XI

We were halfway across the main room when my wristcom bleeped. The screen flashed 'Call waiting – Viking Weapon Systems, Ltd.'

"Go ahead. I'll catch up," I said. I stepped over to one side of the room and linked my Helmcom into the hypernet feed, so I could talk, more or less privately, inside my own helmet.

"Hello again, Colonel," I said, as Thor's face appeared on the inside of my visor.

"Good afternoon, Detective," he said. "I'm afraid I've got bad news."

"How bad?" I said.

"Unhelpful at the very least," said Thor. "I've traced the recharger. We sold it on the 13th of this month to a Dominic Underworld of Neptune. However, we've checked with some associates and we're 90% certain that was a false identity. We've got no visual record of him and his contact details have all turned out to be dead ends."

"Send them through to me anyway," I said.

"Of course," said Thor. "But that's not the main thing. The recharger wasn't a single purchase. It was part of a shipment."

Thor tapped a couple of buttons on his deskcom and a shipping manifest downloaded to my Helmcom. I clicked my tongue against my teeth as I read it. As well as the rifle recharger – which was one of four hundred of them – Underworld had also ordered nearly three thousand multi-beam unirifles, two hundred heavy laser canons, fifty rocket launchers and almost four thousand hand grenades.

"Gentle Darwin," I said.

"All I can say in my defence is that the documents and licenses he produced were the highest quality forgeries," said Thor. "We thought we were supplying the Neptunian navy."

"I see," I said.

"We'll do everything we can to help," said Thor. "Both my company and my brethren. I'll put all the resources I can muster into locating him."

"Thanks," I said. I considered, but resisted, the urge to tell him not to and to leave the hierophants searching for whoever had stolen my cloning tube. But once again, it wouldn't matter if whoever had the weapons shipped them to the past and caused a paradox reaction.

"I'm sorry I can't do more," said Thor. "If only Andrew was still there with you, I'd get him to..."

"What?" I said. My head snapped up. "Andrew Tawaret?"

"Yes. Though I'm sure you've heard about it," said Thor. "It's was a terrible tragedy. He was so young. He had so much potential."

"How do you know hi... He was a hierophant?" I said.

"Yes, he was one of my brethren," said Thor. He looked concerned for a moment. "Please don't think he was trying to infiltrate the library project in any way, Detective. I know your commanding officer is convinced that's what our brethren in ChronOps are up to. Andrew wasn't under orders from us. He actually contacted our higher members to ask permission to volunteer. We granted it of course, and he was so happy when he was accepted."

"Could you have mentioned this to me earlier?" I said.

"I didn't see any reason to. He has passed away," said Thor. "I've re-read all the hypermails he shared with us about the project. I can't find anything in them that could relate to Professor Wei'To's murder."

"I want to see them," I said. "You're not here. You haven't seen all the evidence."

"Of course. I'll send them right away," said Thor. "And, Detective?"

"Yes?" I said.

"You don't need to look so worried," said Thor. "No matter how bad things might look at the moment, the time stream will have brought you to where you are standing right now for a reason. When you find it, you'll understand."

_ _ _ _ _

"Darwin's beard!" said Baldr, as he read through the list of weaponry that the mysterious, recharger-dropping Dominic Underworld had recently acquired.

"There's no need to state the obvious," said Ra, who looked just as concerned.

"Never mind that. What the hax could anyone be planning to do with this stuff in 15th century Mexico?"

"15th century Yucatan, Doctor," said Domingo Xibalba. "Mexico didn't exist yet. But he's right, Detective. My people resisted the Spanish for centuries after their so-called conquest. But if the Spaniards are armed with these... Well, Mexico may well come into existence earlier than it previously did."

"Don't worry," I said. "If it had, it probably would have already happened. That means we've got a chance to stop it."

As best the temporal physicists could work out from studying the Mercury Disaster, when paradox reactions happened, they happened almost instantly. The fact we were all alive and talking right now, and not scattered atomic dust in orbit around whatever was left of Earth, was a reasonably good indication that either our perpetrator had failed or hadn't taken his arsenal back to the past and tried yet.

"Well, at least we know one thing about them," said Mirabi. "They've got money to burn. I imagine none of you have actually got $540,000 New Martin dollars lying around, Doctors? Even with the tuition fees you charge here."

"Good grief, no," said Baldr.

"Our salaries are comfortable, but not that generous," said Ra.

"I'm not that successful," said Zeus.

"Anyone else?" said Mirabi, looking around at the teaching assistants.

"My folks don't have that kind of money," said Ishtar.

"I'm helping Dr. Hades catalogue stuff at the weekend," said Baal. "He does pay me, but not that much."

"It's a teardrop in the swimming pool of my family's fortune," said Chernobog, "but we only bank in Imperia eagles. And my parents would notice if I'd withdrawn that much. I've got no reason to be gun-smuggling anyway."

"I'm on a scholarship," said Uzume.

"Fine," said Mirabi. "Is there any convenient source of that kind of cash around here?"

"Well... the Project's budget," said Zeus. He reached for one of the boardcoms and turned it on. "But we haven't spent nearly that much on anything. We're actually well under budget last time I... OH, DARWIN, EINSTEIN, NEWTON, HAWKING AND DAWKINS!!!"

His shout almost broke the wine glasses on the party table. Baldr and Ra leapt over to read the boardcom over his shoulders, but Mirabi beat them to it, taking it out of Zeus's hands and turning it around so we could see it. Baldr and Ra crowded around us.

"Oh, Evolution!"

"How in Darwin's name?"

"I thought you were meant to be checking!"

"I thought you were! Oh, shav! The sponsors are going to kill us!"

I stepped over and examined the screen myself. It was hard to argue with their assessment. The Project's main account was down to nearly two thousand Solar Union dollars, from an original budget of three million. Most of the first two had gone on saving the lost libraries and all the expenses that entailed, but 980,000 had been removed from the account in the last few days by someone – Mirabi quickly linked in her wristcom and checked – who had been smart enough to delete their name and user ID from the transactions. Wherever we looked in the system, it came out as a blur of damaged data.

"We are screwed!" said Zeus, putting his hand to his forehead. "Oh, thank Darwin Henry's dead. At least he doesn't have to see this."

"Captain!" said Baldr, turning on Anubis.

"Don't even say it, Doctor," said Anubis. "We were hired to protect you from the locals in the past. Watching for anyone with their hand in the till here was another thing no one said anything about."

"I'll still need to check all your financials later," I said. "Company and personal."

"Certainly," said Anubis, with a small smile.

Most of his team behind him smirked as well. I wished again that Helmcom polygraph could work by facial expression alone. Being mercenaries and Free Martians, most of them probably had a lot of questionably legitimate income cleverly hidden in various coded accounts and would enjoy watching me take my best shot at proving anything. Dealing with Free Mars's morally bankrupt financial system was like trying to win a chess match when your opponent could cheat and you couldn't.

"We'll do that for everyone," said Mirabi, frowning at the boardcom. "Hold on... $540,000 to Viking for the weapons. So what have they spent the other four hundred and forty thousand on?"

"Good question," I said. The same thought had occurred to me.

"No. One more to add to the pile," said Mirabi.

_ _ _ _ _

While I'd been talking to Colonel Thor, Mirabi had done as we'd planned and scanned the knife in the professor's chest for temporal radiation. It had come back resoundingly positive. The knife had definitely made the trip through time from Tutal Xiu.

"You'd better scan the rifle recharger as well," I said. "It'll probably be faded, but better to be sure."

"I... I can get it for you, Detective," said Megan Uzume, who was hovering nervously in the doorway.

I turned my eyes to the ceiling behind my visor. Everyone else was back in the main room. Ra, Anubis and Baldr were arguing over how they were going to break the news of the missing budget to the project's sponsors and – more importantly – which one of them was going to do it. Baal and Ishtar were insisting to Chernobog that they still deserved a chance at the doctoral place and Anubis and the guards were observing silently as usual. But Uzume was hanging around as close to me as she politely could, obviously believing she needed to apologise for something that had been entirely Mirabi's fault. Right now though, I didn't have the time or the energy to explain that to her.

"Thank you," I said. "I left it on the..."

"No. I'll get it," said Mirabi, moving before I could finish. "My wristcom's already set for it. You don't need to come. Give me two minutes."

She strode out of the room, leaving me and Uzume alone together. I sighed through my teeth behind my helmet.

To create the impression I was doing something – and hopefully get her to go away – I turned on my own wristcom and scanned the dagger myself. The radiation and carbon signatures matched up perfectly. It had indeed come through time from Tutal Xiu, just like the other Mayan items in the safe. With any luck – or ill luck – the rifle recharger would give a similar, but very faded reading, from being taken to the past and then coming back to the present the long way round after being buried beneath earthquake debris for several hundred years.

"I'm sorry," said Uzume, suddenly, from behind me. "About earlier."

I sighed again and tried not to let it show.

"It's all right," I said. "It wasn't your fault." I would have vastly preferred it if Mirabi had kept her mouth shut, but it wasn't fair to blame Uzume that she hadn't. I turned around to try and put this into words, but Uzume beat me to it.

"No, I mean about...," she said. She'd come into the room properly while my back was turned and was standing closer to me than I'd realised. She looked away, biting her lip. "I'm sorry about after that, I mean. I'm sorry about... trying to help."

I sighed and didn't try to hide it this time. Once again, I felt like a complete haxer. Being a police officer could make you forget that there were genuinely nice people in the Solar System and, sometimes, we were lucky enough to meet them.

"It's fine," I said. "It's not your fault you can't."

"No. I can," said Uzume, stepping forward.

"Miss Uzume..."

"Detective Arjuna told me you think you're trapped," she said.

I paused.

"I am," I said.

Mirabi knew that better than anyone. She'd met my future self and brought his DNA – my DNA – back through time to create me. One day, I was going to meet her past self and send her back with my DNA, and now probably die in some different fashion straight afterwards.

"No," said Uzume. "I mean... I'm sorry, Detective. But you think you're trapped. I've been there. I've thought it myself."

There was a pause. I looked at her more closely.

"I find that very hard to believe," I said.

"It's the truth," said Uzume. She looked away, pursing her lips for a moment and I realised she was dredging up something painful. "When Mum and Dad and Amy and Sara – my sisters – died, I was homeless for a while. I lived on the streets in Ceres City. I had to steal food and sleep under heating ducts."

My eyes widened. Ceres's poverty was almost one of its tourist attractions, but even there, children having to survive homeless was rare.

"It was never too bad," said Uzume. "The environmental systems are badly maintained, but it doesn't get dangerously cold at night. And there are so many homeless people, no one minds if you take leftovers from the tables outside restaurants. But one day, I took some fruit – I hadn't had any two weeks and I knew I needed it – from a street stall. The stall holder chased me."

I listened in silence. I wasn't sure where this story was going, but strangely enough, it was helping slightly. Megan Uzume's early life was more than appalling enough to put my own problems in perspective.

"I ran in a circle around the nearest block," said Uzume, "and then I hid in the last place I thought he'd look for me. His own storeroom at the back of his stall. It was a converted air car garage. It was big enough. There were plenty of places to crawl into. I found one, and I was eating the oranges. I thought I was safe... and then the door was kicked open and six police officers came in."

Even though I knew she was telling me what had happened – and therefore that she must have survived it – for a moment, I was genuinely worried for her. Far from cleaning up their home asteroid, the Ceres police were notorious for spending most of their time extracting protection money from people whom they were supposed to protect. Even if they were paid on time and in full, they normally didn't bother to provide any services anyway.

"I thought the stall owner must have been really angry. So angry that he'd called them and they'd come to find me," said Megan. "I just sat in the back corner shivering, while they searched the store room. They did it slowly. They looked everywhere. They opened every box and emptied it. One of them stayed by the door the whole time and there were no other ways out. I thought they were going to find me and there was nothing I could do. I just sat there, shivering, and waited to be found."

"What happened?" I said. I almost didn't realise I was speaking outloud.

"The door opened again and the stall owner came in," said Megan, "shouting he was going to kill whoever had broken his lock. And all six of the officers jumped on him. It turned out he'd been earning more than he'd told them and hadn't been paying enough of it in bribe money. That was what they were searching for. They weren't looking for me at all. The stall holder refused to tell them where it was, so one of them held his shockstick against the soles of the stall holder's feet and turned it on and then he told them. He had it hidden in a crate of mangoes with a false bottom. They found it without seeing me. And then they took the stall owner with them when they left. They never saw me at all. I just waited until they were gone and walked out. I had all the fruit I needed for the next three weeks."

"Oh," I said. Once again, I was impressed. To have lived through something like that – and on Ceres – Uzume was revealing strengths you would never have realised she had from looking at her slim, graceful and very gentle form.

"Afterwards, I knew no one was ever going to help me on Ceres," said Megan. "So I went to the spaceport. I stowed away. I hid on the first ship I could find. I didn't even know it was going to Earth. I got caught, but the crew just gave me to the Solar Union border control when we arrived. When they learned I didn't have any family left, they sent me to the orphanage. And that was so much better."

"It must have been," I said.

"But the... the point is, Detective, I thought they were going to find me," said Megan. "When I was hiding and they were searching, I was absolutely sure they would. I thought it was the only possible thing that could happen and there was no way it wouldn't. I was so sure I was trapped. But I was wrong."

She paused and then looked up at my helmet visor. I could tell she was trying to meet my eyes. She had guessed pretty accurately where they were.

"Detective Arjuna told me that she thought you were going to die in the future. She saw you – the future you – get shot. But then you forestepped and found out she was wrong. He – you – got shot, but survived. The future wasn't what you thought it was going to be. She said that made you so happy."

"It did," I said, quietly.

"Until today when... whatever happened at ChronOps," said Uzume. "That made you think you're going to die again. But you don't know. You thought the future was going to be one thing and it turned out to be something else. Maybe... Maybe the same thing is happening again."

I gazed at her. To my astonishment, I felt my heart slowly rising, for the first time in hours. I hadn't even realised how far down it had gone. Because she was right. When I looked at it from that perspective, I might still have a chance after all.

"I know it's none of my business," said Megan Uzume. "But... I just wanted to help and..."

"No," I said. "You have."

"You don't need to say that..."

"No, really, Miss Uzume," I said. I took Megan by her shoulders, pushed up my visor, and met her eyes properly. She started, but didn't pull away. "You have. That really does help. Thank you."

Megan blinked in surprise and then a nervous, but genuine smile crept across her face. She was right. I had been wrong about what was going to happen in the future last time, and back then I'd had Mirabi's eyewitness account of what the future was going to be. This time, I didn't even have that. I didn't have any evidence at all of what was going to happen; just my own paranoia and my imagination feeding it. The future could be different. And – now I thought about it – I'd known that all along. Why had I been so daxing eager to get back to HQ, and start finding my cloning tube, if I didn't believe that could help? At some level, I'd been sure – and I still was – that if I could get it back and replace it in the vault where it belonged, everything would go back to normal. I might be able to preserve the future – my future, the good future I'd seen when I'd been there – after all.

"Detective Arjuna said you were still hopeful," said Megan. "You just hadn't realised it yet."

Once again – and despite me still wanting to strangle her – Mirabi proved she knew me better than I did.

"I have now," I said, and Megan unconsciously reached up to touch my hand on her shoulder, just as my wristcom bleeped.

"What?"

We both snapped out of it instantly and looked proper and professional again. I looked at my wristcom screen. The temporal radiation scan was still running and had been since Megan had distracted me. The bleep had been it getting a reading – from where I'd placed my hands on her shoulders – pointing the scanner lens across the room. But the jaguar knife and the professor's body were lying behind me. I frowned and looked around, making sure they were still there. Nothing had moved.

"What is it?" said Megan.

"I...," I said. "Hold on."

The other side of the room only had the empty shelves that hadn't been filled yet, and the collection of empty boxes in front of them that the replica books had come in. When I'd shifted my hand on