Why are you doing this?he demanded. You don't love her this much.

I do, i lied. This is best for all of us. You'll see. You're going to have a wonderful future here, you and all the other Edenists. I don't belong.

You do.

No, you have to cut free of the past if you're to have any chance of success. And I am most definitely the past.

He shook his head, tightening his grip.

The ship is leaving in another twelve minutes, eden reminded me gently.

We're going.

I kissed the twins one last time, then guided Jocelyn into the funicular railway car. It rose smoothly up the track, and I looked down the length of the habitat, trying to commit that incredible sight to memory.

You're actually doing it,hoi yin said. there was a strand of utter incomprehension in her mental voice.

Yes. I won't forget you, Hoi Yin.

Nor I you. But my memory will last for ever.

No. That's a uniquely human conceit. Although it will certainly be for a very long time.

I don't think I ever did understand you, Harvey.

You didn't miss much.

Oh, but I did.

Goodbye, Hoi Yin. I wish you the best possible life. And someday, tell my child about me.

I will. I promise.

•   •   •

The Irensaga was the same marque of ship as the Ithilien ; our cabin was identical to the one we shared on the flight out, even down to the colour of the restraint webbing over the bunks. Jocelyn let me help her with the straps, a timid smile blinking on and off, as though she couldn't quite believe I was coming with her.

I gave her a quick peck on the cheek and fastened myself down. We'd do all right on Earth, the two of us. Life would be a hell of a lot easier for me, but then it always is when you surrender completely. I felt a total fraud, but there was nothing to be gained now by explaining my real reason to her. And she was a mite more sceptical about the Church these days. Yes, we'd be all right together. Almost like the good old days.

I switched the bulkhead screen to a view from the spaceship's external cameras as the last commuter shuttle disengaged. Secondary drive nozzles flared briefly and brightly, urging us away from Eden. The gap began to widen, and we started to rise up out of the ecliptic. Eden's northern endcap was exposed below us; with the silver-white spire of the docking spindle extending up from the crest it resembled some baroque cathedral dome.

I watched it slowly shrinking, while some strange emotions played around inside my skull. Regret, remorse, anger, even a sense of relief that it was all finally over. My decision, right or wrong, stood. I had passed my judgement.

And just how do you judge the dead? For that's what Chong is, now, dead. Or at least, beyond any justice I could ever administer.

Chong?

Yes, Harvey?

I won't be coming back. I want you to know that.

As always, you know more than you reveal. I did wonder.

I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it to give my three children a chance at a life which may be worthwhile. Perhaps I even believe in what you're trying to build out here. You've given the people of Eden a kind of hope I never knew existed before.

You are an honourable man, Harvey, you shame me.

There is something I want to know.

Of course.

Did Hoi Yin ever know it was you who killed Maowkavitz?

No. Like you, I deny her the truth to protect her. It is a failing of all fathers, and I do genuinely consider her my daughter. I was so gratified by what she has become. If only you could have seen her the day we first met. So beautiful, so frail, and so tragic. To blossom from that ruined child into the sublime woman she is today is nothing short of a miracle. I could not bear to have her soiled again. So I withheld the knowledge, a perverted form of dana. But I consider it to be a necessary gift.

Funny, because it was Hoi Yin who gave you away.

How so?

The day your body died, she asked me what I was going to do with the stockpile of precious metal. I hadn't released the information then. Which meant the two of you had known about it all along. The only way that could happen was if your affinity command of Eden's personality was superior to everyone else's. A logical assumption since you designed its thought routines to begin with.

And that told you I was the murderer?

Not at once, but it set me to thinking. How could Wallace Steinbauer, who has only been in Eden for two years, have developed a method of glitching the thought routines which surpassed even your ability? Especially given that his field of expertise was cybernetics. So then I started to consider what he had done a little more closely. The most obvious question was why didn't he simply blackmail Penny Maowkavitz when it became obvious she had discovered he was stealing the gold? She could hardly come running to me. So it would have resulted in a complete stand-off between them, because if he had gone to the JSKP board about her initial subterfuge they would then find out that he had been stealing the gold as well. At worst she would have to agree to let him continue substituting the Dornier's standard components with the new gold ones. Even if he had remade the entire capsule out of gold it wouldn't amount to a hundredth of a per cent of the total value of the stockpile. That would have been a very small price to pay for safeguarding the future of Boston. So I had to start looking for ulterior motives, and someone else who could manipulate the habitat's personality. The only people who qualified on the second count were you and Hoi Yin. That left me with motive. Hoi Yin had the obvious one, she hated Penny Maowkavitz, and with good reason. But she also admitted she felt cheated that Maowkavitz hadn't died from cancer. It was fairly macabre, but I believed her. That left you.

And do you have my motive, Harvey?

I think so. That was the hardest part of all to figure out. After all, everybody up here knew Maowkavitz was dying, that she would be dead in a few months at the most. So the actual question must be, why would you want her to die now ? What was so special about the timing? Then I realized two things. One, you were also dying, but you were expected to live longer than her. And second, Penny Maowkavitz's death was fast, deliberately so. With your control over Eden you could have chosen from a dozen methods; yet you picked a bullet through the brain, which is damn near instantaneous. In other words, you made sure Penny Maowkavitz never had an opportunity to transfer her personality into the neural strata. You killed her twice, Chong, you shot her body and denied her mind immortality.

With reason, Harvey. I could not allow her to transfer herself into the neural strata before me, it would have been disastrous. And Maowkavitz had begun to think along those lines, she was not stupid. She was conferring with Eden to see if such a thing were possible. Which of course it is, it has been right from the start. As she did not reveal the existence of the precious metals, so I did not reveal the full potential of the neural strata. I had to ensure that Maowkavitz did not have the chance to experiment; and as I was already aware of Steinbauer's illegal activity, I decided to use him as my alibi. Fortunately, given his temperament his elimination was even easier to engineer than Maowkavitz's. I had only to wait until your department uncovered his theft of the gold, then goad him into panic at the prospect of discovery. The inspection tunnel was only one of a number of options I had prepared for him depending on how he reacted. Once he was dead, he could not protest his innocence, and the case would be closed.