'What's your lot number?'
'I do not see how that matters.'
'Never mind,' he said, walking away from their patient. 'I already know enough as it is.'
Pamir ate a small meal and drank some sweet alien nectar that left him feeling a little sloppy. When the head cleared, he slept for a minute or an hour, and then he returned to the bedroom and the giant bed. Sorrel was where he had left her. Her eyes were closed now, empty hands across her belly, rising and falling and rising with a slow steady rhythm that he couldn't stop watching.
'Thank you.'
The voice didn't seem to belong to anyone. The young woman's mouth happened to be open, but it didn't sound like the voice he expected. It was sturdy and calm, the old sadness wiped away. It was a quiet polite and rather sweet voice that told him, 'Thank you,' and then added, 'For everything, sir.'
The eyes hadn't opened.
She had heard Pamir approach, or felt his presence.
He sat on the bed beside her, and after a long moment said, 'You know. You'd be entitled to consider me- whoever I am-as being your main suspect. I could have killed the husbands. And I certainly put an end to you and Cre'llan.'
'It isn't you.'
'Because you have another suspect in mind. Isn't that it?'
She said nothing.
'Who do you believe is responsible?' he pressed.
Finally, the eyes pulled open, slowly, and they blinked twice, tears pooling but never quite reaching the point where they would flow.
'My father,' she said.
'He killed your husbands?'
'Obviously.'
'He's light-years behind us now.'
Silence.
Pamir nodded, and after a moment, he asked, 'What do you know about your father?'
'Quite a lot,' she claimed.
'But you've never seen him,' he reminded her.
'I have studied him.' She shook her head and closed her eyes again. 'I've examined his biography as well as I can, and I think I know him pretty well.' 'He isn't here, Sorrel.'
'No?'
'He emigrated before you were even born.'
'That's what my mother told me, yes.'
'What else?' Pamir leaned closer, adding, 'What did she tell you about the man…?'
'He is strong and self-assured. That he knows what is right and best. And he loves me very much, but he couldn't stay with me.' Sorrel chewed on her lip for a moment. 'He couldn't stay here, but my father has agents and ways, and I would never be without him. Mother promised me.'
Pamir just nodded.
'My father doesn't approve of the Faith.'
'I can believe that,' he said.
'My mother admitted, once or twice… that she loved him very much, but he doesn't have a diplomat's ease with aliens. And his heart can be hard, and he has a capacity to do awful things, if he sees the need…'
'No,' Pamir whispered.
The pale blue eyes opened. 'What do you mean?'
'Your father didn't do any of this,' he promised. Then he thought again, saying, 'Well, maybe a piece of it.'
'What do you mean -?'
Pamir set his hand on top of her mouth, lightly. Then as he began to pull his hand back, she took hold of his wrist and forearm, easing the palm back down against lips that pulled apart, teeth giving him a tiny swift bite.
A J'Jal gesture, that was.
He bent down and kissed the open eyes.
Sorrel told him, 'You shouldn't.'
'Probably not.'
'If the murderer knows you are with me - '
He placed two fingers deep into her mouth, J'Jal fashion. And she sucked on them, not trying to speak now, eyes almost smiling as Pamir calmly and smoothly slid into bed beside her.
One of the plunging rivers pulled close to the wall, revealing what it carried. Inside the diamond tube was a school of finned creatures, not pseudofish nor pseudowhales, but instead a collection of teardrop-shaped machines that probably fused hydrogen in their hearts, producing the necessary power to hold their bodies steady inside a current that looked relentless, rapid and chaotic, turbulent and exceptionally unappealing.
Pamir watched the swimming machines for a moment, deciding that this was rather how he had lived for ages now.
With a shrug and a soft laugh, he continued the long walk up the path, moving past a collection of modest apartments. The library was just a few meters farther along-a tiny portal carved into the smooth black basaltic wall. Its significance was so well hidden that a thousand sightseers passed this point every day, perhaps pausing at the edge of the precipice to look down, but more likely continuing on their walk, searching richer views. Pamir turned his eyes toward the closed doorway, pretending a mild curiosity. Then he stood beside the simple wall that bordered the outer edge of the trail, hands on the chill stone, eyes gazing down at the dreamy shape of the Little-Lot.
The massive cloud was the color of butter and nearly as dense. A trillion trillion microbes thrived inside its aerogel matrix, supporting an ecosystem that would never touch a solid surface.
The library door swung open-J'Jal wood riding on creaky iron hinges.
Pamir opened a nexus and triggered an old, nearly forgotten captain's channel. Then he turned towards the creaking sound and smiled. Sorrel was emerging from the library, dressed in a novice's blue robe and blinking against the sudden glare. The massive door fell shut again, and quietly, she said to him, 'All right.'
Pamir held a finger to his closed mouth.
She stepped closer and through a nexus told him, 'I did what you told me.'
'Show it.'
She produced the slender blue book.
'Put it on the ground here.'
This was her personal journal-the only volume she was allowed to remove from the library. She set it in front of her sandaled feet, and then asked, 'Was I noticed, do you think?'
'I promise. You were seen.'
'And do we just wait now?'
He shook his head. 'No, no. I'm far too impatient for that kind of game.'
The plasma gun was barely awake when he fired it, turning plastic pages and the wood binding into a thin cloud of superheated ash.
Sorrel put her arms around herself, squeezing hard.
'Now we wait,' he advised.
Not for the first time, she admitted, 'I don't understand. Still. Who do you think is responsible?'
Again, the heavy door swung open.
Without looking, Pamir called out, 'Hello, Leon'rd.'
The J'Jal librarian wore the same purplish-black robe and blue ponytail, and his expression hadn't changed in the last few days -a bilious outrage focused on those who would injure his helpless dependents. He stared at the ruins of the book, and then he glared at the two humans, focusing on the male face until a vague recognition tickled.
