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Rraey scientist that you’ve taught to squeal.”
    â€œAdministrator Cainen never met Boutin personally, or so he says,” Szilard said. “He doesn’t know anything about his motivations, just that Boutin gave the Rraey information on the most recent BrainPal hardware. That’s part of what Administrator Cainen’s group was working on—trying to integrate BrainPal technology with Rraey brains.”
    â€œJust what we need,” Mattson said. “Rraey with supercomputers in their heads.”
    â€œHe didn’t seem to be very successful with the integration,” Robbins said, and looked over to Szilard. “At least not from the data your people recovered from his lab. Rraey brain structure is too different.”
    â€œSmall favors,” Mattson said. “Szi, you have to have gotten something else out of your guy.”
    â€œOutside of his specific work and situation, Administrator Cainen hasn’t been terribly useful,” Szilard said. “And the few Eneshans we captured alive were resistant to conversation, to use a euphemism. We know the Rraey, the Enesha and the Obin are allied to attack us. But we don’t know why, how or when, or what Boutin brings into the equation. We need your people to figure that one out, Mattson.”
    Mattson nodded to Robbins. “Where are we with that?” he asked.
    â€œBoutin was in charge of a lot of sensitive information,” Robbins said, pitching his answer to Szilard. “His groups handled consciousness transfer, BrainPal development and body-generation techniques. Any of that could be useful to an enemy, either to help it develop its own technology or to find weaknesses in ours. Boutin himself was probably the leading expert on getting minds out of one body and into another. But there’s a limit to how much of that information he could carry. Boutin was a civilian scientist. He didn’t have a BrainPal. His clone had all his registered brain prostheses on him, and he’s not likely to have gotten a spare. Prostheses are tightly monitored and he’d have to spend several weeks training it. We don’t have any network record of Boutin using anything but his registered prosthesis.”
    â€œWe’re talking about a man who got a cloning vat past you,” Szilard said.
    â€œIt’s not impossible that he walked out of the lab with a store of information,” Robbins said. “But it’s very unlikely. It’s more likely he left only with the knowledge in his head.”
    â€œAnd his motivations,” Szilard said. “Not knowing those is the most dangerous thing for us.”
    â€œI’m more worried about what he knows,” Mattson said. “Even with just what’s naturally in his head, that’s still too much. I have teams pulled off their own projects to work on updating BrainPal security. Whatever Boutin does know we’re going to make obsolete. And Robbins here is in charge of combing through the data Boutin left behind. If there’s anything in there, we’ll find it.”
    â€œI’ll be meeting with Boutin’s former tech after we’re done here,” Robbins said. “Lieutenant Harry Wilson. He says he has something I might find interesting.”
    â€œDon’t let us hold you up,” Mattson said. “You’re dismissed.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” Robbins said. “Before I go, I’d like to know what sort of time constraint we’re working under here. We found out about Boutin by attacking that base. No doubt the Eneshans know we know about their plans. I’d like to know how much time we think we have before a retaliation.”
    â€œYou have some time, Colonel,” Szilard said. “Nobody knows we attacked that base.”
    â€œHow can they not know?” Robbins said. “With all due respect to Special Forces, General, it’s difficult to hide that sort of assault.