"You're saying you don't know what happened to us? That we saw the Grail Brotherhood have their ceremony—that we met the Other? This is all news to you?"
Paul had the not-inconsiderable pleasure of watching Kunohara's hard face melt into an expression of astonishment. "You met . . . the operating system? And you are alive?"
"Apparently." It was not, Paul reflected, as sarcastic a remark as it sounded.
Kunohara lifted the teapot. Admirably, his hand did not tremble. "It seems clear you know things I do not."
"From what my friends told me, it was usually the other way around. Perhaps this time you'll be a little more generous with your own information."
Kunohara looked shaken. "I will answer your questions, I promise. Tell me what happened to you."
Hideki Kunohara listened carefully to Paul's story, stopping him often for clarification. Even in a drastically streamlined version it was still a long tale: by the time he was describing the climb up the black mountain, the world outside the bubble had passed from twilight into evening and stars hung in the black heavens above the river. Except for the flicker of the fire, Kunohara had allowed his house to grow dark too; there were moments when Paul forgot he was inside the shining, curved walls and could almost believe himself back on one of the Greek islands with Azador, huddled by a campfire beneath naked sky.
Exhausted now and wanting to finish, Paul did his best to keep to what was important, but with so many mysteries it was hard to know what to leave out. Kunohara seemed particularly interested in the silver lighter, and disappointed to hear it had apparently been lost on the mountaintop. At the mention of Dread and the murderer's boastful announcement of his control over the operating system, his expression became dark and remote.
"But this is all most, most strange," he said when Paul had paused to finish his fourth cup of Darjeeling. "All of it. I had some inkling of what the Brotherhood intended. They approached me about it long ago, and they seemed surprised that although I could have afforded to join their inner circle, I chose not to." He met Paul's look with a grim smile. "I said I would answer your questions, but that does not mean I must explain everything of myself. My reasons for not wanting to pursue the Brotherhood's immortality are my own."
"You don't have to apologize for that," Paul said hastily. "I'd like to think that if it was offered to me, and I knew how many children would have to suffer and even die, that I'd say no, too."
"Yes, the children," Kunohara nodded. "There is the matter of the children, too." For a moment he sat in distracted silence. "But the Other, that is truly astonishing. I had long suspected that some kind of unique artificial intelligence underlay the system, and even that in some ways it had begun to change the environments. As I said, there have been unlikely mutations in my own biosphere almost since the beginning. At first I attributed them to processing errors because of the mounting complexity of the network, but I began to doubt that. Now these latest. . . ." He paused and closed his eyes for a moment. In the silence, Paul felt his own weariness tugging him down like a heavy burden. "You saw them," Kunohara finally said. "Those mutant isopoda were no chance corruption of the programming. They even speak!" He shook his head. "I suspect that this creature who calls himself Dread has truly bent the system to his own will and is beginning to play with his new toy."
The idea of the monstrous personality that Renie had described having such power over the network sent a chill through Paul.
"And your own story is just as strange," Kunohara said abruptly. "You were actually employed by Felix Jongleur?"
"That's what I remember, but beyond that point there's still some kind of block. The rest is all blank, except for the angel—except for Ava."
"Jongleur's daughter." Kunohara frowned. "But how could that be? The man is nearing the end of his second century of life. From what I know, his body has been almost entirely useless for many decades, floating in a tank, kept alive by machines—far longer than the age of the girl you apparently tutored. Why should he want a child?"
Paul sighed. "I hadn't even thought of that. I don't understand any of it. Not yet."
Kunohara slapped his hands on his legs and stood.
"There will be much to consider and discuss tomorrow, but I see that you are falling asleep. Find yourself a place to stretch out. If you need anything you have only to ask the house, but I think you will find the beds are comfortable. I will darken the wall of the place you choose so the morning sun will not wake you too soon."
"Thank you." Paul got laboriously to his feet. "I said it before, but I'll say it again. You saved my life."
Kunohara shrugged. "As you may yet save mine. Information is the most valuable capital in this network. I have always maintained sources of my own, of course, out of necessity. Sharing this network with Jongleur and his associates is like living in the Florence of the Medicis. But I must confess that we have come to a time when my knowledge is failing me."
Paul staggered across the room toward an alcove where a bed that was little more than a padded mat lay unrolled on the floor. "One more question," he said as he slumped onto it. "Why were you so certain we'd lost? That the Brotherhood had won?"
Kunohara paused at the entrance to the alcove. His face was again a stoic mask. "Because things have changed."
"Those new mutants?"
He shook his head. "I did not know of them until I saw your distress. But shortly before that happened, I discovered that I have been affected by the same thing you others have experienced, despite being one of the founders of this virtual universe." His smile seemed almost mocking. "I can no longer leave the network. So I too can die here, it seems." He gave a brief bow. "Sleep well."
Paul woke in the middle of the night, disoriented from yet another dream of being chased across clouds by a giant whose every step made tremors. He sat upright, heart speeding, and discovered he was still bouncing, although it was less than in the terrifying dream-pursuit, but as he saw the quiet, restful shapes of Kunohara's house around him, he relaxed. It was raining outside, the drops huge from his perspective. They thudded down on the bubble walls and stirred up the waters of the eddy, but Kunohara had apparently buffered the force so that Paul felt it as no more than a mild jouncing.
He had just lain down again, trying to make his mind a companionable blank in the hope of finding a more soothing dream this time, when a loud and weirdly familiar voice filled the room.
"Are you there? Can you hear me? Renie?"
He scrambled to his feet. The room was empty—the voice had come from thin air. He took a few steps and banged his shin on a low table.
"Renie, can you hear us? We're in bad shape. . . !"
It was the blind woman, Martine, and she sounded frightened. Paul pawed at his head, confused and frustrated by the voice from nowhere. "Kunohara!" he shouted. "What's going on?"
Light began to glow all around him, a dim, sourceless radiance. His host appeared, dressed in a dark robe. He too seemed disoriented. "Someone . . . someone is using the open communication band," he said. "The fools! What do they think they are doing?"
"What communication band?" Paul demanded, but the other man was making a series of gestures. "Those are my friends! What's going on?"
A group of view-windows sprang open in midair, filled with darting sparks of light that might have been numbers or letters or something even more obscure, but they seemed to make sense to Kunohara, who scowled. "Seven hells! They are here—in my world!"