That had to be worth keeping your temper for.

Bancroft gave his wife another casual touch, this time on her waist, pushing her away.

“Miriam, could you leave us alone for a while? I’m sure Mr. Kovacs has endless questions, and it’s likely to be boring for you.”

“Actually, I’m likely to have some questions for Mrs. Bancroft as well.”

She was already on her way back inside, and my comment stopped her in mid-stride. She cocked her head at an angle, and looked from me to Bancroft and back. Beside me, her husband stirred. This wasn’t what he wanted.

“Maybe I could speak to you later,” I amended. “Separately.”

“Yes, of course.” Her eyes met mine, then danced aside. “I’ll be in the chart room, Laurens. Send Mr. Kovacs along when you’ve finished.”

We both watched her leave, and when the door closed behind her Bancroft gestured me to one of the lounge chairs on the balcony. Behind them, an antique astronomical telescope stood levelled at the horizon, gathering dust. Looking down at the boards under my feet, I saw they were worn with use. The impression of age settled over me like a cloak, and I lowered myself into my chair with a tiny frisson of unease.

“Please don’t think of me as a chauvinist, Mr. Kovacs. After nearly two hundred and fifty years of marriage, my relationship with Miriam is more politeness than anything. It really would be better if you spoke to her alone.”

“I understand.” That was shaving the truth a bit, but it would do.

“Would you care for a drink? Something alcoholic?”

“No thank you. Just some fruit juice, if you have it.” The shakiness associated with downloading was beginning to assert itself, and in addition there was an unwelcome scratchiness in my feet and fingers which I assumed was nicotine dependency. Apart from the odd cigarette bummed from Sarah, I’d been quit for the last two sleeves and I didn’t want to have to break the habit all over again. Alcohol on top of everything would finish me.

Bancroft folded his hands in his lap. “Of course. I’ll have some brought up. Now, where would you like to begin?”

“Maybe we should start with your expectations. I don’t know what Reileen Kawahara told you, or what kind of profile the Envoy Corps has here on Earth, but don’t expect miracles from me. I’m not a sorcerer.”

“I’m aware of that. I have read the Corps literature carefully. And all Reileen Kawahara told me was that you were reliable, if a trifle fastidious.”

I remembered Kawahara’s methods, and my reactions to them. Fastidious. Right.

I gave him the standard spiel anyway. It felt funny, pitching for a client who was already in. Felt funny to play down what I could do, as well. The criminal community isn’t long on modesty, and what you do to get serious backing is inflate whatever reputation you may already have. This was more like being back in the Corps. Long polished conference tables and Virginia Vidaura ticking off the capabilities of her team.

“Envoy training was developed for the UN colonial commando units. That doesn’t mean…”

Doesn’t mean every Envoy is a commando. No, not exactly, but then what is a soldier anyway? How much of special forces training is engraved on the physical body and how much in the mind? And what happens when the two are separated?

Space, to use a cliché, is big. The closest of the Settled Worlds is fifty light years out from Earth. The most far-flung four times that distance, and some of the Colony transports are still going. If some maniac starts rattling tactical nukes, or some other biosphere-threatening toys, what are you going to do? You can transmit the information, via hyperspatial needlecast, so close to instantaneously that scientists are still arguing about the terminology but that, to quote Quellcrist Falconer, deploys no bloody divisions. Even if you launched a troop carrier the moment the shit hit the fan, the marines would be arriving just in time to quiz the grandchildren of whoever won.

That’s no way to run a Protectorate.

OK, you can digitise and freight the minds of a crack combat team. It’s been a long time since weight of numbers counted for much in a war, and most of the military victories of the last half millennium have been won by small, mobile guerrilla forces. You can even decant your crack d.h.f. soldiers directly into sleeves with combat conditioning, jacked-up nervous systems and steroid built bodies. Then what do you do?

They’re in bodies they don’t know, on a world they don’t know, fighting for one bunch of total strangers against another bunch of total strangers over causes they’ve probably never even heard of and certainly don’t understand. The climate is different, the language and culture is different, the wildlife and vegetation is different, the atmosphere is different. Shit, even the gravity is different. They know nothing, and even if you download them with implanted local knowledge, it’s a massive amount of information to assimilate at a time when they’re likely to be fighting for their lives within hours of sleeving.

That’s where you get the Envoy Corps.

Neurachem conditioning, cyborg interfaces, augmentation—all this stuff is physical. Most of it doesn’t even touch the pure mind, and it’s the pure mind that gets freighted. That’s where the Corps started. They took psychospiritual techniques that oriental cultures on Earth had known about for millennia and distilled them into a training system so complete that on most worlds graduates of it were instantly forbidden by law to hold any political or military office.

Not soldiers, no. Not exactly.

“I work by absorption,” I finished. “Whatever I come into contact with, I soak up, and I use that to get by.”

Bancroft shifted in his seat. He wasn’t used to being lectured. It was time to start.

“Who found your body?”

“My daughter, Naomi.”

He broke off as someone opened the door in the room below. A moment later, the maid that had attended Miriam Bancroft earlier came up the steps to the balcony bearing a tray with a visibly chilled decanter and tall glasses. Bancroft was wired with internal tannoy, like everyone else at Suntouch House it seemed.

The maid set down her tray, poured in machine-like silence and then withdrew on a short nod from Bancroft. He stared after her blankly for a while.

Back from the dead. It’s no joke.

“Naomi,” I prompted him gently.

He blinked. “Oh. Yes. She barged in here, wanting something. Probably the keys to one of the limos. I’m an indulgent father, I suppose, and Naomi is my youngest.”

“How young?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Do you have many children?”

“Yes, I do. Very many.” Bancroft smiled faintly. “When you have leisure and wealth, bringing children into the world is a pure joy. I have twenty-seven sons and thirty-four daughters.”

“Do they live with you?”

“Naomi does, most of the time. The others come and go. Most have families of their own now.”

“How is Naomi?” I stepped my tone down a little.

Finding your father without his head isn’t the best way to start the day.

“She’s in psychosurgery,” said Bancroft shortly. “But she’ll pull through. Do you need to talk to her?”

“Not at the moment.” I got up from the chair and went to the balcony door. “You say she barged in here. This is where it happened?”

“Yes.” Bancroft joined me at the door. “Someone got in here and took my head off with a particle blaster. You can see the blast mark on the wall down there. Over by the desk.”

I went inside and down the stairs. The desk was a heavy mirrorwood item—they must have freighted the gene code from Harlan’s World and cultured the tree here. That struck me as almost as extravagant as the Songspire in the hall, and in slightly more questionable taste. On the World mirrorwood grows in forests on three continents, and practically every canal dive in Millsport has a bar top carved out of the stuff. I moved past it to inspect the stucco wall. The white surface was furrowed and seared black with the unmistakable signature of a beam weapon. The burn started at head height and followed a short arc downwards.