The person trying to reach him was Henry Janequin, a specialist in avian biology and one of Sylveste’s few outright allies. But while Janequin had known the real Calvin, Sylveste was fairly sure he had never seen Calvin’s beta-level… and most certainly not in the process of being solicited for advice by his son. The admission that he needed Cal’s help—that he had even considered invoking the sim for this purpose—could be a crucial sign of weakness.

“What are you waiting for?” Cal said. “Put him on.”

“He doesn’t know about you… about us.”

Calvin shook his head, then—shockingly—Janequin appeared in the room. Sylveste fought to maintain his composure, but it was obvious what had just happened. Calvin must have found a way to send commands to the escritoire’s private-level functions.

Calvin was and always had been a devious bastard, Sylveste thought. Ultimately that was why he remained of use.

Janequin’s full-body projection was slightly less sharp than Calvin’s, for Janequin’s image was coming over the satellite network—patchy at best—from Mantell. And the cameras imaging him had probably seen better days, Sylveste thought—like much else on Resurgam.

“There you are,” Janequin said, noticing only Sylveste at first. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour. Don’t you have a way of being alerted to incoming calls when you’re down in the pit?”

“I do,” Sylveste said. “But I turned it off. It was too distracting.”

“Oh,” Janequin said, with only the tiniest hint of annoyance. “Very shrewd indeed. Especially for a man in your position. You realise what I’m talking about, of course. There’s trouble afoot, Dan, perhaps more than you…” Then Janequin must have noticed Cal for the first time. He studied the figure in the chair for a moment before speaking. “My word. It is you, isn’t it?”

Cal nodded without saying a word.