He wanted to push. Every scientist's instinct in him demanded clarification. You didn't tell a researcher that his life's work was ahead of him and then refuse to elaborate.
But Dave's expression, all eight versions of it, was closed. Not hostile, not secretive, just finished. The way a professor might look when he'd delivered a lecture, and the students had to figure out the rest on their own.
"We need to talk more," Number One said. "Privately."
"This is private." Dimitri gestured at the camera-free hallway.
"This is the beginning. There is more. Things that require time and consideration, and that should not be discussed where Mattie can be burdened by knowledge that might put her in danger."
Mattie straightened. "I can handle?—"
"We do not doubt your courage." Number One turned to her, and the gentleness in his voice was so unexpected that Dimitri did a double take. "We doubt the wisdom of making you a target for information that others might try to extract. What you don't know cannot be thralled out of you."
It was a valid point. Compulsion was a unique ability that only Lord Navuh and Dave seemed to possess, but thralling was something almost any immortal was capable of, and Mattie was human and susceptible to both.
"Tonight," Number One said, turning back to Dimitri. "After dark. The two of us will take a walk outside and talk."
"The two of us, being me and all eight of you."
"Yes."
The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. A stroll after dark with an eight-bodied hive mind to discuss his supposed life mission. His life had become a science fiction novel written by someone with a very strange imagination.
"Okay," Dimitri said. "I'll come down at seven-thirty."
"We will come for you."
All eight bodies straightened simultaneously, a signal that the conversation was over. Number One turned to Mattie one last time.
"Get well, Mattie," he said.
"Thank you."
Eight smiles answered her. The same disturbing, synchronized expression of warmth that shouldn't have been possible from a merged consciousness that had supposedly transcended individual emotions.
Then they filed out, one by one, their boots marking that precise, mechanical rhythm on the stairs. Eight bodies descending in perfect unison, the sound fading as they reached the main lab, and then the heavy clunk of the reinforced door opening and closing.
They were gone, and the hallway felt enormous now that it was empty of their presence.
Dimitri let out a long breath.
"Well," Mattie said. "That was unnerving."
"Which part?"
"All of it. But especially the part where the eight-bodied collective intelligence told you that your real work hasn't started yet and then refused to explain what they meant. What do you think he was talking about?"
Dimitri sat on the other chair and draped his arm over the dresser.
"I have no idea," he admitted. "And that scares me more than anything else that's happened on this island."
"More than the harbor? More than Tarik?"
"Those were physical threats. Simple to understand." He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Dave is talking about something he's been thinking about across eight minds simultaneously for who knows how long. And whatever it is, he thinks I'm essential to it. That's scary."
"But it also means that it's essential for him to keep you alive," Mattie pointed out. "That's good."
"I'm not sure. Given how glad they were that I was immortal now, they expect me to provide what they need for a very long time. Probably for as long as I live."
