The assessment room was the first section they looked in. A big clean chamber with ten long medical tables surrounded by plyplastic limbs tipped with instruments and sensors. One of the tables had a recently discovered corpse on it. Aaron wrinkled his nose up at the sight. It was hard to tell the thing had been human. A dark lump wrapped in shrunken cloth and smeared with grime, its limbs were difficult to determine, showing as long ridges. Strings of hair at one end at least showed him where the head was located. After a minute he realized the corpse was curled up in foetal position.

Two of the Recovery team were standing beside the table in sealed white overalls, peering down through their bubble-helmets as they directed the wand-shape sensors sliding along various creases in the body's surface. Their movements dislodged grains of snow, which were carefully vacuumed up from the table top.

'We keep the temperature in there the same as outside, Purillar said. 'Any sudden change in environment could be catastrophic. As it is we have to keep the assessment room sterile, too.

'Why? Corrie-Lyn asked.

'The radiation has killed off Hanko's microbial life. It's another factor which helps the preservation process. If any bugs got in there, they'd have a feast day, and we'd be left with slush.

'They must be very delicate by now, Aaron said.

'Yes. This one is almost intact. We normally deal with broken segments.

'Don't you use a stabilizer field?

'Not if we can help it. We found the field actually has a detrimental effect on their memorycells. Don't forget, back then the Commonwealth was still using crystal matrices. In some early cases we scrambled ten per cent of the information.

'Must be hard to remove the memorycell, then.

'We don't even try. Once we've extracted enough DNA samples to sequence a full genome, we deploy infiltrator filaments into the crystal. Even that can be hazardous. Powering up a memorycell after this long is fatal. It has to be read cold, which is done a molecular layer at a time. Each one takes about nine months.

I'd have thought that crystal memorycells would last longer than this.

'They built them pretty robust, even back then. But consider what they've endured for twelve hundred years. It doesn't help.

'Who is he? Corrie-Lyn asked.

'Her, actually. We think she's Aeva Sondlin. We'll know for certain when her genome has been read, but the location was right.

'Location?

'She was found four kilometres from her car. In itself that was hard to find. Washed downstream in a flash flood. We know from records that she lived in the house above the valley's flood level. We think she was making a dash for the nearest town during a break in the storm. There was an official evacuation point set up there, and she informed the authorities she was coming. Never arrived. Must have got caught by the winds, or the water. Maybe shell be able to tell us.

'You knew she was missing?

'Yes. The records of the time aren't perfect, naturally, given the circumstances. But we have a full census, and of course everyone who arrived on Anagaska was fully documented. It's our job to try and determine what happened to those who got lost. We have to handle each case separately. In Aeva's case, we've been searching possible locations for seventy years.

'You're bullshitting me, Aaron said.

'I assure you I'm not.

'Sorry, but seventy years?

'We start with the route she must have taken, pick the obvious danger points, and seed them with sensor bots. They spread out in a circle, trying to find some trace. Like all our equipment, the bots have improved considerably during the centuries we've been here. The majority are tunnelers, burrowing through the snow and surface soil layers. So much topsoil was displaced during the storms that the continent's whole topology shifted, and now it's all locked into place by the permafrost. Ninety-nine per cent of the people we recover these days are buried. It means the bots operate in highly detrimental conditions even for this world. In total, the Restoration project has deployed four hundred and fifty million since it began. There are still eleven million active and searching. They're not fast moving, but they are thorough.

'How many people are you still looking for?

'A third of a million. I don't hold out much hope. Most of them will have been washed into the sea. He gestured at the wrinkled lump on the table. 'Dear Aeva's car was forty-seven kilometres from the road she used, and that was the easy find; she was deep under sediment. Persistence pays off. We still find about twenty or so each year, even now.

They moved on into DNA sequencing. To Aaron it was just an ordinary office with five large smartcores. Even in ordinary circumstances, human DNA decomposed quickly; after twelve hundred years on Hanko, only the smallest fragments remained. But there were a lot of cells in each body, each with its own fragments. Piecing them together was possible with the right techniques, and a vast amount of computing power. Once the main sequences had been established, the project could use family records to fill the gaps. In a lot of cases, there were full DNA records from clinics available. As soon as the body had been properly identified, a clone was grown for re-life.

'But not here, Purillar said. 'Clinics back on Anagaska handle that part. After all, who would want to wake up here? People have enough trouble adjusting to the present — their future — as it is. Most need specialist counselling.

'Is life that different?

'Essentially no, and most died hoping for rescue in the form of re-life. It is the amount of time involved which shocks them. None of their immediate family and friends remain. They are very much alone when they wake.

After DNA there was the memory rehabilitation section, which tried to reassemble the information read from memorycells. A process orders of magnitude more complex than DNA sequencing.

The history archive: for recovered people who couldn't be identified. All of Hanko's civic records, and memoirs of families with lost relatives, the logs and recollections of the evacuation teams. Lists of people who may have been visiting Hanko when the attack started. The Intersolar missing persons list of the time.

Laboratories specializing in analysis of molecular structures; identifying baroque, minute clues the bots had discovered as they wormed their way through Hanko's frozen earth. Trying to place flakes of paint with individual car models. Tying scraps of cloth to specific clothes, from that to manufacturer, to retail outlet, to customer lists, to bank statements. Items of jewellery. Even pets. A long register of unknown artefacts, each one potentially leading to another lost corpse.

The case room. With files on everyone still known to be missing.

Operations centre, which monitored the sensor bots and the outpost teams which were excavating in terrible conditions.

After two hours, they'd met everyone in the building. None reacted to Corrie-Lyn, and nobody tried to avoid her. Aaron quietly scanned all of them. No one was enriched with biononics.

'There are a few other people around, Purillar said. 'You'll probably meet them tonight at the canteen. We tend to eat together.

'And if he's not there? Aaron asked.

'Then I'm sorry, but there's not much I can do, the director said. He gave Corrie-Lyn an uncomfortable glance.

'Can we visit the outposts? she asked.

'If he is here, he'll know about you by now. He would have used the beacon net to call in. I guess he doesn't want to get back with you.

'Seeing me in the flesh might be the one thing he can't resist, Corrie-Lyn said. 'Please. Her outpouring of grief into the gaia-field was disturbing.

The director looked deeply unhappy. 'If you want to venture outside, there's nothing I can do to stop you, technically this is still a free Commonwealth world. You can go wherever you want. I'd have advise against it, though.