Zinnia

five this morning.'

'What happened?'

'Someone stuck his own knife in his chest. The official verdict is that he was just a dealer who got into a quarrel with one of his crazy-fog clients.'

'He was carrying far too much crazy-fog to be a street dealer or a fog-head.'

'Yeah, that's what Miss Spring said, too. Y'know, she's prickly as a cactus-orange, but she's got a brain on her shoulders.' Admiration gleamed briefly in Feather's eyes. 'So we have to assume someone paid two street toughs to dose you with the stuff.'

'And later that same someone killed one of them to make sure he didn't talk. What about the second man?'

Feather shook his head. 'No sign of him so far. I've put the word out that we want him and we're paying top dollar for information. My hunch is he'll turn up in the same condition as the other one.'

Nick glanced down at the notes he had been making. 'Two more connections in the matrix. Whoever sent those men after me knew that I was a matrix and probably had a good idea of what a heavy dose of pure crazy-fog would do to my kind of talent.'

'Shit synergy. You mean whoever is behind this wanted to drive you insane?'

'Yes.' Nick mused over that for a few seconds. 'But why go to all that trouble? Why not just kill me instead?'

Feather's mouth twitched. 'You're a hard man to kill. Easier to hit you with a batch of crazy-fog. Safer, too. The police would probably spend a lot of time looking into the murder of a guy in your position. There'd be a whole bunch of dumb speculation about gangster connections and stuff. Be all over the newspapers for days.'

'But it would be easy to label what happened last night as just an unfortunate accident that occurred during a routine mugging. The police wouldn't have any reason to dig for a murder conspiracy.'

'Right.'

'Okay, the logic makes sense,' Nick admitted. 'But I think there's something else I'm overlooking in the matrix.'

'No offense, boss, but you always think there's more to a situation than meets the eye. Some things are just what they look like.'

'Not in this case.' Nick hesitated.

'Jeez, boss, don't go gettin' paranoid on me now.'

'The bottom line here is that I didn't have these problems before I started trying to get my hands on the Chastain journal a few weeks ago.'

'If you ask me, you didn't have any of these problems until you met Miss Spring.'

Nick looked at him. 'She saved me last night, Feather.'

'I ain't arguin' about that. Point is, would you have needed saving if she hadn't walked into your life?'

'Now you're the one who sounds like a conspiracy buff. Concentrate on finding the other knife man.'

'Don't worry, I will. Hey, almost forgot.' Feather reached into his pocket and drew out a small notebook. 'Finally located one of the clerks who used to work in the budget offices of New Portland University thirty-five years ago. Name of Mrs. Buckley. Retired to a little farm in Lower Bellevue.'

Nick swung his legs over the side of the bed. The movement caused a flicker of lightheadedness. He froze, but the sensation vanished quickly. He drew a deep breath of relief and stood on the cold floor.

'Did this Mrs. Buckley remember anything about the funding arrangements for the Third Expedition?' he asked as he yanked at the tie that secured the hospital gown.

'She didn't handle that project. Said the clerk who processed the paperwork for it died a long time ago. Heart attack or somethin'.'

'Yet another astonishing coincidence.' Nick tossed the gown onto the bed. He was still a bit unsteady but everything felt relatively normal.

'You okay, boss?'

'Yes.' He made his way to the small closet and opened it. The formal black shirt, jacket, and trousers that he had worn to the ball hung inside. They were badly wrinkled and there was a lot of garage-floor dirt on them but he was not feeling too concerned about presenting a respectable appearance at the moment. He reached for the shirt. 'Did Mrs. Buckley have anything useful to tell us?'

Feather chuckled. 'Turns out she was having an affair with the clerk who handled the Third Expedition arrangements. He talked a little about it after they got word that it had been canceled. She believes he told her that a chemical or pharmaceutical company of some kind had agreed to underwrite the venture. She thinks he said that the company wanted to remain anonymous in order to avoid publicity.'

'A chemical or pharmaceutical company.' A tingle of adrenaline shafted through Nick. It had a remarkably steadying effect. The familiar sense of tightness told him that the coordinates in the matrix were starting to form a complete pattern at last. He paused in the act of buttoning his shirt. 'Yes. That fits. Did she give you a name?'

'She couldn't remember it exactly, but she thinks the word fire was in there somewhere.'

Nick felt more points in the matrix begin to connect. He stepped into his trousers. 'Did you check the-'

Feather held up a hand. 'Hold it right there, boss. I'm way ahead of you. I checked the phone books, the tri- city-state registry of corporations, and the lists of all business-license holders in New Vancouver, New Seattle, and New Portland. There are no chemical or pharmaceutical companies with the word fire in their corporate names.'

'The company probably disappeared along with everything else that has to do with this thing.' Nick buckled his belt. 'We'll have to go back to the phone books and the corporate registries of thirty-five years ago.'

Feather scowled. 'Where the hell you gonna find those?'

'The public library, where else?' Cold amusement flowed through Nick. 'Even the most obsessive matrix- talent on the planet would have found it impossible to destroy the microfilm records of every library in the tri-city- states.'

'Never thought of that.'

'Maybe whoever is behind this didn't think of it either.' Nick considered that more closely. 'Especially if he moves in the corporate world. He would have been focused on covering his tracks from the business and financial angles. Even a matrix makes mistakes.'

'You're sure whoever's behind this is a matrix?'

'Zinnia's right. It has the feel of a matrix scheme.' Nick yanked his jacket off the hanger. 'I'll start with the main branch of the New Seattle Public Library downtown.'

Feather surveyed the crumpled black tuxedo. 'You going to go back to the casino and change first?'

'No time.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Find the second mugger. By now he probably knows what happened to his friend. He'll be running scared. Check New Portland and New Vancouver and all flights leaving for the Western Islands. Check the freighters, too.'

'I've already got people on it.'

Nick shrugged into his jacket as he headed toward the door. 'I don't know what I'd do without you, Feather.'

Feather reached into a pocket and pulled out an object. 'Guess this means you won't be needing this, huh?'

Nick glanced at the deadly little blade lying on Feather's broad palm. It was small enough to smuggle into a hospital room but sharp enough to cut the plastic tubing that led to a piece of vital equipment, or anything else that a man facing insanity might want to slice. His wrists, for instance.

'No.' A soul-deep shudder went through Nick. 'I won't be needing that. And for the record, you can cancel all previous instructions relating to it.'

'Glad to hear it. I never did like that part of my job description.'

Zinnia knocked a third time, but there was still no answer.

'Professor DeForest?' she called loudly.

Still no response.