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closed her eyes, allowing the facts to circulate almost randomly. It was a technique she had perfected over long hours of problem-solving in the research labs. Don’t try to solve the problem logically. Let it drift; let the subconscious nibble away at it, until the answer arrives in a flash of inspiration.
    For a long time there was silence and the doctor grew uncomfortable, but just as he was about to speak, the young woman opened her eyes.
    â€˜What if . . .’ she began, then paused momentarily. ‘What if I were to force myself to recall the important memories from my childhood, before they disappeared? Wouldn’t that create a new memory, a post-stasis memory, that wouldn’t be affected by the shutdown?’
    The doctor nodded his head, impressed by the lateral approach. ‘An interesting solution. And, may I say, one we didn’t think of for a long time.’ Then he shook his head slowly. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work. It appears that even under hypnosis, simply recalling a memory doesn’t create a new, “immune” one. You don’t “remember remembering something”, if you get my drift . . . No, I’m afraid that once the memory is gone, it’s lost forever.’ Then he brightened. ‘But let’s not look on the black side just yet. We’ve done no tests. There may be no cause for concern.’
    Looking at him, Jane could see that he was speaking to lighten the mood. Something inside her knew better than to believe him.

4
    DOWN
    Central Desert, West of the Roosevelt Ranges
    Edison Sector (West)
    15/7/101 Standard
    DARYL
    Another bloody field trip!
    Thirty-five of us strapped into our seats, while Jacklin took on the power of the desert windstorms, trying to keep the flyer from losing altitude and smashing into one of the jagged hills that lay between the Martinez Oasis and the Genetic Research Facility at Edison. There’s only one thing I ever hated more than flying over the Central Desert, and that was flying over the Central Desert on the same flyer as Karl Johannsen. An ego I could stand. He was a politician; you sort of expect it. But the J-man seemed to feel that the only way to demonstrate his importance was to make everyone around him feel small. Not me, so much. I was just ‘the help’ – I didn’t rate. But I don’t know how a smart kid like Jacklin lasted the distance.
    There was a kind of . . . elitism among the old guard of the Party, the ones who’d made the ‘freeze-trip’ out from Old Earth. Jacklin and most of the young lions were first or second-generation Deucs, and the old guard looked down on them. Literally.
    I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet that one of the projects in the Genetic Research Facility at Edison would have involved trying to find out why kids conceived and born on Deucalion ended up so much shorter and more finely featured than Old Earthers. Changes like that usually take several generations to show themselves, but on Deucalion, the short stature of the ‘home-grown’ stock was noticeable from the first years of the settlement.
    And didn’t Johannsen just love playing on it. In my line of work, you don’t get to choose your boss. He’s assigned to you, a bit like garbage-detail or graveyard shift. But a lot of the guys would have sold their grandmother for the job. After all, with his ‘get-out-and-meet-the-people’ routine and his big-money backers, he was a shoo-in certainty for President in the inaugural elections. Dimitri Gaston was the only Councillor with even an outside chance of beating the J-man, and Gaston was slipping in every poll.
    101 had been chosen as the year when the Ruling Council (which was selected by the Earth-appointed bureaucracy and the Corporation, and made no pretence at all of being democratic) was to be replaced by an elected Congress. And a President.
    The President was going to need Security in a