"Ha. Reynolt couldn't care less. Podmaster Brughel ordered this, per my recommendation."
"But I thought Podmasters were sovereign in their domains." Pham hadn't seen much of Reynolt on prior Watches, but he had seen her humiliate Ritser Brughel in meetings with Nau.
Trud continued on for several meters, not speaking. His face quirked in a silly smile, a look he sometimes got during their bull sessions at Benny's. This time though, the smiled broke into laughter. "Podmaster? Anne Reynolt? Pham, watching you boggle has already made my day—but this tops all." He coasted for several seconds more, still chuckling. Then he saw the glower on Pham Trinli's face. "I'm sorry, Pham. You Peddlers are clever in so many ways, but you're like children when it comes to the basics of culture....I got you cleared to see the Focus clinic; I guess it can't hurt to spell some other things out. No, Anne Reynolt is not a Podmaster, though most likely she was a powerful one, once upon a time. Reynolt is just another ziphead."
Pham let his glower fade to blank astonishment—which also happened to be his true reaction. "But...she's running a big part of the show. She gives you orders."
Silipan shrugged. His smile had changed to something sour. "Yeah. She gives me orders. It's a rare thing, but it can happen. I'd almost rather work for Podmaster Brughel and Kal Omo except that they play so... rough." His voice trailed off nervously.
Pham caught up. "I think I see," he lied. "When a specialist gets Focused, he fixates on his specialty. So anartist becomes one of your mosaic carvers, a physicist becomes like Hunte Wen, and a manager becomes, uh, I don't know, the manager from Hell."
Trud shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. See, technical specialties Focus well. We got a seventy-percent success rate even with you Qeng Ho. But people skills—counseling, politics, personnel management—normally, those don't survive Focusing at all. You've seen enough zipheads by now; the one thing they have in common is flat affect. They can no more imagine what's going on in a normal person's head than a rock can. We're lucky to have as many good translators as we do; that's never been tried on this scale before.
"No. Anne Reynolt is something very, very rare. Rumor is, she was a High Podmaster in the Xevalle clique. Most of those got killed or mind-scrubbed, but the story is Reynolt had really pissed the Nauly clique. For laughs they Focused her; maybe they thought to use her as body comfort.
But that's not how it turned out. My guess is, she was already close to being a monomaniac. It was one chance in a billion, but Reynolt's management abilities survived—even some of her people skills survived."
Up ahead, Pham could see the end of the tunnel. Light shone on an unadorned hatch. Trud came to a stop and turned to face Pham. "She's a freak, but she is also Podmaster Nau's most valued property. In principle, she doubles his reach... ." He grimaced. "It doesn't make it any easier to take orders from her, I'll tell you that. Personally, I think the Podmaster overrates her. She's a miraculous freak, but so what? It's like a dog that writes poetry—no one notices that it's doggerel."
"You don't seem to care if she knows your opinion."
Now Trud was smiling again. "Of course not. That's the one plus of my situation. She's almost impossible to fool on things directly related to my job—but outside of that she's like any other ziphead. Why, I've played some pus-funny j—" He stopped. "Ah, never mind. Tell her what Podmaster Nau asked you to and you'll be okay." He winked, then started back up the corridor, away from Reynolt's office.
"Watch her close. You'll see what I mean."
If Pham had known about Anne Reynolt, he might have postponed the whole localizer scam. But now he was sitting in her office, and there weren't many options. In a way it felt good to be winging it. Ever since Jimmy died, every one of Pham's moves had been so considered, so damned cautious.
At first, the woman didn't even acknowledge his presence. Pham sat uninvited on the chair across from her desk and looked around the room. It was nothing like Nau's office. These walls were naked, rough diamond. There were no pictures, not even the abominations that passed for Emergent art. Reynolt's desk was an agglomeration of empty storage crates and network gear.
