“And when was it engineered? It couldn’t have been before Sarda-One went into the copier, because he’d need to retain enough about what was going on in order to clean out Sarda-Two’s bank account. But it couldn’t have been after Sarda-Two came out at the other end, because if he came out knowing what was going on, he’d have promptly stopped it. So how was it done?”
June accepted a glass as Kieran moved over to her. “Some kind of drug, maybe?” she offered, looking up at him.
“Not selective enough. Too uncontrollable and unpredictable. We’re looking for something that would work precisely . . . surgically.” He took an approving sip of his Irish, swilling it around in his mouth before swallowing, then sat down on the other end of the couch.
June thought again. “Then how about something almost surgical? Could they have manipulated the regeneration of the neural circuitry so that selected memory configurations were eliminated?”
“That sounds more like it,” Kieran agreed. “And a project like TX would include the right know-how if it were possible. . . .” He nodded, warming more to the idea. “Is something like that possible? You know, I’m really not sure.”
June took the twist of lime from the glass and squeezed it over her drink while going back in her mind over the things she had read and heard on the subject. “I’m not either,” she confessed finally.
“Who’s the neuro-circuitry expert, then?” Kieran asked. “It doesn’t sound like Sarda’s specialty.”
“No. It would be Tom Norgent. Memory extraction and implanting was his department.”
“And you’ve gotten to know him in your work at Quantonix?”
“Sure . . . kind of.”
“Hmm . . .” Kieran drummed on the rim of his glass with his fingertips, glanced at the clock displayed in part of the mural, and looked at June. “If Sarda-One is collecting already, there might not be a lot of time before he vanishes. The only other lead we have is this Trevany character. If I have a try at tracking him down, can you get back to the firm this afternoon and talk to Norgent? If news and publicity is your department, it shouldn’t be hard to find a line.”
“Okay.” One of June’s attractions was her easy way of agreeing, without the compulsion so many people seemed to have for finding complications with anything anyone else proposed. She finished her drink and left within minutes.
Kieran used his handset to call the Oasis, where Trevany had said he was staying. The name was registered, sure enough, but there was no reply from the room. Kieran tried the General Net Personal Code Directory and obtained numbers for a flotilla of Trevanys. A minute or two later he was talking to one who was listed as currently on Mars and in Lowell City.
“Hello. Is this the Walter Trevany who’s booked in at the Oasis hotel?”
“Yes, it is. Who might this be?”
“The name’s Kieran Thane. We’ve met in a kind of way, but it won’t mean anything to you.”
“Oh?”
“Yesterday, you recognized Leo Sarda in the Oasis restaurant. He was with a couple of people. I was one of them.”
“Oh, that. Yes . . . Is that his name? I only knew him as Leo. What was going on there? I hadn’t made any mistake.”
“I know. He’s been having some problems lately. That was what I wanted to talk to you about, Mr. Trevany. You might be able to help us.”
“Are you a doctor or something?”
“You could say that.” Which was true. Trevany just had. “I was wondering if we could get together, whenever would be convenient.”
“Well . . . I’m kinda busy for the next few days. Then we’ll be heading out on a field expedition.”
“Oh, yes—you said you’re a geologist.”
“I’m not sure when I could be available. There’s always a mess of last-minute things that hit you when you’re organizing something like this. I won’t be coming back to Lowell tonight.”
“Where are you at the moment?” Kieran asked.
“At a place called Stony Flats. It’s about twenty miles north of the main canyon—one of the early bases. We’re fitting out a mobile lab to go to a base camp that we’ve got up in the Tharsis region.”