If he's ported out, as well. [After dying, Chilton almost says, before his mouth goes dry.] His body will dematerialize. Within hours. Everything about him, except -- except his wheelchair. [After all, Gideon hadn't been ported in with one, now had he? After he had tried to torture Chilton to death in Heropa.

Chilton was armed with motive, he realized, and another cold wave flooded his frontal cortex. The parallel with Bedelia, overheard long ago through illegal means, left him nothing but chills.]

I wouldn't know.

[He didn't look back. He just ran. After those horns forcefully impaled Gideon, after the blood splattered. After the sluicing sound of opened flesh and shattered bone.]

I have everything.

[Everything he brought with him -- except two bullets, both shot through a wall, and two new casings amidst a forgotten sea of older casings. Everything but his fingerprints on the door handle, the hair and skin cells naturally discarded. All of those things came to mind.

But he wouldn't say that, not over the phone.

He had his Beretta Pico, that's what he meant. He had the gun. But the murder weapon was a pointed elk head, and still simmering in its last triumph against man.]