The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur Book 1) by Hannu Rajaniemi

Author:Hannu Rajaniemi [Rajaniemi, Hannu]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Unruh greets him at one of the galleries of the chateau, wearing a dressing gown and a chilly expression. Isidore sees someone walk past along a corridor, blurred by gevulot, wondering what activity the millenniaire interrupted to see him.

‘M. Beautrelet. I am told that you have discovered something.’

‘Yes. I am convinced that your concern is real, and there is an offworld force of some sort at work here. I will help you to make appropriate preparations for the party.’

‘I suppose I should thank you for not agreeing with Odette and claiming I wrote the letter myself,’ Unruh says. ‘And?’

‘Nothing. The local exomemory has been manipulated in some fashion, but I cannot determine how or by who. But that is not what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Oh?’ Unruh raises his eyebrows.

‘When going through the exomemory and looking for gaps, I noticed you had frequently studied the Isidis lifecast, and went back to its first appearance. I realise that I was, perhaps, abusing the powers that you had given me, but I felt it was important to study all the elements of the case from all possible angles.’

‘Indeed.’

‘I could not help noticing your…reaction to the text.’ Unruh had screamed, thrown the book across the room, flung other books from their shelves, toppled the orrery with violence that seemed to overflow his thin frame, before collapsing into a heap in his reading chair. ‘If I’m correct, soon after that you made up your mind to enter Quiet early. What was it that you saw?’

Unruh sighs. ‘M. Beautrelet, I should perhaps clarify that it is not a generic investigation you are carrying out here. I did not empower you to pry into my private life, or the reasons to my actions: merely to protect my property and my person from what I felt was a threat.’

‘You hired me because you wanted to solve a mystery,’ Isidore says. ‘And I think it was not just the mystery of the letter. I also ’blinked Count Isidis.’

‘And what did you discover?’

‘Nothing. I can’t find any references to a Count Isidis in the public exomemories. As far as the general public is aware, he never existed.’

Unruh walks to one of the gallery’s large windows and looks out. ‘M. Beautrelet, I admit I have not been entirely honest with you. A part of me was hoping you would spot certain things on your own as you have done.’ He presses a pale hand against the glass. ‘A strange thing happens when you are very rich, even when one’s wealth is as artificial as in our society. You develop a solipsism of sorts. The world yields itself to your will. Everything becomes your reflection, and after a while looking into your own eyes is dull.’

He sighs. ‘So I sought to find more solid ground in the past, in our origins, our history. I doubt there are many of our generation who have put as much effort into the study of the Kingdom and the Revolution as I have.

‘At first it was the perfect escape.

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