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possessed an elegant sterility: window curtains that might have been employed as ceremonial robes, ivory-colored ornamental shelves supporting vases filled with year-round flowers, a red carpet that looked as if no one had ever walked on it. It was a room to admire but not one in which you could relax and kick off your shoes.
    We'd been there only a couple of minutes when Ms. Howard walked in. She inspected Alex and said hello to him. Then she smiled condescendingly at me. “It is nice to see you again, Ms. Kolpath.”
    We exchanged a few pleasantries. Alex commented on how well kept the grounds were, presumably apparent to him under the snow cover. Howard took a moment to admire his scarf, and suggested that we all make ourselves comfortable. We sat down on a sofa while she took a large, padded armchair. “Chase tells me,” Alex said, “you have some items connected with Christopher Robin.”
    She looked momentarily as if that fact had slipped her mind. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Benedict, I do.” Sidewise glance at me. “I take it you're in a position to represent my interests?”
    Alex fell back on his charm. “Of course,” he said. “We'd be delighted.” His tone conveyed a sense that we were all friends, that whatever had gone before was of no concern, was part of a misunderstanding, and that he would find it gratifying to assist her. “I wonder,” he continued, “if it would be possible to see the materials?”
    Some of the stiffness drained away. “Certainly, Mr. Benedict,” she said. “Please follow me.”
    We went out into a central corridor, turned toward the rear of the house, and entered another, smaller, room. The objects had been placed on a dinner table, arranged with the Carpathian hat as the centerpiece. Plaques, lamps, framed pictures, books, paintings, the wedding ring, the diamond-studded comm link, a bust of a bearded man (Adam Karvenko, I learned later, who'd connected quantum theory with consciousness), and some electronic gear. And, of course, the books.
    Alex circled the table, examining the objects, using a magnifying lens on some, lifting others so he could study them from different angles.
    He took a long look at the wedding ring. “The names will help,” he said, “and especially the inscription.” Alex lifted the cover of one of the books. Mirabeau's The Social Abstract. Comments were printed in precise characters in the margins: Exactly!! And Out of context. And I'd love to see the documentation for that.
    He paged through Hai Kallei's Lost in the Shadows, smiling at Robin's comments. Dumb. And Tribalism will always be with us, despite your assertions. And Sometimes I wonder if we deserve to survive.
    In a collection of science essays, Alex, admiringly, read one comment aloud: We are like the seas. Tides come in, go out. Our shorelines wear down and drift away, but in the end, the substance does not change. Neither technology nor accumulated wisdom has any fundamental effect on who we are.
    Baron's Cosmological Constant was also filled with commentary. Sounds good, but the logic is confused. And If this is so, the world is even more illusory than we thought. Alex smiled. “Did you know him very well, Ms. Howard?”
    “Not especially,” she said. “I didn't especially like him.”
    “Why is that?”
    “He thought he was better than everybody else.”
    Alex nodded. Isn't that the way of the world? He put the book down and looked up at the picture of the interstellar that Howard had shown me at the country house. It hung directly opposite the entrance, making it the first thing you'd see coming into the room. “This is exactly the way he'd placed it in his own house,” she said.
    Alex examined it from several angles before turning to her. “Ms. Howard, what about this? Did it have a special meaning of some sort for Professor Robin?”
    “Not that I'm aware of.”
    Alex turned back to the picture. Shook his head.
    “What's wrong?” I asked.
    “I've seen it before