Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

He debarked from the Hanjin Takhoma at Vancouver, which besides having the most scenic airship moorage in the world, boasted a sizable Atlantan clave. Dr. X hadn't given him a specific destination-just the chit and a flight number-so there didn't seem any point in staying aboard all the way to the end of the line. From here he could always bullet-train down the coast if necessary.

The city itself was a sprawling bazaar of claves. Consequently it was generously supplied with agoras, owned and managed by Protocol, where citizens and subjects of different phyles could convene on neutral ground and trade, negotiate, fornicate, or whatever. Some of the agoras were simply open plazas in the classical tradition, others looked more like convention centers or office buildings. Many of Old Vancouver's pricier and more view-endowed precincts had been acquired by the Hong Kong Mutual Benevolent Society or the Nipponese, and the Confucians owned the tallest office building in the downtown area. East of town in the fertile delta of the Fraser River, the Slays and the Germans were both supposed to have large patches of Lebensraum staked out, surrounded by grids of somewhat nastier than usual security pods. Hindustan had a spray of tiny claves all over the metropolitan area.

The Atlantis clave climbed out of the water half a mile west of the university, to which it was joined by a causeway. Imperial Tectonics had made it look like just another island, as if it had been sitting there for a million years. As Hackworth's rented velocipede took him over the causeway, cool salt air flowing through his stubble, he began to relax, finding himself once again on home territory. On an emerald green playing field above the breakwater, young boys in short pants were knotted into a scrum, playing at fieldball.

On the opposite side of the road was the girls' school, which had its own playing field of equal size, except that this one was surrounded by a dense twelve-foot hedge so that the girls could run around in very little or skin-tight clothing without giving rise to etiquette problems. He hadn't slept well in his microberth and wouldn't have minded checking into the guest hostel and taking a nap, but it was only eleven in the morning and he couldn't see wasting the day. So he rode his velocipede to the center of town, stopped in at the first pub he saw, and had lunch. The bartender gave him directions to the Royal Post Office, which was just a few blocks away.

The post office was a big one, sporting a variety of matter compilers, including a ten-cubic-meter model directly adjacent to the loading dock. Hackworth shoved Dr. X's chit into its reader and held his breath. But nothing dramatic happened; the display on the control panel said that this job was going to take a couple of hours.

Hackworth killed most of the time wandering around the clave. The middle of town was smallish and quickly gave way to leafy neighborhoods filled with magnificent Georgian, Victorian, and Romanesque homes, with the occasional rugged Tudor perched on a rise or nestled into a verdant hollow. Beyond the homes was a belt of gentrified farms mingled with golf courses and parks. He sat down on a bench in one flowery public garden and unfolded the sheet of mediatronic paper that was keeping track of the movements of the original copy of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. It seemed to have spent some time in a green belt and then made its way up the hill in the general direction of the New Atlantis Clave.

Hackworth took out his fountain pen and wrote a short letter addressed to Lord Finkle-McGraw.

Your Grace,

Since accepting the trust you have reposed in me, I have endeavoured to be perfectly frank, serving as an open conduit for all information pertaining to the task at hand. In that spirit, I must inform you that two years ago, in my desperate search for the lost copy of the Primer, I initiated a search of the Leased Territories . . . (&c., &c.)

Please find enclosed a map and other data regarding the recent movements of this book, whose whereabouts were unknown to me until yesterday. I have no way of knowing who possesses it, but given the book's programming, I suspect it to be a young thete girl, probably between the ages of five and seven. The book must have remained indoors for the last two years, or else my systems would have detected it. If these suppositions are correct, and if my invention has not fallen desperately short of intentions, then it is safe to assume that the book has become an important part of the girl's life . . .

He went on to write that the book should not be taken from the girl if this were the case; but thinking about it a bit more carefully, he scribbled out that part of the letter and it vanished from the page. It was not Hackworth's role to tell Finkle-McGraw how to manage affairs. He signed the letter and dispatched it.

Half an hour letter, his pen chimed again and he checked his mail.