If you're going to get all asinine maudlin, you can go back where you came from.

So cold and ruthless we are now, Juliet, how we've grown.

The communication channel widened to incorporate her two NN cores.

We've found Jason Whitehurst's airship, NN core one said. There was a brief impression of excitement. We didn't even have to go extralegal. Stratotransit PLC holds the Euro-flight Agency franchise for traffic control, and Event Horizon owns twelve per cent of Stratotransit, so our request for a memory squirt was perfectly legitimate.

Good, so where are they?

Stratotransit tracked the Colonel Maitland leaving Monaco and flying west across the Mediterranean, then out into the Atlantic over the Straits of Gibraltar. That's where radar coverage ends, so we've been relying on our Earth Resource platforms to track her from there.

One of the terminal cubes in front of her lit up. Julia recognized the Iberian peninsula and north-west Africa, both glowing in various shades of red. The sea was a light green.

You are seeing an enhanced infrared image, NN core one explained. The image expanded, centring on the Straits of Gibraltar. Julia could make out the drop flow, a tongue of emerald green that seemed to shimmer. A blue dot crept into the picture.

There they are. They crossed at night, which is significant. It was the only time they were in sight of land after leaving Monaco.

The image was expanding again, shifting west and south. The Colonel Maitland flew north of the Canaries, then out over the ocean.

The Colonel Maitland is currently seven hundred kilometres due west of the Cape Verde islands, and holding station, NN core one said. That's the absolute middle of nowhere. For the last ten hours, all it's done is compensated for the wind.

Julia stared at the blue dot, virtually equidistant from both landmasses, Africa and South America. You mean only someone with our resources could locate the Colonel Maitland right now?

Yes, for all its size, the damn thing is tiny on an oceanic scale. Unless you have access to the same Stratotransit and satellite data as we do, there's no way you could find it.

What about the usual communication links? she asked. Call Jason Whitehurst up and locate him via a transponder.

Jason is too wily for that; pulling transponder co-ordinates out of Intelsat is an ancient hotrod trick. There's no transponder response to his number.

You mean he's totally incommunicado?

Far from it; one of security's ELINT satellites has an orbit which passes close enough to scan the Colonel Maitland. We waited until the latest results were squirted over to us before telling you we'd found Jason. It turns out the Colonel Maitland is operating some kind of localized jammer.

Is that why we can't get any response from Charlotte Fielder's cybofax?

Could well be, if she's on board. But Jason Whitehurst certainly hasn't been struck dumb. He's using his own comsat to squirt data about among his cargo agents, and the bit rate is approaching maximum capacity. And the uplink to geosync orbit is a very tight beam; but the ELINT intercepted a portion while it was overhead. Jason Whitehurst is receiving a vast amount of kombinate finance reviews which his agents have bought from commercial intelligence companies.

Julia looked at the cube again, translating the blue dot into an airship drifting idly over the ocean. What had Victor said? No such thing as coincidence. And Greg said the same thing often enough.

Grandpa, do you notice the similarity here? I'm looking for this Charlotte Fielder girl, and I've also initiated a search through kombinate finance records because of the offers Mutizen and Clifford Jepson have made to me. Jason Whitehurst has got Charlotte Fielder, and what's he busy doing?

Spot on, Juliet. Notice something else as well?

What?

This atomic structuring technology cropped up more or less at the same time as Royan warned us about aliens. A technology that is so different it isn't even a breakthrough in the usual sense of the word, because nobody's even been working on it. A technology whose origins are bloody difficult to track down.

"Bugger," she said out loud. He was right. Which was precisely what made him so indispensable, not just his experience, but an alternative viewpoint.

We should've realized that, she said to her two NN cores.

Yes, was the curiously hollow answer. A fragment of resentment.

Right, let's make up for the lapse. One of you contact Peter Cavendish, tell him to start putting some pressure on Eduard Muller and Mutizen. Explain to them that we've had a counter-offer for a partnership in atomic structuring, and they'll have to put in a revised bid if they want Event Horizon as a partner. Then I want one of our Atlantic antenna platforms reprogrammed to plug into the Colonel Maitland's satellite circuits. I want to talk to Jason Whitehurst, get him to accept a visit from Greg and Suzi.

No problem, said NN core two. I'm redirecting one of the dish foci now.

Fine. What about Jason Whitehurst's profile?

Interesting. I can find no reference to Fabian Whitehurst's birth certificate in any public memory core. The birth was simply not registered. However, I've been accessing recent gossipcasts, the boy has been to several society parties over the last nine months.

The terminal's second cube came alive, showing her the image of a mid-teens boy with long, floppy dark hair. She could see some resemblance to Jason. The boy was a lively one, she thought, bright and sparky; years of trying to contain Matthew taught her the signs.

I wonder why Jason never mentioned him to me? she mused.

There was no need for him to tell you, her grandfather said. No reason why you should know.

Grandpa, if anyone I know has a child I'm given their age, school record, told they adore dogs and horses, and get shown their hologram, all within fifteen seconds. Anything that'll get them invited to play with Daniella and Matthew. And this Fabian looks about the same age as Daniella.

Jason Whitehurst isn't an arriviste.

Maybe not. But why isn't there a record of Fabian's birth?

Got me there, girl.

OK, I want a more detailed profile of Jason Whitehurst assembled, centred on his life sixteen, fifteen, and fourteen years ago. Finance, personal, the works, every byte. I don't know exactly how old this Fabian child is, but he's around that age. Find a trace of him. Look for unexplained payments to women, and possibly medical clinics as well. Given Jason's sexual orientation, I'd guess at an in vitro fertilization and a host mother.

You got it, Juliet.

I have established a link with the Colonel Maitland, NN core two said.

Jason Whitehurst appeared on the study's phone screen. He was sitting at some kind of desk, wearing a white shirt, open at the neck to reveal an MCC cravat. There was a window behind him, showing nothing by sky.

"Julia, this is a somewhat unexpected pleasure. I wasn't aware I was taking incoming calls."

"I know, Jason, and I apologize for interrupting your communication circuits like this, but we do need to talk."

"Certainly, I was going to call you today anyway."

Julia felt a trickle of relief in her mind. At least they weren't going to play the euphemisms game. She tried to gauge his mood, which wasn't easy over a phone vid. But he was definitely riding an up.

She thought for a moment, unsure of what to say. What exactly was she asking him for? Charlotte Fielder, or should there be something more?

"I'm looking for someone, a Miss Charlotte Fielder. Apparently she left the Newfields ball with your son, Fabian."

There was a slight tightening around Jason Whitehurst's mouth at the mention of Fabian. "She left with me, that is so."

Interesting, her grandfather said. The old bastard's cagey about the tyke.