Zidarov walked past the physical records, ignoring the cowled analysers sitting at their desks, surrounded by stacks of vellum, and made for one of the retrieval cogitators. They were cumber­some things, encased in faded plastek housings, their backs sprouting a hundred cables that ran and snaked into channels in the floor, but still quicker than having to haul things by hand.

He took a seat in the clamshell operator’s chair, depressed a blood-prick ident, pulled the activation lever, and waited for the machine-spirit to emerge from the cold depths of the unit.

When the phosphor runes finally glowed into being on the lens, he began.

> All records, Udmil Terashova

Just as before, that produced rather little. Some corporate background, estimates of net worth at various stages over the past decades, stated records of contribution to the Bastion’s equipment funds. The biographical data disclosed a single son – Adeard – and a single husband – Mordach. He dug a little deeper, bringing up some of the more obscure files he’d not bothered with the last time. None of them told him anything he didn’t already know.

> All records, Udmil Ramenev.

Again, he’d run this search before. The information here was even sparser, dating from a time before the true success of the merged company. A few references in various litigation suits, some announcements of corporate mergers and acquisitions, statements of investment. No additional biographical data. Knowing what he knew now, it was striking that the frequency of records dropped off just prior to the announcement of the marriage to Mordach. Still, it wasn’t wildly out of kilter with what he’d have expected.

> All criminal records, Udmil Ramenev.

None found. None found under the Terashova name, either. That didn’t mean she had been innocent of everything her whole career, of course, just that she’d been able to pay enough when something was uncovered.

> All criminal records, [*] Ramenev

That produced tremendous quantities of material, detailing everything from petty street crime to major larceny. Sighing, Zidarov worked his way through it all. Despite the family name being specified, none of it related to Udmil – the Ramanevs in those records were unrelated, or were distant ancestors, long dead. Still, they were all checked, just to see if anything came up. Not one of them gave him anything useful.

The hours passed. He left the terminal to retrieve some caffeine, setting it to one side before processing another batch. The names and numbers began to blur in front of his eyes, swimming like motes. He blinked hard, and carried on.

> All records, [*] Ramenev, chronomark -start 00-00-23570 -end 00-00-23601

And that produced another swathe, this time everything stored on the machines between the two specified dates – enquiries, victim statements, legal deposits, staff accounts, anything conceivable that the scholiasts working away in the depths of the archive dungeons had ever found fit to record.