He wondered whether the family would take it amiss if he went through the pockets of Richard’s trousers and performed a similar inventory. He decided against it.

His phone vibrated and he saw a message from Stan: Carrot and stick from El. Call me.

“Let’s start with the stick” was how Corvallis started the conversation. “I take it you heard from his lawyers?”

“Yes, I did,” Stan said.

“And they are threatening the court order?”

“Not only that,” Stan said, sounding dryly amused, “they are even making noise about criminal proceedings.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“The statutes contain weird old stuff about mistreatment of bodies. Probably written into the law centuries ago to punish people who used to steal bodies and take them to labs for dissection. Strangely enough, what the Forthrasts want to do in this case is to take the body and dissect it in a particular way—”

“With an ion beam.”

“Yeah. Look, don’t take this too seriously. It’s smoke and mirrors. No one is going to end up in jail over this. You have to think of it tactically. Alice and Zula have to make a decision. They’re already stressed out over Jake and his religious take on it. Now El comes in looking for anything he can do to get them further stressed out. Talking about court orders and even filing a criminal complaint. It’s all bullshit.”

“But it works as a stick.”

“Yes. Which brings me to the carrot.”

“Okay. What are they holding out?”

“So far it’s just vague, conciliatory noises. But the point has been raised that it’s all just bits.”

“Once Dodge’s brain has been scanned, you mean.”

“Yeah. The output of that process is some smoke going up the chimney and some data stored in a file. They want a copy of the data.”

“Just a copy.”

“Yes. A nonexclusive license. The Forthrast Family Foundation would be able to keep its own copy and do with it as they please.”

“And then they’ll shut up and leave us alone.”

“If I am reading their strategy correctly, yes.”

“Why is El even bothering with this?” Corvallis asked. “Why doesn’t he use some other brain? Lots of people die, right?”

“Lots of people die,” Stan agreed, “but most of them don’t sign legal documents ordering that their brains should be preserved.”

“But he could find one.”

“Sure. But it’s hard to find one whose estate is rich enough to afford this kind of process.”

“So it’s all about money? Can’t El afford—”

“Remember, the ion-beam scanning facility doesn’t exist yet,” Stan said.

“WABSI only has it working on mouse brains.”