"I don't mean the decay organisms. I mean the natural microbes that once lived inside her while she was still alive. Those microbes have commercial value. This woman is medieval, so she never used antibiotics. There's a big vogue in California for all-natural probiotic body flora."

Vera found herself blurting the unspeakable. "Do you mean the germs inside the corpse?"

Montalban pursed his lips. "'Germs inside the corpse. That's not the proper terminology."

"You want to sell the germs inside this corpse?"

"This is a public-health issue! It's more than just a market opportunity!"

"He's right, you know," Radic piped up. "Archaeo-microbiology is a rapidly expanding field."

"At UC Berkeley," said Montalban, donning his spex again, "they call their new department 'Archaeo-Microbial Human Ecology. "

"Very apt." Radic nodded.

"A whole lot of hot start-up labs around UC Berkeley now. Venture money just pouring in."

"Oh, yes, yes, it was ever thus in California," said Radic.

"Microbe work is huge in China, too. The Jiuquan center, reviving the Gobi Desert…Microbes are the keystone of sustainable ecology."

"I don't understand this," said Vera.

Radic shrugged. "That's because you're Acquis!"

The old man's tactless remark hung in the damp air. It died and began to stink.

"I would never dismiss the microbe technology of the Acquis," said Montalban, demonstrating a tender concern. "Acquis medical troops lead the world at public sanitation."

Vera felt her blood begin to simmer.

Despite his lack of accurate neural information about her emotions, Montalban sensed her discontent. "The skill sets differ within the global civil societies. We should expect that: that's a source of valuable trade."

"So, what do you call this business? 'Frankenstein genetic graverobbing'?"

Montalban contemplated this insult. He twirled the earpiece of his spex gently between his fingers. "I suggest that we break for lunch now. I'm sure Little Miss Mary Montalban is hungry." Montalban carefully placed his spex inside his flowered shirt.

"Don't you want to use your fancy spex to scan the corpse here?" said Vera.

"Yes, I do. Still, it might be wiser if we ate first."

"You make quite a fuss about your scanning capabilities."

Montalban lifted one suntanned hand and plucked at his lower lip. "No, I don't 'make fusses, Vera. I'm a facilitator."

"How could you eat? How could you eat today, now, after staring at this rotten woman and her rotten flesh? And then planning to sell it ? How can you do that?"

Now even Radic knew that somebody had put a foot wrong. "Please don't get angry at our foreign guest, dear Vera, my domorodac ! After all, this is your heritage!"

"Are you always like this, John? You invent all kinds of lies, and big fake words, to cover up what you do in secret?"

Montalban was suddenly and deeply wounded. A flush ran up his neck. His face was turning both red and white at the same time, like a freshly sliced turnip.

Vera realized, with a giddy intuition, that yes, John Montalban was always like this. She wasn't the first woman to tell him that about himself. Because he was married to Radmila.

Vera had touched him on some sore spot that Radmila had lacerated.

Montalban had never yet breathed a word about Radmila, yet Vera could almost smell Radmila now. Radmila was very near to them. It was as if Radmila were lying there in the coffin somehow. Disgustingly undead.

That black intuition-so true, and so immediate-panicked Vera. She felt a strong urge to strike Montalban, to hit him right across his handsome face.

Dr. Radic looked from her, to Montalban, and back again. The old man was completely bewildered and alarmed. "I'll see to our lunch," he blurted. Then he hurried through the zipper of the airtight tent and left it flapping.

The two of them were standing alone with the dead thing in its coffin. Hair rose all over Vera's arms. Very soon, she would scream.

"Here," said Montalban. He gently handed her the spex.

Hastily, Vera jammed the Californian hardware over her eyes. A galaxy of sparkling pixels swarmed across her vision.

The sarcophagus glimmered before her. The coffin went blurry for just a moment, then snapped into sharp focus.

The ancient sarcophagus was shiny, polished, precious, and entirely new.

A stranger lay in state inside of it. A woman who was freshly dead.

Newly laid to rest within her stony casement, the stately Duchess looked as detailed as a celebrity waxwork. Her silken robe shimmered. Her linen was white and fine. Gray tendrils threaded her oiled black hair. Her golden earrings, two little bull's heads, gleamed aggressively. Her death-pale cheeks and eyelids had been brightly smeared with undertaker's colors: lead-white cosmetics, black kohl, rouge, and antimony.

"You have an augment," Vera said. "You brought an augment here."

"Indeed I did," said Montalban. "I brought a tourist application."

Montalban's Hollywood spex had two little rubbery blinders that had sealed tight around her eyes. Vera had never seen mediation reach such a peak of graphic artistry.

Montalban's spex erased the visible world and replaced it with a simulation. The spex were firing a trio of colored lasers deep into her eyeballs. All this seemingly natural light that struck her eyes was artificial.

But she could still see her own hands, and the fabric walls of the tent. The program was scanning the real world in real time, then generating a visual addition to that world with 3-D modeling, ray-tracing, and reflection algorithms. It sucked all the real light out of the world, filtered it, augmented it, and blew it into her eyes with a mediated overlay.

It was doing this amazing feat in real time. Brilliantly, speedily. Using just a pair of flimsy-looking spex, instead of an entire heavy Acquis helmet and faceplate.

"Your augment is really fine-grained."

"Thank you," said Montalban. "It's the state-of-the-art from UCLA's graphics school. We're rather proud."

Vera turned her spex-covered eyes in the direction of his voice. The augment faltered a bit, and then let Montalban pop into her view. Montalban looked particularly pleased with himself, and, if anything, handsomer than before. "Of course, your Dr. Radic was a lot of help with our little project."

Vera pressed the spex against the bridge of her nose. She rocked her head from side to side. Everything panned smoothly: no breakups, no freezes, no jitters. The world had turned into a movie. A special effect.

She stared at the dead woman again. Confronted with death, at last, the Hollywood fakery became obvious. Vera had seen plenty of dead people. This was the Hollywood special-effects version of a dead person: much too tasteful, too bright, too crisp and neat.

"She's so tiny! Why is she so small?"

"That's the size most people really were, in the Dark Ages. You know our Dr. Radic. That old gent's a stickler for accurate forensics."

Arms stretched for balance, with small, careful steps, Vera sidled around the sarcophagus.

The dead woman had a thick waist, and no bust, and short, crooked legs. Her mouth and her jaws had a lemon-sucking look, for she had lost some teeth young and had grown old without dentistry.

Her brow was creased with sullen menace and there was a practiced sneer at the wings of her waxy nose. The Duchess was a vicious, imperious, feudal grandmother. She looked like her evil eyes might flick open at any moment.

Vera reached out a hand. She saw her fingers appear within her field of vision.

She reached out to touch the sarcophagus. Her fingers vanished into the thick visual lacquer of the augment. Finally she felt her fingers contact real stone. Not new stone. Cold stone, dead stone, eroded by centuries.