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out. In a normal rejuvenation, on the left, the metabolites of the rejuv drugs are each involved in scavenging specific degradation products."
     
    "In plain language?" Vida Serrano asked. She knew, and knew they knew, what was meant, but she was determined to make them say it in language that anyone could understand. She had already been briefed, very secretly, by Marta Katerina Saenz.
     
    "The rejuv drugs break down in the body into other chemicals, and those chemicals—metabolites—bind to and remove the chemical compounds characteristic of aging."
     
    "Very well."
     
    "In a normal rejuvenation, that leaves only healthy, undegraded tissues as a matrix for replication, the second part of the rejuvenation process."
     
    "So the first part throws out the old, as it were, and then the second part builds up the new?"
     
    "Yes, Admiral. But on the right—if you'll look right here—you can see that these tissues, which stain green, are not being removed. No green on the left, and green—"
     
    "On the right. Yes. And I presume that means that age-deteriorated tissues are left in the matrix when the rejuv proceeds."
     
    "Exactly. Which replicate into age-deteriorated tissues, so that after some years—it depends on the amount of deterioration in the original as well as the exact kind of faulty drug—the deterioration affects brain function like any other senile dementia."
     
    "So—how do you fix it?"
     
    "Unfortunately, we don't know. It appears that if no actual functional degradation has occurred, then a rejuvenation with good drugs produces a fresh start. But when we tried that on one of the first patients, it didn't work. The body rejuvenated to a young age, but the mental function stayed the same. We have been observing him for months now, and while the deterioration has not progressed, it has also not improved."
     
    "What about other treatments? Surely you had something for this kind of problem before rejuv?"
     
    "No, not really. Admiral—I know that nobody likes to hear this, but medical miracles are rarely miracles."
     
    Marta had told her the same thing, but she'd hoped for better news.
     
    "How early can you detect the problem?" If they couldn't reverse it, perhaps catching it early would work.
     
    "Within a year of a bad rejuv, which is plenty of time to correct it. But the tests take weeks—maybe we can speed it up later, but not yet—and we have a lot of people to test."
     
    What were they going to do with those whose rejuvs had failed, who had already been damaged . . . Vida shuddered. Rejuvenate them to youthful bodies and senility of mind? Who would take care of them? For how long? Or . . . let them die? Neither horn of the dilemma seemed tenable, and for once she was glad that it wasn't her decision. Let the Grand Admiral and the Surgeon General figure it out; the mathematics of equity in this escaped her.
     
     
     
Zenebra, two days before
the Senior Trials
    For dinner, Pedar had chosen Raymond's, that year's fashionable restaurant. She steered him away from discussing the Trials—he wanted her to dissect all the other competitors for his amusement.
     
    "It's not right," she insisted. "They're my friends as well as my fellow competitors; it's not honorable to pick them apart like that." She touched the table controls and brought up the chessboard. "Let's play."
     
    "Don't be naive, Cecelia," Pedar said. Had he rejuved yet again? She couldn't tell. He still dressed more like an actor in some deep-historical play. Her interest in history didn't extend to clothing styles, so she wasn't sure what period. "There's no place in real life for honor. In sports, perhaps—" He picked up a black knight and a white, and made them bow to each other. "But even you know that what really matters is winning." He clashed the pieces together.
     
    "If you break the rules," Cecelia said, trying to be reasonable, "they eliminate you."
     
    Pedar tilted his hand. "Then you might say that Bunny broke