“Of course not. Paul was busy wiping himself from official databases before Nigel and Ozzie opened their first wormhole to Mars.”

“Really?”

“Just keep watching Valean.”

“Is that it?”

“For the moment. I’ll try and talk to Paul.”

Digby knew better than to ask.

Laril knew the light and air had changed somehow. He wasn’t standing in the sunlight of the coliseum, and the air he gulped down was perfectly conditioned. It was also quiet. He risked opening his eyes.

Of all the possible fates, he wasn’t prepared for the perfectly ordinary, if somewhat old-fashioned, lounge he was in. The lighting globes were off, making it appear gloomy. Its only illumination came from sunlight leaking through the translucent gray curtains pulled across tall arching windows. He could just make out some courtyard with a circular swimming pool on the other side of the glass. The floor was dark wood planks, their grain almost lost with age and polish. Walls were raw drycoral, lined with shelves.

There were some chic silver globe chairs floating a few centimeters above the floorboards. A man was sitting on one of them, its surface molded around him as if it were particularly elastic mercury. His youthful features gave him a handsome appearance, especially with thick dark hair cut longer than the current style. Instinct warned Laril he was old, very old. This wasn’t someone he could bullshit like his ex-business partners and girlfriends. He didn’t even risk using his field function scan. No way of telling how the man would react.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat as his heart calmed a little. “Where am I?”

“My home.”

“I don’t … uh, thank you for getting me out of there. Are you Asom?”

“No. There’s no such person. You were being played by the Accelerators.”

“They know about me?”

The man raised an eyebrow contemptuously.

“Sorry,” Laril said. “So who are you?”

“Paul Cramley.”

“And am I in even deeper shit now?”

“Not at all.” Paul grinned. “But you’re not free to go, either. That’s for your own good, by the way; it’s not a threat.”

“Right. Who else knew about me?”

“Well, I did. And it looks like the stealthed ultradrive starship in orbit does. So along with Valean and her team, that makes three of us. I daresay more are on their way.”

“Oh, Ozzie.” Laril’s shoulders sagged from the pressure of dismay. “My software isn’t as good as I thought, is it?”

“In my experience, I’ve never seen worse. And trust me, that’s a lot of experience. But then I don’t think you realize exactly what you’re dealing with.”

“Okay, so who are you? What’s your interest?”

“You should be about to find out. I’m guessing that an old acquaintance is going to call any minute now. And when you’re as old as me, your guesses are certainties.”

“If you’re old and you’re not in ANA, you’re probably not a faction agent.”

“Glad to see you have some gray matter, after all. Ah, here we go.”

A portal projected an image of a woman into the lounge. Laril groaned. He didn’t need any identification program to recognize Paula Myo.

“Paula,” Paul said in a happy voice. “Long time.”

“This crisis seems to be bringing the golden oldies out to play in droves.”

“Is that resentment I hear?”

“Just an observation. Laril, are you all right?”

He shrugged. “I suppose, yeah.”

“Don’t ever do anything as stupid as that again.”

Laril scowled at the investigator’s image.

“Thanks for exiting him,” Paula said. “My own people would have been noisy.”

“Not a problem.”

“It won’t take Valean long to determine your location. She’ll visit.”

“She’s not as stupid as Laril, surely.”

“No,” Paula agreed as Laril bridled silently. “But she has a mission, and Ilanthe won’t give her a choice.”

“Poor her.”

“Quite. Give me its access code, please.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Paul. We don’t have the time.”

Paul gave her projected image a martyred look. “Connecting you directly.”

Paula’s image winked off.

“Who’s she talking to?” Laril asked.

“Next best thing now that ANA’s unavailable,” Paul said, sounding indifferent.

“So … I’m sorry, I still don’t get who you are.”

“Just a bloke who has been around for a long while. That gives me a certain perspective on life. I know my own mind, and I don’t like what the Accelerators are doing. Which is why I helped you out.”

One of the silver globes floated over to Laril, who sat down gingerly. Once the surface had bowed around him, it was actually rather comfortable. “So how old are you?”

“Put it this way: When I grew up, no one had traveled farther than the moon. And half the planet thought that was a hoax. Dickheads.”

“The moon? Earth’s moon?”

“Yeah. There’s only one: the moon.”

“Great Ozzie, that makes you over a thousand.”

“Thousand and a half.”

“So why haven’t you migrated inward?”

“You speak like that’s inevitable. Not everyone accepts that biononics and downloading into ANA is the path forward. There are still a few of us independents left. Admittedly, we do tend to be quite old. And stubborn.”

“So what are you trying to achieve?”

“Self-sufficiency. Liberty. Individualism. Neutrality. That kind of thing.”

“But doesn’t Higher culture give …” Laril trailed off as Paul raised his eyebrow again.

“And you were acting on which committee’s authority this morning?” Paul asked mildly.

“Okay. I’m having trouble accepting Higher life. I just don’t see what else there is.”

“Get your biononics. Work out how to use them properly-I mean that in your case. Get yourself a stash of EMAs and strike out for whatever you want.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Actually it’s a bitch. And I still haven’t got a clue how I’m going to finish up. Postphysical, presumably. But when I do, it’ll be on my terms, not something imposed on me.”

“You know, that’s the way I like to think.”

“I’m flattered. Ah, looks like Valean has found us.”

Laril gave the windows an anxious look. There was the unmistakable high-pitched whistling of a capsule descending fast outside. When he squinted through the windows looking out across the long garden, he saw two chrome-yellow ovoids come to a halt above the freshly mown grass. The skeletal woman stepped out of the first. Laril’s heart started to speed up at the sight of her. Those strange carmine streamers swam along behind her as she advanced on the bungalow. Six weapons-enriched agents followed her, various hardware units emerging from their skin to poke aggressive nozzles at the bungalow.

“Do we need to, uh, maybe get to safety?” Laril stammered. His biononics reported that a sophisticated field scan was sweeping through the bungalow. He brought his integral force field up to full strength.

Paul sat even farther back in his silver chair, putting his hands behind his head to regard the approaching Accelerator team nonchalantly. “You can’t get anywhere safer in the Commonwealth.”

“Oh, shit,” Laril moaned. He desperately wanted to ask: How safe, really? If Paul had really good defenses, why hadn’t he shot the capsules out of the sky or teleported out or called up his own team of enriched bodyguards? Just … do something!

Valean walked up to a window. She reached out and touched it with her index finger. The window turned to liquid and splashed down into the lounge, running across the floorboards.

Laril sat up straight, his back rigid as fear locked his muscles. Valean stepped through the open archway, gently pushing the gauzy curtains apart. Her glowing pink eyes searched around the room.

“Paul Cramley, I believe,” she said with a half smile.

“Correct,” Paul said. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave now. Laril is my guest.”

“He must come with me.”

“No.”