“Nor do I,” Damon said, while he tested the handcuffs to make certain that there was no way of slipping out of them. “Unfortunately, the people who’ve imprisoned us refuse to believe that, of Silas or of me. I really don’t think they have anything against you, though. You just got caught up in it by accident.”

Damon believed what he’d told the girl, but he couldn’t help feeling a slight twinge of doubt as to whether all this was actually happening at all. It couldbe another VE, similar to the last although far more modest. How could he ever be sure, now, that he’d really woken up? How could he ever know whether there really had been a mirror man and a miraculous new VE technology, or whether it had all been a product of his own fertile imagination?

Even if this were real, he realized as he pursued the discomfiting thought, he might be snatched back into some such VE without a moment’s notice if clever nanomachines really had been implanted in his hindbrain, and if they were still there. In today’s world, it wasn’t only walls and phone links that couldn’t be trusted. How could any man know what kind of burden he was carrying around in the depths of his own being? He was carrying his own cargo of watchful nanomachines, charged with the duty of keeping his flesh free from invaders, but who could stand watch over the watchmen? In PicoCon’s empire, there could be no ultimate security, no ultimate secrecy—and it appeared that PicoCon’s empire was closer to its final conquest than he had ever imagined. What could now stand in its way, save for confusion? In a world where nothing could be sealed away in any kind of vault, everything that was to be hidden had to be hidden in plain view, camouflaged by a riot of illusions.

If Conrad Helier really had faked his death, Damon thought, he really might have returned to public life by pretending to be his own son—but Conrad Helier’s son was very definitely, and very defiantly, his own man. Unfortunately, Conrad Helier’s son had a brain shrouded in mist, and he felt further away from understanding now than he had been before.

“Did you have any unnaturally vivid dreams while you were asleep?” he asked the young woman.

“No dreams at all,” she replied, “so far as I can remember. Why?” Her voice cracked on the last word, as fear broke through. She looked as if she were about to cry. She was immune to the worst effects of pain, but IT couldn’t immunize anyone against the purely psychological component of fear.

“Please don’t worry,” he begged her, although the plea sounded foolish even to him. “I really don’t think we’re in any danger.” He wasn’t at all certain that hewas out of danger. When he had tried to fly, he had only fallen. Either the mirror man had tricked him and mocked him—for no reason Damon could fathom—or the fault had been in himself, in his skill or his courage. Which was worse?

“It’s crazy,” Catherine Praill insisted. “Why would anyone want to kidnap someone like me? What kind of—”

Before she could finish the sentence the door of the room was kicked open and thrust violently back against the wall. A head peered around the jamb, while the barrel of an obscenely heavy gun, clutched in two unfashionably hairy hands, swept the enclosed area from side to side with crude threat.

Once the gunman was sure that the two prisoners were helpless, and unaccompanied by anyone more menacing, he said: “All clear.” He didn’t come into the room itself, being content to hover in the corridor while a woman stepped past him, pausing on the threshold to survey the scene with calm disdain.

“Oh,” she said as her eyes met Damon’s. “It’s you.” Her disappointment was palpable.

“Rachel Trehaine,” Damon said as lightly as he could. He shook his head but the fog wouldn’t clear. “I thought you were just a scientific analyst,” he added, knowing that he was only a pale imitation of his old smart-ass self. “I didn’t expect to see you in charge of a hit squad.”

The expression of disgust on the red-headed woman’s face was something to be seen. “I’m not in charge of a hit squad,” she said. “I’m just. . . .” She hesitated, obviously unsure as to how her present occupation ought to be characterized.

“They didn’t shove a note under your door, by any chance?” Damon meant it as a feeble joke, but when he saw the disgusted expression turn to one of puzzlement he realized that it might have been a lucky guess. He resisted the temptation to giggle and took advantage of his luck to hazard another guess. “You were expecting Silas Arnett, weren’t you?”

Rachel Trehaine wasn’t in the least amused by his perspicacity. “Call Hiru Yamanaka at Interpol,” she said to one of the men waiting in the corridor. “Tell him we’ve found one of his missing persons. And try to find something in the van that we can use to cut through the chains of those handcuffs.”

“How long have I been a missing person?” Damon asked, still fighting the fog.

“I wasn’t talking about you,” the woman from Ahasuerus said. “I was referring to Miss Praill.”

Damon grimaced slightly as he realized that he should have known that. So far as Interpol knew, he was probably still safe and sound on Rajuder Singh’s private island. “Where are we?” he asked as mildly as he could. He didn’t want to add any further fuel to Rachel Trehaine’s understandable annoyance.

“Venice Beach,” she told him, with only a slight hint of disgust.

His captors had brought him home—or very nearly home. In retrospect, that wasn’t particularly surprising.

“Thanks for coming to fetch us,” Damon said meekly. “I’m sorry you had to take the trouble.”

“I don’t suppose you have any idea why they didn’t contact Interpol directly,” the woman said wearily. She was looking out into the corridor, waiting for the members of her team to find something that could be used to cut Damon and Catherine free.

“I thinkthey’re trying to tell you something,” Damon said. “Not you personally—the people in charge of the foundation.”

“ Whatare they trying to tell us?” the data analyst demanded sharply.

Damon didn’t want to admit that he was confused, but he wasn’t sure that his run of lucky guesses could be sustained. “They seem to think that Ahasuerus and the remnants of Conrad Helier’s old research team are loose cannons rolling around their deck,” he said tentatively. “I think they want everybody—including Interpol—to know that there’s a new captain on the bridge, one who intends to run a very tight ship from now on.”

“What on earth is all thatsupposed to mean?” Rachel Trehaine demanded aggressively. She looked at Catherine Praill as if to see whether the younger woman understood it any better than she did.

“I wish I could be more precise,” Damon assured her. “I wish they’dbe more precise. I don’t know what to believe. There’s too much of it, and it’s almost all lies.”

The woman from Ahasuerus was still annoyed, but she wasn’t entirely insensitive to his distress. She nodded, as if to concede that he’d been through enough for the present. By the time one of the gunmen appeared with a pair of wire cutters she had begun to look thoughtful. Damon didn’t suppose she’d been able to find out exactly what Eveline and Karol were playing at in the short time available to her, but she must have found out enough to keep her interested. She probably knew at least as much as Damon did, and was probably better placed than he was to start putting the pieces together. When Damon thanked her for cutting him free from the bed’s head she finally took the trouble to ask whether he was all right.

He assured her that he was, then went to place a reassuring hand on Catherine Praill’s arm.

“It’s all over now,” he told her gently. “The police will want to question you again, but I’m sure they don’t suspect you of being involved in Silas Arnett’s abduction. It’s possible that you carried something into his house without knowing you were doing it, but Interpol must have a reasonable idea by now what kind of game this is. They’re being played with exactly as we are.”