“Yeah? You talk like you know me. I know you from somewhere?”

Bill didn’t recognize me because he’s permanently fried. Instead of skull wiring or cosmetic bodmods, he’s got a large sac where one of his lungs used to be, dripping out constant, measured doses of light-speed hallucinogen into his bloodstream. Bill has occasional moments of lucidity, but he’s learned to ignore them, or at least to keep functioning until they go away and he’s seeing purple lizards again. I’ve tried the drug he’s got pumping through him day and night; it’s called RPM, and even though I’m pretty experienced with drugs of all nations, I never want to take that stuff again. Bill, on the other hand, swears that it has opened his eyes to the hidden nature of the real world. I guess so; he can see fire demons and I can’t. The only problem with the drug — and Bill will be the first to admit this — is that he can’t remember a goddamn thing from one minute to the next.

So it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t recognize me. I’ve had to go through the same conversation with him a hundred times. “It’s me, Bill. Marid. I want you to take me to Friedlander Bey’s.”

He squinted back at me. “Can’t say I ever seen you before, buddy.”

“Well, you have. Lots of times.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he muttered. He jabbed the ignition and pulled away from the curb. We were headed in the wrong direction. “Where did you say you wanted to go?” he asked.

“Papa’s.”

“Yeah, you right. I got this afrit sitting up here with me today, and he’s been tossing hot coals in my lap all afternoon. It’s a big distraction. I can’t do nothing about it, though. You can’t punch out an afrit. They like to mess with your head like that. I’m thinking of getting some holy water from Lourdes. Maybe that would spook ’em. Where the hell is Lourdes, anyway?”

“The Caliphate of Gascony,” I said. “Hell of a long drive. They do mail orders?” I told him I didn’t have the slightest idea, and sat back against the upholstery. I watched the landscape slash by — Bill’s driving is as crazy as he is — and I thought about what I was going to say to Friedlander Bey. I wondered how I should approach him about what I’d found out, what my mother had told me, and what I suspected. I decided to wait. There was a good chance that the information in the computers linking me to Papa had been planted there, a devious means of winning my cooperation. In the past, I’d carefully avoided any direct transactions with Papa, because taking his coin for any reason meant that he owned you forever. But when he paid for my cranial implants, he made an investment that I’d be paying back for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be working for him, but there was no escape. Not yet. I maintained the hope that I’d find a way to buy my way out, or coerce him into giving me my freedom. In the meantime, it pleased him to pile responsibility on my unwilling shoulders, and gift me with ever-larger rewards.

Bill pulled through the gate in the high white wall around Friedlander Bey’s estate and drove up the long, curved driveway. He came to a stop at the foot of the wide marble stairs. Papa’s butler opened the polished front door and stood waiting for me. I paid the fare and slipped Bill an extra ten kiam. His lunatic eyes narrowed and he glanced from the money to me. “What’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

“It’s a tip. You’re supposed to keep that.” “What’s it for?” “For your excellent driving.” “You ain’t trying to buy me off, are you?” I sighed. “No. I admire the way you steer with all those red-hot charcoals in your drawers. I know I couldn’t do it. He shrugged. “It’s a gift,” he said simply. “So’s the ten kiam.”

His eyes widened again. “Oh,” he said, smiling, “now I get it!”

“Sure you do. See you around, Bill.”

“See ya, buddy.” He gunned the cab and the tires spat gravel. I turned and went up the stairs.

“Good afternoon, yaa Sidi,” said the butler.

“Hello, Youssef. I’d like to see Friedlander Bey.”

“Yes, of course. It’s good to have you home, sir.”

“Yeah, thanks.” We walked along a thickly carpeted corridor toward Papa’s offices. The air was cool and dry, and I felt the gentle kiss of many fans. There was the fragrance of incense on the air, subtle and inviting. The light was muted through screens made of narrow strips of wood. From somewhere I heard the liquid trickle of falling water, a fountain splashing in one of the courtyards.

Before we got to the waiting room, a tall, well-dressed woman crossed the hall and went up a flight of stairs. She gave me a brief, modest smile and then turned her head away. She had hair as black and glossy as obsidian, gathered tightly into a chignon. Her hands were very pale, her fingers long and tapered and graceful. I got just a quick impression, yet I knew this woman had style and intelligence; but I felt also that she could be menacing and hard, if she needed.

“Who was that, Youssef?” I asked.

He turned to me and frowned. “That is Umm Saad.” I knew immediately that he disapproved of her. I trusted Youssefs judgment, so my first intuition about her was most likely correct.

I took a seat in the outer office and killed time by finding faces in the pattern of cracks in the ceiling. After a while, one of Papa’s two huge bodyguards opened the communicating door. I call the big men the Stones That Speak. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. “Come in,” said the Stone. Those guys don’t waste breath.

I went into Friedlander Bey’s office. The man was about two hundred years old, but he’d had a lot of body modifications and transplants. He was reclining on cushions and drinking strong coffee from a golden cup. He smiled when I came in. “My eyes live again, seeing you O my nephew,” he said. I could tell that he was genuinely pleased.

“My days apart from you have been filled with regret, O Shaykh,” I said. He motioned, and I seated myself beside him. He reached forward to tip coffee from the golden pot into my cup. I took a sip and said, “May your table always be prosperous.”

“May Allah grant you health,” he said.

“I pray that you are feeling well, O Shaykh.”

He reached out and grasped my hand. “I am as fit and strong as a sixty-year-old, but there is a weariness that I cannot overcome, my nephew.”

“Then perhaps your physician—”

“It is a weariness of the soul,” he said. “It is my appetite and ambition that are dying. I keep going now only because the idea of suicide is abhorrent.”

“Perhaps in the future, science will restore you.”

“How, my son? By grafting a new zest for living onto my exhausted spirit?”

“The technique already exists,” I told him. “You could have a moddy and daddy implant like mine.”

He shook his head ruefully. “Allah would send me to Hell if I did that.” He didn’t seem to mind if / went to Hell. He waved aside further speculation. “Tell me of your journey.”

Here it was, but I wasn’t ready. I still didn’t know how to ask him if he figured in my family tree, so I stalled. “First I must hear all that happened while I was gone, O Shaykh. I saw a woman in the corridor. I’ve never seen a woman in your house before. May I ask you who she is?”

Papa’s face darkened. He paused a moment, framing his reply. “She is a fraud and an impostor, and she is beginning to cause me great distress.”

“Then you must send her away,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. His expression turned stonelike. I saw now not a ruler of a great business empire, not the controller of all vice and illicit activity in the city, but something more terrible. Friedlander Bey might truly have been the son of many kings, because he wore the cloak of power and command as if he’d been born to it. “I must ask you this question, O my nephew: Do you honor me enough to fill your lungs again with fire?”

I blinked. I thought I knew what he was talking about. “Did I not prove myself just a few months ago, O Shaykh?”