Vera was his lieutenant.
Heat prickled the back of Vera’s neck. “There’s no big debriefing for me, Herbert? You know as well as I do that I completely lost my wits down there!”
“Yes, you suffered a panic attack,” Herbert said blandly. “It’s one of your character flaws. We all have them. It’s our flaws that give us our character.”
Vera was now certain that there was something dreadful in the works for her. Herbert was much too calm.
Vera analyzed her boss’s ugly face. Why did she love him so?
When she’d first met Herbert, he had badly scared her. Herbert was old, ugly, foreign, and fanatical. Worst of all, Herbert had bluntly insisted that she stick her head into an experimental helmet that scanned people’s brains. Vera knew that ubiquitous computing was very powerful: she did not want that technology applied inside her skull. Vera feared that for good reasons. She had seen her loved ones shot down dead, and she had feared that less.
Vera had obeyed Herbert anyway, because Herbert was willing to rescue Mljet. No one else of consequence seemed even willing to try. The Acquis were global revolutionaries. They got results in the world. They did some strange things, yes—but they never, ever stopped trying.
So Vera had swallowed the panic and let the machine swallow her head.
Vera had swiftly learned that wearing a brain machine was a small price to pay to learn the feelings of others.
Herbert Fotheringay was an ugly man, but he had such a beautiful soul. Herbert had a touching simplicity of character. He brimmed over with kindness and goodness. For those who earned his trust and shared his aims, Herbert was a tireless source of strength and support. Herbert meant every word that he had ever said to her.
She had joined his effort as a bitter, grieving eighteen-year-old, her home demolished and her loved ones shot dead or scattered across the world. Yet Herbert and his scanners had instantly seen beyond her fear and misery. The machines had sensed the depth of her passionate love for her homeland. Herbert had always treated Vera as the heart and soul of his Mljet effort.