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perhaps Dominika had a feed from its eyes. She didn’t like him. Had disappeared when he’d arrived, upstairs, or perhaps down into the traditionally deep iceberg of oligarchic subbasements.
    “It’s not that simple,” Lev said now, placing a bright red mug of coffee on the scarred pine table in front of Netherton, beside a yellow bit of his son’s Lego. “Sugar?” He was tall, brownly bearded, archaically bespectacled, ostentatiously unkempt.
    “It is,” Netherton said. “Tell her it stopped working.” He looked up at Lev. “You told me it might.”
    “I told you that none of us have any idea when or why it started, whose server it might be, let alone how long it might continue to be available.”
    “Then tell her it stopped. Is there any brandy?”
    “No,” said Lev. “You need coffee. Have you met her sister, Aelita?” He took a seat opposite Netherton.
    “No. I was going to. Before. They didn’t seem to be that close.”
    “Close enough. Daedra didn’t want it. Neither would I, frankly. We don’t do that sort of thing, if we’re serious about continua.”
    “Didn’t want it?”
    “Had me give it to Aelita.”
    “To her sister?”
    “He’s part of Aelita’s security now. A very minor part, but she knows he’s there.”
    “Fire him. End it.”
    “Sorry, Wilf. She finds it interesting. We’re having lunch on Thursday, and I hope to explain that polts aren’t really what continua are about. I think she may get it. Seems bright.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I thought you had your hands full. And frankly you weren’t making a great deal of sense, at that point. Daedra rang, told me you were sweet, that she didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but why didn’t I give it to her sister, who likes odd things. It didn’t feel to me as if you were slated to be a very permanent part of her life, so I didn’t think it would matter. And then Aelita rang, and she seemed genuinely curious, so I gave it to her.”
    Netherton raised the coffee with both hands, drank, considered.Decided that what Lev had just told him actually solved the problem. He no longer had a connection with Daedra. He’d indirectly introduced a friend to the sister of someone he’d been involved with. He didn’t know that much about Aelita, other than that she was named after a Soviet silent film. There hadn’t been much mention of her in Rainey’s briefing material, and he’d been distracted. “What does she do? Some sort of honorary diplomatic position?”
    “Their father was ambassador-at-large for crisis resolution. I think she inherited a sliver of that, though some might say Daedra’s more the contemporary version.”
    “Thumbnails and all?”
    Lev wrinkled his nose. “Are you sacked?”
    “Apparently. Not formally, yet.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Fail forward. Now that you’ve explained things, I see no reason for Daedra’s sister not to keep her polt.” He drank more coffee. “Why do you call them that?”
    “Ghosts that move things, I suppose. Hello, Gordon. Pretty boy.”
    Following Lev’s gaze, Netherton found the thylacine, upright on its hind legs on the small patio, gazing in at them. He really badly wanted a drink, and now he remembered where he thought he might likely find one. Just the one, though. “I need to think,” he said, standing. “Mind if I go and stroll the collection?”
    “You don’t like cars.”
    “I like history,” Netherton said. “I don’t fancy walking the streets of Notting Hill.”
    “Would you like company?”
    “No,” Netherton said, “I need to ponder.”
    “You know where the elevator is,” said Lev, getting up to let the thylacine in.

13.
    EASY ICE
     
    U nstuck her in time, day-sleeping in her bedroom. How old was she? Seven, seventeen, twenty-seven? Dusk or dawn? Couldn’t tell by the light outside. Checked her phone. Evening. The house silent, her mother probably asleep. Out through the smell of her grandfather’s fifty years