The flesh-and-blood Durham emitted a brief, high-pitched squeak, then waited with visible impatience while a second, smaller window gave Paul a slowed-down replay, four octaves lower:

"Of course that's understood! We're collaborators. That's exactly right. Equals. I wouldn't have it any other way. We both want the same things out of this, don't we? We both need answers to the same questions."

Paul was already having second thoughts. "Perhaps."

But Durham wasn't interested in his qualms.

Squeak. "You know we do! We've waited ten years for this . . . and now it's finally going to happen. And we can begin whenever you're ready."

PART ONE

The Garden-of-Eden Configuration

1

(Remit not paucity)

NOVEMBER 2050

Maria Deluca had ridden past the stinking hole in Pyrmont Bridge Road for six days running, certain each time, as she'd approached, that she'd be greeted by the reassuring sight of a work team putting things right. She knew that there was no money for road works or drainage repairs this year, but a burst sewage main was a serious health risk; she couldn't believe it would be neglected for long.

On the seventh day, the stench was so bad from half a kilometer away that she turned into a side street, determined to find a detour.

This end of Pyrmont was a depressing sight; not every warehouse was empty, not every factory abandoned, but they all displayed the same neglected look, the same peeling paint and crumbling brickwork. Half a dozen blocks west, she turned again -- to be confronted by a vista of lavish gardens, marble statues, fountains and olive groves, stretching into the distance beneath a cloudless azure sky.