“He knows too much about us,” Olga pointed out calmly. “Like the fact that we’re operating here. Even if he’s from the lost family, that’s not enough to save his life. They’ve been trying to kill you, Miriam, they’ve picking away at us for decades. They did kill Margit, and I have not forgiven them for that.”

“Lin isn’t guilty of that. He’s a kid who was drafted into his family’s politics at too early an age, and did what they told him to. The one who killed Margit is dead, and if anyone else deserves to get it in the neck it’s the old men who sent a boy to do a man’s job. If you think the Clan should execute him, then by the same yardstick his family had a perfect right to try to murder you. True?”

“Hunh.” Miriam watched a momentary expression of uncertainty cross Olga’s face. “This merciful mood ill becomes you. Where does it come from?”

“I told you the other day, there’s been too much killing,” Miriam repeated. “Family A kills a member of Family B, so Family B kills a Family A member straight back. The last killing is a justification for the next, and so it goes on, round and about. It’s got to stop somewhere, and I’d rather it didn’t stop with the extinction of all the families. Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that the utility of world-walking, if you want to gain wealth and power, is proportional to the square of the number of people who can do it? Network externalities—”

Olga looked at her blankly. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

Miriam sighed. “The mobile phones everyone carries in Cambridge. You’ve seen me using one, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes!” Olga’s eyes sparkled. “Anything that can get Angbard out of bed in the middle of the night—”

“Imagine I have a mobile phone with me right now, here on the table.” She pointed to the salt shaker. “How useful is it?”

“Why, you could call—oh.” She looked crestfallen. “It doesn’t work?”

“You can only call someone else who has a phone,” Miriam told her.