Shed probably have continued probing if we hadnt been interrupted, but we were. Mortimer Gray and Michael Lowenthal were obviously keen to get on; they couldnt have lingered more than a couple of minutes exchanging pleasantries with the sisterhoods welcoming committee before hopping back into yet another glorified white corpuscle and speeding through Excelsiors bloodstream to us.
Sixteen
The Men from Earth
Michael Lowenthal and Mortimer Gray were so keen to see us, in fact, that they were practically elbowing one another out of the way as they approached. They both headed directly for me, but that might have been because Christine, gripped by a sudden fit of modesty, had dropped back to a position almost directly behind me.
Davida Berenike Columella tried to catch up with them in order to make the introductions, but Lowenthal wouldnt wait for her. He introduced Gray, although that was hardly necessary, and his two other companions. One of
them was a soberly clad male named Jean de Comeau, whose title I didnt catch because I was too busy concentrating my attention on the one who obviously wasnt a UN bureaucrat: a female named Solantha Handsel.
Solantha Handsel had enough hardware built into her smartsuit and probably into her own flesh to give the appearance of being half-robot. It seemed to me that she might as well have had the word bodyguard stenciled on her flat but muscular chest.
It occurred to me that traveling with a bodyguard might be a social status thing a matter of mere ornamentation but my paranoia wasnt prepared to let me make the assumption. Nor was it prepared to write off the cyborg as an item of intimidatory showmanship. What my paranoia said was that if Michael Lowenthal had brought a minder with him, he expected to need minding. Maybe the sisters werent as harmless as they seemed, and maybe he was anxious about
Christine Caines reputation, but the more worrying possibility was that he had cause to be worried about Niamh Hornes yet-to-arrive entourage, or that he thought he had cause to be worried about me.
Im not quite sure how it happened, but while I was busy formulating these thoughts Lowenthal cut me out from the crowd with well-trained expertise and somehow contrived perhaps with Solantha Handsels aid to establish an invisible cordon sanitaire around us.
Welcome back, Mr. Tamlin, he said, smiling broadly. I understand that you used to work for us.
Only as a subcontractor, I assured him, without bothering to quibble about the use of the word us . Why, do you think you owe me money?
He laughed politely. If we did, he said, the compound interest would have inflated it into a tidy sum by now. Unfortunately, we have no record of it, and the credit balance in your own accounts was sequestered long ago to pay for your incarceration.
Thats just the accounts you know about, I told him. I figured that if he wanted to imply that I was seriously poor, I might as well fight back. Itll need some serious investigation to find out about the others. Not that I can compete with Christine, of course. Shes got all those royalties owing to her for Bad Karma .
He must have known that I was fishing. We dont have a copy of it, Im afraid, he assured me. Mortimer may be able to turn one up. He spends a lot of time in the mountains even more than he used to, now that their contents have been even more extensively trashed than they were before. We do, however, have copies of some of your old tapes, along with other data. All discarded by publicly accessible datastores, I fear. It seemed very unlikely to the custodians of our history that the items in question would ever be required again.
But you squirreled it away regardless, I said. I tried to maintain a light tone as I said: I dont suppose you know why I was put into SusAn in the first place? I seem to have mislaid the memory.
He didnt seem surprised by the question but he did seem slightly suspicious, as if he didnt believe that Id lost the memory and didnt mind my knowing it. Thats an intriguing mystery, he said, blandly. We dont have any record of your conviction for a crime. As I said, our financial records show that your existing credit was seized to pay for the upkeep of your frozen body. Damon Hart neglected to make any provision for that purpose but that was probably a genuine oversight.
I couldnt believe that hed use a phrase like probably a genuine oversight unless he intended to imply the opposite, or that hed have mentioned Damon Hart at all unless he too was fishing for information. In which case, I deduced, he probably didnt have the faintest idea why Id been put away although he was certainly interested in finding out.
I suppose I ought to be glad that I was looked after so well, even though my credit ran out, I said. I seem to have slept through at least two major disasters I do hope that I havent been revived on the eve of a third.
He didnt laugh at that suggestion. This is a far better world than the one you left behind, in terms of the existential opportunities it presents, he assured me. Well be happy to help you in any way we can to adapt yourself to it, if thats your wish.