Sea of Silver Light

Reminded, Renie wanted to talk about the money, but Florimel had raised a more important issue. "How is she?"

Florimel's mouth quirked in a sad smile. "She is intermittently conscious, but she does not really see me. Not yet. I ca

Renie nodded. "So far. Stephen is awake and talking—he recognized me and our father. He has a long road ahead—lots of physical therapy, and there may be some other problems we don't know about yet, but it looks good, yes."

"That is truly splendid news, Renie," said Florimel.

Hideki Kunohara nodded. "Congratulations."

"Major dzang," added T4b.

"I'm sure Eirene will get better, just like Stephen," Renie said.

"She has the best doctors in Germany," Florimel replied. "I have hope."

"Which brings up a point." Renie turned to Sellars. "The money? Several million credits in an account under my name?"

He cocked his hairless head. "Do you need more?"

"No! No, I don't need more. In fact, I'm not sure I need . . . or deserve . . . any of it."

"You deserve everything," Sellars told her. "Money is a poor substitute, but it will help you keep your family together. Please, you and all the others here have been through a terrible time, in large part because I dragged you in. And I have no use for it now."

"That's not the point. . . !" she began, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a well-dressed man she did not recognize. Sellars introduced him as Decatur Ramsey, an American. Ramsey greeted Renie and the others as though he was meeting people he had heard about for a long time. "Sam Fredericks and Orlando Gardiner are going to be here in a moment, too," Ramsey said. "They're finishing their preparations for a . . . little project."

"We are only waiting on them," Sellars said, "and then we can begin." He shook his head. "No, I tell a lie, there is one other on her way." Even as he finished the words a small, heavyset woman appeared in the chair beside him.

"Hello." The apparent stranger had a stern if slightly unsettled look on her sharp-featured face. "I suppose I should say thank you for inviting me."

"Thank you for making the time to come, Mrs. Simpkins," Sellars replied. "Ah, and here are Orlando and Sam."

Orlando's barbarian avatar seemed flushed and nervous, Sam's more realistic sim not much less so. "We're all set, Mr. Ramsey," Orlando a

"I can't tell you how strange this all is." Ramsey smiled. "Not just this place, but especially to be talking to you, Orlando." His face suddenly fell. "I'm sorry, you probably didn't need to be reminded. . . ."

"That I died? Hard to forget, especially today." He summoned a creditable smile. "But there's no reason you can't be friends with someone just because they're dead—right, Sam?"

"Stop it!" She clearly didn't enjoy Orlando's new line in humor very much.

"You make a joke, Orlando," !Xabbu said, "but we have all learned much about friendship and how wide it stretches. We have helped each other many times, as Mr. Sellars earlier said. We are . . . we are one tribe now." He looked a little embarrassed. "If that makes sense."

"It does," said Sam Fredericks quickly. "It utterly does."

"And perhaps that is a good begi

Before Kunohara could do more than nod, Martine sat forward in her chair. "All well and good, but I believe we still have some unfinished business with Mr. Kunohara—specifically, an unanswered question." It was the first time she had spoken since her arrival, and the rawness of her voice seemed at odds with the spirit of reunion. "First, though, I would like to know how long you two have been working together."

"We two?" Sellars raised a hairless eyebrow. "Kunohara and I? Only in the last hours of the old network, when I had begun to understand the shape of things. But we knew each other a little."

"He . . . felt me out on the subject of investigating the Grail Brotherhood," explained Kunohara. "But I was not interested in risking their attention—make of that what you will. Sellars made an arrangement with Bolivar Atasco instead. The late Bolivar Atasco. I am satisfied with my choice."

"No one will criticize you for not being killed," Martine said dryly. "But what about that unanswered question—the one I asked you back in the earlier version of this house, just before we were attacked?"

"And that question was. . . ?"

Martine snorted. "Please, we must be done with games now. I asked if you were spying on us. You never answered."

Kunohara smiled and folded his hands. "Of course I was spying on you. Every time I turned around, there you all were, disturbing the status quo, threatening my own safety. Why would I not do my best to find out what you were doing, what effect it was having?"

Renie only imperfectly understood what had happened between Kunohara and the others—her own memories of him stopped with their strange conversation while watching the soldier-ant invasion. "You were . . . spying on us?"

"Not all along. But after our initial meeting, yes."

"How? Or to be more precise," Martine said ominously, "who? Is there one of us who has not told all the truth?"

"Do not be too quick to accuse," Sellars said. "Remember we are friends here."

Kunohara was shaking his head. "It was the man I knew as Azador. I first discovered him as he wandered through my simulation. He told me tales of what else he had seen and it became clear to me that he could travel the network almost as easily as one of the Grail Brotherhood. I did not understand then that he was a partial version of Jongleur or I would have been more cautious, but I did know he was valuable—and, fortunately for me, easy to convince. I reinforced some of his rather fuzzy notions about the wrongs the Brotherhood had done to him—things he may have picked up in a subliminal way from the Other itself, as the many fragmented versions of Avialle Jongleur also partook of the Other's thoughts—and set him out to discover things for me."

"You set him to spy on us," Martine said heavily.

"Not at first, no. I met him before I knew anything of you. I was mostly interested in finding out more about the Brotherhood's plans—as I told you once, living with them as neighbors and landlords was like trying to stay alive in the courts of the Medici. And he was in any case not that biddable a servant. I had no idea he had purloined the access device, the thing in the shape of a lighter, from General Yacoubian." He spread his hands. "So, yes, I am guilty of your accusation. Later, in my own covert travels through Jongleur's Egypt, I heard that these two," he paused to point to Orlando and Sam, "were asking about Priam's Walls."

"Then you must have talked to old Oompa-Loompa," Sam said. "I don't think we told anyone else."

Kunohara nodded. "Yes, Upaut. A very strange sort of a god, wasn't he? He was quite happy to tell me that, as he put it, when you weren't busy worshiping him you had told him of your quest."

"So you sent Azador to spy on us in Troy," Martine said.

"I tried. But the Iliad and Odyssey simworlds were misbehaving—some combination of your own presences and the Other's interest in you, I think. If Paul Jonas had not rescued him, Azador would not have lived to be there."

"You blame it on Paul?" Martine asked angrily.

Kunohara lifted a hand. "Peace, I blame no one. I have admitted my acts. I merely point out that coincidences—or things that seem like coincidences—have informed much of what we experienced."