The Quantum Thief (17 page)

‘No, thank you.’

‘Sit, sit. What do you think of my garden?’

‘Impressive.’

‘Yes, my gardener is a genius. A very modest man, but a genius. And that, of course, often applies to other individuals possessing rare talent, such as yourself.’

Isidore watches him quietly for a moment and tries to shake away the disturbance in gevulot. It is not absence of privacy like in the Dust District, but uncertain, as if it could tear any moment.

The young man smiles. ‘And are you genius enough to know who I am?’

‘You are Christian Unruh,’ Isidore says. ‘The millenniaire.’

Finding that out was not difficult, but it occupied him for the other half of the afternoon, going through public exomemories and comparing them to the co-memory the woman in white gave him. Unruh – if that is his name – is a private person even by Oubliette standards: apart from his youth, it is difficult to find out anything about his background. His name comes up mainly in the context of society events and business deals in newspapers. It is obvious that he has more Time than God.

‘You have a personal Time fortune based on gevulot brokering, something the Voice only made possible a few years ago. And clearly, you are worried about something. Gogol piracy?’

‘Oh no. I have been careful to be perfectly ordinary in everything else except making Time. A defence mechanism, you might say. No, what concerns me is this.’

Unruh hands Isidore a note, fine, linen, unmarked paper, with a few words written on it in an elegant, flowing hand.

Dear M. Unruh, it says,

In response to your unsent invitation – I will be delighted to attend your carpe diem party on the 28th sol of Vrishika, 24**. I will bring one guest.

Your obedient servant, Jean le Flambeur.

Isidore has been thinking about le Flambeur all afternoon. The Oubliette exomemory does not have much on him. In the end, he spent Time on an expensive data agent that ventured into the Realm outside the Oubliette noosphere. What it brought back was a mixture of fact and legend. No actual memories or lifecasts, not even video or audio. Fragments from before the Collapse, online speculation about a criminal mastermind operating in Fast London and Paris. Fanciful tales of a sunlifting factory stolen from the Sobornost, a guberniya brain that was broken into; dirty dealings in Realm unreal estate.

It can’t all possibly refer to the same individual, a copy-family perhaps. Or maybe it is a meme, an idea for criminals – whatever that word may mean in different parts of the System – to sign their felonies with. So whatever this is, it must be a prank of some sort. Isidore hands the note back.

‘Your carpe diem party?’ he asks. ‘That’s in a week.’

Unruh smiles. ‘Yes. A millennium of Time goes quickly, these days. I’m giving most of it away, and some of it will be managed by my associate – Odette, whom you already met.’

‘I understand it is rare among our generation – not to rail against the injustice of it all – but I’m something of an idealist. I believe in the Oubliette. I have had a rich eight years in this body; I’m ready to do my part as a Quiet. But of course, I want to conclude things with style, before the next time. To seize the day, for one night.’ There is an odd bitterness in his voice.

The Quiet servant hands them both fine porcelain cups of tea: Unruh tastes his with relish. ‘Also, finiteness gives everything such an edge, don’t you think? I think that’s what our founding fathers and mothers had in mind. Experiencing that is all I wanted. Until the note came along.’

‘How did it arrive?’

‘I found it in my library,’ Unruh says. ‘In my library!’ Hard anger lines look strange on his childlike face. His cup rattles when he sets it down. ‘I don’t let anyone in my library, M. Beautrelet. It is my inner sanctum. And no one outside my immediate circle of friends even has the gevulot to come to this castle. As I’m sure you can understand given your recent experiences with the press, I feel … violated.’

Isidore shudders. The thought of someone coming to his personal space, unannounced, without access to his gevulot makes his skin crawl. ‘You don’t think it is possible that this is a prank of some kind?’

Unruh presses his palms together. ‘I have considered the possibility, of course,’ he says. ‘As you can imagine, I went through the castle exomemory thoroughly. I found nothing. Sometime last night, between seven and eight thirty, the letter simply appeared. I don’t recognise the handwriting. The paper is from a stationery shop on the Avenue. There are no obvious DNA traces, apart from mine. That is as far as Odette got. I am convinced that offworld technology is involved. The modus operandi would certainly fit with what we know about this character – announcing a date and time for his crime.

‘In some way, I’m not surprised. The offworlders think that we are a backwater, a playground. And for some reason, this . . . thief has chosen me as his plaything. But if I went to the Voice or the tzaddikim, they would tell me the same thing: it is a prank. And that’s why you are here, M. Beautrelet.’ Unruh smiles. ‘I want you to help me. I want you to find out how the letter got into my library. I want you to figure out what he is going to do, and stop it. Or if he succeeds, recover what is mine.’

Isidore takes a deep breath. ‘I think you may have a somewhat exaggerated view of my abilities,’ he says. ‘I’m not convinced that this is the real le Flambeur by any means. But if it is, why do you think I will be a match for such a creature?’

‘As I said, I’m an idealist,’ Unruh says. ‘I am familiar with your work. Indeed, I consider myself to be something of a fan. And, while I am deeply insulted by the thief’s actions, I do find the thought of having my demise accompanied by a battle of wits amusing. Naturally, we can find a suitable compensation for your efforts, if that is an issue. What do you say?’

To catch a thief, Isidore thinks. Something pure. Something simple. Something clean. Even if it turns out to be a joke.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘I accept.’

Unruh slaps his hands together. ‘Excellent! You know, M. Beautrelet, you are not going to regret your decision.’ He gets up. ‘Now, let’s find Odette and visit the scene of the crime.’

The chateau is built with the same grandeur as the Kingdom simulation at the zoku colony: high ceilings, marble floors, matte black suits of robotic armour lining the corridors along with large landscape paintings of old Mars: red cliffs, Valles Marineris, the grinning visage of the King in white and gold.

Odette – the woman in white – is waiting for them in the library, and gives Isidore a curt nod when they enter.

‘Well done,’ Unruh tells her. ‘It appears that your charms persuaded young M. Beautrelet to assist us with our little dilemma.’

‘I thought he might,’ she says. ‘I think you will find this interesting, M. Beautrelet.’

The library is a high room, well-lit by a skylight, with large windows to the garden. There are comfortable-looking leather couches. And books, both analog and spime, thousands of them in neat rows in dark oak shelves, attended to by a treelike synthbio drone. A large brass orrery – metal casing containing a real-time image of Mars and the surrounding space – sits in the centre of the room on a dark wine-coloured rug.

Unruh holds out a hand, and the drone hands him a tome, black branch limb snaking up to one of the higher shelves. ‘This is the lifecast of the Count of Isidis. He belonged to a little cabal that tried to oust the King a few years before the Revolution. Naturally, they failed. But it is a fascinating period, the pre-Revolution years; when things could have gone very differently indeed. Full of gaps left by the Spike, of course. As I’m sure you can tell, I had something of a Kingdom enthusiasm phase a while back.’ There is a hollow note in his voice.

‘In any case, this is the volume I was studying when I noticed the letter. It was over here.’ The millenniaire points to a small reading desk. ‘Carefully placed so that I would see it when sitting in my favourite chair.’ He leaves the book on the table, walks over to one of the chairs and sits down. ‘Only I, my three Quiet servants and Odette – and now you – have gevulot to this place.’

‘Any other security measures?’

‘Not yet; but I am happy to give you free rein to put anything you like in place, up to and including black market tech. Odette will see to the details, just let her know.’ Unruh looks at Isidore and grins. ‘And I’d also visit Persistent Avenue with her. You will need something to wear for the party.’

Isidore coughs, suddenly self-conscious in his rumpled old Revolution uniform replica. ‘Do you mind if I take a look around?’

‘Of course not. I would imagine that you will be spending a considerable amount of time here over the next few days. I have given you access to the exomemory – apart from certain private portions – so you should feel free to explore.’

Isidore picks up the volume that Unruh set down and opens it. A dazzling display of images, video and text spills out, floating around him. Point-of-view video, sound and noise, glimpses of elegant faces and great halls—

Unruh yanks the book from his hands with a sudden violence. His eyes are bulging, and there are little patches of red on his pale cheeks. ‘I would prefer it,’ he hisses, ‘if you stayed away from the contents of the library. Many of these were . . . difficult to acquire, and I am somewhat jealous of them.’ He hands the book back to the library drone, who returns it to the shelves.

Isidore’s expression must betray his shock and rapid pulse: Unruh shakes his head and then gives him a shy smile. ‘I apologise. You have to understand a collector’s passion. And as I said, this is a very private place for me. I would be much obliged if you could carry out your investigations without … academic pursuits.’

Isidore blinks the images away and nods, heart pounding. There is a sudden hard look on Odette’s face. ‘I was never that interested in history,’ he says quietly.

Unruh laughs, an odd, coughing sound. ‘And perhaps it would be best for all of us if we spent more time in the present, hmm? In fact, that is very much what I intend to do for the next few days. I have some last-minute … human things to attend to.’ He takes Isidore’s hand again. ‘I have faith in you, M. Beautrelet. I hope I am not disappointed.’

‘I hope so too,’ Isidore says.

*

After Unruh is gone, Isidore takes out his magnifying glass and starts studying the room. It overlays the room with information: DNA traces, patterns of wear in the carpet, fingerprints and grease stains, molecules and trace elements. At the same time, he reaches for the room’s exomemory. An infinite tower of past instants opens in his head. A brief ’blink tells him that the letter is there at 8.35pm the previous night, but not a few seconds before. And there is no one in the room, either before or after. He expands the memory through the castle: a servant standing in eternal silence here, another there – and a block, hiding Unruh’s private quarters from view.

He looks at the letter again. There is no sign of self-assembly: it is actual handmade paper, or a perfect nanotech replica. Even with advanced offworld tech, it is hard to imagine a cloud of nanites constructing it out of nowhere in a matter of seconds; the energy required for such an operation would have left many other traces in the castle’s exomemory.

‘We tried all the obvious things,’ Odette says, perched on one of the armrests of Unruh’s chair, looking at Isidore, smiling her little girl’s smile. ‘I doubt your zoku toy will discover anything I didn’t.’

Isidore barely hears her: he is too focused on examining the floor and the walls of the library. As might be expected, they are solid, quickstone-laced basalt. He sits down and closes his eyes for a moment. There are fleeting images from the book that obscure the shape of the mystery, although a part of him wants to fit them in too. He brushes them aside and focuses on the letter itself. A locked room, a mysterious object; there is something almost too clean about it.

‘When was the last time you acquired something for M. Unruh?’ he asks Odette.

She touches her lips with a fingertip. ‘Perhaps three weeks ago. Why?’

‘I was wondering about Trojan horses,’ Isidore says. ‘Is it possible that he could have bought a disguised device, something containing a microdrone or something that could have placed the letter where M. Unruh found it? For that matter, the device could have been purchased a long time ago, sitting here until it was activated.’

‘I find that unlikely,’ Odette says. ‘Christian reviews every item he buys very carefully with the help of experts. And even if there had been a device of some sort, it would have shown up in the exomemory.’

‘True.’ Isidore looks at her curiously. ‘And do you have a theory of your own?’

‘That’s not what I’m paid for,’ Odette says. ‘But if I had to offer one … well, let us just say that during my employ I have seen dear Christian do more eccentric things than writing letters to himself.’ She smiles, something much older and wicked this time. ‘He gets bored easily. For your sake, M. Beautrelet, I hope you are as good at creating mysteries as you are solving them. And a better detective than you are a dresser. Your wardrobe definitely needs some improvement.’

Isidore is still thinking about the letter when he returns home that evening. He realises how much he has missed it, the slowly unfolding map of a new mystery inside his head.

Lin must still be awake: the lights are on in the kitchen. He realises he has not eaten since lunch, and tells the kitchen fabber to whip up some risotto.

As he watches the fabber arm dance over the plate, painting rice grains into being with its atom beam, he thinks about Unruh. There is something about him that does not quite fit. Odette’s suggestion that he has been invited to play along in some elaborate charade seems to fit all the facts. But its shape is too awkward to be acceptable.

He stares at the steaming plate, decides he wants to hang on to the sharpness of hunger and thought, leaves it on the kitchen table and goes to his room.

‘Long day?’

Pixil is sitting on his bed, legs crossed, playing with the green creature.

‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’ He has deliberately excluded Pixil from his gevulot for the past few days. It has felt like a local anaesthetic, covering up something raw with numbness.