Hannu Rajaniemi - The Quantum Thief

‘I’m Isidore Beautrelet,’ he says. ‘I’m expected.’

Silently, it opens the gate for him and leads him towards the chateau. They walk through fields of roses, lilies and more exotic flowers he needs to ’blink to recognise. The smell is intoxicating.

The evening sun casts a golden pool in a clearing where a small pagoda-like pavilion stands. A pale-haired young man – barely more than a boy, perhaps six or eight Martian years old – sits inside, reading a book, an empty teacup next to him. He is wearing a plain Revolution uniform that hangs loose on his frame. His thin eyebrows are squeezed together in concentration in a delicate face, rounded by baby fat. The Quiet servant stops and rings a small silver bell. The man looks up slowly and gets up with exaggerated care.

‘Dear boy,’ he says, offering a hand. His fingerbones feel like porcelain in Isidore’s grip. He is taller than Isidore, but almost painfully thin, the elongated Martian bodymorph taken to the extreme. ‘How delightful that you could come. Would you like some refreshments?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Sit, sit. What do you think of my garden?’

‘Impressive.’

‘Yes, my gardener is a genius. A very modest man, but a genius. And that, of course, often applies to other individuals possessing rare talent, such as yourself.’

Isidore watches him quietly for a moment and tries to shake away the disturbance in gevulot. It is not absence of privacy like in the Dust District, but uncertain, as if it could tear any moment.

The young man smiles. ‘And are you genius enough to know who I am?’

‘You are Christian Unruh,’ Isidore says. ‘The millenniaire.’

Finding that out was not difficult, but it occupied him for the other half of the afternoon, going through public exomemories and comparing them to the co-memory the woman in white gave him. Unruh – if that is his name – is a private person even by Oubliette standards: apart from his youth, it is difficult to find out anything about his background. His name comes up mainly in the context of society events and business deals in newspapers. It is obvious that he has more Time than God.

‘You have a personal Time fortune based on gevulot brokering, something the Voice only made possible a few years ago. And clearly, you are worried about something. Gogol piracy?’

‘Oh no. I have been careful to be perfectly ordinary in everything else except making Time. A defence mechanism, you might say. No, what concerns me is this.’

Unruh hands Isidore a note, fine, linen, unmarked paper, with a few words written on it in an elegant, flowing hand.

Dear M. Unruh , it says,

In response to your unsent invitation – I will be delighted to attend your carpe diem party on the 28th sol of Vrishika, 24**. I will bring one guest .

Your obedient servant, Jean le Flambeur .

Isidore has been thinking about le Flambeur all afternoon. The Oubliette exomemory does not have much on him. In the end, he spent Time on an expensive data agent that ventured into the Realm outside the Oubliette noosphere. What it brought back was a mixture of fact and legend. No actual memories or lifecasts, not even video or audio. Fragments from before the Collapse, online speculation about a criminal mastermind operating in Fast London and Paris. Fanciful tales of a sunlifting factory stolen from the Sobornost, a guberniya brain that was broken into; dirty dealings in Realm unreal estate.

It can’t all possibly refer to the same individual, a copy-family perhaps. Or maybe it is a meme, an idea for criminals – whatever that word may mean in different parts of the System – to sign their felonies with. So whatever this is, it must be a prank of some sort. Isidore hands the note back.

‘Your carpe diem party?’ he asks. ‘That’s in a week.’

Unruh smiles. ‘Yes. A millennium of Time goes quickly, these days. I’m giving most of it away, and some of it will be managed by my associate – Odette, whom you already met.’

‘I understand it is rare among our generation – not to rail against the injustice of it all – but I’m something of an idealist. I believe in the Oubliette. I have had a rich eight years in this body; I’m ready to do my part as a Quiet. But of course, I want to conclude things with style, before the next time. To seize the day, for one night.’ There is an odd bitterness in his voice.

The Quiet servant hands them both fine porcelain cups of tea: Unruh tastes his with relish. ‘Also, finiteness gives everything such an edge, don’t you think? I think that’s what our founding fathers and mothers had in mind. Experiencing that is all I wanted. Until the note came along.’

‘How did it arrive?’

‘I found it in my library,’ Unruh says. ‘In my library!’ Hard anger lines look strange on his childlike face. His cup rattles when he sets it down. ‘I don’t let anyone in my library, M. Beautrelet. It is my inner sanctum. And no one outside my immediate circle of friends even has the gevulot to come to this castle. As I’m sure you can understand given your recent experiences with the press, I feel… violated.’

Isidore shudders. The thought of someone coming to his personal space, unannounced, without access to his gevulot makes his skin crawl. ‘You don’t think it is possible that this is a prank of some kind?’

Unruh presses his palms together. ‘I have considered the possibility, of course,’ he says. ‘As you can imagine, I went through the castle exomemory thoroughly. I found nothing. Sometime last night, between seven and eight thirty, the letter simply appeared. I don’t recognise the handwriting. The paper is from a stationery shop on the Avenue. There are no obvious DNA traces, apart from mine. That is as far as Odette got. I am convinced that offworld technology is involved. The modus operandi would certainly fit with what we know about this character – announcing a date and time for his crime.

‘In some way, I’m not surprised. The offworlders think that we are a backwater, a playground. And for some reason, this… thief has chosen me as his plaything. But if I went to the Voice or the tzaddikim, they would tell me the same thing: it is a prank. And that’s why you are here, M. Beautrelet.’ Unruh smiles. ‘I want you to help me. I want you to find out how the letter got into my library. I want you to figure out what he is going to do, and stop it. Or if he succeeds, recover what is mine.’

Isidore takes a deep breath. ‘I think you may have a somewhat exaggerated view of my abilities,’ he says. ‘I’m not convinced that this is the real le Flambeur by any means. But if it is, why do you think I will be a match for such a creature?’

‘As I said, I’m an idealist,’ Unruh says. ‘I am familiar with your work. Indeed, I consider myself to be something of a fan. And, while I am deeply insulted by the thief’s actions, I do find the thought of having my demise accompanied by a battle of wits amusing. Naturally, we can find a suitable compensation for your efforts, if that is an issue. What do you say?’

To catch a thief, Isidore thinks. Something pure. Something simple. Something clean. Even if it turns out to be a joke.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘I accept.’

Unruh slaps his hands together. ‘Excellent! You know, M. Beautrelet, you are not going to regret your decision.’ He gets up. ‘Now, let’s find Odette and visit the scene of the crime.’

The chateau is built with the same grandeur as the Kingdom simulation at the zoku colony: high ceilings, marble floors, matte black suits of robotic armour lining the corridors along with large landscape paintings of old Mars: red cliffs, Valles Marineris, the grinning visage of the King in white and gold.