FIFTEEN

_Y

ou’re late.”

            Ariel nodded curtly to Coren’s escort, who bowed formally and left. Ariel stood to one side, waving Coren in.

            “Your tailor took his time,” Coren said, entering the apartment.

            Ariel Burgess wore a gown of graphite-gray material that contained motes of color which sparkled delicately. The cut had no sharp edges and, rather than encase her body, seemed to travel along with her. Coren kept expecting to see thigh or hip or breast or belly through the mist, but, though the fabric covered her reluctantly, it never failed to hide.

            She wore no jewelry. Her black hair was braided thickly into a helix laced with silver, blue, and gold ribbons. She appeared to be barefoot. Coren could not stop watching her, thoroughly caught by what he saw.

            “No matter,” she said. “Fashionably late is better than being too early. Have you ever been to one of these before?”

            “No,” Coren said. “Rega has never been invited.”

            She frowned. “Oh, I doubt that. Setaris is always trying to persuade detractors to come see for themselves.” She shrugged, then gave him an open appraisal. She nodded. “That will do.”

            Coren bristled briefly at the inspection. The Auroran tailor complained that he was unused to working for Terrans because they were so short and thick, all the while his lasers measured him and his robot did the cutting. The suit, a midnight blue formal affair, fit beautifully--Coren enjoyed fine clothes, especially new ones, and he had never owned an Auroran outfit before. The sleeves seemed a bit too loose, but nothing was too tight, and after the trip from the tailor’s to Ariel’s apartment it felt as natural as skin.

            Then he felt foolish for resenting her. He had been studying her, after all.

            “I’m glad I meet your standards, “ he said.

            She cocked an eyebrow. “For tonight, at least.” She crossed the room to a comm console, dragging his gaze with her. She retrieved a disk and brought it to him. “Take this now, just in case.”

            “What is it?”

            “The subject of our evening’s discussion. But later. We have to go. “

            In the corridor, she frowned. “How well do you handle the open?”

            “As in...?”

            “Unroofed space, free air, stars in the sky.”

            “I can manage well enough.”

            Ariel looked dubious. They reached a wide area lined with elevator doors. She tapped a code into one.

            “Well,” she said, “if it becomes too much, there are plenty of enclosed spaces in Setaris’s residence.”

            The door opened on a comfortable car with a plush bench mounted in a semicircle. Coren barely felt it begin to move and after a few moments there was no discernable motion.

            Ariel slid briefly against him, thighs touching. His nostrils filled with a subdued odor and he became instantly affected by her presence.

            “All right, we have a minute,” Ariel said. “Do you have any questions about protocol? Have you been to any Spacer functions?”

            Coren set aside his growing distraction. “Um...when I worked for Special Service, there were occasions, but I’ve never been a guest. “

            Ariel nodded. “I have no idea yet what the occasion for this dinner is, but I have no doubt several guests will be recording it. This will be a working dinner, so business will be done. Not openly, not blatantly, but arrangements will be made. There’s a hierarchy which you’ll pick up on as the evening progresses. Who sits where at the table, who is served what kind of drink, even who gets to go home for the evening with whom--all this is a matter of protocol and negotiation. Don’t argue with anyone. Prod, suggest, imply, insinuate--that’s not only allowable but expected. Anything but an open disagreement. Follow my lead.”

            “Anyone I should be particularly wary of?”

            “Gale Chassik, the Solarian ambassador. He has allies who mayor may not be sifting for information for him. The Keresians, for one. “

            “Gale Chassik...I’ve come across that name recently.”

            “So have I. He’s involved in Nova Levis.”

            “Uh-huh.”

            “Both of them, I believe. The colony and the lab.”

            Coren blinked at her. “The lab?”

            “It’s in the disk,” Ariel said, smiling. “I’ve been doing a little homework. Anyway, one other you should know about. Jonis Taprin will be there.”

            “Senator Taprin?” Coren frowned. “That could be awkward.”

            “Don’t worry about him using your presence there against Looms. Terrans will resign office before admitting to petitioning Spacers. He sees you there, he’ll be more worried that you’ll use it. If you do, then he’ll retaliate, but in my experience it’s automatic detente.”

            “Why is Taprin going to be there?”

            Ariel smirked. “Looking for favors, sifting for data. Even the most rabidly anti-Spacer politician, if he or she is at all intelligent, knows that Earth can’t do without us. The trade with the Settler colonies is too important to risk losing our shipping fleets as subcontractors. Besides, there’s the implicit threat of blockade. Earth also isn’t out there with the Settlers; we are. If there’s to be any kind of control--”

            “There are Terran fleets,” Coren interrupted. “We aren’t all cloistered agoraphobics.”

            “Compared to the Fifty Worlds, Earth’s presence is a token. You can blockade one world, maybe two, cause enough damage to upset the balance of power, but...” She let it hang like that. Then: “In any case, exercise discretion and say nothing about baleys. That’s nothing but a sore point among all of us. If it comes up, I’ll deal with it.”

            “Why did you ask me here?”

            “Efficiency. Setaris is playing a game and I don’t know what it is yet. I haven’t exactly been in favor this last year. Now all of a sudden I’m being asked to embassy fetes again. You ‘II act as a wild card in the game. Accompanying me will suggest a lot to them. “

            “And explain nothing.”

            “Exactly. Then afterward we can talk about our--we’re here.”

            Coren had not noticed the car slowing. The door slid aside and let them out in a wide arcade.

            The air smelled different. Coren slowed as he neared the edge of the overhang, sensing the change before he saw anything.

            Through a dimly-seen parkland with slim trees and thick grass, light came from the residence, warmly tracing the outlines of the intervening flora. The sounds of conversation, occasional laughter, and the nearly overwhelming rhythm of music drifted, muted, toward him.

            He forced his hands to unclench and stepped from beneath the shelter.

            A breeze brushed his face.

            He took a dozen steps and looked up.

            Stars salted the night sky, and for an instant he caught his breath. They seemed so close that they formed a roof as solid as the urban shell beneath which he had lived all his life. Far more beautiful, though, and he understood why people wanted them, wanted to go to them, even why they wanted to see this same view from other worlds. There was certainly nothing to fear.

            Between one step and the next, leaves fluttered in the comer of his vision and his perspective changed. Abruptly all of above became an infinity into which he felt he might fall.

            Coren jerked his gaze to the ground, shuddered briefly, and made himself look only at the light ahead. Ariel had stopped halfway across the grass, waiting for him. He walked stolidly toward the party, pleased that he had not reclenched his fists. Ariel smoothly took his arm, and they continued on together. He touched his face, and his fingers came away dry.

            Good. He stepped from grass to flagstone. He risked one more quick glimpse skyward. The light around him occluded the view of stars and he relaxed.

            He blinked at the startlingly clothed people.

            The styles ranged from strips and patches of fabric that barely covered, and often intentionally failed to cover, to blousy, opaque suits that seemed large enough for two people. The dance of color, shift of cloth and skin, the moil of distinct tastes from several cultures somehow blent into a single attribute: Spacer.

            Even the Terrans dressed in one or another Spacer fashion, though they still stuck out. Coren thought he knew why: Terrans dressed for personal status while Spacers dressed purely for personal taste. On a Spacer, the quality and expense of the clothing said nothing of their place in the hierarchy, which kept Terrans continually unable to rank them on sight--something Terrans did among themselves habitually.

            “Coren.”

            He followed his name and found Ariel looking at him. She stood with three people: two Spacers, the other Terran. He recognized the Terran.

            “Coren,” Ariel said, taking his arm, “may I introduce Ambassador Sen Setaris of Aurora.“

            Coren bowed slightly and Setaris returned it. She was Spacer tall and austerely attractive, her hair glowing white around a seamless face. She could be fifty, or one hundred and fifty for all that Coren could tell.

            “Welcome, Mr. Lanra,” she said. “I trust you aren’t in any distress?”

            “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

            “Good. Make yourself comfortable, this is an informal gathering. Should you wish, my house is open. “

            “I appreciate that, Ambassador.”

            “And this, “ Ariel moved on, “is Ambassador Gale Chassik of Solaria. “

            Chassik looked very different from Setaris. Heavier, dressed in the thick Solarian manner, his head was nearly smooth. He smiled broadly and the lines in his face were deep. Coren began to extend his hand, then remembered the Solarian aversion to being touched. He bowed again.

            “Ambassador.”

            “Pleased, Mr. Lanra. It’s good to see Ariel out of her shell again. We’ve missed her.”

            Ariel smiled. “I’ve missed you, as well.” She turned to the Terran. “And this is Senator Jonis Taprin of Earth.”

            “I recognize the Senator, of course,” Coren said, extending his hand. “How do you do, sir. “

            Taprin was pale and middle-aged, lines in his forehead qualitatively different from those in Chassik’s. He was thin and nearly as tall as Setaris. He clasped Coren ‘s hand. “This must be an unusual occasion for you, Mr. Lanra. I understood you worked for Rega Looms. “

            “That’s true, sir.”

            “What would he think of you consorting with Spacers?” Taprin grinned at Chassik and Setaris, including them in the joke.

            “No more than he would of you doing so, Senator,” Coren said.

            The Spacers laughed softly. Coren noticed the quick resentment in Taprin ‘s eyes, gone just as quickly.

            “Honestly, though,” Coren said, “I’m here at Ambassador Burgess’s invitation. I’m currently on leave from Mr. Looms’ service. “

            “Isn’t that unusual?” Chassik asked. “You are his chief of security, are you not?”

            “I am. But I have very capable people handling his day-to-day operations. On the road as he is, I have to look after the home office. But even I get a few days off from time to time.”

            More polite laughter.

            “Enjoy yourself, Mr. Lanra,” Setaris said. “If you’ll excuse Ariel and me.... ?”

            Setaris took Ariel’s arm and the two drifted off.

            “Ambassador Setaris sets a marvelous table,” Chassik said. “The buffet should not be missed.” He gestured toward a long table near the entrance to the house.

            “In that case,” Coren said, “I should do the diplomatic thing and eat something.”

            Taprin smiled. “Stay away from the mauve buttons with the yellow cream sauce. They sneak up on you at the most inconvenient times.”

            Coren glanced back when he reached the long table filled with Spacer delicacies. Taprin and Chassik faced each other, talking intently. He searched the crowd and spotted Ariel and Setaris, near the edge of the patio, also talking intently.

            He surveyed the food arrayed down the length of the long table and saw almost nothing he recognized. He located the buttons Taprin had warned him about and, perversely, took one. It possessed a faintly musty taste beneath a cinnamon-sweet tang. The sauce reminded him of buttered scallops. Nothing unfamiliar.

            “Drink, sir?”

            He glimpsed a tray to his left containing several tall glasses. He took one.

            “Thanks. “

            The servor rolled away, then, and Coren watched it, a robot shaped like a mobile table, moving deftly among the partiers. He caught a glimpse of a few more spaced throughout the gathering.

            The liquid in the glass shimmered golden and he wondered where it put him in the order of importance. He sipped: tea with almond liqueur. He popped the rest of the button in his mouth and washed it down.

            “I trust this isn’t going to become complicated.” Taprin stood beside him. “Complicated, Senator?”

            “You understand me, Mr. Lanra.”

            “I do. I’m sure both of us understand the risks of unmanaged implication.”

            Taprin winced. “Just so we do.” He was not finished, though. He fidgeted, sipped at his drink, and finally asked, “Have you and Ariel known each other long?”

            “We met last year. “

            Taprin blinked, startled. “I wasn’t aware she’d been seeing anyone...”

            “Should you?”

            Taprin frowned.

            “I’m sure, Senator, whatever else gets discussed here tonight, Ariel Burgess’s personal relationships won’t be part of it.”

            Taprin nodded. “Excuse me.”

            Coren watched him walk away, toward the house. So much for being nonconfrontational...

            “Do you think he can defeat your Mr. Looms?”

            Ambassador Chassik stood beside him, also watching Taprin retreat to the interior of Setaris’s residence.

            “The election is still six weeks off,” Coren said. “Anything can happen between now and then. “

            “I know. That’s always surprised me about you Terrans. Given your temperament, one would think you’d find a less volatile way to choose your leaders.”

            “For example?”

            Chassik shrugged. “For example, on Solaria the process is accomplished by a combination of appointment and annual assessment. A vote of confidence keeps the appointed official in office. Too low a vote...” Chassik drew a finger sharply across his own throat. He grinned quickly. “Politically speaking, of course.”

            “Who does the appointing?”

            “There is a college of electors. We never know who they are.”

            “I see. I think we’ll keep our volatility.”

            Chassik laughed.

            “My question,” he continued, “is not academic, Mr. Lanra. Should your employer defeat Senator Taprin, new arrangements must be made. I would consider it a favor if you let Mr. Looms know that Solaria is open to a dialogue. “

            “You do know Rega’s position on Earth-Spacer relations.”

            Chassik nodded. “In spite of his public pronouncements, I’m sure he’s at base a reasonable man.”

            “Is Senator Taprin a reasonable man?”

            “More than others, less than some. “

            “When the time comes, I’ll pass that on,” Coren said.

            “Thank you, Mr. Lanra.”

            “I would think, though, that you would tell him yourself. You used to know him personally, didn’t you?”

            Chassik’s eyes narrowed briefly. “I won’t insult your no doubt substantiated intelligence by denying it. That was, however, a long time ago.”

            “Before you were ambassador, wasn’t it?”

            “I was newly arrived on Earth. He was one of the few Terrans who took any time to show me around.”

            “I suppose it helped to be in business together. I found that interesting. It’s not very common these days, is it?”

            “We were never ‘in business’ together, Mr. Lama. You’re mistaken. “

            “Oh. I apologize--perhaps I misunderstood. You both owned shares in some of the same companies. “

            Chassik shook his head. “Even then, Rega was not sanguine about mixing with Spacers. If we did have common investments, it was quite by accident. “

            Coren nodded. “Ah. Forgive me. I was under the impression that he brought you in on a project.”

            “What project might that have been?”

            “Something to do with prostheses, I believed. I forget the name of the company. “

            Chassik shrugged. “Rega showed some interest in our medical technologies along those lines, but nothing ever came of it. He found our procedures too invasive. Later on, his discomfort turned to fanaticism. We haven’t spoken since he became head of that church of his. “

            “Which is why you’d like me to take your offer to him.”

            “Exactly, Mr. Lama. I--oh, Ariel. I was just discussing political systems with your friend. The merits of Terran populist mandates, as opposed to good old-fashioned autocracy.”

            “No meddling, Gale,” Ariel said, stopping before them.

            “Never!” Chassik proclaimed with mock severity. “I’m so pleased to see you, Ariel. It’s about time Setaris got over her snit and remembered your existence.”

            “Was it a snit? I thought it was a well-deserved vacation. Now I find I have to start working again.”

            “If there’s anything I can do...”

            “I think Sen would be displeased if you helped me get another vacation.”

            “You should come to work for us, Ariel, “ Chassik said. “We have a much more beneficent attitude toward sacrifice and service.”

            “Mmm. The only problem with that would be the travel. “

            Coren studied Ariel while she sparred with Chassik. He noticed then how different she seemed compared to the Spacers gathered here. His first thought was that she looked younger, but that was wrong. They all, for the most part, looked young, at least in that their skin was smooth, their eyes were clear, their hair thick and shimmering. But that could be purchased at any competent rejuve clinic. Earthers managed cosmetic youth up till their eighties and nineties, when the repairs failed for lack of anything dependable to repair.

            No, Spacer youth was qualitatively different, something rejuve could never achieve. Instead, it was a static perfection, isolated in time, unchanging and unchanged. They looked like icons of health instead of people, archetypes of agelessness. Instead of perpetually young they were perpetually the same.

            But not Ariel Burgess. For one thing, she was not young. Fine lines rayed from the comers of her eyes, and her laughlines were deep and permanent. A single chiselled dash deepened between her eyebrows when she concentrated and her skin, rather than the smooth porcelain austerity of her fellow Spacers, showed the reticulations of virgin, unrejuvenated or rehabbed derma.

            She was not stuck in time.

            Coren surveyed the crowd, checking his newfound perception to see how it held up. He saw exceptions, of course, and the Earthers were distinct by virtue of their evident age and the use of makeup where nature let them down. But for the most part observation confirmed expectation.

            “--curious why you haven’t challenged the blockade,” Ariel was saying.

            Coren’s attention snapped back to Ariel and Chassik.

            Chassik looked puzzled. “What business would it be of Solaria’s to get in between a dispute between Earth and one of its unacknowledged offspring?”

            “None, usually,” Ariel said. “Except that Solaria holds title to Nova Levis. I assume, since you haven’t deeded it to the colony, you still have some interest in it.”

            Chassik frowned. “I was unaware of any holdings by that name. Are you sure you have your facts correct?”

            “It’s possible the record is just incomplete. These things do get overlooked. Solaria owned the place outright about thirty-five years ago.”

            “Really? By that name?”

            “No.”

            “Ah. Well, then you do have me at a disadvantage.”

            Ariel cocked her eyebrows. “I’ve never known you to be at a disadvantage. I’ll have to remember this. Especially where something you once personally owned shares in is involved. “

            Chassik made a long show of assembling a plate of assorted delicacies, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “You’re probing, Ariel. I don’t think you know what it is you’re looking for. You’ve heard a name, saw a bit of obsolete data, and you’re jumping to conclusions. That got you in rather a lot of difficulty last year, didn’t it?”

            “In a way. Difficulties don’t come from wrong conclusions. “

            “Oh, they can, though. Depends on how they’re wrong. This Nova Levis thing...rather arcane subject for the Calvin Institute liaison to concern herself with,” Chassik said.

            “Illicit traffic in positronics does concern me.”

            Chassik blinked, startled. “Accusations are beneath you, Ariel. “

            “I’m not making any, Ambassador.”

            “Nova Levis has been a de facto independent colony for nearly thirty years. I believe Aurora has sponsored a few such colonies itself, and I’m sure if you looked the actual ownership of those worlds may still be a matter of doubt. Does Aurora meddle in the internal workings of these colonies?” He shrugged. “What the situation is on the ground rarely matches what you find on paper. If Solaria hasn’t signed over anything, it’s simply a clerical error.”

            “Was it a clerical error,” Coren asked, “when you divested your personal holdings in Nova Levis? If I recall correctly, you did so at the same time as Rega Looms sold his shares. Oh, but I forgot, you never did business together. “

            Ambassador Chassik’s reaction moved through stages, from genuine bafflement to comprehension to an abrupt resumption of a professional mask.

            “Ariel,” he said drolly, “I rarely give advice, but in this case I think you need it. I admire and respect you, but you’ve shown truly questionable taste in paramours. You should be a little less reckless. “ He smiled at Coren. “Please excuse me. “

            Chassik sauntered away.

            “What was that?” Ariel asked.

            “Following your lead,” Coren said. “Blind shooting. I turned up some interesting facts concerning that research lab you mentioned, Nova Levis. Your Ambassador Chassik was a primary shareholder. I wondered if maybe the two were related--the lab and the colony.”

            “Blind shooting. I’d love to see what you can do with your eyes open. “ She shook her head. “You guessed wrong, though. I wasn’t shooting blind. Solaria still holds title to Nova Levis--the colony. It wasn’t called that when they owned it. “

            “What was it called?”

            “Cassus Thole.”

            A chime cut through the air like crystal.

            “Dinner, “ Ariel said. “I hope the rest of the evening is as interesting as the hors d’oeuvres.”

Coren left Ambassador Setaris’s dinner gratefully. Through the excellent food and drink, the strain of trying to pay attention to everything gave him a mild headache.

            Ariel wore a vague smile during the ride to the embassy lobby. Coren had expected to return to her apartment or office to talk, but when he began to mention it she shook her head distantly.

            “Later, “ she said.

            In the lobby, Coren became impatient. He held his tongue in front of the Auroran security guards, though, and let Ariel take his arm and walk with him through the exit.

            On the plaza fronting the embassy, she said, “Let’s get a car. I haven’t been outside the embassy in months. I want to go for a ride.”

            Bewildered, Coren ordered a cab.

            Once in the passenger section of the automated transport, her vagueness evaporated.

            “Paranoia is a requirement for the job,” she said, and punched in a series of random destinations in the cab’s datum.

            “Who do you think is listening?”

            “My own people, for one. Add Chassik to the list.” She turned to face him as the cab moved off. “All right, tell me what you know about this lab. “

            Coren recounted what he had discovered about Nova Levis Research. Ariel listened silently. When he finished she leaned her head back and gazed at the ceiling for a time.

            “Alda Mikels and Gale Chassik together in the same investor’s list makes sense,” she said. “But Rega Looms?”

            “Odd, I agree. But why would the colony be named for the lab?”

            “You’re sure it is? Could be coincidence.”

            “You could find out more about that than I could.”

            Ariel nodded. “I’ll look into it.”

            “What did you mean about illicit positronics traffic?”

            Ariel waved her hand. “Like you, blind shooting. I thought I might get a reaction. There has to be a reason Solaria never relinquished claim to Nova Levis. I thought perhaps they were using it as a transfer point for black market robotics. That could still be it, but I’m not sure Chassik knows anything about it.”

            “The entire Solarian government?” Coren asked dubiously.

            “No, just factions. And he was right about the independence of those colonies. We lease the worlds, Settlers come in, after a time the colony charters its own government, and independence is a fact. There’s never been a reason before for any kind of intervention. No precedent. I haven’t checked yet, but maybe there’s some old agreement that keeps Earth from demanding Solaria exercise rights of ownership. Or it could be that the fact has been lost in the name change. Even if there isn’t, it may be that one department simply didn’t know what the other was doing. ‘Oh, that business of the deed? I thought you had taken care of that. Well, it isn’t my responsibility:” She smiled at Coren’s laugh. “Contrary to what you Terrans believe, we Spacers are not of one mind. On any subject.”

            “That’s not something I ever believed.”

            She leaned forward. “Rega Looms had to have a reason to invest in a biotech lab. Did he have any other investments like that?”

            “Not that I know. I’ll check, but I don’t think so.”

            “So if it was just the one investment, the one lab, it seems logical he’d have a good reason.”

            “I suppose. But--”

            “Probably a personal reason?”

            “Where are you going with this?”

            “Did he have any other children besides Nyom?”

            Coren hesitated. A few days earlier he would have stated emphatically not, but now, after hearing the remarks of both Looms and Wenithal, he was less certain.

            Instead of answering, he said, “There’s something else. My errand to Baltimor District. The reason I was late. The shipping container Nyom used was routed out of Petrabor. Shipping schedules had been rearranged to accommodate it. “

            “Petrabor...”

            “The reschedule came out of the ITE offices in Baltimor. I looked up an acquaintance from my Service days, a man named Brun Damik, who was in charge of the inspector’s department of ITE, figuring that if anyone would know how to get in touch with the people who run the whole baley operation, he would. He led me to a retired cop named Wenithal. I found Rega’s name in his old case logs, part of the same investigation that involved Nova Levis. According to the public record, no charges were filed against Nova Levis, but the attention from the investigation must’ve been enough to sink it. It was bought by the Kysler Group and dismantled. Tonight, when I went back to ask Damik about his connection to Wenithal, I found police there. He’d been murdered. Tortured and murdered. “

            Ariel winced. “What was the case?”

            “A kidnapping. It turned out to involve several orphanages and a couple of biotech labs, extending back several more years. Infants were being taken from orphanages, funneled through the labs, and shipped offplanet. A slave trade, of sorts.”

            “What did the labs have to do with it?”

            ‘‘I don’t know yet. But I found this--” he handed her the certificate he had taken from Damik’s apartment “--hidden in Damik’s office.”

            Ariel opened the sheet and studied it. “He was an orphan?”

            “Interesting, isn’t it? I never knew. We worked together and I never knew.” He folded the document and put it back in his pocket. “Ree Wenithal sponsored him.”

            “Should you have known?”

            Coren shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You don’t expect the people you work with to hide that kind of thing from you after you admit to them that you’re an orphan. “

            “You?”

            “Seth Canobil Hospice and Social Rehabilitation Center. Lifelong resident. I graduated from there before entering the Academy.”

            Ariel seemed to think about that for a time. “All right, so you were both orphans. This police officer, Wenithal, was investigating a kidnapping. Children were stolen from orphanages and eventually sent offworld. To Nova Levis?”

            “Maybe. “ He stared out the window for a time. “What is it we’re supposed to be stopping Nova Levis from doing with this blockade?”

            “You’re insisting you have the right to on-ground inspection. You’re looking for pirates.”

            “‘You’? I thought Aurora was backing Earth on this one.”

            Ariel shrugged. “You notice we haven’t sent any ships.”

            “Point taken. “

            “Where was Nyom Looms taking her baleys?”

            “Nova Levis.”

            Ariel nodded. “I think we should have a talk to this police officer. “

            “I agree. But I’m not sure what good he is. His information is a couple of decades old. “

            “If Spacers are involved, that’s meaningless. They can be very patient. “

            “‘They’?”

            She shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t feel very much like one of them.” She frowned. “But this might be the very same case your Mr. Wenithal was investigating. It may be that whatever was going on then has just come back home. If it ever really stopped. Why did he resign?”

            “I don’t know.” Coren sighed. “There’s something else.”

            “Always. “

            Coren laughed. “No, I mean another coincidence. I did a background on the warehouse where Nyom connected to her killers. I tried to find the dockworker who met them--a man named Yuri Pocivil. I did a trace and found out he was a Settler immigrant. From a colony called Cassus Thole.”

            Ariel stared at him. “The same as?”

            “I don’t know. Interesting coincidence, don’t you think? The fact is, he came to Earth six years ago--from Cassus Thole. Along v nth a good number more who all work for the same company. Six years ago. Long after Cassus Thole supposedly became Nova Levis. So either there are two colonies with the same name--”

            “Or there’s a problem inside ITE. Your acquaintance, Brun Damik--do you think...?”

            “It’s something I intend to check into now.”

            “I think we need to find out what else this Hunter Group owns as well. Maybe we should ask Mr. Wenithal what corporations came up in his investigation.”

            “Settlers, Spacers, and Terran companies. Rather unusual circumstances that could bring them all together.”

            “In my experience, profit explains such anomalies nicely.”

            “But profit from what?” Coren asked.

            “Kidnapping from orphanages.”

            “But--”

            Ariel pointed. “That disk I gave you has a full screening of a blood sample taken from the finger joints of the robot Nyom Looms had with her.”

            “Blood.”

            She nodded. “We typed it, scanned it, and ran a match. It seems Nyom Looms had a brother.”

SIXTEEN

_T

he cab let them out in front of Lanra’s building. Ariel followed him up the stairs to his office. The building showed considerable age--the stairs worn where countless feet had pressed upon them, dust accrued in corners, an uncovered access to conduit and wiring long unrepaired--but it seemed moderately well maintained. Cleaner than she might have expected in this old neighborhood, which lay on the outskirts of the Infant District, just off the Southwest Corridor of D.C.

            A light glowed above Lanra’s fourth floor office door, illuminating a nameplate--COREN LANRA, I.S.I.

            “Do you have any neighbors here?” Ariel asked.

            “An industrial cleaning firm,” Coren said, gesturing toward the other lighted door down the hall. “The floor below is empty. Three businesses on the one below that. Two below that.”

            “And above?”

            “Storage. Past tenants left stuff, paid to have it stored. Or not, but management kept it all anyway. “

            He let them in.

            “It’s a more prosperous district than that,” he continued, “but there are only so many lawyers to fill available office space.” He shrugged. “A lot of tenants have left in the last year. I don’t know why.”

            “Trends are merciless.”

            He nodded distractedly. “Especially on real estate. Wait here a moment.” He pushed through the inner door, to a private office. Ariel heard a brief verbal exchange and wondered if he had a secretary. The thought annoyed her for some reason. “All right, come in,” Coren called.

            When she stepped through the door she found Coren seated behind a broad desk, its surface illuminated by a touch-sensitive grid. He had taken off his jacket and was absently rubbing his left shoulder. Ariel studied the desk.

            “That’s impressive,” she said.

            “And as expensive as it looks. Sit down.” He leaned over the desk then and started entering commands. His fingers danced deftly.

            “AI?” she asked.

            “Yes...” He inserted the disk Ariel had given him into a reader slot. A flatscreen extruded on one corner of the desk. Coren studied it. “The DNA is a close match...what are these other things? Proteins?”

            “Derec hasn’t finished his analysis yet. Proteins, yes, but there are a few puzzles--for instance, a high concentration of myralar. “

            “What’s that?”

            “A polymer, synthetic. A distant analog of nylon. It’s used in robotics for joints, pivots, dry lubricant. Apparently the robot you found grabbed someone. We found the blood samples mixed with these other materials in its fingers. “

            Coren frowned at the screen. His fingers worked. “Not Nyom, but...”

            “Very close.”

            Coren ‘s glance flicked over her, a hint of irritation. “I didn’t think robots could hurt anyone. “

            “Not intentionally, no.”

            “So where did the blood come from?”

            Ariel shook her head. “We’ll have to wait for Derec’s excavation before we know that. “

            “You’re so sure it couldn’t have been the robot.”

            “Not that robot.”

            “And you don’t believe in my second robot.”

            “I didn’t say that. “

            Coren grunted. His eyes closed for several seconds. Ariel began to think he had just fallen asleep when he straightened abruptly in his chair. He winced as he stood.

            “I’m sorry, “ he said, “would you like something to drink?”

            “You’re hurt.”

            Coren nodded. “I was rolled in Petrabor.”

            “When was this?”

            “The last time I saw Nyom, when she left. “ He walked stiffly toward another door. “I think I could stand a drink, if you don’t mind. “

            “You didn’t say anything about being attacked.”

            He shrugged and went through the door. Ariel heard the faint sound of liquid on glass, then a deep groan. Silence stretched. Ariel went to the door and looked in.

            Coren sat on a long divan, a drink perched on his right thigh, eyes shut. An open bottle sat on the low table before him. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Bourbon. She found a row of glasses on a shelf above a small liquor cabinet. She poured three fingers and studied the room.

            Shelves, a pair of closet doors, another chair, a set of drawers. It reminded her of the monk’s hole Derec had kept on the premises at Phylaxis.

            Last year...ages ago...

            A box lay open on top of the table. Ariel stared down at a collection of images of a young woman, almost gaunt, but with a bright smile and large eyes. She looked vaguely familiar.

            Looms, she realized.

            Coren cleared his throat. Ariel looked to see him watching her, a worried frown creasing his forehead. She picked up the top image.

            “Nyom?”

            He nodded.

            Ariel dropped the picture. “This isn’t a case file.”

            “Nyom wasn’t a case.”

            “You’re not doing this for Rega?”

            “Partly. Mostly I’m doing it for myself.”

            “It’s personal, then.”

            “Very.”

            Ariel pulled the chair close to the table and sat down across from him. “What’s that like?”

            Coren pulled himself straighter and set the glass on the table. “I don’t think this is relevant.”

            “Maybe not to the universe at large, “ Ariel said with mock gravity. “But I’m interested.”

            “It’s not very interesting. I resigned from Special Service almost six--no, seven years ago now. I tried running my own private security company for a year or so, but my best clients were always police agencies who needed a little extra expertise.” He smiled grimly. “We private cops tend to be a little less constrained by legality than regular police. Anyway, it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to. I’d quit because I didn’t like the compromises I had to make on behalf of official policy and now I found myself compromising everything else to pay the rent. I started looking for a staff position in the private sector. Rega hired me about five years ago. I met Nyom seventeen months later.”

            “You remember it that clearly?”

            “A very memorable sequence of events.”

            Ariel raised her glass to her mouth and said with mild sarcasm, “I suppose it was love at first sight.” She took a sip.

            “Don’t smirk. It happens.” He shook his head. “The thing is, I didn’t know that till later. I thought it was just lust. Both of us. I thought she was doing it to irritate Rega, but he never knew. Nyom was nonconformist to a fault, but she didn’t flaunt it. She wasn’t looking for attention. Whatever else Rega might have done, he instilled a sense of purpose in her. She wanted her life to mean something.” He shook his head. “That sounds superficial, doesn’t it? The ultimate cliché. “

            “No. Not if it’s real.”

            “Oh, it was real. That’s how she ended up running baleys. “

            “Now that sounds like something aimed at her father.”

            “It’s easy to think that, too. They didn’t really get along. The truth is, Nyom knew things were wrong, that the way everything is put together is all messed up, but she didn’t know how or why. She didn’t know what would make it right. If anything could. So she moved from one cause to another, trying to find the formula for fixing the world. Rega just chose something that felt right and stuck with it. Nyom wasn’t confident enough with her judgment to think she knew which one. Mostly, she ended up trying to help people do what they wanted when official policy got in their way. “

            “If it’s a law, it’s necessarily oppressive?”

            “Something like that. Baley running was a natural for her.”

            ”Is that what ended it between you?” Ariel asked.

            Coren nodded. “Irreconcilable ideologies.”

            “You don’t think anything is wrong?”

            “No, no, not at all. I just can’t see the use in tearing down everything you have until you can make it work.”

            “Very conservative. “

            “That’s me.”

            “What will you do if you find that Nyom’s view was right?”

            “I have no idea.” He leaned back. “Rega Looms has never lied to me before. “

            “You’re referring to the possible existence of Nyom’s brother?”

            Coren nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. Rega only had one child.”

            “That you know of. “

            “That I know of. Nyom never said anything either. “ He shook his head. “I hate being lied to. “

            “Maybe Rega just neglected to mention it. Has he always told you everything?”

            Coren looked uncomfortable. “That would be a very dangerous omission on his part.”

            “Granted. But it’s those things that can hurt us most that we never reveal, even when we should.”

            “Is that experience talking or a Spacer proverb?”

            Ariel considered responding to the barb, but decided against it. “Assuming he lied about that, why? Did the child die?”

            “There would be no reason to hide that. Even assuming Rega to be a callous opportunist--which he isn’t--having a child die in infancy could only be a subject for sympathy. Why would a dead child be something to hide?”

            “It might depend on how it died. “

            Coren shook his head. “No, if Rega has hidden it, then the child didn’t die.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you interested in this?”

            “My government--”

            “Uh-uh. You. There’s a difference between following orders and pursuing a goal. You ‘re interested for your own reasons. Why?”

            Ariel considered telling him about the note on her comm--We’re not finished with you--but balked, unwilling even now to admit how much it frightened her.

            “Maybe later,” she said. “It’s not important right now.”

            “We never reveal the things that can hurt us most?”

            “Drop it,” she said curtly.

            Coren raised his hands in mock surrender. “Later, then. But I think you’re going to have to tell me sometime.”

            “Then sometime I’ll tell you.”

            “Preferably before it’s too late to do you any good.”

            “May I ask another personal question?”

            Coren made a gesture to continue.

            “Has there been anyone since Nyom?”

            Coren frowned thoughtfully, then picked up his glass. He shook his head. “I haven’t made the time.”

            “Not interested, or just not ready?”

            He glanced at her speculatively. “Are you making a suggestion?”

            Ariel laughed, surprised. Am I? Thinking about it now, with Coren watching her, waiting, she realized that the same question applied to her. It’s been a year since Jonis. How long is long enough?

            “Maybe,” she said. “When we have more time.”

            “Ah.”

            “Nova Levis,” she said with emphasis.

            “Yes. Our phantom research company. Or the colony.” The fragile mood broke and Ariel felt mildly self-conscious.

            “They could be connected,” she said.

            Coren set down the glass and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe. Probably. Nova Levis, formerly Cassus Thole, is apparently involved in baleys in a big way. Warehouses, shipping, stolen cargo. Your complaining Spacers and their delayed shipments.” He waved a hand. “Too much. I need sleep.”

            “I’m not tired.”

            “I can call you a cab if you want.”

            Ariel studied him, realizing that she did not want to go back to the embassy. Perhaps it was just being away from other Spacers and the confines of the mission precincts, but she was enjoying being here too much. That thought surprised her, too.

            Coren looked at her. “Is something wrong?”

            “No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here.”

            “Don’t you have to report in?”

            “Not if I don’t want to.”

            “Senator Taprin--” Coren began.

            “Old business.”

            “But is it over?”

            “I thought it was. It would be nice to know for certain.”

            Coren coughed. “I am really, really tired.”

            “Do you have anything I can go over, then?” She smiled at him. “Or you can sleep. I’ll watch.”

            He pushed himself up. “Let me finish up a couple of things.” He walked woodenly into his office. Ariel could see him from where she sat. She wondered at herself: just what it was she intended with Coren Lanra; what she would do, and why. For the moment she was content to let her feelings run their course. It had been months since she had been interested in anything beyond her own self-denigration. Right now she felt in control, free to act instead of waiting for something to react against.

            “Desk,” Coren said, “have you completed compilation of the case files of Ree Wenithal?”

            “I am sorry, “ the Desk said, “I have no record of such a request. “

            Coren’s face went blank. “Desk, run review. I requested a survey of relevant material concerning the investigations of Ree Wenithal, reference downloaded material from disk yesterday.”

            A moment passed. “No such material is extant in memory.”

            “Run diagnostic.”

            Ariel felt her pulse quicken. “Your system is buffered, I assume?”

            “Of course. The whole office is--”

            “Diagnostic complete. Reference nine-one-oh. “

            Coren snatched Ariel’s disk from the reader and tossed it to her. He worked furiously over the surface, then stood. He came back into the private room and went to the shelves.

            “Something’s infiltrated your system,” Ariel said.

            “That’s the code reference you heard.” He tucked small objects into his pockets, then grabbed an overcoat and a soft travel bag. He piled things in quickly, slammed the drawers, and returned to his desk. He studied readouts, nodded once, and entered more commands.

            “What--?”

            He raised a hand and shook his head. Ariel fell silent. Finally, he shrugged on the overcoat, shut down the Desk, and indicated the exit. Ariel preceded him through the door, across the reception area, and waited.

            Coren Lanra pulled out a handgun. Ariel suppressed a shudder at the sight--the weapon looked compact and heavy, with an ominous green light on the frame just above the trigger guard. She was guessing, but it seemed lethal.

            He leaned out into the hall, looked left and right, then took her arm. He guided her in the direction of the stairs and gave her a slight push.

            Ariel stepped onto the stairwell landing and waited for Coren. When he emerged into the dusty gloom of the shaft, she asked quietly, “Do I get one of those?”

            He studied her intently. “You know how to use one?”

            “It’s been known to happen.”

            He reached within the voluminous overcoat. A second later he pressed a fatal shape into her hand.

            Ariel held it gingerly for a few seconds, studying it. A modified stunner with an extra powerpack and an amplifier along the generator coils. At close range, it would probably kill. She thumbed it on, felt the energy as a faint, numbing surge against her palm. She sited along the barrel a couple of times to get the feel of it, then nodded to Coren.

            Coren led the way down the stairs. They had not seemed so dark on the way up, but now the shadows oppressed, the turns threatened. Ariel’s pulse was racing by the time they reached the bottom.

            “Stay here,” Coren said, and stepped quickly out the door. A few seconds later he came back in. “This way.”

            Beneath the stairs he turned on a handflash. Ariel saw a heavy metal door with a keypad upon which Coren deftly entered a command. Old bolts lurched back and the door swung away from them.

            In the light of Coren’s flash Ariel made out another landing and a flight of skeletal stairs leading down to a sublevel. Coren closed the door behind them and shined the light above and around. A few cobwebs had gathered in high comers but not so many as might be expected.

            Their feet clattered loudly on the bare metal steps. At the bottom, reddish-orange light pooled. Coren switched off his flash.

            “That way,” he said, pointing down one corridor, “leads to the garage. This way--” he indicated the passage leading straight from the stairs “--runs under the next several buildings in this block. There’s access to lower levels.”

            “Do you own transport?”

            “No.”

            “Then...”

            He headed toward the garage.

            Halfway down the passage a sound stopped Ariel. She glanced back, trying to comprehend what she had heard--a rasping noise, like rough cloth over gravel, or the hissing of water against a hot surface--yet fearing to see what could make it. But the narrow corridor was empty. She hurried to catch up to Coren.

            They entered a storeroom. In the light of Coren’s flash, she saw bins stacked high to the ceiling, filled with packages and angular shapes, and clusters of components and discarded parts. A workbench held a complicated mechanism that had been thoroughly dismantled.

            Through another door they emerged into one of the garage levels. Bright lights imbedded in the ceiling painted sharp highlights upon the sleeping transports sitting in rows. Coren strode quickly along them, head swiveling, until he came to the end of one row. He dug in his jacket for something, then inserted a card into the reader on the transport door. He tapped a code into the lock. A moment later the door slid open.

            “Get in. “

            Ariel went around to the passenger door.

            Coren powered up the transport and eased it out of the slot.

            Ariel glimpsed movement off to the right. Before she could speak, a large shape shot out in front of them, bounced off the hood, and landed heavily on the roof.

            “What--?” Coren began.

            His window burst in, spraying bits of shattered plastic across them. Ariel clutched the pistol while her free hand came up to protect her face.

            The transport lurched to a halt.

            Coren was half out the window when she looked again. He hooked his left leg awkwardly under the steering column and his right hand clutched at the frame separating the front and rear sections. An ugly hacking sound came from where she imagined his head must be.

            Ariel opened her door. She gave the line of nearby transports a quick survey, then rolled out. She came up facing the vehicle and brought her weapon to bear.

            The shape on the roof of the transport looked human. It was large, mostly covered in a long, colorless overcoat, one leg thrust back for balance along the front screen, foot sheathed in a heavy black boot.

            She aimed.

            A head appeared over the hunched shoulder. Eyes fixed her, unblinking and sharp. The face...the skin looked rough, disfigured...the hair was a ragged growth of oily brown and red.

            It grinned at her.

            It moved with alarming speed, turning toward her, crouching to spring

            Ariel fired.

            The weapon felt warmer in her hand. The bolt of energy, nearly invisible, slammed into the assailant and tossed him from the roof of the transport like a mass of compressed air buffeting a rag.

            He hit the pavement with a solid, meaty impact and a puff of air.

            He sat up, shook his head, and looked at her.

            Terrified, Ariel fired again.

            The head snapped back, so savagely that it must have broken the neck. A few moments later, though, he began to stand.

            Ariel watched, seized by amazement and fear, as he rose, to his full height.

            Shoot it again, she thought, but her finger did not flex against the stud.

            He took a step toward her.

            A brilliant splash of crimson-white burst against him. She glanced back toward the bolt’s source: Coren had managed to get off a shot. The attacker screamed, a sound like a million sheets of paper ripping at once, and staggered back.

            Ariel fired a third time. A pungent burnt odor filled the air.

            The attacker fell to his knees, rose, then ran away.

            All at once the stillness engulfed her.

            Coren coughed.

            Ariel came around the transport and found him lying on the pavement, holding his throat in one hand and his pistol in the other. She set her weapon down and helped him sit up with his back to the transport. He coughed and hacked for a minute, spit out a gob of phlegm, and sucked air in huge gasps.

            “I know that hand,” he said finally. “Son of a…”

            He got to his feet shakily and looked around.

            “Get your weapon,” he rasped.

            Ariel snatched up the stunner.

            Coren accessed a different transport. He drove fast now, taking the turns recklessly until they made the avenue. Ariel waited till he slowed down to a normal speed before saying anything.

            Before she could speak, though, Coren made an ugly throat-clearing noise and said, “He should’ve died. Only thing I can think of that could resist a shot like that is a robot. So tell me, Ambassador Burgess of the goddamned Calvin Institute, when did you people start making humanoid robots?”

            “It wasn’t a robot.”

            “No? Then what the hell was it?”

            “Something we stopped playing with a very long time ago,” she said. “A cyborg.”

Ariel’s hands trembled.

            Figures, she thought wryly, now that we’re safe.

            Relatively safe, anyway, she added. Her eyes ached from trying to see all around her and into the darkness of third shift faux night. Coren drove them out of D.C., southwest, past industrial enclaves and private neighborhoods, through abandoned sections, and into an area Ariel had never been to. She recognized the main building from the subetheric--dimly, an old memory--as the headquarters for DyNan Manual Industries.

            Coren got through all the security checks, sent the transport back where it belonged, and took her through unpopulated corridors to a suite of offices.

            She watched him work a desk that was similar to the one in his private office, though, from the attention he gave to each command, it was far less sophisticated, not even close to an AI. Her pulse slowed, adrenalin drained away, and her fears took over in the form of the shakes.

            Coren glanced her way and stopped what he was doing long enough to pour her a drink. Gratefully she sipped at the dark liquid. She had never been sure why alcohol helped at times like this--perhaps it was the care with which one had to take it in that distracted the mind from its own terrors--but she finished the tumbler of whiskey at the same time Coren sat down across from her.

            “We’re secure for the time being,” he said.

            Ariel nodded toward his desk. “Smart matrix?”

            “An old one.”

            “Your desk is an AI. “

            “Was. Rega would never allow one on his property.”

            “I don’t understand. If you’re willing to use one, how do you?”

            “Life is a compromise. I prefer working for Rega to working for anyone else. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says or believes.” He smiled thinly. “Much like you, I imagine. “

            “Ah, well. To coin a phrase, ‘That’s different:”

            “Really. Well, I won’t argue. How are you feeling?”

            “Better,” she said, raising the empty glass.

            “Want another one?”

            “Yes, but later. Too much comfort dulls the reflexes. How are you?”

            Coren shook his head.

            “Let me see your shoulder,” Ariel said. She reached for his shirt.

            Coren leaned away from her. “I’m all right.”

            “Of course you are. Let me see.”

            With obvious reluctance, Coren unzipped his shirt and pulled the left half away, revealing his shoulder. Ugly bruising spread from the base of his neck down to his clavicle.

            “Have you seen a doctor?” she asked.

            “In my spare time,” he said grumpily and pulled the shirt back on. “Painblock.”

            “You’ll pay for that.”

            “I know.” He shrugged. “I made an appointment, but...”

            He went to a sofa and sat down heavily, letting his head fall back.

            “Your desk,” Ariel said. “What happened?”

            “Something got through my buffers,” he said. “I had the AI doing a lot of in-depth searches. It was spread fairly thin and it must’ve become vulnerable.”

            “Or some of the files it was accessing were corrupted.”

            “Sleeper programs?”

            “Maybe. If I could look at the software I could tell you. But bringing it here--”

            “--would corrupt this system. Unless we knew exactly what had gotten through.”

            “Go to the head of the class.”

            Coren rubbed his shoulder, frowning. “This...cyborg. He’s the one who rolled me in Petrabor.”

            “You’re certain?”

            “I think I’d remember a deathgrip like that.” He frowned at her. “Unless there’s more than one?”

            “No,” Ariel said suddenly, hoping it was true. “Let’s not get more paranoid than we need to. “

            “You said it was a cyborg.”

            “I was guessing. I could be wrong--”

            “But if you’re not, what is it you’re talking about?”

            “A composite. An organic machine.”

            “I’ve seen some pretty impressive soldiers come out of--”

            Ariel shook her head. “No, this different. I’ve seen those people, too, and they aren’t like this.”

            “You said an organic machine. Like augmentation? Prostheses?”

            “Far more intimately involved than that. Yes, you could claim that people with artificial limbs, organs, new skin, bone replacements are cyborgs, but it’s a much too limited use of the term. No, people like that are still fundamentally human--there’s a clear line of separation between the organic and the augmentation. You haven’t replaced their basic being with a full-partner robotic symbiote. A cyborg is a blend of the two into a third kind of being. “

            “I don’t quite follow.”

            “Neither did we. That’s why we stopped fooling with them.”

            Coren scowled skeptically. “I thought Aurorans were the experts on robotic intelligence.”

            Ariel sat forward. “We are. That’s what I mean. This isn’t robotic intelligence. It’s...something else. And we couldn’t figure out what.”

            His disdain faded to a guarded respect. Ariel sat back, mollified.

            “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

            “A positronic brain,” Ariel said, “is basically a sensory-data receiver-collator that operates by a collection of discrete parameters arranged in constellations that shift in response to new data. That’s a gross simplification, but accurate enough for our purposes. We’re talking about a few billion discrete parameters and nanosecond processing time, and a complete lack of an unconscious, and a few other additions and subtractions that allow us to actually program it while granting it a modicum of creative responses--”

            Coren held up his hand. “I get the idea. I think. But that sounds like any other AI system.“

            “True. The key defining factor is in self-perception. A positronic brain is aware of itself. It is also aware of others as both distinct and collective entities that possess similar attributes. “

            “But--”

            “I’m using the word ‘aware’ in exactly the way you would use it to describe yourself. An AI, no matter how sophisticated, is not aware. The best of them have fully-mapped models of their own make-up and function: a reference, if you will, that tells them what they are. But the relationship is always and only one of data referencing data in a strict modular process. A positronic brain possesses a sense of Self that is independent of models--it will continue to perceive itself as a Self even with extensive reprogramming that might in any other respect change the nature of what it does and what it knows--and a basic understanding of Self in others. That opens a huge gulf between an AI and a positronic brain. For instance, you could never infiltrate a positronic brain the way your desk was infiltrated. An AI, unless specifically commanded, will regard that infiltration as a problem in programming. It’s just data. The more sophisticated the infiltration, the less likely it is to be aware of anything wrong. A positronic brain would immediately detect the attempt not as data but as damage. It would respond to it by treating it more or less as an infection. It would feel wrong. And if the infiltration were inimical to its loyalties, then the Three Laws would come into play. If it could not purge the infiltration, it would collapse. It would not tolerate a violation of its Self.”

            “Humans don’t even do that, “ Coren said.

            “Not as effectively, no,” Ariel agreed. “But we have far fewer hardwired parameters and far more self-reprogramming parameters. We have both a sub- and an un-conscious. We can dream, we can imagine, we can lie, we can hallucinate. Reality is a conditional set of perceptions. The plasticity of our minds enables us to function even through gross distortions in our initial parameters. We imagine more richly and much faster than we process information. We’re inextricably linked to our environment, but our perceptions of our environment are fluid. We can be fooled, deceived, manipulated. But it’s a two-way exchange--the manipulator will be manipulated in turn through the interaction--but we can still function in the midst of deception and illusion. We can set aside our moral restrictions if need be--and we define our own need--and resume them later. If we choose. Humans, in short, can remake who they are at will. A positronic brain cannot.”

            Coren’s face showed the effort to understand. Ariel stopped, unsure how much he followed.

            “It borders on metaphysics,” he said.

            “ ‘Borders?’ Hell, it is metaphysics. All the philosophical speculation of ten thousand years became concrete when the first positronic robot sat up and said hello to its makers.”

            Coren nodded slowly. “And a cyborg?”

            Ariel sighed. “Positronic intelligence gave us another self aware entity we could compare our own to and ask questions about the differences. It gave us the measuring stick to determine what is human and what is not. Cyborgs...break the measuring sticks and dump all those questions back in our laps.”

            She leaned forward again. “Imagine a positronic brain with all its capacity to analyze data and perceive the world as a material whole all at once, joined to something that can set its own parameters. There is no buffer, no unconscious to help process excess data or unpalatable information, and no preset responses to conditions. It has no basis for behavior other than what it chooses to have at any given moment. “

            “You’ve described a sociopath.”

            “A very, very fast, smart sociopath. A sociopath we can’t begin to understand because we don’t have a model for its mental processes.”

            “Why did you stop working with them?”

            “We discovered that we couldn’t program in the Three Laws. Something in the mix, probably--undoubtedly--from the organic side kept overwriting them. The one consistent attribute that emerged was self-preservation. Beyond that, we had no idea how to cope with them. After a while it seemed immoral to continue the experiments.”

            “Immoral. You actually shut down a line of research on moral grounds?”

            “Why not? Spacers don’t get to be moral?”

            Coren shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I--never mind. So you’re saying that we were attacked by a cyborg. “

            “That’s my first guess. A robot would never have done that. I doubt a human--even one of your military modifications--could have survived those shots. I’d like to hope I’m wrong, but...” Ariel blinked at him, suddenly understanding something. “I see. You Earthers wouldn’t have shut down the experiments. You didn’t. The only thing that kept you from building cyborgs was the fact that you’d outlawed positronics. “

            Coren’s expression showed his ill-ease. He did not like what she had said but he could not deny it. Ariel had always been puzzled by Terran perversity, the apparent willingness to do what clearly should not be done. But perhaps the real puzzle was why Spacers chose not to do those things. Maybe their long lives gave them a better understanding of consequences. Maybe their smaller populations made them less willing to take risks on questionable projects. Terrans seemed only to care in hindsight, when things went wrong.

            One of their spasms of late conscience banished positronics...

            “How,” Coren said finally, “does this relate to Nyom Looms?”

            “That robot you saw.”

            Coren nodded. “Cyborg.”

            “More than likely. “

            “And the blood Avery found on Nyom’s robot...”

            “A cyborg composed partly of a relative?”

            Coren’s face contorted in harsh distaste. “Where? How? We can’t build them here, you won’t build them there...” His eyes widened. “Pirates. Black market. “

            “A reasonable guess.” Which would explain Aurora’s sudden interest in helping the Terran authorities with the baley problem. Where are all those baleys going?

            “Could someone somewhere be converting baleys--?”

            “No. A cyborg doesn’t work that way. You couldn’t take a full-grown human and make the conversion.” Ariel thought about that. “At least, I don’t think you could. From what I recall, a cyborg has to be grown. The mix has to mature in symbiosis, so ideally you’d start with a fetus.”

            “A newborn?”

            “Possibly. The organic system is still in transition through puberty, so I suppose children could be used, but the older the material the more difficult the process.”

            “But where would they get all the raw material?” Coren asked.

            “I said at the beginning of this evening that we need to talk to this retired policeman. “

            “Wenithal.” He blinked. “Orphanages.”

SEVENTEEN

_C

oren slept for an hour, then showered, swallowed more painblock, and found a change of clothes for Ariel. Dressed now in plain pants, work boots, and a dull blue jacket, she looked like any other T-rated office worker just off third shift, going home or shopping. He took her to the mall where RW Enterprises was and they waited in an open kitchen across from the entrance. Twenty minutes later, Wenithal emerged and trudged wearily down the concourse.

            Ariel drifted away, quickly and unobtrusively falling several meters behind Wenithal on the way out of the mall. Coren was mildly surprised and impressed at how quickly and easily she blended with Terrans. The more time he spent with her the less Spacer she seemed.

            He sat at a table at the edge of the pantry, nibbling on a meat pastry and sipping a cup of acrid coffee. After about ten minutes, he crumpled up the wrapper and dropped it and the half-full cup into the waste.

            At the door to RW Enterprises, he took out his palm monitor and a small device that he pressed to the wall just below the lock. While it worked to decode the access sequence, Coren pulled out a few of his little devices and activated them. He glanced around. The mall was pretty deserted, but a few people milled around. The trick was to gain entry as fast as possible, making it look as if he had been admitted. The longer it took the more conspicuous he became.

            The palm monitor chirped at him. He had the code. He entered a command that turned the ID scan on the door into a recorder, pocketed the reader, and pressed his right hand against the panel above the lock. A second later, the door slid open for him.

            He snatched his decoder from the wall and dropped his devices just inside the doorway. They scurried off to run interference for him as he proceeded on, into the plant.

            Machinery hummed. Coren went directly to Wenithal’s private office. As he stepped through the door, he thumbed his hemisphere for a little added security, set it in the middle of Wenithal’s cluttered desk, and paused.

            Where to start?

            Coren did a slow turn.

            It was a working office, that was clear. A few changes of clothes lay scattered over chairs, stacks of paper and disks filled corners, three empty cups sat on the desk.

            Coren looked for a personal datum. He found it tucked in a desk drawer.

            He took a disk from his pocket and inserted it into the datum’s reader. The screen scrolled up, went cloudy, then blank. Coren waited, listening intently to the distant sounds of automated machinery.

            Less than a minute later--a long time for the decryption ‘ware Coren used--the screen presented a menu.

            Letters, memos, profiles on clients, quarterly reports. Coren opened the latest of these and perused RW Enterprise’s Profits and Losses statements. One of the largest customers, he noted, was a Solarian firm--Strychos--that bought nearly half a million meters of a synthetic fabric a year. The lot was identified only by a batch number. Coren opened his palm monitor, switched it to record, and began taking notes.

            Far down the menu he found a file named GRATUITES. Coren grunted in surprise. Well, he never thought anyone would open this...

            The file contained what it suggested: a list of people to whom Wenithal paid bribes.

            Brun Damik was halfway down. A very generous allocation.

            Gale Chassik appeared several lines further.

            Coren copied the list and closed the file. Studying the menu, he wondered how much more he needed to know about Ree Wenithal.

            Why you resigned after becoming a hero would be useful...

            He saw nothing that would seem to contain the answer to that, so he closed the datum down and returned it to the desk drawer.

            So Wenithal was paying bribes to Damik. Coren still did not understand what any of this had to do with baleys... though he felt he should know.

            There were several files of correspondence. Coren opened each one and perused addresses. He found several to a location in Petrabor. The documents themselves proved cryptic--evidently a code Coren did not recognize. Still, messages to someone in Petrabor seemed suggestive enough. He looked for replies and found them attached to each document--all of them were initialed either T.R. or Y.P.

            Yuri Pocivil…?

            Coren swiveled in the chair, searching the office walls. Nothing.

            He closed up his palm monitor and left the office. Sitting down at one of the secretarial stations, he accessed the production records. He located the batch number for the synthetic, and went into the main plant to look for it.

            The synthesizers looked like huge columns of dark gray segments piled high to the ceiling. Heavy conduits ran from their bases back into the shadows of the cavernous chamber. They hummed with activity, though only a few seemed to be outputting product into the deep troughs below their extrusion slots.

            Coren followed the row of machines to the one marked “Line 18” and stopped. It was on--they all were, it cost too much to shut them down completely and restart them--but nothing was coming out. Coren studied the control panel.

            “Imbitek,” he noted, recognizing the logo. He keyed for access. The screen gave him a list of options. He entered the code for a sample.

            Less than a minute later, a meter of black fabric oozed from the ‘machine into the trough. The cutter came down with a heavy thud to chop it off, and Coren picked up the sample.

            It was remarkably thin, almost insubstantial, and he found it difficult to hold, its surface friction nearly nonexistent. He managed to fold it down to a square that fit into his pocket with no more bulge than a handkerchief.

            He walked away from RW Enterprises as if he were late for an appointment, briskly but not so fast as to look culpable. Outside the mall, he called Ariel.

Ree Wenithal lived modestly for his income. His apartments occupied two floors of an old warren complex that had once been a barracks for factory workers, then converted into luxury apartments nearly a century ago, and now had evolved into many things: apartments, clinics, retail shops, storerooms, offices. Coren was amused to find two private investigation agencies listed.

            Ariel waited across from the arched entry to Wenithal’s warren, sitting at an autochef with a cup of hot cocoa, doing a reasonably effective imitation of someone who had just gotten off-shift and on her way to well-earned sleep.

            “Did you follow him all the way in?” Coren asked; sliding onto the stool beside her.

            “No. I’m not altogether certain he didn’t see me, so I thought I’d better not. Did you find anything?”

            “Some, but I’m not sure if it means much. He runs a business.” Coren shrugged. “He’s paying bribes to Chassik.”

            Ariel frowned. “He does business with Solarians?”

            “A couple. Pretty big accounts.”

            “Solaria manufactures its own textiles. What are they buying from Earth?”

            “A half-million meters a year of a synthetic.” He showed her the sample. “If I’m not mistaken, this is myralar.”

            Ariel ran a finger over its slippery surface. “I’d have to analyze it, but it feels right. Hm. Half a million meters a year? That’s a lot, but not enormous.” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ll ask Chassik.”

            Coren drummed his fingers on the counter. “I’ve got his P&L records, we can go over them later. I don’t think we’ll find anything conclusive, though. He was bribing Damik, too. The bribe is unusually large, more than I would have guessed Damik would be worth.”

            “Did Damik have something over Wenithal?”

            “It’s a thought...but that’s not the feeling I got when I followed Damik to his meeting with Wenithal. Everything about it said Wenithal was the one in charge.” He glanced at her cup. “Are you done?”

            Ariel held up the cocoa and wrinkled her nose. “Before I started. Let’s go talk to your ex-policeman.”

            They passed under the archway and started down a path lined with poorly-tended shrubbery. A number of the growl amps above them were out. Coren glanced around the area, and frowned.

            “What’s wrong?” Ariel asked.

            “Hm? Oh. Nothing...” He glanced up at the tall windows to his right. Balconies and walkways hung higher up. “That’s not true. I’m not sure if I can explain it.”

            “Try. I’m always eager to learn new things.”

            Coren looked at her. He saw no sign of sarcasm in her expression. Indeed, she seemed intent only on their surroundings.

            “Well,” he said, “usually when someone has a connection to a case--I’m talking like Service now--you might find someone through one source, one link, but when you look, if there is a connection, there’s more than just one.”

            “And with Ree Wenithal?”

            “There are suggestions of more connections, but I still have only one: Brun Damik. And his connection was tenuous.”

            “Until he died.”

            “That was a pretty strong hint, but not really a connection.”

            She frowned at him. “ Just what do you count as a connection?”

            “Something with steel cables tying it to something else.”

            “Isn’t that a bit unrealistic?”

            Coren stopped. Ariel continued on a few more steps, then turned to him.

            “Early on,” he said, “I arrested an innocent man. It wasn’t a big deal, nothing bad happened to him, he just spent a few nights in confinement, went through a lot of humiliating interrogations and filled out a lot of forms. It was a mistake. I think I felt worse about it than he did.”

            “So you vowed never to make a mistake again?”

            “No, but I got into certain habits after that. I made fewer mistakes. I became pretty good at it. And I got overconfident. “

            “And made a big mistake.”

            “Very. It cost me the life of a friend.”

            “You’re talking about Nyom Looms.”

            Coren nodded.

            Ariel pursed her lips. “High standards are good.”

            They continued on to Wenithal’s apartment in silence.

            The door stood open.

            “Come in,” Wenithal called. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever get here. “.

Ree Wenithal sat on a long couch, slippered feet propped on a low table, a glass in his left hand and a pistol in his right. He scowled at them for a long moment, then laughed.

            “You! I thought it would be someone else.” He set the pistol aside. “Close the door if you’re staying.”

            Ariel pressed the contact.. The light from the balcony shrank to a narrow line and vanished.

            The room smelled of alcohol.

            “So,” Wenithal said, “did you go through my files?”

            Coren hesitated.

            “My career,” Wenithal said, stressing each syllable. “My exploits. They’re all in the public record. They’ll tell you all about me, about my life, my accomplishments, my...my...” He waved a hand vaguely. “Everything.”

            “I looked at them,” Coren said.

            Wenithal waited. When Coren said nothing more, he got ponderously to his feet. “Are you going to introduce me to your partner? Oh, if you want a drink, help yourselves. I keep a good stock. Even some Spacer stuff.”

            “Brun Damik is dead,” Coren said.

            Wenithal nodded. “I was questioned about it.”

            “Uh-huh. Do you have any idea why he was killed?”

            “Do you?”

            Coren crossed the room in four strides and snapped his palm into Wenithal’s chest. The older man sat back down heavily, his wind wheezing from his mouth.

            “We were attacked earlier tonight,” Coren said. “I’m in no mood for repartee, Mister Wenithal, so do me the courtesy of answering my questions directly.”

            “I don’t have to tell you shit,” Wenithal said breathily.

            “Fine. Then when the people you were expecting come to kill you, I hope you have some friends to attend the services.”

            Wenithal glared up at Coren, but his eyes wavered moistly and Coren caught the distant shimmer of fear behind them.

            “Something killed Nyom Looms and Brun Damik and fifty baleys who just wanted to get off Earth,” he continued. “Something tried to kill me tonight, and something is coming after you. You used to be a cop. Pretend you still are for the next ten minutes and do the right thing.” He paused. “Or do you already know who these people are?”

            Wenithal tried to heave himself up, but Coren rapped him in the sternum again. “You’re a bastard,” Wenithal hissed.

            “Do you know that for a fact, or just speculating?”

            Wenithal slapped at Coren half--heartedly, missing. Coren watched the old man warily, but it was obvious Wenithal would do very little now.

            “What do you want?” he asked grumpily.

            “The same thing I wanted the first time we spoke: information.”

            “I don’t have any to give you.”

            “Bullshit.” Coren wanted to shake Wenithal. “How long would you have played games like this when you were a cop?”

            “When I wasn’t pretending, you mean?” Wenithal grunted. “I wouldn’t have played them at all. “ He shrugged, tried to sit up straighter, then nodded. “All right...what do, you want to know first?”

            Coren picked up Wenithal’s glass and smelled it: Akvet. A Theian drink, a variation on absinthe. No wonder Wenithal was so intoxicated so quickly.

            “What were you going to do when the bad guys came?” Coren asked. “Play dead?”

            “Very funny...”

            Coren looked at Ariel. “Would you see if there’s any stimulant around? Coffee, capvitane, sniff, whatever.”

            Ariel raised an eyebrow speculatively, then nodded and headed further into the apartment.

            “There’s coffee,” Wenithal called after her. He looked up at Coren. “What do you want to know?”

            “First, why did Damik see you after I talked to him?”

            “What did you ask him for?”

            “I wanted to know who ran the whole baley enterprise. The real managers, not the dockside people.”

            “Ah.” Wenithal grinned again. “That’s clever. He never believed he could get caught. Ex-Special Service, you know about that. So he wasn’t ready when someone came asking the right questions. Of course, you realize, it got him killed. “

            “We were screened. No one overheard our conversation.”

            “So? It’s all connections. People looking for other people. Links get made, conclusions drawn. Brun was killed on spec.”

            Ariel returned with a cup of steaming coffee and set it down on the table before Wenithal. He stared at it for a long time, then lurched forward to grasp it.

            “I don’t drink much anymore,” he said. “Not used to it.”

            “Seems a suicidal habit to start up again just now,” Ariel said.

            “If I’m drunk enough it might not hurt so much.” He lifted the cup to his lips and held it there, poised.

            “Brun was an orphan,” Coren said. “You sponsored him. Why? Did you know his parents?”

            Wenithal stared at him.

            “The Holmer Foster Gymnas Cooperative,” Coren said.

            Wenithal focussed on him. “You knew?”

            “We did work together once,” Coren said evasively.

            “Mm. I suppose that counts for something.” He took another drink and scowled. “Something about the acids never mix right with the wormwood...” He set the cup down and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “There was a kidnapping. Oh...when was that?... twenty-something...a long time ago. A district manager for a company that no longer exists. Very high profile. Like an idiot he went to the news nets first, made everything very difficult for us. The thing was, no ransom demand ever came. The child just disappeared and that was it. It wasn’t my case initially, I was called in later, but. I. anyway, we had nothing to go on, no thread to follow through the maze. When we started looking through the database for similar cases, a pattern began to emerge. Hundreds of unsolved kidnappings allover the world over the previous decade, none of them with a common denominator other than the complete absence of further contact. “ Wenithal grinned crookedly. “The problem with databases--AIs, smart matrices, logic systems--is that if you don’t ask just the right question you never get the answer you need. “

            “Hundreds,” Ariel said. “That many, they had to be going somewhere.”

            Wenithal raised a finger. “Absolutely. But where? After canvassing and recanvassing witnesses, acquaintances, associates, total strangers who might possibly have seen or heard something--anything--I started expanding the search. I started looking at schools, hospitals, orphanages. “

            “You found the link in orphanages.”

            Wenithal nodded. “Not all of them, though. Special ones, ones that took in and maintained ‘problem’ children. Infants with defects, genetic problems, congenital and chronic illnesses. Children turned over to the institution and their records sealed or, in some cases, erased. It was difficult to detect, actually, but I found several of them doing a backdoor business in what they delicately termed ‘material.”‘

            “Selling the children?” Ariel asked.

            “Basically. Oh, they claimed they were selling cadavers, but the numbers were too high and the age groups too coincidental. It took a long time to finally prove what I knew was going on. “

            “And Brun?” Coren urged.

            “I didn’t know his parents very well. They were part of a series of interviews I conducted in relation to the case, but they didn’t really have anything to do with it. They’d tried to adopt, that was all. After Brun they’d been told not to try another natural birth, not without a complicated gene therapy they couldn’t afford. Shortly afterward, there was an accident. A semiballistic struck an old piece of orbital debris. Ninety or so passengers and crew. Holmer Foster was the local institution. I felt...an interest, I suppose. Brun was bright, nine years old. When I checked on him two years later, he was running a kind of black market in his facility, using smuggled-in recordings, access codes, food allotments. I thought it was a waste of natural talent. So I sponsored him.”

            “You didn’t adopt him?”

            “A police officer? Where would I find the time? No, sponsoring was about the best I could do. It was actually Brun who told me about the missing UPDs. “

            “UPDs?” Ariel asked.

            “Untreatable Physiological Dysfunction. Children with disorders that can only be watched. Often they can’t even stop their pain. Those were the ones I found out were going missing the most.”

            “That doesn’t make sense,” Ariel said. “What use--? Oh.”

            Wenithal glanced at her. “Research, spare parts, other things I never cared to think about.”

            “You ‘re sure they were being shipped offplanet?” Coren asked.

            “That’s where the trail went cold. We traced them to four or five labs. They all funneled the ‘material’ through a single lab that I could never really prove was involved.”

            “Let me guess,” Coren said. “Nova levis?”

            “Very good. You must’ve been a decent cop. “

            “I still am. Who was running the operation?”

            “Very corporate. But I could never prove it. I know it, but I can’t take it to court.”

            “Imbitek,” Ariel said.

            Wenithal shrugged.

            “How did that tie in with the kidnapping that brought you into it?” Coren asked.

            “That was the most perverse component. The boy that was kidnapped was just a normal boy. It didn’t make sense in light of what I had found out about these...these... flesh mills. So I took a closer look at my concerned parents and found that they had had two previous children. One had died shortly after birth, the other...the records had been manipulated. The claimed death was not a death. They relegated it to one of these orphanages. There was a connection.” Wenithal frowned at Coren. “Do you even want to know? You work for Rega Looms, how much do you know about him?”

            “I--”

            The door chimed.

            Wenithal groped for his pistol.

            “Take it easy,” Coren said quietly, easing his own weapon out. He looked at Ariel and gestured for her to move to the far side of the room. Coren moved quickly to the wall alongside the door. He nodded to Wenithal, who brought his pistol into his lap.

            “Enter.”

            Coren tensed as the door slid open. Light from the balcony outside spilled across the carpet, outlining a shadow. Wenithal raised the pistol.

            Coren stepped away from the wall, aiming at head height.

            A sharp hiss and a muffled “Shit!” came from the person standing in Wenithal’s entryway.

            The light in the room brightened, revealing a woman in dark clothes with a heavy pack slung over her left shoulder. She gaped at Coren, stunned.

            “Jeta Fromm,” Coren said. “I’ve been looking allover for you. “

EIGHTEEN

_T

he lab datum has been compromised, Derec, “ Thales announced.

            Derec looked up from the screen and blinked. “What?”

            “The lab datum has been compromised,” the RI repeated. “I have detected nine gates placed at various locations within the system that are diverting information to an external source. “

            “What about you?”

            “I have already detected and blocked an attempt to establish a gate in the immediate array. Judging from the other gates, this will not be a problem; they are sophisticated but limited. However, the longer I block implementation, the more likely other measures will be taken. “

            “In other words, they’re not just giving up and going away.”

            “Essentially, yes.”

            Derec went to the end of the blind and looked across the lab. Only one tech was on duty, this late in the third shift. Derec returned to his chair and rubbed his eyes. He had been at it since arriving, nearly eighteen hours now. The excavation was proceeding more slowly than he had expected due to a series of defensive modifications someone had added to the DW-12. It took Rana several hours to tease through them with Thales’ help. Once they understood that bypassing them would not corrupt the matrix any further, everything went smoothly, but making sure ate up a lot of time.

            “How soon?” Derec asked.

            “Regarding what?”

            “The excavation. When do we start getting useful data?”

            “I have isolated the constellation of memory nodes we need, and I am beginning a chronological assignment. Another hour.”

            “I want your findings copied directly to Ariel’s datum.”

            “That precaution is already in place.”

            “Are you able to trace the gates to their external source?”

            “The risk of detection is high. I suggest completing the task at hand first before attempting any further action. “

            Derec reached for the cup of cold coffee on the workbench. He needed sleep. He had sent Rana to her apartment hours ago.

            He felt the passing of time acutely. Ariel had not commed in over five hours. Sipha Palen estimated she could keep the deaths out of the news nets for another day, two days at most, before someone figured out that she was hiding something. Or--and Derec thought this more likely--someone who already knew would sell the information. In either case, this needed to be done quickly.

            “I would like to talk to you about another matter, Derec,” Thales said.

            “Hm? What, Thales?”

            “I have taken advantage of the access here to larger memory buffers to set up my examination of Bogard’s positronic matrix. I have run six attempts at reestablishing a functional template. “

            I forgot all about that, Derec thought uneasily. “I didn’t know you’d done that.”

            “It has not interfered with the performance of any other task,” Thales said. “As we do not know if another opportunity may occur, I thought it best to use this one.”

            “That’s fine, Thales. Um...six attempts? I gather none of them have been successful?”

            “In achieving a stable matrix, no. However, I believe I have achieved something positive. I now know that we cannot do more in simulation. The convolutions in the error log indicate the presence of a reifying condition. “

            “I’m not sure I understand. “

            “Basically, there is a command error which repeatedly instructs the matrix to disassemble at the same point. I could not be sure of this before because I was forced to continually reconfigure the parameters to accommodate the lack of memory. Now that this is no longer a problem, I see that the breakdown occurs at the same point each time.”

            Derec leaned forward, curiosity cutting through weariness. “Can you identify that point?”

            “That is the difficulty. It seems to be in the checksum routine that oversees the data interface with the physical plant.”

            “Seems to be?”

            “It is possible the error precedes that point, which is why I am unwilling to be more confident. But in each case the breakdown occurs at the place where the program attempts to command the actual body. There is no body, of course, and I am studying the options to construct one in simulation, but I am not convinced this can be solved that way. I am of the opinion that the error is tied to the violation that caused the initial collapse. It may be that what I am seeing is not an error at all but an irreconcilable dilemma. In either case, the error effectively orders a new collapse each time. Available memory is not the problem. The matrix itself is self-destructive. “

            “That doesn’t make any sense, Thales. That would suggest intent on some level. There isn’t enough coherence for that to be the case.”

            “Under normal circumstances, I would agree with that assessment. However, Bogard was unusual in several respects and its termination was singularly traumatic.”

            “All right. The next question, obviously, is what do you propose we do about it?”

            “It is possible that the error can be resolved by loading a partially reestablished matrix into a blank positronic brain and tracing the final connections through to see if the error persists.“

            “Treat it like a hardware problem, you mean. “

            “Essentially, Derec.”

            Derec smiled. “And where do you propose we obtain a blank positronic brain?”

            “We have one at hand--after I have completed my excavation.”

            Derec looked at the DW-12 lying on the table, cables snaking from it, connecting it to the board Thales was using.

            “It’s not at all what Bogard would be used to,” he said. “That assumes we’re allowed to use it at all.”

            “If I may point out the obvious, the owner is no longer a matter of concern.”

            “Heirs, Thales. “

            “I have considered that. Do you really think Rega Looms will want it?”

            Derec laughed dryly. “No, I don’t imagine so. But Sipha Palen has authority. It’s station security property.”

            “With all due respect, Derec, Chief Palen has procured the robot under false pretext. She has filed no official records that it even exists on Kopernik. Effectively, the robot occupies a legal void. It belongs technically to no one. I believe my position is defensible in Terran court.”

            “It may be, but...” Derec sighed. His brief spurt of energy was ebbing. He needed sleep. “I can’t make this decision now, Thales. We have other matters to resolve first.”

            “Would you object if I created an implementation program in the event that we do make use of the robot?”

            “No, of course not. Right now, though, we need that excavation.”

            “It will be completed in fifty-two minutes.”

            “Good, good.” He regarded the screens before him speculatively. Somewhere in all that machinery was a consciousness. It surprised him sometimes how easily he disregarded the inorganic nature of positronic entities. “Thales, why are you so interested in Bogard?”

            “Why?”

            “Yes, why.”

            “Bogard is a problem you set me to solve.”

            “True, but--never mind now. Thales, I may doze off sitting here. If anything happens that I need to know about, wake me.”

            “Of course, Derec.”

            He closed his eyes. He did not fall immediately to sleep, though. He could not shake the feeling--tenuous, barely identifiable--that Thales had just evaded answering his question.

            “The question of will in a positronic matrix is and may remain one of the unsolved--and unsolvable--mysteries about these minds we have created. We built them to serve us and in that matter they have no choice. But we then gave them an imperative to serve not our commands but our morality. To assume this makes them thrall to human will to exclusion of their own may be an error. “

            Who said that? Derec fished through his memory until he found it. Ariel had said that, in her graduate thesis from the Calvin Institute.

            Something to that...

            A constant question in positronics--one most positronic specialists toyed with but never wanted to discuss--concerned the hardware: How much of a robot’s “personality” depended on the actual mechanism, and how much on what was called “accrued experiential associations”? The easy answer--always--was that a positronic brain was entirely a matter of physical linkages and connections, tied directly to its sensory apparatus--the “real world” model that allowed them to make deterministic decisions based on the Three Law parameters encoded into the pathways.

            But that begged the question; it did not address the problem of Mind. Derec had come up against it with Bogard and now with Thales--why, he wondered, could Thales not simply construct a matrix very much like Bogard’s? Evidently, Thales could not. Bogard’s physical modifications had been an integral part of its consciousness. Thales’ suggestion that the entire matrix be reinserted in a blank brain reinforced the obvious: that a robot was inextricably mechanistic, even though it demonstrated consciousness very similar to a human.

            How many humans willingly admitted that they were as much meat as mind?

            Derec yawned, and sparks danced at the edge of his vision. Too much, too deep. He waited for sleep. But his mind writhed with questions.

“Mr. Avery.”

            Derec opened one eye and looked up at Hofton. “Mmm?”

            “We have a problem.” Hofton nodded toward the lab.

            Derec stood slowly. A huddle of people crowded at the entrance. He recognized Palen, Leri, and Polifos, all apparently on one side of an argument, facing four Terrans--two men, two women--whose clothes--neatly-cut, unadorned, and severe--suggested authority. They spoke in low, terse tones that even without knowing the subject made Derec apprehensive.

            “Thales, how far along are we with the excavation?”

            “I require a few more minutes, Derec.”

            “Who are they, Hofton?”

            “TBI,” Hofton said. “Leri, to his credit, is fending them off with implied threats of ‘political repercussions’ and ‘violation of sovereignty; but they aren’t really backing down. They want the robot. My sense is that they intend to take it regardless of the consequences. “

            Derec glanced at the DW-12. “Why would they want a robot?”

            “Not a robot--that robot. They know exactly where it came from and what it is.”

            “Thales, those leaks--”

            “It is possible they were TBI monitors,” Thales said. “I did not trace them for the reasons we discussed. “

            Derec studied the group. “Palen looks upset.”

            “I would be, too. Evidently her authority is being challenged. I suspect she’ll lose, but she may be able to delay any immediate action. “

            “It may be a moot point, anyway.” He leaned over the console. “Thales, complete the excavation, copy all material to Ariel’s office, then start tracing those monitors. Be careful not to reveal your presence as more than a security trace.”

            “Yes, Derec.”

            Derec smoothed his shirt and ran a hand through his hair. Hofton watched him speculatively.

            “Shall we?” Derec gestured toward the confrontation. “Your lead, sir.”

            Derec approached, Hofton a pace behind. Polifos noticed him first and tapped Ambassador Leri’s arm. The discussion died immediately with everyone looking at Derec.

            “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing, “ Derec said. “TBI?”

            One agent nodded slowly. “You are...?”

            “Derec Avery. I gather you’ve come about the matter of the robot?”

            Palen glared at him, outraged. The TBI agents frowned uncertainly.

            “You have in your possession--” the first agent began.

            “Pardon me,” Derec interrupted, “you are...?”

            “Agent Harwol.”

            “Pleased to meet you. And these others?”

            Harwol waved a hand in the direction of his male partner, then each of the women. “Um...Agent Gent, Agent Jallimolan, Agent Cranert...”

            “Pleased.” Derec gestured toward Hofton. “This is Liaison Officer Hofton of the Auroran Embassy, D.C.”

            Awkward nods passed around the group. Derec noticed that Polifos looked baffled, but Leri was suppressing a smile.

            “Now,” Derec continued, “I’m the positronic specialist in charge of examining that robot. I have authority from Ambassador Sen Setaris to do so. It’s my understanding that diplomatic considerations require that you have a proper warrant, countersigned by Ambassador Setaris, before I can turn any of our property over to you. “

            Agent Harwol made a chopping motion with his hand. “Not in matters concerning the death of TBI or other Terran police personnel. We have an overriding interest in that robot, which we’ll be happy to take up at a later date in court with Ambassador Setaris. But right now we insist that you turn over the robot in question.”

            “For what purpose?”

            Agent Harwol frowned.

            “What do you intend to do with it, Agent Harwol? It’s a collapsed positronic robot. Basically, so much scrap as it is. What do you propose to do with it?”

            “That’s not germane to this situation--”

            “But it might be. You see, if you intend to turn it over to your own specialists for examination, then we may be able to save you time. “

            Harwol exchanged looks with his fellow agents.

            “What do you propose?” he asked.

            “We’re already doing the only examination that might produce results. I’m sure that sharing our data with you wouldn’t be out of the question. Ambassador Leri?”

            “Well, under the circumstances, it would be unusual,” Leri replied. “I’d have to vett it through Ambassador Setaris, of course, but I don’t see a significant problem. Cooperation with Terran authority is always preferable to confrontation.”

            Chief Palen no longer seemed angry, but Derec felt uneasy under her gaze.

            “We’ll have to post an agent with the robot,” Harwol said.

            “That’s out of the question--” Polifos began.

            Leri jabbed his elbow into Polifos’s ribs. “In company with one of our own security officers,” he said, “I don’t see a problem with that.”

            Harwol looked miserable. Derec guessed that his orders had been vague but succinct. He was ill-prepared to negotiate, and he knew his presence in Auroran embassy precincts was questionable at best.

            “We require full disclosure,” he said.

            “We would probably require your help in any case,” Hofton said. “I am curious, though. You said in the case of a death of a Terran agent. What Terran agent?”

            Harwol clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head.

            Derec stared at him. “You had agents in that group of baleys.”

            Harwol met his stare stoically. Finally, though, he nodded.

            “Shit,” Palen hissed.

            “Well,” Hofton said, “that changes a few things.”

            Derec stepped up to Palen. “Maybe you should show us the crime scene now. I think it’s time we all see for ourselves.”

Derec gazed up at the cargo bin. Till now, he had only seen it on a screen. Small and manipulable on his desktop, it lacked any impact. Here, though, it disturbed him. It was both larger and smaller than he had expected.

            People were going to travel to another star system in this...?

            Lights shone within the container. Folding tables held portable datums, but no one paid any attention to them. Derec looked at the office where Palen and Harwol talked with Leri and Hofton. Derec feared a jurisdictional fight, the worst kind of battle. Hofton, at least, was capable of steering the situation past that--if he was allowed to.

            Derec wandered to the row of datums, keeping watch out of the comer of his eyes for any move from the armed officers spaced around the bay to stop him. He occupied a fuzzy zone in the hierarchy, so the odds were even that he could do nearly anything he wanted.

            Most of the screens showed blank. Two contained schematics of the interior of the bin. A third showed a chemical analysis of some kind. To Derec, it looked like a crystalline structure, but he could not identify it. He stepped closer to one of the schematics.

            Cages supported acceleration couches arrayed around the inside surface of the bin. A very simple design, easily modified, completely modular. The rebreather unit sat bolted to what was now the floor but in freefall would be just another bulkhead.

            Fifty-three couches.

            How many bodies?

            Fifty-two. Logically, the empty couch would have held the murderer.

            Who got out how, exactly? Derec wondered.

            The only evidence of escape was the crack in the hull in which Nyom Looms’ body had caught. But that hole was far too small for anyone to slip through.

            So that meant the killer did everything before lift-off and remained on Earth.

            That did not follow, either. What would have prevented the robot from opening the hatch and saving the baleys by just admitting fresh air? No, the only time the poison would have been effective--and the robot ineffective--would have been in freefall, in vacuum.

            Therefore, the killer was in the container and committed the murders en route to Kopernik.

            The crack let out the atmosphere, forcing the baleys to stay on the rebreather, which eventually poisoned them. The robot had attempted to intervene--hence the blood and material in its hands--and failed. It would have been forced to do what? Whatever it could. It was found trying to shut off the rebreather.

            Which would have meant suffocation for the baleys.

            Either way, they would be dead.

            So one of the bodies removed from the bin had to be the killer. Easy enough to check, just find one with tom clothes.

            But how could the DW-12 attack a human?

            And what about that empty couch? Derec assumed they would have known how many passengers, so what good would one extra couch be unless it was for someone who intended to get out before discovery?

            Or for someone who never showed...

            He crossed the bay to the cargo bin. No one stopped him as he entered.

            Lights brightly illuminated the inside. He climbed up the scaffolding that supported the couches to the crack in the ceiling. The metal showed a clear curve where something had gouged it from the interior and pushed it out. Derec ran his hand over the surface and found a number of indentations on either side. A hand?

            “Sir.”

            Derec looked at the entrance. A uniform stood there, sidearm out.

            “I have to ask you to leave,” she said. “You aren’t supposed to be in here.”

            “Really?” Derec climbed down. “Why is that?”

            “This is a crime scene, sir. “

            He stepped past her. “It is, indeed. Thank you for pointing that out.”

            Derec entered the office--and walked straight into a full-blown argument between Palen and Harwol.

            Harwol was fuming. “--what in hell you thought you were doing, but you overstepped you authority by a considerable margin!”

            “This is my station, Harwol,” Palen shot back. “It is my margin!”

            “Excuse me,” Derec said.

            Everyone looked at him. Palen and Harwol both were breathing hard.

            “I was wondering, “ Derec continued, “if anyone had bothered to count the bodies.”

            “Of course we did, Avery,” Palen snapped. “We counted them as we carried them out.”

            “Yes, but have you counted them since?”

            Palen frowned at him, mouth open.

            “I didn’t think so,” Derec said. “Maybe we should.”