“You’re right. They’re terrible. Not to mention dangerous. Why would anyone eat this shit?”
And just like that they were back on the safe ground of old habit. Metz was wrapped up and put away. They would simply carry on as if it had never happened. That was as close to an apology as anyone was ever going to get out of Cohen. Or out of Li herself, for that matter.
They talked through the afternoon as long panels of refracted sunlight wheeled across the study, picking out the clear blues and yellows of the Uzbek carpet. The grapes were followed by real tea, real scones, real crème fraiche, and little green-and-white slips of watercress sandwiches. There was nothing more outrageously luxurious than tea with Cohen—streamspace or realspace.
When they’d worked their way through a full tea’s worth of personal news, gossip, and political chitchat, Cohen set his cup down and looked at her. “Are you aware that you nearly got yourself killed the other day?”
“Oh, come on!” Li said.
“You absolutely and unequivocally flatlined.”
“Nonsense,” she answered. In fact she’d had no idea it was that serious.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t been there? I can’t always be available to charge to your rescue on a white horse, you know.”
“I think in your case it’d be more like strolling to my rescue with a hand-rolled cigar in hand. And I never asked for rescuing anyway.”
“Right.” Cohen sounded irritated. “I know you too well to expect thanks. But let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again, shall we?”
“What makes you assume it wasn’t just a random attack?”
“Would it interest you to know that the signal was routed through the Anaconda Mining Company’s field AI?”
Li stared. “That’s impossible,” she said after a moment. “The field AI flatlined when the mine blew up.”
“That,” Cohen said, “is merely the story which the Secretariat has released for public consumption. In fact he’s quite alive. Or at least, he seems to be, as far as anyone can tell without making contact.” He lit a cigarette and stared at her through the curl of smoke. “He’s simply not speaking to us.”
Li looked at him suspiciously. “How do you know about this?”
“It happens to be a matter of personal interest to me. And to certain of my colleagues.”
“ALEF, in other words.”
“Mmm. The Secretariat seems to be under the impression that we have somehow, er, liberated AMC’s field AI.”
“Have you?”
“Of course not. Really.” He rolled his eyes. “You’ve been downloading too many cheap interactives.”
“Okay,” Li said. “So you didn’t have anything to do with it. How far do you trust the other ALEF AIs?”
He looked at her condescendingly. “That question displays an almost human obtuseness. It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of information-sharing protocols. Besides, what would be the point? Field AIs are zombies. Have you seen the feedback loops they program into them? They’re barely even sentient.”
“Then who did it?”
“Why jump to conclusions? Maybe the field AI is controlling himself.”
“You think it’s gone rogue?”
“Oh, how I loathe that word,” Cohen said to the ceiling. “It makes it sound as if any AI who tries to get control of his own code is the equivalent of a rampaging elephant.”
Li forged ahead. “I thought field AIs couldn’t go ro—uh, rewrite their own code.”
“Well, they’re certainly not supposed to be able to.” He grinned. “But then neither was I, according to some so-called experts. Tell me, what fool’s errand does Nguyen have you running on Compson’s? What’s the cover story? And how much has she told you about what’s really going on?”
“I don’t think—”
“My dear girl. You’re the one sitting in my house asking me questions.” He threw back his head, closed his eyes, and blew an exquisite smoke ring. “If you can’t share, I really don’t see why I should play with you at all.”
She told him. He slouched against the sofa’s high back and listened, the slow rise and fall of Roland’s stomach the only sign of life about him. When she was done, he gazed at the ceiling and blew several more smoke rings before answering.
“Three things,” he said finally. “One, Helen’s told you nothing. Nothing of substance, anyway. Two, this is cleanup detail, not a real investigation. Three, she’s worried cross-eyed about keeping the lid on whatever Sharifi was doing, or she wouldn’t have picked you for the job.”
“There wasn’t any picking about it,” Li lied. “I was the closest person.”
“Mmm. Convenient that you were so close, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
Cohen snorted daintily. “Don’t give me the simple soldier act. I know you better. Nguyen put your court-martial, or whatever they’re calling it, on ice in order to send you on a private fishing trip. You’re in bad trouble, and she knows you well enough to know you’ll do whatever it takes to climb out of it. Do the math, Catherine. You step out of line, and you can bet your Fromherz nodes it won’t be ten minutes before she’s politely reminding you that she holds your career in her hands.”
Li shifted, suddenly uncomfortable on the plush sofa. “That’s a suspicious-minded way of putting it.”
“Which is precisely why I know you’ve already thought of it.” He grinned. “Besides, I have great respect for Helen. She’s admirably ruthless, and it’s always edifying to watch a master at work. By the way, I wouldn’t recommend telling her you’ve been to see me. She’s a little sour on me just at the moment.”
Li resisted the urge to point out that Nguyen might have good reasons for being sour on him. Instead she said, “What can you tell me about Hannah Sharifi?”
Cohen smiled. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Did you know her personally?”
The smile broadened.
“Christ, Cohen, is there anyone you haven’t slept with?”
He sighed ostentatiously. “Oh, spare me your puritanical miner’s daughter morality. At least I’m still speaking to all my exes. Unlike some people I could name.”
“I’m still speaking to you, aren’t I?” Li said, deadpan.
They looked at each other—really looked—for the first time since she’d arrived.
Cohen looked away first and leaned forward to tap the ash off his cigarette. “I don’t think you get the credit for that.”
Li stood up and walked around the room.
Pictures of long-forgotten eighteenth-century contessas and marquises hung on the grass-papered walls. The Jaquet-Droz automaton on the card table could write messages of up to forty strokes in any alphabet, nod its head, and move its buckram-stuffed chest up and down under its frock coat in a gear-and-pulley imitation of real breathing. The bookshelves held snapshots of scientists clowning for the camera in front of ivy-covered buildings, including a first-generation print of the famous shot of the original Hyacinthe Cohen at some historic AI conference before the Evacuation. Beside it were newer photos of the Cohen she knew—or rather photos of handsome unfamiliar faces wearing his sly smile. At parties. Playing with his dogs. Talking to the Israeli prime minister. Sitting on the beach outside Tel Aviv. That one must be recent, she realized; there was Roland’s face eyeing her from inside the picture frame.
And there were novels, of course. Cohen and his novels. Stendhal. Balzac. The Brontës. Sometimes Li thought he knew more about book people than real people.
She pulled a book from the shelf. It crackled in her hand and breathed out a tickly but pleasant-smelling cloud of leather, glue, and paper particles. She let it fall open at random:
“Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?”