When he finally forced his eyes open he found that he was, as the mirror man had insisted, lying on a bed, wearing neither a hood nor a bodysuit. He looked down at himself to find that he was dressed in the same suitskin he had been wearing when he stepped into the elevator with Rajuder Singh. It was not noticeably dirtier than it had been then, but there was a ragged tear in the middle of his chest that hadn't had time to heal.
He sat up. The bed on which he was lying had a heavy iron frame that gave it the appearance of a genuine antique, although it was presumably there for utility's rather than art's sake. His right wrist was handcuffed to one of the uprights.
It took him a few seconds to realize that his was not the only bed in the room, and that he was not the only prisoner it held. He blinked away the mucus that was still obscuring his vision slightly and met the inquisitive gaze of his companion. She was not as tall as recent fashion prescribed, but he judged that she was nevertheless authentically young. Her blond hair was in some disarray, and she was handcuffed just as he was, but she didn't seem to be in dire distress.
"Who are you?" he asked dully.
"Catherine Praill," she told him. "Who are you?"
"Damon Hart," he replied reflexively-a second or two before the significance of what she had said sunk in. He reached up with his free hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. His hand was trembling slightly.
"Are you all right?" the girl asked. She seemed a little tremulous herself-understandably, if she too had been kidnapped by the man of mercury and his associates.
"Just confused," he assured her. "Do you know where we are?"
"No," she answered. Then, as if fearing that her bluntness might seem impolite, she added: "I've heard of you. Silas mentioned your name."
Damon inferred that she hadn't been in a position to keep tabs on the Eliminator boards, or she'd surely have mentioned Operator 101's last message before recalling that Silas Arnett had "mentioned his name."
"I've heard of you too," he said. "Lenny Garon told me you'd disappeared."
"Lenny?" She was genuinely astonished by the introduction of that that name. "How did he know? I hardly know him. Didn't he leave home or something?" name. "How did he know? I hardly know him. Didn't he leave home or something?"
"He asked after you when your name came up in connection with Silas Arnett's kidnapping. How long have you been here? Who brought you?"
She recoiled slightly under the pressure of the doubled-up questions. "I don't know anything," she protested defensively. "I was in a car-the police were taking me home after questioning me. I must have dozed off. I've been awake for about an hour but I haven't seen anyone except you. I don't feel hungry or thirsty, so I can't have been asleep very long-but if you think you're you're confused. . . ." She left it at that. confused. . . ." She left it at that.
"So you've no idea what day it is, I suppose, or where we might be?" Damon looked around the room for clues, but there were no obvious ones to be seen. There was nothing visible through the room's only window but a patch of blue sky. The patterned carpet that covered the floor looked as old as the bedstead, but it was probably modern. It was faded but quite free of dust and crumbs-which suggested that it had a suitskin capacity to digest waste. A closet door that stood ajar showed nothing but bare boards and empty hangers. There was a small table beside Damon's bed on which his beltpack and sidepouch had been placed, and the only item there which had not been on his person when he succumbed to the gas was a glass of clear liquid. It was easy enough to reach, and he picked it up in both hands so that he could take a sip. It was water.
"I don't know anything at all," Catherine Praill repeated, her voice increasing its note of alarm. "I don't understand why they brought me here. Are they holding us to ransom? ransom?"
She pronounced the word as if the possibility were almost unthinkable-a revenant crime from a more primitive world. Was it unthinkable, though? Was anything anything unthinkable now? In a world where every child had eight or ten parents, might not the potential rewards of kidnapping-for-cash come to outweigh the risks, especially given the awesome powers which these kidnappers seemed to possess? unthinkable now? In a world where every child had eight or ten parents, might not the potential rewards of kidnapping-for-cash come to outweigh the risks, especially given the awesome powers which these kidnappers seemed to possess?
"I don't think so," Damon told her. "It wouldn't make much sense. But then-I don't know anything either. It's not for lack of information-I simply can't separate the truth from the lies. I don't know what to believe."
"My foster parents will be worried. I didn't have anything to do with Silas being kidnapped. The men from Interpol seemed to think that I did, but I didn't. I would have helped them if I could."
"It's okay," Damon told her. "Whoever brought us here, I don't think they mean to do us any harm."
"How do you know?" she demanded. "You said you didn't know anything anything."
"I don't-but I think think they took Silas because they were trying to force two of my other foster parents to abandon some plan they've cooked up, or at least to let them in on it. They thought that if they could attract enough public attention my foster parents would be intimidated-but my foster parents aren't the kind to bend with the wind. I can't figure out who did what, or why, and I can't trust anything that anyone says to me, but . . . well, it wouldn't make sense for them to harm us. I think they want me to do something for them, and I suspect that they only took you to add to the confusion." they took Silas because they were trying to force two of my other foster parents to abandon some plan they've cooked up, or at least to let them in on it. They thought that if they could attract enough public attention my foster parents would be intimidated-but my foster parents aren't the kind to bend with the wind. I can't figure out who did what, or why, and I can't trust anything that anyone says to me, but . . . well, it wouldn't make sense for them to harm us. I think they want me to do something for them, and I suspect that they only took you to add to the confusion."
"I don't understand," said the blond girl, growing more distraught in spite of Damon's attempt to soothe her fears. "Silas doesn't have anything to do with his old friends-and I certainly don't."
"Nor do I," Damon said, while he tested the handcuffs to make certain that there was no way of slipping out of them. "Unfortunately, the people who've imprisoned us refuse to believe that, of Silas or of me. I really don't think they have anything against you you, though. You just got caught up in it by accident."
Damon believed what he'd told the girl, but he couldn't help feeling a slight twinge of doubt as to whether all this was actually happening at all. It could could be another VE, similar to the last although far more modest. How could he ever be sure, now, that he'd really woken up? How could he ever know whether there really had been a mirror man and a miraculous new VE technology, or whether it had all been a product of his own fertile imagination? be another VE, similar to the last although far more modest. How could he ever be sure, now, that he'd really woken up? How could he ever know whether there really had been a mirror man and a miraculous new VE technology, or whether it had all been a product of his own fertile imagination?
Even if this were real, he realized as he pursued the discomfiting thought, he might be snatched back into some such VE without a moment's notice if clever nanomachines really had been implanted in his hindbrain, and if they were still there still there. In today's world, it wasn't only walls and phone links that couldn't be trusted. How could any man know what kind of burden he was carrying around in the depths of his own being? He was carrying his own cargo of watchful nanomachines, charged with the duty of keeping his flesh free from invaders, but who could stand watch over the watchmen? In PicoCon's empire, there could be no ultimate security, no ultimate secrecy-and it appeared that PicoCon's empire was closer to its final conquest than he had ever imagined. What could now stand in its way, save for confusion? In a world where nothing could be sealed away in any kind of vault, everything that was to be hidden had to be hidden in plain view, camouflaged by a riot of illusions.
If Conrad Helier really had faked his death, Damon thought, he really might have returned to public life by pretending to be his own son-but Conrad Helier's son was very definitely, and very defiantly, his own man. Unfortunately, Conrad Helier's son had a brain shrouded in mist, and he felt further away from understanding now than he had been before.
"Did you have any unnaturally vivid dreams while you were asleep?" he asked the young woman.
"No dreams at all," she replied, "so far as I can remember. Why?" Her voice cracked on the last word, as fear broke through. She looked as if she were about to cry. She was immune to the worst effects of pain, but IT couldn't immunize anyone against the purely psychological component of fear.
"Please don't worry," he begged her, although the plea sounded foolish even to him. "I really don't think we're in any danger." He wasn't at all certain that he he was out of danger. When he had tried to fly, he had only fallen. Either the mirror man had tricked him and mocked him-for no reason Damon could fathom-or the fault had been in himself, in his skill or his courage. Which was worse? was out of danger. When he had tried to fly, he had only fallen. Either the mirror man had tricked him and mocked him-for no reason Damon could fathom-or the fault had been in himself, in his skill or his courage. Which was worse?
"It's crazy crazy," Catherine Praill insisted. "Why would anyone want to kidnap someone like me? What kind of-"
Before she could finish the sentence the door of the room was kicked open and thrust violently back against the wall. A head peered around the jamb, while the barrel of an obscenely heavy gun, clutched in two unfashionably hairy hands, swept the enclosed area from side to side with crude threat.
Once the gunman was sure that the two prisoners were helpless, and unaccompanied by anyone more menacing, he said: "All clear." He didn't come into the room itself, being content to hover in the corridor while a woman stepped past him, pausing on the threshold to survey the scene with calm disdain.
"Oh," she said as her eyes met Damon's. "It's you you." Her disappointment was palpable.
"Rachel Trehaine," Damon said as lightly as he could. He shook his head but the fog wouldn't clear. "I thought you were just a scientific analyst," he added, knowing that he was only a pale imitation of his old smart-ass self. "I didn't expect to see you in charge of a hit squad."
The expression of disgust on the red-headed woman's face was something to be seen. "I'm not in charge of a hit squad in charge of a hit squad," she said. "I'm just. . . ." She hesitated, obviously unsure as to how her present occupation ought to be characterized.
"They didn't shove a note under your door, by any chance?" Damon meant it as a feeble joke, but when he saw the disgusted expression turn to one of puzzlement he realized that it might have been a lucky guess. He resisted the temptation to giggle and took advantage of his luck to hazard another guess. "You were expecting Silas Arnett, weren't you?"
Rachel Trehaine wasn't in the least amused by his perspicacity. "Call Hiru Yamanaka at Interpol," she said to one of the men waiting in the corridor. "Tell him we've found one of his missing persons. And try to find something in the van that we can use to cut through the chains of those handcuffs."
"How long have I been a missing person?" Damon asked, still fighting the fog.
"I wasn't talking about you you," the woman from Ahasuerus said. "I was referring to Miss Praill."
Damon grimaced slightly as he realized that he should have known that. So far as Interpol knew, he was probably still safe and sound on Rajuder Singh's private island. "Where are we?" he asked as mildly as he could. He didn't want to add any further fuel to Rachel Trehaine's understandable annoyance.
"Venice Beach," she told him, with only a slight hint of disgust.
His captors had brought him home-or very nearly home. In retrospect, that wasn't particularly surprising.
"Thanks for coming to fetch us," Damon said meekly. "I'm sorry you had to take the trouble."
"I don't suppose you have any idea why they didn't contact Interpol directly," the woman said wearily. She was looking out into the corridor, waiting for the members of her team to find something that could be used to cut Damon and Catherine free.
"I think think they're trying to tell you something," Damon said. "Not you personally-the people in charge of the foundation." they're trying to tell you something," Damon said. "Not you personally-the people in charge of the foundation."
"What are they trying to tell us?" the data analyst demanded sharply. are they trying to tell us?" the data analyst demanded sharply.
Damon didn't want to admit that he was confused, but he wasn't sure that his run of lucky guesses could be sustained. "They seem to think that Ahasuerus and the remnants of Conrad Helier's old research team are loose cannons rolling around their deck," he said tentatively. "I think they want everybody-including Interpol-to know that there's a new captain on the bridge, one who intends to run a very tight ship from now on."
"What on earth is all that that supposed to mean?" Rachel Trehaine demanded aggressively. She looked at Catherine Praill as if to see whether the younger woman understood it any better than she did. supposed to mean?" Rachel Trehaine demanded aggressively. She looked at Catherine Praill as if to see whether the younger woman understood it any better than she did.
"I wish I could be more precise," Damon assured her. "I wish they'd they'd be more precise. I don't know what to believe. There's too much of it, and it's almost all lies." be more precise. I don't know what to believe. There's too much of it, and it's almost all lies."
The woman from Ahasuerus was still annoyed, but she wasn't entirely insensitive to his distress. She nodded, as if to concede that he'd been through enough for the present. By the time one of the gunmen appeared with a pair of wire cutters she had begun to look thoughtful. Damon didn't suppose she'd been able to find out exactly what Eveline and Karol were playing at in the short time available to her, but she must have found out enough to keep her interested. She probably knew at least as much as Damon did, and was probably better placed than he was to start putting the pieces together. When Damon thanked her for cutting him free from the bed's head she finally took the trouble to ask whether he was all right.
He assured her that he was, then went to place a reassuring hand on Catherine Praill's arm.
"It's all over now," he told her gently. "The police will want to question you again, but I'm sure they don't suspect you of being involved in Silas Arnett's abduction. It's possible that you carried something into his house without knowing you were doing it, but Interpol must have a reasonable idea by now what kind of game this is. They're being played with exactly as we are."
"That's an interesting observation, Mr. Hart," said a new voice.
Damon looked around to see Hiru Yamanaka, who was coming through the doorway waving his ID card at all and sundry.
"You got here very quickly," said Rachel Trehaine, her eyes narrowing slightly with awful suspicion.
"So we did," Yamanaka agreed. "That's because we weren't very far away. Mr. Hart is right, Miss Praill-we do have some other questions to ask you, but we certainly won't be bringing any charges against you and we'll take much better care of you this time. You, Mr. Hart, are under arrest."
"For what?" Damon demanded, blurting the question out with frank amazement. "You don't really really think I'm Conrad Helier, enemy of mankind, do you?" think I'm Conrad Helier, enemy of mankind, do you?"
"No, I don't," the inspector said equably. "In fact, I'm certain that you're not, but I do have reason to think that you have information relevant to an ongoing murder inquiry, and perhaps to the whereabouts of a man we're currently seeking in that connection."
Damon felt horror clutch at his stomach. The mirror man had said that his side in the dispute hadn't killed anyone-but there was no way to know how many lies the mirror man had told. "Silas is dead? dead?" he said, leaping to what seemed to be the obvious conclusion.
"We still have no information as to the whereabouts or well-being of Dr. Arnett," Yamanaka said, taking no satisfaction from his own punctiliousness. "The inquiry in question is into the murder of Surinder Nahal. We are holding your friend Diana Caisson as a possible accomplice, and we are making every effort to locate our chief suspect, Madoc Tamlin-who is, I believe, currently in your employ."
Damon was lost for words. He didn't know whether to be more alarmed by the fact that Diana was in custody or the fact that Madoc-who evidently wasn't-had somehow been fingered for a murder he surely couldn't have committed. He had thought himself dazed and confused before, but he was doubly so now. "Oh shit," he murmured, in lieu of anything meaningful to say.
Yamanaka was looking at the short length of chain dangling from Damon's wrist, as if regretting that Rachel Trehaine had taken the trouble to have it cut. "Please come with me, Mr. Hart," he said. "I think it's time you told us everything you know about this matter. We're rather tired of people playing playing with us." with us."
For a fleeting second, Damon wondered whether the man from Interpol might be right-but only for a fleeting second. By the time he consented to be led away, he was already rehearsing the half-truths and evasions he would have to deploy. Whatever kind of game this was, he didn't think Interpol could possibly win it. He didn't even think they could be reckoned as serious players, although Inspector Yamanaka obviously didn't see things that way.
Damon was taken to one of two waiting cars. Sergeant Rolfe was beside it, holding the rear door open. While Damon climbed in, Hiru Yamanaka went around the other side and took the seat next to him. Rolfe slammed the door shut and walked away, escorting Catherine Praill to the second car.
"I suppose you got a note pushed under your door too," Damon said to Yamanaka as the car pulled away.
"We put Ms. Trehaine under discreet surveillance after you went to see her," the inspector told him mildly. "We were taking an interest in all your movements, and the call you paid on Ahasuerus stood out as one of the least expected."
"Where were you when Steve Grayson kidnapped me?" Damon asked sourly.
"Again, not as far away as you might have thought. Unfortunately, we lost sight of you temporarily. We feared for your safety, having seen the message which was put out on the Web shortly after you and Mr. Grayson took off-and even more so when Rajuder Singh satisfied us that you really had been taken from the island by force. Do you wish to press charges against Grayson and Singh, by the way? We didn't have enough evidence to arrest them without your testimony, but we're still keeping an open file on the matter."
"That's okay," Damon said drily. "They thought they were acting in my best interests, and perhaps they were. Best to let it alone-Karol is my foster father, after all." As an afterthought, he added: "They were were working for Karol, weren't they?" working for Karol, weren't they?"
"I believe so," the Interpol man confirmed. "We checked their records, of course. Rajuder Singh's is unblemished to a degree that's rather remarkable in such an old man. He's an ecological engineer and has been for well over a century. He knew your father quite well, although that was a long time ago."
Damon didn't respond to that item of delicately trailed bait. When the silence had lasted five or six seconds, Yamanaka spoke again in an awkward manner to which he was plainly unaccustomed. "I ought to inform you that there was an unfortunate incident shortly after you left Molokai-an explosion aboard the Kite Kite. Rescuers picked up a dozen survivors, but there was no sign of Karol Kachellek."
Damon turned to look at him, feeling that insult was being heaped upon injury. "Karol?" he said helplessly. Numbly, he noted that the Interpol man had said "incident" rather than "accident."
"I'm afraid so," Yamanaka said. "It seems probable that he's dead, although no body has been found."
"Murdered?"
"We don't know that. The investigation is continuing."
"Am I a suspect in that investigation too?" Damon asked abrasively. "Do you think I went to Molokai to plant a bomb on my foster father's boat?" He didn't expect an answer to that and he didn't get one, so he quickly changed tack. "Is Eveline okay?"
"So far as we know," the man from Interpol said, with a slight sigh that might have been relief at the opportunity to impart some good news. "I'm very concerned, though, for the safety of Silas Arnett. If you have any information regarding the identity of the persons responsible for his abduction I implore you to tell me without delay. We've now received several communications from someone who claims to be the real real Operator one-oh-one, disowning all the recent notices posted under that alias. It's difficult to confirm her story, of course, but given that she's incriminating herself I'm inclined to believe her. It has always seemed to me that this business could not be the work of Eliminators, unless some powerful organization had suddenly decided to commit its resources to the cause of Elimination. I find that hard to believe." Operator one-oh-one, disowning all the recent notices posted under that alias. It's difficult to confirm her story, of course, but given that she's incriminating herself I'm inclined to believe her. It has always seemed to me that this business could not be the work of Eliminators, unless some powerful organization had suddenly decided to commit its resources to the cause of Elimination. I find that hard to believe."
"How old is the woman who claims to be the original Operator one-oh-one?" Damon asked curiously.
"She's a hundred and five now," Yamanaka told him, "but that's a side issue. My most urgent concern is the safety of Silas Arnett. Now that those confessions have been released. . . ."
"They were fakes," Damon told him.
"Painfully obvious fakes," Yamanaka agreed, "which could easily have been made without Dr. Arnett's active involvement. That's what worries me. If his kidnappers didn't actually need him him, but only needed to remove him from the scene, they might have killed him before they removed him from his house. Now that we've found Dr. Nahal's body, there seems to be more than adequate cause for concern."
"You don't really think I had anything to do with that, do you?" Damon asked gruffly.
"You commissioned Madoc Tamlin to look for Dr. Nahal.
When the local police discovered Tamlin at the murder scene he attacked them with a crowbar and ran away."
"I commissioned Madoc to collect some information," Damon said defensively. "I can't believe he'd involve himself in a murder-that's not his style at all. You can't can't be serious about holding Diana as an accomplice." be serious about holding Diana as an accomplice."
The man from Interpol wouldn't confirm or deny his seriousness. Instead, he said: "Dr. Arnett's supposed confession was an interesting statement, wasn't it? Food for thought for everyone-and food which will be all the more eagerly swallowed for being dressed up that way."
"It was rubbish," Damon said.
"I dare say that Dr. Arnett was correct about the effect the Crash had, however," Yamanaka went on. "The way he spoke in his second statement about bringing people together was really quite moving. The idea that for the first and only time in human history all humankind was on the same side, united against the danger of extinction, is rather romantic. The world isn't like that anymore, alas. That's a pity, don't you think?"
"Not really," Damon replied, wondering where this was leading. He knew that the Japanese were supposed to have made a fine art of beating around the bush before coming to the point, but the man from Interpol hadn't previously shown any particular inclination to circumlocution. "A world devoid of conflicts would be a very tedious place to live."
"I take your point," Yamanaka conceded, "but you are a young man, and even I can barely imagine what the world was like before and during the Crash. I wonder, sometimes, how different things might seem to the very old: to men like Rajuder Singh, Surinder Nahal, and Karol Kachellek, and women like Eveline Hywood and the real Operator one-oh-one. They might be rather disappointed in the world they made, and the children they produced from their artificial wombs, don't you think? They were hoping to produce a utopia, but . . . well, no one could convincingly argue that the meek have inherited the world-at least, not yet."
Damon didn't know what the policeman might read into any answer he gave, so he prudently gave none at all.
"Sometimes," Yamanaka added, in the same offhandedly philosophical tone, "I wonder whether anyone anyone can inherit the world, now that people who owned it all in the days before the Crash believe that they can live forever. I'm not sure that they'll ever let go of it deliberately . . . and such fighting as they'll have to do to keep it will be mostly among themselves." can inherit the world, now that people who owned it all in the days before the Crash believe that they can live forever. I'm not sure that they'll ever let go of it deliberately . . . and such fighting as they'll have to do to keep it will be mostly among themselves."
He thinks he's figured it out, Damon thought, with a twinge of grudging admiration. He's asking for my help in finding the evidence. And why shouldn't I cooperate, if people are actually dying? Why shouldn't I tell him what I know . . . or what I believe? "My father never owned more than the tiniest slice of the world," he said aloud, by way of procrastination. He was awkwardly conscious of the fact that he had said my father my father instead of instead of Conrad Helier Conrad Helier. "He was never a corpsman, and never wanted to be."
"Your father remade and reshaped the world by designing the New Reproductive System," Yamanaka replied softly. "The corpsmen who thought the world was theirs to make and shape might well have resented that, even if he never disturbed their commercial empire. Men of business always fear and despise utopians, even the ones who pose no direct threat to them. The corpsmen probably resent your father still, almost as much as the Eliminator diehards resent them them."
"He's been dead for fifty years," Damon pointed out. "Why would corpsmen want to waste their time demonizing the dead?" He hoped that Yamanaka might be able to answer that one; he certainly had no answer himself.
"His collaborators are still alive," Yamanaka countered-and then, after a carefully weighed pause, added: "or were were, until this plague of evil circumstance began."
Twenty.