His apartment was neat, as he'd left it several weeks ago, keeping itself clean and biding its time, far away enough to be unaffected by the micro-nuke.
Otto caught a smell of himself. He hadn't changed in days. He decided there and then to have a shower, and then call Ekbaum. Damn the hour — if he was going to force him into his lab, he could lose a little sleep in return.
First there was one thing he needed to do.
He had to say goodbye.
He went into his room and opened the closet. He pressed the security switch to his gunlocker. It slid open.
Honour's memory cube was where it always was, ensconced in a specially cut recess lined with felt, like his guns.
He smiled, wondering what Honour would think of the man who kept his wife in the gun closet.
He hefted the cube in his hand. It was slightly smaller than Honour's fist, opaque and faulted in the way that memory cubes were, mysterious with potent fractals.
It was all he had of her.
That, and the memory of a Jerusalem built of trumpets upon a December night, and a smiling face, happy in the candlelight.
He closed his eyes and pressed the cube to his forehead for a moment, the memory of her strong in his mind. He stood like that for a long time.
He wiped his eye with the back of his hand and pushed the cube gently back into its recess.
He would call Ekbaum. Later.
