But the King – Isidore Beautrelet – knows better. He tastes the tangy, bitter undercurrent of fear, sees the excessive formality in the steps of the people who no longer trust their anonymity to gevulot. A smiling couple walks past, hand in hand. The woman is tall, mahogany-skinned, and catches Isidore’s eye. By accident, he brushes her memories, remembers being Jacqi the tailor, tears running down her cheeks when she gathered with the crowd on the Permanent Avenue to watch the death of Earth in the sky, the world she had come from.
Isidore shakes his head. He can hear and remember every conversation, every thought in the Oubliette. It is a doubleedged gift given to him by his father the cryptarch, the thief Jean le Flambeur’s twisted copy, now imprisoned in the needle of the Prison, doomed to play endless games. The only way Isidore can think and breathe is by hiding and, even then, the Oubliette is always with him, just a thought away. He knows how afraid his people are. Giants are moving beyond the sky, and the soft light is not as soothing as it used to be.
His destination is near the southern rim of the city, a small house surrounded by a fenced garden. It is a curious design, round windows and soft amber concrete, almost disappearing into the dense foliage of white sword-shaped Thoris roses that grow wild and thick all about it.
As he approaches the gate, a co-memory message reaches him, as if the rich smell of the roses reminded him of the stern gaze of his mother, Raymonde. He remembers that he is supposed to be at a meeting with her, the other tzaddikim – the city’s technological vigilantes – and the zoku Elders, to discuss how to deal with the refugees. He remembers the efforts of the Oubliette’s orbital Quiet, overwhelmed by the flux of immigrants from the Inner System. He remembers the Loyalists, a new political party who insist that the Kingdom was real and that all claims to the contrary have been engineered by the zoku – and that Isidore is their tool. He remembers that his mother is going to have strong words with him, afterwards, and that he is not yet too old for a spanking.
He sighs and brushes the memory aside. There have been endless meetings in the last few months. He finds them frustrating: no solutions, just people pulling in different directions. None of the cold beauty of crimes and puzzles and architecture. And even those are lost to him now: he can find the most cunning criminal with a ’blink.
And then Jean le Flambeur’s qupt arrived three hours ago, bearing a true mystery.
He sends a small, polite co-memory to the house’s occupant, walks to the door and waits. He squeezes the thief’s Watch in his pocket.
A young-looking black man opens the door. At a first glance, he looks like a Time-miser, someone who has saved the Oubliette’s intangible currency for extending his life in a Noble body, rather than using it for self-modification or opulence. But his skin has a fresh, almost glowing look, which means that he has only recently come back from the Quiet, passing through the halls of the Resurrection Men.
‘Ah,’ the man – Marcel Iseult – says. ‘Isidore Beautrelet. The famous detective. What an honour.’ There is a note of irony in his voice. He gives Isidore a weary look.
Isidore clears his throat. Even before recent events, he was featured far too often in the Oubliette’s illicit analog newspapers, but now it’s impossible to go anywhere without being recognised unless he masks his features with impolitely thick gevulot.
‘I know it’s late, but I was wondering if I could—’
The man closes the door. Isidore sighs and knocks again, sending the man a small co-memory. Slowly, the door opens again.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, but I was hoping you could help me find some answers,’ Isidore says.
‘There are no answers here. Only silence.’
‘In my experience, that’s where answers are often found.’
A spark of curiosity lights up in Marcel’s brown eyes.
‘Fine,’ he says slowly. ‘I suppose you had better come in.’
It looks like the apartment used to belong to an artist, but now it feels more like a tomb. There are sculptures covered by dusty tarpaulins, a bright working area that is covered in the clutter of decades, full of old claytronic models and sketches and found objects. The only pieces of art that are prominently displayed are paintings that have small, fleeting co-memories attached to them. They give Isidore flashes of two young men together.
‘It was time for a nightcap, anyway,’ Marcel says. ‘Can I offer you something? You look like you could use one. No wonder: you must be very busy, trying to fix the world.’
‘It sounds like you disapprove.’
‘Oh, I think your efforts are admirable, it’s just that they make little difference. We are about to be eaten, and we must enjoy the time we have left. Such as it is.’
Marcel opens a mahogany cupboard and takes out a bottle of cognac and two classes. He fills them to the brim with the dark amber liquid and offers one to Isidore. Mournful ares nova starts to play in the background, gently amelodic tones.
‘That is a very bleak view of things,’ Isidore says. ‘But I will drink to saving the world.’
Marcel lifts his glass without a word and smiles. Isidore coughs at the sting of the drink, and only sips a little. So far, he has resisted trying to numb the constant tickle of exomemory with drugs. Besides, alcohol has a way of making him talkative, and that might be counterproductive under the present circumstances.
‘It’s a realistic view,’ Marcel says. ‘Ever since the Collapse, we have not mattered very much. I was not at all surprised by what you discovered – that our precious Kingdom was a zoku lie. If anything, I don’t think you went far enough. I believe we have always been playthings, simulations in some Omega Point where Sobornost has won.’
‘They haven’t. Not yet. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Ah. Idealism. Heroics. Very well. What can I do for you, to help you save the world?’
‘Earlier today, someone … asked for my help. It seems that at least in one instance, information about a major event outside the Oubliette that has been lost elsewhere has been preserved in the exomemory. I am trying to find out if there are other examples of unique information that cannot be found anywhere else.’
‘I see.’ Marcel touches his lips with a forefinger.
‘Paul Sernine used to visit you, did he not? He gave you a Watch.’
The words come out more rapidly than they should. When the thief asked for his help, Isidore felt something click into a gap in an old unsolved puzzle. What did Paul Sernine find on Mars? Even the thief himself failed to find out, and Isidore very badly wants to see le Flambeur’s face when he tells him the answer.
Marcel slams his glass down on a table. The cognac wobbles sluggishly in Martian gravity.
‘Yes. Yes, he did. And then he took my Time away, just because it amused him to do so, just because it was a part of his scheme. He pretended friendship because it suited him.’
Isidore sighs. Le Flambeur – posing as a man called Paul Sernine – hid something in the memories of his friends, twenty years ago, and came to reclaim it recently. As a result, nine people were sent to the Oubliette’s afterlife prematurely: after considerable effort, Raymonde and Isidore convinced the Resurrection Men to allow them to return.