“Good. Carry on. Find out what you can, but don’t make a production of it and don’t linger past the point of diminishing returns. Do you understand? Confidentiality is vital. But bring me whoever can tell us the-most about those persons.”
“Yes, senor.” Fong left the scan field. Venator beheld a wall with a mural of lotuses.
He swung his attention from it. While he waited, he could investigate Alice Tarn.
The file on her that the system assembled for him proved surprisingly rich. She had not courted publicity, but as active as she was, more got noted than the standard entries. Birth and upbringing in that curious little leftover society, studies in Russia, travels elsewhere, including Luna, work on the mainland with metamorphs and a couple of organizations trying to better the lot of metamorphs … Yes, a great deal of time at the net, and many periods during which she had dropped out of sight … Arrival at San Francisco Bay Integrate eight days ago. Blank, till her vehicle proceeded to Santa Monica. Blank, till it flew to a spot in the Salton Desert, stopped briefly, and continued to Overburg; get information on Overburg, later, later … Two days there, then cruising around for hours till it descended at Prajnaloka … And now to Springfield, where it sat abandoned.
Images showed a young woman, comely, well-formed, vivacious, little or no sign of the steel beneath the flesh.
Had she met Lilisaire when she visited the Moon? Probably. Perhaps that could be verified.
How and why had she become Lilisaire’s ally? A complete data search ought to give hints, perhaps an answer.
An officer entered the scan field. “An airbus left Springfield for St. Louis Hub at 1315,” she reported. “It arrived there ten minutes ago.”
Just too soon. If Kenmuir and Tarn were aboard, by now they had disappeared into the city, or else they were on one of a dozen different carriers bound for as many destinations. Once upon .a time, monitors in every major transfer point could instantly have been set to watch for them. But Fireball brought down the Avantists, and the modern world was not totalitarian: it had never needed or desired intensive surveillance capabilities.
There were plenty anyhow, of course, serving everyday purposes. Some could be mobilized, ranging from high-resolution optical satellites to traffic evaluation units and … as an extreme measure, every sophotect on Earth. But that would take time, because they could not be diverted without notice from their regular duties; and the operation would be conspicuous, inconveniencing citizens, causing them and their legislators to demand an explanation; and meanwhile, what might Kenmuir and Tarn do?
Little or nothing, in all likelihood. How could they?
He had underestimated them before, Venator thought.
Fong escorted an old man into view and introduced him as Sandhu. He fought to control his distress and hold onto serenity as he related how Tam and—Johan —had arrived according to a reservation properly made beforehand, and given every evidence of being sincere in their wishes. What had gone amiss?
“I cannot tell you today, sir,” Venator soothed him. “The Peace Authority is on the trail of a criminal conspiracy. We request your silence. Have no fears. On the whole, the matter is well in hand, and we know your people are innocent of any wrongdoing.” He was glad to see the poor little fellow grow a bit easier.
The call making the reservation—it could be traced back. In fact, Venator decided, that was the first order of business. It should give a lead into Lilisaire’s entire Earthside cabal. Let Kenmuir and Tam run fugitive a while longer, unless a limited, low-priority observation program happened to succeed. With the cyber-cosm alerted, anything they tried to do with whatever information they had stolen should close a trap on them.
But tighten security around Zamok Vysoki. Have forces in readiness to blockade the castle, or even enter it and arrest everybody present. Afterward find ways to cope with the political uproar that would follow. It could not be as troublesome as the opening of Proserpina would be.
Information. Thought. Belief. Mind. Already life was evolving from the biosphere to the noosphere, and what went on in the brain mattered more than what happened among the stars.