The sphere shrank, receding to a dot and finally to nothing. Now the view of the galaxy returned, with the intricate ratlines of the hyperweb superimposed as glowing vectors. "Now for surprise number two: the Slashers have found more than one of these things. In fact, they've found around twenty of them, spread throughout the galaxy." Peter clicked his fingers and blue-grey spheres the size of golf b.a.l.l.s dropped into place on the map. "You can't see it on this scale, so you'll have to take my word for it that none of these objects show up in any significant location, other than always being within easy reach of a portal. The Slashers call them 'ALS objects,' ALS standing for 'anomalous large structure.' Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? And if they've found twenty in such a short period of time-and since we know that the hyperweb is much more extensive than the mapped connections would imply-we can be sure that there must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of these things out there. Sitting between stars, brooding like eggs." Peter waited a beat. "Or time bombs."

The image changed again, focusing once more on a single blue-grey ALS sphere. The view had a pareddown, schematic quality to it. The spherical shading faded, leaving only a ring of very thin material.

"This is the cross section," Peter said. "The Slashers mapped the interior using neutrino tomography. They put a fifty kilowatt neutrino laser on one ship and flew it to one side of the ALS. Another ship carried a corresponding neutrino detector-an array of ultra-stiff sapphire crystals primed to undergo lattice vibration on the arrival of a single neutrino. The transmitting ship varied the path of its beam through the ALS, while the receiver ship kept track along the predicted beam, measuring the rise and fall in neutrino flux as the beam pa.s.sed through the ALS at different angles. What they found indicated a hard, thin sh.e.l.l of unknown composition about one kilometre thick. They also detected a significant concentration of ma.s.s at the core, forming an inner sphere a few thousand kilometres in radius. In other words planet-sized, and with exactly the density profile you'd expect for a typical large terrestrial like Venus or Earth. The rest of the sphere seems to be hard vacuum, to the limit of the neutrino sweeps."

Auger turned to Ringsted and Molinella. "This is amazing, no question. It scares me that you're even telling me this stuff. But I still don't understand what any of it has to do with me or my tribunal."

"You'll see," the woman said.

Peter was still speaking, oblivious of her interruption. "Based on these clues, the Slashers concluded that the ALS objects were physical sh.e.l.ls wrapped around planets. Sometimes the planets even seem to be enclosed complete with moons. It is evidence of a very advanced technology-comparable even with the hyperweb itself. But why do this? Why imprison an entire world inside a dark sphere, isolating it from the rest of the universe? Well, maybe they aren't dark inside. No one knows that for sure. And maybe they only look like prisons from the outside. The state of matter inside that sh.e.l.l could be something very odd indeed. Are these planets that have been quarantined because of some awful crime or biological cataclysm? Are they antimatter worlds that have somehow drifted into our galaxy, and must be shielded from outside contact on their way through? Are they something worse? According to our intelligence, the Slashers have no idea in spite of all their research. Just a lot of guesswork."

Peter stared into the camera, his eyes gleaming, and he permitted himself the tiniest of self-satisfied smiles, the merest crinkle lifting the corners of his mouth.

"Well, we think we know. You see, we've found a way into one of the spheres that the Slashers know nothing about. And you, Verity, are going to take a little trip inside."

SEVEN.

Floyd's telephone dredged him from sleep just after eight in the morning. It hadn't stopped raining since he had returned from Montparna.s.se. It lashed against the window in hard diagonal lines, the wind chivvying the gla.s.s in its loose-fitting metal frame. Somewhere else in the apartment he heard Custine whistling cheerily, pottering around with washing-up. Floyd grimaced. There were two things he hated early in the morning: telephone calls and excessively cheerful people.

Still half-dressed from the night before, he stumbled out of bed and picked up the telephone. "Floyd," he said, his voice thick from what little sleep he had managed. "And how are you, Monsieur Blanchard?"

This seemed to impress his caller. "How did you know it was me?"

"Call it a hunch."

"It's not too early for you, is it?"

Floyd sc.r.a.ped grit from the corners of his eyes. "Not at all, monsieur. Been up for hours, working on the case."

"Is that so? Then perhaps you have something to tell me."

"Early days, yet," Floyd said. "Still collating the information we gathered last night." He stifled a yawn.

"Then I presume you have a few leads already?"

"One or two," he said.

Custine bustled in, pushing a mug of black coffee into Floyd's free hand. "Who is it?" Custine asked in a

stage whisper.

"Guess," Floyd mouthed back.

"And these leads?" persisted Blanchard.

"Bit too soon to say how they'll pan out." Floyd hesitated, then decided to try his luck. "Actually, I've

already got a specialist working on the doc.u.ments in the tin."

"A specialist? You mean someone who can read German?"

"Yes," Floyd admitted feebly. He sipped at the viciously strong coffee and willed Blanchard-and the

world in general-to leave him alone until later in the day. Custine sat down on the edge of Floyd's fold-

out bed, hands in his lap, his flowered ap.r.o.n still around his waist.

"Very well," said Blanchard. "I suppose it would be naive to expect concrete progress so soon in the investigation."

"Unwise, certainly," Floyd said.

"I'll be in touch later, then. I shall be most interested to hear what your specialist has to say about Mademoiselle White's papers."

"I'm waiting with bated breath myself."

"Good day to you, then."

Floyd heard the gratifying click as Blanchard terminated the connection. He looked at Custine. "I hope you turned up something useful last night after I left."

"Probably less than you're hoping for. How did it go with Greta?"

"Less well than I was hoping."

Custine looked sympathetic. "I guess from that conversation with Blanchard that you'll be seeing her again?"

"Later today."

"At least one more chance, then." Custine stood up and began untying his ap.r.o.n. "I'm going downstairs to buy some bread. Smarten yourself up and we can discuss our respective experiences over breakfast."

"I thought you said you hadn't turned anything up."

"I'm not sure that I have. At least, nothing I'd stake money on. But there was something-an observation made by Mademoiselle White's neighbour."

"What sort of observation?" Floyd asked.

"I'll tell you over breakfast. And you can tell me how you got on with Greta."

Floyd leafed through the morning newspaper while Custine fetched the bread. He skimmed the headlines -something about a murder on the first page-until a familiar name jumped out at him on the third page. There was a reference to Maillol, the same inspector who had given Blanchard Floyd's name. Maillol was a good apple in an increasingly rotten barrel who had chosen to be sidelined rather than pursue the political agenda that Chatelier was forcing upon the police. Once a rising star of the Crime Squad-which was how Floyd had met him-Maillol's days of high-profile cases and headline arrests were long over. Now he was working sc.r.a.ps from the table, unglamorous a.s.signments like anti-bootlegging operations. According to the article, Maillol had uncovered an illegal record-pressing scam in the Montrouge quartier. The article described the investigation as "ongoing," with the police following up a number of additional leads concerning other criminal activities taking place in the same complex of abandoned buildings. The news depressed Floyd. As glad as he was that he might now be able to scour the record markets without worrying that some apparently priceless piece of jazz history- say, a Gennett recording of Louis Armstrong from 1923-might actually have been pressed about a week ago, it was dispiriting to think of a good man like Maillol reduced to such meagre fare when suspicious deaths were going uninvestigated.

He went into the bathroom and showered in lukewarm water stained with rust from the apartment's ancient plumbing. There was a bad taste in his mouth and it wasn't the shower water or the memory of the orange brandy he had shared with Greta. Drying himself, he heard Custine coming back into the apartment. Floyd put on a vest and braces and a clean white shirt, leaving the choice of tie until he had to face the outside world. He padded into the tiny little kitchen in his socks. A warm-bread smell filled the room and Custine was already spreading b.u.t.ter and jelly on to a slice.

"Here," the Frenchman said, "eat this and stop looking so miserable."

"I could do without him ringing us at eight in the morning." Floyd sc.r.a.ped back a seat and slumped down opposite Custine. "I'm in two minds about this whole business, Andre. I'm beginning to think we should call it off before it goes much further."

Custine poured some more coffee for them both. His jacket was dark with rain, but otherwise he looked impeccably bright-eyed and well presented: cheeks and chin clean-shaven, his moustache neatly trimmed and oiled. "There was a time yesterday when I would have agreed with you."

"And now?"

"Now I have my suspicions that there might be something to this after all. It's what that neighbour told me. Something was going on, that's for sure."

Floyd started on his bread. "So what did the neighbour have to say?"

Custine tucked a napkin into his collar. "I spoke to all the tenants who were present last night. Blanchard thought they would all be home, but two were absent, or had at least left the building by the time we began our investigations. We can catch up with them later; at the very least it'll give us another reason to drag things out."

"The neighbour," Floyd persisted.

"A young man, law student." Custine bit into his jellied bread and dabbed delicately around his mouth with the napkin. "Helpful enough chap. In fact they were all helpful once they realised that they weren't dealing with the Quai. And a murder-well..." He waved the bread for emphasis. "You can't shut 'em up once they get it into their heads that they might be material witnesses in a murder case."

"What did the law student have to say for himself?"

"He didn't really know her at all, said he kept very odd hours as well and that their paths didn't cross very often. Nodding acquaintances, that sort of thing."

"Did he fancy her?"

"Fellow already has a fiancee, from what I gathered."

"It sounds as if he barely knew Susan White. What did he have on her?"

"It's what he heard," Custine said. "You know what these buildings are like-walls like rice paper. He would always know if she was home: she couldn't move around without the floorboards creaking."

"That's all?"

"No. He heard noises, strange sounds," Custine said, "like someone playing the same note very quietly on a flute or recorder, over and over again."

Floyd scratched his scalp. "Blanchard said he never heard her playing any music at all, not on the radio

or on that old phonograph. But he did mention noises."

"Agreed. And you think he'd have noticed if she kept an instrument in her room, wouldn't you?"

"So it wasn't an instrument. What else could it have been?" Floyd mused.

"Whatever it was must have been coming through the wireless. The way the student described it, the

notes sounded rather like code. He heard long notes and short notes, and sometimes he was aware of

repet.i.tion, as if a particular message was being repeated."

For the first time that morning, Floyd felt the onset of something approaching alertness. "Like Morse code, you mean?"

"Draw your own conclusions. Of course, the student didn't have the presence of mind actually to record any of these sounds as he heard them. It wasn't until she died that he thought anything of it, and even then he didn't attach any particular importance to it."

"No?"

"He's been studying for three years, renting almost a dozen different rooms in the process. He says he'd be hard pressed to think of a single neighbour who didn't have at least one strange habit. After a while,

he said, you learn to stop dwelling on such things. He admitted to me that he was fond of gargling mouthwash, and that at least one of his fellow tenants had commented that this was rather an odd thing to do at two in the morning."

Floyd finished off his bread and coffee. "We'll need to get back into her room, examine it thoroughly this time."

"I'm sure Blanchard will be happy to oblige if he feels it's in the interests of the case."

"Maybe." Floyd stood up, scratching his chin and making a mental note to shave before leaving the building. "But I'd prefer to keep a lid on this for now. I don't want him getting all excited over the possibility that she might have been a spy."

Custine looked at him with a knowing twinkle in his eye. "But you're considering it, aren't you? You're at least toying with the possibility?"

"Let's stick to concrete evidence, meaning eyewitnesses. What about the other tenants? Get anything from them?"