We had almost reached the transfer booths. Just to pull Ander’s chain, I turned suddenly into the phone booth to see if I could break his grip.

He pulled me back effortlessly. “What?”

“I thought I’d phone and see if the Grill’s full up,” I said, and remembered. I couldn’t use my pocket phone. It was in the wrong name.

“I’ll do it.” He used a card. It took him ten seconds to get a reservation. There are mistakes you don’t pay for.

We pushed into a transfer booth. He said, “So there you were, nesting—”

I said, “It was love, stet? We weren’t lockstepped…well, we were, a little. I didn’t know any women on Earth. Sharrol had some playmates, but a lot of the men she knew were moaning and clutching themselves.” I grinned, remembering. “Rasheed. ‘Lockstepped, sure, but you can’t mean me!’ with a great dramatic wave of his arms, like he could have been joking. There were some couples we played with, but not so much of that, either, after a while. We talked about having children. Then we looked into it.”

Ander said, “You?” I wasn’t sure how to read his expression. A little disgust, a little pity.

I dialed the Pequod.

We flicked in on the roof, under a rolling curve of green-black water. The daylight was fading. Ander led off toward the restaurant twelve floors down. He seemed to be familiar with the Pequod. Might even be registered here.

Test that. “I need to visit a ’cycler, Ander. Long day.”

“Me, too,” he said. “This way.”

In the ’cycler he maneuvered himself between me and the door, and I let him. Amusing scenarios came to mind: If I needed a booth, he could watch the door, but what if he needed a booth? Not that it mattered. I didn’t want to escape, not until I could know I was loose. I wanted to speak of lost treasure.

But I needed to know how much he already knew. Why was I here? Who had come with me? How? How was I surviving? I waited in the hope that he might speak of those things, and of Carlos Wu’s autodoc, too.

So we didn’t talk much until we were settled at a table, with drinks. Ander wasn’t interested in local cuisine. He ordered beef—no imagination. I found crew snapper on the menu, billed as an order for two. Heh heh.

I asked, “What happened to Greg Pelton’s expedition?”

Ander said, “Antimatter planet. The more he thought about it, the more he needed to know. He kept expanding his plans until some government gnome took notice. After that it just inflated. Government projects can do that. Everyone wants in; they always think there’s infinite money, and suddenly it’s gone from science fiction to fantasy.