Olmy returned to the old apartment, relaxing, contemplating. He used the library terminal to communicate with various legitimate (and discreet) research programs in Thistledown’s extensive memory stores.

When he had made certain his channels were secure—taking extra precautions to keep Farren Siliom’s tracers ignorant of his present location—he called in an old ally, a tracer he had built himself from the memories of a short-haired terrier. The tracer had proven itself to be remarkably thorough, and it seemed to enjoy its work—if enjoyment could be ascribed to something that was, after all, not a complete mentality.

Olmy set the tracer one task: to find any and all references to the downloaded Jart in the records of Thistledown or the orbiting precincts. Many record centers within the asteroid were no longer active; some were carefully hidden. But the tracer could maneuver into the most inaccessible memory, so long as some potential information link existed.

Olmy backed away from the teardrop terminal and folded his hands, face set in an expression of patient watchfulness, eyes glancing this way and that at the picts thrown up almost at random by the tracer’s beginning progress reports. This would take time.

He had ascertained that Mar Kellen’s implant memory was antiquated and minimal. Beni, as a “not quite orthodox” Naderite, had had only the legally required memory backups. The Jart records had somehow killed the woman, scrambled her backups, and driven Mar Kellen to the edge of insanity, in less than a second of contact.

It seemed unlikely, but it was possible that beyond the security maze the records had been left open and on download status—ready to be transferred. But the console only supported transfer to human minds or implants—there were no connections for transfer to external storage. He could, of course, rig such an interface…But there had to be a reason one did not exist in the first place.

A rapid download of channeled information into an unprepared and unaided brain could, in theory, fatally disrupt someone’s mentality. But what kind of machinery or safety circuit would allow any damage to an unsuspecting investigator? Obviously, unsuspecting investigators were not expected…Only experts.

Prepared experts.

If extreme secrecy was desired, the machinery might be designed to scramble intruder’s minds, but Olmy had never heard of Hexamon agencies taking lethal protective measures against citizens in the entire history of Thistledown and the Way.

Beni’s first encounter, without implants to buffer the flow, might in fact have kicked in some kind of safety circuit…Thus, when Mar Kellen tried the second interface a moment later—not realizing Beni was injured—the safety circuit and the buffer of his more extensive implants might have blunted the flow enough to disrupt but not kill him.

So many mysteries and questions…