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“Exactly.”

“Matches could be made to look unavailable.”

“Yes.”

“Or viable ones suppressed.”

I pointed at him. “That.”

He looked at my finger.

I lowered it. “Sorry.”

“You point often.”

“You’re very pointable.”

His mouth moved. Almost.

I smiled despite myself. Then the seriousness came back.

“If somebody controls compatibility data,” I said, “they don’t just control records.”

“No.”

“They influence who gets access to whom.”

“Yes.”

“Who gets children.”

His gaze sharpened. There it was. The larger thing.

“Which bloodlines continue,” Veyr said quietly.

I leaned back. Exactly.

My stomach dropped.

The laboratory suddenly felt much farther away. This was no longer about bad data. Not really.

It was about families. Inheritance. Warriors. Power. It was about the manifesting of gifts, the channeling of ŭre into bloodlines, and who got to decide which potential would be nurtured and which would be extinguished.

I rubbed my palms against my thighs. “That’s insane.”

Veyr’s expression remained hard. “It is plausible.”

“I was hoping you’d say no.”

“So was I.”

For a second, neither of us spoke.

Then I looked at the bloodline column again. “Do military families matter politically?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”