Half an hour after hitting a dead end with Petticat, I'm at the Oikura Police Station, seated across a desk from Chobber, who is, for better or worse, our assigned patrolman.
        It's difficult to explain the nature of the threat, and I end up feeling foolish as I struggle through the complexities. Someone (and I don't know who) is claiming to have bought our land. The Udamana land. They're claiming to have paid cash for it. "We've paid the four hundred million." That's what they say. But no such payment has been made. And, on top of that, it's impossible for the land to be sold unless the Udamana Zekotalora Trust is dissolved, which hasn't happened yet.
        "So," says Chobber, summarizing the situation, "some invisible people -- people you've never met -- they're claiming to have invisibly bought your land."
        "Right," I say. "I guess."
        It sounds very silly, put that way.
        "Yet you're still living in the Big Houses which are still sitting on the land," says Chobber.
        "Yes," I say.
        "And nobody's asked you to move?" says Chobber.
        "No," I say. "That's ... well, unthinkable. They'd have to buy the land before they could ask us to move and the land hasn't been bought yet."
        There's a long silence as Chobber sits and looks at me. I suppose he's diligently processing and reprocessing the facts that I've given him in an effort to come up with a sensible hypothesis to explain what's going on. If so, then I really think he's wasting his time.
        "Frankly," I say, "what's going on feels like, uh, maybe a crazy person ... someone who's not mentally stable. I mean, this doesn't have a logic, it's not like an extortion attempt."
        "So maybe the simple answer is that someone doesn't like you," says Chobber. "The threat is being made for the sake of making a threat and has no connection with any land deal, real or imagined."
        This makes sense. In fact, it's brilliantly simple. Someone out there hates me so they're writing threat letters without being fussed about the logic of the letters.
        "However," says Chobber, "whoever is sending these threats, they seem to know something about the background. So, who knows you're planning on selling out?"
        It's a reasonable question. Let's try to narrow the universe of possible suspects.
        "The whole world," I say. "We've had our land holdings up for sale for five years now. Advertised locally, internationally, on the Internet."
        "Then why would someone pick now to threaten you?"
        "Because a Merlercian outfit seems seriously interested," I say. "They're sending a negotiating team, probably within the next few days or so."
        And I give him a brief rundown on what I expect from the Merlercians, the team from South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions and their leader, Kitty -- or, more formally, Kilsarda Jevonica Klemp.
        "So," says Chobber, "unless I've got it wrong, you're expecting to sell out at a good price and divide up the money between your family. Why would that upset anyone? In your family, to start with."
        Plainly, we're once again questing for a logical reason for what's happening. Chobber is looking for someone with a motive to derail the deal that I'm lining up with Kitty.
        "Nobody," I say. "For us, this is good news territory. Everyone of us is one hundred percent behind the idea of selling up. Business is down, and it's getting worse rather than better."
        I then speak about the Groker-Ribnold Levy, the Doomsday Tax which is going to hit our land two years from now, taking nine percent of the value every year. We definitely want to sell the problem to someone else before that happens. We're not motivated to hold our land for the long term because that way lies poverty.
        If I wanted to be totally honest, I could go on to say that our financial situation is desperately bad. That the business is technically insolvent, and that in a world in which my legal duties triumphed over everything else, at this stage I would be filing for bankruptcy, pulling down the ruins of Udamana Holdings on the grounds that each passing day simply takes us deeper and deeper into irretrievable financial trouble. But I don't say this.
        Am I financially doomed? Maybe, maybe not. As I've confessed to Iola, Udamana Holdings is in a hole to the tune of about a hundred million zen. I'm legally responsible for that amount. Since I'm the person who has allowed Udamana Holdings to trade while technically bankrupt, I could quite possibly end up in jail unless the shortfall is made good.
        While Aunt Chariot was still alive it looked as if I was inevitably going to be at least fifty million short. But Aunt Chariot is conveniently dead. Conveniently? Despite my innocence, I feel guilty at benefiting from the fire which killed my aunt. However. With Aunt Chariot having died, there's going to be a five-way split of the five hundred million which we expect to get from the Merlercians.
        Always assuming that Melshu doesn't get a share. Most of the time I've been blandly assuming that he won't, but it's something we still have to ask the Family Court to rule on.
        All going well, then, the Merlercians are going to rescue us. True, if I get a hundred million as my share of the land sale, and if I have to pay out that same hundred million to meet my legal responsibilities, then the result is a financial disaster in that I end up owning pretty much nothing apart from my underwear. But at least I stay out of jail. At least I will never have to stand up on my hind legs in a court of law to explain why I permitted things to slide this far into disaster territory.
        That being the background, I don't take the total honesty route. I leave some things unsaid. However, it still remains the case that nobody I can think of has any logical reason to try to derail the projected sale of our lands to South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions.
        "So why would anyone threaten you?" says Chobber.
        I thought we'd abandoned the quest for a logical reason, but maybe Chobber thinks I'm holding out on him. Maybe he suspects the existence of a motivating logic which I'm wilfully withholding from him.
        And, okay, I am doing a certain amount of wilful withholding. I've decided, in my wisdom, that it's inappropriate to accuse Strom of having made an anonymous phone call to me. Because I've no proof that it was Strom who made the call. So I've left the phone call out of my story.
        "Why?" I ask. "Well, that's my question for you. The threat isn't from my family, so it must be from outside. I can't imagine what, some kind of activist group perhaps?"
        Chobber looks at me impassively and I feel silly. Even so, the idea of activist opposition is not inherently crazy. There is a downside to what we are planning, and some people do get stirred up about this kind of thing.
        If we do sell to the well-resourced foreigners from Merlercia, then they will do whatever is necessary to free up the land from the development constraints which presently make it impossible for us to escape from the quaintness of history. They will reduce our venerable patch of the ancient history of the land of Nizon to a raw scar of fresh new concrete development. Undoubtedly. (If they couldn't, then they would have no motive to buy.)
        Sell, and our ancient buildings will be demolished. The trees will be clear felled. Our piece of history will become an anonymous concrete landscape of malls, office buildings, car parks and karaoke bars.
        I say as much to Chobber.
        "Sad, undoubtedly," says Chobber, who does not sound even remotely sad. "There will be letters to the papers about it. Maybe. Maybe even a demonstration. But this is Yendo. Most of the rest of the city has already gone the same way, so it's hard to imagine anyone being outraged by it. Murderously outraged, I mean. Certainly not to the point of killing someone."
        "So what is your advice?" I say.
        The burst of "let's play this carefully" responsibility that brought me to the police station has worn off by now, and I'm regretting that I came in the first place. In retrospect, the death threat would have been less trouble if simply ignored.
        "This may be just a prank," said Chobber. "Perhaps perpetrated by an adolescent."
        He doesn't mention any particular adolescent, but there is no need for him to do so. We both know that he has two possible candidates in mind. Neither of the twins has done anything like this before, but both have the capacity to be recklessly innovative in error.
        "I suppose you're right," I say noncommittally.
        One thing is definite: I do not want us to get into a discussion about the twins. I came to the police station to talk about a threat from the outside world, not to discuss the internal dynamics of my family.
        "Some burdens are ligher if you tackle them on your own," as the proverb says, and my two turbulent children definitely fall into that category.
        "If it ends here," says Chobber, "I think we can safely regard the incident as closed. But if something else comes up, then do drop by. There are some very strange people in the world."
        And we're done, and I'm on my way, feeling that taking on the role of the sensible law-abiding citizen has been a mistake. I feel that I've fallen into error by reminding Chobber of my family's existence.
        It never occurred to me that bringing the death threat to the attention of the police would result in attention being focused on Tanto and Helena, but that is what appears to have happened.
        Chobber, I'm sure, thinks it's time the twins made the transition from junior high school to reform school, skipping high school, and a death threat investigation might just possibly give him the leverage he needs to assist that evolutionary process.
        "The policeman is your friend," I say.
        True. But he's not my children's friend. He hates them.
        I think Chobber still believes that the twins are the ones responsible for the burning down of the Zonstandarola Shrine last year, an act which takes us well across the border from high-spirited mischief into the world of pathological craziness. I'd like to think that Chobber is wrong. But, in my heart of hearts, I cannot say for certain that his suspicions are misplaced.