I was studying the display my PNC wafer was running, a program correlating previous crime incident files with Penny Maowkavitz, looking for any connection. So far a complete blank. «There's never been a murder up here before, has there?»

«No. There couldn't be, really; not with the habitat personality watching us the whole time. You know, it's pretty shaken up by this.»

«The personality is upset?» I enquired sceptically.

She shot me a glance. «Of course it is. It's sentient, and Penny Maowkavitz was about the closest thing to a parent it could ever have.»

«Feelings,» I said wonderingly. «That must be one very sophisticated Turing AI program.»

«The habitat isn't an AI. It's alive, it's conscious. A living entity. You'll understand once you receive your neuron symbiont implant.»

Great, now I was driving round inside a piece of neurotic coral. «I'm sure I will.»

The trees gave way to a swath of meadowland surrounding a small lake. A rank of jeeps were drawn up near the shoreline; several had red and blue strobes flashing on top, casting transient stipples across the black water. Shannon parked next to an ambulance, and we walked over to the group of people clustered round the body.

Penny Maowkavitz was sprawled on the grey shingle four metres from the water. She was wearing a long dark-beige suede jacket over a sky-blue blouse, heavy black cotton trousers, and sturdy ankle boots. Her limbs were askew, the skin of her hands very pale. I couldn't tell how old she was, principally because half of her head was missing. What was left of the skull sprouted a few wisps of fine silver hair. A wig of short-cropped dark-blonde hair lay a couple of metres away, stained almost completely crimson. A wide ribbon of gore and blood was splashed over the shingle between it and the corpse. In the jejune light it looked virtually black.

Shannon grunted, and turned away fast.

I'd seen worse in my time, a lot worse. But Shannon was right about one thing, it didn't belong here, not amongst the habitat's tranquillity.

«When did it happen?» I asked.

«Just over half an hour ago,» Rolf Kümmel said. «I got out here with a couple of officers as soon as Eden told us.»

«The personality saw it happen?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Who did it?»

Rolf grimaced, and pointed at a servitor chimp standing passively a little way off. A couple of uniformed officers stood on either side of it. «That did, sir.»

«Christ. Are you sure?»

«We've all accessed the personality's local visual memory to confirm it, sir,» he said in a slightly aggrieved tone. «But the chimp was still holding the pistol when we arrived. Eden locked its muscles as soon as the shot was fired.»

«So who ordered it to fire the pistol?»

«We don't know.»

«You mean the chimp doesn't remember?»

«No.»

«So who gave it the pistol?»

«It was in a flight bag, which was left on a polystone outcrop just along the shore from here.»