“This isn’t about the war. But – you’re stuck, aren’t you?”

“For now. Are you going to tell me what this—?”

“We had a message. Just after Violet died. A threat from the Anthrocosmologists .” Her face contorted with anger. “Not the ones on the boat, obviously. So it must have come from the ones who killed Buzzo.”

“Saying what?”

“Shut down all of Violet’s calculations. Present them with a verified audit trail for her supercomputer account, proving that all the records of her TOE work have been erased without being copied or read.”

I made a sound of derision. “Yeah? Where do they think that will get them? All her methods and ideas have been published already. Someone else will duplicate everything … in a year at the most.”

De Groot seemed indifferent to the ACs’ motives; she just wanted an end to the violence. “I’ve shown the message to the police, here – but they say there’s nothing anyone can do, with Stateless the way it is.” She caught herself; she still hadn’t spelled it out. “The threat is, we post the audit trail within an hour – or they kill you.”

“Right.” I could see the logic of it: De Groot, and Mosala’s family, would all be too well guarded to threaten directly – but they’d hardly sit back and let the extremists kill me, after I’d helped get Violet off Stateless.

“The calculations were already completed when I logged on – lucky Violet programmed her net broadcast to wait until the hour.” De Groot laughed softly. “Her idea of making it a formal occasion. We’ll do what they’ve asked, of course. The police advised me not to call you – and I know the news does you no good – but I still thought you had a right to be told.”

I said, “Don’t do anything, don’t erase a single file. I’ll call you back, very soon.” I broke the connection.

I stood there in the alley for several seconds, listening to the wild music, chilled by the wind, thinking it through.

When I walked into the tent, Sarah and Akili were laughing. I’d meant to invent an excuse to get Sarah out quietly, so we could both just walk away – but it struck me at that moment that it would do me no good. Buzzo had been killed with a gunshot – but their favored methods were biological. If I fled, the chances were that I’d be carrying the weapon inside me.