Her own determination to ensure that important information not be lost convinced her she was right about Markis Kane: He’d have wanted to preserve the logs against history. Somewhere there had to be a trail. Even if he were the monster the news services now accused him of being, he might well have wanted to save the record of his exploits for publication after he was safely clear of the law.

And the trail almost certainly led through his sole child, Tora.

Kim went home early, mixed herself a drink, and directed Shepard to bring up a simulacrum of Sheyel.

“I don’t have much data on him,” the AI protested.

“Do the best you can. And update him.”

She listened to the electronic murmur which was Shepard’s method of informing her he didn’t feel equipped to perform a given assignment, and then Sheyel’s image appeared before her. He was seated in his dragon chair, eyes half open, presented in an appropriately melancholy mood.

“Good afternoon, Kim,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And you, Sheyel. I was sorry to lose you. I wish things had turned out differently.”

“As do I. It seems I was foolishly determined.”

They gazed at one another.

“It shouldn’t have been vindictive,” he said. “It was there too many years without harming anyone.”

“You expected the appearance of the Valiant to get a reaction. I guess that’s what happened.”

“I wish I could change things. At least, Kim, I’m glad you’re safe.” He rearranged one of the cushions. “Where is it now?”

“It’s gone. At considerable cost.” She pulled her legs up onto the sofa and wrapped her arms around them. “Sheyel, I wanted you to know that I haven’t walked away from this. I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened. I think Yoshi was killed by the same thing that killed you.”

“Yes. That makes sense. Do you know how it might have happened?”

“Not yet. But I hope to find out within another couple of days.”

“Good. When you have the rest of it, I’d be pleased if you came back. And talked to me.”

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

Tora Kane lived in an isolated cottage situated in an oak grove about ten kilometers northwest of Seabright. Kim rode out on several consecutive days and strolled through the area early in the morning, recording when Tora left for the site, nine-fifteen, and when she returned, usually at around six-thirty. She noted that Tora owned a flyer, but not a dog. As far as she could determine, the archeologist lived alone.

She found a toolshed behind the house, which would provide a ladder when she needed it. That was a piece of good fortune: she’d expected to have to climb a tree.

The walks had been hard enough on her: despite modern medicine, she was not yet fully healed, and she knew her doctors would have complained angrily had they known what she was doing.

At home, she worked with Shepard to create a virtual lawyer who would be credible and persuasive. She settled on Aquilla Selby, the famed criminal attorney of the previous century. Selby had not believed in capital punishment, and had specialized in defending the indefensible, rescuing a long line of murderers and sadists from the extreme penalty, and in some cases even springing them loose on an unsuspecting public.

Selby had allowed his years to show, had very carefully orchestrated the aging process to acquire silver hair and a wrinkled brow, gaining the visible appearance of maturity that counts for so much in the courtroom, while simultaneously maintaining the medical state of a healthy thirty-year-old.

Kim touched him up a little bit, changed the color of his eyes from blue to brown, cut his hair to agree with current fashion, got rid of his beard, took a few pounds out of his midsection. She tightened his face somewhat, opting for trim cheeks and a narrow nose.

“What do you think?” she asked Shep, when the finished product stood before her.

“He looks good,” the AI said. “He’d get my attention.”

The image completed, she went to work on the voice, eliminating its distinctive Terminal City accent, the mellifluous tonality that, to a seventh-century ear, sounded cloying. She added some gravel and adjusted the pacing. When she was finished, he sounded like a modern native of Greenway’s Ruby Archipelago.

Next she looked at her equipment.

Included in the package with the microtransmitter was a receiver and a flex antenna for long-distance reception. She rented a flyer and mounted the antenna on it, then went to bed and slept peacefully.

In the morning she heard from Chad. “It’s ready,” he told her.

She flew out that afternoon and picked up the tap.

“Remember,” he cautioned, after showing her how it worked, “if you get into trouble, I don’t know anything about it.”

She promised they wouldn’t be able to beat it out of her.

That evening she flew to within a kilometer of Tora’s home, landed, and walked the rest of the distance. The lights were on when she arrived, and she saw movement inside the cottage. Tora had a guest. Several guests, in fact. Three flyers were parked on or just off the pad.

But she knew that the sleek orange-and-black Kondor belonged to the archeologist. She watched for a few minutes to be sure no one was outside, then circled around to the pad and taped the microtransmitter to the top of a tread, where it disappeared into the well. When she was satisfied, she retreated into the woods and turned on her receiver. The signal came through loud and clear.

27

Kim was up early next day. She had a light breakfast, and then changed her appearance to that of a trim young male, including a mustache, which she thought made her look quite dashing. Then she took her rented aircraft out to Tora Kane’s neighborhood, timing her flight to be overhead when the archeologist came out the door. She had a cup in one hand and a leather case under her other arm when she got into her flyer and lifted off.

Kim monitored her flight until she was down at the dig site. Then she descended nearby in a glade, avoiding Kane’s landing pad because she didn’t want to take a chance of leaving a record of the aircraft with the house AI. There were only a few other dwellings in the area, but none within visual range. No one seemed to be abroad.

There was no way to be certain that she wouldn’t be recorded by a security system. If that happened, Tora would get a picture of a young man, and the plan would be blown, but she at least would escape detection.

She went behind the villa, got the ladder out of the shed, and used it to climb to the roof. She now removed her universal tap from a jacket pocket and secured it to a cornice. It was painted the same dull brown, so it would be almost invisible to anyone arriving in a flyer.

Satisfied, she climbed down, put the ladder back, and left.

She returned home to work on Aquilla Selby’s lines, but had hardly gotten started when Matt called to ask whether she was okay, by which he presumably meant had she been arrested yet? He also reported that he’d found a lab they could use to examine the Valiant, but that it would be a couple of weeks before they could get access to it.

He asked again whether she would not relent and give him access to the “bric-a-brac.” He was so mysterious that she knew anyone listening would understand he was trying to talk in code.

“Best to leave things as they are,” she told him.

“I don’t understand why you don’t trust me,” he said.