"What does that mean?
"I will explain when everyone is here. Ah, Mr. Dako, we meet at last—at least in person. Well, perhaps that isn't entirely accurate either. Face to face? I hope your leg is healing well."
"You . . . you're Sellars." Jeremiah seemed a bit overwhelmed. "Thank you for what you did. You saved our lives."
The old man smiled. "Most of us in this room have saved each others' lives. Your courage helped keep Renie and !Xabbu alive so they could play their own very important parts."
"It was you who called in the military, wasn't it? Tipped them off that someone had broken into the Wasp's Nest base?"
Sellars nodded. "It was the only thing left I could do to help you. I was very busy at the time. I'm glad it worked out." He lifted his head as if hearing a distant sound. "Ah. Martine is here."
A moment later Martine Desroubins appeared—or rather, an almost featureless sim popped into view in one of the chairs. Renie was startled. She had wondered whether she would actually get to see Martine's real face, even though Sellars had arranged that all the rest of them looked like themselves, but she could not help feeling that the barely-humanoid sim was a step backward.
"Hello, Martine," said !Xabbu. She only nodded.
She's hurting, Renie thought. Hurling badly. What can we do?
Renie was quickly distracted by the arrival of T4b and Florimel, who appeared only a half-minute apart. She already knew T4b's true face, although she had never seen him with his lank black hair combed and all his subdermals ignited.
"Only lit 'em halfway," he explained. "More classy, seen?" He lifted his arm to display a perfectly normal left hand. "Wish this was far shiny still, like in the network. That was crash!"
Florimel's real face was a bit of a surprise. She looked younger than the peasant sim in which she had spent so much time, perhaps only in her middle thirties, with an open, attractive, square-jawed face and a functional haircut not much longer than Renie's own. Only the black eyepatch made her someone who would provoke a second look.
"How is your eye?" Renie asked.
Florimel kissed her on both cheeks, then did the same for !Xabbu. "Not good. I'm mostly blind in this eye, although there is better news about the ear—my hearing is coming back." She turned to Sellars. "But I am grateful for the help, not just with my own injuries, but with Eirene. Hospitals are very expensive."
Reminded, Renie wanted to talk about the money, but Florimel had raised a more important issue. "How is she?"
Florimel's mouth quirked in a sad smile. "She is intermittently conscious, but she does not really see me. Not yet. I cannot stay long at this meeting. I do not like her to wake up alone." She was silent for a moment. "And your brother? I have heard the signs are good."
Renie nodded. "So far. Stephen is awake and talking—he recognized me and our father. He has a long road ahead—lots of physical therapy, and there may be some other problems we don't know about yet, but it looks good, yes."
"That is truly splendid news, Renie," said Florimel.
Hideki Kunohara nodded. "Congratulations."
"Major dzang," added T4b.
"I'm sure Eirene will get better, just like Stephen," Renie said.
"She has the best doctors in Germany," Florimel replied. "I have hope."
"Which brings up a point." Renie turned to Sellars. "The money? Several million credits in an account under my name?"
He cocked his hairless head. "Do you need more?"
"No! No, I don't need more. In fact, I'm not sure I need . . . or deserve . . . any of it."
"You deserve everything," Sellars told her. "Money is a poor substitute, but it will help you keep your family together. Please, you and all the others here have been through a terrible time, in large part because I dragged you in. And I have no use for it now."
"That's not the point. . . !" she began, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a well-dressed man she did not recognize. Sellars introduced him as Decatur Ramsey, an American. Ramsey greeted Renie and the others as though he was meeting people he had heard about for a long time. "Sam Fredericks and Orlando Gardiner are going to be here in a moment, too," Ramsey said. "They're finishing their preparations for a . . . little project."
"We are only waiting on them," Sellars said, "and then we can begin." He shook his head. "No, I tell a lie, there is one other on her way." Even as he finished the words a small, heavyset woman appeared in the chair beside him.
"Hello." The apparent stranger had a stern if slightly unsettled look on her sharp-featured face. "I suppose I should say thank you for inviting me."
"Thank you for making the time to come, Mrs. Simpkins," Sellars replied. "Ah, and here are Orlando and Sam."
Orlando's barbarian avatar seemed flushed and nervous, Sam's more realistic sim not much less so. "We're all set, Mr. Ramsey," Orlando announced after waving to the others.
"I can't tell you how strange this all is." Ramsey smiled. "Not just this place, but especially to be talking to you, Orlando." His face suddenly fell. "I'm sorry, you probably didn't need to be reminded. . . ."
"That I died? Hard to forget, especially today." He summoned a creditable smile. "But there's no reason you can't be friends with someone just because they're dead—right, Sam?"
"Stop it!" She clearly didn't enjoy Orlando's new line in humor very much.
"You make a joke, Orlando," !Xabbu said, "but we have all learned much about friendship and how wide it stretches. We have helped each other many times, as Mr. Sellars earlier said. We are . . . we are one tribe now." He looked a little embarrassed. "If that makes sense."
"It does," said Sam Fredericks quickly. "It utterly does."
"And perhaps that is a good beginning for our meeting today," said Sellers. "And helps to explain why I hope we will meet regularly here in the network, since great geographical distances separate us. For today, we should also thank Hideki Kunohara for inviting us to his new home."
Before Kunohara could do more than nod, Martine sat forward in her chair. "All well and good, but I believe we still have some unfinished business with Mr. Kunohara—specifically, an unanswered question." It was the first time she had spoken since her arrival, and the rawness of her voice seemed at odds with the spirit of reunion. "First, though, I would like to know how long you two have been working together."
"We two?" Sellars raised a hairless eyebrow. "Kunohara and I? Only in the last hours of the old network, when I had begun to understand the shape of things. But we knew each other a little."
"He . . . felt me out on the subject of investigating the Grail Brotherhood," explained Kunohara. "But I was not interested in risking their attention—make of that what you will. Sellars made an arrangement with Bolivar Atasco instead. The late Bolivar Atasco. I am satisfied with my choice."
"No one will criticize you for not being killed," Martine said dryly. "But what about that unanswered question—the one I asked you back in the earlier version of this house, just before we were attacked?"
"And that question was. . . ?"
Martine snorted. "Please, we must be done with games now. I asked if you were spying on us. You never answered."
Kunohara smiled and folded his hands. "Of course I was spying on you. Every time I turned around, there you all were, disturbing the status quo, threatening my own safety. Why would I not do my best to find out what you were doing, what effect it was having?"