“We have lost contact with the subject. Apparently he has been taken into a well-screened section by an opposition agent, who doubtless plans to remove him from the vicinity.”
We was a misrendition, but so would / have been. The pronoun referred to those aspects of an awareness that, mutably as occasion required, devoted themselves to this business; and the awareness itself was a changeable part of a vastly larger whole. Ripples upon waves upon an ocean.
“H’ng!” escaped Venator. Jomo gave him a quizzical glance. “Summarize for me.” He had last been in touch three days ago. It was pointless—counterproductive, in fact—to monitor an operation hour by hour when nothing untoward was happening. That
if1 was what high-level robots were for. He had plenty else, to engage him. This stop at Victoria Nyanza was only half a respite. Word still came in, sporadically, from half a dozen different, ongoing investigations.
“Kenmuir left Guthrie House today, American Pacific time, and flew to Los Angeles. It seems clear, now, that while in the house he made a call on a secure line and got further instructions.”
“Yes, yes. I rather expected that.” It was unnecessary to say, the sophotect knew it quite well-, but Venator didn’t waste energy suppressing every ape impulse in himself.
There hadn’t been time to penetrate that line. The Fireball Trothdom had had centuries in which to develop its private channels and vaults. A wariness of government that went back to Fireball Enterprises had led it to keep those defenses up to date. Venator hadn’t worried. The odds were enormous that Matthias would give Kenmuir nothing. What most plausibly mattered was what Kenmuir did next. Still, it could be worthwhile to study the Rydberg …
Kenmuir had disappeared. That mattered. “Go on,” Venator directed.
“In Los Angeles he went to an obscure cantina. A woman using the name Irene Norton met him. Their conversation was brief before she hastily conducted him off.”
“Replay it.”