Permutation City

Maria glanced up at him, startled. He looked perfectly sincere, but she couldn't help wondering -- not for the first time -- if he knew that she'd been approached by Hayden, knew exactly what she'd been told. She felt her cheeks flush. She'd spent too many years using phones and filters; she couldn't keep anything from showing on her face.

She said, "Thank you. But aren't you afraid I might take the first plane to the Bahamas? There's still a lot of work to be done."

"I think I can trust you."

There wasn't a trace of irony in his voice -- but there really didn't need to be.

He said, "Speaking of trust . . . I think your phone may be bugged. I'm sorry; I should have told you that sooner."

Maria stared at him. "How did you know?"

"Know? You mean, it is? You've had definite signs?"

"I'm not sure. But how . . . ?"

"Mine is. Bugged. So it makes sense that yours would be, too."

Maria was bewildered. What was he going to do -- announce that the Fraud Squad were watching him? If he came right out and said it, she didn't think she could dissemble any longer. She'd have to confess that she already knew -- and then she'd have to tell him everything Hayden had said.

Taking the pressure off completely. Ending the farce for good. She had no talent for these stupid games; the sooner they could both stop lying to each other, the better.

She said, "And who exactly do you think is doing it?"

Durham paused to think it over, as if he hadn't seriously considered the question before. "Some corporate espionage unit? Some national security organization? There's really no way of telling. I know very little about the intelligence community; your guess would be as good as mine."

"Then why do you think they're -- ?"

Durham said blithely, "If I was developing a computer, say, thirty orders of magnitude more powerful than any processor cluster in existence, don't you think people like that might take an interest?"

Maria almost choked. "Ah. Yes."

"But of course I'm not, and eventually they'll convince themselves of that, and leave us both alone. So there's absolutely nothing to worry about."

"Right."

Durham grinned at her. "Presumably, they think that just because I've commissioned an Autoverse planet, there's a chance that I might possess the means to actually run it. They've searched this place a couple of times; I don't know what they expected to find. A little black box, sitting in a comer of one of the rooms? Hidden under a pot plant, quietly cracking military codes, raking in a fortune on the stock market -- and simulating a universe or two on the side, just to keep from getting bored. Any five-year-old could tell them how ludicrous that is. Maybe they think I've found a way to shrink individual processors to the size of an atom. That would just about do it."

So much for an end to the lying. He wasn't going to make this easy for her. All right. Maria forced the words out evenly: "And any five-year-old could tell you that if anyone searched your flat, it was the Fraud Squad."

Durham was still giving nothing away. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I know they're watching you. They've spoken to me. They've told me exactly what you're doing." Maria faced him squarely now. She was tense at the prospect of a confrontation, but she had nothing to be ashamed of; he was the one who'd set out to deceive her from the start.

He said, "Don't you think the Fraud Squad would need to get a warrant, and search the flat in my presence?"

"Then maybe it hasn't been searched at all. That's not the point."

He nodded slightly, as if conceding some minor breach of etiquette. "No, it's not. You want to know why I lied to you."

Maria said, "I know why. Please don't treat me like an idiot." Her bitterness surprised her, she'd had to conceal it for so long. "I was hardly going to agree to be your . . . accomplice --"

Durham raised one hand from the tabletop, a half conciliatory, half impatient gesture. Maria fell silent, more from astonishment at how calmly he seemed to be taking all this than any desire to give him a chance to defend himself.

He said, "I lied because I didn't know if you'd believe the truth or not. I think you might have, but I couldn't be sure. And I couldn't risk it. I'm sorry."

"Of course I would have believed the truth! It would have made a lot more sense than the bullshit you fed me! But, yes, I can see why you couldn't risk it."

Durham still showed no sign of contrition. "Do you know what it is that I'm offering my backers? The ones who've been funding your work?"

"A sanctuary. A privately owned computer somewhere."

"That's almost true. Depending on what you take those words to mean."

Maria laughed cynically. "Oh, yes? Which words do you have trouble with? 'Privately owned'?"

"No. 'Computer.' And, 'somewhere.'"