"Do you know anything about Thomas Jefferson, Raver?"

"President of the U.S.A., wrote the Declaration of Independence. Had slaves. Wore wigs."

"Yeah, right. Well, Jefferson lived in Paris for awhile. Fell in love with the wife of an English artist. Maria Cosway. Well, while out walking with her one day he jumps a fence or something and comes down wrong. Breaks his wrist. For the rest of his life his right hand is never really OK again."

"So?"

"So the Glory of the Ottomans Jefferson turned out to be a little more graceful than the real one, or at least luckier. Caught himself. Not a scratch - well, a couple of scratches. But nothing more. So it had to be fixed."

"Yeah, I read about that. I didn't really get it, though. I mean, he didn't know it was supposed to be broken - there was nothing that might have made his programming slip."

"Hubris," Ibrahim said softly. "On Murkworld or Battlesport, it doesn't matter so much if a Sprite gets off track. One of us can go down there, inject a viral patch, and barbarians stop singing falsetto or ManTanks stop smelling daisies. But Glory was a simulation of the real world - and Misr was determined to keep it as accurate as possible. What hubris! The only reason Jefferson was there at all was because Europe needed to be around for the influence it would have on the Ottoman Empire, and Jefferson had to be there so he could start up a war against the Barbary States. His programming couldn't be allowed to slip, and his life couldn't be allowed to change, not in any major way."

"Yeah, I heard they sent you down to break the guy's wrist, then shoot him up with a new program."

Ibrahim nodded, then remembered Raver probably couldn't see him. "That's right. But he caught me. Came around when the neural inhibitors he'd been gassed with should have kept him out for the whole night. Caught me. I…I just got stuck, froze. Couldn’t even think."

"So you were afraid.” The programmer’s silhouette shifted in the darkness; it took Ibrahim a second to realize he’d shrugged. Not for the first time, he questioned the wisdom of a conversation lounge kept in virtual darkness. “Who wouldn’t be?"

"There was more to it than that," Ibrahim said quietly. "Yeah, I was scared. I became a Warden to protect the Sprites, but I've always been scared to death of them, of just the idea of them. Phobia almost. But you know what happens to them down there. You know what the Guests do to them. They can't die, but wallahi they can be hurt. Mutilated, violated, burned, beaten. It's irrational, but I swear I sometimes don't see why they don't rise up and come after us."

"Because the datakeys -- "

"The datakeys can stop them. Now. But not then. If you’ve heard so much about what happened on Glory of the Ottomans, you know that much, Raver. The shutdown failsafe…that was supposed to be a one-time solution to shut down the rebellion, end the bloodshed. Misr liked it, copied the code, programmed it into every datakey.”

“That’s right, Smith. That was you. Some pretty slick programming.”

“But even if I’d had a datakey that could shut him down, I think I would have felt the same way. I know it's not rational. But the part of me that feels like we deserve to have the Sprites come after us, that part is what’s scared to death of them. And yeah, when Jefferson caught me standing there with that surgical vice I was scared. But it's not that simple."

Just then the athan for Asr wound up out of the sound panels embedded in the glasteel. The athan always made Ibrahim think of a cool mist winding up out of a valley at dusk.

"Allahu-akbar, Allahu-akbar."

Raver was waiting for him to continue - his body in the darkness almost radiated attentiveness.

"Allahu-akbar, Allahu-akbar."

"Jefferson had been programmed to lead. He had that kind of personality."

"Ashadu an la ilaha illa Allah."

"He just…he just always seemed right. Even when you know he's making a mistake, he does it with such conviction."

"Ashadu an la ilaha illa Allah."

"What are you saying?" Raver's voice had automatically dropped a few decibels in response to the athan. "You followed him willingly? I always thought that collaboration stuff was bullshit. 'Least since I met you."

"Ashadu anna Muhammadan Rasul-Allah."

"No, I didn't. Yes. No, not really." Ibrahim stopped. Part of the problem with putting what he felt into words was trying to grasp it clearly himself. It had been such a chaotic time…so confusing.

"Ashadu anna Muhammadan Rasul-Allah."

Ibrahim took a deep breath, and as he released it everything else went with it, a tight whisper unfurling: "He was right, Raver. I mean, right to be angry, right to feel like the Sprites were getting a raw deal."

"Hayya ala assalah."

"But I swear I didn't mean for it to go so far."

"Hayya ala assalah."

"I thought I could guide him, help him make a statement…"

"Hayya ala affalah."

"Get Misr to fix a few policies, you know?"

"Hayya ala affalah."

"Waallahi, I didn't think he'd hold out for so long. I didn't think they'd send in the ghazis."

"Allahu akbar Allahu akbar."

"I didn't think so many people would die."

"La-ilaha illa Allah."

A hiccup burst from his lips, catching him by surprise. He refused to let it cut him short, not before he'd finished. He needed to make himself clear, as much for his own sake as for Raver’s. "Besides, he did scare me, Raver. When he opened his eyes like that, I remembered what he was. It was like I could see his gutbox inside him, everything that really mattered inside it, shielded, safe. I thought, billahi, he could put a knife into my heart, my kidneys, my throat, so easily. Could pick up his walking stick and bash my brains out. And I couldn't even touch him, not where it would really finish him.

"So when he started asking questions, I answered. And when he told me what he wanted me to do, I did it."

His last words fell out into silence. Shuffling movements from the direction of the lounge's entrance marked the few patrons who had shared the darkness with them making their way down to the mosque.

"I'm not defending myself," he added softly. "I can't. I can't defend it. I should have been…better. Smarter. Braver. Something."

Raver shuffled his feet in the darkness. Uncomfortable. Ibrahim felt his face heating up. What had he just said? He hardly knew this guy, and here he was confessing his deepest darkest past to him. Confessing, explaining, justifying. Whatever.

"Listen, Raver…what I just said…it's, well, you know…."

"You'd better go pray."

"Yeah, I know. Just wanted to say I shouldn't have gone on like that."

"Hey, I asked, Smith. Don't sweat it." After a pause, "and I won't tell anybody."

Ibrahim nodded awkwardly, realized Raver probably couldn't see him nodding, and said "O.K., then. Guess I'll go pray."

Raver delivered a solid man-to-man forget-all-this-emotional-shit thump to his shoulder, and moved away from him, his form dwindling as he approached the glasteel dome, stars winking back into existence around his periphery. Raver was Sikh, though not baptized (and not much interested in baptism, from what Ibrahim could tell). He'd wait out the prayer in the lounge. Sikhs had long held the same status which Caliphate law granted to Jews and Christians. They could work anywhere, rise as high as they wanted in any organization. Didn't have to pay the zakat tax, were exempt from military duty. Ibrahim had no idea when the Sikhs had gained the special rights traditionally granted Ahl-al-Kitab, the People of the Book – in the Qur’an, the Jews and Christians. He suspected it'd been about the time they'd gained control of the Programmer's Guild.

As he approached the lounge's entrance Ibrahim took several deep breaths, trying his best to will the embarrassed flush from his face before he stepped into the light of the corridor. He needn't have worried: a single woman scurried ahead of him to the gravways to the mosque, blue jalibiya flowing around her feet - probably a lounge attendant. She took the ladies' entrance on the right, he ducked into the men's on the left. The tube was already expanding, the floor stretching beneath his feet as the corridor stretched to keep up with the sphere of the mosque as it spun to align itself with the qiblah. Not exactly graceful under the best of circumstances, it was all Ibrahim could do to keep his feet as the ground undulated underneath him.

The bulge of the mosque's hatchway appeared ahead. The lines had already formed for prayer, and as Ibrahim rushed up to join the end of the last row the mosque sphere eased to a halt, the congregation now standing facing the direction of Earth - and on Earth, the Ka'aba in Makkah. The ground firmed under his feet when he stepped into the mosque, the grav generator under the floor ensuring that down stayed down, no matter the sphere's position relative to the asteroid itself.

The Imam raised his hands behind his ears and gave the takbir. "Allahu-akbar."

"Allahu-akbar," Ibrahim murmured. As he whispered the Opening to the prayer, Ibrahim tried to drive all thoughts of Glory of the Ottomans and Murkworld and the janitorial profession from his mind. Tried to focus on the prayer itself, tried to let the soothing cool of worship fill him.

He very nearly succeeded. Until his last sajdah, kneeling with his forehead pressed against the carpeted floor, when out of the corner of his eye he saw the comm unit on his wrist begin to flash an angry red.

A message. Red meant high priority. Misr Hub. It had to be Misr Hub.

The Imam gave the final takbir, and sat back on his heels to recite the closing to the prayer. Ibrahim sat back with him, and recited just after him. But his eyes kept darting back to the red glow on his wrist.

"Assalaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullhi," the Imam said over his right shoulder.

A thousand heartbeats passed with the red light flashing on his wrist.

"Assalaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullahi," the Imam murmured over his left shoulder, concluding the prayer.

Ibrahim waited a long second or two for propriety's sake before leaping up and dashing for the mosque's hatch. He thumbed the receive pad on his comm even as the gravway shifted treacherously behind his feet, the mosque's sphere returning to its resting position. One of his feet somehow found its way behind the ankle of the other, and Ibrahim flailed out with both hands, trying to catch his balance without putting someone’s eye out.

A familiar voice spoke from the comm unit, just in time to serve as accompaniment to his fall.

"Ibrahim," said the voice, female and, to his ears, thick with velvet and perfume. His Hub agent, Jamilah Jamjoom, the woman who told him where he was expected to be, when he was expected to be there, and what he was expected to do upon arrival. He'd never seen her face, visual links being far too costly to be wasted on a Warden. But that voice…it was beautiful even when it said something as calamitously horrible as it now said.

"You there, Ibrahim? Mr. Amjed is on-line." Oooh boy. That can't be good. "He wants to talk to you. And Ibrahim…." That voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper, and Ibrahim forgot about trying to get back up from the rapidly contracting gravway, almost forgot Amjed waiting to read him his rights. That voice….

"I think he's royally pissed."

Ibrahim blinked at the unfairness of it all. Like the apple around the worm, Ms. Jamjoom's voice saying those words.

*****

His conversation with Setna Amjed was short, though Amjed made his point eloquently in the few words he spent on it. Ibrahim was to get to the Lahab-u-Din immediately, to observe on behalf of Misr Entertainment as the ghazi marines cleaned up the mess he’d made.

After that, well, after that there would be consequences. Unspecified, but, Ibrahim had absolutely no doubt terrible consequences involving some exquisitely horrible hybrid of demotion, legal action and, Ibrahim would not be surprised to discover, grave bodily harm.

And that was if everything worked out.