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a couple of seconds before he realized that it was not an image of himself. He had never had a haircut that expensively accidental-looking. He had never worn a Kendo Berberian smart-vinyl jacket, or grinned at a camera in those gardens of coral above that sapphire lake. No, this was someone else. This was some rich kid who looked like him.
    “His name is Tallis Noon,” said Raven. “You see the family resemblance?”
    “There is a seventy-six percent similarity,” said Nova.
    Zen nodded, feeling wary. He could guess where this was going.
    “Actually there are about thirty members of the Noon family who look pretty much like you,” said Raven. “That’s what you get for wandering about with their genes. I’ve chosen Tallis here because he’s from an outlying branch, very minor, based at Golden Junction.”
    More pictures of the Noon kid flipped up. Zen hated him already, with his fine clothes and his cheerful smile. Who wouldn’t be cheerful, living the life he lived? You could see he’d never done an honest day’s work. (Nor had Zen, of course. But he thought he could imagine what an honest day’s work must feel like, and he was pretty sure Tallis Noon couldn’t.)
    Raven said, “Tallis finished university a standard year ago. He should be taking his place in the family business by now, but he’s a dreamer. Prefers poems and paintings to profit margins. He thinks he’d like to travel a bit before he settles. He’s another railhead, in fact. You two have so much in common!”
    Zen thought of the kids who had sat across from him on that train out of Ambersai. The Network was full of rich kids, aimlessly shuttling from one world to another in search of something their families’ money couldn’t seem to buy.
    “It wouldn’t surprise anyone if Tallis were to board the Noon train,” Raven went on. “It’s his family’s most famous asset, and as far as I can tell he’s never ridden it.”
    “But they’ll know I’m not him!” Zen said. “I might look a bit like him, but I don’t talk like him, I don’t know anything about his life, his family…”
    “I’ll brief you. Posing as Tallis will get you through security. Once you’re on the train, you go straight for the box. It’s in the carriage that houses the family art collection. It won’t seem strange if you want to look around the collection.”
    “It’s art, then? This box? We’re art thieves?”
    Raven grinned. “A step up from your old line of work, isn’t it?”
    The holo changed, showing an image of the thing Zen was supposed to steal. It was a small, dull, metal cube.
    “It’s called the Pyxis,” said Raven. “Don’t let the fancy name intimidate you. It just means ‘box’ in one of those Old Earth languages, Roman or Spanish or Klingon…”
    “Ancient Geek, I think,” said Nova.
    “Is it valuable?” asked Zen. (It didn’t
look
valuable.)
    “It’s unique,” said Raven. “That makes it very valuable indeed.”
    He made the picture change again. Now they were looking at a map of the Network. A red dot marked the current position of the Noon train, way out on the Silver River Line .
    “A few days from now, the
Thought Fox
will take us to Surt. From there you can catch a regular train to Adeli, where the Noon train will be pausing for a day or two. You can board it there. It will be traveling to Jangala, the Spindlebridge, and Sundarban. On the way, you’ll snitch the Pyxis. I’ll be waiting at Sundarban to whisk you away down the Dog Star Line again. And then you’ll be rich, Zen.”
    “But I can’t do it,” Zen said. He flapped his hands at the holo, which detected the movement and changed to a video image of the Noon train like a river of grand buildings, pouring across a viaduct above some shining delta. “Look at it!” he said. “You think I can just walk on there and find my way off again with this box? There will be surveillance, security—”
    “Nova will take care of that,” said