“Mohammed al-Ghazi.”

“Stephan Moltzman.”

“Jessica Levantine.”

“Gracious Mendelane.”

“Tabletop.”

Petrovitch blinked. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey, Sam.”

She shouldn’t have been on the ad-hoc. Though she was one of the few North Americans they had, it was a veritable United Nations as it was. The point being, it was personal for her. She was Lucy’s big sister in all but name. She wasn’t going to even pretend to be impartial.

He used a backchannel to talk to Michael. “Are you sure about this?”

[You don’t get to question the make-up of the ad-hoc, Sasha. That’s one protocol you don’t get to break.]

That was him told.

Addressing the committee, Michael gave them bald facts: shortly after midnight, three days ago, Lucy Petrovitch lost contact with the Freezone. That she had been conducting research on Alaska’s frozen, dark North Slope was a complicating factor, but not the primary concern.

The point was, she’d vanished. And no one seemed to be in any particular rush to find her.

[We need to decide what assets we dedicate to the search, and how they are best deployed.]

Human minds worked differently to Michael’s. There was a long gap before anyone spoke.

“I would say, we do everything, despite the Americans,” said Mendelane, “but it cannot be denied that we require – at the very least – the co-operation of the relevant authorities. We must tread carefully.”

“She is one of us,” said al-Ghazi. Where he was, he could see the same sky as Petrovitch, the same Moon illuminating the tops of the electric trees as they cooled and clicked in the Saharan night. “There is no question of us doing nothing. Would they permit Freezone personnel in Alaska? Or our proxies?”

[I will pass on a request to the US State Department,] said Michael. [You must decide whether we ask, or whether we insist. And if we insist, how forcefully we put our demands.]

“I would be cautious,” said Mendelane.

“I wouldn’t,” said Tabletop. “I’d threaten them with everything we can, and if that’s not enough, we make shit up until they give in. Look, Lucy’s not the sort of kid – not the sort of woman – to go wandering into the night in her slippers and dressing gown, especially when that night lasts for twenty-plus hours and it’s fifteen below. If they’re not interested in looking for her, we’ll do it instead. We could have a team on the ground by tomorrow morning.”

“The university said it would take them a week,” said Moltzman. Petrovitch didn’t know him personally, just his reputation score, which was a respectable eighty-something. “Why would they say that if, firstly, a military search-and-rescue could be deployed in hours, and secondly, they know we could do it faster, with most of our people half a world away?”

[That is a good question,] noted Michael, and Moltzman’s pregnant rep birthed another point. [I can suggest some possible answers, but assigning probabilities to them will take time if I am to be accurate.]

“It’s because she’s a Petrovitch,” said Tabletop. “This whole thing was a set-up from start to finish: the original invitation, which she should have refused, the fact that she was alone, in winter, in the dark, in an isolated location. I said she shouldn’t go.”

[An ad-hoc said she should accept.]

“They were wrong!”

[Samuil Petrovitch was on that ad-hoc,] Michael reminded her, reminded them all. [He agreed with the decision made then.]

“That’s come back to bite him on the arse, hasn’t it?” She lapsed into sullen silence, and the dead air that followed stretched uncomfortably.

There was another protocol surrounding the ad-hocs, that the petitioner wasn’t supposed to speak on their own initiative: they could answer questions, clarify positions, discuss motivations. But not be an advocate, and certainly not grandstand. The committee members weren’t a jury, and an ad-hoc wasn’t a court.

Petrovitch held his nerve, and his tongue.

[It may have been that the ad-hoc was not in possession of all necessary information, although I did my best at the time.] Having slapped him down once, Michael was now taking responsibility for Petrovitch’s piss-poor judgement. [That also may be the case here: however, this is the way we decided we would conduct our decision-making, and if you do not come to a consensus, I will dismiss you and convene another ad-hoc.]

“No,” said al-Ghazi quickly. “We will decide.” He had no way of knowing if he was in the first ad-hoc or the tenth: the Berber tribesman had embraced the nature of the Freezone’s ad-hocracy with all the fervour of a convert, and he’d been called on to play his part.

[We have not heard from one of the committee. If you please, Mrs Levantine.]

“Well now,” she said, and Petrovitch imagined her leaning back in her chair, knitting needles maintaining a steady click-clack rhythm. She didn’t knit out of utility, but out of respect for the craft. “Lucy’s the age of my eldest granddaughter, and I know she hasn’t got her birth mother or father to worry about her, but she has Sam and Madeleine, and all of us instead. She never struck me as a silly girl: a little too serious for her own good, if you ask me, so I agree with Tabletop. She wouldn’t walk out of a safe place for any reason except a very good reason. So either someone took her, or she was persuaded – by someone else or her own mind.”

“You think she is still alive,” said Mendelane, “despite what an extended break in linking usually means?”

“Oh, for certain. No one would take the trouble of going all that way just to, you know, hurt her.”

“Will whoever has her look after her? Until we find her?”

“Well now,” she said again. “We can hope, can’t we?”

Moltzman cleared his throat. “So, what do we need to do? Demand in the strongest possible terms that the authorities treat her disappearance as a crime, not as accidental or negligent. That they put all reasonable effort into finding her…”

“Strike ‘reasonable’,” said Tabletop. “They need to prove to us they’re doing everything they can. Missing persons is an FBI thing: we want nothing less than someone on the ground, up on the North Slope, directing local assets.”

“One of us or one of them?” asked Moltzman.

“Both,” said Tabletop emphatically. “We watch over their shoulder so we know it’s being done right.”

[Does everyone agree to this course of action?] Michael tabulated the votes, and reported back the result. [The committee is unanimous. The question remains, who do we send?]

“I will go,” offered al-Ghazi. “I would be honoured to accept the duty.”

Honoured he might be, but the Americans would eat him alive. Petrovitch jumped in, almost without thinking. That was a lie: he’d done nothing but think since Lucy had gone offline. When the moment presented itself, he was ready.

“No. That’s my job,” he said.

Tabletop was instantly furious. “Sam: they’ve got one Petrovitch already. We’re not giving them another.”

“Who else, then? You?”

“You know I can’t… anybody. Anyone else but you.”

“Fine. Name someone better equipped to survive Reconstruction America. Someone who’ll get Lucy, and bring her home.”

“This isn’t meant to happen, Sam. You’re not supposed to get involved again.”

“Yeah, well. I am involved.” A muscle in Petrovitch’s face twitched, and he started to notice the cold and the wind again. “I suppose I’d better tell Maddy.”

It was just him and Michael again, on the hillside, with the domes below and the sky above.

[Good luck with that,] said Michael.

“Yeah.” Petrovitch scrubbed at his face and thought about getting up. “Probably best done in person. Difficult to land a punch over a link.”

Michael’s avatar patted him on the shoulder. Petrovitch could feel the reassuring pressure, despite it all happening somewhere on a virtual interface buried deep in his brain.