“She carries herself like an angel,” murmured Oscar Wilde, finally pushing his breakfast plate aside, “or a sphinx—with or without a secret.” There was a studied close-up, taken by the door’s eye while the woman was waiting to be admitted, then an abrupt cut to an interior anteroom, where the woman’s entire body could be seen. She was not tall—perhaps a meter fifty-five—and she was very slim. She was wearing a dark blue suitskin now, whose decorative folds hung comfortably upon her seemingly fragile frame. It was the kind of outfit which would not attract much attention in the street.

Like Gabriel King, Michi Urashima was visible only from behind; there was no chance to read the expression on his face as he greeted her. As before, the woman said nothing, but moved naturally into a friendly kiss of greeting before preceding her victim into an inner room beyond the reach of conventional security cameras. There was a brief sight of her which must have been obtained by a bubblebug, but it cut out almost immediately; Urashima had screened the bug. Her departure was similarly recorded by the spy eye. She seemed perfectly composed and serene.

There were more pictures to follow, showing the state of Urashima’s corpse as it had eventually been discovered, and the card bearing the words of the poem penned by the original Oscar Wilde. There were long, lingering close-ups of the fatal flowers. The camera’s eye moved into a black corolla as if it were venturing into the interior of a great greedy mouth, hovering around the crux ansata tip of the bloodred style like a moth fascinated by a flame. There was, of course, a layer of monomol film covering the organism, but its presence merely served to give the black petals a weird sheen, adding to their near supernatural quality.

Charlotte let the tape run through without comment and left the link open when it had finished, after repeating the words they had already heard. “What do you see?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I’d like to have a closer look at the flowers. It’s difficult to be sure, but I think they were subtly different from the ones which ornamented poor Gabriel’s corpse.” “They are. You’ll get a gentemplate in due course, but Regina Chai’s counterpart in San Francisco has already noted various phenotypical differences, mostly to do with the structure of the flower. It’s another modified Celosia, of course.” “Of course,” Wilde echoed.

“The woman traveled to San Francisco on a scheduled maglev,” Charlotte told him.

“The card she used to buy the ticket connects to a credit account held in the name of Jeanne Duval. It’s a dummy account, of course, but Hal’s tracking down all the transactions that have moved through it. She didn’t use the Duval account to reach New York, and she’ll presumably use another to leave San Francisco.” “It might be worth setting up a search for the names Daubrun and Sabatier,” Wilde suggested. “It’s probably too obvious, but Jeanne Duval was one of Baudelaire’s mistresses, and it’s just possible that she’s got the others on her list of noms de guerre.” Charlotte transmitted this information to await Hal’s return. The maglev was taking them down the western side of the Sierra Nevada now, and she had to swallow air to counteract the effects of the falling pressure on her eardrums.

As she did so she saw Michael Lowenthal making his way through the car, looking wide awake and ready for action.

“By the time we get to San Francisco,” she said to Oscar Wilde, although she was still looking at Lowenthal, “there probably won’t be anything to do except to wait for the next phone call.” “Perhaps,” said Wilde. “But even if she’s long gone, we’ll be in the right place to follow in her footsteps. Michael! It’s good to see you. We’ve been catching up on the news—you’ve doubtless been doing the same.” “I think I might be a little ahead of you,” Lowenthal said, in a casual manner that had to be fake. “My associates and I think that we might have identified a third victim.” Charlotte’s first reaction to Lowenthal’s dramatic statement was to reach out to the comcon beneath the screen, intending to put in an alarm call to Hal, but Lowenthal raised a hand in what was presumably intended as a forbidding gesture.

“There’s no need,” he said. “Your colleagues in New York have already been informed—they’re checking it out. It’s possible he’s simply not responding. VE addicts are even worse in that respect than Creationists.” “Who’s not responding?” Charlotte wanted to know.

“Paul Kwiatek.” Charlotte had never heard of Paul Kwiatek. VE addicts didn’t normally fall within her sphere of concern. She immediately looked at Oscar Wilde to see what his reaction to the name might be.

The geneticist was content to raise a quizzical eyebrow while meeting Lowenthal’s eye. “I had no idea that he was still alive,” he said—but then he turned to Charlotte and added: “I did not know him well, and I had no reason at all to wish him dead.” Then he turned back to Lowenthal and said: “He was an associate of Michi’s at one time, was he not? Is that why your employers think that his lack of response to their calls may be significant?” “He was more than an associate,” the Natural said as he lowered himself into the seat beside Charlotte’s.

“Paul Kwiatek and Michi Urashima were at university together, at Wollongong in Australia.” “Ah yes!” said Wilde blithely. “The Wollongong connection strikes again. Given that Gabriel and Michi were there at the dawn of modern time, it can’t have been too onerous a task for you to obtain the names of everyone still living who was there at the same time. Have the MegaMall’s assiduous market researchers tracked down every single one of them? Is Paul Kwiatek the only one who failed to reply?” “No,” Lowenthal replied, “but his name stood out, partly because of his one-time connections with Urashima and partly because we’re certain that he’s at home. He might, admittedly, be so deeply immersed in some exotic virtual environment that even the most urgent summons can’t get through to him—but we’ll know soon enough. There are a dozen other people we haven’t been able to get a reply from as yet, but there seem to be perfectly good reasons for their being unavailable.” “Who is this Kwiatek?” Charlotte demanded. “Apart from being a VE addict, I mean.” “A software engineer,” Lowenthal told her. “He worked in much the same areas as Michi Urashima for some years, while they were both involved in education and entertainment. They went their separate ways when their interests diverged, becoming more… esoteric.” “Illegal, you mean.” “Not necessarily. Not in Kwiatek’s case, anyhow. Extreme, perhaps; uncommercial, certainly—but he was never charged with any actual offense.” “So the connection between them doesn’t suggest any obvious motive?” Charlotte said.

“Not that connection, unless Kwiatek’s recent work has implications of which we’re unaware. What interests me is the fact that they and King were at Wollongong together. That’s the one solid link between all three victims.” “When you say together,” Wilde put in, “how close a tie do you mean. Did they room together? Did they all take the same courses? Did they even graduate at the same time?” “Well, no,” said Lowenthal. “None of those, so far as we can determine—but the data’s old and very scrappy. The fact remains that they were all at Wollongong during the years 2321 and 2322. You see the significance of the timing, of course.“ Charlotte didn’t, but dearly wished that she had when Oscar Wilde said: “You mean that Jafri Biasiolo was born in 2323.” “Yes,” said Lowenthal. Then, after a moment’s pregnant pause, he said: “You’re a much older and wiser man than I am, Dr. Wilde, and you obviously have all kinds of insights into this affair that I don’t have. This is all new to me and I’m completely out of my depth, but I’ve formed a hypothesis and I’d like to put it to you, if I may. It might be stupid, and I’d like your advice before I relay it to my employers. May I?” Flattery, thought Charlotte, will get you almost anywhere. The cynical thought could not quell the rush of resentment she felt. She, after all, was the policeman. This was her investigation. What monstrous injustice had determined that she had to sit here listening to the self-congratulatory ramblings of two amateurs? Why was Michael Lowenthal, agent of the Secret Masters, sucking up to her chief suspect while ignoring her completely? “Please do,” said Oscar Wilde, as smug as a cat in sole possession of a veritable lake of cream.