The technician shook his head quickly, intensely embarrassed and uncomfortable. “There’s a young woman in the implant, about twenty-one years old. She seems to have been out of action—stored—for some time, maybe twenty years; she doesn’t have any memory of contemporary events. She certainly wasn’t downline loaded recently. Her coding—”

“That’s impossible,” Karen said. “Where’s my husband?”

“I don’t know. Are you acquainted with anyone named Andia?”

“What?”

“Andia. This woman’s ID lists that name.”

“She was our daughter,” Karen said, the blood draining from her face. She half-sat, and supported herself with one hand on the back of the chair. “What happened to my husband?”

“We haven’t done more than an initial query. The only personality in the implant claims that her name is Andia. I have no idea what happened to your husband.”

Karen sat heavily, shaking her head. “How? She’s been dead—missing—twenty years…”

The technician shrugged his shoulders slightly, helpless.

“Garry…they made him wear the implant.” She straightened in the chair. This was not reality; this was beyond anything she had ever dreamed, hope or nightmare: to regain her daughter at the expense of her husband, through some miracle or perverse trick. “He beat them at their own game.” But he couldn’t have done it alone. She looked up at the technician, determined not to shake herself apart. Her arms and lower legs felt as if they carried a mild electric current. She had to stand and move around or she would faint. She stood carefully, slowly, letting the blood flow back to where it was needed, willing herself to be calm and not get sick. Something had to be said; she had to react in some rational way.

“May I speak to her?”

“I’m sorry. Not until we’re able to expand her storage. She won’t be lucid until then. Your daughter is a Terrestrial citizen?”

Karen followed the technician into the hospital records area and answered his questions. With some searching, the old inactive legal records were recovered. Personality maps taken during the installation of Andia’s implant were compared.

They matched perfectly.

“The only word I can think of is miracle,” the technician said. Obviously, he did not believe her story; he had not removed the implant himself. “I’ll have to arrange for a legal inquiry.”

She nodded, numb now from head to toe despite her determination to stay calm. She felt cast adrift, isolated between horror and sorrow and wonder and hope. I’ve lost Garry and found our daughter. There was only one way that could be explained.

She had never been raised to believe in forces higher than humankind. Her upbringing had been strictly Marxist; the solace of religion was not available to her. Yet now she could think only of Mirsky, and what he might represent.