You want to see some of what we did get?" Rovayo asked. She was already gesturing a viewpatch screen into existence on the empty air. Marsalis shrugged and shifted from the window.

Sure. Can' t hurt."

So they all watched at a foreshortening camera angle as Merrin walked gaunt and hollow-eyed through the lobby, stared thoughtfully up at the lens for a moment, and then walked on again. Sevgi, watching Marsalis as well, thought she saw the black man stiffen slightly as Merrin seemed to look up at them all from the screen. She wasn' t sure what he saw there to tighten him like that; maybe just a worthy opponent. For her, the moment flip-flopped abruptly in her head, Merrin looking up, the corpse of Joey Driscoll looking down, corpse and killer, little windows opening out of time to let the dead and destructive peer in. Fucking virtual formats. Copied worlds, no place for anything but ghosts and the machine perfection of the ' faces drifting between, administering it al with the inhuman competence of angels.

She wondered suddenly if that was what the paradise the imams talked about would be like. Ghosts and angels, and no place for anything human or warm.

We' ve got a problem here," she said to dispel the sudden, creeping sense of doom. If this is how Merrin got off Horkan' s Pride, then- "

Yeah." Coyle finished it for her. How does he end up at Ward BioSupply the same afternoon, painting the dock with Ulysses Ward' s blood?"

More important than how," said Marsalis quietly. You might want to wonder why?"

Coyle and Rovayo shared a look. Sevgi wrote the subtitles. Who knows why the fuck an unluck twist does anything? She wasn' t sure if Marsalis caught it, too.

Norton cleared his throat. Ward was out there. The satellite footage and the filed sub plans prove it. We'

ve assumed that was coincidence, his bad luck he happened to be in the region. He rescued Merrin from the wreck and got murdered for his kindness."

Big assumption," said Marsalis, less quietly.

We didn' t assume anything." Irritable tiredness in Rovayo' s voice. Now that Sevgi thought about it, neither of the Rim cops looked as if they' d had a lot of sleep recently. We ran background checks on Ward at the time. COLIN-approved security n-djinn. There' s no evidence of a link to Merrin, or Mars generally."

There is now. Maybe you just didn' t dig deep enough."

Coyle bristled. What the fuck do you know about it? You some kind of cop all of a sudden?"

Some kind of, yeah."

Marsalis, you' re full of shit. You' re a licensed hit man at best, and from what I hear you weren' t even very good at that. They bailed your ass out of a Florida jail for this job, right?"

Marsalis smiled faintly.

We' l go back to Ward," Rovayo said quickly. She' d stepped subtly into the space between the two men, body language a blend of backing Coyle up and defusing the situation. Sevgi made it as instinctive- you couldn' t brawl in a virtuality, but Rovayo seemed to have forgotten where they were.

We' l change the protocols, maybe run it through a different n-djinn. We' l go deeper until we find the link. Now, it' s a given that they knew each other. So it' s probably a safe bet that Ward went out there with the specific intention of bringing Merrin back."

Coyle nodded. Only Merrin won' t play bal . He doesn' t show, after what' s happened to him in transit from Mars, he doesn' t trust Ward or anybody else who' s in on this thing. And Ward has a limited window before Filigree Steel shows up; he doesn' t have time to search the hul for the guy he' s supposed to be collecting."

Or," offered Rovayo, Ward climbs down into the hul and when he sees the mess, he freaks and runs."

Yeah, could work that way, too." Coyle grimaced. Either way, Merrin finds his own way out, then goes looking for Ward anyway. You know what that sounds like to me? Revenge."

Sevgi turned to look at Marsalis. That make sense to you?"

Well, you know us thirteens." Marsalis glanced across at Coyle. He burlesqued a caricature Jesusland drawl. We' re all real irrational when someone pisses us off."

Coyle shrugged it off. Yeah. What I heard."

Merrin' s just endured seven months in transit," Norton pointed out. He' s had to resort to cannibalism to survive. All because someone messed up his cryocap thaw. If he blamed Ward for that- "

Or if Alicia here is right, and Ward did freak and run- " Coyle gestured. Come on, however you look at it, this twi... this guy isn' t going to be in the most forgiving of moods. This is payback, pure and simple."

Marsalis." Sevgi tried again. I asked you what you think. You want to answer my question?"

He met her eyes. Face unreadable. What do I think? I think we' re wasting our time here."

Coyle snorted. Rovayo laid a hand on his arm. The black man barely looked in their direction. He took a step across the virtual apartment, faced the screen where Merrin was locked in freeze frame walking away, slipping out of the security camera' s angle of capture.

He was clear," he said slowly. He' d beaten your half-arsed private sector security effort, he' d left them puking their guts up exactly as planned. He' d run rings around them, misdirected everyone' s attention, and then disappeared into local population, just the way he was trained. Going back for Ward meant exposing himself, coming out into the open again." A long, speculative stare across at Coyle. When you'

re operational in enemy territory, you don' t take risks like that for some kind of revenge kick."

Sure," said Coyle. Your kind, you' d just let that be. Let the people who abandoned you out there in space get away with it."

Who said anything about getting away with it?" Marsalis grinned unpleasantly. My kind know how to wait, cudlip. My kind would let the people who did this live with the knowledge that we' re coming, let them wake up every day knowing- "

What did you call me?" It had taken Coyle a moment or two to grasp the unfamiliar insult he' d just been handed.

You heard me."

Wil you two knock it off," snapped Sevgi. Marsalis, you' re saying this isn' t revenge. Then what is it?"

I don' t know what it is," the black man said irritably. I' m not Merrin, and contrary to what our friend here thinks, not everyone with a variant thirteen geneprint thinks exactly alike."

Norton stepped into the breach. No, but you were trained similarly, and that must count for something.

You say his training wouldn' t al ow an impulse of revenge. What would it dictate in this situation?"

Maybe he just needed to shut Ward up," Rovayo said. Cover his retreat. If Ward talked- "

Sevgi shook her head. Doesn' t fit. Ward isn' t far enough up the chain of command. Self-made biosupply magnates don' t swing the weight to get things done on Mars, even in California. If Ward was a part of this, he was a small cog. They hired him to fish Merrin out of the Pacific and hand him on. End of function. He didn' t know anything that he hadn' t already been told."

Right," said Coyle slowly. But he must have known his chain of command, or at least his nearest contact. We' re looking at this the wrong way around. Merrin didn' t go to Ward to shut him up, he went to make him talk. To get the names of the people who were giving the orders."

Norton looked suddenly hopeful. You think Merrin got his hit list out of Ward?"

Unlikely." Marsalis prowled the virtual apartment like someone looking for a hidden exit somewhere high up. The way Merrin' s been hopping the border back and forth, he' s working off either partial or sequential knowledge. Whatever he got out of Ward, it wasn' t his hit list."

Or maybe just not the whole list," said Norton hopeful y. Maybe Ward had the first couple of names."

There are no links from Ward to Whitlock," Rovayo pointed out.

Or Montes," said Coyle.

Norton sighed. Right. Or any of the Jesusland kil s, as far as we can tel . Shame, it would have been nice to find ourselves getting somewhere for a change."

Yeah, wel , for that you' ve got to be looking in the right place." Marsalis gestured around the apartment.

And like I said before, we' re wasting our time here."

Coyle' s lip curled. Then perhaps you' d care to tell us how we could more profitably employ that time."

Outside of going back to the altiplano and coming down hard on Manco Bambaren?" A shrug. Marsalis caught Sevgi' s eye, clashed gazes like swords. Well, you could start by asking yourselves why this corpse shows up now, al of a sudden, just as we' re cracking the ice off the familias. You could wonder why it' s taken nearly six months for someone to go sniffing around the aquaculture environs of the crash site- "

Who the fuck is Bambaren?" Rovayo wanted to know. She shuttled a glance between Norton and Sevgi.

Sevgi shook her head wearily. Don' t ask.

Meanwhile, Coyle' s sneer had made it to a full-blown grin. The reason it' s taken four months to find this corpse- fucked-up, gene-enhanced paranoia aside- is that the outfit that run routine maintenance on Ward BioSupply' s deep-water platforms are mobile contractors with a biannual contract. Daskeen Azul.

They' re based out of a co-op factory raft called Bulgakov' s Cat, and they come by here just about every six months to do the work. They just got here."

You think I' m paranoid?" asked Marsalis, with the same gentle smile he' d used on Coyle earlier.

The big Rim cop snorted. Are you shitting me? You people were fucking designed paranoid, Marsalis."

Norton cleared his throat. I think- "

Nah, let' s just lay this out where we can al see it." Coyle jabbed a finger at the thirteen. In case you missed it, Marsalis, I don' t like your kind. I don' t like what you are, and I don' t think you should be walking around in public without a wolf-trap cuff on. But that' s not my call."

No, it' s not," said Norton. So why don' t we- "

I' m not done yet."

Marsalis watched the Rim cop quietly. Measuring, Sevgi realized. He was measuring the other man.

This is a Rim States police investigation," Coyle said. Not some black ops slaughter ground out in the Middle East. We' re in the business of catching criminals, not murdering them- "

Yes. You don' t seem to have caught Merrin yet, though, do you?"

Coyle bared his teeth. Cute. No, we haven' t caught this one yet. But we wil . And when we do- "

Roy." It was the first time Sevgi could remember hearing Rovayo use her partner' s first name. Crank it down, huh?"

No, Al, I' m sick of the assumptions here. This has got to be said." Coyle looked pointedly at Sevgi and Norton on his way back to staring down the thirteen. If your COLIN masters here decide they want Merrin summarily executed when we' ve done our job and brought him in, well then I guess we' ll come to you for your professional expertise. Meantime, why don' t you just curb your fucking twi... gene-enhanced tendencies and let us work?"

Wall of silence. The last of the words seemed to hit it like pebbles off evercrete. It was a space, Sevgi realized with syn-sharpened surety, that outside virtual would have filled with violence the way blood rises to fill a wound. Marsalis and the Rim cop were wired eye-to-eye, like nothing else existed around them.

She caught something in Rovayo' s face she couldn' t define. The other woman seemed locked up, an impossible step away from doing something. Norton wavered, helpless exasperation in the way he twitched. And she, Sevgi, watching the situation decay like- Okay," said Marsalis, very softly.

Sevgi thought he' d finished. She opened her mouth, but the black man went on speaking.

A couple of things." Still soft, like the touch of cotton-wool wadding on fingertips. First, if you think you'

l bring Allen Merrin down in any condition other than dead, then you' re not living in the real world. None of you are. And second, Roy, if you ever speak to me like that again, in the real world, I' l put you in intensive care."

The Rim cop flared up. Hey, you want to fucking step outside with me?"

Very much, yes." But Sevgi had the curious sensation that Marsalis was imperceptibly shaking his head as he said it. But it isn' t going to happen. I want you to remember a name, Roy. Sutherland. Isaac Sutherland. He saved your life today."

Then he was gone.

Scribbled out in a flicker of virtual light as he left them to the empty virtual apartment, Merrin' s viewpatch freeze-frame portrait walking away, and the hundred red glow traces of his forensic passing.

CHAPTER 34.

O ddly enough, it was Rovayo who came looking for him. By the time she tracked him down, he' d stopped prowling angrily about the Alcatraz station and drifted instead to an irritable halt on an outside gallery at the western end of the complex. She found him leaning on the rail, staring across the silver-glinting chop of the sea toward the mouth of the bay and the rust-colored suspension span that bridged it.

There was a towering bank of fog rolling in against the blue of the sky, like a pale cotton-candy wave about to break.

Enough water for you?" she asked.

Carl shot her a curious glance. I' ve been back a long time."

Yeah, I know." Rovayo joined him at the rail. I got this cousin down in the Freeport, he did six years on Mars when he was younger. Soil engineer. Two three-year qualpro stints back-to-back. He told me you never get used to the size of the water again, doesn' t matter how long ago you went."

Well, that' s him. Everyone handles it differently."

You ever miss it?"

He looked at her again. What do you want, Rovayo?"

Says he misses the sky," she went on neutral y, as if Carl hadn' t spoken. Sky at night, you know. All that landscape on that tiny horizon, says it looks like furniture crammed into a storeroom that' s too small for everything to fit. And all the stars. He says it was like you were all camping out together, like you were all part of the same army or something. You and every other human being you knew was on the planet with you, all with the same reason for being there, like you were all doing something that mattered."

Carl grunted.

You ever feel like that?" she asked.

No."

It came out more abrupt than he' d meant. He sighed and opened his hands where they rested on the rail.

I' m a thirteen, remember. We don' t suffer from this need to feel useful that you people have. We' re not wired for group harmony."

Yeah, but you don' t always let your wiring tel you what to do, right?"

Maybe not, but I' d say it pays to listen to it from time to time. If you plan on ever being happy, that is."

Rovayo rol ed over on the railing, put her arched spine to it, and hooked her elbows back for support. I seem to remember reading somewhere we' re none of us wired for that one. Being happy. Just a chemical by-product of function, a trick to get you where your genes want you to go."