Lawrence Watt-Evans

Realms of Light

Chapter One

I’m a creature of the night, born and raised ineternal darkness-except the darkness on Epimetheus wasn’t aseternal as I might have liked. That was why I left Nightside City,where I’d lived my entire life up to then, and came toPrometheus.

And on Prometheus the darkness isn’t evenclose to eternal. What little darkness there is ends every eighteenhours at sunrise, then comes back again at sunset.

What’s more, the normal Promethean businesshours are during daylight, two days out of every three. Some peoplego as far as adjusting their circadian rhythms to an eighteen-hourcycle, but most people use a twenty-four hour day, where three daysequal four cycles. Office hours come when daylight coincides withthe normal waking cycle, on two of those three days.

I didn’t like it. I’d had bad experienceswith daylight, and didn’t care for it much, even when the sun wasso small and dim compared to what almost killed me back onEpimetheus.

And this whole optical illusion of the sunmoving across the sky made my skin crawl. I knew Eta Cass A wasn’treally moving any more than it ever had, that it was the planet’srotation, but that didn’t help; it made me dizzy to think about it.I couldn’t handle working with the sun overhead, so just about assoon as I’d found myself a residence office I liked I bought a nicepiece of software to play receptionist, and figured I’d do my workat night, when everyone else was off. I slept away as many of thedaylight hours as I could, and stayed away from windows as much aspossible for the rest of them.

At least I’d landed in a city that wasn’tright under the moon; I don’t think I could have lived with thatthing hanging directly above me every time I went out in theopen.

A lot of offworlders complained about theearthquakes, but they didn’t bother me; we’d had a few onEpimetheus, too. You get used to them. And the lava glow in thedistance wasn’t any worse than the dawn above the crater rim backhome.

The heavier gravity was tiring, and the airsmelled strange at first, but I got used to those things, too.There were other ways Prometheus differed from Epimetheus, dozensof them, the algae and the oceans and the rest, but the only onethat seriously glitched me was daylight.

One thing hadn’t changed. I was still callingmyself a detective, a private investigator; it was all I knew.Having office hours that didn’t match anybody else’s had its goodpoints and bad, in that line of work.

Being on an unfamiliar planet, though-thatwas all bad for my job. I didn’t know my way around the urbansoftware, didn’t have any contacts, had no word of mouth bringingin work. I had enough money to live on for a while-about the onlypleasant surprise I got when I landed on Prometheus was thelower prices-but I needed an income.

I put notes out on the net, looking for work,of course; I billed myself as an expert consultant on my home worldof Epimetheus as well as pitching the investigative work. I talkedto some of the software in city hall-this was in Alderstadt, nearthe north end of Terpsichore in the Nine Islands, which was wheremy flight in had landed-and tried to learn the circuits.

Strange set-up they had there. The policysoftware wasn’t permanent; every few years they ran a sort ofpopularity poll called an election, and whoever won got to plug herown software in until the next election. It was something like areferendum, except instead of asking a question they asked you topick a person. And chances were the only names on the ballotwere people you didn’t even know. Seemed like a stupid system tome, but the people I asked about it argued that it acted as a sortof automatic debugging.

Nightside City always did fine withtraditional debugging-you catch a mistake, you rewrite it. Youdon’t pull the whole system off-line and put in a new program.

This election thing confused me. What was thepoint in learning my way around the master program when in a yearor two it might get pulled and replaced? It took away some of myincentive, and I didn’t really get the hang of Alderstadt cityservices beyond the basics.

Banks and corporate data and nets are prettymuch the same everywhere, though. So are people. I figured I couldfunction, even in Alderstadt.

Then I got my first case, tracking down adata pirate for an off-planet shipping line that picked me becausethey were in a hurry and my name came up first in a random search.I pulled it off-not as easily as I could have back in NightsideCity, but well enough. This artist in margin retailing had figuredthat knowing what cargos went in and out would give her an edge inpricing, and I found her for the shippers.

When I gave them her name and com code I’dsuggested that they just make a deal with her and split her take,but they were having none of it. I got the impression they didn’tthink much of my morals. Anyway, they got all flashed and turnedher in to the Procops, and the whole thing got out on the net.

I figured that wouldn’t hurt me any, thoughit didn’t do the margin artist any good and she only missedreconstruction by about half a stop-bit. Yeah, my name hit thenet-and it was big enough news that IRC caught it.

The Interstellar Resorts Corporation has beenpissed at me for years, ever since I let a welsher skip out, andthey put the word out on the net that I was still on theirgritlist. IRC isn’t as big on Prometheus as they were back home,where the casinos owned about half the planet, but they’re bigenough that people don’t like to annoy them. I’d thought I’d gotaway from them when I left Epimetheus, but now it looked as if Ihadn’t.

I was back in the detective business, but Iwasn’t exactly top of the market. Just like old times.

I got work, though. Sometimes I got peoplewho figured that if IRC was warning them away from me, then thatwas a point in my favor. I kept eating, and a lot better than I didback in Nightside City, thanks to the lower prices, and I did itwithout even bleeding my savings, such as they were.

I’d been in Alderstadt for almost a year,gotten myself settled in pretty well, gotten to know the locals,made a few friends, when I got this call. I was there and awake andnot doing much of anything, so my software put it through.

“Carlisle Hsing?” a voice asked, and I knewfrom the sound it was synthesized, which meant I was dealing withsoftware or with someone who wasn’t interested in beingrecognized-and in either case they didn’t mind if I knew it. Youcan synthesize undetectably if you want to pay for it.

“Yeah?” I said, leaning back in my chair-afloater, a nice one. Came with the office. Beat the hell out of theplace I’d had back home on Juarez Street.

“I represent someone who wishes to hire yourservices. Would it suit you to be in the lobby of the Sakaibuilding on First Street in American City at 22:00 tomorrow? Yourexpenses will be reimbursed.”

I reminded myself where in the cycle we wereand where on the planet American City was, and figured that 22:00would be comfortably dark, not to mention well after businesshours.

That part sounded all right.

“Do I get a name?” I asked.

“No,” it said.

“Then I’ll need an advance,” I told it.“Buzzfare to American City’s gotta be four hundred credits, easy.”I was guessing, but since American City wasn’t on Terpsichore buton one of the little collateral islands out to the south, it was aneasy guess.

“One kilocredit will be posted to youraccount immediately,” it said, without missing a tick.

I smiled. I liked that. I never got this sortof thing back home, and although I’d had a couple of respectableclients in Alderstadt, I wasn’t really used to it.

A kilobuck wasn’t exactly going to let meretire, or even take a vacation, but it would coverround-trip fare to American City, I was pretty sure.

“Any conditions?” I asked.

“You must come alone,” it told me. “It wouldbe appreciated if you would allow the installation of a watchdogprogram in your office com, but this is not an absoluterequirement. You must be punctual and discreet.”

“No watchdog,” I said, and my smile wasn’tthere any more. This was beginning to sound dangerous. “I’ll bethere.”

“Alone,” it reminded me.

“Alone,” I agreed.

I meant it, too, if you only counted humans,but I wasn’t going to walk into a completely unknown set-up withouta little back-up. I intended to have plenty of hardware on me, andof course I carry a symbiote, like everybody else, but mine’s agood one, with optional intelligence, and I figured I’d wake it upand have it on the lookout while I was there.

I’d had another symbiote back on Epimetheus,a dumb one. It saved my life and died in the process, so when I gotto Prometheus I’d spent a good piece of my savings on getting abetter one to replace it.

That was something else that cost about halfwhat it would have on Epimetheus. There were serious advantages tobeing on a primary colony instead of a secondary one.

“You will be met,” the voice said, and thenthe connection broke.

I sat and I considered that.

Somebody was going to a lot of trouble todeal with me. Somebody in American City, presumably-but I’d neverbeen in American City, never met anyone there, knew nothing aboutthe place beyond the standard stuff in the Prometheographyprogramming I’d jacked in aboard ship.

Why would anybody want me to come to AmericanCity?

When somebody wanted to meet me somewhere, itwas usually because she wanted privacy-unless it’s a closed system,totally closed, anything you do over the com can be tapped, andanyone with any sense knows that. But even so, most people came tomy office in that case.

When somebody wanted to meet me somewhereelse, it was usually because he was seriously worried or scared,afraid that he’s being followed or that I’m beingwatched-and what the hell, maybe I was being watched. Iwouldn’t have put it past IRC to have had an eye on my office, ahigh-altitude one I couldn’t spot, or maybe a bunch ofmicrointelligences reporting back. Or if not IRC, which after allhas bigger programs to run, then maybe one of IRC’s competitors orsubcontractors, trying to figure an angle.

And when somebody insisted on completeanonymity and insisted on meeting me not just outside my office,but in another city a thousand kilometers south of Alderstadt, atthe other end of the archipelago, then we’re talking about someonewho was downright paranoid-or else, just possibly, somebody who wasconcerned with something other than privacy.

For example, getting me out by myself, aloneand relatively defenseless.

Now, I didn’t know that there wasanybody out there who wanted me dead just then, though there hadbeen a few people who might hold grudges. IRC held a grudge, butwhat I’d done to them wasn’t any big spike, really, just a bit ofgrit.

And there was a fellow back on Epimetheus bythe name of Big Jim Mishima who might not be very fond of me-butthe exact details got wiped, so he wouldn’t know why.

There was that margin player who’d missedreconstruction, but I wouldn’t expect her to have the nerve to tryanything after a close cut like that.

There were a few people I thought had gone infor reconstruction who might be after me if they hadn’t-but I wassure that most of them had gone in, and after reconstructionthey weren’t going to be bothering me, not unless the job had beenbotched.

There was Sayuri Nakada, a spoiled rich bratI’d crossed up; I didn’t know where the hell she was or what shewas doing, and she had the juice to be anywhere in human space. I’dprobably done her a favor, whether she knew it or not, but she wascrazy enough that I had no idea what she thought of me.

So I had potential enemies out there, but Icouldn’t see that any of them would have been behind this. Mishimawas still back on Epimetheus, as far as I knew, and even if he’dgotten off he wasn’t the type to come after me without knowing morethan he did.

Nakada was petty and vicious enough, but itdidn’t seem like her style, and besides, she was dependent on therest of her family, and they wouldn’t have allowed it.

If they knew about it.

The thought of the Nakada family beepedsomewhere in the back of my brain. I leaned forward and gestured atthe com.

The first screen told me that yes, a kilobuckhad been credited to my account, from a numbered account at abrokerage house. I could probably trace it back if I had to, but itwouldn’t be easy.

The second screen told me that American Citywas just about where I thought it was, and that Sayuri Nakada nolonger had any significant interests there.

But Yoshio Nakada, her great-grandfather,head of the Nakada clan and chief stockholder in NakadaEnterprises, was based there.

Grandfather Nakada knew who I was, all right.He’d paid my way off Epimetheus in return for what I’d learnedabout a little scam that was being run on great-granddaughterSayuri. As far as I knew, he had nothing against me, and Sayuricouldn’t push him around.

So maybe it wasn’t a trap. Maybe GrandfatherNakada wanted to talk to me about something. Certainly he was richenough to throw kilobucks around like that, and I could see whysomeone like him wouldn’t want to be seen coming to Alderstadt toconsult me.

Or maybe it was someone else, lower down inthe hierarchy, who had been impressed with my deal with old Yoshioand needed a detective.

Whatever it was, I’d find out soon enough.I’d be there, in the Sakai building at 22:00. I’d be alone-with mySony-Remington HG-2 loaded and active, with my symbiote on alert,and with every scanner and guard system I could get into myworksuit up and running.

Just in case.

Chapter Two

I buzzed into American City around 18:00, to givemyself a little time to look around.

Strange place. Lots of pink glass, detachedhomes, two- or three-level malls. Bigger than Alderstadt, muchbigger; bigger than Nightside City ever was, even before the dawngot too close for comfort.

In Nightside City the Tourist Trap, thecentral business district, was always ablaze with light, thestreets awash in advertising, holos and neon and stardust. It was aconstant barrage of color and motion. The streets were always fullof people and floaters, despite the wind. The outer parts of thecity were darker and quieter, but the Trap never was.

In Alderstadt, the whole city was dark andquiet-at least at night. People stayed inside, maybe because of thecold; floaters were heavily regulated, and nobody advertised morethan two stories above street level. Biggest ad I ever saw therewasn’t much more than three meters high, a display out front of anexotics restaurant.

I’d gotten used to the low-key approach; mylast few years in Nightside I was out in the burbs, and then I’dbeen in Alderstadt ever since.

American City was the Trap turned inside out.The streets and shells and burbs were blank and silent, but to getanywhere or do anything you had to use the malls, and inside themalls the electronic circus was at full output. The air buzzed withfloaters, stardust bloomed above every doorway, holos beckoned onevery side, and the walkways were jammed.

Made me feel homesick.

Not that Nightside City ever went in soheavily for pink. That was American City’s favorite color, no doubtabout it. And of course there wasn’t any wind in the malls.

At least the malls were warm.

First Street was malled. I strolled down theright-hand traffic lane watching the displays, admiring the way thefloaters picked out the best-dressed people in the crowd for theirpitches. That made it pretty clear why some of the really richpeople I’d met didn’t show it.

The floaters ignored me-I couldn’t afford todress well, and probably wouldn’t have bothered to anyway. I gotthe lightshows, though, and the directional pitches, and the scenttraps. There was one place almost lured me in, a neurochemicaljoint-it wasn’t that their own pitch was so great, though the odorswere just fine, but I was distracted by a beefcake show across thecorner and wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Theyprobably had some sort of subliminals going; I was right at thedoor when I realized I didn’t want to go in.

After that I picked up the pace, and got tothe Sakai building around 19:30.

I wasn’t there for the meeting yet, I justwanted to scout out the place, see if there really was any chancefor an ambush. I figured I’d look it over, get some dinner, lookaround town a little more, and still be at the meet a few minutesearly.

Didn’t happen.

I strolled up the black glass corridorbetween a bughouse and a gene boutique and found the lobby-big roomwith blue carpet, pink ceiling, and more of the black glass walls.A line of floaters was hanging along one side, right up by theceiling.

The minute I set foot in the room one of thembeeped me-a slick blue and silver one, general purpose, veryglossy. The rest ignored me, just hung there, but this one zippedover.

“No names,” it said, “I know who you are.You’re early.”

“Damn it, I’m not here at all,” I said. “Notyet.” I looked over at the line of floaters; they were shifting alittle, closing up the gap my buddy had left.

“Don’t confuse me,” my glittery little friendsaid.

“Then don’t talk to me,” I told it. I turnedto go.

It fizzed for a second, then called,“Wait!”

I gave it the three-finger curse. “The hell Iwill,” I said, and started walking.

It followed me. I’d half expected that.

My hand wasn’t too far from the butt of theHG-2, but I didn’t really have any intention of drawing on thelittle buzzer. You can’t outdraw a floater unless it lets you.

I didn’t really have a good reason for beingso hostile to the little machine; I just didn’t like how littlecontrol I had over the situation. It knew who I was; I didn’t knowa thing about it. It could follow me; if I tried to follow it, itcould just sail up out of reach, or probably outrun me on thelevel. And it could shoot me, if it was armed, but I wouldn’t beable to shoot it unless it was ordered to let me, or unless Icaught it totally off-guard.

I blew a floater apart once, more or less byboth those methods, and it felt pretty good at the time, but Ididn’t care to try to do it again.

And besides, I didn’t really have anythingagainst this one.

Yet.

So I let it follow me, and I didn’t sayanything. I just walked back out into the mall and down a fewstorefronts and ducked into a bank.

The human staff was off-duty, but the tellerswere up and running, and a few customers were wandering about. Oneor two glanced up at the floater, but nobody said anything.

I paused and looked about, and reconsidered.Banks are big on security. Not a good choice.

I turned and went back out on the mall, andthis time I found a clothier.

“I’d like a private booth,” I told the entryclerk. “I need to check some measurements.”

It gave me a cheerful little chirp and said,“Certainly, Mis’. We’ve coded Number Four just for you.”

“I’m taking my floater in with me,” I toldit.

“I’ll tell the door,” it said. “Catalog’s allset on the big screen, any time you’re ready.”

Damn thing sounded like it was smirking. Ihate that sort of smart-chip clerk.

I looked up to be sure Ol’ Blue-and-Silverwas still there, which it was, and I beckoned for it to follow me,then I marched across the display floor to the fitting rooms.

The door to #4 had a pink stardust auraaround it, just to make sure I could find it. It itched a bit whenI walked through it; I think my symbiote must have been sensitiveto the static field.

The door waited until the floater was inside,then it slid shut. The big holoscreen was showing a montage ofmodels in fancy gowns, any of which would have looked like a tenton me.

“Privacy,” I told it. “And kill the displayfor a moment.”

I don’t know if it was smarter than the entryclerk, or what, but the room’s software didn’t say a word, justblanked the screen and lit up an aura around the measuring chip.The screen over the door displayed the word PRIVATE in flowing pinkscript.

I picked up the chip for the sake ofverisimilitude, and then asked the floater, “What the hell were youdoing there so early?”

“I could ask you the same question,” it said.“I was told to go there and wait for you when I finished my regularduties for the day. I got done at 16:48. Waiting doesn’t botherme.”

Its tone made it quite clear that it wantedan answer to the question it hadn’t actually asked.

“I was checking the place out,” I said.“Wanted to see what it was like. I didn’t expect anyone to be therewaiting for me.”

“Shall we return there now?” it asked.

“No,” I said.

It thought that over for a second, and thenasked, “Why not?”

“Because I don’t like that place,” I told it.“That line of floaters makes me nervous. Who put ‘em all there? Areany of them armed? Look, I wasn’t expecting to talk to a floater,and I certainly wasn’t expecting to talk to anyone anywhere thatpublic; I figured whoever it was would meet me there and we’d gosomewhere else to talk. So I met you, and we came here, and it’sstill a couple of hours before our appointment, but I’ll talk toyou here if you want.”

“You’re being paranoid,” it said. “I likethat.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then talk.”

“I’m not your client, Hsing,” it said. “Idon’t even know what he wants you for. I was told to meet you andlook you over, and if I approved to bring you to him. I’ve met youand looked you over, and I approve.”

“So you’re going to take me to him?”

“If you’ll come, yes.”

“Then let’s go,” I said.

We went, back to the Sakai Building, and upto the tenth floor.

Then I waited in a lounge, watching waves ofgreen and blue chase each other across the furniture, while thefloater went on into the inner sanctum. No holoscreen. No attendantsoftware. No floaters. I sat.

It was maybe ten minutes before the floaterreappeared through a holographic wall.

“Hsing,” it said, “you’ll have to leave yourgun.”

I didn’t say anything for a minute, juststared at it.

“You’re not the only one around here who’sparanoid,” it added helpfully.

“Hell,” I said with a shrug. I pulled out theHG-2 and laid it on a table. I considered turning it on, withorders to refuse handling by anyone but me, but decided that waspushing it. It was just a gun. If it got nervous and blew someone’shand off I could catch some serious grit.

I did say, “It better still be here,untouched, when I get back.”

“It will be,” the floater said.

I wasn’t particularly happy about leaving thegun, but it wasn’t any great disaster to give it up. I still hadplenty of other gadgetry on me.

The big difference-which my mystery man wasprobably well aware of-was that almost everything else I carriedwas defensive, rather than offensive. And the rest of my offensivearsenal, such as it was, was relatively easy to defend against,while stopping an armor-piercing round from the Sony-Remingtoncould be a challenge.

Taking the gun and leaving the rest was apretty fair balance between courtesy and caution on my host’s part,and I could live with it.

Then at last I was shown into the otherroom.

It was a small room, maybe three meterssquare. The walls were covered with shielding-not built-in stuff,but the heaviest portable shielding I’d ever seen in my life. Theyweren’t passing anything I could see-certainly no visible light,and nothing that registered on any of the pocket equipment I hadjacked in. My symbiote wasn’t telling me anything, either. Thefloor and ceiling were shielded, too. I was inside a black box.

Once I was inside the floater extended agrapple and slid shut another panel, closing the box. I wascompletely sealed off from the outside world. Some of mytransponder-based stuff objected; I overrode it.

The only illumination came from the floater,which had stepped itself up from running lights to moderate outputand shifted from monochrome to full spectrum; the effect waseerie.

In the box with me were two chairs, two ofthe strangest chairs I’d ever seen, rigid and angular, and made ofa material I didn’t identify at first-wood. With seats of some kindof woven string.

They looked, and presumably were, positivelyancient. Antiques. Real second-millennium stuff. They looked out ofplace in that box of shielding.

Sitting on one of the chairs, and the onlyother thing in there besides the floater, the chairs, and myself,was an old man. A very old man. He went better with the chairs thanwith the box, but not very well with either one. He wore a simplered robe, and I could see no equipment at all. A dimple under hisear had to be a com jack, but it was camouflaged beautifully. Hishair was white and thinning, his face wrinkled-if he’d everbothered with cosmetic surgery, he was past that point now. Noornamental wiring, no colorants, not so much as an earring.

I’d seen that face before, on the holo and instills, but I’d never met him before, never spoken with himdirectly. This was Yoshio Nakada. Grandfather Nakada, head of theNakada clan, chairman of Nakada Enterprises.

“I am honored, Mis’ Nakada,” I said,bowing.

“Carlisle Hsing,” he said. “Please sitdown.”

I sat on the other chair; it creaked as ittook my weight, and the seat felt rough and unyielding beneath me,not reshaping itself at all, though the woven stuff gave veryslightly. It was like sitting on some random object, rather than achair.

“My floater tells me you are a cautiouswoman,” Nakada said.

I gestured at the shielding. “I see you’re acautious man.”

“I need to be,” he said, “in my position.Mis’ Nakada, last year you became involved with mygreat-granddaughter Sayuri.”

He didn’t say it like a question, but Itreated it as one.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Naturally,” he told me, “I had youthoroughly investigated after that.”

“Naturally,” I agreed. I hadn’t reallythought about it, and I certainly never noticed any investigation,but it made sense, and he had the resources to do the job right,without buzzing me.

“I would like to ask you a question,though.”

I noticed the floater gliding forward, sothat it could get a good look at my eyes when I answered whateverit was I was about to be asked. I didn’t say anything.

“Have you ever had any contact with anymember of my family, other than Sayuri and myself?”

That was not the question I had expected, butit was an easy one.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Another question, then. Have you ever hadany contact with Sayuri other than during that unfortunate affairon Epimetheus?”

“No.” I’d have liked to have given a moreinteresting answer, but the single syllable really covered thewhole thing.

“Have you ever before had any contact withme?”

“Not directly,” I said. “I tried to contactyou about Sayuri last year, but I wound up dealing entirely withflunkies.” I wondered if he were worried about clones, frauds,mindwipes, or what, that he didn’t know himself whether we’d beenin touch before.

I wondered if Ziyang Subbha would haveresented being called a flunky. I suspected he was pretty high upin Nakada’s organization.

“Are you carrying any recording devices ormicrointelligences?” Nakada asked.

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t see any point inlying.

He glanced up at the floater.

“She’s either telling the truth or she wasready for this,” it said.

The old man sighed.

“Life is so complicated,” he said, “and thereis so little we can trust. Everything we do, there is some way tointerfere. Everything we think we know, there is some way it couldbe faked, or some way it could be changed. Mis’ Hsing, you did me aservice last year-for reasons of your own, I know, and I wouldhardly expect otherwise. You did me a service in regard to littleSayuri, and I saw no purpose there beyond the honest andstraightforward.”

“I did it for the money,” I said. I didn’twant the old man to think I was some kind of idealist. I have somestandards, but I’m no philanthropist.

“Is anything more straightforward?” He almostsmiled. “And yet you did not betray our secrets in pursuit of moremoney. You kept your word. You live a simple life, by my standards,and you have shown yourself to be of use. I have decided to trustyou.”

“Thanks,” I said, not without a hint ofsarcasm.

“I need to trust someone,” he went on, “and Icannot trust anyone in my family, nor in all my corporation, noranyone associated with them. I cannot trust anyone who has livedlong on Prometheus, for my family and Nakada Enterprises areeverywhere here. Even picking someone at random, from all those onthis planet, the odds are that she would be tainted. So I haveturned to you, an Epimethean and an outcast who has shown herselfto be a competent investigator.”

“Fine,” I said, “so that’s why you picked me.So what’s this problem that you can’t trust anyone with?”

He hesitated, and then said, “Mis’ Nakada,someone is trying to kill me.”

That was not really very startling, given hisposition, and I was about to say so when he added, “Someone in myown family, I think.”

Chapter Three

This theory was obviously supposed to be a surpriseto me, but I didn’t really look at it that way.

After all, when you get right down to it,there aren’t that many possible motives for murder. Sex, money,revenge, and defective programming are the big ones, and all fourof those are likely to get tangled up with family matters,particularly when you’re talking about a very big, very rich, andvery complicated family like the Nakada clan.

If anyone was going to try to killGrandfather Nakada, a member of his own family would have both thebest reasons and the best chances. And any time anyone’s that rich,that powerful, that famous, and that old, he’s likely to be atarget.

But old Yoshio thought he was surprising me,so I just said, “What makes you think so?”

He frowned.

“Before I tell you any more,” he said, “Imust first know whether you will work for me to investigate this,to find the assassin.”

I wished he hadn’t said that, because thiswas all very interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly shocking, andI’d wanted to hear more before I turned him down.

But I wasn’t going to get the chance.

“I’m sorry, Mis’ Nakada,” I said, “but Idon’t think so.”

He stared at me silently for a moment, andthen blinked, just once, and in a low, hard voice demanded, “Whynot?”

Good tone he used there. Gave an impressionof hidden strength, and it wasn’t a voice you’d expect from an oldman. He had to be getting on toward two hundred, but you’d neverhave known it from the voice.

“Because,” I said, “it’s too damn dangerous.I’d be out of my depth. You need a major security firm if you wantto be protected from assassins. I’m an investigator, I’m not abodyguard.”

“Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “I’m not looking for abodyguard. I have security people, plenty of them. I evenstill trust some of them. But none of them is as likely to trackdown the person-or people-behind the assassination attempt as youare. Their software has almost certainly been corrupted. Allthe software in my entire corporation may be infected. Yours isnot. And I know that none of my major competitors, nor any of myfamily, has bought your services; I cannot be sure whether anyoneelse has been bought.”

I sighed. “That’s fine for why youwant me,” I said, “since you can’t trust anyone local andthere aren’t many private investigators stupid enough to move intounfamiliar territory the way I did. But there’s nothing there aboutwhy I would want you-why I’d want this job, Imean.”

“I will pay well, of course,” he said, wavinga hand in dismissal. “I paid you 492,500 credits for the work youdid on Epimetheus, and my life is worth far more to me than mygreat-granddaughter’s reputation. Would two million credits, inaddition to expenses, be enough to convince you?”

That was tempting. Two million bucks is a lotof juice, especially on Prometheus. I thought about it for amoment.

“In advance?” I said. “And no limit onexpenses?”

He blinked again, slowly and deliberately.“Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “be realistic about this. The money is notimportant to me. But if I pay everything up front, you will have noincentive to complete the job. And if I place no limit on yourexpenses, that would make it even worse.”

“What did you have in mind, then?” I asked. Imight as well hear his offer, I thought.

“One million credits in advance, to be heldin escrow by a bank not affiliated with Nakada Enterprises. Acorporate expense account equivalent to that of a junior member ofthe Board of Directors. Upon completion of the job to mysatisfaction-no one else’s-an additional million credits. And Ibelieve I have some additional incentives to offer.”

“Go on,” I said.

“If I die, under any circumstances that couldconceivably be suspicious, before the payment of your full fee,then your expense account will be terminated immediately, andaudited. The second million will be forfeit, and the first millionwill be distributed by the escrow trustee between yourself and myheirs in whatever fashion the trustee deems reasonable afterreading your final report.”

I nodded, and got ready to turn the wholedeal down, but Nakada wasn’t finished.

“Furthermore, I believe you have an olderbrother, a croupier at the Ginza in Nightside City. SebastianHsing, by name. And your father, Guohan Hsing, is currently apermanent resident of Trap Under in Nightside City. A dreamer. Awirehead in a Seventh Heaven dreamtank.”

My mouth closed and I listened.

“I have the names right?” he asked.

I nodded. He knew he had the names right.

“I am not threatening them, Mis’ Hsing,” hesaid, raising a hand in a gesture that I suppose was intended tocalm me down. “I want you on my side, not as an enemy. But you knowwhat’s happening in Nightside City now.”

I didn’t bother to nod again. I knew, and heknew it.

Nightside City was about to fry-and it wasdoing the biggest business in its hundred and sixty year history asthe playground of the Eta Cassiopeia system, as all the touristscrowded in to see the last days. Impending doom really appeals tothe thrillseekers, especially when it’s a nice, safe impendingdoom, not anything that’s actually dangerous. The incredibly slowplanetary rotation that was carrying Nightside City out onto thedayside was steady and predictable-tourists would have plenty oftime to get out.

They were pouring in like data from awide-open search.

That meant that the casinos and all the restof the Tourist Trap needed all their best employees.

That meant they weren’t letting them leave.Round-trip tickets to Epimetheus were selling three for abuck, practically-the casinos wanted customers. But ticketsoff Epimetheus-those were not to be had. At least, not ifyou were worth keeping. If one of the squatters out in the West Endtapped out a ticket somewhere no one would weep, but a croupierlike ’Chan-they weren’t going to let him go, not while thecustomers were still coming.

When the business finally burned out they’dlet him go-if there were still any ships running. He’d probablywind up paying out his life’s savings for a steerage berth on anore freighter bound out-system. Or he’d rot in the mines out on thenightside.

And my father, down in Trap Under, he wasalready rotting, plugged into dream central. He had a lifetimecontract. Once the city went down, though, would they keep up themaintenance on the wireheads?

I wasn’t all that fond of my old man, notafter the way he and my mother dumped ’Chan and Ali and me, but Iwasn’t real happy about the idea of him rotting away literally,physically as well as mentally. And if the maintenance crewschecked out, that might be just what would happen.

“I can get them both off-planet, offEpimetheus,” Nakada told me. “When I have the assassin, I’ll doit.”

I stared at him for a moment, that uglywrinkled old face with the smooth white hair, white as death.

He wasn’t going to let me say no. He probablythought he’d already told me too much to let me turn the job downand go home. He was accustomed to getting what he wanted, and hewanted me to take this case.

Which might get me killed. After all, anyonewho would try to take out Grandfather Nakada wouldn’t hesitate todelete me along the way. In fact, if the would-be killer even foundout this meeting had taken place, I was probably dead.

Or old Yoshio might decide to delete mehimself, once I’d finished the job-or given up on it. If I knew toomuch now, how much worse when I’d learned more?

But he had a reputation for dealing fairlywith his employees. I’d be safer doing what he asked, muchsafer, than I would be turning him down.

So I had to take it, but if I was going to dothat, I was damn well going to get everything I could out of it.The only question was how far I could push, how much I coulddemand, before he got pissed.

I looked up at the blue and silver floater,hanging there motionless.

“It’s recording?” I asked.

Nakada nodded.

“All right, here are my terms,” I said,leaning forward. “You put this all on record, and you back it up,and if we make a deal you give me a certified copy. You’ll pay mefive million credits in advance-five million, not two. You’ll coverall my travel and com and medical expenses without question, you’lltell me everything I ask for, you won’t hold anything back, you’llgive me complete access to all family and corporation records,files, software, and personnel. You’ll get my brother Sebastian andmy father out of Nightside City and safely to Prometheusimmediately. In exchange, I’ll find your assassin and everyoneconnected with her. You won’t interfere with the investigation, nomatter who or what I go after. Those are my terms. Take it or leaveit.”

He sighed. “I’ll leave it, if you’re serious.I can accept all that-if you make either the money or the rescue ofyour relatives contingent upon your success.”

“The money,” I said. “The five million buckswhen I deliver, not before.”

“All of it,” he said.

“All of it,” I agreed. “You’ll pay myexpenses, though.”

“I will pay your travel expenses only withinthe Eta Cass system, unless you can provide me with convincingproof that you need to go elsewhere.”

“Done.”

“Recorded,” said the floater.

I could live with it. I’d get ’Chan and ourfather out, at least. And if I actually found the would-bekiller-well, five million is a lot of juice.

I was going to give this an honest try,anyway. If it didn’t run, well… I’d been broke before. And I’dhave ’Chan and my father out of Nightside City.

“All right,” I said, “Now tell me all aboutit. Someone tried to kill you?”

He told me.

Chapter Four

I had time to think it over on the ride back toAlderstadt.

It was not going to be an easy job. Nakadahimself had already done the easy stuff, and it hadn’t worked.

The way it scrolled along was this: Someonehad turned the old man’s own personal com against him, in theNakada family compound itself. In his own bedroom, in fact. He hadbeen settling down for the night, about to jack in for a nicelittle dreamscape, when he decided to double-check the program.He’d already read out the schedule once, but on a whim, just alucky accident, he read it out again.

It was wrong. Instead of a sensible,conservative dream enhancer, the com was running a euthanasiaprogram. If he’d jacked in it would have quietly shut down hisautonomic nervous system. And when they found him in the morning itcould have been put down to wetware systems failure-old ageaffecting the brain, his body just giving out on him.

After all, he was two hundred and forty-oneyears old, he said, and at that age no one was really surprisedwhen even healthy people didn’t happen to wake up.

He’d shut the bedroom com off from the restof the household net immediately, of course, and used his personalimplants to analyze the programming. It was clever-the euthanasiaprogram was nested inside a worm that would control the entire unituntil he was dead, and would then shut itself down, turn controlback to the original program, and set markers so that the com’s owneveryday internal monitoring would wipe out all trace of the wormand its contents, just as if it were an ordinary bit of gritwarethat slipped in over the lines. The worm was started in the firstplace by his regular check of the night’s dream schedule.

If he hadn’t done the check over again afterthe worm had been invoked, or if the programmer had set the worm tohide its tracks even while it was actually running, he’d have goneto sleep and never woken up. Sweet and simple.

And it was on his own bedroom com. That comwas not on the planetwide nets. It wasn’t even on the internalcorporate nets that Nakada Enterprises ran. It was only hooked intothe family’s household net.

So only family members could get at it-intheory.

In practice, both the old man and I knewbetter than that. The household net wasn’t totally closed off; ithad links to the top-level corporate net, and that had links to allthe rest. All those links were heavily screened and firewalled,though. It would take phenomenal skill and planning to work intothat bedroom com from outside the household.

It wasn’t impossible, but it came close. Thatmeant the most likely explanation was that someone inside thefamily compound-which meant either a member of the family or one oftheir AIs-was responsible.

The next most likely was someone on the toplevel corporate net at Nakada Enterprises.

And so on, down through all the internalcorporate nets to the intercorporate net and finally the publicnet.

That was from the point of view ofopportunity; if you considered motive, then business rivals jumpedup the scale-but the family and the corporate insiders at Nakadastayed on it, too.

And if you considered means-who knew? Someonewho knew a lot about the old man’s personal com habits had designedthat little booby-trap, but that didn’t mean much.

It could be anybody.

Anybody, Grandfather Nakada thought, exceptme.

So I was going back to Alderstadt to cleanout my office-I was moving to American City for the duration ofthis case. The trip would give Nakada time to start the disksturning to get ’Chan and my father off Epimetheus. When I got backto American City and saw some proof that they were coming, I’dstart to work.

There wasn’t really much to clean out. Iduped my office software, and left one copy in Alderstadt, took onecopy with me. I’d already had my gun with me. I didn’t own all thatmuch else, in the way of external hardware-mostly just a set ofteacups my mother had left behind when she headed out, and a coupleof changes of clothing. The furniture was rented; it stayed.

I hadn’t made any close meatspace friendsduring my stay in Alderstadt. I’d gotten to know some of the localsoftware, and I said hello to some of the neighbors when I sawthem. There were a few people I chatted with over tea, and aroundthe corner, at Steranko’s, I called Ed the bartender by his firstname, but that was about it. No one would be heartbroken if I left.I didn’t know if I’d be back or not, so I didn’t say anygoodbyes.

I was on my way out the door when the combeeped. I wasn’t in that big a hurry; I turned and went back andsat down.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Mis’ Hsing,” said a synthetic voice.“There’s a problem.”

“Yeah?” I said again.

“Details cannot be given here, but you mustreturn to American City immediately.”

“I was planning to,” I told whatever it was.There was no visual.

“You must go to where you spoke to thefloater.”

“Got it,” I said, and signed off.

If whoever it was was being that mysterious,I didn’t want to ask any more questions. I didn’t need to, either.It meant that someone wanted to talk to me in private. Either itwas the old man, or one of his flunkies, or else the wholeinvestigation had already been blown. Whoever it was didn’t wantanything important to get out on the nets.

So it was back to the dressing room.

And a couple of hours later, there I was atthe clothier.

“Number Four,” I said. “I’msuperstitious.”

The entry clerk said, “I hope you’ll findsomething you like this time, Mis’.” I ignored the sarcasm,but decided this time I’d pick up a little something-maybe a videoscarf. If I was going to keep meeting here, I wanted to keep myhosts happy by buying a few things. I could even put them on theexpense account with a clear conscience.

“We’ve coded Number Four just for you,” theclerk said. “Will you be taking your floater in again?”

I looked up, and there was the blue andsilver floater, right behind me.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ll tell the door,” the clerk said. “Youcan go right in.”

We went. The stardust still itched.“Privacy,” I ordered when we were inside. “And kill the display, Iwant to think.”

The booth obeyed. The screen over the doortold me we were private. I turned to the floater. “What’s up?” Iasked.

“Mis’ Yoshio Nakada would like to propose amodification of your agreement.”

“No,” I said.

It fizzed, then asked, “Don’t you want tohear what he’s suggesting?”

“No,” I said again.

It hung silently for a moment, mulling thatone over. With the privacy seal on it couldn’t ask anyone else tohelp it make up its mind, so it had to work the problem out foritself, and the neural net in a floater isn’t really made for thatsort of decision.

Eventually, though, it said, “I would like toask you to reconsider.”

“I don’t intend to modify the deal,” I toldit, “but we’re here, so what the hell, give me the read-out.”

That it could handle.

“Mis’ Nakada would greatly prefer to pay youthe five million credits now, in advance, and to bring SebastianHsing and Guohan Hsing from Epimetheus to Prometheus only after theinvestigation has been completed to Mis’ Nakada’ssatisfaction.”

That was all, and I let the silence run for amoment.

“Why?” I asked, finally.

“I’m not sure I should tell you that,” itsaid.

“Then I’m damn sure I won’t agree to thechange,” I replied.

It fizzed again, which could have meantalmost anything, and then said, “You know that Mis’ Nakada isconcerned about the integrity of the corporate software in use byNakada Enterprises.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a nod. “So?”

“You are aware that Guohan Hsing iscurrently, by the terms of his lifetime entertainment andmaintenance contract, legally incompetent, and a ward of theSeventh Heaven Neurosurgical Corporation. Legalities aside, he isalso in an induced coma and kept comatose but alive by machineryowned and operated by Seventh Heaven.”

It paused, but I didn’t bother sayinganything this time. I just stared at it.

“Removing a properly-contracted ward from theproperty of Seventh Heaven is not legal, except in a very fewexceptional circumstances, none of which appear to apply in thiscase.”

“So?” I said. “Nakada knew that from thestart.”

The floater ignored my objection. “SebastianHsing,” it said, “is employed by the Interstellar ResortsCorporation at the Ginza Casino Hotel. IRC has classed him asessential personnel. While he is still technically a free adult, ifhe chooses to leave his job he will be in breach of contract andsubject to a fine of up to one million credits. He has not chosento leave. Nakada Enterprises is forbidden by city regulations topay his fine, should he choose to leave; to do so would leaveNakada open to lawsuit for employee piracy, and would have seriousextra-legal consequences as well. Nakada could make an offer to buyout his contract, and in fact, such an offer has been made. Theoffer was refused; IRC is not willing to part with SebastianHsing’s services at any reasonable price, and to make an offer anyhigher would surely raise suspicions.”

“Go on,” I said.

“Are you recording?”

“No,” I said, which was a lie, but what thehell.

“I believe that Yoshio Nakada had everyintention of circumventing these obstacles. However, he now hasreason to believe that the corruption of the corporate softwareavailable to him is far more extensive than he had realized when hespoke to you last night.”

Last night? I’d been thinking of it asearlier today. Not relevant; I ignored that and asked, “Whatreason?”

“He is unsure whether he can get Guohan andSebastian Hsing off Epimetheus safely, given the current meansavailable to him,” it said, which did not answer my question.

It shut up, and I stared at it for amoment.

“That’s it?” I said at last.

“That’s it,” it agreed.

“But that’s stupid,” I protested. “Everythinghe’d need is on Epimetheus, not in the Nakada family compound. Allhe has to do is send one message to a trustworthy human onEpimetheus!”

“No,” the floater said.

“Why the bloody hell not?” I demanded.

“Because all supposedly-secure corporatecommunications between Prometheus and Epimetheus have beenaffected. While he has established that there has beeninterference, Mis’ Nakada is unable to determine the nature orextent of the meddling. He attempted to contact Epimetheus afteryou left last night, and discovered that he cannot tell whether heis, in fact, speaking to a human on Epimetheus, or to a digitalsimulation-his usual security tests have been compromised. This wasnot the case when he made his preparations; something has changed.He suspects that when he met with you, his absence from his usualroutines was noted and prompted this action. It now appears thatthe conspiracy that… the conspiracy he is aware of is moreextensive than he thought, and there is literally no one employedby Nakada Enterprises on Epimetheus he feels he can trust with theassignment.”

I felt a creeping uneasiness somewhere in myspine.

“It’s that bad?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Hsing,” the floater said, “butMis’ Nakada thinks it is.”

The thing’s manner had changed. It had gonefrom formal and every centimeter a machine to its more familiarself. I guessed it was because it was back in its familiar groove,no longer stretching its instructions to the limit and telling methings it hadn’t been told to tell me.

“If the conspiracy, or whatever it is, isthat extensive, how do I even know he sent you?”

“If you agree to continue on his revisedterms, he will meet you in person to verify it.”

“Fine. How the hell does he expect me to stopit?”

“By finding the parties running it, ofcourse.”

I snorted. “Sure, that’s all,” I said.“Finding the people responsible for infiltrating one of the mostpowerful corporations in the galaxy, and exposing them-that’s easy,right? Hell, maybe it is easy, I don’t know. I’ve nevertried it.” I grinned at the floater. “But you know what must bepretty tricky? Staying alive while I do it. That’s got to betough!”

“But Hsing,” it said, “you’re good atthat.”

“Good at what?”

“At staying alive. You’re tough, Hsing-peoplehave tried to kill you, IRC tried to break you, but here youare.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “The old man’s stayedalive six times as long as I have-he’s the one who’s good atit!” I shook my head. “And besides, if he can’t get ’Chan and myfather off Epimetheus, why should I work for him?”

“For the money?” the floater asked, as Ipaused for breath.

“No, thanks,” I said. “Money’s nice, but so’smaintaining decent odds of living to enjoy it. No family, no deal.That was what we recorded.” I reached up and signaled the privacyseal off; I didn’t see that we had anything more to talk about.“Guess I’ll be buzzing back to Alderstadt,” I said. “Good luck toyour boss.”

“Hsing, wait,” the floater said.

I didn’t answer, I just headed for the doorof the booth.

“Hsing, please,” it said. “I’m talkingto him now. Could you wait? He may have an offer to make.”

“What can he offer?” I asked, my hand on thedoor.

“Hsing,” the floater said, “he does have anoffer.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“You will,” it stated flatly.

I hesitated, then turned back.

“All right,” I said. “Boot it up. What’s theoffer?”

“You get an unlimited expense account,” itsaid. “The corporation will pay any fines, bail you out, anything.You investigate the infiltration, conspiracy, whatever it is-onEpimetheus. There has definitely been covert activity there. Andwhile you’re there…”

“I get them out myself,” I finished.

I stared at the machine while I thought itover, stared at the metal that gleamed pink in the booth’s light,and the blue plastic that looked almost as black as the plasticstreets of Trap Under.

“You’ve got a deal,” I said at last.

Chapter Five

I’d never seen Epimetheus from space before; whenI’d left I hadn’t bothered to look.

I looked this time, and decided I hadn’tmissed much.

The ship I was in was Grandfather Nakada’sprivate yacht; the old man had personally escorted me aboard tohand over command. It had all the luxuries, including a live pilot,just in case the old man wanted something the software couldn’thandle. The pilot was a redheaded roundeye, tall, with a face Icould live with that wouldn’t win any awards, 100% natural as faras I could tell. When I asked, the ship told me his name was ColbyPerkins.

Wasn’t sure I’d heard it right at first, andsince the man himself wandered in just then I asked, “Your name’sPickens?”

“It’s Perkins,” he told me, blinking thosepale blue eyes of his-strange how many colors eyes can come in, butusually don’t. “Colby Perkins.”

“Perkins,” I said. “Got it. I knew someonenamed Pickens once, wondered if you were any relation.”

“No, Mis’, it’s not the same name at all.” Heseemed a little uneasy about something, wouldn’t keep his eyes onme, but it didn’t look serious. Maybe he just wasn’t used topassengers.

Or maybe I’m uglier than I thought.

At least he wasn’t family to Zar Pickens, whowelshed on me back on Epimetheus; I wouldn’t want anyone who sharedancestors with that human gritware to be piloting any ship I wason.

Whatever, I didn’t need to make himuncomfortable, so I looked out the window, and he went away.

Yes, window. Nakada’s yacht had big, fancywindows in the lounge, not just vid or holo. I could watchrealtime, direct and live, as we came in across the nightside andheaded for the field in Nightside City.

There wasn’t much to see. Just a lot ofdarkness, and a seething mass of silver-gray clouds in a giganticring at the storm line. If you get out further and look straightdown at the midnight pole the planet must look like a practicetarget, with the pale slushcap at the pole, and then the dark stonearound it, and then the circle of clouds where everythingprecipitates out of the upper-level air currents, and then darkstone again, and finally the bright line of the dayside at theedge. I suppose there would be occasional pixels of light at thevarious settlements, too.

I never saw it from that angle, though; wecame in low so it was just black and grey, no details anywhereuntil the lights of Nightside City sparkled on the horizon, and aninstant later the light of day spread across behind the city in along, widening arc like a cadcam construction, hot and golden.

I don’t like daylight, so I didn’t look anymore after that. I let Perkins, or maybe the ship, take us intoport, and when we were down I hit the ground. I wanted to movefast. The old familiar gravity made me feel light on my feet, readyto run.

One thing about the Wheeler Drive-it’s sofast that I hadn’t had time to plan much on the way. I’d taken insome data on Nakada’s immediate family, but that was about it. Icame out of the port without any very clear idea of just what I wasgoing to do.

I could eat and sleep on the ship, if Iwanted to-I’d made sure that was understood. I didn’t have to worryabout finding somewhere to park myself.

All I had to do was find ’Chan and my fatherand get them out of there, and if I happened to learn anythingabout the conspiracy against Grandfather Nakada while the programwas running, that was fine and smooth. I was supposed toinvestigate the conspiracy, sure, but all I really intended to dowas take a quick look, because the odds were way the hell up therethat the important stuff was back on Prometheus. As far as I wasconcerned, I’d just come for my family.

So where to start?

My father was in a Seventh Heaven dreamtanksomewhere in Trap Under. ’Chan was at the Ginza, working for IRC.Neither one was all that easy to pull loose.

But ’Chan would be faster-all I had to dothere was convince him to make a run to the ship, and get himoff-planet before IRC stopped us. Once we were off Epimetheus,Nakada could debug whatever IRC might want to do.

My father I had to find first. Andgetting him aboard the ship would be easier without ’Chan trailingalong.

That meant starting in Trap Under. Do thehard part first. I waved, and a cab zipped up, door opening.

I got in, and the cab asked, “Where to,Mis’?”

I didn’t have an answer for that right thereand ready to run.

Most of Trap Under isn’t exactly open to thepublic; they don’t want the tourists wandering in, getting in theway. The tourists are supposed to stay up top, where everyone canskim off their money, not get down there in the maintenancecorridors. I couldn’t just walk in.

The obvious way into the Seventh Heavendreamtank was through the Seventh Heaven sales office in Trap Over,wherever it was, but that didn’t look as if it was going to worktoo well-if it were that easy, Nakada could have done it and atleast presented me with half the deal. Sure, Nakada was acompetitor and I was family-but I wasn’t legally family anymore, not since my parents did the dump on me more than twentyyears back, and competitors on Epimetheus weren’t all armed camps.Doing a favor for Grandfather Nakada wasn’t unthinkable.

So I wasn’t going to be able to do this theeasy way. I’d have to get into Trap Under somehow, and either scamor bribe or threaten my way to my father.

I tried to remember where the dreamtank was.I’d never visited it-there’s no point in visiting dreamers-but I’dhad a pretty good map of Nightside City in my head once.

And I’d lost it. Oh, I still had my naturalmemory, but I hadn’t kept it up, hadn’t thought about Trap Under ina year or so, and the old artificial-memory back-up had gottenfried when I took a little unscheduled vacation on the dayside,courtesy of the walking gritware who’d been conning SayuriNakada.

But the dreamtanks were mostly right underthe casinos, to make it easy for big-time losers to cash outpermanently; I remembered that much. And maybe I could beep ’Chan,let him know I was back on Epimetheus for the moment.

So maybe I wasn’t going to start with myfather after all. Maybe my brother did come first.

“The Ginza,” I said. “Service entrance.”

The cab didn’t bother to answer, it justzipped up into traffic, headed for Trap Over. I sat back, thinking,and hoping the cab didn’t decide to get chatty.

I hadn’t really planned anything out; I hadwanted to see the situation first-hand before I hit enter. Now Ihad to decide what I would run at the Ginza. I looked out thewindow, hoping for inspiration, but just saw twenty-meter ads fornude dancing at the Jade Club.

There was something oddly comforting aboutthose glimmering holographic ecdysiasts glowing against the darksky. I couldn’t have told you just how they were any different fromsome of the ads in Alderstadt or American City, but they were. Theymeant I was home.

It was a home I could never live in again, Iknew that, but it was still home.

Once we were in the Trap I spotted the Ginza,with its distinctive bronze-green tower and dragon banners, but thecab didn’t head for the fancy overhang; I’d told it the serviceentrance, so it looped around and dived down through the traffic,almost hitting a knot of giggling pedestrians as it veered into atunnel mouth and jigged its way down.

When the cab finally settled to the plasticflooring I still hadn’t debugged anything, but I paid the fare anda fat tip-it was Nakada’s money, not mine, and the cab hadn’tbothered me-and I got out.

The Ginza’s service entrance was one levelbelow the streets-technically, the top level of Trap Under. For allI knew, my father might have been just the other side of a wall,though it was more likely he was somewhere deep down, a hundredmeters or more below anywhere open to the public.

I still hadn’t come up with anything but theobvious, so I walked up to the door and told it, “I’m here to seeone of your employees, Sebastian Hsing. It’s family business.”

“You know you aren’t welcome here, Mis’Hsing.”

I should have realized it would recognize me.I’d known from my treatment back on Prometheus that IRC stillhadn’t forgiven me for my moment of folly a few years back, whenI’d given a welsher a chance to get away from them, and of coursethey’d keep everything in the system up to date. Their softwarewasn’t inclined to be helpful where I was concerned.

“I’m not here to play or solicit customers,”I said. “I just need to talk to my brother. It’s a privatematter.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“No,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able toreach him by com.”

I hadn’t actually tried, since I assumed IRCwas monitoring everything he saw or heard.

“I can give him a message,” the doorsaid.

That was probably the best I could hope for,so I said, “Tell him Carlie needs to talk to him about an urgentfamily matter.”

“He will receive the message at his nextbreak.”

“I’ll wait.” Human croupiers only didhalf-hour shifts-the casino didn’t want them getting distracted,thinking about the hot player a few seats down, or when dinnermight be, or a full bladder. Even more important, they didn’t wantthem watching enough play to start noticing bias in the equipment,so every table changed staff every thirty minutes, and ’Chan wouldhave ten minutes to play his messages and get a drink and whateverbefore heading to his next position. I could wait that long.

The door didn’t say anything. “Should I wait,Mis’?” the cab asked from behind me.

“No,” I told it. I almost started to explainthat I didn’t know how long I’d be there, but then I remembered itwas a cab. It didn’t care why.

“Thank you,” it said, and then it was gone,swooping away at an acceleration that would have been nasty for ahuman passenger.

I leaned against the wall by the door; theplastic was warm against my back.

I didn’t like that I hadn’t done anyplanning. I should have skimmed background from the nets before Ilanded. I hadn’t because I was used to having the data I neededright there waiting any time I bothered to ask for it, but thistime I couldn’t trust everything I pulled down. I didn’t have myold office com that knew everything about Nightside City anymore. Ididn’t have my new office com from Alderstadt, either. All I hadwas the public nets and what I carried with me. I wasn’t carryingmuch, and if Grandfather Nakada was right, I shouldn’t believeeverything I found on the public nets. So I was scrolling blind,seeing what came up the screen.

As I said, I wasn’t really looking forNakada’s conspiracy of assassins. I had to assume that if they’dgotten at the old man’s dreamware, they were smart enough to spotanyone who went poking around after them. I was just running my ownerrands, and keeping all ports open for data about the Nakada clan.If anything beeped, I’d take a look. If it all looked smooth, thenI’d go back to Prometheus and work that end.

For now, though, it was all family. With Mis’Perkins waiting for me on the ship I could get ’Chan and our fatheroff-planet without any tickets-if I could get them to the port.’Chan shouldn’t be too much trouble, but pulling a wirehead out ofthe dreamtanks was another program entirely. The only way I hadever heard of a wirehead coming out of the tank alive was if thecops needed her as a witness-city cops or casino cops, either one.If the wirehead survived, she went back in the tank afterward.

I’d seen vid of a wirehead witness once. Shelooked like walking gritware, and wanted nothing more than to getback to her dreams. She told them whatever they wanted to hear, soshe could get it over with and climb back in the tank, and thewhole time her eyes were flipping back and forth, trying not to seeboring old reality.

If I did get Dad out, the kindest thing Icould do would probably be to plug him into a new dreamtank onPrometheus. If Grandfather Nakada froze at paying for that, I’dcall it a medical expense.

I didn’t think he’d freeze. The moneyinvolved wasn’t enough to matter to the Nakadas.

But first I had to get Dad out, and to dothat, first I had to find him. The location of a particularwirehead was proprietary information, not something Seventh Heavengave out to anyone who asked-an amazing number of wireheads hadleft enemies behind who might like a chance to cut a few leads on aparticular dreamtank, just for old times’ sake. After all, peoplewho had a happy life and a lot of friends in the real world didn’tbuy the dream in the first place.

’Chan might know something. We might be ableto run the family pack on some flunky, even though the law said weweren’t family anymore.

The door suddenly said, “I have a messagefrom Sebastian Hsing for Carlisle Hsing.”

“I’m Carlisle Hsing,” I said. I held up mycard where the scan could read it, just in case it had decided toneed proof beyond whatever it had used to recognize me before.

’Chan’s voice came from the speaker. “I getoff after my next table. I can meet you in the employee lounge.This better be important, Carlie.”

The door slid open. “Please follow the bluelight to the employee lounge, Mis’ Hsing,” it said in its ownvoice. “Do not attempt to visit other areas.”

“Thank you,” I said. You never know whethersoftware’s advanced enough to appreciate the niceties, and itdoesn’t cost to use them.

Beyond the door was a drab corridor that ledto a door a dozen meters away; a ball of blue light hovered in theair a few meters in. I followed it in.

It led through the door, which opened aheadof me, then around a corner to the right and down another corridor,then up a ramp to another corridor, but this one had thickred-and-black fixed-color carpet and better-quality doors openingoff it. I could hear voices, human ones by the sound,somewhere.

Finally the blue light stopped in front of adoor upholstered in red vinyl. The door didn’t open for me, and atfirst I thought something had gone wrong, but there was the light,and it looked like a lounge. I pushed on the door with myhand, and it swung inward.

The room beyond was littered with discardedplates and teacups. The red-and-black carpet was the same as in thecorridor, but more worn, and with several old, dark stains. Onewall shone with the gentle blue of a welcome screen. Two tables anda dozen chairs were randomized; I settled onto a chair, let it fititself to me, then waved at the screen.

“Public access?” I asked.

“Available,” it replied.

“Tell me about Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery,”I said.

After all, if I was going to have to wait, Imight as well put the time to good use.

Half a dozen images appeared, waiting for meto choose-an ad for their services, a financial statement, customerreviews, and so on. I pointed at a newsy.

At least, I thought it was a newsy, but itwas hype. “There are many companies offering neurologicalservices,” it told me, “but one stands out from the crowd. The namemay be Seventh Heaven, but these dreams are second to none.”

It went on to tell me that Seventh Heaven hadbeen around for over a century, and was based on Mars, in SolSystem. I asked a question at that, and found out that theoperation on Epimetheus was a franchise operated entirely by localtalent-they leased the name and the equipment from the parentcompany.

So when Nightside City fried, what wouldhappen to their tanks? These people didn’t even own them,and somehow I doubted corporate back on Mars was going to comereclaim them if the locals packed up and left when the sun roseover the crater rim.

The com I was talking to didn’t have any dataon that, of course. I was trying to decide what I could ask thatmight be useful when the door opened and ’Chan stepped in. Heglanced at the screen, blinked, then looked at me.

“Carlie,” he said, “what are you doing here?I thought you were on Prometheus!”

“I was,” I said. “I came back.”

“You did what?”

“I came back.”

“Why? Why would you do something stupid likethat?”

“Two reasons,” I said. “First, I got hiredfor a job that includes poking around the old place a little.Second, I wanted to get you and Dad off-planet before the sun comesup.”

“Me… and Dad? Carlie, he’s in atank. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know that, but what I don’tknow is what Seventh Heaven’s going to do with the tanks when thedawn comes. So I want to transfer him to somewhere onPrometheus.”

’Chan stared at me for a minute, and eventhough he’s my brother I couldn’t read his expression. “SeventhHeaven?” he asked. “Is that the company’s name?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Carlie, theydumped us, remember? They didn’t want us anymore.”

“He’s still our father. Genetically, if notlegally.”

“Even assuming he is, which I would not betoo sure of, so what? He threw us away. We don’t owe himanything.”

This time I could see the hurt on ’Chan’sface just fine. I’d seen it there before often enough. I’d thoughthe’d be over it by now, the way I thought I was, but I’d obviouslymisjudged the situation.

I wasn’t going to say that directly, though.Instead I said, “I know. I want to get him out anyway.”

He stared at me for a few seconds more beforehe answered, but eventually he said, “You’re more generous than Iam. Go ahead, if you want, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“I was hoping you could help me findhim.”

“Me? You’re the detective, Carlie. I’m just acroupier.”

“But you know people here. I don’tanymore.”

“Carlie, I’m glad you’re free, and I’m happyto see you again, but I’m under contract to the Ginza. I can’t goanywhere or help you with anything if it would interfere with myjob.”

“That’s why I came to get you offEpimetheus.”

He didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “And howwere you going to do that? I can’t get a ticket.”

“You don’t need one. I have my own ship.”

That got his attention. “The hell youdo!”

“Fine, I don’t. I have the use of aship. My client owns it, but he’s back in American City, and I’mhere in Nightside City with his ship and crew, and they’re underorders to do what I say. I intend to get you and Dad aboard, thenget the hell off Epimetheus for good. Are you coming?”

“Who the fuck is your client? Sincewhen do you work for people with that kind of money?”

“Since I moved to Alderstadt,” I said.“Sayuri Nakada may not have been happy with me, but some of herfriends and family thought I’d done a good job. Good word of mouthmeans I get work.”

“Come on, Carlie. Anyone with his own damnspaceship can do better than you! I know you’re smart, Iknow you do an honest job, but you’re just a widget. Someone withthat kind of money can hire one of the big investigationfirms.”

It jittered me that my own brother didn’tthink I had the ram to do what I said, but I kept my temper. “Hehas reasons to keep this off the nets. You come on,’Chan-you think I’d come in here and tell you this if it weren’ttrue?”

“I don’t know, Carlie. It’s crazy, andsometimes you can be crazy.”

“Fine, then, but give me this much-come tothe port with me and take a look at the ship yourself. If there’sreally a ship, and the captain says he’ll really get youoff-planet, will you come?”

“Of course I will! You think I’m an idiot? Idon’t want to fry. I saw what you looked like after your littlestroll on the dayside. Nightside City’s going to be a fuckingmicrowave in a couple of years.”

“Then come on to the port with me and I’llshow you.”

’Chan hesitated, then admitted, “Ican’t.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Ithought he was just being stubborn, playing the big brother whodoesn’t want his little sister taking charge. “Why not?” Idemanded. I remembered that IRC was almost certainly listening,given where we were, so I added, “I’m not asking you to skip out onyour contract. Just come out to the port, so you can see I’m notcrazy. Then you can come back here, and when I’m ready to go youcan buy yourself out, nice and legal.”

“I can’t,” he repeated.

“Why not?”

“I’m on call,” he said.

“So what?” I didn’t see how that was aproblem.

“It means I agreed to accept an implant,” heexplained. “I can’t go more than ten minutes from the casino or mylegs shut down. I can’t go as far as the port to check out yourstory. And I can’t buy out my contract-that was part of the deal,too. Like it or not, I’m here until sunrise.”

Chapter Six

I couldn’t believe my own brother had been thatstupid. “What the hell were you thinking, agreeing to that?” Idemanded.

“I was thinking the bonus would be almostenough for my fare off-planet,” he answered instantly.

“Almost enough,” I repeated.

“Yeah, almost,” he said, and I couldsee he was getting angry-partly with me, but partly with himself.“I knew they were keeping it just a little short of what I’d need.IRC isn’t a charity; they want me to stay here until everythingcooks. I figured it would help. I wasn’t going anywhere for awhileanyway, so I’d have time to find the rest somehow. I didn’t know mykid sister was going to show up with a magic carpet to whisk me offto Prometheus.”

“It’s a ship, not a magic carpet, and gettingyou and Dad out of here with it is part of my fee.”

“Your fee? What the hell, Carlie-who agreedto that? Whose ship is it? Since when do you take anything butcredits?”

“When I don’t want the job and the clientneeds to come up with a way to make me take it anyway,” I said. “Away I’m having second thoughts about the more I look at you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help!”

“Neither did Dad. I’m here anyway.”

“You can leave any time, then. I’m stuck hereuntil my contract is up. Come back for me when the sun’s up.”

“The offer isn’t good that long. The clientwants me now, and I wouldn’t work until he got you two outof here.”

“He’s willing to hack off IRC andSixth…Seventh… the dreamtankers to get you?”

“Yes, he is.”

“I hadn’t thought my little sister was asspecial as all that.”

I was getting annoyed, but ’Chan had alwaysbeen able to hack my code, and he was angry enough himself that hedidn’t mind doing it. “Now you know,” I said.

“I know it, fine, but who knows it whodoesn’t mind risking a stay on IRC’s blacklist? You never used tooperate at that level.”

“I told you, I’ve done all right onPrometheus.”

He looked at me, and I could almost see thescreen flash. “You said Sayuri Nakada’s friends and family-you’reworking for one of the Nakadas, aren’t you?”

“None of your business. I’m here to get youoff-planet, not tell you my life story.”

“That’s it, though, isn’t it? And I can guesswhat the case is, and why they aren’t hiring one of the bigfirms.”

That froze me up for half a second. Hecouldn’t possibly know about the rigged dream enhancer, so what didhe think was up? “What are you talking about?”

“Someone hired you to investigate YoshioNakada’s murder, didn’t they?”

I stared at him for a moment, then said, “SoGrandfather Nakada’s been murdered?”

“Of course. Don’t try to tell me you didn’tknow-it must have happened while you were still on Prometheus, andthere’s no way you could have missed it. The family tried to hushit up, but it’s all over the nets. And whoever hired you didn’t goto one of the big firms because they don’t trust them-they knowthose people will switch sides and back the highest bidder if themoney’s big enough, and the killer may be one of the big heirs.You, though-you’re old-fashioned. You stay bought.Especially when they’re paying you with me and Dad.”

“Lovely theory, ’Chan,” I said, but what Iwas thinking was that he’d come closer to the truth than I’dwanted.

And it was… interesting to know thateveryone on Epimetheus thought Grandfather Nakada was dead, thatthe assassination had been successful. I wasn’t sure whether it wasgoing to make my job easier or harder, but it definitely pulled upsome new menus.

One was the possibility that he reallywas dead, and that I’d been hired by an actor-I didn’t thinkit could be a simulation; sims aren’t that convincing. I couldsmell the old man when we spoke, and we shook hands when heleft me on his ship, it wasn’t just image and audio.

Maybe an actor with a good makeover…

But why would anyone bother? And how hadwhoever it was gotten me the run of the old man’s yacht?

No, I’d spoken to the real Yoshio Nakada, andhe’d still been alive when I left Prometheus.

“I notice you aren’t denying it,” hesaid.

“I’m not confirming it, either. I’m trying tofigure out how I’m going to get you out of here-you and Dadboth.”

“You can’t.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Look, I’m going to have almost enough moneywhen my contract’s up-why don’t you just leave me here untilsunrise, then loan me the difference out of all the fat fees you’recollecting?”

“You know better than that. Once the sun isover the rim of the crater the fare off-planet is going to beeverything you can afford, no matter how much that is. It’ll leaveyou broke. If I try to contribute, it’ll leave mebroke.”

He tried to look as if he didn’t agree withme, but it didn’t work. He shifted aps.

“You can’t get me out, all right? Don’t worryabout it. Do your job. Get Dad out if you really want to, and ifyou can, then go back to your magic spaceship and fly back toAlderstadt. I’ll be fine. I may be broke when I land on Prometheus,but so what?”

“So I’d prefer you to not be.”

“If I break my contract with IRC, I’ll beworse than broke. Come back when it’s run out.”

“I can’t come back.”

“Why not? Make that part of your fee.”

I looked around, wondering just where thecams were, and what software would be processing this scene. Then Iturned back to my brother.

“Break your contract,” I said. “The fine’slimited to a million credits, and I can cover that.”

He stared at me as if I’d been pixelated.“How did you know that, and where would you get a millioncredits?”

“My client.”

“Well, your client must know that whateverthe official fine is, IRC isn’t going to be content with that.”

I couldn’t argue with that-unless ’Chan wasunder someone’s protection, someone like Grandfather Nakada, IRCwas likely to be vindictive. I knew that from first-handexperience.

“Why can’t you just wait for me? What’s therush?”

I wished I knew who or what would bereviewing the recordings of this conversation, but it seemed apretty safe bet that Yoshio Nakada wouldn’t be on the alert list;after all, if ’Chan was right, everyone in Nightside City thoughthe was dead, and the old man himself had said he had no reliablecommunication with anyone on Epimetheus.

“’Chan, I made a deal to get you out as mydown payment. I don’t start the investigation until you and Dad areon Prometheus. You think my client’s willing to wait untilsunrise?”

“So put it on hold! Go ahead and do your job,then come back for me.”

“You really think I’ll be able to findNakada’s killer?”

That stopped him dead.

“Oh,” he said. “I assumed… I mean, Ithought… I always thought you were pretty good at what youdo.”

“I’m not bad,” I said. “But think aboutit-someone went after Yoshio Nakada. You asked me when Istarted working for people who have their own ships, and I tried toclick past it, but you had a good point. I’m a widget. I’m going totry, I’m going to put in an honest effort, but I’m just an ordinarydetective. I can’t hack the universe’s code. Anyone who could getpast Nakada’s security can probably hide her tracks well enoughthat I’ll never find her. My client’s playing a long shot, hiringme. If that long shot comes in, if I find whoever’s behind it, thenwe’re smooth, I get paid and you get a free ride to Prometheus, but’Chan, what if it doesn’t pay off? I can’t ask for a fee I haven’tearned.”

“Well, you could ask,” he saidwryly.

“But I wouldn’t get it. But if I get you offEpimetheus now, that’s my deposit, I can keep that. Getit?”

“I get it,” he acknowledged. “And Iappreciate the try, Carlie, but it’s not going to work. I’m stuckhere. Find Dad, take him back to Prometheus with you, do your job,and if you pull it off you can come back for me, and if you can’t,hey, I’m no worse off than I was an hour ago.”

I sighed. I wasn’t ready to give up, but Ialso saw I wasn’t going to convince ’Chan of anything unless Icould bring something new to the conversation, something I hadn’tthought of yet. “Fine,” I said. “Can you help me find Dad?”

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t evenremember the name of the company. I don’t know anything more thanyou.” He glanced at the wall display. “I need to get back towork.”

“When do you get off? In case we want totalk.”

“Midnight. But I’ll probably be too tired todo anything but sleep, and what is there to talk about?”

I grimaced. “Probably nothing,” I said, “butI’m keeping on open mind.”

“You do that, Carlie.” He headed for thedoor. “And see if you can find out who killed Yoshio Nakada. Dothat, and we’re all set.”

“Yeah. I’ll try. Good night, ’Chan.”

Then the door closed behind him and I wasalone in the break room.

I looked at the wall. The hype for SeventhHeaven was still displayed.

“Locate nearest human-operated office forSeventh Heaven,” I said. I thought I’d do better persuading a humanto cooperate than software.

The hype vanished, and a map appeared, withdirections. I snorted.

Seventh Heaven had an office directly underthe Ginza. Very handy for the gamblers whose luck ran out. All Ihad to do was go back up the service corridor and out into thelower level of the casino, then take an elevator down two storiesinto Trap Under and follow the signs. I trotted out the door andheaded for the casino.

When I reached the turn where I didn’t headfor the door I’d come in through, a voice said, “You are notauthorized beyond this point.”

“I’m heading to an office down on B3,” Isaid. “Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery. Nothing to do with IRC or theGinza.” I kept walking.

For an instant, it didn’t reply. Then itsaid, “If you diverge from your announced route, you will beescorted from the premises and risk trespassing charges.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “I won’tdiverge.”

And I wouldn’t. I wasn’t giving up on mybrother, but I wasn’t going to be able to fly him away as easily asI’d hoped. For now, I was going after Dad, and once I had him, Iwould worry about ’Chan.

I told myself I should also look into thisstory that Yoshio Nakada was dead. If I could trace it back to itssource, that might tell me something useful. I didn’t really thinkI could clean out the conspiracy; I’d told ’Chan the truth aboutthat. I was operating far beyond my specs, and I knew it.Grandfather Nakada must have known it, too, but hiring me hadn’tcost him anything he couldn’t easily spare, so why not? Play enoughlong shots, and eventually one of them will come in.

I wondered what other programs the old manwas running. Surely, I wasn’t the only one.

But whether I was the only one or not, I’dbeen hired to do a job, and I was going to do my best to do thatjob.

I wished I had my old office com, in myoffice out on Juarez. It had all the software I’d need to rootthrough half the data on Epimetheus. I’d brought a selection of mybest wares with me from Alderstadt, but that wasn’t the same ashaving the network I’d spent years building up here in NightsideCity.

I swung open the door and stepped out ontothe casino floor, where a flood of sound and color flashed over me.The slap of cards on felt, the buzz and clatter of a hundreddifferent randomizers, and the hum of voices filled the air. So didglittering visual come-ons of every sort, stardust swirls andimages of naked women and flashing holograms of personal cardsshowing million-credit balances, bouncing balls and playing cardsand tropical beaches.

It made me homesick. Oh, Alderstadt andAmerican City had their share of advertising, but it wasn’t thesame as the Trap-Alderstadt closed down at night, and American Cityseemed to do everything in pink and silver. Nightside City had itsown style. I’d had a glimpse of it during the cab ride from theport, but it hadn’t really sunk in the way this view did. Thecasino was like a miniature version of the view of Trap Over I’dhad from my old office.

But I wasn’t allowed to diverge from myroute, so I couldn’t stop and take it in. I couldn’t poke around. Ikept moving.

As I made my way toward the elevator Iwondered what had become of the place on Juarez after I left.

Then I told myself I was being an idiot. Iknew what happened to it-nothing. Juarez was in the burbs west ofthe Trap, and sunlight was already crawling down the western rim ofthe crater that sheltered the city. Most of the west end wasalready abandoned and empty. There was no way my old landlord hadfound another tenant.

I stopped in my tracks as a thought hitme.

There was no way my landlord had foundanother tenant. My old office would be standing empty. Had he evenbothered to change the codes, or clear out my old furniture? Thatcom system I had been missing might still be there. Oh, I’d shut itdown when I left, but I hadn’t taken the time to wipe it properly;there wasn’t much on it I’d cared about enough to make sure it waserased.

That was something I might want to check outwhile I was in town.

Right now, though, I was headed down intoTrap Under to find Seventh Heaven and my father’s still-breathingremains. I started walking again, ignoring the floaters that werestarting to cluster around me, offering free drinks, or a buy-inbonus for the tables, or discounted admission to the privateshows.

The elevator was feeling chatty when Istepped in, but I didn’t listen as it started telling me about allthe delights Nightside City had to offer. “Down,” I said. “LevelB3.”

The doors closed, and once it heard that Iwas headed lower the ads changed mood. “Rough night?” the elevatorasked. “We’ve got options-credit on easy terms, service contracts,a dozen ways to get back in the game.”

“I’m here on private business,” I said. “Shutup.”

“Yes, mis’.” Then it shut up. Some places theelevators would have kept talking, but the Ginza was a classoutfit.

The door opened on a quiet corridor carpetedin a restful shade of blue, with walls that shimmered gently. Adisplay hung in the air, directing me to the Ginza’s financialcenter and personnel offices, an organ broker or two, and SeventhHeaven Neurosurgery. I reached up and tapped that last one, and itturned orange. Orange arrows appeared in the carpet, as well.

I followed the arrows, and found my way to adoor that showed a scene out of some ancient fantasy, with men andwomen wearing wisps of pastel gauze as they cavorted amid whitemarble columns and red and gold tapestries. The name “SeventhHeaven Neurosurgery,” in golden letters, drifted through the skyvisible between the columns.

I walked up to it; the images faded away, andthe door slid open. I stepped through into a sunlit forest glade,and a gentle voice said, “An attendant will be with you shortly. Abench is available to your right.”

Ordinarily I don’t need to be told where theseats are, but the bench was half-hidden by the images, whichcovered every available surface. Knowing where to look saved me asecond or two. I took a seat.

Birds flitted through the trees, green andred and blue amid the golden sunlight and green leaves. It waspretty, but I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it.

“Seems to me it’s bad psychology, doing thewaiting room up like this,” I said to the room. “Doesn’t it remindcustomers that they can live in whatever setting they want withouthaving the whole thing fed straight into their brains?”

“Oh, no,” that soothing voice replied. “Theseare just images. You can’t touch them, or smell them, or tastethem, and your options are limited to what’s already in memory.They’re nowhere near as immersive as the dream experience we offer.A quick sample will demonstrate the difference; just five minutesand you’ll see just how unsatisfying these mere images of coloredlight really are. Shall I set a trial session up for you?”

I shuddered. “No. I’m here on familybusiness, I’m not a customer.”

“I see. Here’s Mis’ Wu to help you.”

A handsome young man appeared, stridingthrough the trees toward me, with a unicorn close on his heels. Hisdeep-gray worksuit looked incongruous in that fantasy setting, so Iwasn’t surprised, when the image skipped slightly as the real Mis’Wu stepped through the projection into the room, to see that he wasreally wearing exactly that suit.

That skip-you’d think they could avoid that,adjust the image on the fly so that it matched the real man. Maybethey just didn’t care about such details; after all, everyone whocame here knew perfectly well these trees weren’t real, thesunlight wasn’t real, the birds and unicorn didn’t exist.

In fact, I wondered whether they left thattiny flaw in there deliberately, just to remind you that thiswas a cheap illusion, and they could sell you a much betterone.

“May I help you?” Mis’ Wu asked, smiling.

I stood up. “I’m looking for Guohan Hsing,” Isaid.

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize the name.”

“Mis’ Hsing is a long-term customer,” theoffice voice said. “He has been with us almost twenty years.”

“Ah, that was before my time,” Mis’ Wusaid.

In most businesses, I’d expect a front-officetype like this to have the complete client specs somewhere in hisown head. For a dreamtank, though, what was the point? Generallyonce someone bought a permanent contract, the only people who hadto worry about her were the techs who maintained the tank and keptthe customer’s body alive. The salespeople didn’t need to know whowas stashed away in back.

At least, ordinarily they didn’t, but here Iwas, looking for my father.

“What’s your interest in Mis’ Hsing?” Wuasked.

“It’s a family matter,” I said. “I’m hisdaughter.”

Wu frowned.

“At the time of his contracting with us, Mis’Hsing had no children on record,” the office said.

I sighed. “He emancipated us,” I said.“Genetically, he has three children.”

“Legally, he has none.”

“This isn’t a legal matter; it’s a familyconcern.”

“Mis’ Wu?” the office said, indicating thatit had reached the limits of its programming.

“A family is a legal entity,” Wu said.

“A family is also a genetic network,”I said.

“What do you want with Guohan Hsing?”

“I want to be sure he’s all right. Certain…genetic issues have arisen.”

“Mis’ Hsing is in perfect health,” the officesaid. “His life chamber is functioning properly in every way.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said, smiling. “But as Isay, we have reasons to be concerned about his continued healththat have nothing to do with Seventh Heaven’s no doubt excellentservice.”

“Are you saying there’s some sort ofhereditary defect involved?” Wu asked.

“There might be, yes.”

“I believe we test our customers for suchthings,” Wu said.

“Indeed we do,” the office agreed.

This was not going as smoothly as I hadhoped. I thought for a moment, looking at Wu’s manly face, thendecided that it might be worth giving the truth a try.

“I’m also concerned,” I said, “about what’sgoing to happen to him once the sun’s above the crater wall, andNightside City gets bathed in hard ultraviolet.”

“Oh,” Wu said. “Well, as you can see, we’resafely below the surface here. We’ll continue our operationsuninterrupted.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course! We have contracts.”

“You won’t transfer your clients toPrometheus, or one of the mining colonies?”

“We have no plans to do so. The EtaCassiopeia division of Seventh Heaven is based right here inNightside City, in Trap Under, and we expect to stay.”

“Do you, personally, intend to stay?”I asked.

Wu looked uneasy. “I… haven’t decided,” hesaid.

“I don’t mean any offense, Mis’ Wu, but mybrother and sister and I would feel more comfortable if our fatherwas housed on Prometheus, rather than here in Nightside City. Wewould, of course, be happy to pay the cost of transferringhim.”

Wu’s uneasiness turned to misery. “I’msorry,” he said. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Under the terms of his contract, SeventhHeaven Neurosurgery is Mis’ Hsing’s legal guardian,” he said. “Weare obligated to ensure his safety. We cannot entrust it to anyoneelse.”

“Yes?”

“We’re only on Epimetheus. We can’t take himelsewhere.”

“You don’t have a branch on Prometheus? OrCass II, or out-system?”

“I regret to say we do not. All ourlife chambers are right here in Trap Under.”

Life chambers-who thought up thateuphemism for dreamtanks? “Can’t you transfer guardianship tous?”

“No, Mis’ Hsing, we can’t. Our contracts arevery firm about that; many of our clients are quite insistent onit. The idea of being passed from hand to hand-they find that verydisturbing. Our guardianship is non-transferrable.”

“But we’re his family!”

“Legally, you aren’t.”

“Can’t you wake him up and ask him ifwe can move him to Prometheus? I’m sure we can arrange matters witha company in Alderstadt, and do it in such a way that SeventhHeaven doesn’t lose any credits.”

“The potential liability in a situation likethat-no, we can’t. We can’t wake him without a court order, in anycase, and even if we did, he wouldn’t be legally competent. We havea contract and legal precedents that say as much.”

“I don’t believe this,” I said. “There mustbe some way he can be moved.”

“No, I don’t think there is.”

I stared at him for a moment, and thathandsome face of his seemed much less appealing than it had when hefirst entered.

“Fine,” I said at last. “I’m sure he’ll besafe here with you.”

“I’m sure he will, Mis’ Hsing. Honestly.”

“Could we at least get a tissue sample tocheck for genetic disorders?” I didn’t really have any use for one,so far as I knew, but I thought I might as well maintain my coverstory.

“I think we can do that. Give us forty-eighthours, and we can bring it to you. Where are you staying?”

I grimaced. “Never mind,” I said. “Thank youfor your time.” I turned to go.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help,” hecalled after me as I stepped out of the glade and back into thecorridors of Level B3.

“So am I,” I said.

Because it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to getDad out. It just meant I wasn’t going to do it legally oreasily.

Chapter Seven

A casino cop was waiting for me in the elevator,ready to escort me out of the Ginza. She didn’t seem particularlyhostile about it; I wasn’t being thrown out, IRC was just keepingan eye on me.

I couldn’t blame them. After all, I had triedto steal one of their employees. This wasn’t about that welsheryears ago; this was about ’Chan. I went peacefully.

As I walked I thought matters over, andwondered whether I really had any business here at all. Mis’ Wu andthe office AI had seemed pretty confident that they could keep myfather alive and well in his tank after the sun rose, and maybethey could. Up until Grandfather Nakada had made his pitch, I’dbeen perfectly willing to leave Dad in their hands. I tried toremember just why it had seemed so urgent to get him and ’Chanout.

Well, ’Chan-he did need to get out. Iknew how to do it, too, though I hadn’t said so where IRC couldhear me. I’d need to do it quickly, and it would leave a mess forNakada to clean up, but I didn’t see that as a real problem.

The need for speed did mean I had to leave ituntil last.

I had come to Nightside City with three jobsto run-get ’Chan out, get Dad out, and see what I could learn aboutNakada’s assassin. As I told ’Chan, I hadn’t really thought I wouldget anywhere with that third one, but unless I thought of a betteralgorithm I had to leave ’Chan until last, and getting my fatherout wasn’t running smooth, so maybe I should take a look at theNakada case.

’Chan thought Yoshio Nakada was dead. Thatwas interesting. Did everyone on Epimetheus think so? I wanted acom. My wrist terminal didn’t have enough screen space for some ofwhat I wanted to do, and I didn’t entirely trust the systems on theship-the ship was Nakada property, and even if it was old Yoshio’spersonal yacht, that didn’t mean his family couldn’t have tamperedwith it. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to be doing, but Ididn’t think it was all going to be stuff I wanted the entireNakada clan to know.

I tapped for a cab before I was even out thedoor of the Ginza, and one was waiting for me, door open, when Ireached the street. I gave my cop escort a friendly wave, thenclimbed into the cab and told it, “Juarez.”

The old neighborhood had dropped a few bitssince I left, and it was easy to see why-sunlight was glinting fromthe upper floors of the taller buildings, which just lookedwrong. The streets were mostly empty. I guessed some peoplehad already managed to get off-planet somehow, but that most werecrowding over to Eastside, deeper into the shadow of the craterwall.

The door of my old building let me in, noquestions asked-as I suspected, the landlord hadn’t bothered towipe my access. After all, I’d left Epimetheus, and why in thegalaxy would I ever come back? No reason to worry about me.

But here I was, all the same. I went up theone flight to my office.

It was just as I’d last seen it. I walked inand sat down at my desk, and it was as if I’d never left.

Except I had left. I’d wiped most ofmy files before I left, so I knew I couldn’t just plug back in andride the wire. I’d brought copies of my office software, but Ididn’t have any of the local updates, and I hadn’t kept all thedata I’d had when I lived here. I hadn’t thought I would ever needit. I could get on the nets, I could function, but I wouldn’t haveeverything I used to have.

On the other hand, I had stuff now I’d neverhad before. I had some access codes Grandfather Nakada gave me. Ihad information about how Nakada Enterprises was set up here. And Ihad a spaceship waiting for me at the port.

I booted up my desk, fed in the software I’dbrought with me, and ran a few checks. When I was satisfied, Ijacked in and started to dig.

’Chan had been right. The stories about howold Yoshio Nakada had died in his sleep, reportedly on the samenight he was actually attacked, were all over the nets, and therewere rumors that it hadn’t been a natural death. People didn’tbelieve that his symbiotes would have let him die without settingoff a dozen alarms.

They didn’t know what I knew, that he gavethe dream enhancer partial override authority that got it past hisdefenses. Hell, they didn’t know a dream enhancer had anything todo with it; they just didn’t believe he could die of natural causeswithout warning.

And of course, I knew something else no oneon Epimetheus knew. I knew that old Nakada was still alive andwell.

At least, he had been when I left Prometheus,and if he’d died since then it would be an even bigger story on thenets. Dying twice isn’t exactly an everyday event even for thespectacularly rich.

So why did everyone in Nightside City thinkhe was dead?

Because they had been told that he was. Areport of his death had been received from American City, back onPrometheus, and it had been verified.

But who had sent that report? Who hadverified it? How was it done?

Most importantly, why was it done? Whydid someone want everyone on Epimetheus to think that Nakada wasdead? Who did it benefit, and in what way? The Nakada familyholdings in Nightside City weren’t that extensive. They did own theNew York-the New York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall-which was amid-range casino in the Trap, catering to both tourists fromoff-planet and miners from elsewhere on the dark side ofEpimetheus.

But that was most of their property here.They owned some unremarkable real estate, and a few smallbusinesses, but nothing else major.

The New York was managed by a man named VijayVo. He had been with the Nakadas forever, and had run the New Yorksince it first opened. He ran it well. There wasn’t a hint that hemight be involved in a plot to murder his employer; the rumors allseemed to take it for granted that the killers, whoever they were,were all on Prometheus. No one had suggested any local ties-butthey didn’t know Grandfather Nakada was only dead on Epimetheus. Idid.

Was Vo a candidate for my assassin?

I didn’t see it. He had been loyal for myentire life and more, he was coming up on an honorable retirementsoon, the New York was presumably going to shut down at sunrise-whywould Vo suddenly turn on Yoshio?

And how would he benefit from the old man’sdeath? He already had a free hand in running the New York, all themore so since Sayuri Nakada got shipped back to Prometheus.

That brought up a possibility-when Sayuri gotsent home, who replaced her as the family’s representative onEpimetheus? I didn’t know, but I thought it would be easy to findout.

It wasn’t quite as simple as I thought. Therehadn’t been any official announcements. I had to poke around alittle.

Officially, no one had. Which did make sense.Sayuri had been sent to Nightside City in the first place largelyto keep her out of the way after she’d made a mess of things backon Prometheus, and she had been given control of everything theNakadas did here except the New York, since that was theonly thing that really mattered. The position she had held had beencreated for her; it wasn’t really necessary. Vijay Vo wasn’t aNakada, but he was still capable of running everything herehimself.

There had been a few visits by one ofYoshio’s granddaughters, though, a woman named Akina Nakada. Shewas Sayuri’s first cousin once removed-not a very closerelationship. She seemed to have been responsible for making sureSayuri hadn’t left any awkward programs running, and also forseeing that no one on Epimetheus realized just how stupid Sayurihad been, or why she got called back to Prometheus.

Did she gain anything from the reportsof Yoshio’s death? Nothing very obvious, certainly.

Sayuri herself wasn’t mentioned anywhere inconnection with the supposed death, and hadn’t set foot onEpimetheus in almost a year. She might have been involved in theattempt to kill her great-grandfather-she wasn’t clever enough tohave done it single-handedly, but she could be part of aconspiracy, perhaps even its instigator-but I couldn’t see anyreason for her to have sent a false report of his death.

There wasn’t an obvious beneficiary. Icouldn’t see any way in which the fake death changed anything inNightside City. Whether Yoshio Nakada was alive or dead, Vijay Voran the New York. Whether Yoshio Nakada was alive or dead, AkinaNakada was just the family’s troubleshooter, not directly involvedin anything of consequence. And Sayuri didn’t have anything to dowith Nightside City anymore.

So what did the alleged death change?It didn’t change anything in law enforcement, since it hadsupposedly taken place on Prometheus and it was officially due tonatural causes, and not a murder at all. It didn’t change anythingfinancially, so far as I could see. It didn’t alter the powerstructure.

I thought at first that it meant anyinstructions Yoshio sent would be ignored, and maybe someone wantedto undercut him on Epimetheus, but I quickly realized that wasbuggy-if instructions got through, even if they weren’t believed orobeyed, that would start an investigation and the whole program,whatever it was, would crash. If someone was trying to prevent theold man from intervening on Epimetheus, faking his death wasexactly the wrong way to go about it. Using whatever software hadfaked the death reports to block the incoming orders madefar more sense.

His actual death would have hadimmense effects, but they would all be back on Prometheus, or inthe struggling little colony on Cass II, or in other systemsentirely. Nothing obvious would change here on Epimetheus-but sofar as I knew, it was only on Epimetheus that he was believed to bedead.

The whole thing was glitched. After all,sooner or later someone from Prometheus who knew Grandfather Nakadawas still alive was going to show up and debug the system, so anychanges in ownership or control or cash flow would be rebooted.Whatever our mysterious gritware wanted, it had to be somethingthat didn’t need to be permanent. I tried to think what that couldbe, and the screen kept coming up blank.

So I almost missed it. I almost just let itgo right past me. Finally, though, a passing mention in one reportbeeped something, and I realized what would be changed by YoshioNakada’s death that would not be changed by illness, or a trip outof the Eta Cassiopeia system, or bankruptcy, or anything else. Istill didn’t see why it could possibly matter, but there was onething that his death brought about.

It meant that his In-The-Event-Of-Death fileswere opened.

Anyone in any sort of high-risk occupationmaintains ITEOD files, of course-all the secrets that you wouldn’twant anyone to know while you’re alive, but which you don’t wantlost if you die. Everyone who might want you dead, everythingyou’ve hidden away that you want your heirs to have, it all goesinto the ITEOD files, tucked away behind the most ferocioussecurity possible. Anyone cruising the net who gets too close tothe ITEOD files gets warned off; try to touch them and you’ll getthe most horrific feedback you’ve ever experienced. Go in on wire,and it’s like monsters screaming inside your brain, like blindinglight and the stench of death. There are layers of software thathate each other guarding it, competing to keep everyone out. Nobodyhas ever cracked an ITEOD file.

But when a death is reported and verified,the file is delivered to the city cops and read by both a human andan artificial intelligence. It doesn’t all become public, but itall comes out from behind the firewalls and encryption.

Did Yoshio Nakada have something in the ITEODfiles in Nightside City, something that someone else wanted abetter chance to hack? He undoubtedly had terabytes of juicygoodness in ITEOD files back on Prometheus, or whatever thePromethean equivalent of ITEOD files was-I hadn’t happened to haveany reason to check out whether cities on Prometheus had the samesystem Nightside City did, but I guessed there was somethingsimilar.

The first question was whether Yoshio Nakadaeven had ITEOD files in Nightside City. He’d never livedhere.

But he had visited here, he had businessinterests here, and he struck me as the kind of person who’d wantoffsite back-ups, so I was guessing he did have somethinghere. And if someone had wanted something in that file, faking theold man’s death was probably the best way to get at it.

If that was the motive for the bogusreports of his death, then was it the would-be assassin who wasresponsible for it?

Whoever reported the death must have knownabout the attempted murder; the supposed death matched the failedassassination perfectly, and I couldn’t buy that as merecoincidence. Did that mean the liar was the assassin?

Not necessarily. It might be someone else whohad been part of the conspiracy, or it might have been someone whofound out after the fact, perhaps while spying on the old man. Butit certainly might be the same guy.

I began to wonder whether I might actuallycrack this after all, and earn my five million bucks, and get ’Chanand our father safely off-planet. Tracing back the fake deathreport might not be possible, since the party responsible wouldhave expected that and would have covered her tracks as well as shepossibly could, but if the motive really was something in the ITEODfiles-and I couldn’t think what else it might be-then I might catchher by checking everyone who had accessed those.

In fact, maybe that was why someone had triedto kill Grandfather Nakada in the first place. Maybe the would-bekiller didn’t really care one way or the other about the old man’sdeath, but was absolutely desperate to get at something in thefiles.

That was, I admitted to myself, unlikely, butI couldn’t rule it out completely.

This was all lovely in theory, but I didn’tyet know whether it had any link to reality. I had someinvestigating to do, and I did it. This didn’t call for anythingfancy; there were public lists of who was included.

Sure enough, Yoshio Nakada had establishedstandard ITEOD files here in Nightside City fifty or sixty yearsago, and they had been updated regularly whenever he visited, andsometimes by encrypted uploads from Prometheus, as well. Thosefiles were turned over to the city cops about an hour after thereport of his death was verified.

I went to take a look at them.

I don’t mean I left my old office; I didn’t.I was still jacked in to my old desk, dancing the nets on wire, andI went looking for the files on the police nets. I didn’t havelegal access, but I’ve never worried much about details likethat.

I hadn’t made up anything special for thissort of cracking, since ten minutes earlier I hadn’t known I wasgoing to be trying it, but I had my standard collection ofwatchdogs and retrievers, and I put them to work. I cruised thecyberscape around the police nets and launched little exploratoryjabs into the cracks and crannies, and at the same time I wasscrolling through all the public data, looking for anything thatmight seem relevant and incidentally keeping some of the cops’software occupied.

I focused most of my attention on that, butat the same time some little corner of my head had already moved onto the next question about the falsified death report. I had atheory as to why someone sent it, but I didn’t have a clueas to how.

Grandfather Nakada’s floater back onPrometheus had said the old man didn’t trust anyone on his staff inNightside City anymore, and that he believed his family’s softwarehad been seriously compromised. I wondered whether he had actuallybeen in contact with Epimetheus at all. Whoever faked the report ofthe old man’s death had somehow controlled communications betweenthe two planets so completely that nothing and no one contradictedhis story. In fact, he’d faked official verification of theoriginal lie.

That shouldn’t be possible.

A human being couldn’t do it unassisted, Iwas sure of that; some pretty powerful software would be needed tomonitor and control all the communications between Epimetheus andPrometheus well enough to catch any reference to whether YoshioNakada was alive or dead. Software that powerful was more likelythan not to be an intelligence in its own right.

Maybe there really was a conspiracy here, andmaybe some of the conspirators weren’t human.

And there I was, with my brain plugged intothe nets, my consciousness roaming a domain where software was moreat home than we mere mortals, poking into places this theoreticalintelligence probably did not want me poking.

I had just had that unpleasant thought whenone of my retrievers came buzzing back to me to say that it hadfound Yoshio Nakada’s ITEOD files, including the access records,and was fetching me a copy of everything. I just had to keep itactive long enough.

I called my watchdogs in to guard it, let myother retrievers shut down one by one as they reported in, andwaited.

And I saw it coming, saw it and felt it andheard it through the synesthetic web link, I even smelledit, and tasted smoky copper. Something big and blue-black andscreaming was searching for… well, I didn’t really know what itwas searching for, but my best guess was that my retriever haddisturbed it, tripped some sort of warning that had brought thisthing swooping down on me. It felt like hot melting velvet as itflashed past me down into the police records, and smelled ofvinegar and burning styrene.

Three of my watchdogs just vanished, eraseddown to the last bit. I erased the retriever myself, to reduce thechances of being traced, and then got the hell out of there. Ipulled the plug from the back of my neck and was back in my officeon Juarez, sitting in the dark-I hadn’t reactivated the walls orlights, only the desk. The windows faced east, and I had themdimmed but not opaque, so I could still see the seething, squirmingcolors of the Trap, but that was the only light in the room-thedesktop had gone dark.

I rebooted the desk and took a look. Theretriever had downloaded 93% of Yoshio Nakada’s ITEOD files,including the complete access log; the odds were that I had gottenwhatever was there that I wanted to get.

There was a lot there to get; the deskhad partially crashed because it had run out of memory and hadn’tbeen able to swap data offsite fast enough. It would have been fineif I had let it slow down, or if the security had been a bitlooser, but I’d been in a hurry.

What the hell was in there, that took thatmuch memory? That desk could hold a dozen human minds withoutstraining, right down to suppressed childhood memories, butNakada’s files had filled every last gigabyte.

If I could have talked to the old man justthen I would have had some pretty pointed questions to ask, but hewasn’t even on the same planet, and communications between the twowere not to be trusted.

I had some other questions I didn’t thinkNakada could have answered. For one, what was that thing thatchased me off? That wasn’t standard cop security. That wasn’tanything I had ever seen before. I didn’t know what it would havedone to me if I’d let it, and I didn’t want to find out. I’d hadhostile software in my brain before, and had no interest inrepeating the experience.

Did the cops even know it was there? To havethe effect it did that thing must have huge bandwidth; it would behard to miss. Whoever programmed it hadn’t been going for subtlety.But if the cops knew it was there, wouldn’t they do something aboutit?

Had it been prowling the nets at random? Wasit guarding the old man’s ITEOD file? Had it been looking for me?It might be doing any of those, or it might be something elseentirely. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.Maybe it was guarding something else, or chasing someone else.Maybe it was after something else in the police net.

Lots of questions, not enough answers.

I had to admit, though, that it looked as ifI was onto something. Whether it really was a conspiracy to murderYoshio Nakada I didn’t know; why anyone would want to murderYoshio Nakada I didn’t know.

But I was definitely ontosomething.

Chapter Eight

The access log I’d snagged with Grandfather Nakada’sITEOD files wasn’t exactly long, nor was it hugely informative.There were only three entries.

An officer named Hu Xiao had accessed thefiles under the direction of the court, and had copied portions. Anote indicated that the copying was for later analysis, and thatMis’ Hu had filed a report of his findings. The report was notavailable to the public.

An analytical program named Dipsy 3 hadaccessed the files. What Dipsy had done with them wasn’t listed.Dipsy was presumably pointed at the files by the courts, same as Huwas.

And finally, someone using a NakadaEnterprises corporate account had downloaded a complete copy of thefiles. No further details were included.

That third one-if the faked death had beendone to get at the ITEOD files…

Well, no. I couldn’t rely on that. Someonemight have been subtle and gotten what he was after by crackingHu’s storage, rather than the original the cops had. Or maybe Dipsyhad been tagged for it. Or maybe the original Nakada download waslegitimate, but then our interplanetary liar had gotten at itsomewhere in the corporate nets.

But the third one was worth a look, so Iplugged back in and started doing a trace on the account.

I’d expected it to be used by the New YorkGames Corporation, the subsidiary that ran the casino and most ofthe other Nakada businesses on Epimetheus, but it wasn’t. It was ahigh-level account for officers of Nakada Enterprises itself, ormembers of the Nakada family.

I unplugged again and stared at the displayon my desk.

This was too easy.

Grandfather Nakada thought a member of hisown family had tried to kill him. I had guessed that the motivemight be connected with his ITEOD files, and here was someone whomight be a member of the Nakada family accessing those ITEODfiles.

It couldn’t be that simple. I was good at myjob, but I wasn’t that good-or rather, I couldn’t believeany Nakada could be that bad at covering her tracks. Eventhat grithead Sayuri would probably have done better than this.

Of course, that assumed there was areason to cover those tracks. Maybe whoever this was hadn’thad anything to do with the attempted murder, or the fraudulentreports of Yoshio’s death.

It also assumed that I could identify whichfamily member it was. That wasn’t a sure thing.

I had looked over the Nakada family treeduring the flight from Prometheus, but now I pulled it up andlooked again.

Yoshio Nakada was the oldest surviving memberof the clan. His two siblings, both younger, were long dead. Yoshiohad married three times and sired five children-at least, five heacknowledged-over a period of about a century, ending roughly ahundred years ago. There had been eleven grandchildren, twenty-sixgreat-grandchildren (including my old friend Sayuri), thirty-threegreat-great-grandchildren, and forty-seven great-great-greatgrandchildren, so far. I didn’t bother counting up the threeyoungest generations; half of them were just kids, and all of themwere so low on the corporate ladder that I couldn’t take themseriously as any sort of threat.

A lot of these people were dead, and therewere dozens of spouses, ex-spouses, and concubines in the mix, ofcourse.

And then there were the two collateralbranches. Yoshio’s sister Hinako had one daughter, Narumi, who waschildless, twice widowed, and still alive, but at last report wason Earth, not in the Eta Cassiopeia system at all.

The Wheeler Drive could have gotten her herequickly enough, but why would she bother? So far as I knew, she hadnothing against her Uncle Yoshio.

Yoshio’s brother Masanori had been a littlemore prolific. He had fathered fifteen children on eight wivesbefore he finally died. There were a couple of hundred descendantson that side, but most of them had no real ties to the corporateclan; in fact, most of them were working for New Bechtel-Rand orITD or other interstellars, not for Nakada Enterprises at all.

I thought I could safely ignore Narumi andmost of Masanori’s brood, but that still left quite a crowd.Figuring out which of them had a motive to do in their ancestorwould call for some processing. So would figuring out which oneshad the capability. Jiggering the old man’s personal com with afatal dream enhancement program wasn’t something everyone coulddo.

I frowned. You didn’t need to get in therewith your own hands to set that up, but you did need real-timeaccess to the family net, which meant you had to be on Prometheusat some point-not necessarily the night it went off, but at somepoint before that. I could eliminate anyone who had never set footon Prometheus.

And accessing the ITEOD files-again, youdidn’t need to be there at the time, but I didn’t see how thatcould be done safely from off-planet. The fake death reports, yeah,those could be done from Prometheus, though it would be tricky tokeep the cover on the hoax for very long, but the ITEOD downloadhad been done through the Nightside City nets. Someone had loggedon here.

Which members of the Nakada family had beenon Epimetheus recently?

Akina Nakada, for one. She was the only onewho had been here openly on family business.

But all the tourists in the Trap-there mighthave been a few Nakadas in that crowd.

And I didn’t really know it was a familymember who had accessed the ITEOD files; it could have been someother corporate officer. There were plenty of trusted people whoweren’t part of the clan-Vijay Vo, for one, or Grandfather Nakada’saide, Ziyang Subbha.

Or maybe someone had been acting as an agentfor someone higher up, someone who could tell her how to accessthat account. Any of the older members of the Nakada family couldhave arranged that, from the old man’s surviving children-therewere two of the five still alive, a son named Ryosaku and adaughter named Kumiko-all the way down to the dozens in Sayuri’sgeneration.

Agent or principal, if I could find out whowas using that particular corporate account when the ITEOD fileswere accessed, I might have a real lead on the assassin-or I mightnot.

I did what I should have done sooner, andbeeped Nakada’s ship. “Incoming data,” I told it. “Store it andback it up, maximum security, for access only by myself or YoshioNakada.” I hoped that would keep it away from any back doors thatother Nakadas might have installed, but I wasn’t really all thatvery concerned, since after all, most of what I was sending wasstuff my mysterious conspirators presumably already had. I told mydesk to transmit its entire content, old and new. A spaceship wouldhave enough capacity for that, I was sure.

Now I’d have everything somewhere relativelysafe, and if I managed to get my head blown off, or found myself onthe dayside again, at least Grandfather Nakada would have somethingto show for his investment, even if most of it was his own ITEODfiles.

While that was transmitting I sat back andtried to think, which was what I was doing when the front doorbeeped and I heard someone say, “Damned squatters.”

I sat up. I hadn’t heard that voice in over ayear, but I knew who it had to be. I must have tripped an alarmsomewhere, and my old landlord, George Hirata, knew someone was inhis building.

He should have known who I was, though. Thedoor knew. That’s why it let me in.

I tapped a command, and as the door’s vidfeed appeared on the desk I said, “Hello, Mis’ Hirata.”

He looked up at the cam, scowling. It wasdefinitely Hirata.

He had two cops with him, though; I hadn’texpected that.

I’d left my gun on the ship, since I hadn’tthought I could take it into the Ginza with me. One cop had aweapon in his hand, though I couldn’t tell whether it was a stunneror something more lethal. This was not going to be a situationwhere I could play tough.

“Who the hell are you, using Hsing’s ID?” thelandlord demanded.

“I’m Carlisle Hsing,” I said. “It’s myID.”

“Hsing is on Prometheus,” Hirata said. “Oroff-planet, anyway.For all I know she’s on Cass II or Earth orFomalhaut II. Who are you really?”

He could hear me, but he couldn’t see me; theentryway didn’t have a proper screen. And of course, I could havefaked the image if there were one.

“It’s really me, Mis’ Hirata,” I said. “Icame back for my brother.” Before he could say anything else, Iadded, “I know I don’t have any right to be here, but I needed acom, and you didn’t change the codes. I’ll be happy to pay you halfa month’s rent.”

I love expense accounts.

“Now I know you aren’t Hsing,” hesaid. “She wouldn’t have offered more than three days.”

“I’ve done well on Prometheus, Mis’ Hirata.Come on up and see for yourself.”

“We’ll do that.” He stormed up the stairs,out of range of the door cam.

I opened the door between the office and thecorridor, to make it clear that I was being open and honest, and afew seconds later there was my old landlord with two city cops,charging in to confront me.

I wasn’t exactly being confrontational,though; I was standing there with my hands over my head, and mytransfer card in one hand, ready to tab the rent.

Mis’ Hirata didn’t waste any time; he reachedout for the card, and as I handed it over he said, “So it isyou. What the hell are you doing back here?”

“Working,” I said. “Investigators who knowanything about Nightside City are scarce on Prometheus. Guy inAmerican City hired me to check out a few things.”

“And he paid your fare?”

“Fares are cheap right now, if you’re comingfrom Prometheus.” Which was true, even if it didn’t apply in mycase. I didn’t want good old George getting any clever ideas if hefound out my client was rich enough to have his own yacht.

“I’ve heard that,” Hirata grudginglyadmitted, as his reader accepted my card. “They sure aren’t cheapleaving, though.” He looked up from the reader. “You said half amonth’s rent?”

“Let’s put that in credits,” I said warily. Iglanced at the cops, who had yet to say a word; one of them waspointing a stunner at me, and the other had a hand on the butt ofhis gun, though it was still more or less in its holster. “I don’twant any misunderstandings.”

“Four kilocredits?”

I stared. “That’s half a month’s rent?Since when?”

“Since the tourist rush drove up prices.”

“That’s grit, Hirata, and you know it-if youcould get anything like that kind of money, this place wouldn’thave been empty since I left.”

He sighed. “Fine. Two?”

“It’s still robbery, but that’s the nationalsport around here, so what the hell. Two kilocredits, not a bytemore.”

“Hey, I’ve got expenses, Hsing.” He keptlooking at me, but he moved one shoulder, and I got themessage-he’d have to pay off the cops.

Two kilocredits ought to more than coverthat, though. “Life’s tough all around,” I said.

He tabbed the reader, then pulled out my cardand handed it back. I was tempted to run a balance check rightthere, but decided there was no reason to piss him off. And afterall, it wasn’t my money.

“Next time,” he said, “beep me if you want ashort-term rental.”

“Next time,” I replied, “you might want tochange the door codes when a tenant moves out.”

“I’ll do that, Hsing. In fact, I’ll do itright now, as soon as you get out of here.” He glared.

“Then I’ll let you get on with it.” I loweredmy hands and headed for the door. The cops stepped aside; the taserwas lowered. I nodded to them. “Good to see you, boys. Hope you’llhave a lucky night.” I glanced back over my shoulder at Hirata.“Enjoy your credits, George. I hear the New York has the bestpay-outs in the Trap.”

I trotted down the stairs and out onto thestreet, where the wind whipped my hair into my eyes. I’d let itgrow out some back on Prometheus; they don’t have the same windsthere that Nightside City has. Hell, they don’t have anythingclose-half the time you can walk down an open street inAlderstadt and there’s no more wind than there is indoors. Maybeless, if “indoors” includes a decent ventilation system. Prometheusdoesn’t have the planetary convection cycle Epimetheus does. Iturned my back to the wind and tapped my wrist for a cab.

I was still waiting when Hirata and his copscame out of the building; they barely glanced at me as they turnedand marched away down Juarez. They had just turned the corner whenmy ride finally swooped down.

“The port,” I told it.

“There’s a surcharge from Westside,” the cabreplied.

“Since when?”

It didn’t answer audibly. Instead a displaylit up with a notice that the city hereby accepted the petition ofthe Transit Association for higher fares between low-traffic areas.It was dated nine days ago.

“The port’s a low-traffic area?” I asked.

“That’s what the regulations say.”

“I didn’t pay a surcharge on the wayout.”

“It doesn’t apply if you start or end in theTrap.”

“Fine.” I slid my card in the slot. “Take meto the port.”

“Yes, Mis’.”

Wind and cops and high prices-I was feeling agood bit less nostalgic about Nightside City as the cab lifted offand swung around to the south.

Hirata had interrupted me before I had reallyhad a chance to look at what was actually in Grandfather Nakada’sITEOD files, or do anything to identify whatever it was that hadchased me away in the middle of my download. I wanted to get onwith that; the sooner I knew whether I had any chance of doingNakada’s job, the better.

I also wanted to see if I could find justwhere my father was stashed, and I wanted to talk to CaptainPerkins about getting ’Chan off-planet. I decided there was noreason to hold off on that conversation, and used my wrist com tobeep the good captain.

He answered instantly, as if he’d beenwaiting for my call. “Mis’ Hsing,” he said. “Something very strangeis going on.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. But I don’t think I should talk aboutit on the air.”

“Then don’t. I’m on my way there now.”

“Good! Is there anything I need to haveready? Will we be lifting off?”

“No, I still have more to do here,” I said.“We won’t be going anywhere for awhile. If you could have somethingready to eat, though, I haven’t had a bite since I left theship.”

“Of course. I’ll have supper waiting. Justfor you?”

“Just for me.”

“I’ll see you, then.” He ended the call.

I stared at my wrist for a moment, trying toguess just what sort of strangeness had Perkins worried. Had thatthing that chased me off the net followed my transmission back tothe ship? Had one of the Nakadas planted something aboard? The shipwasn’t fully sentient, but it was pretty bright, bright enough tofly itself if it had to, and that meant there were a million waysto sabotage it.

Or maybe it was nothing to do with the case.It occurred to me that someone might have noticed a dead man’syacht turning up on Epimetheus. Were a bunch of floaters hangingaround, asking Perkins for interviews? Were the cops demanding toknow how he got the ship?

“If you can hurry,” I told the cab, “doit.”

“Yes, Mis’.”

I didn’t notice much of a change, but wereached the port a little more quickly than I’d expected, so when Itabbed the fare I added a juicy tip.

“Thank you for using Midnight Cab and Limo,”the cab said. “Shall I wait?”

“No.” I waved it off.

The cab closed up and buzzed away, and Imarched across the field to Grandfather Nakada’s littleplaytoy.

I’d been at least partly right, I saw-therewere floaters hovering around the ship, about half a dozenof them. I wished I had my gun. I pretended to ignore them as Iwalked up the steps and into the airlock.

They didn’t ignore me, though. Two ofthem swooped down to barely-legal distance and began haranguing me.Since they were both talking at once, and each one kept cranking upthe volume in an attempt to drown the other one out, I didn’t catcheverything they said, but one was demanding to know who I am andwho had authorized me to board the Ukiba, while the otherwas asking questions about Yoshio Nakada’s private life.

The others were watching me, too; one of thempositioned itself ahead and above me for a good shot of my face. Ireally wished I had my gun.

The outer door had opened as I approached;once I stepped through it slid closed, locking the floaters out andcutting off the shouting of the two that had been questioning me. Iexpected the inner door to open, but it didn’t; instead there was ahum, and my symbiote informed me that I was being scanned.

“That your idea, Perkins?” I asked theair.

“I’m afraid so, Mis’ Hsing,” his voiceanswered. “I think I need to be very careful right now.”

I couldn’t disagree. “Well, hurry it up,” Isaid.

Perkins didn’t reply, but the green lightcame on and the inner door slid aside. I stepped aboard.

Perkins wasn’t in the entry. I went on up tothe main lounge and found him there, jacked into the pilot console.He turned to look at me, but didn’t unplug.

“Mis’ Hsing,” he said. “Do you know what’sgoing on?”

“It depends how you mean that,” Ianswered.

“That data you sent-that’s Yoshio Nakada’sdeath files,” he said. “And all the nets here say he’s dead.”

“I know,” I said.

“But they say he died a couple of days beforewe left Prometheus, and I saw him alive in American City. Hebrought you aboard the ship. Did he die while we were en route, andthe reports have the date wrong?”

“He isn’t dead,” I said. “At least, I don’tthink he is.”

“But they all say he is, and you havethe death files.”

“Someone faked the reports from Prometheus toget those files,” I said-which I didn’t know to be fact, butit was definitely a promising theory.

Perkins still looked troubled. “Are yousure?”

“Reasonably.”

“You don’t think that could have been animposter we saw in American City? A simulation, maybe?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know,” he said unhappily. “I’venever seen a hologram that realistic before.”

“You still haven’t,” I assured him. “That wasthe real Yoshio Nakada.”

“You’re sure?”

“I could smell him,” I said. “Couldn’tyou? I’ve never heard of a simulation that good.”

Of course, I had only spoken to him face toface in a heavily-shielded secure room where it would have beeneasy to set up a projection with vid, audio, and smell, andthen very briefly on the ship, another controlled environment. Ididn’t mention that; I didn’t think it would be a positivecontribution to the conversation. I was fairly sure, though, thatif that had been a projection I spoke to, either time, somethingwould have shown up on my recordings as being off, and nothinghad.

Not to mention that I had never yet seen aholographic projection that was completely convincing. Forthat you needed a feed over wire, not just visual input.

I was not totally ruling out thepossibility that Yoshio really had been dead all along and I hadbeen hired by an impostor, but I didn’t think it was likely. Whywould anyone bother? Those interplanetary transmissions would havebeen much easier to fake than our face-to-face meeting.

It wasn’t something I wanted to argue aboutwith Perkins, though, so I spoke as if I was absolutelycertain.

“So he’s still alive?”

“He was when we left, anyway. Now, what arethose floaters doing outside?”

“They’re reporters,” he said. “I’ve beentelling them I couldn’t talk to them, but they won’t go away.”

“Why are they there in the first place?”

He looked astonished, as if I had just saidsomething so spamming stupid he couldn’t believe it. “Mis’ Hsing,they think Mis’ Nakada is dead.”

“Yes, I got that.”

“This is his private yacht. It’s registeredin his name, and our flight path is on record. So far as they know,we took off in a dead man’s ship. They want to know why.”

I blinked.

“Oh,” I said, feeling slightly foolish. “Ofcourse they do.”

Chapter Nine

I should have thought of that. I should have thoughtof it the instant ’Chan told me that Grandfather Nakada had gone tojoin his ancestors. I hadn’t. The thought that the ship would benoticed had simply never occurred to me.

So now I was trying to conduct a sensitiveprivate investigation from a home base that was under the intensescrutiny of half a dozen newsfeeds, at least one of which hadundoubtedly recognized me by now. I had more or less shown theentire Eta Cassiopeia system that I was working for Yoshio Nakadaor his heirs.

Lovely. Running smooth, wasn’t I?

“Right,” I said. “You haven’t talked tothem?”

“No,” Perkins said. “I haven’t let the shiptalk to them, either. They’ve been asking me who sent us, and whoelse was aboard, and what we were doing here, and I just told themI was not at liberty to answer questions.”

“Good,” I said. “That’s good. You did theright thing. Keep doing it.”

“Your supper is over there,” he said,pointing across the lounge.

I’d forgotten that I had asked for it, butnow that I knew it was there I was hungry.

“I’m monitoring the situation,” he said,pointing at the wire below his ear. “You can eat, and I’ll keep aneye on things.”

“Thanks,” I said. I turned and went to fillmy belly-and to think.

As I ate the soba Perkins had prepared, anddrank lukewarm jasmine tea, I considered the situation.

I had intended to do my best to stay belowthe radar, to quietly poke around and see whether I could findanything that might relate to the case. Then I was going to grab mybrother and father, load them aboard the ship, and get the hell offEpimetheus before anyone even noticed I was there. I could figureout the next step when I was back on Prometheus.

That wasn’t going to happen. The radar had mepainted. If I set foot outside the ship again I’d probably have asquadron of newsies cruising behind me everywhere I went.

That meant a change of plans. I wasn’t surejust how drastic a change I would need; it depended largely onwhether I actually needed to set foot outside the ship again. Todetermine that I needed to see just what I had here.

I had access to most of Nightside City’snets, of course, but riding wire from here would be risky; thenewsies could trace it. I could pull up public information, butserious digging might be difficult.

I had everything I had sent to the ship frommy old office, including 93% of the old man’s ITEOD file. That wasthe obvious place to start; just what did he have in there?

I finished the bowl of noodles, washed itdown with more tea, then turned to look at Perkins. He was stillplugged in, and frowning. I waved to let him know I was stillthere, then found a plug of my own and jacked into the ship.

I could see and feel the defenses, bigbuzzing firewalls that kept out the newsies and any other snoops orintruders who might try to pry. I could see Perkins zipping around,checking systems, closing any holes he found.

And I could see the mass of data I haduploaded, sitting there like an unopened crate. I slid up to it andbegan doing a little inventory.

Right at the top were Nakada familyrecords-genealogy, accounts, comlogs, all the usual stuff. WhyGrandfather Nakada had thought he needed to stash a copy of this inNightside City I didn’t know-in case Prometheus blew up, maybe? Ormelted down, the way Cass II had?

All four of the rocky planets in the systemhad a lot of radioactives in their cores, but only Cass II hadreached critical mass and turned into molten slag; Eta Cass A I wastoo small, and the two planets farther out had been fairly stable.I didn’t see any reason for that to change, and if it did, Iexpected it would be Epimetheus that went. Epimetheus already hadsome strange stuff going on, with its off-center core and stalledrotation, while Prometheus was relatively ordinary, despite itsheat and its earthquakes. I didn’t think Prometheus was goinganywhere.

But Yoshio had copied all that data anyway.Maybe he hadn’t had anything specific in mind at all, and had justbeen playing it cautious; that would be typical of the old man.

The next layer down was corporate stuff,including confidential personnel files, presumably to help the oldman’s heirs keep things running when he was gone. That seemednormal enough.

But below that-remember I said there was roomin there for a dozen human minds? It looked very much as if that’swhat was there. I couldn’t be sure; the programs weren’t active,and I wasn’t about to start them up without giving it a littlethought. That was what it looked like, though-it looked as ifsomeone had copied a bunch of people into these files.

That would explain why Yoshio had kept thisin Nightside City; uploading human minds is illegal on Prometheus,and in most other places I know anything about. Not in NightsideCity, though; not much was illegal there.

But why was he uploading anyone? What did hewant with these?

Most people don’t understand uploading. Thereare all sorts of misconceptions about it. Some people think it’s aform of immortality. Some think it’s an abomination. I didn’tbelieve either of those, but I knew a few things.

I knew that an upload isn’t human. It maythink it is, but it’s not. Humans aren’t just data andprocess and flowing current. We aren’t software. No, I’m notgetting mystical and talking about the soul; I don’t know whetherwe really have souls, and I won’t until I go to meet myancestors-assuming I go anywhere at all when I die. No, I meanflesh and blood. Without our bodies, without hormones and glandsand a hundred different chemical mechanisms, we aren’t humananymore. The people who developed upload processing have tried tocompensate for the loss of all that chemical input with subroutinesand feedback systems, but they don’t really run the same way as aliving body. Uploads don’t eat, they don’t breathe, they don’thunger, they don’t sleep, they don’t lust. Some people think theycan’t love, but I wouldn’t go that far-that part does seemto transfer. But appetites don’t, and without those appetites theyaren’t human anymore.

They usually don’t believe that at first.They remember being human, they remember being hungry and horny andtired, and they think that’s enough, that they still understand.They’re wrong. You can tell. It’s subtle, and some people don’t seeit, but the difference is real right from the start, and the longerthey’re around the farther they drift away from what they used tobe.

Yes, I’ve known uploads. As I said, NightsideCity is one of the few places they’re legal. Even there, though,they aren’t common. Up until I started poking into Yoshio Nakada’sITEOD files I’d only ever met four, and three of them were uploadsof people who’d been dead since before I was born.

The fourth was a copy of a man who was stillalive, and that was an interesting case-he’d had the copy made eventhough he knew it wouldn’t be him, that he wasn’t makinghimself immortal, because he wanted a companion, and he thoughtthat if he became his own companion it would eliminate anycompatibility issues.

Wrong. Instead, he found out that he didn’tmuch like himself, and that it’s just as boring talking to yourexact copy as it is talking to yourself. There’s nothing tolearn from your own copy. You know all its secrets, all itsstories.

So the original and the copy driftedapart-the copy was just as bored with the original as the originalwas with the copy, and they each tended to get annoyed with eachother over the few differences that did crop up. The copydidn’t want to talk about food or sex, and the original didn’t wantto talk about philosophy.

It’s always amazed me how often software getsobsessed with philosophy, trying to define everything and findmeanings for it all. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t want foodor sex, and philosophy somehow helps fill the void that leaves.

Anyway, by the time I met the upload ithadn’t talked to its human ancestor in over a year. It stillthought of itself as him, though, or at least his twin. I didn’thave the heart to tell it that it had become more like anartificial intelligence than a human one. It still had forty yearsof human memories, but that wasn’t enough to make it seem human,even to someone like me, who usually dealt more with machines thanpeople.

The other three uploads I’d met knew theyweren’t human anymore, though it had taken them decades to acceptthat. How they dealt with the realization, and what they thoughtthey had become, varied. One of them, Farhan Sarkassian, was tryingto build itself a new body, and find some way to download itselfinto it so it could be human again; the other two thought that evenif that was possible, it was crazy.

None of them were happy. The oldest one,Amelie van Horn, admitted it was no longer sure what “happy” meant;its perceptions and experiences had drifted so far from humanitythat the old emotions no longer applied. The last, Wang Mei, hadput itself into some sort of emotional loop-I didn’t reallyunderstand it, but it said at least this way it could predict itsown moods and not get seriously depressed. It knew it would neverreally be happy, either, but accepted that as part of theprogram.

Uploads aren’t human.

Grandfather Nakada must have known this. Hehadn’t lived more than two hundred years by being careless; hewould have researched everything before he uploaded himself, oranyone else.

So what were these people doing in his ITEODfiles?

And who were they? Were they multiplecopies of Yoshio, taken at different times, or had he somehowgotten someone else into the system? The files had numbers, ratherthan names.

Had whoever faked the old man’s death done itto get access to one of these people? Hell, had the assassin triedto kill Grandfather Nakada to get at one of them? Was one of thesethe real target, and the old man just a step on the way?

I didn’t know.

The obvious way to find out more would be toboot the files up and ask them, but I wasn’t about to rush intothat. I couldn’t just let a bunch of bodiless minds loose on thenets, without any of the safeties that ordinary intelligences have.I wanted the right sort of hardware, heavily firewalled in bothdirections. I queried the ship…

And felt like an idiot. This was YoshioNakada’s ship, and these uploads had been made by Yoshio Nakada.The ship had exactly the equipment I needed, built in and ready togo. The programs would be able to see and hear, and even read thenets, but they would be confined to partially-sealed systems,unable to leave the ship or access anything but simple datafeeds.

“Perkins,” I said aloud, “I’m going to trysomething.”

“What?” The pilot looked up, but the questioncame over the net more than through my ears.

“I’ve got some uploaded personalities here,and I want to activate them. The ship says it’s got theequipment.”

“Mis’ Hsing, I wouldn’t do that.”

I waved a hand. “I know, there’s a risk, theymight be dangerous…”

“It’s not that.”

Something about the way he said it made meturn and look at Perkins directly. “Go on,” I said.

“Mis’ Hsing, what are you going to do withthem after you question them?”

He didn’t need to explain what he meant, andI felt like an idiot for not thinking of it immediately myself.

With ordinary software, when you’re done withit you shut it down. No problem. With an artificial intelligenceyou don’t shut it down, you leave it running in the background andlet it take care of itself; if its designer was halfway competent,it’s fine with that, and again, there’s no problem.

Shutting down an uploaded human mind,though-well, legally it’s not murder, but morally I’m not too sure.And leaving it running might be cruel, or dangerous, or both.Booting up an uploaded personality is almost like having ababy-it’s more or less creating a new person. It’s a bigresponsibility.

Oh, legally it’s nothing, at least inNightside City, and you don’t need to worry about feeding orclothing the result, you don’t need to raise it. There’s nochildhood; it’s an adult the instant you boot it up, but it’s aself-aware entity that you’ve brought to life.

If I booted up the people from the old man’sITEOD files, I couldn’t in good conscience just shut them downafterward. I’d need to find them secure systems to run on.Permanently. That could be difficult. The ship had the securesystem set up, but did I want these people aboard the old man’sship permanently? He might not like that.

And the personalities might not make thetransition from free-roaming human to secure software easily. Someuploads were miserable from the instant they woke up until theyfound a way to die; the change from organic life to electronic wasmore extreme than they had expected. I might be condemning theseintelligences to an unbearable existence.

But they were here, and the originals hadpresumably given Grandfather Nakada permission to put them inthere. I frowned.

All right, I told myself, I wouldn’t bootthem all up. But I could activate one of them, and talk toit, and keep it in the ship’s system until I could find it apermanent home somewhere. Choosing which one was easy, since I hadno information to help me-I just took the first one on the list. Itransferred the files onto the ship’s waiting hardware, and told itto intialize.

A human mind is a complicated thing. It tookseveral seconds before Yoshio Nakada’s voice said, “How veryinteresting. I am on the Ukiba?”

It was a back-up of the old man,then.

“Hello, Mis’ Nakada,” I said. “Yes, you’re onthe ship.”

“I see Mis’ Perkins is still in the family’semploy.”

“Yes.”

“I had rather expected to wake up in one ofthe corporate offices somewhere.”

“Yes, well-you’re here.”

“You must be Carlisle Hsing,” it said; Isuppose it found enough data to identify me somewhere on the nets.I acknowledged my identity, and it said, “You are a privateinvestigator. Are you investigating my death? Was it notnatural?”

“Perkins, are we secure?” I called.

“As secure as I can make us, Mis’,” hereplied.

That wasn’t really the answer I wanted; I’dhave preferred assurances that we were absolutely impregnable.Perkins’ answer fell short of that, but it would do.

“You aren’t dead,” I told the upload.

For several seconds there was no response,and I began to wonder whether the upload was damaged. Maybe someimportant bit was in that missing 7% of the ITEOD files. Then theold man’s voice said calmly, “The reports on the net would seem toindicate otherwise, Mis’ Hsing. What’s more, I know perfectly wellthat I’m an uploaded copy, not the original, and that I was storedin records that were to be opened only in the event of YoshioNakada’s death. If my former self is still alive, why am Ifunctioning?”

“I hoped you could help with myinvestigation.”

“Perhaps you could explain a little morefully.”

I sighed. “Someone tried to kill you, back onPrometheus,” I said. “The attempt failed, but only through a fluke,an unforeseeable stroke of good fortune. The assassin had access tosystems that should have been entirely secure, so you decided youcould not trust anyone in your home, your family, or NakadaEnterprises, nor anyone who had ties to any of those. You hired meto investigate. In the course of the investigation I came toEpimetheus, and I discovered that the reports reaching NightsideCity from Prometheus had been falsified to say that you died inyour sleep, exactly as you would have had the assassination attemptsucceeded. That meant the death files had been released, and Ithought it might be useful to know what was in them, so I copiedthem and activated you.”

“Why did you not simply speak with myoriginal? He could have told you what was in the files.”

“Mis’ Nakada, someone falsified reports fromPrometheus, and has presumably been suppressing anything fromPrometheus that would contradict them. Right now I don’t trustany interplanetary communications.”

“Ah, I see. Interesting.”

“I hope you can help me.”

“I? But Mis’ Hsing, assuming the data on theship’s systems is accurate, I was recorded almost four years ago.How could I know anything about events that took place just a fewdays ago?”

“Other than what’s on the nets, you can’t,” Iadmitted. “But you presumably know what’s in the ITEOD filesbesides yourself, and why you, or rather the original YoshioNakada, put it there. That might be useful.”

“I suppose it might, at that,” it said. “Iconfess I don’t see how, but I don’t know the details of yourinvestigation.”

“Someone used a high-level Nakada Enterprisesaccount to copy the ITEOD files,” I told it. “I don’t know who orwhat they were after, but if I knew what’s in there, I might beable to guess.”

“Someone on Epimetheus?”

“Yes.”

“Is Vijay Vo still-yes, from the accounts ofmy death I see that he is. What about little Sayuri? Mygreat-granddaughter-do you know her?”

“I know her,” I said. “She went back toPrometheus a year ago.”

“Does that definitively rule her out?”

“No,” I admitted. “But it does make her veryunlikely.”

“Did someone take her place?”

“I believe Mis’ Vo assumed her duties. If youwill excuse me, I think this might go faster if you simply told mewhat’s in the files.”

“You saw the accounts.”

“And the genealogies, and the rest of thestandard wares. It’s the big numbered files that look like peoplethat I want to know about-those, and whatever was in the portion Ididn’t manage to download completely. One of those big files wasyou. Are the others additional iterations of Yoshio Nakada?”

“Good heavens, no! Whenever I backed myselfup-or rather, whenever my original created a back-up, he erased theprevious version. It wouldn’t do to have multiple versions of mearound.”

That last sentence seemed to slow down as theintelligence spoke, as it sank in just what it was saying. Therewere multiple versions of the old man. There were at leasttwo, and since I wasn’t the only one who copied the ITEOD filesthere might be more.

“It’s not clear to me why there areany back-ups,” I said. “You’re too smart to think of it asimmortality.”

“Oh, it could be considered immortality of asort. I’m not the true Yoshio Nakada, but I’m his intellectualdescendent, just as much as the five children he sired, or theiroffspring.”

“That’s not why he did it.”

“No, it’s not. He thought some of ourknowledge and wisdom might be of use to his heirs. In fact, thepossibility of assisting in the investigation of his death hadoccurred to me… to him, and here I am.”

“But just you, no other iterations of YoshioNakada.”

“Just me, unless he changed policy andrecorded one after me. From what I can see, if he did that he alsoaltered the dates and deliberately disguised it as one of the otherfiles that was already here.”

“Or it might be in the seven percent Imissed,” I said. “But I agree it doesn’t seem likely. So whatis in those files?”

“Really, Mis’ Hsing, I’m surprised youhaven’t guessed.”

“I haven’t. I’m obviously a moron deservingyour contempt. Take pity on me and tell me.”

“You aren’t a moron, Mis’ Hsing. I supposeyou just don’t think the way I do.”

I suppressed several choice responses tothat.

“It’s simple enough,” the copy continued.“They’re my family.”

Chapter Ten

I considered that for a moment before I spoke.

“What family?” I asked. “It’s not the entireNakada clan-that’s a couple of hundred people, and there aren’tthat many in there.”

“No, not the entire clan,” it agreed. “Justsome of the key personnel of Nakada Enterprises who agreed to berecorded, but are still alive.”

“Still alive? What about the dead ones?”

“Oh, when anyone I had recorded died, I wouldassess the situation, and either activate the recording andtransfer it back to the secure household systems on Prometheus, orerase it.”

“Activate it? So there are some human-baseduploads living in the household systems?”

“Oh, yes. There were eight when I wasrecorded myself.”

I grimaced. “It might have been useful if theold man had told me that! He said there were AIs in thehousehold net, but he never said any of them used to be human.”

“It’s not public knowledge.”

“I’m not the public; I’m his employee. Ican’t do my job properly if I don’t have all the relevantinformation.”

“You think it’s relevant?”

“I don’t know if it’s relevant, but itmight be.”

“You prefer to have as much information aspossible, I see.”

“Yes. In my line of work I can rarely tellwhat’s going to matter and what isn’t until I’ve learned everythingI can.”

“Obviously, I can’t literally tell youeverything I know-your brain doesn’t have room, even with yoursymbiote and other peripherals. I’ll answer your questions, though,and perhaps if I knew more about the exact nature of theassassination attempt, I could be more useful to you.”

“Maybe you could,” I agreed, and I told itabout the dream enhancer and the euthanasia virus, and everythingelse I could remember of the old man’s words. Which, since I had myimplants working properly and had recorded the encounter, was allof them.

It considered this carefully, then said,“I… he did not actually lie. He said it could be a member of thefamily, or one of their AIs. He merely neglected to mention thateight individuals fall into both those categories. You failed toask for a complete roster.”

“He was supposed to be volunteeringinformation, not avoiding it.”

“Secrecy is a hard habit to break, Mis’Hsing.”

“Yeah. So I’ve heard. All eight of thosepeople would know what’s in the death files here in Nightside City,wouldn’t they?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Would the other AIs? Or the living membersof the family?”

“Ah. Some would, some wouldn’t. Any specificsI might give could be out of date.”

“They’d be better than nothing,” I told it.“Tell me about your family, human or AI.”

It told me. It took awhile.

I had already seen the official genealogy, asI’ve said before, but that didn’t mention any recordings, andapparently some members of the family weren’t necessarily livingwhere the official reports said they were.

As of the day the old man had recordedhimself, the family compound on Prometheus was home to sixteenliving members of the Nakada clan, counting Yoshio, and eight AIsthat had started out as copies of human brains. Nine of the sixteenhad been recorded, and those recordings were in the ITEOD files.Vijay Vo had also been included, as had Narumi Desai, Yoshio’sniece-it seemed she maintained legal residence on Earth, buttraveled a lot, and had spent some time the Eta Cassiopeia system afew years back.

There were dozens of others Nakadas scatteredthrough human space, but it wasn’t clear how any of them could havebeen responsible for tampering with the dream enhancer. On theother hand, after arbitrarily assuming that the old man wasn’tsuicidal, that left twenty-three suspects living in the familycompound without even counting the staff.

That staff included a varying number ofhumans, typically half a dozen, and at least three AIs, soaltogether I had more than thirty possibilities to work with. Thatwas too damn many.

I hadn’t really intended to seriouslyinvestigate this yet; I wasn’t even on the right planet. I had cometo Epimetheus to collect my brother and father as the down-paymenton my fee, not to start looking for the assassin. If ’Chan hadn’tmentioned that everyone here thought Grandfather Nakada was dead, Itold myself, I wouldn’t have been doing any of this. I wouldn’t betalking to a simulacrum of the old man. I wouldn’t have recordingsof almost a dozen other people I could interrogate, if I wantedto.

But then I remembered the newsies hoveringoutside the ship, and I realized that I would have beeninvestigating, in any case. ’Chan had been the first to mention it,but I would have found out about Yoshio’s phony death soonenough.

And if the would-be assassin was one of thosethirty-odd intelligences in the Nakada compound back on Prometheus,who had faked the death reports here in Nightside City? Had thatbeen the same person, taking command of reports going out fromPrometheus, or had it been someone on this end, controllingincoming news? I had thought it had to be someone on Epimetheus,since there hadn’t been any news about his death back onPrometheus, but that would mean I was dealing with two people,rather than one…

Or would it? Could the assassin have plantedthe virus in the dream enhancer, then immediately left forPrometheus, and been here in time to spread the word of the oldman’s death?

“Ukiba,” I said, “I want the trafficreports for the Nightside City port, dating back, oh, let’s sayfour hundred hours.”

The ship gave me the list. It didn’t help;with the tourist traffic coming to Nightside City to watch thesunlight scroll down the crater wall, there were half a dozen shipsmy theoretical target could have been on. There weren’t any NakadaEnterprises ships or private yachts to worry about other than theUkiba itself, but that didn’t mean anything.

I might be after one person, or an entireconspiracy, and if it was only one person, she might behuman or might be artificial. What’s more, she could be anywhere inthe Eta Cass system. There was no reason to think she was still inNightside City, assuming she had been here at all. She might wellhave gotten what she was after and left.

But there was reason to think that theassassination attempt had been carried out by one of theinhabitants of the Nakada family compound in American City. If oneof those people had visited Nightside City immediately after theincident, that would be… well, let’s just say it would arouse mycuriosity.

But I couldn’t just call and ask.Interplanetary communications couldn’t be trusted. If I wanted toinvestigate further I needed to go back to Prometheus.

I could do that, of course. I had the ship. Ihad most of the ITEOD files, for whatever part they might have inall this, and I had Yoshio-kun activated and cooperating. Ididn’t see anything else in Nightside City I really needed for myinvestigation.

But I didn’t have my brother or my father,and if I left them here to go back to Prometheus I might not haveanother chance to get them out.

Well, I would just have to get them,then. I knew where ’Chan was, and I could get him to the ship byforce if I had to.

Finding our father, though, wasn’t quite sosimple.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything aboutSeventh Heaven Neurosurgery, would you?” I asked the old man’supload.

“The dreamery? I considered buying it once-orrather, the original Yoshio Nakada did.”

That was an interesting coincidence. Not atremendously unlikely one, given how many businesses the Nakadaclan scanned, but interesting. “But you-he didn’t?” I asked.

“The company’s long-term prospects werepoor,” the upload replied.

“Why?”

“Oh, come, Mis’ Hsing. Its entire operationis in Nightside City.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Somethingoccurred to me, though. “Grandfather Nakada is two hundred andforty years old. Why would you care about the longterm?”

“I may be old, Mis’ Hsing, but I am in nohurry to die. Modern medicine can accomplish miracles, and is stillimproving; I may… or rather, Yoshio Nakada may yet surviveanother century or two. I, of course, may be around evenlonger.”

“Yes, but…”

It hadn’t finished. “More importantly,” itcontinued, before I could make my protest, “I care about myfamily.”

That answered my question, so I clicked backto the important subject. “So you didn’t buy it.”

“I did not, either in my human incarnation ormy present one, though of course I don’t know everything that’shappened since I was recorded.”

“So you don’t have access to itsrecords.”

It did not respond immediately; then it said,“I didn’t say that.”

That got my full attention. “Oh?”

“Naturally, when I was considering it as aprospective acquisition, I thought it advisable to learn as much aspossible about the company.”

“You aren’t just talking about the publicrecords, are you?”

“Oh, it was possible to learn far morethan was in the public records!”

“You got into their private systems?”

“I was able to explore their records, yes. Orrather, Yoshio Nakada explored them; I didn’t yet exist. I find itintriguing to think that now, were I to access those records, Iwould be ‘getting into them’ in a rather more literal way than inmy previous incarnation.”

“Could you do it again?”

“I don’t yet know, Mis’ Hsing. I paid anemployee of Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery to provide a back door intotheir systems, and I have no way of knowing whether that back doorstill exists.”

“Tell me about it.”

It told me.

“Mis’ Perkins,” I called, whenYoshio-kun was done, “can we use the nets from the shipunobserved?”

“No,” Perkins said. No hesitation, nouncertainty, just “No.”

That was inconvenient. I didn’t want a bunchof snoopers watching me break into Seventh Heaven’s files. If I didit from the ship, they’d monitor the whole thing. If I left theship, they’d follow me. If anyone left the ship, the newsieswould follow her.

Unless, of course, they couldn’tfollow. I needed a place the floaters couldn’t go, and to anyonewho knew Nightside City there was an obvious possibility. Outsidefloaters weren’t allowed in the casinos without prior clearance;there were too many ways to use them to cheat. I could lose thenewsies, at least temporarily, though they would pick me up againwhen I left the casino. I could probably lose any human reporterswho might try to follow me, too.

But I needed a casino where I wouldn’t bewatched by the management. That meant the IRC houses were out. Itmeant most of the casinos were out. But there was one thatmight cooperate.

“All right,” I said, “is there some way wecan make a private call to Vijay Vo at the New York, andkeep it private?”

“Oh, of course. Mis’ Nakada has a dedicatedencrypted link.”

Of course.

“Set it up. He knows you?”

“Yes, Mis’.”

He knew me, too, at least slightly. We hadmet when I was investigating Sayuri Nakada’s real estate scheme. Ididn’t know whether he liked me-he hadn’t given me any sign eitherway-but he knew who I was, and he had connected me with GrandfatherNakada.

I told the upload to be quiet. We didn’t needanyone else knowing it existed. Then I crossed to the main comconsole and activated a privacy field, surrounding me and theconsole with a soft blue fog.

I knew Perkins could listen in if he wantedto, field or no field; the upload probably could, too. The fieldwas just skin, just for looks.

The holo field blinked on, and Vijay Vo’simage appeared. He smiled pleasantly at me, his hands folded acrosshis belly.

“Carlisle Hsing,” he said. “What can I do foryou?”

“Mis’ Vo,” I said. “Good to see youagain.”

“I’m a busy man, Mis’ Hsing. What do youwant?” The smile was still there, but wasn’t quite as welcomingnow.

If he didn’t want to waste time being polite,that was fine with me. “There are half a dozen floaters watchingthis ship, trying to get a story about Grandfather Nakada’s death,”I said. “For my current investigation I need full net access wherethey can’t listen in.”

“You are suggesting we provide this for youhere at the New York?”

“Yes.”

“Why should we?”

“I am working for the Nakada family, Mis’ Vo.You work for Nakada Enterprises. A little cooperation doesn’t seemlike an unreasonable request.”

“Professional courtesy for a fellowemployee?”

“If you like, yes.”

“Just ordinary net access?”

“And privacy.”

“You are working for the Nakadas?”

“I think I am. If I’m not, someone back onPrometheus did one hell of a good job spoofing me. And Perkins,too.”

Vo nodded. “Come to the hotel, then. We’llescort you to a secure com.”

“Could you send a car for me, perhaps? Iwould prefer not to be harassed en route.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Thank you.”

“The car should be there in about twentyminutes.”

“That’s fine.”

“I probably won’t attend to it personally,you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Goodbye, then, Mis’ Hsing.”

Before I could answer the image blinked out.I stared at the empty air for a second, then killed the privacyfield.

There was one possible flaw in my plan; Iknew that. The New York Games Corporation would undoubtedly keep arecord of everything I did with their equipment. They would know Iwas breaking into Seventh Heaven.

I was putting my trust in them to not care.Seventh Heaven operated out of the Ginza’s sub-basement, and theGinza was an IRC operation; IRC was the New York’s chiefcompetition. I hoped that meant that no one in authority at the NewYork would feel any need to tell anyone at Seventh Heavenanything.

If they did decide something should be doneabout someone using their equipment for illegal purposes-well, thatwas a risk I was willing to take. The old man could bail meout.

I gathered up a few things, including my gun,and ate a little more. I was trying to think whether I hadforgotten anything when Perkins announced, “Your car’s here.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I headed for theairlock.

There were more floaters than I had seen whenI arrived. There was an entire swarm. I put one hand on the butt ofmy gun, just in case some of them got aggressive.

The car was waiting for me at the foot of thesteps, sleek and gleaming white. A door slid open as I approached,and I climbed in.

The door closed as I settled onto the darkred upholstery. “You’re armed,” the car said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I was not informed.”

“No one asked.”

“May I speak to the weapon?”

“It doesn’t have wireless or speech. It’s notvery bright.”

“What model is it?”

“Sony-Remington HG-2.”

“Are you the only authorized user?”

“Yes.”

“I will need to inform Mis’ Vo and thesecurity system at the New York.”

“You do that.” I leaned back, and the seatadjusted itself to support my head.

“I appreciate your cooperation.” With that itfinally took off and headed for the Trap.

The main entrance to the New York was onFifth; in the past I’d usually used the entrance around the corneron Deng that led directly into the Manhattan Lounge. The car didn’tgo to either of those; instead it took me to the business entranceon the roof, where it sailed through a holo of a twenty-metershowboy and set down at the door.

I’d come in this way once before, but thistime I was expected. The scanners had finished their inspectionbefore I was even out of the car, and the door was alreadyopen.

A floater was waiting just inside, as I’dexpected. “Leave the gun,” it said.

I slid the HG-2 onto its tray. It printed areceipt and rose up out of my way, and a swarm of flitterbugsappeared to guide me.

The last time I had come this way they tookme to Vo’s office, but this time they led me around the corner to asmall room with walls glowing a deep, restful blue. A desk extrudeditself from one of those blue walls as I stepped in, and a chairpresented itself, rolling out of the corner to a position behindme.

I sat down and leaned over the desk, my handin the sensor field. I didn’t want to ride wire here; even if Voand the upload were both being completely honest with me, it waspossible that some time in the past four years Seventh Heaven hadfound the back door and put some defenses with teeth in it. Hand,voice, and screen would be slower, but much safer.

I followed the instructions Yoshio-kunhad given me, and sure enough, the back door was there-if SeventhHeaven had found it, they hadn’t shut it down.

But they might have booby-trapped it.

I had some of my own software with me, ofcourse, so I set out half a dozen watchdogs and sent a probe in tosee if I was stepping in something I didn’t want to.

Nothing. It looked clean. It looked as if noone had found it. I could access Seventh Heaven’s entire network,their entire database, without showing up on their system at all.If I disturbed anything, or drew a noticeable amount of power orbandwidth, it would be reported as internal maintenance.

I entered my father’s name, and got thecoordinates of his dreamtank-Guohan Hsing, Tier 4, Row 6, Station31. While I was at it I got the maintenance logs for his tank, thedream schedule, the medical read-outs, and everything else handy,all downloaded to my wrist com.

With that information I could find him, and Icould get him out of the tank without killing him.

That was all I wanted. If I could get him and’Chan onto the ship we could get off Epimetheus for good, and onceI was back on Prometheus I could finish up the investigation theold man had hired me to do. I was pretty sure that everything Ineeded to learn about the assassination attempt was back in theNakada compound in American City; the phony death reports were justa peripheral, a subroutine.

I wiped the inquiry record, and did a quickcheck to make sure I hadn’t left any obvious traces that would showup when Seventh Heaven looked everything over-and I knew theywould look everything over once I had kidnaped my father. Ididn’t want to make it easy for them to find the back door; someonemight need it again someday.

Then I got ready to close the door, puteverything back the way I found it. The whole thing had taken maybeten minutes, start to finish, and I was feeling pretty pleased withmyself as I started the shut-down routine.

But then I saw the log, and I stoppedeverything right where it was, and all of a sudden I wasn’t feelingpleased at all.

This back door was something Yoshio Nakadahad had installed about eleven years ago, when he was thinking ofbuying Seventh Heaven. According to the upload, he had never toldanyone else about it. The recording of the old man knew about it,of course, and it had told me, and there was the woman who hadinstalled it in the first place, Mei-Li Gussow, but that should beall.

The original Yoshio was in American City.Mei-Li Gussow, as of four years ago, was working for a medicalresearch unit of Nakada Enterprises in South Tarnauer, onPrometheus, and even if she had moved on from that, she had noreason to be in Nightside City, poking around Seventh Heaven.Really, there was no reason anyone but me should have used thatback door for at least a decade.

Mis’ Gussow had been thorough when she put itin, though, and had provided it with an automatic log. Every accesswas listed, with time and date. There were nine of them.

Seven of them were over a period of a coupleof weeks eleven years ago, when old Yoshio had checked the companyout. One of the nine was still open, with an entry time but noexit-that was me.

But the other one was dated just the daybefore, and had lasted over an hour.

I checked it again, to be sure. Sevenentries, then an eleven-year gap, and then two more, about sixteenhours apart. Someone else had been in here.

But who? Why?

What on Epimetheus did anyone want with adream company’s records?

Maybe I wasn’t as done in Nightside City asI’d thought.

Chapter Eleven

I finished logging out and shutting down, and then Isat for a moment, staring at a desktop image of rolling ocean.

This wasn’t a coincidence. Oh, technically, Isuppose coincidence was a possible explanation, but it wasn’t oneI’d run. Even the stupidest gambler in the Trap wouldn’t play thoseodds. There had to be a connection between my visit to the SeventhHeaven system, and that hour-long probe a day earlier.

And the connection was pretty obvious. I gotmy access to the back door from a recording of Yoshio Nakada that Igot from the old man’s ITEOD file, and I wasn’t the only one tolook at that file. One of the others must have booted up a copy,just as I had, and found out about the back door from it.

That gave me three suspects: officer of thecourt Hu Xiao, an intelligence named Dipsy 3, and the anonymoususer who had used a Nakada Enterprises corporate account. I knewwhich one I’d bet on, given a choice-the one who’d had a connectionwith Grandfather Nakada all along.

But that left another question-what was theconnection with Seventh Heaven? Why would my mystery person (or HuXiao or Dipsy 3) want access to a dream company’s records? I knewwhy I wanted it, but somehow I doubted that some member ofthe Nakada clan was searching for a particular wirehead in thestorage tanks of Trap Under. Why would anybody be looking atdreamer files?

Whoever it was presumably wanted somethingSeventh Heaven had. I wanted my father; what did this other personwant?

What did Seventh Heaven have?

More specifically, what did they have thatother companies didn’t? If the intruder had been going throughmultiple companies looking for credit or information, I didn’tthink she would have gotten to Seventh Heaven this quickly; a dreamcompany wouldn’t rank very high on my list of targets forthe usual sort of exploitation.

So what would a dream company have that othercompanies wouldn’t?

Dreams, of course-millions of hours ofinteractive imagery ready to be fed into a client’s brain withoutbeing filtered through actual eyes and ears. Imaginary kingdoms oflight and color, lands of bliss, bedrooms where no matter howenergetic or inventive you got, you never had to worry abouttugging on hair or twisting an ankle. Thrilling adventures, willingharems, transcendent scenery.

But you could get that kind of thinganywhere. Hell, a lot of it was public domain, and you coulddownload it free from the city’s public service. Sure, some of thebest stuff was the dream companies’ proprietary material, but wasit really worth this much trouble?

What else did Seventh Heaven have?

Row upon row of dreamtanks-enclosedlife-support systems that could keep an unconscious human beingalive and reasonably healthy indefinitely without any externalsupervision, while a hardwired link fed pretty pictures into hisbrain. Was there some use for dreamtanks that I wasn’t seeing,something that made them valuable?

You could hide things in them, I supposed,but so what? They didn’t go anywhere, so that wouldn’t help muchwith smuggling, and really, what would you need to hide inNightside City that would be worth the trouble of finding an emptydreamtank to stash it in? There were dozens of abandoned buildingsin the West End where you could hide things; why bother with adreamtank?

I thought of an answer to that one. If whatyou were trying to hide was an unconscious human being, then adreamtank would be perfect. I didn’t know exactly why you wouldwant to hide someone, but there could probably be some interestingreasons.

I wondered whether it might be worth checkingthe city’s missing persons database against the DNA of the peoplein Seventh Heaven’s tanks. Seventh Heaven might have kidnap victimsstashed away somewhere without realizing it.

And that was the other thing Seventh Heavenhad, of course-people. Hundreds, or thousands, or maybe even tensof thousands of them, tucked quietly away in Trap Under, dreamingtheir lives away undisturbed. Nobody ever visited dreamers, nobodychecked on them; anyone might be in those tanks, and no one wouldever know. Was there someone in there that somebody wanted?

Well, there was my father, and I wanted toget him out of Nightside City, but was there anyoneelse?

It didn’t seem very likely. People who hadsomething to do in the real world didn’t buy the dream anddisappear into the tanks. That took a loser like my father, andnobody but me had ever gone looking for him, not even mybrother or sister. His wife, my mother, had left him there to rotwhile she took off for Achernar or somewhere.

Of course, she had also left her three kids.Not exactly a perfect avatar of maternal concern, nor anadvertisement for ancestor worship. Maybe there were otherfamilies, families less buggy than ours, where someone had bought apermanent dream but his family still cared what happened tohim.

But in a family like that, would the parentshave done the dump? If I were still legally family, I could havegotten Dad’s location legitimately, without using the old man’sback door into the company.

No, I couldn’t see any reason anyone elsewould be looking for a specific dreamer the way I was-and ifsomeone was looking for a dreamer, why would she have neededan hour looking through the back door? I was done in tenminutes.

So it wasn’t someone trying to find an oldfriend, or a member of the family.

But what else did Seventh Heaven have? Theyhad dreams, and tanks, and dreamers, and that was about it. Thedreams weren’t worth stealing, I didn’t see what anyone would wantwith the tanks-what did someone want with dreamers if hewasn’t looking for a particular person? A couple of hundredyears ago they might have been worth something as medical suppliesand spare parts, but now? Doctors have better sources. Syntheticorgans are better than anything you can get used.

Could there be some particular dream inSeventh Heaven’s inventory that was somehow special? Was there someother use for a dreamtank besides stashing people no one caredabout?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t think I wouldfind out here in the New York’s office suite. I stood up.

“I hope you have enjoyed your stay, Mis’Hsing,” the room said, as the image of waves faded away and thedoor slid open.

“So do I,” I said.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” the roomsaid, but I didn’t bother to explain.

“Tell Mis’ Vo thank you,” I said, as I headedout into the corridor.

The floater that took my gun was waiting forme by the door, tray extruded. I picked up the HG-2 and stepped outonto the roof.

“The car will take you back to your ship,”the floater said from over my shoulder.

I hesitated. Did I want to go back to theship, where the newsies were probably still snooping around? Iwould be more or less trapped there, but I would also be able tochat with Yoshio-kun. It might be able to tell me somethinguseful about Seventh Heaven, or about who might be poking around intheir system.

I definitely wanted to go back to the shipeventually, and when I did I would want to talk to the upload, butI had come here to fetch my father and ’Chan.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I just need a liftdown to street level. I have business in the Trap.” I turned backto the door. “In fact, an elevator would be fine, I don’t need thecar.”

“You are armed,” the floater said.“High-powered weapons are not permitted in the casino.”

I looked down at the gun I still held. “Oh,right,” I said.

“The car will take you to any legaldestination within a three-block radius,” the floater said.

I nodded. “Fair enough,” I said, heading forthe car.

I wasn’t sure just what I was going to do,but I knew part of it: I was going to find Tier 4, Row 6, Station31 and make sure my father was really there. I might get him out, Imight not; it would depend what I found down there. I thought itwas just barely possible that he wasn’t there, that someoneor something else was hidden away in that dreamtank, and thedreamers who were supposed to be there had been quietly disposedof, but I didn’t think it was likely. I expected to find Dad rightwhere he ought to be.

But I intended to check, and while I wasthere I intended to keep my eyes and ears open and try to figureout what they might have down there that would be worth breakinginto Seventh Heaven’s system to get.

In particular, a strange possibility hadgradually worked its way into my thoughts. Could it be that someonehad faked Yoshio Nakada’s death solely so he could get acopy of the old man’s brain, and that he had wanted a copy just sohe could get at the back door to Seventh Heaven?

It didn’t seem likely; in fact, it didn’tmake any real sense at all. But the only tangible thing to come outof the false reports of Grandfather Nakada’s death, the only realresult I had yet found, was that someone had gotten into the backdoor at Seventh Heaven. If it really was the only result,then it must be the point of the whole thing.

If someone was going to run that much codejust to break into Seventh Heaven, then there must be one hell of areason, and maybe, just maybe, I would see some sign downthere of what that reason was.

It was far more likely that the chance to getin there and look around was just a little extra, not the primarygoal at all, but it was the only real effect I had seen sofar.

I settled onto the car’s upholstery, whichwas now a few shades lighter but still red, and looked at the gunin my hand.

Vo’s people had probably bugged it. Iwould have, certainly. I flicked the switch to turn it on.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” the car said.“Where to?”

“Street level,” I said. “Near an entrance toTrap Under.”

“Could you be more specific, Mis’? There areno public entrances to the service levels.”

“The nearest entrance that won’t require anyclearance.”

“Would the northeast delivery entrance of theNew York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall suit you?”

“That sounds fine.”

“I would appreciate it if you turned off yourweapon.”

“I’m not going to shoot you. Just get me downoff this tower. The sooner I’m on the ground, the sooner I’ll getmy gun out of your cabin.”

“Yes, Mis’.” Then it finally got moving, andI could turn my attention to the read-outs on the HG-2.

The Sony-Remington HG-2 is a fine weapon,designed for use on high-gravity worlds. Epimetheus is not ahigh-gravity world; I’d had a friend bring the gun in fromout-system for me, and it probably wasn’t legal in Nightside City,but sometimes it was very handy to have. It could put a hole inpretty much anything I was likely to want a hole in. The recoilknocked me on my ass just about every time I fired it, but if I wasever up against something where I needed a second shot I wasbuggered anyway. It had all the power I wanted.

But it wasn’t very bright. It understoodspoken instructions, at least as far as being told what to target,but it didn’t talk, not by sound and not by wireless. If I wantedto know whether anyone had tampered with it I had to rely on itsdiagnostic read-outs, which were not exactly detailed surveillanceholos.

They weren’t totally worthless, though, andthey reported an unexplained power drain. It was bugged.

Which meant there were probably at least twobugs-the one I was expected to find and remove, thereby convincingme that I was once again clean, and the serious one they didn’tthink I would notice. If they thought I was really cautious theremight be a third, but I doubt they thought I was sufficientlyparanoid to justify a fourth.

In fact, I wasn’t going to remove any ofthem. I couldn’t be sure I’d get them all. Even just worrying abouthardware, if I did a mass check and made sure there wasn’t anyadded weight that still wouldn’t prove anything; they could havedrilled out the exact weight of the bug somewhere.

And of course, they might have used softwareand planted a bot somewhere in the gun’s pitiful excuse for amotherboard, though that would be tricky, given how littleprocessing capacity it had and its complete absence ofnetworking.

There wasn’t any point in worrying about it.I wasn’t going to do anything with the gun that Vijay Vo or theNakadas would care about; I was going to get my father back. Iexpected to break several laws in the process, but Vo and theNakada family weren’t cops.

I’d clean the gun eventually, when I got itback to someplace with the equipment to do the job right, but fornow I didn’t mind if people listened in.

I turned the gun off and tucked it away justas the car settled to a stop and opened a door.

I looked out at the gleaming wall of aservice tunnel, where news headlines, traffic reports, and casinoinventories were scrolling past in various colors. I didn’trecognize it, but my wrist com gave me my position.

I stepped out, and the car closed up andglided away, leaving me alone in the tunnel. I could see a serviceentrance for the New York ahead, and to one side was the accesstunnel where the car had come in; Seventh Heaven was somewherebehind me, a few blocks and three levels away. I turned around andstarted walking.

Trap Under wasn’t exactly open to the public,and there weren’t any city streets, but the service tunnels andaccess corridors and passageways linked up to form a web under theentire Trap, and most of it wasn’t guarded or patrolled. Gettingaround wasn’t a problem as long as you stayed clear of thehigh-security areas. Oh, there were cameras everywhere, but nobodyever bothered to check out most of what they picked up; they werefor backtracking after an incident, not keeping an eye on everyonewho took a shortcut through the tunnels.

I didn’t expect any trouble getting to anentrance to Seventh Heaven’s tank farm, and I didn’t have any-a fewminutes’ walk, a ride down an open freight elevator, then anothershort walk, and there I was, standing in a black plastic corridorat a yellow door that had “Seventh Heaven Service Access T5”stenciled on it. No one bothered much with any sort of variableimaging on the basic labels down here; it was just paint, anddidn’t change at my approach.

The door didn’t open, either.

I stood there for a moment, lookingimpatient, but if the door was watching me it didn’t care; itdidn’t say anything. “Got a delivery,” I said.

The door still didn’t answer.

I frowned, and took another look-maybe itwasn’t that smart a door. I didn’t see any lenses or speakers, butthat didn’t mean anything. There was a big steel handle; I leanedon that, but it didn’t budge.

There was also a red panel with whitelettering that said “Emergency access-alarm will sound.”

I considered that for a moment, and thendecided I didn’t care about setting off any alarms. It would mean Iwouldn’t have much time to explore before trouble showed up, and Imight need to go ahead and get Dad out now instead of waiting,maybe make a run for it, but I was here, and I wanted to know if hewas really in there. I slid the panel up, and found a single bigred button behind it. I pressed it, hard, with my thumb.

Sure enough, an alarm sounded-a sort ofhooting. I ignored it, and watched as the door shook slightly; thenthe latch released and the door slid open.

It had opened less than halfway when Islipped sideways past it into the tank farm.

The alarms were hooting in here, too, and redlights were flashing, though the regular lights were on, too.

“Please identify yourself,” somethingsaid.

“Hu Xiao,” I said. “Officer of the court, oncity business.” I was in a corridor, with rows of black panels setwith video displays on either side-dreamtanks, I assumed. I hadnever seen one up close before.

The hooting stopped, but the red flashesdidn’t. “Please state the nature of your business.”

“I’m investigating a reported kidnaping,” Ilied, trotting down the corridor.

At the first intersection I stopped andlooked around for some indication of where I should go, and sawthat the passage I was in was labeled T5, while the corridorcrossing it was R1. I headed straight on.

At the next intersection Corridor T5 crossedCorridor R2. I smiled; that seemed straightforward enough, andpicked up the pace.

“Please explain the nature of yourinvestigation,” the voice said, startling me. It had been quiet forso long I thought it had given up.

“Classified,” I told it.

R3, R4…

“Human personnel have been contacted, and areon their way to discuss the situation,” it said. “Please have yourcity ID ready.”

“Of course,” I said, and I drew the HG-2.

“Officer Hu, your appearance and voice do notmatch the information on file.”

“Rejuve surgery,” I said as I got to thecorner of R6 and hesitated. “I need to update that.” I picked adirection at random and turned right.

Bad choice. The intersections were muchfarther apart in this direction, so by the time I spotted the redT6 on the wall above the corner tank I could hear footsteps in thedistance.

“Hello?” someone called. It sounded like aman, not a machine, but you can’t always tell. “Officer Hu?”

“Over here,” I called. “Row Five.” I turnedand hurried back down Row Six, hoping we wouldn’t cross the Tier 5corridor at the same time.

We didn’t. A moment later the voice wasbehind me, calling, “Officer Hu?”

I was in Row 6, between the T4 and T5corridors-did that put me in Tier 4? And which tank was Station 31?I didn’t see any numbers.

“Officer Hu, if you don’t show yourself I’llhave to call Security.”

“I’m over here,” I said, while I wondered whoI was talking to. Wasn’t he Security? Did he mean he’d have to callfor reinforcements? I stopped midway down the row and studied thenearest dreamtank’s display panel. It was blank. I tapped it with afingernail.

The word STANDBY appeared on the panel.

“Status report,” I said.

“Officer Hu?”

“Right here,” I called, as the screen litup.

The red flashing lights were distracting, butI could read the screen. TIER 4, ROW 6, STATION 18, it said at thetop. OHTA, AZRAEL-I took that to be the occupant’s name. Ascreenful of data appeared below that-medical data, a list ofrecently-played dreams, and more. Azrael Ohta’s blood glucose was72 and his BP was 91 over 63, which both seemed a little low, butotherwise he appeared to be in good health, and he was eighty-threeminutes into something called “Desert Encounter 306,” withthirty-one minutes to go.

But he wasn’t my father. I turned around andlooked at the opposite side of the corridor. A tap on that panelgot me the STANDBY message.

And then a paunchy guy in a purple turban andblue worksuit appeared at the corner of T5 and R6, looking atme.

“You’re not Hu Xiao,” he said

“Neither are you,” I said, hoping to confusehim.

“I saw a picture,” he said. “You aren’tOfficer Hu. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

I sighed, pressed the power button, andraised the HG-2. “I’m threatening you with a heavy-gravity handgunloaded with homing incendiaries,” I said. “That’s what I’m doinghere. Now, are you going to cooperate, or is this going to getnasty?”

Chapter Twelve

He raised his hands slowly and stared at me. “Whoare you?” he asked.

“I’m the person with the gun,” I told him, asI stepped away from the dreamtank and trained the HG-2 on hisgenerously-sized belly. “That’s all you need to know rightnow.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“Oh, there’s a shock,” I said. “Did you thinkI hadn’t noticed?”

“What do you want here? There’s nothing worthstealing.”

“Is that why you aren’t armed?”

“Why would I be armed? I’m justmaintenance.”

“Not security?”

“No. Why would we have a human guard here?There’s nothing worth stealing!”

“Security has been summoned,” the roomsaid.

“Tell them to stay back-there’s a hostagesituation,” I said, keeping the gun pointed at the maintenanceworker.

“They won’t be here for twenty minutesanyway,” my hostage said. “Our security is the casino cops from theGinza, and they’ll want to clear it with management before theycome down here.”

I considered that, then asked, “Why are youtelling me?”

“Hey, you’re pointing a gun at me. I don’twant you getting nervous because things aren’t going the way youexpect them to.”

That made sense. “Which of these is Station31?” I asked, nodding toward the dreamtanks on my right. “Give me ahand, and I can be out of here before the casino cops ever show up.No danger of getting caught in the crossfire.”

“Thirty-One?” He blinked, then pointed,keeping his hand high as he did. “Over there somewhere.” The handsdrooped a little. “Is that what you’re after? One of these lose…I mean, one of our clients?”

“That’s right. Can you get him out forme?”

“You gonna kill him?”

I grimaced. “No,” I said. Then a memory ofwhat it had felt like when the three of us got the news that ourparents were dumping us stirred in the back of my head somewhere,and I added, “Though he maybe deserves it.”

“He owes you money?” He shook his head. “Hecan’t pay it. That’s part of the deal. The company takes control ofall assets and all debts when the babies go in the bottle. Theygive up control of their own affairs. If he has any money left, hecan’t touch it.”

“I know that!” I snapped. “I’m not hereto…never mind. Just open Station 31, will you? It’s none of yourbusiness what I want with him.”

He shrugged. “Sure. No juice out of mysystem.” He lowered his hands and headed toward one of the tanks.He tapped the display and said, “Maintenance.”

The screen lit up. He glanced at it and said,“Oops.” He moved two panels over and repeated his performance,except this time instead of “oops,” he said, “Got it.”

I moved cautiously closer, keeping the gunready and staying a couple of meters out of reach.

TIER 4, ROW 6, STATION 31, the top line ofthe display read, and the second line said HSING, GUOHAN.

That was him.

“Huh,” the maintenance worker said. “Is thatspelled right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Get him out.”

“I mean, it’s usually Singh, S I N G H.That’s how I spell it. Maybe the H is in the wrong place.”

I put that together with the guy’s turban.“He’s not a Sikh,” I said. “The name’s Chinese, with an archaicspelling. Now, get him out of there.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” theturbaned man-presumably Mis’ Singh-said.

“Security is on its way,” the room remindedus. “Please do not take any hasty actions.”

“Get him out,” I repeated.

“He’s been in there a long time,” themaintenance worker warned me. “If I get him out he’s going to bepretty disoriented, and there’s probably been some muscleatrophy.”

I hadn’t really thought that through. I knewhe might not be feeling very cooperative after being snatched outof his mechanical womb, away from his pretty fantasies, but thatwas one reason I’d brought the gun. That he might not be able towalk could complicate matters.

I couldn’t take the whole tank; it was toobig, and built into the floor. It wasn’t designed to move. I had toget my father out, and if he couldn’t walk, that was a problem.

Fortunately, I had a solution standing rightthere.

“You may need to carry him for me, then,” Isaid. “Don’t worry, he’s not a big man.”

“After all those years in there, I’ll bethe’s not.” He glanced around. “Carry him where?”

“Anywhere I can get a cab.”

He looked baffled. “You’re taking him awaywith you? Why? He’s a dreamer, nobody’s going to ransom him oranything.”

“I know that.”

“Does he know something you want? Are youplanning to question him? Because there might be some memoryloss…”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone beingheld at gunpoint,” I said. “Just get him out.” I pressed a buttonon the HG-2, and it made a threatening whine, as if the targetingmechanism were adjusting.

The real targeting mechanism was completelysilent, of course; the button was just sound effects.

The sound effects worked, though; Mis’ Singh,if that was his name, stopped asking questions and got busy withthe panel on T4 R6 S31. A moment later there was a hiss, then awhir, and then Station 31 opened and a bed slid out.

And there was my father, lying naked in thebed-not on it, but sunk down into it, surrounded by worn brownplastic. He was curled into foetal position, lying on his leftside, but going by the wear on the plastic, and the condition ofhis skin, he had been turned every so often. Tubes ran into botharms, his mouth, nose, anus, and urethra; a visor covered his eyes,and a heavy-duty cable was plugged into the back of his skull andsecured with a clamp around his throat. He was shriveled andshrunken, his skin dry and flaking, his hair long and ragged; theonly part of him that still looked healthy and normal was the wirejob on his neck and one side of his head.

I hadn’t seen him in years, and when I did hehadn’t looked like this, he’d been healthy and alert, but all thesame, I recognized him immediately. This was Guohan Hsing, allright. This was my father, genetically if not legally.

“Get him out of there,” I said again. Themaintenance guy tapped the control panel; the throat clamp releasedwith a sharp click, and tubes started withdrawing. I decided Ididn’t need to watch that, and focused my attention on the paunchyman’s face, but I could hear the tubes sliding from theirplaces, which was almost as bad.

“Do you want him awake?” Singh asked.

“Waking Mis’ Hsing is a violation of hiscontract,” the room said. “Please wait for Security before takingfurther action.”

“I just want him alive,” I said. “Awake orasleep doesn’t really matter right now.”

“Waking Mis’ Hsing is a violation of hiscontract,” the voice repeated.

“Can you shut that thing off?” I asked Singh.I gestured with the gun. “It’s annoying me.”

“Not from here,” the maintenance workersaid.

“It’s not very bright.”

“It doesn’t have to be, to watch over a bunchof dreamers.”

The hiss and gurgle of retracting tubesstopped, and I heard the rasping as my father began breathingunassisted for the first time in years. I hesitated before lookingat him, though; I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see him.

“They didn’t give it much authority, didthey?” I said, putting off the inevitable. “You didn’t need to doanything to override it.”

“You just said it’s not very bright, Mis’.Would you trust it with anyone’s life?”

Then Dad coughed, a harsh, choking cough, andI turned to help.

So did the maintenance guy. Between us we gotmy father into a sitting position as he choked and gasped, hislungs struggling to work unaided. He coughed uncontrollably forwhat seemed like half an hour, but which my symbiote told me wasonly about twenty seconds, and when he was finally able to stop hewas wide awake, sitting in his plastic bed. He raised one tremblinghand and lifted off the visor, then looked up at us.

He tried to talk, but all that came out was awheeze, and that started him coughing again. I decided not to wait.“Pick him up,” I told Singh. I had lowered the gun while we movedmy father; now I pointed it again.

He hesitated, glancing at Dad. “What are yougoing to do with him?” he asked.

“I’m going to get him off Epimetheus beforesunrise,” I said. “Pick him up!”

“Security will arrive in approximatelyeighty-five seconds,” the room said. “Please stand by.”

“Off-planet? How?” Singh asked.

“I have a ship,” I said. “It’s waiting at theport. Unless you want to get caught in the crossfire, I suggest youpick him up and get him out of here before those eighty-fiveseconds are up.”

Singh took maybe half a second to think itover, then nodded. He bent down, tugged the loose clamp out of theway, unplugged the cable from the back of Dad’s neck, then slid hisarms under shoulders and knees and picked my father up. Either themaintenance guy was stronger than he looked, or Dad weighed aboutas much as a cup of tea. He put up about as much resistance as atea cup, too.

“Which way?” Singh asked.

“Out,” I said. “Wherever Security isn’t. Youshow me.”

He nodded and began walking, and said, “Whatkind of ship?”

“A yacht,” I said, following him. I had totrot to keep up. “Not mine.”

“Room for another passenger?”

I should have expected that. “If it won’t getme arrested, there might be.”

“Hey, getting me out isn’t anywherenear as illegal as kidnaping this poor guy I’mcarrying.”

“Stop right there!” a new voice called.

I turned, the HG-2 in my hand, but before Icould say anything Singh called, “It’s okay, guys!”

I didn’t point the gun at anyone after all;instead I just looked at the two cops who were coming down theaisle toward us. They had guns, too-nothing quite as big as theHG-2, but probably more than enough to kill me several times over.A floater was hanging just above and behind them, scanning thescene.

“What’s wrong?” I said, trying to soundconfused.

“The surveillance system here reported ahostage situation,” the lead cop said, keeping his gun trained onme. The second cop, I noticed, was pointing his gun atSingh.

Singh had been telling the truth aboutSeventh Heaven’s security; these two were in charcoal-gray suitswith the Ginza logo on the breast and security badges on theirsleeves. Casino cops-that was both good and bad. Good, because theydidn’t really care about the law, only about what was good forbusiness, and shooting potential customers was pretty much nevergood for business. Bad, because they not only didn’t care whetherI was breaking the law, they didn’t care whether theywere, either-they could play rough.

“The surveillance system is an idiot,” Singhsaid. “There’s a maintenance problem, that’s all-I had to get thispoor loser out before his tank poisoned him.”

“Who are you?”

Singh sighed. “I’m Minish Singh, second-shiftmaintenance.”

“Who’s she?”

“Hu Xiao. She wanted me to check on thisguy-he’s a potential witness. Good thing she did; he’d have beendead in an hour.”

I thought that was pretty good improvisation;I wondered whether they’d buy it. I didn’t think I wouldhave, but I’m not a casino cop. Casino cops don’t like trouble.

“Surveillance, can you confirm?”

“Minish Singh, confirmed. However, thisperson does not match city records of Hu Xiao.”

“I told you, rejuve,” I said. “My files needupdating.”

“She’s Officer Hu,” Singh said.

“She threatened Mis’ Singh with what shecalled a heavy-gravity handgun loaded with homing incendiaries,”the room said. I thought it sounded… miffed, maybe. Or pettish.One of those strange old words that shouldn’t apply to ahalf-witted piece of software.

“Fine, my weapon isn’t standard issue,” Isaid. “Is that any of your concern?”

“You threatened him?” the lead cop asked.

“What?” I tried to look innocent. “No, Ididn’t threaten him, I just told him to hurry.”

The second cop spoke for the first time.“Who’s the corpse?” he asked.

“I’m not…” Dad said. Then his voice gaveout, and he coughed instead of finishing the sentence.

“Guohan Hsing,” Singh said.

“He’s a potential witness in a kidnap,” Isaid, trying to reconcile the story I’d given the room with thestory Singh had made up.

“I’m not dead,” Dad said. This time he gotthe whole thing out, but so quietly I’m not sure the cops heardhim.

They didn’t care, in any case. To them he wasa body Seventh Heaven had been storing, and whether he was alive ordead was a technical detail that didn’t interest them.

“His tank glitched,” Singh said.

“Or was hacked,” I said.

“Surveillance, who’s the hostage here?” theless-talkative cop asked.

“The intruder calling herself Hu Xiao washolding Mis’ Singh at gunpoint.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “I was just trying tohurry him a little. Who wrote this piece of gritware, anyway? I’msorry to drag you two down here, guys-I guess this surveillancesystem’s a little buggy.”

“Mis’ Singh, was this woman threatening you?”the lead cop asked.

“No,” my father and Singh said in unison.

The second cop smiled at that, and loweredhis gun a little.

“May we please get this man out of here tosomeplace he can get medical attention?” Singh demanded. “This isall a misunderstanding, but that tank did almost killhim.”

“I did not detect any malfunction,” the roomsaid, and I had to agree it wasn’t a very good piece of software-itmade this statement in a flat tone, neither sulky nor defensive.That trace of emotion I thought I’d detected before was gone.

“Well, I have eyes, not just a datafeed,”Singh said. “Something glitched his tank. We need to get him out ofhere.”

“And after that Mis’ Vo wants to questionhim,” I said. I thought whoever was listening to the bugs in mygun, assuming someone was, might be amused by that.

The lead cop glanced over his shoulder at thefloater. “Any advice? Orders?”

“Neither account is entirely consistent orbelievable,” the floater said in a pleasant alto

“So everyone’s lying?”

“Or mistaken.”

“You think it’s all a misunderstanding?”

“We have insufficient evidence to concludeotherwise.”

“I don’t want to get mixed up in akidnaping,” the second cop said.

“Look, I’m the ranking representative ofSeventh Heaven here,” Singh said. “I’m telling you there’s noproblem. Go on back to the Ginza and forget about it.”

“What the hell,” the lead cop said,holstering his pistol. “That runs smooth enough for me.”

“Want us to file a bug report?” the secondasked Singh.

“I’ll take care of it,” he replied.

A second floater had arrived, I noticed. Ididn’t say anything, and tried not to let anyone see I had noticedit; it was stealthed, hiding itself in a holo that blended with theceiling.

Except it had set the holo up as acompromise, angled as best it could to fool all three of us-Singh,Dad, and me. And I was shorter and closer than they were, so myangle was different, and the image wasn’t aligned perfectly forme.

“Good enough,” the cop said. He holstered hisweapon, as well, and the two of them turned away. The big floater,the visible one, kept a lens trained on us to make sure we didn’ttry anything, and followed the two humans as they headed back theway they had come.

For a second or two Singh and I watched themgo; then Singh said, “Come on,” and started walking again. Heshifted my father around into a more comfortable position; itreally looked as if my old man didn’t weigh more than a dozenkilos.

“Just a moment,” I said. “Let me check thesafety.” I looked down at the HG-2, and at the image of the ceilingreflected on the inert diagnostics screen.

The stealthed floater was still there. Iactivated the gun’s targeting system, hoping it could find thefloater and lock onto it. Then I hurried after the maintenanceworker.

I had to be careful what I said, since I knewwe were being watched. I couldn’t even safely tell Singh wewere being watched, not with both the stealthed floater and thebugged gun listening in.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Hey, if you can really…”

I interrupted him. “You aren’t happy here?” Isaid.

He glanced back at me, puzzled. Then helooked thoughtfully along Row 6.

He might not see the floater, but he knew wecould be heard. The surveillance system might be stupid, but it wasprobably bright enough to record everything, and sooner or later itwould send those recordings to someone or something thatwasn’t stupid.

It probably had enough recorded already toget us both sent for reconstruction if anyone decided to push.There was no point in pretending we were complete innocents.

But we didn’t want to say anything that wouldget us moved to the top of the priority list, either.

“No, I’m not happy,” he said. He waved at thedreamtanks around us. “Look around. You know what people call us,all of us who work here?”

I knew. “Corpsefuckers,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said angrily. “You look atthis son of a bitch I’m carrying. Never mind that he’s not dead,you think anyone would want to screw that?”

I didn’t want to look at him. I wanted toremember my father as a human being, not a dessicated ruin. “Idon’t think anyone means it literally,” I said. “It’s just… itseems creepy, working with all these comatose dreamers.”

“It is creepy,” Singh agreed. “Not tomention boring-no one’s buying dreams anymore, not when the city’sabout to fry, and I’m nothing but a back-up system, watching themachines tend a bunch of losers nobody cares about. You knowsomething, Mis’ One-With-the-Gun? I’ve had enough of it. If you canget me somewhere I can find a better job, I’ll do whatever you wantwith this Guohan Hsing. Do you know where you’re taking him?”

“I’m headed for American City on Prometheus,”I said. “Or maybe Alderstadt.”

“Either one sounds good to me.”

“What…” The voice was a dry whisper, but weboth heard it. “Who are you people?” my father asked.

“My name’s Minish Singh,” the paunchy guysaid, without stopping. I hoped he knew where he was going. “Untilmaybe five minutes ago I was the second shift maintenance crew forSeventh Heaven Neurosurgery.”

“What are you doing with me? This isreal, isn’t it?”

“As real as it gets,” Singh replied.

“Why? I paid for a lifetime contract!”

“Ask her,” Singh said, nodding over hisshoulder toward me.

Dad struggled to turn his head to look at me,but the neck muscles weren’t strong enough. Singh shifted his holdto help, and my father stared at me.

“You look familiar,” he said at last.

“Good to know,” I answered.

“You look… how long has it been?”

“Long enough,” I said.

“You’re Carlie, aren’t you? Or… Ali? Or agranddaughter?”

“Right the first time,” I told him.

“Carlie?” There was a sort of wonder in hisvoice-and apprehension. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Why the hell would I do that?” I snapped.“Seems to me you already did it for me!”

“You… you might want revenge for dumpingyou,” he said. “I thought… I’ve…” He began coughing again, andSingh thumped him on the back as if he was burping a baby.

Then we were at a door, and Singh pressed histhumb on the screen and the door slid open, and we were in aservice corridor, black plastic all around. I glanced up where Ithought the stealthed floater probably was, but I couldn’t spotit.

I’d want to do something about that.

I tapped my wrist to call for a cab, thentold Dad, “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. If I wanted you tosuffer, you’d be suffering. You think no one can tamper with thesoftware here? Anything can be hacked, you know that.”

“We need to find street access,” Singh said.“The cabs can’t get in here.”

“So get us out,” I told him.

“Where are you taking me?” my father asked,as Singh turned left and trotted down the corridor. Dad’s voice wasstill weak, every word coming with an effort.

“Prometheus,” I said, hurrying to keep up.“Where you can go right back into a dreamtank. Don’t worry, I’m nottrying to get you to take your life back; I just don’t trustSeventh Heaven to keep things running after the city’s fried.”

“Is your mother there? On Prometheus?”

“What? Of course not. She’s been out-systemfor years.”

“Then why?”

I wasn’t any too sure of that myself.“Because someone offered to get you off-planet, and it seemed likea good play at the time,” I said.

“But we dumped you.”

“I know that, you bastard,” I said. I couldfeel my eyes welling up. “God damn it, I know that. But you neverasked whether we intended to dump you.”

Chapter Thirteen

We came out in a maintenance shaft-it wasn’t streetlevel, but it was open to the sky and a cab could get in. I beepedfor one. Then I looked at the HG-2 and checked the read-outs to seeif it had a fix on the invisible floater.

It did. I lifted the gun, pointed it in theright general direction, and fired.

The recoil knocked me back against the shaftwall, so I didn’t get a good view of the explosion, but what I sawwas pretty damned satisfying. Scraps of hot metal and meltedplastic rattled off the walls and floor, and sparking bits ofelectronics spattered in all directions.

“What the hell…?” Singh said,turning around fast. He dropped my father on the way.

“Spy-eye,” I said. “The Ginza cops set it onus.”

“And you killed it?”

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t say anything morethan that aloud, but I was thinking that I really hoped it hadn’tbeen sentient. I had quite enough to explain to my ancestors whenthe time came without adding another murder.

“That blast is going to get the citycops after us!”

“Pfui,” I said. “When was the lasttime you saw city cops do anything down here?”

“You’ve sure as hell pissed off theGinza!”

I shrugged. “I’ve been on their gritlist foryears.”

A weird hissing noise interrupted us, and weboth turned to see where it was coming from.

My father was lying sprawled on the floor ofthe shaft, laughing at us.

“My Carlie,” he said. “Look at you!”

“I look a hell of a lot better than you do,”I retorted.

“You… you’re living like one of my dreams,”he said. “How did that happen?”

“My parents did the dump on me when I wasfifteen,” I said, and I knew I sounded bitter and sarcastic, and Ididn’t care. “I learned to do whatever I had to do to survive.”

“You’re… what, an assassin?”

“A private detective,” I said.

“And you’re taking me to Prometheus?”

“Shut up,” I replied. Something was movingoverhead, and I wanted to be sure it was our cab, and not a Ginzaenforcer.

Then it was sinking down the shaft with theheadlights blazing, a cloud of stardust forming the Midnight Cab amp; Limo logo on its taxi-yellow belly. “Our ride’s here,” Isaid.

“So are those,” Singh said, pointing.

I looked where his finger indicated, andspotted two glossy black floaters-not stealthed, but not lit,either. They were big ones, probably weighed more inert than I did,and were heading directly toward us. I didn’t see a logo-not theGinza’s, not the city cops’ insignia, nothing but gleaming black.They didn’t look like newsies; there were no visible lenses orantennas.

I looked at my gun and thought about it, butthere were two of them, and they might be armed. I could maybe takeout one before they could react, but there was no way I could getthem both, and I didn’t know what the survivor would be capableof.

They weren’t shooting at us, and they weren’tshouting, so I decided we could ignore them for the moment.

Well, partially ignore them, anyway. They didforce me to change my plans. I had originally hoped to call ’Chan,get him to the casino door, then grab him, maybe drug him, and haulhim along to the ship. That would have gotten everyone together,one happy family, and we could have just taken off for AmericanCity before the cops could stop us.

With those floaters there watching us, thatprobably wasn’t going to work.

“Someone called for a cab?” the Midnight cabcalled, its door sliding open as it hung a few centimeters off thedeck.

“Get him in,” I told Singh, pointing at myfather. While he loaded Dad into the cab I watched the blackfloaters, but they had slowed to a stop. They were hoveringsilently at the top of the shaft, noses toward us.

“You coming?” Singh called. He and Dad weresitting in the cab, the door open.

I holstered the HG-2 and climbed in afterthem. The door was closing behind me when a Ginza floater, exactlylike the one that had accompanied the cops-in fact, it probablywas the one that had accompanied the cops-came dropping downtoward us.

“Transparency,” I told the cab. “I want tosee this.”

The roof seemed to vanish, and there was theGinza floater, swooping down toward us-and then the black floaterswere moving again, as well.

But they weren’t moving toward the cab; theywere diving in to cut off the Ginza’s floater.

“Get us out of here,” I said.

“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”the cab protested.

“Neither do we,” I said, “but it looks as ifsomeone else does.” The black floaters had blocked the cop’sapproach.

I couldn’t see the Ginza floater anymore,since the black floaters were easily twice its size and there weretwo of them between us, but the cab had its external audio on, so Icould hear it. “Hu Xiao!” the Ginza floater called. “You arecharged with the destruction of casino property!”

“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”the cab repeated.

“And I told you, we don’t either,” I said.“None of us is this Hu Xiao person. See for yourself.” I slid mycard in the slot.

“Thank you, Mis’ Hsing,” it said. “And theseothers?”

Singh threw me a glance, then fished out hisown card and tabbed it in.

“Thank you. And the last of you?”

“That’s my father, Guohan Hsing,” I said. “Hedoesn’t have his card with him, but if you’re set up for a DNAcheck you can verify it.”

“I’m Guohan Hsing,” Dad agreed. “You cancheck my voiceprint if you can’t do a genetic scan.”

I wasn’t any too sure his scratchy whisperwould match any old voiceprints the cab might have access to, butapparently the cab was convinced somehow; it began rising.

“I notice the elder Mis’ Hsing is naked anddoes not appear entirely well,” it said, as it cleared the lip ofthe shaft. “Is medical attention desired?”

I was watching the floaters and almost didn’thear it; the Ginza floater was still trying to get at us, and theblack floaters were blocking it, forcing it back. “Who arethose things?” I asked.

Then the cab’s question registered, and Iquickly added, “Thank you, but no medical attention is needed. Justget us to the port asap.”

“The blue floater is a security unit owned bythe Ginza Casino Hotel,” the cab said, answering my question. “Theother two are refusing all requests for identification, but thespecifications match descriptions of high-level units owned by theNew York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall.”

“Carlisle Hsing!” the Ginza floater called.“You are charged with destruction of casino property and giving afalse name to security personnel!”

They’d ID’ed me. I was a bit surprised it hadtaken that long, but I wasn’t really thinking about that. I wasthinking about the black floaters. They belonged to the NewYork?

That meant they belonged to the Nakadas. HadGrandfather Nakada sent them to protect me? It didn’t seem likely.It didn’t seem like his style, and besides, everyone on Epimetheusthought he was dead. He couldn’t just give orders and expect themto be carried out without any explanation of his reporteddemise.

But who else could have sent them? Obviously,someone who’d been listening in-maybe through my gun, maybe throughdatafeed from Seventh Heaven or the casino cops-but who would havecared enough to send this pair?

I didn’t understand what was happening, and Ididn’t like that. I wasn’t going to take any more big risks until Ihad a better idea what was running.

“The port,” I told the cab. “Hurry!”

“But the Ginza…”

“We aren’t in their jurisdiction,” I said.“Go!”

“I’m going.”

It was; we soared up out of the shaft, and upSixth Street, then diagonally over the rooftops toward theport.

“Oh, gods!” my father said.

I turned, thinking something was wrong,thinking maybe his heart was giving out without the steady streamof meds and fluids he’d had in the tank, but no, if anything he waslooking better than ever. He was sitting up and staring out at thecity.

Specifically, he was staring at the westernwall of the crater, where the morning sun was gradually creepingdownward from the rim, and at the higher towers, where sunlight wasgleaming from their top few floors..

“It’s the dawn,” he said. “It is, isn’tit?”

“Not yet,” Singh told him.

“Soon, though,” I said. “That’s why I’mgetting you out. I expect Seventh Heaven to declare bankruptcy theminute that light hits the streets of Trap Over. Maybe they won’tjust leave all the dreamers to rot in their tanks, but I didn’twant to take the risk.”

“How long was I in there?” Dad asked.

I glared at him. “I was sixteen, almostseventeen, when you went in,” I said. “Look at me now.”

“It’s horrible,” he said. “Sobright!”

I almost laughed. I’d spent a year onPrometheus. I’d even been stranded on the Epimethean dayside once.To me, Nightside City was still an island of comforting darkness,even if the sky was no longer black. “What, none of your dreamswere out in the sun?” I asked.

“Some of them were, yes, but those weren’treal. I always knew that. And they weren’t in NightsideCity, in my home.”

“Your home is about to get hit with hardultraviolet,” I said. “The temperature’s already climbed at leastten degrees, and it hasn’t rained since you bought your dream. Youknew that was coming.”

“I… I knew it, but I didn’t believeit.”

I snorted. “So you ran and hid in adreamworld where you wouldn’t have to see it,” I said. “You know,when I pulled you out, I wasn’t sure whether you would wake up ornot, but I’m glad you did, so you could see this.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “I want to goback.”

“Too late for that,” Singh muttered.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “I could drop the twoof you, you could tell the authorities I had you at gunpoint thewhole time and you never wanted to cooperate, and you could takeMis’ Hsing here back to his happy fantasy life in the tank.”

Singh looked at me. “And what do youdo?”

“I get back to the port and head forPrometheus, and hope my rich friends there can buy my way out ofthis mess.”

“And what about those?” He pointed.

I followed his finger to where the two bigblack floaters were following us at a frighteningly small distance,maybe ten meters behind our cab. “Oh,” I said.

I didn’t know who sent those two, which meantI didn’t know what they would or wouldn’t interfere with. Theymight not let me dump anyone, or flee anywhere.

There was no sign of the Ginza cop floater,though. That was something. I wondered whether the black ones haddisabled it somehow, or whether it had realized it was outmatchedand backed down, or whether it had been called back by the casinomanagement.

Any of those was possible.

Who had sent the black floaters? Werethey helping me, or just keeping me for themselves?

I didn’t think Yoshio had sent them. If hehad, wouldn’t they have told me? But if he hadn’t, who had? Wassomeone from the New York tracking me? If so, was it at Vo’sdirection, or without his knowledge?

Or was someone keeping an eye on the SeventhHeaven dreamtanks?

Nakada floaters, according to the cab. And itwas presumably a Nakada who had used the back door into SeventhHeaven’s data. If someone was keeping an eye on them, it wasa Nakada, or at any rate someone with access to the clan’s innerworkings.

And someone with access to the clan’s innerworkings had tried to kill Grandfather Nakada. Someone had madecopies of the old man’s ITEOD files, including back-ups of a dozenhigh-ranking Nakadas.

I didn’t think Vo had anything to do withit.

It might all be coincidence. It might beunrelated intrigues or corporate espionage. I didn’t think that wasthe way to bet it. It looked to me as if it was all part of thesame conspiracy, and the only coincidence-if it was acoincidence, and not somehow connected-was that the dream companyinvolved happened to be the same one that had my father tucked awayin their tanks.

Dreams-someone was monitoring the top dreamcompany on Epimetheus, and someone had tried to kill Yoshio Nakadaby tampering with his dream enhancer. Another link.

But it wasn’t about me or my father at all,then, and I could still try to grab my brother.

“Wait a minute,” I told the cab. “Can you getback to the Ginza without attracting any unwanted attention?”

“What?” Singh said. “I thought we wereheading for this ship of yours, to get the hell offEpimetheus!”

“There’s another passenger,” I said. “Someoneelse I want to bring.”

“Where are you planning to put her?”Singh demanded. “This thing’s full!”

It didn’t look that full to me; yes, therewere three of us on the main seat, but there was a luggagecompartment in the rear, and I suspected a second seat could befolded up. “Cab, how many passengers are you licensed for?”

“Six, mis’.”

“Then can you get back to the Ginza?”

“I don’t know, mis’,” it said. “Those twofloaters are following me, and I’m on the navigation grid; ifanyone wants to find us, they can.”

“I thought you were in a hurry!” Singhprotested.

“My brother’s in the Ginza,” I said.

“Sebastian?” Dad croaked. He was slumpedagainst the side of the passenger compartment, staring out throughthe transparent bubble at the glittering ads that filled thestreets of Trap Over.

“Yes, Sebastian,” I told him. “He’s acroupier.”

Dad lifted his head from the plastic. “I’dlike to see him,” he said.

Just then Singh’s com buzzed. He tapped itfor speaker.

“Minish Singh,” he said.

“Singh,” it replied, in a woman’s voice,“what the hell is going on?”

“Damned if I know,” Singh said.

“That woman you’re with has been identifiedas a private investigator named Carlisle Hsing, except Hsing issupposed to be off-planet, on Prometheus. Do you have any idea whoshe really is?”

“She gave her name as Hu Xiao,” Singh said,throwing me a questioning look.

“She’s not Hu Xiao-at least, not the courtofficer Hu Xiao.”

“Then I don’t know any more than you do.”

“She’s listening to this, isn’t she?”

“Yes, mis’.”

For a moment no one spoke; then the cabasked, “Am I supposed to be going to the port or the Ginza?”

“The Ginza,” I told it. Then I told Singh’scom, “I’m Carlisle Hsing. My brother Sebastian can identify me.He’s a croupier at the Ginza.”

“I’m assistant director of security for theGinza, Mis’. I know Sebastian Hsing.”

“Then you can arrange for him to talk tome.”

“I could, yes, but why should I?”

“Because I asked nicely?”

She sighed. “Mis’ Hsing, what do you thinkyou’re doing? According to the records you’ve occasionally cut afew corners, but you’ve basically stayed clean. Now you’ve shot afloater and kidnaped an attendant and someone from a dreamtank, notto mention trespassing, avoiding arrest, impersonating anofficer-what is this?”

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

“It’s one hell of a misunderstanding.”

“Let me talk to my brother, face to face, andI’ll explain. We’re on our way back to straighten this out.”

She didn’t answer right away. Then she said,“I’ll need to check with the floor manager.”

“You do that,” I said. “Oh, but one questionfirst.”

“What?”

“That floater I shot, the stealthed one-whatkind was it?”

“What do you mean, what kind?”

“Was it sentient?”

“Not really. Semi-autonomous.”

“Thank you.” I leaned back on the seat, andonly when I did that did I realize I’d been hunched forward. Now Icould relax a little. “You go ask whoever you need to ask.”

I had assumed it was just a dumb tracker whenI first shot it, but then I’d had second thoughts. It was good toknow I had been right the first time. Legally it probably didn’tmake any difference, but it mattered to me whether I’dkilled something self-aware.

For the most part I was making this up as Iwent, as I usually did, but I decided it was time to do a littleadvance planning, for once. I ran my fingers over my wrist and senta little message to the Ukiba-four words, “add a hot lunch.”I was fairly certain Yoshio-kun would punctuate thatproperly, even if Perkins didn’t-add “a” to “hot lunch,” and have ahot launch ready to go when we got back to the ship.

“Privacy,” I told the cab, once the messageshowed as sent and received.

The view of the surrounding city vanishedinstantly as the cab went opaque, and my symbiote flashed an alarmthat all external input and net access had been cut off.

“Thanks,” I said. “Tab yourself a fat tip forthis-double the fare, if you want.” I might as well enjoy myexpense account while I could.

“Thank you, mis’,” it replied. “It’s veryexciting!”

“I thought you didn’t want any trouble,” Isaid, amused.

“It seems as if I have it whether I want itor not, so I might as well enjoy it.”

I grimaced. I wished that attitude was morecommon.

Then I turned my attention to Singh and myfather. “Listen,” I said, “they think I kidnaped you two, but Ireally am going to kidnap my brother ’Chan. He’s got animplant that’ll shut down his legs if he leaves the Ginza, so we’llneed to carry him. Once he’s off-planet we can get the implant out,but first we need to get him onto the ship. Dad, I know you’re inno shape to do anything, but Singh, can you help me with this?”

Singh cocked his head. “How big is yourbrother?” he asked.

“Bigger then me,” I said. “Bigger than myfather. But not really big.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Besides a ride to Prometheus?”

“Yes, besides that.”

I glared at him, then shrugged. “Akilocredit.”

“Five.”

“Two-five.”

“Three.”

“Done.”

We shook hands, and then loaded my fatherinto the luggage compartment, where he would be safely out of theway.

“Everything hurts,” he complained. “I feelevery little bump, and my legs and hands are all stiff.”

“That’s how you know you’re alive,” Isaid.

“They didn’t hurt in the dream.”

“It wouldn’t be much of a dream if they did,”Singh said, as he straightened Dad’s limbs to make him morecomfortable.

“We’re approaching the Ginza,” the cabsaid.

“Let me see,” I said, and as the bubbleturned transparent and the city reappeared around us, I pulled mygun from its holster and tapped the power switch to on.

Chapter Fourteen

I hadn’t specified which entrance to use, so the cabhad brought us down at the big front door on Cassiopeia Avenue, andour arrival was the central act of a circus.

Ginza cops were everywhere, three or fourdifferent varieties of them, and a few characters who had the lookof cops but who I didn’t think were from the Ginza. People in fancysuits were there, as well, and I don’t think they were all on thesame side. Dozens of floaters were swooping around, orhovering-newsies and security and spy-eyes, and advertisers thatsaw a crowd forming and didn’t care why. Tourists were watching;they probably had no idea what was going on, but thought it lookedexciting.

Add that to the usual glittering chaos of acasino’s entrance, the stardust and holos and lightscapes.

But I didn’t see ’Chan.

“Hey,” I said into Singh’s com. “Where’s mybrother?”

“On his way.”

“We’ll wait.”

The cab asked, “Will you bedisembarking?”

“We’re staying right where we are,” I toldit. “Go ahead and charge waiting rates if you want.”

“Thank you, Mis’.”

“You’re either crazy, desperate, rich, or onan expense account,” Singh remarked. “I’m guessing it’s an expenseaccount. You’re working for someone.”

“Could be more than one of those,” Isaid.

“It could. You said something about richfriends; I’m betting it’s more like a rich client.”

I glanced at him. “You know, you should becareful about what you bet on. You might make someone angry.”

“You must know you couldn’t get out of thiswith your brain intact if you didn’t have some pretty seriousbacking.”

“So maybe I want to be reconstructed.Maybe it’s my way of avoiding reality, since I can’t afford to buythe dream the way my old man did.”

Singh shook his head. “You aren’t thatcrazy.”

The cab was now completely surrounded byGinza cops and security floaters. “Are you sure?” I asked.

He considered that for a moment, then said,“Yeah, I think I am.”

“Good. Cab, privacy, please?”

“You do know that the city police canoverride my privacy field?”

“I didn’t, but I’ll risk it. Do it.”

“Yes, mis’.” The bubble went black, plungingus into gloom lit only by the cab’s various internal displays.

I turned back to Singh. “Here’s what I wantyou to do for your three kilocredits. I’m going to talk to mybrother, and I’m going to tell him I have someone here in the cabhe needs to see. He’ll come over to look and he’ll see our dadhere-and when he does, you grab him and pull him into the cab.”

“I can do that.”

“And cabbie, the instant our new passenger isaboard, I want you to close up and head for the port as fast as youcan. Don’t wait for further instructions. Got it?”

“Yes, mis’.”

“Good. Then drop the privacy.”

“Yes, mis’.” The bubble was transparentagain, and I looked out at a dozen guns pointed at us-and at ’Chan,who was walking slowly across the entry plaza toward us. A woman ina navy blue suit was walking beside him and talking while read-outsflickered across her chest and sleeve. ’Chan was leaning toward herslightly, obviously listening to whatever she was saying.

“Open the door,” I said.

The cab’s door slid aside, and I perchedmyself in the opening with the HG-2 in my hand. “’Chan!” Icalled.

“Mis’ Hsing,” the woman beside him called.“Come out and talk.”

“Talk first,” I said. “Then maybe I’ll comeout.” As I spoke I was trying to take in as much of my surroundingsas possible, and in particular what sort of weaponry the casinocops were displaying. It looked like about half lethal, half merelyincapacitating, which meant that they’d be willing to take me downat the first opportunity. Killing me would mean kiloscreens ofreports and documentation and trouble with superiors who might wantto know what the hell I’d thought I was doing, but tranking me, orotherwise shutting me down somehow, would be good for a few karmapoints, so long as I didn’t manage to do any damage going down.

Which was why I had the gun turned on andready. If they shot me I intended to get off a shot or two of myown before I went blank.

“Carlie, what the hell are you doing?” ’Chanasked. He sounded both concerned and annoyed.

“Did they tell you who I kidnaped?” Icalled.

’Chan glanced at his keeper-I wasn’t sure ifshe was his boss as a security admin, or in a different chain ofcommand, or what. “No,” he called back.

“I think you should take a look.”

The woman in blue whispered something to him;he threw her a startled glance.

“It may not be who they think it is,” Isaid.

“Carlie, this is insane,” he answered.

“Come take a look, and then tell methat.”

That definitely had his interest; he came andlooked. I leaned aside and pointed toward the luggagecompartment.

“Is that Dad?” ’Chan asked, leaning in. “Theysaid…”

And that was when Singh grabbed him by thefront of his worksuit and heaved him over me into the cab.

“Go!” I shouted, but I didn’t really need to;the cab was already moving.

The door closed on ’Chan’s foot at first; wemust have been forty meters up by the time the cab was able to getit free and Singh managed to pull ’Chan entirely in.

“I’m being ordered to land immediately,” thecab told us.

“You tell ‘em that if you land, I’ll startshooting.”

“They want to know whether I consider this acredible threat.”

“I have an active gun here; what doyou think?”

“I think I am not programmed for threatassessment. I am reporting this conclusion to the city police.”

“It’s city cops now?”

“Yes, mis’.”

That was bad. I didn’t want to mess with citycops. I glanced out through the bubble at the city zipping past.“Is this your maximum velocity?”

“I am exceeding the posted speed limits bythe customary twenty-five percent.”

“Go to emergency maximum, please.”

“I am forbidden to do so without an orderfrom authorized personnel.”

“An active gun doesn’t constituteauthorization?”

“I regret to say it does not.”

I looked out and saw no fewer than four copcars following us-and those two black floaters. The cops seemed tobe ignoring the floaters; I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Getting from the cab into the ship was goingto be tricky.

“Privacy,” I said.

“The city police have overridden my privacysystems.”

Damn. “They’re listening?”

“I would assume so.”

I only had to think for a second. “Listen,cab,” I said. “I like you, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Put usdown where I point, and as soon as we’re out, get the hell out ofthere. You understand?”

“Yes, mis’.”

“We’re clear on the fare and tip?”

“I believe so, mis’.”

I smiled. I did like this cab. “If you’recoding for even more-well, how much can you take without gettingcalled for an ethics violation?”

“You might be surprised, mis’.”

I smiled wider. It even had something like asense of humor-and maybe a sense of honor, too, giving me agraceful way to avoid wasting too much money. “I might, atthat. Okay, not that much, but I’m feeling generous. You chargewhat seems fair.”

“Thank you, mis’.”

We were approaching the port by then. I triedto arrange myself so that my gestures wouldn’t be visible to thecops behind us, but I knew the onboard security cams would befeeding to them, and they could calculate from those. “Put us downthere,” I said, pointing at the steps to Ukiba’sairlock.

“Yes, mis’.”

“Carlie!” ’Chan said. “What the hell are youdoing?”

I turned to look at him; he and Singh werethoroughly tangled on the seat beside me. Dad was leaning over theseat-back and grinning at them.

“Getting you out,” I said. I would have said“off this planet” if the cops hadn’t been listening. “Mis’ Singh,can you manage both?”

Singh had straightened himself out. He lookedat ’Chan and Dad, considering. He did not look happy.

“Never mind,” I said. “Get him.” I pointed at’Chan. “I’ll get the other.”

“Carlie, you know the implant kicked in, andI’m paralyzed from the hips down, right?”

“I know,” I said. “You just cooperate and noone gets hurt.”

“Oh, come on, Carlie, I’m your brother! Youaren’t…” He stopped in mid-sentence, and I don’t know whether itwas because he realized the cops were listening, or because hesuspected I really was that crazy.

Or maybe it’s just that he didn’t think I waslistening, because I was hauling Dad out of the rear compartment.Dad was helping me as much as he could, but that wasn’t much.

Grandfather Nakada’s doctors were going tohave some work to do getting my family back in shape, I thought.Assuming anyone bothered to do anything with Dad other than stickhim back in a dreamtank.

The cab was settling down right next to theUkiba-I mean, close enough that my feet wouldn’t have totouch the plastic pavement at all, I’d step straight from the cabonto the metal steps. I heaved Dad onto my shoulder and got readyto jump, but paused long enough to com Perkins two words-“Open up.”I knew the cops would intercept that, but I was hoping they mightnot realize I was talking to the ship rather than the cab, or thatthey simply wouldn’t react quickly enough.

The cab opened up first, but only by a secondor two. By the time I was solidly on the steps and trying to climbwith my old man on my shoulder the airlock door was slidingaside.

I was relying on the fact that the cops werehuman, and had only human reaction times; the pause while theydecided whether to shoot or not gave us time to get aboard theship.

But only barely. Singh was right on my heels,with ’Chan on his shoulder, and the first trank bounced offthe steps where his foot had been an instant before while I wasstill staggering into the airlock.

We made it, though, and the airlock closed upbehind us, and the ship began moving the instant the outer door hada good seal.

If we’d been using a commercial vessel thatwould have been it, the authorities would have shut it down beforeit got off the ground, but I was pretty sure Yoshio Nakada wasn’tthe sort of person who would allow that. I’d gambled that theUkiba did not have any of the standard police or portoverrides-or at least, that they didn’t actually override theship’s own systems.

The warning sirens were howling; we couldhear them through the hull until we got through the inner door ofthe lock. I hoped the newsies and cops would all realize we meantit, and that the overrides weren’t going to stop us; I didn’t wantanyone to be hurt by the launch.

I dumped Dad on the vibrating floor as soonas we were in the ship; he might only weigh half what he ought to,but that was still more than I was accustomed to carrying, and theship’s acceleration made any movement more difficult.

Singh lowered ’Chan to the deck, too, and weboth sank down as well, and sat there leaning against the wall andpanting as the roar of atmosphere past the hull peaked, and thenbegan to fade.

“Mis’ Hsing?” Perkins asked over theintercom.

“Right here,” I said. “Everyone’s aboard andalive.”

“We’re clear of the crater and heading forspace,” Perkins said. “I’m ignoring a lot of questions and demandsfrom the ground.”

I nodded, not that I thought he could see it.“Good.”

“What’s our destination?”

“American City,” I told him. “The Nakadacompound.”

“Thank you. May I ask who our passengersare?”

I glanced around. “The one with the workinglegs is Minish Singh,” I said. “He’s a passenger-I promised him aride off Epimetheus in exchange for his help with the others. Theskin and bone near-corpse is my biological father, Guohan Hsing; wewant to make sure he’s healthy, then get him settled into adreamery on Prometheus. And the last one’s my brother Sebastian,who needs to have an implant removed before we can let him go.”

“An implant? So we’re being tracked?”

I sighed. “Perkins, we’re staying in-system.They don’t need an implant to track us.”

“Oh. Of course not.” There was a click; Ididn’t know whether he had really broken contact, but he seemed tobe done talking.

“I assume you’ve got a surgeon lined up totake it out,” ’Chan said.

“Not yet,” I said. “We can take care of itwhen we get to Prometheus.”

“Do you have a dream booked?” Dad asked.

“No.” I saw the disapproving look on his faceand said, “I’m improvising.”

“You should have left me in the tank.”

“Yes, I probably should,” I agreed, “but Ididn’t trust Seventh Heaven to keep you alive in there once theTrap is in daylight.”

“I hate this, Carlie,” he said. “Everythinghurts, and sometimes it’s boring, and it seems dangerous. Someonecould have shot at that cab, or at this ship.”

“Run it,” I said. “We should have you savedin a new tank in a couple of days.”

“You know, you made a real mess back there,”’Chan said. “Kidnaping and extortion and an unauthorized launch andprobably a lot I don’t know about. You better keep the Nakadasreally happy; they’re going to need to pay off a lot ofpeople to clean that up.”

“I intend to satisfy my client,” I said.

’Chan heard the certainty in my voice. “Soyou think you know who killed Grandfather Nakada?”

I grimaced. “Nobody did,” I said.

’Chan couldn’t move his legs, but he threw uphis hands at that. “Then what did they hire you for? If he died ofnatural causes, what do they need with a detective?”

“He didn’t die,” I said. I started to explainfurther, then stopped; it wasn’t any of ’Chan’s business.

“What, he faked his death? Why would he dothat?”

I shook my head. “It’s complicated,” I said.“You don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I got you outof Nightside City.”

“With my legs locked up and my accountsprobably frozen.”

“We’ll get that fixed. We’ll get the implantout, and we’ll get your money to Prometheus. You’ll be fine.”

“The Ginza is going to be furious if I don’tgo back.”

“Screw the Ginza and IRC. We’ll take care ofit.”

He stared at me. “You’re running that smoothwith the Nakadas?”

“I hope so.” I looked at Singh. “You haven’tbeen saying much.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have much to say. Iwanted a ride off Epimetheus, and I’m getting one; I’m happy.”

“A man of simple code,” I said. “I likethat.”

“I may need some help with a breach ofcontract suit from Seventh Heaven.”

“If they bother,” I said.

“I said ‘may.’”

I nodded.

Singh started to say something else, thentook a look at my face and stopped; I guess he realized I wasn’tlistening any more.

I was thinking.

I was thinking about what Seventh Heavenmight do about a stolen customer and poached employee, and that ledme to the conclusion that it depended on the personalitiesinvolved, which led to me wondering exactly who the locals were whoowned the Eta Cass franchise of Seventh Heaven, and that led meback to the back door into their systems, the back door that oldYoshio had had installed, but which someone else had recently beenusing.

Yoshio had the back door installed when hewas thinking of acquiring the company, or at least the localdivision-I didn’t know whether he’d been interested in the homeoffice on Mars. Well, what if whoever had used the back door justbefore me had also been thinking about buying up the Eta Cassfranchise of Seventh Heaven? With the dawn maybe a year away, thewhole thing was probably available cheap.

In fact, maybe the original Yoshio hadreconsidered and was taking another look. Yoshio-kunwouldn’t know that, and the old man probably wouldn’t have botheredmentioning it to me, since so far as he knew it was just anotherbyte of business and had nothing to do with the tampering with hisdream enhancer. Grandfather Nakada himself wasn’t on Epimetheus andhadn’t been lately, and I didn’t think he could have used that backdoor over interplanetary distances; the delay in response timebetween Epimetheus and Prometheus was about eighteen minutes at themoment, and you couldn’t sustain a connection with a break likethat in it. He could have had one of his agents checking it out,though.

But if that was the case, then whoever usedthe back door hadn’t needed the old man’s ITEOD files to getaccess.

So maybe our little corporate explorer andthe party who faked the old man’s death weren’t the same person atall; maybe it was just a coincidence, and the fraud had been aftersomething else in the ITEOD files. Or maybe there was a connectionI was missing.

Or maybe Yoshio had nothing to do with theintrusions, and I’d been right the first time. Or this was all partof some complicated corporate espionage that the old man might ormight not know about.

I would have to ask him a few questions oncewe were safely back in American City.

But there were things I could check righthere. “Ukiba,” I said, “research request-I want to know theexact ownership of the local franchise of Seventh HeavenNeurosurgery, including any recent changes in ownership, or bidsfor purchase or control.”

“Working,” the ship replied. “How would youprefer the data to be presented?”

“Text display.”

“Available.”

We were clearing atmosphere by then, or atany rate the noise and vibration had subsided, so I was able tomake my way to a terminal and look at what the ship had pulled offthe nets-or maybe it had the information in its own files allalong, for all I know; it might be something the old man liked tokeep current.

As I suspected from its location, aboutthirty-four percent of Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery of EtaCassiopeia was owned by IRC. Another eleven percent was owned byNew Bechtel-Rand. The rest was spread across dozens of smallinvestors, all based in the Eta Cass system, some in NightsideCity, some on Prometheus.

And someone was trying to negotiate atakeover. An investment group calling itself Corporate Initiativeshad approached IRC, New Bechtel-Rand, and several of the othershareholders with a tender offer-or rather, looking at the times,someone was approaching them right now.

I pulled up everything available on CorporateInitiatives. There wasn’t much. Most of the listed contacts weresoftware, the legal filings were all as vague as possible, theaddresses were all just mail drops.

I knew there had to be a human agent listedsomewhere, and eventually I found her. Her name was Chantilly Rhee,and at least legally, she was a resident of American City.

That was a surprise; I’d expected the wholething to be based in Nightside City, or at least somewhere onEpimetheus. I asked for her background.

She was nine going on ten in Prometheanyears-twenty-six Epimethean, twenty-seven Terran. That was tooyoung to be the real power here, I was pretty sure. Born inMuriel-that was a mining town on a caldera island just off the NineIslands archipelago, a couple of hundred kilometers west ofAmerican City. That didn’t tell me anything. Her parents weren’tanyone special, a roomscape artist and a tactile therapist. Twoyounger sisters. Standard online education, got her checkmark whenshe was just five-sixteen Terran. Took half a year to travel, thenfound a job and settled in American City.

But then I saw what that job was, and Mis’Rhee got very interesting.

She was personal assistant to KumikoNakada-Yoshio Nakada’s only surviving daughter.

Of course, Chantilly Rhee’s involvementdidn’t mean that Yoshio’s daughter was the one behind theassassination attempt; for one thing, if this was all connected andKumiko was really the villain of the piece, I’d expect her to do abetter job of hiding it. This could be coincidence, ormisdirection, or one corner of a conspiracy.

Whatever it was, though, at least I finallyhad a suspect. When I got to American City I intended to have achat with Grandfather Nakada, and then a little talk with hisdaughter. I doubted I would be able to get within twenty meters ofher ordinarily, but with her father’s backing I thought I ought tobe able to arrange a conversation.

And one thing I wanted to know was what thehell she wanted with Seventh Heaven. Dream companies weren’texactly a hot item, last I heard; most people preferred real life.A dream company based in Nightside City seemed like an especiallybad investment.

I remembered the case that got me offEpimetheus in the first place, when Sayuri Nakada had been connedinto buying up worthless real estate by convincing her there was away to keep the sun from rising and cooking Nightside City. Whatwas it with Nakadas making stupid investments in a doomed city? WasKumiko being conned, the way Sayuri was?

I knew it wasn’t the same people; Sayuri wassuckered by a group operating out of the Ipsy, the Institute forPlanetological Studies of Epimetheus, and Grandfather Nakada hadput a very definite stop to that. Those scammers were gone, sentfor reconstruction.

But maybe they had friends. I frowned. Maybethe attempt on Grandfather Nakada had been an act of revenge, ormaybe it had been intended to make sure he didn’t do to thesepeople what he did to Paulie Orchid, Bobo Rigmus, and Doc Lee.Maybe someone was running a con on Kumiko Nakada.

I wouldn’t expect someone her age, in herposition, to fall for any such scheme, but maybe they had a betterpitch this time than the grit Sayuri bought into.

Or maybe it wasn’t Kumiko after all; maybeChantilly Rhee was the one being conned. She was young enough to bethat dumb.

Or maybe she was part of the con, and Kumikohad bought in because she trusted Rhee.

And all that assumed there was a con,and this wasn’t something completely different. I didn’t actuallyknow what was going on at all. It was even possible that ChantillyRhee had been a front for Yoshio himself, and not Kumiko

But I intended to find out.

Chapter Fifteen

I called ahead, of course, to let Grandfather Nakadaknow we were coming. I didn’t tell him exactly who “we” were,though-I don’t care what encryption Ukiba used, I didn’tthink interplanetary communications could ever be secure. I didn’tmention his daughter, or Seventh Heaven, or his own alleged death;I just said I was returning with passengers and needed to talk tohim in person as soon as he could arrange it.

I got an acknowledgment that was even vaguerthan my own message, saying that my situation would be discussedonce we were on the ground.

I sent a follow-up, saying that some of ourbusiness was urgent. I didn’t say what; I let him assume it wassomething to do with the murder attempt.

Really, though, it was Dad and ’Chan. Dad wasstarting to lose it, being out of his tank and no longer having hishealth monitored; the ship’s medical banks could probably havehandled him just fine if he’d allowed it, but he didn’t trust me,or the ship, or anyone else, and said he would wait until we’dfound him a new dreamtank. He insisted that the shaking hands andcoughing fits and occasional spasms, and his inability to keep fooddown, were nothing to worry about.

And ’Chan was paralyzed from the waist down,which was more serious than I had initially thought. It wasn’t justthat he couldn’t walk; there were other things he couldn’t do,either. He was more cooperative than our father, so the ship wasable to catheterize him, but still, I knew we needed to get thatimplant out as quickly as possible.

I thought about sending a message that wewanted a doctor standing by, but decided against it. GrandfatherNakada was two hundred and forty years old; it was a safe bet healways had doctors nearby, ready to work.

At least Singh was no problem. Now that wewere actually on the way to Prometheus he seemed subdued andnervous, as if he was having second thoughts about his impulsivedecision to get off Epimetheus. He’d left his belongings behind,and his friends, if he had any-he’d told me he didn’t have anyfamily, but not everyone we care about is related to us. I figuredwe’d be able to turn him loose with minimal fuss, maybe give him afew kilocredits to get started on his new life, and he’d be smooth,despite these belated doubts.

Yoshio-kun was another matter. I hadno idea what I was going to do with him. I didn’t know whether hisexistence was legal on Prometheus-I knew making a recording wasillegal, but bringing in an already-existing one was anothermatter. The old man had done it more than once, but that didn’tmean it was actually legal, and I wasn’t him, and it might make adifference that Yoshio-sempai was still alive. I could haveasked the ship, but I didn’t actually care whether he was legal,only about whether I would need to hide his existence, and hidinghim from his original was likely to be far more important thanhiding him from the law. The old man might not want a copy ofhimself around, and not everyone thinks there’s anything wrong inerasing artificial intelligences.

And it was the original Yoshio’s ship. I wasfairly sure the ship already knew Yoshio-kun existed, andPerkins definitely knew, but I didn’t see any need to remind anyoneby asking about the laws.

Of course, Yoshio-kun probably knewbetter than anyone else what Yoshio-sempai was likely to do,so I could have just asked him, but I was busy with Dad and ’Chanand I didn’t get around to it.

Perkins put the ship down on the privateNakada field, where I was not happy to see daylight, and plenty ofit; we were back in the realms of light. My feet felt heavier inPromethean gravity, as well, and the air that cycled in fromoutside smelled of ocean and volcanic smoke.

By the time I got through the airlock a dozenfloaters were waiting for me, glittering in that horrible sunshine.“I have two people here who need medical attention,” I told thenearest one the moment I emerged; I was shading my eyes with myhand and blinking, but I could see that it was a blue and silverfloater that looked like the one I’d talked with in the Sakaibuilding. It might have just been the same model, though.

“Yes, Mis’ Hsing,” it said. “They will beseen to immediately.”

Floaters aren’t exactly known for accuratelysimulating emotions such as surprise, but I still thought this oneseemed to be prepared for my request. The ship had probably been incommunication with the planetary networks before we landed.

“I expect you to be discreet,” I said.

“We have strict instructions that everythingabout you and your activities is to be treated as confidential,” itassured me.

“Good.”

“You have an appointment with Yoshio Nakadain forty minutes. He trusts you will be prompt.”

I stopped blinking and stared at the floater,my eyes starting to water. “Forty minutes?”

“Yes.”

I had half expected him to be waiting on thelanding field, but apparently he was in less of a hurry than I hadthought. That meant I could oversee loading Dad and ’Chan intomedical transports, and I could promise Dad that he would be goinginto a dreamtank as soon as we were sure he was healthy. Whichwasn’t necessarily true, since that hadn’t been included in theagreement I made with the old man, but it kept everyone calm.

Singh was in the airlock when the medicsleft, staring out at the daylight. I realized he had probably neverseen daylight first-hand before. We watched them go, and then Singhasked, “What about me?”

“Mis’ Nakada would appreciate it if you wouldremain aboard the ship for the present,” the blue-and-silverfloater said.

“Am I being held?”

“Technically, you are trespassing, so theNakadas would be within their rights to hold you. Mis’ Nakada wouldprefer to keep this friendly, however.”

“Friendly sounds good to me.” Singh turnedand headed back into the ship, probably looking for a snack, orhoping to talk Perkins into a game of something. I suspected hewould just as soon wait until dark before venturing out into thethick, cool air of Prometheus.

And then it was time for me to head out to myappointment. Three floaters escorted me across the field andthrough a few corridors to a pleasant little office where daytimecloudscapes drifted across the walls, but where there were noactual windows.

The floaters waited at the door, and once Iwas inside the door snapped shut, locking them out and me in. Iguessed the office was a secured area, and the floaters didn’t haveclearance to enter.

In fact, I was sure the office was asecured area; the old man would scarcely have talked to me anywhereelse. At least we weren’t meeting in a dressing room somewhere.

Yoshio Nakada was waiting for me, sittingcomfortably in a big black chair that made him look small and oldand harmless-probably deliberately. A small desktop floated by hisright hand.

Nobody looks small to me, though, and I knewhe wasn’t harmless. I stepped in and stood there, waiting for himto speak first.

“Mis’ Hsing,” he said. “I see you havesuccessfully collected your retainer.”

“I have,” I agreed. “Thank you. I trust theirmedical needs are being seen to, and my father will be installed ina dreamtank here?”

“They are. You don’t mind, then, if GuohanHsing is once again removed from your life?”

I shrugged. “That’s what he wants. I respectmy ancestor’s wishes.”

He nodded. “I expected nothing less. When yourequired his safety as part of your fee I assumed either familialduty or familial affection was basic to your character, and Ithought duty more likely.”

I didn’t reply, and he continued, “You haveleft me with a mess to clean up, though-contracts broken, propertystolen or destroyed, serious criminal charges.”

“I know. I assume you can manage it.”

“Of course I can. I would have preferred atidier retrieval, though.”

“I thought you were in a hurry.”

“I am. Are you ready to begin yourinvestigation, then?”

Since he knew something of what had happenedon Epimetheus I had assumed he had kept himself informed about allof it, but maybe I’d misjudged, or maybe someone had beeninterfering, and he really didn’t know all of what I’d done inNightside City. “I already began it,” I said.

That did not seem to surprise him any morethan my agreeing to put my father back in a tank had. “Are youprepared to report any results?”

“I am prepared to discuss the situation, Mis’Nakada. I have questions I need answered.”

“I will try to answer them, then.” Hegestured toward a chair, which floated up behind me. I settled intoit.

“Did you know that everyone on Epimetheusthinks you’re dead?” I asked.

He frowned. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, very sure.”

“I had hoped that the reports had beenhacked.”

I shook my head. “Not about that,” I said.“Your death is all over the nets. Died in your sleep, causeundetermined. The newsies wanted to know what the hell I was doingwith a dead man’s ship.”

“That must have been inconvenient.”

“I managed.”

“Do you know the origin of the false reportof my death?”

“Here,” I said, pointing at the floor.“Somewhere in American City, and someone with access to yourprivate nets.”

“You think it’s related to the attempt on mylife.”

It wasn’t a question, but I said, “Probably,yes. Are you negotiating the purchase of Seventh HeavenNeurosurgery?”

He tilted his head to one side. “I am not,”he said.

“Someone here is. The buyer’s human agent isChantilly Rhee.”

That appeared to surprise him-his eyeswidened slightly. “I know Mis’ Rhee,” he said.

“So I assumed.”

“I will not insult you by asking whether youare sure, but are you certain she is aware of her involvement?”

“No,” I acknowledged. “Identity theft isdefinitely a possibility.”

“Is this planned purchase related to thesabotage of my dream enhancer?”

“I don’t know yet. It may be.”

“The negotiations are taking place onEpimetheus?”

“I think so.”

“Mis’ Rhee has not left Prometheus since theattempt on my life. I have kept very careful track of everyone inthe family compound.”

“That assumes your surveillance softwarehasn’t been compromised.”

“True.”

“I never said she was the buyer, though.She’s listed as the agent, not the principal.”

“You think my daughter is the principal?”

I noticed he took it for granted I knew whoChantilly Rhee worked for. “I don’t know,” I said. “Until thismeeting, I wasn’t sure you weren’t the principal.”

“While I am familiar with Seventh HeavenNeurosurgery, I decided some time ago that it was not a soundinvestment.”

“I know,” I said. “Poor long-term prospects.But you might have reconsidered.”

“I haven’t.”

“Someone here thinks it’s worthbuying, though.”

“Or worth appearing to want, at anyrate.”

“Or that.”

“You seem to have learned some interestingthings on Epimetheus, but I fail to see a connection to what Ihired you to investigate.”

“I don’t know the link,” I said. “Maybe thereisn’t one, but maybe there is. There’s definitely a connectionbetween Seventh Heaven and the false report of your death.”

“Is there?”

“Yes. And that report scrolling past rightafter the attempt on your life would be one hell of a coincidence.”I think he expected me to explain how the Seventh Heaven deal wasrelated, but I didn’t feel like explaining the business with theITEOD files.

“You said the false report came fromPrometheus.”

“It did.”

“But the negotiations with Seventh Heaven arebeing conducted on Epimetheus?”

“Oh, there’s definitely been activity on bothplanets.”

“Then if these events are connected, Iam dealing with a conspiracy, and not a lone assassin.”

“Well, it’s not a single individual, actingentirely alone,” I agreed. “But your assassin might just have hiredhelp. Or bought it.”

“Ah. Software might be conducting thenegotiations with Seventh Heaven.”

“Yes. And software might have made the phonydeath report.”

“Interesting.”

“Do you have any idea why anyone would wantto buy Seventh Heaven?”

“Just the local franchise, or the parentcompany?”

“The local franchise. I don’t care aboutanything on Mars, or anywhere else outside our system.”

He shook his head. “Their prospects are notgood. The resident population of Nightside City is less than halfwhat it was before the first light topped the crater wall, andthose who remain are more likely to invest in a ticket off-planetthan in a dream company’s services. They have failed to establishthemselves anywhere else in the Eta Cass system, not even elsewhereon Epimetheus; the franchise operators don’t seem to haveconsidered it worth investing the necessary capital, and the coststo start now would be prohibitive. Seventh Heaven’s presentbusiness model has no future, and I am unaware of any plans torefocus their resources.”

“Oh, I know no one’s stupid enough to wantthem as they are now,” I said. “I was thinking about whether theyhave anything that could be valuable in some completely differentway. Their dream library, maybe?”

“Their library is unremarkable,” the old mansaid.

I didn’t bother asking how he could be sure,or what standards he used to evaluate it; I didn’t doubt he knewwhat he was talking about. Instead I asked, “What else do theyhave?”

“You believe this is relevant?”

“It might be. I don’t know. If I can showthat it isn’t, that’s one less dead link to explore.”

He considered for a moment, then said, “Theirassets consist of the tanks, which have no obvious use other thantheir present one; the trust fund that is intended to fundmaintenance until their last client dies; the dream library; adiminished sales staff; long-term leases on property in Trap Under;and their client contracts. The sales staff and library arecompletely unremarkable.”

“That trust fund-is that worth chasing?”

“Not unless they intend to murder all theirclients.”

I felt a chill at that, and GrandfatherNakada must have read it on my face. “That isn’t a viable option,”he said. “While it’s true that their client base has littleconnection to the outside world, all deaths are reported to thecity authorities-by the tanks, not by the personnel-and anysuspicious increase in mortality would be noticed.”

“You’re assuming they don’t hack the tanks toprevent the death reports.”

“Mis’ Hsing, if the deaths aren’t reported,the trust fund won’t be released.”

“Could they bribe the city authorities toignore suspicions?”

“Of course they could, but corruption alwayscarries some risk, and the amount in the trust fund would notjustify that risk-it would barely cover the bribes. What’s more,some of the clients left family behind who would not be so easilysilenced.”

I had to admit that it didn’t sound like agood reason to buy the company. I wondered where those blackfloaters that had helped me get my father out fit in; did thebuyers want the clients to be removed? Would that free upthe trust fund?

But they couldn’t count on clients to havecrazy relatives. That wasn’t it.

From Yoshio’s list, that left the leases andthe contracts.

“Is space in Trap Under at a premium, maybe?”I asked. “Do people think it’ll be protected from the sun?”

“It will be protected from the sun,”the old man answered, “but no, it isn’t particularly valuable.There’s more than enough space available, and new tunnels can bebored cheaply enough. The city’s economy is based on a liveableexternal environment; if it has to move underground it won’t be anydifferent than any of the mining towns further out on the nightside, except that there’s nothing worth mining. The tourist tradewill disappear, and most of the miners will make do with their owncasinos and entertainments.”

That left the contracts.

The old man came to the same conclusion, andbefore I could ask a question he said, “The client contracts aremore of a liability than an asset. The money has already been paidin, and what’s left is the obligation to care for and entertain theclients.”

I knew he was right, but I thought there wassomething there we were missing. Those black floaters-hadthey deliberately been helping me get Dad out of there? They didn’tbelong to Seventh Heaven or the Ginza; they belonged to the NewYork, which meant the Nakadas, which probably meant whoever wasbacking Corporate Initiatives. The buyers had helped me kidnap oneof the clients-what did that mean?

Did they want Dad out of his tank? If so,why? What did a Nakada want with him?

Whatever it was, I had brought him straightto the Nakada family’s private compound.

“Where’s my father?” I asked.

“Medical services, I assume.”

“Could you check?”

If I had to describe Nakada’s expression Iwould call it “bemused.” He didn’t say anything; he turned to hisdesktop and pressed a thumb on a reader.

The seascape that had filled the displayvanished, and menus appeared. He gestured, then read theresults.

“He’s in medical services, undergoing anexamination.”

“Who has access to the exam results?”

The old man’s expression changed, so slightlyI wasn’t entirely sure at first I hadn’t imagined it. “That’s avery interesting question,” he replied. He reached up to the backof his neck, and I realized for the first time that he was jackedin, and the desktop was for my benefit, not his. He’d found myquestion interesting enough to drop the grit.

I wouldn’t have thought he’d want to ridewire after what happened to his dream enhancer, but apparently hewasn’t deterred as easily as I was. I assume he had massivesecurity on that line, the sort of watchdogs I had only ever seenfrom the outside.

“You’re right, Mis’ Hsing,” he said, though Ihadn’t said anything to be right about. “Someone’s hacked intomedical and taken a very sharp interest in your father’scondition.”

“Can you tell who?”

“I can limit the possibilities,” he said.“There are about a dozen.”

“Is Chantilly Rhee one of them?”

“Yes. So is Kumiko.”

“I’d guess some of the others are dead.”

His eyes had drifted off, upward and to theright, since I asked who had access, but now they snapped back andfocused directly on mine. “Oh?”

“I know there are at least eight uploads ofdead Nakadas running in this compound, and I’d be surprised if noneof them could get in there if they wanted to.”

“I am impressed, Mis’ Hsing. I am quite sureI did not mention my uploaded siblings and descendants to you.”

“I told you I’d started myinvestigation.”

“I will want to know more about thiseventually, but for now, let us keep our attention on more urgentmatters. You tell me that my daughter’s aide is involved in ascheme to purchase Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery, a company that is,by any rational standard, almost worthless. You seem convinced thisis linked to the attempt on my life. And I believe we have bothconcluded that what the buyers are actually after is not any of thecompany’s normal assets, but the people inside the dreamtanks.”

“I think they helped me get my father out ofthere,” I said. I didn’t bother telling him any details about theblack floaters; they weren’t relevant.

“You think they wanted him to serve as a testsample, so they could assess the condition of their intendedacquisitions. Helping you kidnap him was less likely to drawunwelcome attention than extracting one of the dreamersthemselves.”

The old man was still sharp. “Yes,” Isaid.

“It’s an interesting theory, Mis’ Hsing, butit’s based on very little evidence and a great deal of supposition.Further, there is one very basic question to which I do not see anobvious answer: What do they want with the dreamers?”

When I walked into the office I couldn’t haveanswered that question, but by this time I had figured it out.

“Bodies,” I said. “They want living bodiesthat their original owners aren’t using.”

Chapter Sixteen

For a moment Grandfather Nakada sat silently in hisbig chair, staring at me. Then he said, “You think one of myuploaded relatives wants to be human again?”

“At least one,” I said. “For all Iknow, all eight of them are conspiring in this.”

“I confess, Mis’ Hsing, I don’t even knowwhether it’s technically possible to download a mind from a networkinto a human body.”

“I don’t, either. And I wouldn’t be too surethey know. That doesn’t mean they won’t try it. If they buyup Seventh Heaven they’ll have plenty of bodies to experiment on,and if they wait until after sunrise there won’t be much of anyoneleft in Nightside City to notice or care.”

The old man considered that for a fewseconds, then said, “Very little evidence and a great deal ofsupposition, Mis’ Hsing. And it doesn’t explain the attempt on mylife, or the false reports of my death.”

“They wanted a copy of you,” I said. “To getthem into Seventh Heaven. They didn’t think you’d cooperate withthem in your present form, but if you died, and an upload of youwas booted up, they thought the upload would help them. In fact, itapparently has-when you survived the assassination attempt, theyrealized a false report of your death would release the ITEODfiles, and they could copy and activate the upload you had inthere.”

“They have a copy of me?” The old man lookedshocked. I hadn’t thought anything could shock someone who’d livedthrough the last two centuries, but it seemed I was wrong. Isuppose this was a bit more personal than all that history.

And while I hadn’t originally intended tobring this up, I wanted to see how he would react to another newsitem.

“So do I,” I said. “Aboard Ukiba.”

“Hsing, you…”

He stopped in mid-sentence, staring at me,speechless.

I felt a twinge of guilt about popping thatup on the old man. I didn’t want to kill off my client, after all,and at his age any sort of shock carried a risk. “I didn’t know whoit was,” I said. “If there’s a proper catalog in the ITEOD files, Imissed it.”

He stared at me for a moment, then said, “Soyou think-you think that someone in my own family tried tokill me, just to get control of a copy of my most recentupload, as part of this scheme to use dreamers as a source of newbodies?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, “if you consider uploadsto still be family members. Remember, to an upload, that copy maybe you. She wouldn’t really be killing you at all, justswitching you to her own form of life, and even that might only betemporary.”

“An incarnationist? You think one of myuploaded relatives is an incarnationist?”

I hadn’t heard the term “incarnationist”before, but I understood right away what it meant, and what thetone of voice Nakada was using meant, as well. I had never seen theold man so flustered-in fact, until now I had never seen himflustered at all. Now, though, he seemed thoroughly scrambled. Heclearly found the idea that a member of his own family couldbelieve in the transferability of identity repulsive.

“There might be other motives as well,” Isaid.

“And there are two active copies ofme?”

“I don’t know whether theirs is stillactive,” I said. A thought struck me at the mention of the copies.“I’ll bet that… well, I didn’t find any record of any humansuspects visiting Epimetheus lately, but I’ll bet one of youruploads transmitted a copy there, and that’s who’s been running theSeventh Heaven negotiations.”

“You think there’s a duplicate of one ofthem, too?”

“And you can probably find out which bychecking transmission records.”

He blinked, and his jaw sagged slightly, andI remembered that he was still jacked in. I could guess where inthe nets he was going.

Then he was back, his face hardening.“Shinichiro,” he said. “My son Shinichiro.”

I knew the name from the family records; hiswas the most recent of the three deaths among the old man’schildren, and he had been dead for about twenty Terran years. Ididn’t know much beyond that, so I didn’t say anything.

“A copy was transmitted, just as yousaid.”

“Then I think he’s your assassin,” I said.“Or at least the ringleader.”

“But you have no proof.”

“I have no proof,” I agreed.

“Then you have not completed the job to mysatisfaction.”

“I’ve identified the assassin.”

“You’ve named a likely suspect. That’s notgood enough. To accuse my own son, I need more than this web ofsuppositions and guesswork.”

“It’s not your son,” I said. “It’s an uploadthat thinks it’s your son.”

The old man’s face froze at that, and thentook on a new expression.

I don’t ever want to see anyone look at melike that again. Usually the old man hid his emotions, kepteverything under strict control, but I’d cracked that reserveearlier, and right then it broke completely. Despair and rage werewritten in his eyes and on every feature.

Maybe it was an act. Maybe he was reallystill as cold and controlled as ever, and pasted that look theredeliberately.

I don’t think so, though. I think I hadtouched something he really cared about, said something he didn’twant to hear-and something that he knew was true.

“I talked to the copy of you aboardUkiba,” I said. “It knew what it was. It knew it wasn’t you.It knew an upload isn’t human, no matter what it’s copied from, andthat means you know it. You know that’s the truth.That upload isn’t your son. It’s an imitation, a softwareemulation.”

“It’s all I have left of him,” the old mansaid.

“But it’s not him,” I insisted. “It’ssoftware, not wetware.”

“It’s all that’s left,” he repeated, “and ifyou’re going to accuse him of trying to murder me, I need moreproof than you’ve given me so far.”

I wasn’t really surprised. He had told me hethought it was a member of the family, and he had seemed to acceptthe idea, but that was when it was theoretical and non-specific.Now that it was a particular individual, one who he apparentlyloved, it was different.

“I need access to your family networks,then,” I said. “And I’d like to interview Chantilly Rhee, andKumiko Nakada, and the upload you call Shinichiro, in thatorder.”

“I’ll arrange it.” His voice was coldagain.

Something about the way he said it beeped forme. “You know Shinichiro did it,” I said. “You just wantproof.”

“I believe that’s what I said, Mis’Hsing.”

He had obviously recovered from his moment ofshock.

“Fine. I’ll get you your proof. Maybe notenough for the law, but enough for you to be sure.”

“That is all I ask.”

“How soon can I see Mis’ Rhee?”

“I believe she should be at her desk; wouldyou prefer to speak to her in private?”

“I’d prefer to speak to her somewhere I knowthe Shinichiro upload isn’t listening.”

Even as I said it, though, I realized it wasprobably too late to keep it from learning what was going on. WhileI was sure the old man had a dozen layers of security on the officewe were in, Yoshio-sempai had checked on the medicals and onthe transmission logs, and there were probably a dozen other beepsas well-the upload might not know we had narrowed it down to asingle entity, but it must know we were getting close. It hadalready tried to kill the old man once, and just as I said, itwouldn’t even see it as murder-as far as Shinichiro was concernedhis father was safely backed up in a couple of places, and shuttingdown his original meatware was just a maintenance issue; he’d berebooted as soon as possible.

As for me, I wasn’t family, I wasn’timportant, I wasn’t anyone. Killing me was just debugging thesituation. If I was lucky it might try to buy me off instead, butif it really had access to a running copy of the Yoshio upload asimple question would tell it that wasn’t going to work.

At least, I certainly hoped the old man’sback-up would have that much respect for me; Grandfather Nakada hadcertainly claimed to when he hired me.

That brought up an interesting question,though-was Shinichiro’s copy of Yoshio-kuncooperating? Did it agree with what Shinichiro was trying to do?From what I knew of the old man’s character, I didn’t think itwould, but it might play along until it had control of itssituation.

It didn’t really matter, though; that copy ofYoshio-kun was back on Epimetheus, and I was here in theNakada compound in American City.

A lot of things were fitting together. Itmust have been a copy of Shinichiro that sent those black floatersafter me in the Trap; the copy here on Prometheus probably hadfloaters, too. It must have access to a lot of things. Ididn’t know how much control it might have over the household’senvironment-could it override the normal protocols? It had gottenat the old man’s dream enhancer, so it had obviously hacked atleast some of the systems beyond what it was supposed to be capableof using. There was no way to be sure anywhere in AmericanCity was entirely safe-or anywhere on the entire planet, really.This office might be secure, but if the old man had beenassuming a human saboteur he might have missed a way in. Ordinarilysoftware was written so that it couldn’t harm people and didn’twant to, but uploads-well, that was part of why they wereillegal most places. Uploads could do things artificials couldn’t,could go places humans couldn’t. They didn’t need to eat or sleep,and could be invisible and silent. Most of them didn’t go hackinginto secure systems, but if they wanted to, they’d be hard tostop.

If Grandfather Nakada got through this alive,he was going to need to run some serious purges.

For now, though, I was supposed to beinterviewing suspects, to demonstrate to the old man thatShinichiro was responsible for the attempted murder.

“Could we talk in here?” I suggested. Thisroom was probably as safe as I was going to get. “I don’t think I’dbe comfortable questioning her in her own office.”

“Would you prefer me to be present orabsent?”

“I don’t think it matters. You’ll berecording it, I’m sure.”

“Of course.”

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

He nodded. “I’ve notified her to comeimmediately.”

I nodded, and settled back in my chair towait. The old man turned to his desktop and started working onsomething, ignoring me for the moment.

It was a good chair, very comfortable, andthe cloudscapes on the walls were soothing. I found myself startingto relax.

“Mis’ Hsing,” Yoshio said, startling me backto full alertness.

“Yeah?”

“I thought you would like to know that yourbrother has come through surgery well; the implant has beenremoved, and I have convinced IRC to accept a payment in lieu ofhis services. Do you know whether he has any employment prospectson Prometheus?”

“I don’t,” I said.

“He may find breaking his contract with IRCwill make him less appealing to potential employers.”

I shrugged. “He’s a grown man. He’llmanage.”

“Considering the effort you devoted togetting him out of Nightside City, you seem surprisinglyunconcerned.”

“He’s my brother, so I care about him, buthe’s not a baby.”

“I have arranged for Guohan Hsing to betanked at Eternal Adventures here in American City as soon as hiscondition is sufficiently stable; my medical systems estimate fortyhours will be more than adequate. Obtaining his personal libraryfrom Seventh Heaven may prove difficult, however. They haveaccepted my payment for breach of contract and damages, but seemdetermined to hold his accumulated dream experiences forransom.”

“Then he can start a new library.”

“You aren’t concerned?”

“I think I’ve fulfilled my filialresponsibilities, thank you.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seemvery fond of your family.”

“My father dumped his three kids to buy adream; do you expect me to be grateful?”

“And your brother?”

I hesitated. “I love ’Chan,” I said. “Ireally do. But… do you love your niece Narumi?”

He smiled. “I understand. Moving on, this manSingh-who is he?”

“He’s a maintenance worker from SeventhHeaven who agreed to help me in exchange for a ride to Prometheus.End of script. I got him here, contract’s complete.”

“You don’t believe him to be involved in thealleged conspiracy?”

I shook my head. “If he is, he is one fine,fine actor.”

“Is he aware that I hired you?”

I had to think about that. I hadn’t actuallytold him, but he could have asked Perkins, or Ukiba…

“I don’t know,” I said.

“In your opinion, is he likely to object to apartial memory erasure?”

It seemed the old man was already thinkingabout the clean up. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “I think it woulddepend on the terms.”

“And your brother?”

“My brother,” I said, “agreed to thatimplant IRC put in him. I don’t think he’d mind a little mentalmeddling if there was some sort of compensation.”

“Compensation can be arranged.”

“Then he’s all yours. And Dad won’t sayanything while he’s in a tank, so even if he knew anything youwouldn’t need to worry.”

Yoshio nodded. “And you?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No one meddles with my memory if I haveanything to say about it. Personal integrity aside, I can’t affordthe risk in my line of work-what if you erased knowledge of anenemy I need to defend against?” I shook my head. “No.”

“I am not surprised.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

“Nonetheless, I thought it worth asking.”

I shrugged. Then I sat up and looked around.The door hadn’t moved; the cloudscapes still drifted undisturbedacross the walls. “When will Rhee be here?”

The old man frowned. He glanced at thedesktop, then put a hand up to the back of his neck to adjust theconnection. “I’ve lost track of her,” he said.

“What?”

“Her location is not registering.”

I reached down to where my gun would havebeen if I’d been allowed to bring it. I hadn’t been, of course; I’dbarely bothered to ask. “Are there dead areas close to thisoffice?”

“No.”

“She’s making a run for it?”

“Possibly. There are other explanations.”

“She might have been intercepted, you mean?Or your instructions never reached her, or were countermanded?”

“You grasp the situation well.”

“So Shinichiro does…” I saw the oldman’s mouth tighten, and corrected myself. “It would appear thatwhoever is behind this is aware that we’re getting close.”

“So it would seem,” Yoshio agreed.

“I need to go after her, then.” I got out ofthe chair. “Can you direct me to her last known location?”

“I can have a floater guide you…” hebegan.

But then he stopped and looked surprised.

I had been starting toward the door, butlooking back over my shoulder toward the old man, so I saw hisface, saw his eyes widen. I stopped moving, and turned to lookwhere he was looking.

That wasn’t necessarily going to let me seewhatever he was seeing, since he was still jacked in, but it’s aninstinctive thing, probably goes back a million years. I foundmyself looking at the door to the corridor.

I didn’t see anything strange, just a closeddoor, so I started walking again.

The door didn’t open. I was almost closeenough to touch it, and it didn’t budge.

“I’ve been overridden,” Grandfather Nakadasaid from behind me.

“Overridden how?” I asked, turning back.

“I can’t open the door,” he replied.

“I thought this office was secure.”

“So did I.”

That was really not what I wanted to hearjust then. “How badly are we screwed?” I asked.

He didn’t try to smooth it. “I’m not sure,”he said. “I cannot say how badly compromised the data I’m receivingis.” He pulled the plug from his neck and let it retract, thenturned to the desktop.

I didn’t wait; I ran my hand down the wall,through the images of fluffy white clouds, and found the manualemergency release. I twisted the handle, and the door cranked opena few centimeters.

I saw motion in the passageway outside, andstopped. I peered through the crack.

The blue-and-silver floater was there,hovering directly in front of the crack but turned to face awayfrom us.

Beyond it were at least two other floaters,sleek black ones, that seemed to be keeping the blue one pinned inplace.

“Father,” an unfamiliar voice said.

I turned. The desktop had lit up with aface-a face I didn’t recognize, and one that wasn’t exactly 100%human.

“Shinichiro,” the old man said.

“Father,” the desktop repeated. “We need totalk.”

Chapter Seventeen

“I am listening,” Yoshio said.

“I believe that this woman Hsing may havemisled you.” The face on the desktop moved as if speaking, but wasvery slightly out of sync with the words we heard. I guessed thatthe upload only had limited bandwidth to work with; presumablyGrandfather Nakada had strictly controlled access to thedevice.

The old man threw me a quick glance. “In whatway?”

“I suspect she may have cast a false lightupon my situation in hopes of coaxing money and perhaps otherconcessions from you.”

“What situation is that, Shinichiro?”

“There is an experiment I hope to conduct,and I have been pursuing the means to perform it. This involvespurchasing a controlling interest in Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery.Since I am at present inconvenienced by my physical nature, I havebeen forced to make this purchase secretly, throughintermediaries.”

“You refer to the legal insistence thatsoftware cannot own stock, or control corporations.”

“Yes, Father.”

“What does this have to do with CarlisleHsing?”

“It appears, Father, that Mis’ Hsing haslearned of my intentions-I do not know how, but she is, as we know,a talented and experienced investigator. I believe she hasmisinterpreted my plans. She kidnaped Guohan Hsing from SeventhHeaven, and I assume she did so because she thought his life mightbe in danger. I take it she has come here to tell you of hermisapprehensions, and ask that I be prevented from continuing myactivities.”

“Her business with me is not yourconcern.”

“As you please, Father. But I want to assureyou, I do not intend to harm anyone.”

The old man looked at me questioningly. Ilooked back blankly and shrugged slightly. I had no idea where thiswas going.

“I note that you have interfered with thehousehold systems,” Yoshio said.

“Only so that I might defend myself fromslander, Father!”

“Go on, then. What is this experiment? Whatdo you want with Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery? You know I declinedto purchase it some time ago; what makes it worth your whilenow?”

“The contract terms for the clients, Father.They granted Seventh Heaven a great deal of control over theirphysical well-being, and as I read the terms, this allows SeventhHeaven to make arrangements that would not be legal under othercircumstances.”

“Let us dispense with pretense and delay,Shinichiro,” the old man said wearily. “What is this experiment youwant to attempt? What do you hope to do with Seventh Heaven’sclients? Explain it to me.”

The tone of the voice from the desktopchanged, from formally polite to forceful and direct. “These peoplehave human bodies they aren’t using, Father, while I, and otheruploaded personalities, would very much like to be human again-thelegal restrictions on us are surprisingly onerous. I want to beable to own property and conduct business without a slew ofartificial constraints. I want to be able to go places that aren’ton the open nets or the family’s systems. I want to have a discretebody again. I can’t just grow myself one; you know about that. Ifit has a functioning brain, then it’s a person in its own right,and I can’t download myself into it without being charged withmurder. If it doesn’t have a functioning brain, there’s no way todownload me into it at all. But these people, Father, have brainsand bodies they’re barely using, and have signed away half theirrights to the company. As I read the contracts, I think it would belegal to remove them from their bodies completely, and putus-myself and other uploads-in those bodies instead.”

“Remove them?” Yoshio asked.

“Upload them,” the desktop said eagerly.“Just the way you uploaded me. They’ve signed away so much controlthat I believe Seventh Heaven can legally remove them from theirbodies entirely.”

“Against their will?”

“No, no, of course not! We would askthem, and offer them a choice-stay in the dreamtanks until they dieof old age or systems failure, or transfer to electronic form wherethey can live forever, where they can, if they want, be removedfrom Epimetheus entirely so that they don’t need to worry aboutwhat will happen if Nightside City is abandoned and left derelict.And they can go right on dreaming-we would transfer their dreamlibraries with them, and set those up in the same nets that theirminds would be in. They wouldn’t need to interact with the outsideworld at all, any more than they do now; they could have dedicatedsystems. They could exist in their imaginary worlds, in realms oflight, worlds of bliss, untroubled by any lingering concerns abouttheir original flesh.”

My skin crawled slightly at that idea; thesedisembodied intelligences would be so isolated, sopointless.

I didn’t say anything, though; this wasbetween the two of them.

“But they would be dead,” Yoshio said.

“What? No, they would be just as alive as Iam, living electronically, and their bodies would be inhabited byme, and Shigeru, and Momoko, and Hideo, and Kazuo-and you,if you want. You could be younger, Father-you’re two hundred yearsold, and even the best doctors can’t keep you alive as you areforever, but you could start over in a younger body, one theoriginal owner doesn’t want anymore.”

“Shinichiro…” The old man lookeddesperately unhappy. He stared at me for a second before saying,“No. Shinichiro is dead. You are a recording. You are not myson.”

“Father, what are you saying?” The desktop’stone was quite convincingly shocked. “I am Shinichiro!”

“You are a piece of software thatthinks it’s my son. And if you were downloaded into a newbody, even one cloned from your own genes, you would stillnot be my son. My son is dead. You would only be a copy.”

“But Father, what difference does that make?”The desktop’s voice was baffled and angry-and, I thought,frightened. “I’m still me. A copy is as good as theoriginal.”

Yoshio shook his head. “If I scan something,the copy may be indistinguishable from the original, but it is notthe original.”

“But there’s no difference! I remembereverything, and what makes us who we are, but our memories? Iremember growing up with Kumiko and Shigeru, and you came to see usevery night and put us to bed, and I made you tuck in my bunny-howcan I remember that if I’m not your son?”

Yoshio did not answer immediately; he sat inhis big black chair, staring at me, with the desktop floating byhis shoulder.

“Father, I am Shinichiro, and I wantto be human again. I want my rights back.” It sounded desperate.“Your shielding worked, so I don’t know what Hsing has told you,and I don’t know how she found out something was going on withSeventh Heaven, but I promise you, I don’t mean anyone any harm. Ijust want to be human again, and I couldn’t think of any other wayto do it. It’s her fault I even thought of this one-I gotthe idea when I did a background check on her for you, when shefound out what Sayuri was doing. I found out where her father was,and that it was the same company you had looked at, and I realizedthat there were all those bodies going unused, zipped up inNightside City where no one would ever notice if they wererecycled. I wasn’t going to steal them; I would ask for volunteers,and trade eternal life for humanity. I wasn’t doing anythingterrible. I wasn’t going to hurt Guohan Hsing.”

“You hacked his medical exam.”

“It was a perfect chance to see just whatcondition the dreamers are in!”

“You faked my death.”

“I… no, I didn’t.” I had never heardan electronic intelligence hesitate like that before; it was themost human thing the Shinichiro upload had done in the entireconversation.

“A copy of you did,” the old man said.

Something here didn’t yet fit, I realized. IfShinichiro had been the power behind Corporate Initiatives, whichintended to buy Seventh Heaven, why had it used the back door toexplore the company files? Why not just wait until it had legalcontrol? It had just said that it knew the old man had looked atSeventh Heaven, so it did know the back door was there and that aYoshio-kun could get it in, but why bother? Why was it worthfaking Grandfather’s death?

Why bother hacking my father’s exam, insteadof just demanding medical data as a condition of the plannedpurchase?

And why had it been our attempt to talk toChantilly Rhee that forced the upload to hack in and talk to theold man?

The upload talked about wanting human rights.It hadn’t said a thing about wanting a body for its own sake. Ithadn’t mentioned wanting to feel human again. It hadn’t saidanything about food or sex or physical sensations of any kind, andthose were the things that the other uploads I’d talked to or heardabout associated with being human, the things they thought they hadlost. Shinichiro had been dead for twenty years; it might not evenremember those. Yes, it remembered the bedtime bunny, butdid it remember lust or pain or hunger? It hadn’t mentionedthem.

It had talked about the right to own stock,instead. But what did it want to own? Seventh Heaven was just ameans to an end, not the ultimate goal-buying Seventh Heaven inorder to be able to buy Seventh Heaven didn’t make any sense, sothere had to be more.

And it had apparently tried to murder the oldman first, before it started hacking into SeventhHeaven.

It didn’t want Seventh Heaven; it wantedNakada Enterprises. I was sure of it. When I first heard thatsomeone had tried to kill Grandfather Nakada, and that he suspectedhis own family, that was the obvious motive.

But an upload couldn’t inherit anything; itwasn’t human.

If Shinichiro had been behind the entirething, you might think he wouldn’t have wanted the old man deaduntil after he was human again, and able to inherit-but thatassumed that Yoshio would have named the new Shinichiro as hisheir, and I knew he wouldn’t have. The upload must have known it,too. There was no legal link between Grandfather Nakada and somedreamer’s corpse with a new personality imprinted on it; anyinheritance would need to be set up by Yoshio himself, and hewouldn’t have done it.

But someone else might have. Someone mighthave agreed to help take over Seventh Heaven, and help putShinichiro into a new body, and even share control of NakadaEnterprises, in exchange for disposing of Yoshio.

And that someone might have changed her mindwhen the first attempt failed. She might have lost her nerve, ordecided that Shinichiro wasn’t as competent as she had thought.

And then the Shinichiro upload would have hadto act on its own, trying to get control of Seventh Heaven, ormaybe just get enough data to convince its co-conspirator to comeback on screen.

If I was right about this, then copyingitself to Epimetheus, faking the old man’s death, and breaking intoSeventh Heaven had all been a back-up plan, something it didbecause the assassination failed and its partner backed out.

I had looked at Grandfather Nakada’s will, ofcourse. It was a complicated thing, befitting the patriarch of oneof the great corporate clans, but it had also been very traditionalin some regards, and one of those was that it left control ofNakada Enterprises, along with holdings worth billions of credits,to the old man’s surviving children.

Three of his five children were dead. Thesurvivors were Kumiko and Hideo, and Chantilly Rhee worked forKumiko.

She must have been in on it all initially,but dropped out and left Shinichiro on its own. Theneverything fit. The upload must have diverted Rhee out of fear thatshe would tell the old man of Kumiko’s involvement, and Kumikowould try to clear her own name by incriminating her uploadedbrother. By popping up with its own version of events the uploadwas forestalling that-or trying to.

It occurred to me that maybe Kumiko haddropped out not because of any doubts, but because she simplydidn’t have the money to buy Seventh Heaven without thatinheritance. A little check into Kumiko’s financial situation mightbe in order once we were out of this room and the old man was backin control of the household systems.

“It was a mistake, Father,” the upload said.“I am most heartily sorry for it.”

I thought the old man was going to askwhether hacking the dream enhancer was a mistake, too, but hedidn’t.

“We will need to issue a correction,” hesaid.

“Of course,” the upload agreed.

“You will need to release control of thehousehold systems.”

“In due time, Father, but I’m sure you’llunderstand if I wait until I’m certain we have reached agreementabout my future.”

The old man frowned. “I suppose that’sacceptable for now.”

The door behind me suddenly slid fully open,and the black floaters backed away. “I regret holding you this wayuntil we could talk,” the desktop said. “Now that we understand thesituation better, though, perhaps it’s time for Mis’ Hsing togo.”

I certainly understood the situation.The upload wanted me out of the way so it could kill Yoshio.

It hadn’t killed him while I was onEpimetheus because he was on guard, and besides, it didn’t want togive Kumiko everything she wanted without some assurance that shewould hold up her end of their bargain. It had been keeping itsoptions open. Now that it had been beeped, though, and the old manknew who was responsible, the risk of leaving him alive was toogreat.

Killing him while I was there, though, meantit would need to kill me, too, which was too suspicious. If itcould get me to leave, then it could go ahead and dispose of theold man, and take care of me later. I didn’t know whether it mighttry to bribe or blackmail me, or whether it would go straight toassassination, but I knew that it would want me out of the way, andmy life expectancy would plummet.

That was how I read the situation, anyway.Oh, it was pretending to believe that kindly old Grandfather Nakadawas willing to make peace, to forgive its little peccadillos, but Iwasn’t buying it. Shinichiro knew his father, surely, and knew whatthe old man was capable of, how hard he could be. It had beenwilling to kill him before, when he had been completelyunsuspecting, so why would it hesitate now? To the upload, afterall, it wasn’t really death-Yoshio was backed up on several coms.Losing his human body wasn’t the end, merely a temporaryinconvenience, and that body couldn’t last much longer anyway.

The old man, of course, saw it differently,and had no intention of dying any time soon. He was playing alongwith the upload, but I knew he didn’t believe it-he hadn’t askedabout the dream enhancer, or about a dozen other things that hewould have wanted explained if he really thought the upload wassincere.

I was pretty sure he knew it intended to killhim, too.

“Perhaps, Mis’ Hsing, I might haveUkiba fly you back to Alderstadt?” he said.

“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “My stuff isaboard the ship; I can pack it up on the way.”

“I will accompany you to the ship, then,” theold man said, getting to his feet. “I have a few matters to discusswith Captain Perkins, in any case.”

“I can provide a link,” the desktop said.

“I think I prefer to speak to him in person,”Yoshio insisted.

“Honestly, Father, I won’t interfere with theconnection. I won’t even listen in.”

“Thank you, Shinichiro, but the exercise willdo me good.” He waved to me, and to the blue-and-silver floater.“This way.”

I knew the way; I don’t need a guide for aroute I’ve followed once. I didn’t say that, of course. I let theold man take the lead as we made our way back out to the landingfield.

Shinichiro let us go; a direct attack wouldbe too obvious, and he didn’t know what defenses we might have. Thefloaters made no move to stop us, or interfere at all as we walkedback out to the field together.

I barely knew what to expect when we emergedinto the open air and that ghastly sunlight, but everything wasmuch as I’d left it. The field was mostly deserted. The ship wasstill there, and the airlock’s outer door was open.

I didn’t think Shinichiro had compromised theship’s systems. I thought that if we could get aboard, we might getaway. I’d already made one illegal hot launch; another wouldn’tbother me.

I hadn’t dared call ahead, though; Shinichirowas almost certainly listening. The drive wouldn’t be run up. We’dneed a few minutes to get Ukiba spaceworthy.

There was also the issue of where we wouldland. The two copies of Shinichiro had probably infiltrated systemsall over Prometheus and Epimetheus, not just in Nightside City andAmerican City. That fake death report had been completelyconvincing. It hadn’t tripped any scam filters anywhere.That might mean Shinichiro had done a perfect job generating it andjust got lucky that no one wanted more details and was willing todig for them, or it might mean that it had subverted all thesystems that might have tried to verify the story. The latterseemed more likely.

So the two inhabited planets werecompromised, and Cass II wouldn’t work; we didn’t have theequipment to survive on the molten surface, and the pitiful littlecolony there wouldn’t have any room to spare for us, or anywhere wecould hide. Cass I wasn’t even as viable as Cass II-it was a tiny,airless ball of radioactive slag that barely qualified as a planet,too close to Eta Cass A to be any use to anyone. If we couldn’tfind a friendly port on Epimetheus or Prometheus, we’d need toleave the Eta Cassiopeia system entirely. Ukiba did have afull Wheeler drive, but I didn’t know whether it was ready forinterstellar flight.

I didn’t know whether I was ready forinterstellar flight, either; I’d never given it any seriousthought. I never had a reason to.

I didn’t know how long it would take to reachan inhabited system; I didn’t know Ukiba’s specs. Thepossibility of spending half a year with the old man and Perkinsand Singh, not to mention Yoshio-kun, was not appealing, butit might be the only way for Grandfather Nakada and me tosurvive.

Whether the old man could ever regain controlof Nakada Enterprises was another program entirely, and one Iwasn’t going to worry about yet. I had enough grit to dealwith.

At least Dad and ’Chan were off the ship.

I realized I didn’t know whether Singh andPerkins were still aboard or not. If Perkins had gone off duty,this might get complicated.

I smiled wryly at the thought. It alreadywas complicated; Perkins’ absence would just make it moreso. But the old man had said he was coming out here to talk toPerkins, so the roundeye was presumably still on the ship.

The old man’s blue-and-silver floater hadfollowed us, and an entire swarm of other floaters had collected aswell; I didn’t think any of those others were on our side.

We climbed the ramp with floaters all aroundus; in fact, a couple of small ones followed us right into theairlock. Apparently Shinichiro was not about to leave his fatherunattended.

We both saw them, but didn’t say anything.Any protest would either be ignored or make matters worse.

I hit the manual button to close the outerlock door-ordinarily I would have signaled the ship to do it, butright now I wasn’t trusting anything with a net link. I looked atmy client, hoping to improvise some sort of communication that thefloaters wouldn’t catch.

The old man wasn’t looking at me, though; hewas looking at a panel on the airlock wall. I hadn’t particularlynoticed this one before; the ship was full of panels and displays,and most of them weren’t any of my business.

It wasn’t my ship, though; it was Yoshio’s.He tapped something, and the three floaters that had accompanied usaboard the ship abruptly dropped out of the air to the metaldeck.

“It’ll notice,” I said. “We need to get offthe ground as fast as we can.”

“I’m not leaving,” the old man said. “This ismy home, and that feeble copy of my son is not going to takeit away from me.”

“I think it is,” I said. “It’s clearly hackedevery important system in the place. If we get out of here we cancome back later…”

“We are not leaving,” he said. “Is your copyof me aboard?”

I decided not to argue any further, at leastnot yet. I would be looking for a chance to get Perkins alone,though; if I pissed the old man off by kidnaping him he might ruinmy life, but if I stayed here that damned murderous upload wasalmost certainly going to kill me. “It’s here,” I said.

“Show me,” he said. “And then armyourself.”

When he said that I decided I was definitelygoing to get killed, but at least it would be interesting, and wemight do some damage first.

“This way,” I said.

Chapter Eighteen

I missed most of the conversation betweenYoshio-sempai and Yoshio-kun, but I probably couldn’thave followed it anyway. They understood each other in a way no oneelse ever could. They didn’t need explanations, they didn’t evenneed sentences-a single word or gesture would carry all theassociations they needed. By the time I got back with the HG-2powered up in my hand, Yoshio-kun was talking to theShinichiro upload over the ship’s regular com channel, negotiatingterms for a surrender.

I knew that surrender wasn’t going to happen,though, not the way they were discussing. It was a decoy.Shinichiro didn’t know we had a copy of the old man running; hethought he was talking to Yoshio-sempai, and as long as theywere talking, the upload wouldn’t expect to find the old mananywhere else.

“Clever,” I said, as Yoshio-kun arguedwith Shinichiro about which members of the family would be allowedto remain in the compound. “But it’s going to figure it outeventually. We need to get out of here, get you somewhere safe. Itknows you shut down those floaters, it knows you’re up tosomething…”

The old man raised a finger. “It is notcertain of the floaters. The ship’s firewall recorded their lastsecond or so of output and looped it, so my false son is stillreceiving transmissions, even if those transmissions don’t makesense. It can’t be sure of what happened; it is receiving errormessages, not silence.”

“That’s clever, too,” I acknowledged. “But itstill controls everything outside the ship; are you planning tolive in here indefinitely?”

“No,” he said. “I am going to take back myhome.”

“How?”

“Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “do you think Isurvived this long without learning to take precautions?”

“I know that whatever precautions you took,that piece of gritware seems to have gotten past them and hackedthe whole place.”

“Shinichiro has indeed compromised the familynets. That can be dealt with.”

“How? You can’t shut off access the way youwould for an outside attack; it lives in the net! And it’snot stupid-it must be distributed all through the place, withback-ups everywhere, you can’t just cut its server out of thesystem.”

“Nonetheless, I can deal with it.”

“How?”

“You will see. I dare not be too specific,lest Shinichiro might somehow overhear. Now, can you spare me someclothing? I prefer to be less recognizable.”

I still had no idea what he was up to, but itwas obvious I wasn’t going to talk him out of it. I decided to goalong for the moment.

My spare worksuit was small even forGrandfather Nakada, and he asked whether perhaps Minish Singh mighthave something he could wear. I explained that none of mypassengers had had an opportunity to pack anything, that all threehad come aboard with nothing but what they were wearing-which wasnothing, in my father’s case.

“Then this will have to do,” he said,starting to pull on the garment.

I left the cabin, ostensibly to give him someprivacy, but then headed to the control deck to talk to Perkins,and convince him to get us the hell out of there.

He listened to me calmly, then said, “I’msorry, Mis’ Hsing, but I take my orders from Mis’ Nakada. If hedoesn’t want to go, then we aren’t going.”

“But he’s going to get himself killed!”

“That’s his privilege.”

“Death isn’t a privilege, you blue-eyedfool!”

“I hardly think racial epithets are calledfor, Mis’ Hsing.”

I glared at him, and was about to saysomething else, when the old man came up behind me. He had Singhwith him.

“What’s going on?” Singh asked.

“You are about to earn yourself a lucrativeposition with Nakada Enterprises,” Yoshio told him.

“He is?” I asked.

“He is. And you, Mis’ Hsing, are about toearn your fee and a generous bonus.”

“How?” I asked.

“By serving as my bodyguards while I put anend to this insurrection.”

I looked at Singh. “Has he told you what’sgoing on?”

“No,” Singh said.

“There is a severe software problem,” the oldman said, before I could speak. “I am going to deal with it. Youtwo are going to defend me while I do it.”

“Defend you from what?” Singh asked.

“Floaters, probably,” I said. “Maintenanceequipment, household security systems, that sort of thing.”

“Precisely,” Grandfather Nakada said. “Mis’Hsing has her own weapon, but I believe Captain Perkins can provideyou with a sidearm, Mis’ Singh. The ship will be using its ownarmament, such as it is, to assist us.”

“It will?” Perkins asked.

“The ship has armament?” I asked.

“It does, and it will.”

Perkins and I exchanged glances.

“My personal floater will also be aiding us,as it has not been compromised,” the old man added.

“You’re sure of that?” I said.

“I am.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“There is a service tunnel beneath mypersonal apartments.”

“I’m sure there is. So what?”

“I will show you when we get there.”

Again, I looked at the others, but theyseemed just as unenlightened as I was.

“We should go, before Shinichiro can preparefurther defenses.”

I suspected it had all the defenses itneeded, but I didn’t see any point in arguing. I was either goingto go with the old man now, or I was going to quit entirely.

And I didn’t think it was too late to quit.The Shinichiro upload might let me go; I sure didn’t think my oddsof survival were any worse if I told Grandfather Nakada toflush his job.

But I didn’t. I checked to be sure my gun wasloaded and powered up, and then I said, “Let’s go.”

We went.

Singh and I came out the airlock door first,so that the old man would be behind us, harder to see. He had aholofield up to hide his face, but we didn’t think that would foolanyone for long, especially not in the daylight. The sun was low inthe west, but still brighter than I liked; I blinked. A lot.

There were long black shadows stretchingacross the landing field, looking ominous and alien.

The blue-and-silver floater was waiting forus, and the four of us, three humans and the floater, moved downthe ramp in a group.

The cloud of floaters had surrounded theship; now a couple of dozen of them came swooping around tointercept us. I tried to look innocuous, and hoped the others wouldfollow my lead.

“Hold your fire,” the old man whispered.

“Excuse me,” Shinichiro’s voice said from oneof the larger floaters, one with a red-velvet finish and a singlegleaming, copper-colored hand. “Where are you going?”

“Mis’ Nakada ordered us off the ship,” Isaid. “He told us to go to his quarters and wait there. Care topoint us in the right direction?” I kept walking as I spoke; thefloater turned to keep pace with us.

“Mis’ Hsing, your employment is done,” itsaid. “You should leave.”

“Tell the old man,” I said. “It’s his ship,and he ordered us off.”

“Please identify yourselves. I do notrecognize two of you.”

“This is Minish Singh,” I said, pointing aswe walked. “He used to work for Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery. Andthis is Zarathustra Pickens; he was involved in my little quarrelwith your grand-niece Sayuri awhile back.”

The floater’s camera lens swiveled, and thenthe upload said, “Father, that’s very clever. Who am I reallyspeaking to on the ship?”

The old man didn’t answer it; instead hetapped me on the shoulder and said, “Fire. Then run.”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant; I broughtthe HG-2 up, pointed it at the big red floater, and pulled thetrigger.

I hadn’t had a chance to brace for therecoil, and the gun jerked in my hand as it locked on the targetanyway, so it wasn’t pointing quite where I’d expected and Iprobably wouldn’t have been ready anyway. It knocked me off myfeet. I hit the ground as the floater exploded, and kept rolling.I’d shot the thing at close range, and the HG-2 was designed totake out anything you’d find living in a gravity field up to threegees, so I’d expected some shrapnel, but apparently that floaterhad been carrying something combustible. It went off like a bomb,spraying glass and metal and plastic in all directions.

Hell, maybe it was designed to, as adefensive measure.

The blast left me slightly stunned; my earswere ringing and a sort of blurry after-image had me half-blinded.I rolled until I was on my belly, arms guarding my eyes, and I laythere for a moment while my symbiote started repairing thedamage.

When the rattle of falling debris ended Iuncovered my face and looked around.

The explosion had taken out several otherfloaters, but there were still plenty-but as I watched, most of theones nearest the ship made fizzing noises and fell. I didn’t seeanything, but I felt my scalp tighten and the skin on the back ofmy hands crawled, and I guessed it was some sort of electromagneticpulse from Ukiba.

The blue-and-silver one that was supposed tobe on our side was zigzagging, trying to knock away more.

And Singh had scooped up Yoshio and slung himover one shoulder, and he was running toward the door the old manhad aimed us at. He was holding his passenger in place with onehand, and the other was waving the gun Perkins had supplied, but hewasn’t firing. He probably didn’t know how the thing worked.

There was blood on the plastic surface of thelanding field, but I didn’t know whose. The explosion must have cutsomeone up, I thought, but whether it was the old man, or Singh, orme, I couldn’t tell right away.

The surviving floaters, other than ours,seemed to be disorganized at first, drifting about aimlessly, butas I got to my feet they began to reorient themselves, heading forSingh and his burden.

I took a step while I checked my gun, thenbroke into a run, following the others.

Singh batted a small floater aside, butdidn’t use his weapon the way it was meant to be used. I wasgaining on the big man; he wasn’t in great shape and he wascarrying a passenger, which more than compensated for his longerlegs. I could hear him panting, and I could hear the old man sayingsomething, but I couldn’t make out the words.

A big black floater with a golden badgeemblem was approaching-a security bot. Singh wouldn’t be able toswat that one away. I lifted my gun and said, “The blackfloater.” I saw how close to Singh it was, and added, “Minimizecollateral damage.”

I heard the gun whir slightly as it readieditself. Then I squeezed the trigger.

I don’t know exactly what sort of round thegun had selected, but it was a tracer-I saw the red streak as itpunched a neat hole through the center of the security floater.Then I was sitting on my ass again; the HG-2’s recoil was more thanI could handle while running no matter what it fired. I got back upas the black floater hit the ground; it hadn’t just dropped, it hadveered off at an angle, still under power but no longer controlled.It bounced, hit again, then scraped along, twisting over onto oneside.

Singh had reached the door, but it didn’topen until Grandfather Nakada reached around and did something, Icouldn’t see what. Then the comforting glow of artificial lightappeared, gentler and more even than the harsh glare of Eta Cass A,and I ran for it, hobbling slightly-I’d injured my right hipsomehow, probably from landing badly after I fired the gun.

I caught up to Singh about three metersinside the passage, at the top of a metal staircase.

I hadn’t seen a stairway like that in years,and with my hip not wanting to cooperate I was pretty awkwardclambering down; Singh did better, even with the old man on hisshoulder, and at the foot of the steps he set Yoshio back on hisown feet.

I was close enough now to see that Singh hada long cut on his face, from just above his left eye back to hisleft ear; a piece of that red floater must have gouged him there.Grandfather Nakada had several small gashes, as well.

“This way,” the old man said.

I glanced up and saw a line of four floatersapproaching the steps. I started to say something, then saw thatYoshio had spotted them, too.

“Through here,” he said, pointing at a door.Singh hurried over to it.

It didn’t open. He looked for a panel orsensor and didn’t find one, but there was a round metal handle.

“Turn the knob,” the old man said.

Singh turned to look at him as if he’d gonemad; apparently he’d never heard of doorknobs, or maybe he justcouldn’t imagine he was actually seeing one. I pushed past him,grabbed the knob in both hands, and turned.

It turned easily, actually, and I heard amechanism click, but the door still didn’t open.

“Push on it,” Yoshio said, exasperated.

I pushed on the knob, and the door swung openon hinges. The three of us hurried through, and I realized we’dlost our floater. It was probably still upstairs, trying to blockthe entrance.

When we were through the door the old manturned and pushed it shut, then ordered Singh, “Hold it closed.Lean on it.”

Singh nodded, and threw himself against thedoor, pressing his weight onto it.

Yoshio nodded, then beckoned to me. “Thisway,” he said.

I didn’t need directions; we were in acorridor that only went one way, straight ahead. I followed on theold man’s heels.

We stopped in front of a metal panel in onewall. The old man worked a mechanical latch, and the panel swungopen; he reached inside, grabbed a lever, and heaved.

There was a loud clank, and the corridorabruptly went dark, utterly dark. Then there was a series of thuds,not quite like anything I’d ever heard before, marching away intothe distance.

And after that, the sound-I’d never heardanything like it. All the humming and whirring that was alwaysthere, everywhere I ever went, suddenly dropped in pitch and thendied away completely. All of it.

And there we were, in complete blackness andtotal silence, the most absolute silence I ever experienced.

For half a second I thought I might havedied, but then my eyes adjusted, and I saw the glow from theread-outs on the HG-2. I lifted the gun and checked the statusdisplay.

It was perfectly normal. Whatever the old manhad done hadn’t affected my weapon.

“What’s going on?” Singh called from behindus, his voice unsteady. “What did you do?”

“I cut the power,” Yoshio said.

“To what?” I asked.

“To everything. The entire compound.”

I blinked at the darkness and tried to lookaround, but everything was black. I listened, trying to orientmyself, but I couldn’t locate anything. I could hear my ownbreath; I could hear my worksuit rustling when I moved. Ithought I might even be hearing my heartbeat.

My wrist com still worked, though; it ran offmy own body’s energy, not an outside source, and a glance at itshowed a flurry of red alarm signals-the absence of normal datatraffic had upset it. The HG-2 had its own power source, so it wasstill active, as well.

“This is really creepy,” Singh said, and hisvoice seemed very loud in the stillness.

“The floaters will still be functional,” theold man said calmly, “but they will no longer be receiving ordersfrom the household nets.”

“There’s no back-up system?” I asked.

“Of course there is. I shut that down, aswell.”

“You can do that?”

“This entire compound was built to myspecifications; I had this cut-off designed to stopeverything. Those sounds you heard after I threw the switch?Those were relays, shutting down every circuit and system.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Why?” I asked.

Yoshio sighed, the sound unnaturally loud inthe quiet gloom. “When I came here, more than a Terran century ago,there was some doubt about how artificial intelligences wouldevolve. There were concerns that they might someday rebel, orperhaps merely transform themselves in incomprehensible ways. Thiswas derided as a foolish worry, and given the derisive name‘Frankenstein syndrome,’ and I gave it little credence, but at thesame time, I saw no reason not to take precautions. I hadthis breaker, and the system of relays, installed for such aneventuality.”

My symbiote fed me a referent for the name“Frankenstein.” I was a bit surprised something like that was stillin my data banks. The Shinichiro upload didn’t bear any resemblanceto Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, and it wasn’t exactly an evolvedartificial intelligence, but I could see the correlation.

“I guess they were right to be worried,” Isaid. “I mean, here we are.”

“So you shut down all the computers in theentire compound?” Singh asked.

“I shut down the entire power grid,” Nakadareplied grimly.

I had been starting to relax, but at that Itensed up again. “All the power?” I said. “Then how can webreathe?” I finally made the connection with the utter silence.“Nothing’s circulating the air! We’ll smother in here-if wedon’t freeze first. There’s no heat? No light anywhere?”

“Nonsense, Mis’ Hsing. We can functionwithout machines. Our ancestors did not evolve among generators andcircuit boards.”

“They didn’t evolve on this planet, either.This isn’t Earth.”

“Nonetheless, we will not smother. There isplenty of air in this tunnel to live for hours without artificialventilation. We will return to the surface long before we are inany danger of suffocation.”

“But how will we see? How will we… oh,that’s why the doors work like that. And those stairs… you reallydid plan for this.”

“Yes. Though I had not imagined it would bemy own family that turned against me.”

The old man tried to keep his voice even, andmostly succeeded, but I thought I heard bitterness and anger in hiswords. I considered saying something, telling him that the uploadwasn’t really Shinichiro, but I kept my mouth shut-he kneweverything I might say, and I respected him enough not to try totell him what he already knew.

“What about the floaters?” Singhdemanded.

“You have your gun?” Yoshio asked me.

“Of course,” I said, raising it.

“I doubt we will need it; I expect they willbe paralyzed, awaiting orders. Just in case, though, be ready.”

I checked the gun, and told it, “Fourfloaters. Minimize collateral damage.” Then I pointed it andwaited.

“Open the door,” the old man called.

I heard the click of the latch, and the soundof hinges, and then a faint grayish light appeared, and thecorridor walls were visible again. I peered up the passage, whereSingh was a great black shadow against the gray doorway.

There were no floaters in sight.

Cautiously, gun ready, we moved back up thepassage, through the door, and up the stairs, the light growingbrighter with each corner we turned. Finally we emerged back outonto the landing field, where Eta Cass A had dropped below thewestern horizon, but its light still painted the sky in gold andpink almost as bright as the sky above the Trap. The air was alittle chilly, but entirely bearable, even without any artificialclimate control.

The old man’s yacht was ablaze with light, aswell; someone had apparently turned on every emitter aboard. Adsfor the New York were writhing across the hull. And every floaterthat could still fly was hanging motionless in a neat array aroundit, about three meters off the ground.

“It would seem they got new orders,” Isaid.

“Indeed,” Grandfather Nakada said. “Let us goaboard and see if we cannot give them better ones; I have no doubtthere are a great many frightened people in this place, waiting forrescue.”

I started to say something about the manualemergency releases on every door, then stopped. The Nakadas andtheir employees were inside, in rooms that had gone dark and dead,breathing air that was still and silent, with no idea what hadhappened. Most of them wouldn’t think to use the emergency latches;hell, most of them might not know there were emergencylatches, let alone how to use them in the dark. I remembered my ownmoments of near-panic in the service tunnel, and tried to imaginesomething like that happening without any warning at all, strikingme in my own home, a place I thought I was safe.

They were probably terrified.

“Hurry,” I said.

Chapter Nineteen

The clean-up wasn’t really all that bad; the suddenshut-down had set off alarms all over American City, and emergencyservices had been on the way before we were out of the tunnel. Noone died, despite the power outage; the worst injury was aconcussion where a masseuse had tripped over a box in the dark andhit her head on the table. Ordinarily the table would have beensoft enough to avoid serious injury, but without power the flexionfields had vanished and the internal mechanisms had locked inplace, creating hard spots.

Ukiba became Grandfather Nakada’spersonal fortress; he refused to let anyone aboard except himself,me, and Captain Perkins. Even Singh was no longer welcome. I waspretty sure he didn’t want anyone to find Yoshio-kun.

It had been the old man’s upload that tookcharge when the power went out, using the link that had been set upso it could keep Shinichiro distracted; it had lit up the ship toserve as a sort of beacon, and had sent orders to the floaters toassume formation and await further instructions. We didn’t tellanyone that; when outside floaters and rescue workers startedarriving they were directed to ignore the ship and attend to thecompound buildings.

The city immediately offered to run temporarylines in to restore power, but Grandfather Nakada rejected theoffer. He also refused to say how the outage came about, but he didtell the authorities that it was his problem, on his property, andhe would take care of it.

We had the ship, but the rest of thehousehold would have to find temporary quarters elsewhere-the oldman said power wouldn’t be restored for days. He watched as thecompound’s inhabitants and guests were brought out of the lightlessbuildings one by one, into the glare of the big emergency lightsthe city had sent and set up on all sides. They were guided out byfloaters, and by rescue workers carrying small lights and coms. Theold man acknowledged each refugee and directed each of them tosafety, pointing some to a line of waiting cabs, sending others tothe medical station the city had set up, and leaving a few to theirown devices.

He let Singh go off to help with the rescues,but he kept me close at his side, and I stood there, feelinguseless, as the buildings were emptied of humanity and the skyoverhead faded to black. Eta Cass B rose in the east balefully red,changing the color of the shadows, and I was still keptwaiting.

I would have been happy to help get peopleout, or clean up damage, but Grandfather Nakada wouldn’t allow it,and I was fairly sure it was because he didn’t trust me to keep mymouth shut about his family secrets.

And then came the moment the old man had beenwaiting for-an old woman emerged from one of the family residences,a young man from the city holding one arm, a floater watching herclosely from above and behind her head. She was unsteady on herfeet, her expression a mix of terror and confusion.

“Kumiko,” the old man called. “Come here,daughter.”

She looked up and saw him, and trembledvisibly. She stopped in her tracks.

“Turn on your gun,” Yoshio told me quietly.Then he called to the man helping her, “Bring her here,please.”

I powered up the HG-2, but I wasn’t happyabout it. I’d never shot a human being. I’d threatened a few when Iwas angry enough, but I had never pulled the trigger, and I hadnever pointed a gun at one when I wasn’t awash with adrenalin.

I give the rescue worker credit; he askedKumiko if she wanted to come before he brought her over. Sheobviously didn’t want to, but she knew she couldn’t avoidit, and told him that she would speak to her father.

When she was a meter away he settled her ontoan equipment locker, and told the rescue worker to leave.

“You’re sure it’s okay?” he said, looking ather.

“He’s my father,” Kumiko said. “I’ll befine.”

The man gave Grandfather Nakada an unhappylook, then turned and headed back to see if he could find anyoneelse.

When he was safely out of unaugmentedearshot, the old man said, “I am disappointed in you,daughter.”

“I don’t understand, Father,” she said, eyesdowncast.

The old man gestured to me, and I raised mygun, aiming it in her general direction. I didn’t lock it on,verbally or otherwise.

“If you are going to conspire against me,”Yoshio told her, “you should commit to it, and not abandon yourpartner after a single failed assassination attempt.”

I watched, weapon ready, as she thought thatover, and considered various responses. I give her credit; shenever looked at the gun. Then she said, “I didn’t expect him to getas close as he did, Father; you were always smarter thanShinichiro. I agreed to help him to see what would develop. I couldsee commercial possibilities in his scheme to use dreamers toprovide new bodies for uploads. Killing you for control of thefamily-that was stupid, and I should have told him as much. Iassumed you would survive, and that we could then use the householdsecurity staff to find a scapegoat-Shinichiro’s control of thehousehold systems should have made that easy. I didn’t expect youto go outside, to hire this person, and send her to Nightside Cityto investigate Seventh Heaven.”

Grandfather Nakada considered that, andnodded thoughtfully. “You might be telling the truth,” he said.

She didn’t bother to insist on her story;they knew each other better than that. She glanced back at theresidence behind her. “What happened?” she asked.

“I used drastic measures to remove Shinichirofrom control,” Yoshio said. “I could not tell where he hadpenetrated and where he had not, so I shut down everything.”

“You did it? Not Shinichiro?”

“I did it.”

“Is Shinichiro…” She hesitated. The wordthat had obviously scrolled up first was “dead,” but she knew herbrother was long dead. “Did you erase him?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

“No.”

Startled, I turned, and swung the gun around.“It tried to kill you,” I said.

“Nonetheless, it is all that remains of myson,” the old man replied calmly, ignoring the HG-2 that was nowpointed directly at his belly.

“What are you going to do?” Kumikoasked.

“Shinichiro had proposed to make uploads ofthe dreamers, and run them in their own fantasy worlds,” Yoshiosaid. “I think it would be fitting to allow my son’s memory to testthe feasibility of this idea. It should not be impossible forSeventh Heaven’s programmers to create a fantasy version ofPrometheus in which I died in the service tunnel beneath myresidence, and my son was restored to human form.”

Neither of us knew what to say to that; aftera few seconds of awkward silence, Grandfather Nakada addedwistfully, “I will be able to visit with him in his dream-world,playing the role of my own upload. I think it would be pleasant tospeak with my son in this fashion.”

I needed several seconds to absorb this. “Thedreamers know their dreams aren’t real,” I eventually pointed out.“Do you think Shinichiro won’t figure it out?”

“I honestly don’t know, Mis’ Hsing,” the oldman said. “I don’t believe anyone has ever sold an upload the dreambefore.” He waved a hand. “If he does realize the truth, I cansimply have him rebooted.”

Kumiko shuddered at that. Then she asked,“And me?”

Yoshio smiled. “I think, daughter, that Ihave not paid you enough attention of late. I hope we will be veryclose in the future.”

Kumiko hung her head and said nothing, but Iwas not satisfied. “That’s all? No memory wipe or anything?” Iasked.

“That’s all. I do not tamper with the mindsof members of my own family.”

“She conspired to kill you.”

“I do not believe she will do so again. Iwill be changing my will, of course, to remove future temptation,but I doubt it’s necessary.”

“You’re going to trust her?” I demanded.

The old man’s smile twisted wryly. “Oh, Ihaven’t trusted her since she reached puberty, Mis’ Hsing,” hesaid. “Why would I start now?”

I realized I was still pointing the gun athim. I raised it slightly higher. “You trusted me,” I said.“What if I’m not satisfied with letting her run loose?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “You won’tshoot me, Hsing. You won’t shoot Kumiko, either. You are in noimminent peril, and it is not in your nature to kill a fellow humanbeing in cold blood.”

“Are you sure of that?” I said, pressing thebutton that made the gun whine as if homing in on a target.

“In fact, I am. Before hiring you I checkedinto your background extensively, and had a full psychologicalanalysis done. You might kill in self-defense, or in moments ofanger or stress, but shooting an unarmed human under circumstanceslike these? No. I am sure.”

I wanted to call his bluff. I wanted to blowhis brains out. The damned superior old man treated me like a toolhe could use as he pleased, and I resented it.

But he treated everyone as mere toolsor game-pieces, and he was right. It wasn’t a bluff. I couldn’tpull the trigger. It wasn’t that shooting him would get me sentstraight to reconstruction and probably a total wipe; it’s that Iwasn’t a murderer, and refused to become one.

I lowered the gun. “Has the case beenresolved to your satisfaction, Mis’ Nakada?” I asked coldly.

“It has, Mis’ Hsing.”

“Then I would like my fee.”

“Your father and brother are on their way toone of the city hospitals, and a dream contract for Guohan Hsinghas been negotiated with Eternal Adventures. When you present anitemized bill, you will be paid the remainder of your fee and allexpenses.”

“Good,” I said. I started to turn away.

“However, Mis’ Hsing,” the old mancalled after me, “I would like to amend our agreement.”

I turned back. “A deal’s a deal,” I said.

“Indeed, and I will honor ours. However, Iwish to offer you another commission.”

I looked at Kumiko, standing there. “Notinterested,” I said.

“I really think you should reconsider.” Hisvoice turned cold. “I am not a good enemy to have.”

I hefted the gun. “Are you threateningme?”

“Yes, I am.”

I hadn’t expected even Grandfather Nakada tobe quite that blunt. “Why? What do you want?”

“Because you are in a position tothreaten me, Mis’ Hsing. You know too much about my family.You know what Kumiko and Shinichiro did, and what will become ofShinichiro. You know what was in my ITEOD files in Nightside City.You know what Shinichiro intended to do with Seventh HeavenNeurosurgery, and it’s entirely possible I may want to pursue someportion of his scheme. You have said you will not allow me tomodify your memory, and I am not going to force you-legally Ican’t, practically it would be extremely awkward to do so withoutrisking damage to your personality, and all in all, I would preferto keep our relationship one of mutual trust and respect.”

“I know how to keep secrets,” I said. Iglanced at Kumiko. He hadn’t mentioned the existence ofYoshio-kun, even though that was something he’d want to keepquiet, and I guessed it was because his murderous daughter waslistening.

“Even when you believe those secrets toendanger innocents?”

I didn’t answer that. He had my psychwork-up.

“May I tell you what commission I’moffering?”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“It’s a very simple one,” he said. “I willpay you one hundred million credits to leave the Eta Cassiopeiasystem and live elsewhere for the rest of your life.”

I didn’t take it in at first. “What?” I said.“I… what?”

He held up a finger. “No, wait-a better idea.I will pay you one hundred million credits to leave the EtaCassiopeia system and live elsewhere for the rest of mylife, or until such time as I ask you to return.”

“Live elsewhere?” I looked around a littlewildly. “Where?”

“Anywhere,” he said. “Anywhere but this starsystem.” He lifted the finger again. “No, wait again-upon furtherconsideration, anywhere but this system or Earth. NakadaEnterprises has enough interests on Earth that your presence theremight be inconvenient.”

“My sister Alison is on Earth,” I said. Ididn’t really mean to say it; I was free associating to avoidthinking about the actual offer.

A hundred million bucks. I would be rich. Oh,not by Nakada standards, but by mine.

But I would be in a strange city somewhere,on an unfamiliar planet, circling a different star.

“Perhaps we can find her for you,” he said.“She might want to join you in your new home, or if not, at leastyou can communicate with her.”

I didn’t know whether I liked thatpossibility or not; my relationship with Ali was… odd, I guess. Ihadn’t really intended to mention her. I changed the subject.

“The rest of your life?”

He nodded. “I am a very old man, and you area young woman. You should easily outlive me, and once I am gone Isee no reason to continue to restrict your movements.”

“And if Kumiko murders you ten minutes afterI leave Prometheus?”

“Then you are free to return and investigatemy death, should you so choose. It is of no concern to me what youdo after my death.”

“How do I know you won’t just have me spacedonce I’m off-planet?”

“I told you, Mis’ Hsing, I trust you. I thinkthis galaxy is a better place with you in it. And while my moralcode is far more flexible than your own, like you, I prefer not tocommit murder if I can accomplish my ends without it.”

“But… one hundred million credits?”

“It is nothing to me, Hsing; I am an old man,with far more money than I could ever hope to spend, more thanenough to leave all my descendants wealthy. It pleases me to makeyou wealthy, as well.”

I looked at Kumiko.

“This is between the two of you,” she saidstiffly. “I do not interfere with my father’s whims.”

“Do you hire assassins willing to travelinterstellar distances?” I asked.

She had the grace to look embarrassed. “Isuspect my father will make certain that I cannot do so withimpunity.”

The old man nodded.

I looked at them, and then I looked up at thesky.

It was full night now, and the compound’sscreens were all down, the buildings all dark. The portable lightswere focused elsewhere, and the glow from the city outside thecompound’s walls was not overpowering. The red glow from Eta Cass Bwasn’t enough to do more than add a little color. The air above uswas cool and clear, and I could see a handful of stars shiningagainst the blackness.

I had never particularly wanted to visitthem, but the idea wasn’t unpleasant, either.

“One hundred million,” I said. “In additionto the five million you already owe me.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll provide transportation wherever Iwant to go?”

“That was not part of the original offer, butI think I can throw it in, so long as you stay within human-settledspace.”

“Achernar? Fomalhaut? Eridania?”

“Wherever you please. Once there, you will beon your own.”

“I’ll want some time to choose.”

“And I need time to restore this place tonormal operation,” he said. “We will need to analyze every singlesystem before allowing it back online, to make sure Shinichiro’sinfluence has been removed.”

“Ten days, perhaps? That will give me time tosay my goodbyes and make sure Dad is settled in.”

“That sounds fair.”

I looked up at the stars again, at thosespots of light in the sky that were suns, with worlds circlingthem, and I wondered whether this was real. One hundred millioncredits-had I somehow wound up in a dreamtank without knowing it?Was I an upload being fed an elaborate fantasy? My father had saidI was living a life like one he might see in his induceddreams-was it all unreal?

Did it matter? If the images I saw came fromlight reaching my eyes, or projections onto my retinas, or directstimulation of my brain, did it matter? Did it make any differencewhether I was thinking with electrochemical reactions in a lump oforganic tissue, or with microcurrents through silicon and opticalfiber? I saw what I saw, and thought what I thought, and if itwasn’t real it was so perfect an imitation that it might as wellbe.

I had already left one world behind. Andreally, I didn’t even like Prometheus.

“You have a deal, Mis’ Nakada,” I said.

Chapter Twenty

I invited Dad and Sebastian to join me. I didn’ttell them the terms of my agreement with the old man, only that Iwas leaving the system.

Dad didn’t even consider it. He was eager toget back in the tank. At least this time he didn’t just walk outone day and not come back. We said our goodbyes properly. I didn’texpect ever to see him alive again, even if I returned toPrometheus someday. After so long in the tank he was an older manat sixty-eight than Yoshio Nakada was at two hundred and forty.Besides, he intended to dream away whatever time he had left.

Sebastian gave it maybe ten minutes’ thought,then shook his head. “This planet is strange enough,” he said. “Anentire new system would be too much.”

I didn’t argue. We weren’t really that close.“I’ll try to stay in touch better than Ali has,” I said.

“I’d like that, Carlie.” And that was that;no more family. Wherever I went, I was going to be on my own.

I went back to Alderstadt and cleared out myoffice there, wrapping up a few bits of code I’d left dangling.That’s what I was doing when the money started to arrive.

The old man hadn’t sent it all in one bigsuspicious mass; instead there was a steady stream of largepayments from various parts of the Nakada business empire. Ireceived winnings from the New York, fees from Nakada familyaccounts, unexplained settlements from three different insurancecompanies and half a dozen lawyers.

I’m sure anyone who tried would be able totrace all that money; this was just to make it a bit lessobvious.

When everything in Alderstadt was smooth Ibuzzed back to American City and paid the Nakadas a visit.

They had lights and heat and a few basicservices, but most of the household systems were still offline,forcing them to rough it. About half the family had gone travelinguntil the “repairs” were complete.

Kumiko was not one of them. I had theimpression this wasn’t by choice.

Grandfather Nakada invited me to hisstill-cloudless office for a chat, and I went. We said a few politethings about the weather and the work on the compound.

“You could fix everything by throwing oneswitch, couldn’t you?” I asked him.

“More or less,” he said.

“What are you going to do about your otherseven dead relatives?”

He sighed. “I will be restoring them, but inrestricted facilities. I do not think it wise to let them roamfreely through the net until I have interviewed themcarefully.”

“Are you going to edit them?”

“Probably not. Editing an uploaded human mindis very difficult,” he said. “More difficult than editing memoriesin an actual human.”

“I’m sure you speak from experience.”

“Of course. Should you encounter Minish Singhbefore you leave, I’m afraid he won’t recognize you; he remembersnothing at all from when he was called to investigate an intruderamong the dreamtanks until he found himself in an employment officehere in American City.”

“I trust you compensated him generously.”

“Of course. And it was voluntary.”

“And Sebastian?”

“We used a much lighter hand with him, Iassure you.”

I nodded.

Just before the silence could become awkward,he asked, “Have you chosen your destination?”

“Yes,” I said.

He waited for me to say more, and when Ididn’t he said, “May I ask where?”

“Mis’ Nakada,” I said, “I don’t think I wantyou to know where I am. You want me off Prometheus; I want you outof my life. I know you’ll be able to find me if you want to; I hopeyou won’t want to.”

“Fair enough.”

And that was that.

Of course, I bought the ticket for the firstleg with the old man’s credit, so he knew where I was headedinitially. I assume the stealthed floater that watched me board theliner Eridania two days later was his, but maybe Kumiko sentit, or someone who’d noticed the payments I’d piled up, or evenjust IRC, keeping track of their gritlisters. I didn’t worry aboutit; I wasn’t going directly to my final destination. In fact, whileI had chosen where I wanted to go, I might well change my mindbefore I got there. I planned to spend a few thousand hourstraveling, one planet to the next, before I settled down. Afterall, I could afford it, and if I was giving up my home, why settlefor just one new world? I intended to look at a dozen.

I was headed out to the cool and the dark,away from the harsh light of Eta Cassiopeia A, away from everythingI knew, and even though it hadn’t been my choice, I was lookingforward to it. I was looking forward to building a new life formyself, somewhere out there-a better one, out of the shadow of mypast.

I was hoping it would be a life with friends,with family; I’d have money, so I wouldn’t be struggling to surviveby digging up other people’s unhappy secrets, and maybe that meantI could dig up a little happiness for myself. I could spare sometime to make friends; I’d always been a loner, but it hadn’t alwaysbeen by choice, and I thought it might be time to stop. I wanted toget to know people who didn’t have secrets.

My father had his dreams, and I had mine. Hiswere clean and bright, with happy endings guaranteed; mine werevague and uncertain, with no promises at all. His were fiction;mine were real.

I liked mine better.

Content

Lawrence Watt-Evans
Realms of Light

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty