

I thought there was a very good chance President Castellan would free me from my Loyalty chip once I spoke to her. But in the meantime I was its slave.

I was still frantically trying to think my way out of the trap when an aircar with UN insignia landed near me and Dr. Hatcher got out.

I should have been surprised that Dr. Hatcher, the symposium presenter who’d talked to me about choosing a career, was a UN operative, but my mind was too occupied with doomsday scenarios for it to register as more than a blink. “Hello, Dr. Hatcher.”

“Angel Eastland. Why am I not surprised?”

My eyes narrowed. What did he mean by that?

“The message said that the Sons and Daughters of the Stars were returning our operative to us. Can I assume they meant you?” Dr. Hatcher looked around, but I was patently alone in the desert scrub.

“A small fib,” I said glibly.

“Ah,” Dr. Hatcher said. I had the uneasy impression that he actually understood, but he didn’t press it. “Dahlia Cartwright testified that you belonged to the terrorist group. Was that also incorrect?”

“That was a ploy to be taken along,” I said. “I work for SilverDollar. You can question me under TrueFalse if you like.”

“I could,” Dr. Hatcher agreed. “But it wouldn’t do any good, would it? It doesn’t matter. I happen to believe you.

He knew who I was. What I was.“Just who are you anyway?” I asked.

“I’m a UN specialist in human genetic experiments. Whenever there’s a violation, I’m called in.”

I felt cold. “What were you doing at the symposium?”

“My presence at the symposium was purely coincidental—I’m interested in the idea of adapting humans for life on Mars.”

“Then you haven’t been hunting me?”

“No.” Dr. Hatcher looked sad. “Though perhaps I should have been,” he said cryptically. “A colleague mentioned your name in connection with the essay contest, and I recognized it and sought you out.”

“And why are you here in the desert?”

Dr. Hatcher shrugged. “I was on the spot. A UN operative is on his way; when he arrives, he’ll take over. Genetics are my field, not terrorists.”

I tried to decide if I believed him or not.

“There’s something I’d like to say,” Dr. Hatcher said. “I’ve wanted to say it for a long time.”

“What?”

“I’d like to apologize for your treatment at the hands of Dr. Frank.”

Dr. Frank, whom Mike and I had nicknamed Dr. Frankenstein, who had tried to sell Mike and me to the highest bidder.

“Oh, is that anofficialapology?” I asked bitterly.

“No. A personal one.” Dr. Hatcher’s steady gaze made me feel ashamed of the dig. “I was a rookie when the Needham administration was busted, but I still remember how horrified everyone was by the plight of the violet-eyed children. Genetic manipulation is illegal, but you yourselves were innocent. You posed quite a dilemma for us.”

Meaning, I surmised, that some of them had wanted to sterilize or even kill all the violet-eyed children as nonhumans.

“I’m sorry we didn’t do better by you,” Dr. Hatcher said. “We made a mistake in letting NorAm retain guardianship of you.”

“I’m sorry, too.” My face was stiff and unforgiving. An apology didn’t erase the crime that had been committed against Mike and me.

Dr. Hatcher cleared his throat. “In your note you said that you would rather be friends than enemies.”

He was referring to the note I had left with Dr. Frankenstein’s body, a veiled warning that we would fight back if people continued to persecute us for belonging to a different subspecies. “We would rather be your friends than your enemies. Don’t start a war you can’t win.”

“I would like to be your friend, Angel.”

I looked away, unable to bear the kindness in his eyes. I found myself unaccountably close to tears.

And then he wrecked it all by adding, “Though I disapprove of the path you’ve chosen, working for SilverDollar as hired guns.”

I’m not working for them by choice,I screamedsilently, but, of course, the chip prevented me from saying so out loud. “Why?” I said flippantly instead. “Spying is what we were bred for.”

Dr. Hatcher looked sad. “Leona said you wouldn’t follow anyone’s drum but your own. I guess she was wrong.”

I took the bait. “You know Leona?”

“Yes. I was able to assist her and her brother in locating someone. She’s a remarkable young woman. She’s planning to become a marine biologist, you know. She’s not the only Renaissance child living a normal life, either. I also know an actress, a geneticist, a firefighter, and an accountant.”

“Are you offering to help us? Put us in some kind of protection program?”

“Yes. And pay for whatever education you may desire.”

He was offering exactly what Mike and I had gotten into this mess trying to obtain. It was too good to be true. “And what do you want in return?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

I looked into his eyes and believed him. Then I had to look away because the chip wouldn’t let me accept. “I’ll consider it,” I said. Even that made my tongue feel thick with disloyalty. “If you truly want to be my friend, give me the fastest aircar you have.”

I was hoping he’d offer me a ride, but Dr. Hatcher humbled me. He gestured to the sleek craft he’d arrived in. “Will this one do?”

I accepted, and after radioing for another aircar to come and pick him up, he stepped back and let me climb into the pilot’s seat. He didn’t ask mewhere I was going or what I needed it for, an enormous act of trust that would probably cost him his job.

“Good-bye, Angel. I hope we meet again someday.”

I started to shut the door, then hesitated, fighting with the chip. “My parents. Can you tell them that I’m alive and that I love them?”

“I’d be happy to. But wouldn’t you rather call them yourself? If you give me a moment, I can get you their number.”

The chip was screaming with urgency already. “I don’t have time.” My hands slammed the door, and I blocked off all thoughts of my parents and Dr. Hatcher’s amazing offer. I donned the headset and started the engines, overriding the preflight checks.

“Please set course,” the computer said.

“Quito, New Inca Republic,” I told it. “Maximum speed.”

The Spacers’ power base was in space. They would want to get Timothy off-planet as soon as possible, which meant the beanstalk, which meant Quito.

The beanstalk was an incredibly tall, thin tower stretching 35,890 kilometers from Earth to space. Elevators in the beanstalk used pulleys and counterweights to transfer goods into space without having to burn up the huge amounts of fuel needed to boost rockets out of Earth’s gravity.

The beanstalk had to be built along the equator so as to be in geostationary orbit with Earth, just like a satellite. The UN had chosen to build the beanstalk in Quito because the city was closeto the equator and several miles above sea level.

While the aircar lifted off and flew under AutoPilot, I tried to place a call to President Castellan. All her calls, though, were being shunted to security—meaning Anaximander and Eddy. I hung up quickly.

The clock read 11:20A.M.

It was a four-hour flight from Tucson, Arizona, to Quito, and the Spacers holding Timothy had at least half an hour’s head start. I took the aircar off AutoPilot and used the override to break the speed limit. The aircar’s UN identification kept Air Traffic Control from doing anything more than complain. When I got tired or hungry, I let AutoPilot spell me for fifteen-minute breaks while I drank bottled water and ate some doughnuts I found in a paper bag.

I wanted to call beanstalk security to tell them to watch for Timothy and his kidnappers, but I lacked the authority. Beanstalk security would want confirmation from Anaximander or Eddy, and my Loyalty chip insisted on handling things quietly, on not telling people about Eddy’s guilt.

At 4:41P.M.Central Standard Time, the clouds parted suddenly to reveal the city of Quito, formerly in Ecuador, now part of the New Inca Republic. Quito lay in a narrow valley on the lower slopes of the Pichincha volcanoes. On my left, I could see the beanstalk bisecting the blue sky. Like Jack’s beanstalk it was very tall and thin, only it ended in a space station at the top instead of the Giant’s garden.

The beanstalk rapidly grew into a solid pillar onthe horizon. Its great shadow stretched out for miles. The uneven ground and varied heights of the buildings made it appear to ripple, the world’s largest sundial.

Because my aircar was marked UN, Traffic assigned me a primo parking spot close to a motorized walkway. At its base, the beanstalk was close to a kilometer in diameter in order to anchor the weight of the tower.

Before I disembarked, I searched the aircar. I scrounged up a uniform with UN insignia, handcuffs, and three Knockout medi-patches.

Once I passed through the security checkpoint, I began to scan the crowd around me for someone carrying a gun. I didn’t want to shoot anyone, but the Spacers holding Timothy hostage weren’t likely to hand him over to me if I just said please.

I followed an armed security employee down an Authorized Personnel Only hallway. My UN insignia allowed me to get close to her without arousing her suspicion. I pretended to be in a tearing hurry. As I passed her, I brushed her bare forearm. She didn’t even notice me attach the Knockout patch. Ten seconds later I turned back and disarmed her unconscious body where it lay in the hall.

Before tucking the gun into the small of my back, I examined it. From a lecture of Anaximander’s, I identified it as a “softgun.” The gun itself was made of regular metal, but it fired special bullets that could damage flesh but not pierce walls—a necessity in the fragile environment of space.

Clock ticking in my head, I slipped back intothe crowd, praying that Timothy and his kidnappers had not yet arrived.

The beanstalk had three elevators: a large freight elevator, a passenger express elevator, and a VIP luxury elevator, which took a more leisurely trip up, slowing when requested so that the VIPs could look down on Earth from above.

So as not to be conspicuous, I joined a line of about thirty people waiting for the next passenger elevator to the top of the beanstalk. They stared at a rapidly descending red dot.

I searched the crowd for Timothy or Zinnia or anyone with silver eyes.

The elevator arrived. I stepped casually out of line, as if I was waiting for someone who hadn’t yet arrived. Passengers disembarked through a door in the back of the elevator while more passengers entered from the front. The elevator consisted of a chain of five cars instead of just one. Once one car was filled, the next one slid up and was filled.

Even so, I judged that the chances of two or three people getting a car to themselves were zero. It would be virtually impossible to take a hostage up in one of the passenger cars without a bystander noticing something amiss.

Which meant the VIP elevator. It waited patiently, its sign reading Reserved.

A code was required to open the doors, but my borrowed UN insignia got me past it. I entered.

Most of the elevator was taken up by a large lounge with a transparent wall, a number of leather couches, and a small bar with drinks in squeezable bulbs instead of bottles and glasses.The discreet metal railings and brackets on the walls, floor, and ceiling puzzled me until I remembered that the top of the beanstalk was a space station with zero-G conditions. The handles were for people to hold onto in the absence of gravity, and the brackets were to hold things in place—not so important going up, but vital on a trip down.

Sure enough, one of the digital displays along one wall counted down the decreasing gravity as well as the time to go to reach the top, and the speed and altitude of the elevator.

The second room was a conference room with table, swivel chairs, a smaller window, and various communication devices.

The third room was a lush bathroom done in peacock blue. Discreet instructions on what to do if you felt light-headed, nauseous, or claustrophobic were printed by the mirror.

All three rooms were empty. For lack of a better choice I hid in the bathroom.

Ten minutes later I heard the doors open. I longed to be able to see. Had Timothy and the Spacers entered or some innocent business executive? I heard a few taps and the sound of something being snapped into gravity brackets. Rianne’s wheelchair?

I had my softgun out in case anyone went to the bathroom, but the door stayed safely shut.

“Walk carefully,” a female voice said—Rianne. “Don’t try anything. One touch of the poison patch on your skin and you’re dead. Mike, secure Timothy to a wall.”

Until I heard her voice I hadn’t really believed it despite the “special pickup” Seth had ordered, butit was true. Tiny, disabled Rianne was a Spacer and a kidnapper. I shook my head. Bizarre.

No wonder she hadn’t known how to deal with Timothy’s crush on her.

“I don’t understand.” Timothy’s voice had the heaviness of someone who had been betrayed again. “When I saw you just before they hit me with Knockout, I thought you were another hostage. Why are you doing this, Rianne? Are you a Daughter of the Stars?”

“No,” Rianne said. “I’m a Spacer.”

A beat. “How much ransom are you asking?”

“No money, just that SilverDollar sign its ownership of the Martian mines and space station over to us. You’ll be free soon. Think of it as a holiday,” Rianne said, voice brittle.

“What if they won’t agree?” Timothy asked in a dead voice.

“They will if they know what’s good for them,” Rianne snapped.

I quietly opened the bathroom door and peeked around it. Timothy’s hands were free, but his foot was cuffed to a wall bracket. Mike stood beside him, and Rianne gripped Timothy’s arm, poison patch ready.

“Don’t do this to me,” Timothy begged Rianne in the same dead voice. “I can’t take it again. Don’t turn me over to them. I’d rather die.”

The conviction in his freckled face made me shiver.

“Don’t talk like that,” Mike said sharply. “The Spacers won’t hurt you. You might have to spend a few boring months playing VR games and watching TV, that’s all.”

Timothy shook his head.No, no, no.“The last time I was kidnapped I spent six months in a gray room with four silent movies and a solitaire card game that never let me win. Six months of never hearing another human voice. Six months of silence.” He clutched his ears as if blocking out screams.

My heart chilled. Damn Eddy to hell for helping this happen. Determination grew inside me, unprompted by the chip. I could not allow Timothy to be held for ransom again.

“Food just appeared every morning. I stayed up several times to try to catch them—even just a glimpse of hands—but they always waited until I was asleep. That was when I realized they had cameras, that they were watching me.”

I flinched. When Mike and I had grown up in the Historical Immersion Project there had been secret cameras watching us. Now I understood the sleeping bag and pillow in Timothy’s closet and his dread of people looking at him.

“That’s not going to happen this time,” Mike said firmly. “You’ll be free in a week at most.”

Timothy shook his head. “This time won’t be any different from last time. The negotiations will bog down. Rianne, please promise me something.”

Rianne said nothing.

“Please hold me on Mars and not in space. It used to drive me crazy knowing that the only thing on the other side of the wall might be vacuum. That if I escaped I’d die. I used to fantasize that I was on Mars, even though I knew the ship hadn’t accelerated for long enough to reach Mars.”

Rianne looked uneasy. “What difference does itmake where you’re held? Mars doesn’t have a breathable atmosphere.”

“I know. But I’d rather die on Mars. Please, Rianne.” Timothy looked haunted, and I began to understand where Timothy’s obsession with terraforming Mars had come from.

“Stop talking about dying.” Mike looked freaked out. “Rianne, tell him he won’t be isolated. Tell him he’ll be held on Mars.”

“He’ll be treated with the same compassion SilverDollar treats the Spacers,” Rianne said, defiance stamped on her face. She knew it wasn’t the promise Mike had asked for.

Mike started to pin her down. “And what does that mean?”

Timothy interrupted. “Will you stay with me? Mike? Please?”

Mike flinched. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Mike opened and closed his mouth, searching for the right words.

“Because he’s in on it,” Rianne said cruelly. “He’s not your friend, Timothy. He agreed to help me kidnap you for a price.”