Herbert smiled on her with unfeigned loving-kindness.

“Vera, it was kind of you to come so early. There have been some important developments, a new project. I’ve had to reassign you.”

Vera’s eyes welled up. “I knew you’d pull me out of that mine. I dis­graced myself.”

“Well, yes,” Herbert admitted briskly. Naturally Herbert had read the neural reports from all the personnel on-scene. Everyone felt regret, un­happiness, embarrassment, shame… “Mining work is not your bliss, Vera. A mishap can happen to anyone.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence.

People who had never worn boneware had such foolish ideas about brain scanners and what they did. Brain scanners could never read thoughts. Telepathy was impossible. That was a fairy tale.

Still, neural scanners were very good at the limited things that real­life scanners could do. Mostly, they read nerve impulses that left the brain and ran the body’s muscles. That was why a neural scanner was part of any modern exoskeleton.

Brain scanners also read emotions. Emotions, unlike thoughts, lin­gered deep within the brain and affected the entire nervous system.

Grand passions were particularly strong, violent, and machine­legible.

Acquis neural scanners could easily read ecstasy and dread. Murderous fury. Pain and injury. Lassitude, grief, hatred, exaltation, bursting pride, bitter guilt, major depression, suicidal despair, instinctive loathing, sly de­ception, abject terror, burning resentment, a mother’s love, and unstop­pable tears of sympathy.

Acquis neural tech was still a young, emergent field, but it was al­ready advanced enough to create a vital core of users and developers. Herbert was one of those people. So was every other Acquis cadre on Mljet. Herbert was an Acquis neural apparatchik, a seasoned captain of the industry.