“Just in case what?”

“Just in case it turns out to be something we should have bothered about. Always try to avoid setting up future opportunities for kicking yourself.” The YC smiled apologetically. “Very small thing attached to very momentous thing. One point three trillion people heading into the big Enfold in less than twenty days from now, but if the Zihdren-Remnanter news about the Book of Truth gets out, that might change things. And maybe it should change things. But either way, it would be good to know the truth. Even if we discover the truth, we don’t have to volunteer it, and even if we discover the truth, don’t volunteer it but are asked to provide it, we still don’t have to – though that’d be harder to justify. The point is, if we are asked and we haven’t even bothered to look, we look bad, and if we are asked and decide to tell what we know, we want to be confident what we’re able to offer really is the truth, or as close as we could reasonably get to it.”

“How many new faces know the old guy’s not a figment?”

“Just one beyond reasonable doubt; the GSV Contents May Differ. There was no leak as such; the ship just did some inspired digging and was owed favours by the right mix of craft. Though the others in the handling group will have been briefed there’s a possibility.”

“The ITG?”

“No. Fresh group. Nobody’s heard from the Interesting Times Gang all the while you’ve been Stored.”

“How remiss.”

“As well as waking you with the suggestion you might care to return to the fray, I’ve been asked to enquire if you know of any other ships that might have helped Mr QiRia over the years. Aside from the Warm, Considering, which we know about.”

“The only other one I remember was called the Smile Tolerantly, an ancient GCU, but the last I heard it was about to become Eccentric or Sublime or do something equally unhelpful.”

“Thank you. So …”

“You will recall I said I wouldn’t go looking for QiRia unless it was something really important. Are you – they – deeming this to be?”

“Let’s say suggesting rather than deeming. But tell me: what are your feelings?”

“Mixed. I dare say I’ll do it, but I’m not terribly happy about it.”

Tefwe had never liked the idea of being fully downloaded into something remote who got to play at being you – who thought they were you. You stayed who you were but then the remote “you” became somebody different, over time. The two of you – or more – could be re-integrated, but it was, she thought, an intrinsically messy process of frankly dubious morality.