The view through the Beijing window was tremendously imposing. Skyscrapers—every shape, every style, every direction as far as the eye could see. And all of them illuminated—some artistically, some nothing more than 150-story neon and laser ads. Even with four of Trappist 1’s exoplanets terraformed by the Chinese state, and immigration at damburst levels, Beijing’s population still topped twenty-five million.
Beijing wasn’t quite what Alik would give children as their waking view every morning. But as his sister always told him on his infrequent visits to his young nephew, he was a piss-poor uncle, so he reserved judgment.
“Beds are made,” he said after looking in both rooms. The duvets were newly pressed and straight. “The kids weren’t here.”
“We’re accessing Kravis and Rose’s diaries,” Salovitz said. “It’s taking more time than it should. They’re stored on an independent rock squatter G7Turing. It’s not cooperating.”
“Get on it,” Alik ordered Shango.
The Antarctic room was the least impressive Alik saw that evening. It was full night outside, and snow was drifting slowly past the curving window. Two forensic officers were on their knees in front of the glass. Sensor drones were infesting the floor like termites spilling from a kicked-over nest.
“What have you got?” he asked the lead tech.
“There’s water here, sir,” she said.
“Water?”
Her gloved finger tapped the glass. “This was opened. The room’s climate control logged a sudden fall in temperature fifty-three minutes ago.”
“So did someone come in, or go out?”
She gestured to the clutter of red tags on the floor. “Blood drops. Preliminary match with the victim in the San Francisco room.”
“Good work,” Alik said approvingly. “Our Viking Berserker would have been covered in the victim’s blood. So he left San Francisco and escaped through here, dripping a trail as he went.”
“Escaped?” Salovitz protested. “There’s nowhere to go out there. It’s the fucking Antarctic.”
“You think he slung another body out there?”
“Why hide a dead body? Nobody cared about us finding the others.”
“Okay, good point. And a blood trail isn’t proof Viking Berserker actually went outside, just that he was in here.”
“Chasing someone else?”
Alik contemplated the bleak nighttime snowscape outside. “A survivor? Maybe even the Lorenzos making a break for it?”
“Out
“Bigger survival chance than Mars, or Ganymede. All they have to do is make it to the next portalhome room. There’s got to be some close by; developers build them in batches.”
“Shit. Okay.”
“Your people have coats, don’t they?” Alik challenged. “Send them outside. We have to know who went out.”
“We’ve got coats for New York, not the fucking Antarctic!”
“Okay.” He turned to the lead tech. “Send a bunch of drones out. See what they can find. There have to be other portalhome rooms around here.”
She gave the ice vista a dubious look. “Conditions aren’t good, sir.”
“Like I give a shit! I want some kind of camera looking around, even if you have to carry it yourself. I’m going to get some decent cold-weather gear priority-delivered from my office. When it arrives, we can follow up. Meantime, let’s take a look at the last body.”
Paris, dawn over the Seine, Notre Dame silhouetted on the cool rose-gold horizon. Very romantic, just right for a guest bedroom. Too bad the man on the floor at the end of the bed no longer appreciated the sight. The shotgun blast had taken most of his head off, sending brain and skull fragments slopping over the thick cream carpet like a rivulet of cold lava.
“So either Mr. Shotgun or Hacked Off did this,” Alik said.
“Yeah.”
“And this is the last body?”
“That we’ve found. I ain’t promising you anything under oath.”
“Which means we’re missing whoever was using the axe and the buzz gun.” Alik took a breath, trying to think. “One person, or two?”
“Once forensic has finished mapping DNA residuals, we’ll have a better picture.”
“Right. Let’s see the last couple of rooms.”
Alik had been expecting another gas-giant moon, or maybe a comet station, something exotic. Instead the portal door opened into a cabin on the