‘Tell me,’ said Sunadomari, ‘about the worst rogue Luculentus of all. Rafael de la Vega.’

‘Problems with the soul-father transfer caused it . . . a long time ago. Come off it, Keinosuke, we don’t even do that any more.’

‘Soul-fathers.’

‘Right.’

Gradually during the past century, the practice had, well, died out. In the past, a Luculenta chose a soul-daughter, a psychological successor; while a Luculentus chose a soul-son. When the elder was nearing a natural death, he or she would transfer chosen fragments of their selves into their chosen successor. Passing on the best to another generation.

It was a form of continuation; it was a form of suicide. For the scanware to work so deeply, it had to deconstruct the neural quantum states. Like smashing an object to see how hard it is, quantum scan destroys the very state it records. The Luculenti minds were heisenberged to random oblivion.

But fragments of their minds survived, incorporated in the next generation, who might or might not be genetic descendants.

‘De la Vega’s mind was screwed up during the procedure? When he received from his soul-father?’

‘That was the finding of forensic examination a century ago. Modern methods might reveal more.’

‘I don’t think that matters,’ said Sunadomari. ‘When I learned the story, it called him a mind-plunderer. Ah . . . He used similar ware?’

‘Exactly. His vampire code - that’s how forensics named it - derived from the old soul-successor transfer systems.’

‘Have you always known this, my friend? Or are you retrieving it from knowledge archives as we speak?’

‘From archive. I’m no historian.’

‘So tell me more about his demise.’

‘He was defeated by—’ Li-Cheng’s eyes widened. ‘Are you playing a clever game, old friend? Or do you truly not know who the Judas goat was?’

‘Judas goat?’

‘A newly upraised adult of mature years - newly arrived on Fulgor - with plexcores embedded purely to tempt de la Vega to attack her. So you didn’t know. But the whole case was classified, obviously.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The person who acted as bait was called Yoshiko Sunadomari. ’

‘But—’

‘Bravery clearly runs across the generations.’

‘Coincidence.’

‘Of course. Or subtle causality, for how many of us’ - Li-Cheng meant Luculenti - ‘have any interest in being a peacekeeper? ’

Sunadomari could dive into his childhood reflections for influences, but for now it was irrelevant.

‘So my ancestor was the bait, and peacekeepers trapped de la Vega?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Perhaps this should wait until you get here.’

‘If anyone is eavesdropping now, despite your monitoring, will they guess what it is you want to tell me?’

Li-Cheng’s image, in Skein, gave a thousand-times-accelerated smile.

‘If they already possess the knowledge, then they’ll know what I’m referring to. If they have no idea, then I’ll be providing them with classified information.’

‘They know already.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I take responsibility for the decision.’

‘I’m sure your great-great-grandmother would have approved. So. De la Vega expanded his plexcore array, to increase the capacity. He was attempting to plunder dozens of minds.’

‘That would tip his neural systems through phase transitions, wouldn’t it?’

‘If you mean the new mind would no longer think like a human being, you’re right. Yet it would still be a coherent entity, provided the plexcore array functioned correctly. But you can’t scale them up.’

‘Surely you can. The topology is—’

‘Lightspeed delays across synaptic interfaces. The farther apart the processors are, the more—’

‘Understood. I hadn’t realized. He was spreading his mind across physically distant plexcores.’

‘In the end, yes. We have the whole collection in our museum here, the old plexcores. Or nearly the whole collection, at the moment.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘One’s on loan to the multiversity for study. It’s a long-term thing.’

For an entire second, Sunadomari withdrew from Skein, sucked in a breath, glanced at the two peacekeepers in his flyer’s cabin with him, then immersed himself in Skein once more.

‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You lent it to a Dr Greg Ranulph.’

‘No, it’s a team effort, but he’s not on the list.’

‘Then Dr Petra Helsen.’

‘She’s on the team. But . . . tell me you don’t think there’s another de la Vega.’

‘There is.’

‘Helsen’s an ordinary human, my friend.’

‘I wonder about that, but she’s no Luculenta. I do know someone who fits the description well, however.’

‘So are you hunting for this person?’

‘SatScan and full surveillance on the ground, but it’s not helping. On the other hand, I don’t think it matters where she is physically.’

‘She’s attacking through Skein?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Then that’s how we’ll find her.’

‘See you in reality, soon.’

The flyer cabin came back into awareness. His conversation with Hsiu Li-Cheng had lasted less than two seconds. Neither of the peacekeepers showed any awareness that there had even been a discussion taking place. It was the kind of thing one grew used to as a Luculentus, the ability to move things along at the speed of thought.

But Rafaella Stargonier was just as fast.

FORTY-THREE

FULGOR, 2603 AD

A steel eagle circled overhead, while Roger stood on the quickstone forecourt, stared at the student house he theoretically still lived in, and used his tu-ring to open up a small holospace. Thanks to the eagle, this enquiry would appear to originate from the Spalding home, where it clanked along inside the hypozone. But not everything depended on Xavier - the turing had spyware functions he had never used before, his last gift from Dad.

‘Got it.’ It was quicker to use control gestures and abbreviated subvocalizations. ‘And show.’

He now had access to the logs from Alisha’s room. Her nipples were so pink on soft white breasts, as she climbed from the bed where she had slept naked—

‘Shit.’

Face burning, he fast-forwarded through to where she made a call, then zoomed in. She had not spoken in clear, but her lips moved as she subvocalized. A second holospace opened above the tu-ring, showing the ware’s analysis of her words.

‘Roger,’ she was saying. ‘I have to be at Aleph Tower at nine. I’m meeting Rafaella Stargonier. She owns the building, I think.

‘If you get this before I leave, you could come along. If you like, I mean. It would be good to . . . Never mind.

‘See you later.’

He shut the display down.

‘Shit. Shit.’

If he had only dared to log on to Skein. She had left a message for him. For him. No need to spy inside her room’s memory. All he had needed to do was check his own bastard messages. How many hours he had wasted from cowardice?

He looked up at the steel eagle, wondering what Xavier made of this.

‘Maybe I should—’

‘Hey, Roger!’ From an upper balcony, Stef was leaning over. ‘How did you guys get on last night?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You know what I’m . . . Oh, a gentleman never tells, huh?’

‘We didn’t—’

‘See you in class. You can tell me then.’ She blew him a kiss. ‘Later.’

Then she went inside.

Crap.

He re-opened the hololog at the same point, scanned forward until Alisha appeared to be making another call. He zoomed in once more. This time she was calling for an aircab to take her to Aleph Tower. Speeding the log forward, she did nothing significant until leaving the room two minutes before the aircab was due.

Not caring now whether he was tracked, he called down an aircab of his own, and told it to take him to Aleph Tower. The steel eagle flew overhead - the call would still appear to have originated from the Spalding home - but surveillance might realize that a physical human being had boarded from the multiversity campus, and wonder who it was.