 
Gingezel 1: The Limit

by

Judi Suni Hall, PhD. and Donald S. Hall, PhD.

Copyright Gingezel™ Inc. 2011

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. The science fiction is set centuries in the future, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Judi Suni Hall

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Also by Judi and Don Hall, published at Smashwords:

Gingezel 2 - From Bad to Worse (being published)

*****

Chapter 1

She had to get off of this rock pit of a planet, she simply had to. Breathe in, breathe out. That's right, lean back and relax. You are safely on the space shuttle. Close your eyes. Breathe in, breathe out.

It didn't work. Dr. Mitra Kael jerked bolt upright in the shuttle seat, and her tiny bone-thin frame went rigid. Hands clenching the heavily padded arm rests, she stared unseeing at the back of the seat ahead. Her panicky blue green eyes seemed huge in a too pale face devoid of so much as a trace of make up.

Damn. That itches. Mitra removed one hand from throttling the seat arm to scratch her right collarbone where the sweat caked beige coveralls rubbed. The delay - there were always delays on Drezvir - had been endless. If it lasted another five minutes something would go wrong. There would be a message for her and she would have to stay. She couldn't do it. Another delay, another few days on this miserable rock and she'd crack.

***

Ari's smooth reassuring words played in her head. "It's only for eighteen months, Kael. The power station is your design, and if it's accepted by the Farrese Mining Guild on Drezvir its success is guaranteed. You have to be there in person. It's just a liaison role. With our technology transfer agreement they'll do all the work."

That had been exactly seventeen days eleven hours and twenty-three minutes short of three years ago, and she had never worked so hard in her life. Dr. Ari Dellmaice. Mitra enunciated every syllable of his title and name with distaste under her breath. When she saw him again she intended to tell one Dr. Ari Dellmaice she only used one word anymore. Turnkey.

Those idiot Farrese couldn't build an outhouse, much less a power station. Not of course that they would know what an outhouse was. That was one of the advantages of having a historian father who was more interested in the day-to-day life of an ancient people than the grand events that shaped history. You learned about all sorts of irrelevant things, like outhouses. They were Terran primitive wooden structures with a pit below, designed to serve as toilets where sanitation systems didn't exist. And she would swear to it, these Farrese couldn't build something that primitive.

Mitra looked out the window at the barren landscape, terrifyingly primitive in itself. Drezvir had been opened for settlement a mere two years before she had arrived. Now, five years after being opened up it was still largely untouched and was likely to stay that way since it was just marginally habitable. It was both too young geologically and too far from its star to provide a comfortable environment for any but the most determined life forms. There was an oxygen atmosphere, but it was so thin that you needed a trickle tube under your nose just to walk between any of the sealed habitats not connected by the plastic tubes everyone called snakes.

There was water, but it was largely frozen in the ice caps. From space she had seen one of the polar ice caps. It was fair sized. And she had counted three small seas, but the overall impression had been a reddish ball with purple and grey streaks and dark swirling dust clouds. Not once in her stay had a raindrop hit her window. Those seas were so far away from the mountain range where the mining colony was sited that they might as well have not existed for all the impact they had on the settlement's climate.

Mitra's hand moved on to itch the bristles of dark hair above her ear as she lapsed into her favorite fantasy. She imagined herself standing, just standing, in a steamy hot needle strong shower until her back unknotted. Water was so severely rationed she felt like she hadn't been clean in three years. A bath, a proper up to your chin soaking bath, was unthinkable. What the habitats had was a miserly trickle of tepid water called a shower. All had a timer. There were no exceptions for rank, money, or influence. After getting caught a few times still half soapy she had learned to really move it, and to feel dirty. Well, that was one fantasy she could indulge in as soon as she was somewhere more civilized.

Some of her other fantasies might take a little more doing, like a decent romance. Mitra relaxed a little and smiled a half smile remembering the subcontractor who had been her sexual partner late in her first year here. He was tall, blond, slender, funny and fun. She'd known him off and on since design began on her hybrid power station. The interlude had lasted exactly three days, then he had left Drezvir. Smart man. It had been a good idea once, but only once. On his later visits they had stuck to business.

Still, she knew she couldn't complain about the celibacy. For once Ari was right. It really had been too small, closed, and puritan a community for all but the most scrupulously professional behavior. Her mind jumped to his rather intimidating president's office at Dellmaice Power Systems on Pendrae. The large corner office was all glass, brushed metal, and syncrete. Two glass walls looked out over the Dellmaice Power Systems industrial park. The two interior walls were a hologallery of Dellmaice Power Systems installations on various planets. There were no personal, human touches. No rugs, no plants, no artwork, no holograms of family. The only softening touch, if it counted as a softening touch, was dark wine cushions on the metals chairs.

The office suited its occupant. Ari was a hard, aggressive, domineering man. He made sure his company had the best power systems on the market by hiring the brightest, most competent engineers, scientists, and software engineers - then driving them mercilessly. He kept them with two simple hooks. The first was money. No one matched or tried to match his salaries. The second was equipment. You always had the best to work with, and there were never time-wasting arguments over funding when you needed something. Mitra detested the man but would never consider working anywhere else.

The last time she had been in that office was to sign her contract to oversee the installation of her hybrid power station on Drezvir, and to provide the technology transfer that would allow the mining colony to bring additional units on line themselves. She could still see him sitting there, heavy boned and lean. His dark brown hair was almost black, framing a strong featured face. He wore it short and his hairline above the brow was straight across. His eyes were light brown, his skin lightly tanned. For once those eyes had been unreadable. Usually there was interest or anger or curiosity. That time, nothing.

All the same Ari had known exactly how to get her to agree, he always did. First and foremost there had been money. He liked to lead with that persuasive note. In this case it had been a significant isolation bonus for each week she was on Drezvir, plus an equally significant early completion bonus to ensure she wouldn't dawdle for isolation pay. As if anyone would dawdle here.

The son-of-a-bitch had actually had the nerve to say, "Think of it as a well-paid rest after finishing your design."

Hah. Some rest.

Then there was the exciting prospect of actually seeing the unit built so soon, without the delays there sometimes were between design completion and finding the right client. Finally, because he knew such things really did matter to Mitra, he had talked a lot of garbage he didn't mean about how much of an improvement in life her hybrid unit would bring to the settlement.

Color stained Mitra's cheeks as she was suddenly back in his office.

***

Mitra knew she hadn't made this negotiation easy, but they had reached the point where they both knew she would go. She waited, expecting Ari to shove the contract over for her to sign, but he didn't.

He sat there looking his most impenetrable, his large well-manicured hands carefully holding the compad.

"There's one more thing."

She didn't like his tone.

Ari didn't wait for a response before continuing. "I don't want any, I repeat any, romantic - or sexual - involvements with anyone on Drezvir. Do you hear me Kael?"

Even for Ari that was out of line. Scarlet cheeked, she said in what she hoped was an even, professional tone, "are you looking for a human rights suit?"

Ari ignored that. He always ignored anything that was a possible deflection. "It's a small place, Kael. You get your private and professional lives mixed up and messed up, and I'll have to pull you. That would cost."

That was a cheap shot. She had only mixed up her private and professional lives once, and it hadn't been her fault it had gone wrong. After all, lots of couples shared careers. But she and Mark hadn't been one of them. Eventually Ari had been forced to choose. Her. But Mark had been a damned good engineer too, and Ari was obviously still sore. Mitra maintained a dignified silence apparently staring at the desk but watching Ari through her lashes. The silence extended itself and became strained.

Ari eventually sighed and shrugged. "All right. Let's try this. You behave yourself, and stick it out to the very last day without me having to pull you, and you get double your isolation pay. The completion bonus too - if you pull that one off."

That offer sounded warning bells. Ari paid all right, but you earned every credit twice. Mitra thought about it. The offer obviously meant he expected her to hate every minute and quit after a few months. He was probably right about hating it, she thought with amusement. But not about leaving the job undone. That was too much money to walk away from.

Besides, the idea of going to the Farr sector was intriguing. The Farrese had isolated themselves from the rest of the galaxy, and contact had only been re-established about the time she was born. Her youth had been full of fictional holodramas set in an imagined Farr sector. Some reality had slowly seeped out, but the sector was still largely a mystery. Even her father Chelan didn't know much about it.

"Am I supposed to sign a celibacy clause?"

He ignored that too. "Let's say I believe in a carrot and stick approach."

Mitra smiled. "Big carrot, what's the stick?"

There was no answering smile on Ari's face. Looking his stoniest he said, "screw this one up Kael, and you're out of here."

***

Mitra looked at the ceiling screen. 'Flight status: waiting permission to launch.' That was ridiculous. They were the only spaceship at the Drezvir spaceport. It wasn't exactly like dozens of shuttles, liners, freighters, and yachts were in queue. Drezvir had one shuttle and it went to Sinnia, the larger moon, twice a week. She looked at the time strip on her wrist cuff. Make that seventeen days, eleven hours, and twenty minutes short of three years. Well, Mitra thought, she'd pulled it off and stuck it out to the last day. There was no early completion bonus of course, but just the double isolation pay was substantial, and today it had been credited to her account. That brought a smile as she thought of the fun she would have spending it.

*****

Chapter 2

Ari Dellmaice sat back in his chair and relaxed. He expected it was only a first order approximation to relaxing. It had been so long now that relaxing was a lost art. Even this try felt good though. The transmission had just come in from Drezvir with the last signatures. The hybrid power station was complete.

Kael had actually stuck it out. He had really had his doubts. Even though she had been his best bet, that kind of long tedious haul was not her style. Convince her to do something and, if you could keep her focused, she'd work herself half to death. But she was quixotic. He'd never figured out what made her tick except money, but that was good enough. It had worked.

She ran on pure adrenaline and tended to go from one bright idea to the next at a dead run. Every now and again it meant he had to bring someone in to finish up for her. Ari didn't mind when Kael was working on the R & D side. Her concepts were always well defined and documented, and he'd just as soon she captured the next idea and let someone else do the tedious finish up work anyway. His only real worry there had been that someday she would really overshoot and try to do something that wasn't feasible.

Ari had honestly thought she had done that with the hybrid. The speed of her load following response had him very nervous, and he'd been in the power systems business long enough to not get nervous easily. He had insisted they put the name plate rating officially giving the peak power output of the reactor at 6% below the performance she claimed, just in case they had to back off the design. He had also had Elin Kubo do the safety system responses. Kubo was their most experienced safety system designer and he had to admit she'd backed Kael all the way. Still, he'd been relieved when he'd been on Drezvir four months earlier for the first approach to half power, and every last parameter tested out. And now it was finished, up and operating above plate rating.

There certainly had been a fair bit of kicking and screaming along the way. Kael hadn't liked a single one of the materials or equipment downgrades Rostin had insisted on once the project was too far along for any of them to back out. Ari smiled, softening the stress lines that had become a permanent part of his strong featured face these last two disastrous years. Kael always wanted platinum all the way. But none of the downgrades had been bad engineering, and the cost advantage to the Farrese Mining Guild over their total number of units would be more than triple the cost of the delays. He intended to adopt a few of them himself, not that Kael would be pleased. Well, that was her problem.

Yes, it looked like his luck was finally turning around. The hybrid unit was generating even more interest than he had expected, and Ari had expected a good market. The total power output was small enough that they had targeted the market to largely be new or isolated settlements or industrial complexes on planets where the cost of buying peak power off the grid was outrageous. But he was getting a lot of inquiries from the utilities providing planetary base loads too. Many of them liked the idea of having something like the hybrid to come online fast to handle random spikes in demand - freak storms, unanticipated maintenance on larger units, and such. All they needed to see was a quarter year of reliable operation of this prototype and they would firm up those inquiries.

Swiveling slightly, Ari looked at the row of holograms of the units they'd built on Plenata as Dellmaice Power Systems' first big off-planet installation and his smile broadened. The way things always seemed to go - all bad or all good - that bastard Windegren and his crowd of professional troublemakers were finally getting off Plenata for a terraforming job somewhere. He didn't care where, as long as it took a long time and kept them away from their home base. Another four months of delays on the new Plenata stations, another complete set of environmental hearings, and he and his on-planet partner would have had to pull out. Ari didn't even want to think about it, or he'd be on that damned ulcer medication again. That project had been on and off for years now. It wasn't that he was anti-environmental. Hell, he worked with Windegren's mother just fine. But the kid was a pain in the ass, and good riddance to wherever he was going.

Ari wondered what it felt like to have your kid turn out an embarrassment like that. He thought of his own boys, wondering how they would turn out, not that you could tell yet. All you could really tell was that Erlin looked more like him, while Sander looked more like their mother. Erlin had his dark brown, almost black hair, the straight hairline at the brow, light brown eyes, and in adolescence would probably end up with his strong features - even the nose. Too bad about the nose. Erlin would end up in for reconstruction too. Sander had Naura's light brown hair and softer features.

But as for how they would turn out, who knew? Sander, the younger, was a bloody minded kid still at the push-wheeled-tanks-around-the-floor-and-run-killer-robots stage. Erlin, the older, was quiet and liked to have help building space stations with his construction sets and to throw a ball around the yard. Not that there had been much time for either in the past eighteen months. Maybe now they'd correct that. The kids were interesting now, exploring what they wanted to be, and that changed daily. If they'd been watching sports, it was an Octagla player or a Genie pilot. Last week when the neighbor's dog had cut itself, they spent quite a few days wanting to be vets.

Enough. Things were better, not fine. The megacity unit project was still a mess. He picked up his compad and called up the next file. Maybe tonight he'd be home by 9:00. Naura would like that. It was usually 11:00.

*****

Chapter 3

While the space shuttle was waiting to launch, it had slowly turned to dusk outside. This was the time Mitra liked best on Drezvir. The endless folds of reddish stone and the bits of grit they called soil here, softened by just the odd streak of gray or green rock, or reddish lichen in low spots, was harsh and unsettling in daylight. With dusk the colors muted into lovely purplish shades. She twisted in her seat to get a better look, firmly telling herself to not get nostalgic just because she was leaving. As she watched, the lights went on in the habitat area, so many tiny pricks of brilliance against a distant hill. Mitra felt a surge of pride. Those were her lights.

Until her hybrid system was up and running they had only had small-scale solar power severely limited by dust problems, imported batteries, imported fuel cells, and a small generator run on ridiculously expensive imported fuel. Power and light had been doled out in as miserly a fashion as the water, most going to the mines that would make the planet prosper, assuming it would ever prosper. Mitra doubted it would.

Drezvir had been the perfect application for her new hybrid system. The magma layer was relatively near the surface under these hills, and it had been possible to have the mines extended down to a level where a good geothermal base load could be extracted. On top of that power base was her new reactor designed especially for load following on a very fast response time. That was exactly what they needed for their mining operations. Mitra thought of her father again. Chelan had told her the term reactor was traditional back to the archaic Terran days of the more primitive forms of fissionable fuels, and later fusion fuels. Anyway, the term had stuck.

Ouch! A stab of pain down her right calf brought Mitra's mind back to the here and now from its academic digression and she straightened in her seat. The seat was a standard ergonomic design, and if you were average size, or a quartile to either side, it was heaven. If you were in the 90th percentile on the small side, it was hell. In a reasonably short time your lower legs were numb from pressure at the knee, the adjustable lumbar support could not be moved to anywhere near the right spot, and at the lowest setting the cushioning for the neck hit the back of your head and pushed it forward.

Mitra totally released the strapping. They obviously weren't going anywhere. She shifted to glare down the aisle at the blonde bulk of Haran Barloth, the Dellmaice Power Systems lawyer. He was looking so obviously an Outsider in his city suit. Haran had fussed about the final signing off of the power station and had cost them the shuttle four days ago to hitch a ride on a pharmaceutical space liner, to say nothing of ruining their leaving on a Dellmaice Power Systems ship two weeks ago with the rest of the attached staff. Now they were going to be stuck on a Mining Guild freighter to the first space station. Haran hadn't listened to her about what that would be like. He'd learn. Fast.

To ease her leg Mitra perched forward on the edge of her seat, accidentally bumping the burly miner beside her.

"Sorry."

"No problem." He returned his attention to the back of the seat in front of him.

Mitra did not try to extend the conversation. He wouldn't reply. With the exception of a few friends she had made through the mine crew who had installed the geothermal unit, they still all treated her as an Outsider. Direct questions were answered in as few syllables as possible and eye contact was avoided at all costs. Mitra stole a sideways glance at the middle aged man wearing coveralls to match hers. He would probably sit staring at that seat cover for the entire trip.

Nervously Mitra ran her fingers through the centimeter and a half long bristles from her haircut three days ago, then swore under her breath. That little souvenir of Drezvir would take a long time to undo. Mitra had always worn her dark brown hair shoulder length or a little longer. The first so-called shower had made it terribly clear that wasn't going to work here, she simply couldn't shampoo and shower in the same time interval. So for a while she had alternated. Shower one day, shampoo the next. But after a while, sweating as hard as she was at this 'desk' job, she was starting to stink on that regime.

Washing her hair in a basin of water hadn't been an option. The only source of a whole basin full of water was the same metered system as the shower. Dry shampoo, every last one available on Drezvir, caused allergies. So did the depilatories. Maybe there had been enough genetic drift in the Farr section that hypoallergenic for them wasn't the same as the rest of the galaxy. She didn't know. That distracted Mitra. Could that much genetic drift happen in less than tens of thousands of years? She'd have to look that up when she got to somewhere with decent hyperweb access.

That was an interesting thing about the Farr sector. They never got the idea of a hyperweb. Now of course they used the galactic hyperweb, but very unwillingly - essentially only for business and news.

Finally in desperation she had shaved her hair completely off, a solution fairly common on Drezvir with both sexes. It was great but she resented the time it took to shave daily. So Mitra had ended up with her current solution. Have the hair dresser crop it off to about a centimeter and a half, and let it grow until it was trouble in the shower then crop it again. It wasn't bad as long as she never looked in a mirror, and it worked, so Mitra just hadn't thought about it.

But today she had made the mistake of taking a good look at her appearance and imagined arriving at some sophisticated space station. Oh how she longed to have hair down at her shoulders, to be able to toss it, to look in the mirror and see it frame her face, earrings peaking in and out of view. A face with makeup. Well, what wasn't going to happen wasn't going to happen. The crew on the mine freighter would never notice the difference, and maybe there would be time to buy a scarf at the space station.

A businesslike voice without a hint of apology in it apologized over the voice system for the continuing delays. Mitra felt her stomach tighten. She was trapped here forever. That's ridiculous she told herself. Distract yourself. Just think, you'll be home in a few days. How long had it been since she'd been home? Five years? No, that wasn't right. Her mother, Roween, had come to see her en route to a biophysics conference where she was chairing a session five years ago. It was the year before that she'd used holidays to visit Chelan on his sixtieth birthday. The sudden pang of guilt this reckoning brought on drove the panic about staying right out of her mind, but it was no improvement. Still, what else could she have done? She had been so busy with the final design of the hybrid system, then there had been this stupid, stupid, technology transfer.

Idiot, Mitra told herself. You're supposed to be distracting yourself. The voice system said something she didn't quite catch, but it gave her an idea. She was reasonably fluent in three or four of the galactic standard languages and could scrape by in a handful more. It was not necessary of course, because the microprocessor ear canal inserts would provide almost instantaneous translation of all recognized languages, and even did reasonably well at keeping up with slang. But it was nicer to have the lips matching what you were hearing, and you felt more sophisticated being multilingual. She would program her auditory unit for Plenataese, the language of her childhood planet and get her ear back. Mitra had used StanGalLan, the standard galactic language, for general conversation, and StanGalSci, the standard scientific language, while working on Drezvir just to be sure they understood her. While her translator handled Farrese, she'd picked it up over her stay here to the stage where she understood speech, but she was sure her accent was still off.

The reprogramming took all of three minutes and it had only taken that long because her nervous fingers had tapped in the wrong sequence on her wrist cuff twice. It probably would have been easier to haul her compad out of her shoulder bag, but she liked to use her wrist cuff when travelling. It was a graduation present from Roween when she got her doctorate. She'd upgraded the software she didn't know how many times, the processor three times, and the screen once, but she still loved the cuff itself. It felt and looked like a piece of designer jewelry. The heavy ornate band was patterned in a wide enough range of metals to guarantee it brought the security guards scrambling at every metal detector she went through. This invariably happened because she always forgot she was wearing it and didn't hand it to security staff. Mitra resettled the cuff further up her arm.

*****

Chapter 4

So much for that distraction. What was it she had been thinking? Those idiot Farrese couldn't build an outhouse? That was it. Now, that had promise as a distracting idea. A slight, almost wicked smile touched Mitra's lips, making her look remarkably like her brother Niki. She settled back in her seat as well as she could, tucking her legs up underneath her like a child. What would happen first?

With the money grubbing Planet Manager, Olan Rostin, even if she was proposing an already completed design with no options, there would be days of debate. Each feature would take quite a bit of explaining even if it was something completely obvious like a door, since their chief engineer Durstin Fallor was unbelievably slow, and he wasn't even Farrese. He was an Outsider like her. Then, when they finally understood the purpose of the features, the contract would be written. At least that would give her three or more weeks vacation while lawyers did their thing. Then, a real downer, it would be on planet work time.

The first hurdle to actually do some work would be to obtain a construction permit. To initiate the process there would be at least 12 dozen forms to fill out. Of course there would have been no work done in advance on environmental licensing even though the site was already chosen and purchased. The grin retouched her lips. With an outhouse, that could be quite interesting on Drezvir, with its rather peculiar social structure that didn't seem to have decided yet exactly what level of government had what jurisdiction. While everyone would acknowledge the necessity of the outhouse, no one would want to be responsible for it and its associated hazardous wastes. It would be made clear, although it was not part of the contract, that providing the environmental license was her problem.

That would be scramble time, since Dellmaice Power Systems did not handle environmental licensing. It varied too much from world to world, and within the local jurisdictions on worlds. They always worked with their local partner on the issue. But eventually someone who would work in the Farr sector would be found. The original site although perfectly adequate would be rejected. About eight more sites would be assessed. Finally, just about the time when it looked like it was turning into a serious political issue, to say nothing of the lack of an outhouse being a problem, the least desirable site would be deemed acceptable.

Materials would be the next problem. Nothing specified in the contract would be available, and none of the substitutions suggested by the Farrese, like a variety of woods for the seat sure to splinter and cause slivers, would be anything she could professionally approve. Which raised an interesting question now that she thought about it. Chelan had sworn outhouses were made of wood, but that was ridiculous. Wood was a luxury item. On Terra trees with construction quality wood had been an endangered species for centuries, and a lot of the planets including Plenata did not have any suitable trees. Roween had done at least 4 contracts Mitra remembered trying to modify hardwood trees to various planets. Mitra was reasonably sure Chelan had been talking about Terra, not Rujjipet. But if all trees there except a few weed trees had been endangered species for centuries, surely they must have been scarce even at the time Chelan told her about. Mitra meditated on the likelihood her father's research was wrong until she got bored.

Back to the Farrese building an outhouse. Ari had proven to be as money grubbing as Rostin. That had been a surprise to Mitra. Back at Dellmaice working R&D she had got the impression that money had never mattered. But apparently construction was different to him. He would make her take every suggestion seriously. There would be endless delays while alternatives she suggested were argued about and largely rejected. Any accepted would mean even more paper work. There would be endless screaming by Rostin in the cases where she had to put her foot down and insist on the original materials, as these would inevitably have to be imported at an above-average cost.

Mitra spent a few minutes in reverie wondering exactly how you did construct an outhouse, then the small smile played across Mitra's lips again. She was starting to enjoy the mind game. Her head relaxed into the cushions as well as it could and her eyes closed. Finally there would be construction. First, there would be hassles about the location and orientation on the site. At least three of the Farrese staff would insist that it should be placed so that the gale force winds that perpetually swept across the barren landscape would rip the door out of your hands.

Once she finally talked sense into them, and it was time to actually do some hands on work, all of the first-class experienced tradespeople guaranteed to be supplied by the Farrese would either be totally incompetent - she paused looking for a stronger word than idiots - or scared kids. The carpenters would have no idea of how to even do something as simple as a mitered joint. Ari had tried to tell her she was just seeing cultural differences, that there had been time for the Farrese to develop their own approach to technology. Well, all she would say was she sincerely hoped they mined better than they built power stations, and she was glad he had finally let her bring in Outsiders for a lot of the work.

Even after her three years here, Mitra had no accurate idea of how good they were at mining. Except for the totally unavoidable trips down to install the geothermal unit, she had tactfully but firmly avoided finding out by pleading a non existent claustrophobia. She had been terrified of finding some engineering slip up that just cried out to be corrected and ending up spending another - who knew how many - years fixing it. They had believed the claustrophobia story too. The geothermal unit had been the first engineering they had tried together, and she hadn't been used to the Farrese style yet. She'd been in a constant state of nerves, alternating between literally biting her tongue and snapping everyone's head off. By the time they got above ground and on to the reactor part of the power installation, she was resigned to their way of doing things and she was much calmer. Everyone had noticed the difference and decided she had terrible claustrophobia.

This was too unpleasant a return to reality, and her mind shied back to the outhouse. Construction would end up ridiculously behind schedule and accelerated work shifts, and to be honest sometimes short cuts, would be necessary. This would require even more paper work, and result in even slower delivery dates than they would have had if it had been done correctly to start with. It would be completed at last though, and then would come the commissioning tests. She could think of a few people she would like involved in those, like Durstin Fallor and Olan Rostin.

*****

Chapter 5

Dr. Durstin Fallor looked across the desk at Olan Rostin. He saw a mid-height man with gray, thinning hair, and a nondescript face that would have been plump in a less rigorous life than had been Rostin's lot with the Mining Guild. He tried to judge Rostin's mood, but that was never easy. Aware that he was being scrutinized in turn, Durstin let his gaze roam around the crowded and slightly shabby office. With the prefab habitats on Drezvir there was no way to denote rank by size or luxury. But everyone knew that this was where Drezvir was run from, and Olan Rostin was the man who ran it.

Rostin said genially, "so you have your very own power station now Durstin." The project was finished at last. Dr. Kael and Haran Barloth were the last from the Dellmaice Power Systems staff to leave, and the shuttle would be departing at any time.

Durstin nodded and said sincerely, "it's one truly beautiful piece of engineering. It will do everything we want."

"I hope you know how to run it," Rostin said in a light bantering tone, but just the slightest hint of worry crept in.

Durstin could have taken offense but he was amused. "Has my little act started to convince you too?"

His round face settled into the sullen expression Mitra knew so well. His eyes seemed to lose their luster, and he let a slight frown crease his brow. He pushed his tousle of light brown hair off his forehead and said in a tone that was slightly aggrieved, slightly petty, and noticeably stupider. "I really don't see why you said that. I'm trying to understand your point of view, but you're really going to have to explain."

Durstin suppressed a smile at the expression on Rostin's face and reverted to his normal voice, his intelligent eyes alive with amusement.

"Trust me Mr. Rostin. Since you called me in to consult on your energy requirements for biohazard containment I haven't been wrong once. You thought that to get the power you needed to fuse those rock faces you'd have to wait. You weren't in the financial position to build enough traditional power units to cover the needs from base load. That route would have taken you another six years, maybe more.

"We both know you don't break even yet on ores. And the type of waste you want to put into non-fused containment in the worked-out mines has been worth a lot less since the shift to the new type of on-planet incineration they developed on Pendrae. Believe me, the value will drop further.

"Dangerous biohazards are where your money will come from." Durstin was serious now. "That little load following beauty will let you do it. Why, it's already running more than 6% above the plate rating! And when I told you to go to Dellmaice and ask to be the trial site, it was still just barely more than a dream in Mitra's head."

Rostin nodded, wanting to trust this Outsider, but not sure he did even after years of collaboration.

"And who," Durstin continued, "told you just exactly what kind of deal you could renegotiate when Dellmaice got himself into trouble over those delayed projects? You knew he was in a tight spot, but you didn't know the power industry enough to know what it was worth. You were prepared to sell your position way short.

"So trust me now. That reactor will do exactly what you want, and I know how to get just what you need out of it." Durstin's smile was satisfied. "My little act worked Mr. Rostin. Mitra can't stand to think of anyone not understanding what she's talking about. If she thinks you don't, she keeps coming at it in different ways. So we have the technology transfer we paid for, and I know how to run your hybrid unit and oversee construction of additional units. But more importantly I know the reason for every design decision she made. Oh, you'll get your additional units all right. All your additional units." He allowed his smile to broaden to a grin, "all the same, I bet that's one lady who's glad to see the last of me."

Rostin nodded. He hoped Durstin was not overestimating himself. Durstin was a young man, full of confidence. If this project didn't work he'd shrug and move on to another, but that wasn't the case for him. This was his third position as administrator of a mining planet. The first had been as an assistant General Manager on an established planet when he was as young and ambitious as Durstin. The second had been on his own, on a new planet. It had been much more hospitable than Drezvir and the ore base more diverse. Even so, it had been a long haul to establish the mines. Still, he had done it and done it well.

That had led to the offer to take on Drezvir. It was, had been, and would continue to be, a rough job. But a few of the ores they eked out in minute quantities were almost priceless in the current high-tech industries and the geological assessments showed the potential for large deposits. Olan knew though that Drezvir would be his last planet. He would be eligible for retirement before the mining colony was totally prosperous and stable, and he intended to take the retirement. He would get the colony as far along as he could before then, but someone else could finish the job. Rostin also intended to add every increment he could to the bottom line for Drezvir because he intended to retire comfortably. That was the way the Mining Guild worked at his level. There were base salaries but they were minimal. The rest was a percentage of net. It kept you on your toes.

He asked Durstin "Do you know yet when we will shift to our on-planet fuel?" That was the next big step.

"Roughly seven weeks."

Olan nodded. "The other thing we'll have to start working on is picking up some Outsider engineers for the additional units." He had planned to use Farrese personnel exclusively, but these Outsiders were strange engineers. It took one of them to understand their systems, so they had ended up leaning heavily on Dellmaice Power Systems for building this prototype. But you spent a fortune to bring an Outsider engineer out to a place like this so why hire someone a day before you had to? No one on the Farrese staff was a bad engineer, but they weren't Outsiders.

"There's always Dellmaice Power Systems."

They laughed.

*****

Chapter 6

The steward paused in the aisle and looked at Mitra half dozing in her seat. He knew who she was of course without consulting his passenger list. Dr. Kael was the closest they had to a celebrity on Drezvir. Closest to one they were likely to have, for that matter. He hesitated a moment, taking a good look. He knew what she looked like of course. You couldn't watch the local Drezvir news up on the space station and not. But somehow the best holograms weren't the same as live. For one thing, he had no idea she was so tiny. She had always seemed so full of energy that he had assumed she had a size to match. But curled up there like his eight year old daughter she looked little, and rather vulnerable.

He apologized to the sturdy miner sitting beside her, reached past him and shook her shoulder.

Mitra's eyes flew open at once, and she froze, heart racing. This was it. The man said something totally unintelligible to her brain that hadn't shifted to Plenataese yet. She stared, then managed to stammer "Pardon?"

"Would you please strap yourself in Dr. Kael? We'll be taking off momentarily." She had obviously been more out cold than he thought.

Mitra managed to process the words at the same time that her bones felt the change in vibration frequency. They were leaving. She was free. She rewarded the steward with a brilliant smile, untucked her legs, and reached for the webbing.

The steward smiled back politely, nodded, and moved on, increasing his pace as the vibration frequency continued to change. He needed to strap himself in as well.

***

For once Mitra was totally unaware both of the restraining webbing and of the discomfort of being forced solidly back into a seat that didn't support any of the right places. All she was aware of was the fact that she was free. Nothing could stop her now. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could bring her back to this planet. The mining freighter was already loaded and waiting at the moon base. She shot another dirty look at Haran. What was he thinking of travelling on a mining freighter? Still, they were leaving. That was what counted. All they had to do was disembark from the shuttle and transfer. Customs and immigration had been dealt with on Drezvir. She was free.

How long would it take the shuttle to reach Sinnia, the larger of Drezvir's two moons? She should have asked the steward, but it was too late now.

Sinnia was one thing she would miss. It was significantly larger than the average habitable planet's moon, and in an orbit slightly closer than average. This combined with the fact its mate Creggett was also sizable for a second moon made for complex and substantial tidal forces. They weren't that much of a problem with the minimal free water, but once there were oceans and a more complex atmospheric structure there promised to be real trouble. Whoever terraformed Drezvir had better be good or they'd unleash some phenomenal storms. The tidal forces affected the crust too, of course, and she expected that in the long run those forces combined with the geological instability of a young planet would cause the miners a lot of grief. Still, she had to admit their seismologists were a cut above the rest of the crowd down there. Down there. It had a nice past-tense ring to it. Good bye Drezvir. Hello lovely Sinnia.

Sinnia really was lovely. Viewing through the permanently suspended particulates in Drezvir's atmosphere gave it the richest red shade, even when it was directly overhead. When there had been a particularly good blow and they were essentially in a dust cloud of the reddish soil, if you could call it soil, Sinnia turned a darker shade. Mitra didn't think she knew the words to describe it, but she was quite sure a fashion designer would give a fortune to reproduce those shades.

A fashion designer. Those were the sorts of words she had refused to let herself think of, but now she could indulge herself. She was out of here. No more constraints. She could do what she wanted where she wanted, at least for a while. Mitra was still a little vague on the what - beyond getting clean. All of the luxuries of life were too long ago to really remember. But she was very sure of the where. She was going to Gingezel. The very name made her skin prickle. Gingezel, the pleasure planet to top all pleasure planets.

Unbidden, a half remembered quotation Chelan had taught her as a child swam to the surface of her mind. 'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree, where Alph, the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man.' It was in English, one of the ancient Terran languages. She even knew the author, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, because to her the syllables of those exotic names ran as pleasurably off the tongue as the quote. She didn't doubt there would be pleasure domes, but now in a sudden fit of whimsy she wondered if Gingezel ran to caverns measureless to man.

***

Gingezel had been discovered, what three, maybe four years before poor Drezvir? It had pretty much captured the imagination of the galaxy and was still constantly in the news.

Mitra remembered the buzz that went around when it was discovered. It was the almost perfect habitable planet. If a student in stellar cartography had been told to write an essay describing the ideal planet for human habitation, they would have got top marks describing Gingezel. It was optimal, and therefore average. That sounded contradictory but it wasn't really. It was the averageness that made it so comfortable. If it had been too young or too old a planet, too close or too far from the star, too large or too small, it would have had problems like Drezvir. But it wasn't. All of the essential parameters were within 2% of optimal. The land-water distribution was both attractive and comfortable. The climate varied without undue storms.

Perhaps most important, the well-developed life forms had evolved with terran-compatible-amino-acid based genomes. The diversity included remarkably few that were exceptionally hostile to man. The plants were interesting and a reasonable number edible. The animal life was diverse and fairly far along an evolutionary scale but not far enough for competing sentience. Perfection.

Mitra had joined the rest of the galaxy wondering when it would be opened for colonization and wondering how the lucky few would be chosen. Usually this wasn't a problem. For marginal planets like Drezvir, the problem was the opposite - that of creating interest. For tolerable ones, the numbers willing to take on the very hard work and risk were usually about right. But for this gem? Mitra had personally expected a lottery amongst the applicants.

Then came the shocker. Gingezel, until that point unnamed, would not be opened for settlement. For the first time in history a habitable planet had been purchased. The consortium who had somehow assembled the truly astronomical sum involved had also bought the right to name the planet - fair enough at that price. The public had been indignant, the exploratory agency and the galactic governments unusually stony faced and unrepentant. This money would fund additional stellar exploration for the foreseeable future. The planet was now Gingezel and would be developed as a pleasure planet, one planet-wide resort. How this would or would not proceed was totally in the hands of the owners. End of discussion.

Except of course it wasn't. Editorials of the sour grapes variety by those who could never dream of affording Gingezel had carried on for some time, as did threats of class action suits by innumerable groups who had never seriously considered settling a new world until the opportunity was denied them. But gradually the protests had lost momentum to the carefully orchestrated publicity campaign of this mysterious consortium. The unterraformed natural beauties of the planet had filled the news. Then came plans for cities.

By the time actual construction started, Mitra was on Drezvir, and like everyone there she was glued to any broadcast brought in that mentioned Gingezel. It was so unlike Drezvir. The one had everything, the other had nothing.

There weren't many broadcasts with the limited hyperweb access, but she remembered watching as the most capable among those who had applied to settle immigrated to build the cities, start the farms, and fish the terraformed oceans. A resort planet needs infrastructure and food, and for it to stay delightful it needs the best. The farmers chosen were the small scale organic experts, vintners who could produce excellent wines from hand cultivated grapes planted in terraformed soil, the market gardeners who kept to methods perfected before recorded time, the cattlemen who raised small grass fed herds and the small dairy men who competed to produce unique cheeses. If these practices would not produce the volumes needed, there were imports available as there would have to be at first anyway. But it was quality without damaging the planet that counted for Gingezel itself. And so it was at each stage.

She remembered sitting on a hard bench in the break room off the reactor hall. The tiny screen on her compad had shown the first calf born on Gingezel being licked by an amused looking mother, surprisingly diminutive for the milk producing record she held. Mitra had been totally exhausted that day, and it had still been morning. She had take off her hard hat, unlaced her turquoise safety boots, and trying not to taste it, had drunk her powdered milk shake with its artificial flavorings. There was not an indigenous animal on Drezvir beyond some ocean life at a fairy shrimp level, and they were totally alien in their genome.

***

Mitra could feel the thrill down her spine. She was going to Gingezel. Her mind went back to the day early on when she had sat on her kitchen chair at the fold down tabletop in the tiny one-room living area she called home and there was that news special showing imported vines and fruit trees being planted in soil especially adjusted for them with minimal damage to the indigenous ecosystem. That was no small trick for whoever was terraforming. Usually the terraformers didn't have that problem. On most planets they were trying to establish dominance of Terran compatible life forms. It had to have been Beti who got this job. No one else could terraform like she did.

Then the virtues of an indigenous pear-like fruit had been extolled. Mitra suppressed a sigh. She probably wouldn't have a chance to eat any fresh fruit until she got home to Plenata. The liners would serve space pacs, and her connection at the Z7L space stations was as tight as she could safely make it. She was so hungry for real fruit. Just thinking about it made her jaws ache to crunch anything tree grown.

Not that they didn't try in the hydroponics shed, but not everything would grow that way. Also there was the constraint of feeding the 3786 colonists population using minimal space, resources, and money. So they specialized in fast-growing small plants like the greens and the three kinds of legume sprouts that appeared in every salad. They also had strawberries that were better than Terran, and a kind of mushy little purple berry. Lila was really proud of the strawberries. Her shift took care of them. But right now Mitra never wanted to see one again, Farrese or Terran.

Mitra felt her stomach tighten, and it had nothing to do with the turbulence they were going through, although it was alarming. She shouldn't have thought about food. She had almost got herself into serious trouble on this score with what Lilla had gigglingly dubbed 'The Chicken Wars'. How would she have survived three years here without Lilla?

Lilla Clinder was a slender quiet blonde who worked in the hydroponics complex. Her husband Blayne was a rock face miner, and that was how she had met Lilla. Blayne was the second in command for the crew that had done the installation of the geothermal units and had introduced them. They had become instant friends.

Well, The Chicken Wars probably were funny to Lilla as an observer, Mitra acknowledged, but they had almost got her fired. Mitra was not by philosophy or temperament a vegetarian, and she detested the both the symbiofish and the powdered protein supplements the colony survived on. The symbiofish from the hydroponics complex were tasteless and oily. The powdered protein didn't remotely resemble food. She understood perfectly well the philosophy of not introducing large contaminants like cattle or small contaminants like bacteria until the terraforming program with its checks and balances was in place. She also knew the Mining Guild had placed terraforming below building her power station as a budgetary priority. But she couldn't see how one more sealed habitat used as a giant chicken coop would do any more harm than the human population.

The first time she had tried the idea with Olan Rostin since he was the planet manager after all, he had flatly refused to listen, telling her to stick to power systems which she knew something about. Even now just thinking about that made Mitra furious. As Roween Kael's daughter, she had picked up more about terraforming just by osmosis than most practicing terraformers knew, and certainly more than an officious bureaucrat. Roween didn't terraform herself, to be sure. She was a biophysicist. But all of the best ones used her as a consultant on genetic modification, and that included Aunt Beti who was around the house steady when she wasn't actually working on some planet she had the terraforming contract for. Mitra had bestowed the honorific Aunt on their neighbour Beti Windegren as a child because she liked her better than any of her real aunts.

When negotiating with Rostin was obviously not working Mitra had tried the cafeteria manager, arguing that chickens were ideal. Eggs were the basis of so many recipes, from omelettes to cakes to meringues. Their meat that many more. She imagined it roasted, barbecued, sautéed. Mitra had argued cost savings on imports too. She'd lost again, and eaten watery powdered scrambled eggs for about a week before deciding on the next attack.

That one had worked. She had started working on her fellow diners with enthusiasm, and considerable success. Apparently too much success. In a singularly unpleasant little interview with Rostin that she would sooner forget, he had told her that he did not allow insubordination in his running of the planet. He had spelt out that only her unusual status as a liaison officer to Dellmaice Power Systems kept him from putting her on the next shuttle.

She had just got back in her little cubicle of a room, scarlet cheeked and furious when a sealed hyperweb message arrived from Ari. Shaking, she had decrypted it and read, "You're screwing up, Kael. Apologize. NOW. Or you're out of there - and here."

Mitra had apologized, and spent her last year on Drezvir a pure vegetarian.

What kind of protein would the space liners carry? Any of it was better than what she's been eating in the cafeteria, Mitra decided even though she used to really complain about space food. She'd try them all.

***

They were out of the turbulence. That was a relief. Those Drezvir winds were unbelievable. Wrong. The shuttle shuddered again. Think about Gingezel.

There had been a several month lapse in news then suddenly there had been almost daily announcements of the openings of finished resorts and footage of entire populated cities looking like they had always been there. It was amazing what apparently unlimited funds could do. First there had been a ski resort, then a semitropical harbor town with yachts bobbing in the harbor. There had been a purely cosmopolitan megacity that could have been on any planet except for the abundance and quality of casinos and entertainment centers. Names known galaxy-wide as thrill seekers were shown taking safaris to virgin territory, conquering peaks, and setting out on treks to the two poles.

She had been sitting at her foldout table again when she watched blond and handsome Arn Torson be the first to white powder ski down a mountainside. When the forty second clip was over she had put on her turquoise anorak and headed for the nearest habitat entrance. She had taken an oxygen cylinder from the shelf and snapped it to her belt. Fitting the trickle tube below her nose, Mitra had stepped into the transfer vestibule, then outside. As always the wind was near gale force. Fighting it she had forced herself to struggle to the top of the nearest hill and then had just sat on a rock, staring out at the endless red barren folds, unsuccessfully trying to imagine megacities, skiing or snorkeling, or someone like Arn Torson ever being on Drezvir. Then she had walked back. That was almost worse, trying to not be blown over by the wind at her back. She had activated the sealed door lock, and once inside unsnapped the oxygen canister and put it in the recharger rack. Returning to her chilly room, she had left her anorak on and done three hours of desk work.

There had been an end-to-end broadcast of a new ballet written especially for the opening of a Performing Arts Center in a northern city on Gingezel. They had all watched it on the large projection unit in the cafeteria. It wasn't bad, but Mitra would have preferred popular music. She did see some of her favorite pop stars in the audience though, lucky souls. Even Johnnie Sun was there with his gorgeous wife Sinda. For her money he was the best male vocalist in the galaxy, and Sinda wasn't a bad singer either.

Perhaps that was when the idea started. She would go to Gingezel. Mitra replayed the scene in her mind, trying to decide. On Drezvir the reaction to Gingezel had been mixed. There was the natural resentment of what so much money, to say nothing of so many natural resources, could do. But the majority simply saw news of Gingezel as entertainment at the end of a long day.

She had been sitting with Lilla and Blayne. They had let their daughter Tessa stay up late to watch. Tessa was a sweet kid, going through a growth spurt and kind of ugly.

Mitra liked Lilla and found her easy acceptance of her hard life relaxing and comforting. So Mitra had been startled at the end of the concert when Lilla hugged Tessa fiercely and said, "I know I'll never go to Gingezel, but if we all work hard Tessa, you will."

That had upset Blayne. He was a wiry man of medium build with dark hair and fair skin. He wasn't much given to speech around women, and he hardly said anything when Mitra was around. But it was obvious to Mitra that he adored his wife.

Despite Mitra's presence he had managed to blurt out, "Lilla, you've never said you want to go places." There was no need to say he would never provide that kind of money.

Lilla had smiled then and touched his cheek. "Not to worry Blayne, we'll have more than enough adventures here. But Tessa, she'll do what we can't."

Tears filled Mitra's eyes. That was so romantic. It had reminded her how important it was to dream. It had been getting so hard to get through each day she had been forgetting to dream. But she had let that dream take root in her soul too.

Now it was happening. First she would go home and see her family. Then she would go to Gingezel and stay there until her money ran out, and Ari Dellmaice could go to hell. He would be furious of course. He liked his staff at work. Another smile played across her face as she thought about the memory pacs carefully stored in her shoulder bag and the design on them. He would be furious all right, but not for long.

*****

Chapter 7

It was crowded in arrivals lounge 496D of the West Arbor space port. After almost a two and a half hour delay the passengers on the 14:17 shuttle were steadily filtering in after clearing customs, health, and immigration. Each seemed to be being met by a large party of well-wishers. Mitra wondered if it would ever reach a stage where hyperspatial travel was treated as casually as air or ground travel. She personally doubted it. There was something about the idea of leaving a planet and essentially committing oneself to going through nothingness that made it an event. It demanded emotional farewells, and someone, preferably a crowd, at the other end to be delighted you got there. The fact she was an engineer and knew all of the statistics on the high reliability of hyperspatial travel had absolutely no impact on her attitude.

Shifting the strap of her shoulder bag so she could hold it firmly with one hand, Mitra tightened her grip on her soft-sided attaché and stepped through the transparent sliding door separating customs from arrivals. The din was overwhelming, and she froze in her tracks, blocking the door.

"Please move on." The security guard was polite but firm.

Embarrassed and apologetic, Mitra braced herself and walked into the room. After her three years on Drezvir the most normal events were now throwing her. It wasn't that she wasn't used to crowds. After eating all her meals in the cafeteria she was used to less privacy than she had ever had in her life. But the people there were relatively quiet. Everyone here that wasn't actually shouting to get someone's attention was talking at the top of their volume range just to be heard. She noted automatically that the architect had tried to tone the noise down with acoustic ceilings and carpeted floors and walls, but it hadn't done much good.

Even the walls made her wince. She returned to scanning the crowd. Mitra was sure some interior designer had chosen them to be soothing, but the tones were all too bright. Well, obviously she had become too used to uniformly beige walls.

Mesmerized as a young woman in a long turquoise dress swept past her on a cloud of scent to join four friends, one in a tailored purple trouser suit, one in a baggy green trouser suit, and two in delectable form-fitting short dresses in slightly different shades of apricot, Mitra didn't bother to look down at her coverall. She knew what it looked like. It was just like all the others she and everyone else had worn. The coverall color choice was simple: beige, gray, or khaki. There was no variation in style. She would have to do some fashionable shopping and soon.

Giving herself a little shake, Mitra stopped staring at the women and started looking for her parents. When she had confirmed her departure from Drezvir and her flight to Plenata, Roween and Chelan had sent a hyperweb message that they were both taking the afternoon off from their classes to drive out to the spaceport and meet her. That did not guarantee they were here however. Something could have come up at the last minute at the University, or there could have been traffic problems. At least they wouldn't have got impatient with the delay and left. Roween was used to delay - she was going for the galactic record on her own for that.

"Mitra! Mitra!"

Mitra rotated 40 degrees from the part of the crowd she was scanning to look in the direction of the voice. There they were. A lump formed in her throat as she waved in response her mother's frantically waving arm. Mitra smiled. Despite her antics Roween was managing to look as imposing and dignified as she always did in public. Her thick dark hair was up in a stylish coil that was definitely a new look. There were streaks of a very distinguished gray too. It suited her. She hadn't lost a kilo either, but that was hidden by a well-cut expensive skirt suit in a deep coral shade. Mitra had no doubt that the matching earrings were real coral. Chelan never bought 'artificial' items. Even after the wait Roween's makeup was perfect. Mitra's smile started to fade. She'd hear about her own appearance.

This public persona was one Mitra knew well and often unconsciously emulated, but still wasn't comfortable with. It wasn't until Roween was at home in the kitchen, took off her jacket, rolled up her sleeves and started to cook that she became Mama.

Beside her, Chelan looked small, unprepossessing, and slightly shabby in the type of suit he had worn for decades whether it was in or out of style. Navy jacket, baggy trousers, and a crew neck knit shirt. Only the fabric varied with the seasons. Now in the fall it was a wool suit with a silk shirt. They would be real silk and real wool too. Mitra realized with a pang that his nondescript fair hair was almost gone. However his smile outshone Roween's.

Mitra looked past them trying to find Niki, but there was no sign of him. Oh well. She pushed aside her disappointment. Her brother never had been one for family reunion scenes. No doubt she'd see him at the first good feed her mother laid on, which would probably be tonight. That thought brightened her smile as she cut across the flow of pedestrians towards her parents.

"Mitra, darling!"

"Roween." Mitra allowed herself to be engulfed in her mother's smothering embrace. She was ejected rather abruptly.

"You stink!" There was accusation in her mother's tone.

"No doubt," Mitra replied grimly.

"Weren't there bathing facilities on Drezvir?" her mother demanded.

"Nothing worth mentioning."

"But surely on the way here -"

"Farrese metal freighter until the Z7L space station, without enough of a layover at the space station to book a stall and get clean. You've taken the link from there to Plenata often enough to know it is just an open seating style ship to here, no cabins." Mitra tipped her chin defensively, "don't make a thing of it. I've had enough nasty comments from fellow passengers and staff."

In fact, the whole experience had been mortifying. The connecting flight had been totally booked, and the passengers on either side of her had flatly refused to sit with her. The senior steward knew a losing situation when she saw it, and politely but firmly suggested Mitra transfer to a seat in the crew cubicle adjacent to the galley. The crew hadn't liked her stink much either, and had made a point of making sure she saw them increasing the air flow to the filtration units and adding additional masking scent.

Then, if that hadn't been enough, she had been asked to leave first. Mitra had thought that was just to avoid exposing her to further embarrassment until she realized that all of the tunnel exits were sealed except to the Immigration Health Unit. There she was told in no uncertain terms she was undergoing a level two invasive diagnostic to ensure she had no bacterial, viral, fungal, or parasitic infections, and to presumably ensure she hadn't infected the poor ship load of people waiting to disembark. She had to admit it hadn't been that painful or that slow, but it had been her most embarrassing experience to date. Mitra frowned at the memory.

Chelan misinterpreted the frown and intervened. He was used to Roween rubbing Mitra the wrong way as soon as they met, but if Mitra really got her back up she'd be gone in a day or two, and he hadn't seen his daughter in years. He stepped forward, and without flinching kissed each cheek. "Welcome home dear." He added with mild curiosity, "I take it conditions on Drezvir were primitive?"

Mitra regarded her father with real pleasure. He was such a dear, and so out of touch with the realities of life. "You could say that."

"Indeed. You'll have to tell me about it."

"Sure." Mitra grinned, good humor restored. He'd never remember to ask. "You can write it all down and centuries from now some historian will treasure it."

"A father-daughter collaboration." Chelan beamed. She would never settle down long enough to do it, but she meant well.

Roween had only been half listening and she regarded her daughter with growing dismay. Mitra was only carrying one of the beat up old shoulder bags she always had with her and a small bag of the business attaché genre, the sort of thing meant to hold your compad, a few grooming items, a spare top, and undies. Roween was not one of the women who could travel so lightly and firmly believed no one else could either.

If Mitra's luggage was lost it was a disaster. It was bad enough when planetary airlines lost bags, but when they went astray in galactic travel the ramifications were daunting. If you could shrug and claim the insurance that was one thing. But if you had anything important in your bags, that was another matter. Since Roween only undertook interplanetary travel to biophysics or bioengineering conferences, her baggage was always important. Her talks were always on memory pacs in her purse of course, but customs flatly refused to let her travel with biological specimens. They had to be delivered to the appropriate epidemiology and agriculture inspectors well in advance, their identity and proper encapsulation ensured and their special packing done by those same people. Which was, she felt, totally ridiculous. You were much more likely to end up with a planetary epidemic from a fellow traveller, but there it was.

The first time her precious specimens had gone astray she had been five years younger than Mitra and giving her first talk at an interplanetary conference. She had found out one hour before her presentation was due that the specimens had been inadvertently routed to a planet where the ag. officials had simply looked at the manifest, not checked for encapsulation, declared them on their forbidden list, and incinerated the entire package on the spot. Her experiences since then had been no great improvement, and some of her colleagues now tried to avoid travelling with her, declaring her bad luck. That was most unscientific, but they were firm.

Now she looked about as though expecting to be able to conjure the missing bags out of thin air. She couldn't. "Mitra, where is the rest of your baggage?" Roween asked with sinking hopes.

"Hmm?" Mitra was still happily chatting to her father.

Roween sighed. "I asked where the rest of your bags are." If they were checked somewhere there was still a slim hope that they could get home in time for her to start the supper she had planned, but standing talking like they had all day was no help.

"This is it." Mitra started to turn back to her father.

"After three years?" Roween's voice was totally disbelieving.

"Yup. This," Mitra pointed down to the beige threadbare Farrese Mining Guild issue coverall she was wearing, "is my best jump suit. The second-best is in here," she lifted up the attaché, "just in case. The rest I gave away. Or incinerated."

But there hadn't been much left to incinerate. Lilla's daughter Tessa had been delighted to have anything from Mitra's personal wardrobe because Mitra's clothes had some style and color. They weren't just Guild issue like the ones she was wearing. The awkward skinny child with her mother's blond coloring and a gap between her front teeth had been thrilled, beaming and tongue tied. Poor kid. Mitra had figured it was the least she could do for a little girl who had no more chance of ever going off planet than her mother, despite Lilla's dreams. Besides, she never wanted to see those clothes again.

"Well," Roween said with relief, "we can go then."

"Not quite," Mitra interposed before her mother could move. "Does Jay Lee's still have an outlet here?" She had no intention of staying in these clothes a minute longer than she had to.

Then as there was no answer she asked "Are they still in business?" As a young woman they had been her favorite store, and it was the only shop name she remembered in West Arbor.

"Oh yes, and I suppose there's one, but can't shopping wait until tomorrow?" or later, Roween added to herself. Why was Mitra always so trying? Couldn't she ever put family ahead of herself? And she had such a lovely family supper planned.

Mitra was watching her mother cautiously. She did not look at all receptive and Mitra could imagine her mentally defending some long involved menu she had planned. Mitra was dying for some decent food too, but first things first. She played what she hoped was a winning a card.

"But I haven't even a dab of lipstick left. I used up the last of that lovely cosmetic kit you sent for my birthday - not the last birthday, the one before - and I haven't even been able to powder my nose for almost four months."

Roween eyed her daughter with horror. She had assumed the unfinished face was a deliberate look just like the terrible smelly beige jump suit and scuffed turquoise safety boots and hair that wasn't 3 cm long and had bit her tongue. But if the child had been with no makeup to use for months!

She said with motherly indignation, "Weren't there any stores on that planet?"

"Not to speak of," Mitra replied. "There was a pharmacy at the hospital were you could get nonprescription medications, and things like toothpaste and cheap soap, but no luxury items. The school library rented memory pacs with books and holodramas since on Drezvir you couldn't download them - hyperweb access was restricted. And at the cafeteria you could buy rolls or cookies if you wanted to eat between hours, but that was it. Everything else from kitchen chairs to pillowcases to clothes," she tugged at the coverall, "were Guild issue. Functional but basic. Anything else you had to import on your own. Shipping was high and luxury duties worse." She had no intention of saying what she'd paid to clear that gift of cosmetics through customs. It had been worth every credit for those precious drops.

"Cosmetics are not a luxury." Roween was outraged. She could not face the world feeling unfinished.

"I'm with you," Mitra agreed, pleased with her stratagem's success. "So let's remedy it."

"Yes indeed. Now, let me think."

Roween shifted modes and started reviewing the shops at the space port in her mind. This was a serious problem needing an immediate solution. She was at her best with major problems. Of course Mitra would get a better choice if they went to a mall. The shops here were aimed at departing tourists wanting one last souvenir, or arrivals looking for a hostess present. But if they went to a mall Chelan would undoubtedly insist on being dropped somewhere first, and the odds were he'd get tied up and miss supper. So, with a bit of patience could they get what they needed here? In her mind she walked the corridors of the various levels, while the arriving passengers continued to flow past.

Chelan gave Mitra a conspiratorial wink. "Well, you ladies will be busy for a while. I think I will go to that lovely little book shop cafe on the seventh level. It used to have delectable pastries and now no doubt has some unpalatable off-world delicacies. Still, even if the food is terrible, if I can get a window seat I'll have a nice view of the domestic flights. Why," he asked no one in a particular, "are spaceport bookstores always so delightful?"

"Because they sell things you'd never buy normally, Papa. Fiction thrillers, romances, travel books, and," she added mischievously, "biographies of living people."

He returned the smile. "No doubt." He patted her arm. "Don't spend all your credits, dear." He wandered off toward the lifts, just missing being run into by two businessmen in a tremendous hurry.

Roween refocused. "Where's Chelan?"

"Off to the book store cafe."

Roween nodded. "Well, definitely Jay Lee's but first I think Scents and Such. You'll get better service looking and smelling better."

"We can try." Mitra said, "But nothing," she finished firmly, "could mask this."

Both women grimaced, temporarily in accord.

*****

Chapter 8

It was every bit as good as she had imagined. Better in fact. Mitra sighed contentedly and turned her body slightly, letting the multiple shower jets hit her body from a different angle. Thank goodness Mama occasionally laid the law down on Papa's tendency to like to live with antiquarian things. She smiled remembering as a child being taken to see a museum quality bathtub in an off-world antique dealer's shop. It actually stood on legs and had a single tap, not massage water jets. Mama had been aghast, fearing he wanted one. But their bathroom was as modern as any spa. She had forgotten that if you stood in the shower long enough the air got wonderfully steamy and rich with heady scents. She would have a soak tomorrow and a water jet massage, but tonight was for getting clean.

It was early evening already. Once Roween had focused on shopping they had really settled in, systematically working their way through the space port shops. Niki, Roween had announced with a sniff, could take what she could scratch up. What was important was that her little girl be comfortable again.

Mitra wasn't too worried about supper. Before hitting the shower she'd stuck her head in the kitchen after depositing the bags and bags of goodies in the guest room that had originally been her bedroom. Roween was solidly in her mama role, vast apron over her silk blouse and skirt, sleeves rolled up, hair already escaping its coil. It looked like most of the contents of the refrigerator were on the counter, and Roween was industriously chopping away, muttering to herself.

Mitra turned again. She had shampooed her hair twice, conditioned it, and soaped up once. One more soaping and she supposed she should quit. She gave the voice command, "soaping." Then she picked up the bar of hard milled soap from her favorite perfumer, inhaling the spicy scent as she worked up a lather in the cup of her hand. She soaped herself up then gave the command, "massage."

With a contented sigh Mitra turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping herself in an oversized thickly looped towel in a turquoise shade that matched the pattern in the wall tile. She took a corner of the towel and dried her hair, then continued drying the rest of her. Then she spent a long time lotioning herself. A loosely woven caftan in the most luscious shades of blue and purple was hanging on the back of the door. She slipped it on, sliding her feet into gold-tone sandals. The hours in the shopping arcade had been worth it as well as fun. Now it was time to see if she could still apply makeup.

***

"Mmm." Mitra sniffed appreciatively and looked around the kitchen. It hadn't changed much since her last visit home. It was equipped with all the tools of a very serious cook, quite a few of them restaurant quality. There were more plants on the shelves where herbs wintered over, both in front of the sink windows and the sliding door to the patio. Also there were some new shimmery rainbow-colored coffee mugs that must have come from Tamara on an open shelf. Otherwise, it was the same, a large airy room done in blond wood, stainless steel, and terra cotta tile. Mitra could remember when she was nine and her mother had decided to spend all of the profits from a contract importing wood to panel the kitchen. People had visited just to touch real wood.

Mitra stopped by the chicken cage near the sliding doors. "Hi guys."

She was greeted by silence. Usually Meg, short for Nutmeg, and Basil were very vocal. The pair of Terran parrots were disasters from one of Roween's genetic experiments. Roween had been responding to a request to come up with animal life that could be used on a planet rich in plant life but devoid of animals. It had been postulated by the terraformers that this was because the unusual metal concentrations in the soil found their way into the plants and would have therefore prevented an animal chain.

Parrots had been selected over two species of chickens from Calixa, a chicken and a rodent from Pendrae, and a rodent from Tranus. Mitra had listened to Roween and Beti's debates on the choice, all very scholarly, but she was sure the deciding factor had been the parrot's beautiful colors.

The genetic modification had initially seemed a success. Both Meg and Basil were very tolerant to high metal levels that would normally be toxic to their species. The disaster had come at breeding time. They were willing enough, but somehow the required genetic modification for the metal tolerance had resulted in sterility. It had taken Roween a lot of analysis to find out why, but once it was understood, the link had been the same for every other animal she had modeled, independent of the planet of origin. The Galactic Judiciary had issued a caution on human habitation of that planet, the project had been shelved, and Meg and Basil were living out the early part of their long lives as honored guests in the Kael house. They had already been willed to Niki for after that.

Mitra was studying them. "Meg and Basil don't look so good. They sick or something?"

Roween looked up from the pot she was stirring. "I don't think so. I think it's a domestic dispute that escalated to the 'if you think I'm talking to you first, you'll be waiting till hell freezes over' stage."

"Oh." Mitra considered this. She returned her attention to the cage. "Look guys, I'm sorry if you have your problems, but hasn't anybody told you to be nice to company? I haven't seen you for ages."

Basil totally ignored her, while Meg regarded her with intelligent eyes and a tipped head, but there was no greeting.

Mitra shrugged and walked over to the nearby shelf of herbs. She considered a moment then picked two sprigs from the parrot's favorite. She came back and offered one to Meg.

"Well, I'm happy to see you anyways Meg."

Meg caressed Mitra's finger with her strong beak before taking the sprig, but made no sound.

Mitra walked around the cage to where Basil was sulking. "I'm glad to see you too, Basil."

He totally ignored her and the offering.

"OK. Suit yourself." Mitra popped the sprig in her own mouth. That got a startled, indignant squawk which she assumed was parrot for 'no fair!' She walked back to Meg's side. "Hey Meg, you just won on a technicality. Don't blow it."

Meg cocked her head a little more to one side.

"C'mon. Don't be stupid." Mitra waved towards Basil with her fingers.

Meg seemed to think this out. Then she carefully stripped a single leaf from the sprig, and placed it half way between them. Then she returned to staring out of the patio door, presumably admiring the pots of deep red Suranan fall lilies and translucent Plenatan orange daisies massed there. Basil was definitely eyeing the offering.

"Mama."

"Mmm?" Roween was reviewing what to do next.

"Why are they caged anyways?" Mitra knew Roween hated to cage anything.

"Oh, that's just for now, while I'm cooking. Meg has gotten really fascinated with cooking and she tries to help. A couple weeks ago Chelan announced he refused to eat anything with parrot footprints on it."

Mitra smiled. It must have been quite bad. Her father rarely asserted himself like that. She left the parrots and joined her mother. The counter had been returned to relative order, and short of opening the oven and taking the lids off pots she was obviously going to have to wait until supper to find out exactly what smelled so good. There was lots of onion and garlic, but that was no clue. They were staples in Roween's cooking and on most planets for that matter. A tray at the far end of the counter caught her eye, and she walked past Roween, her sandals noisy on the tile floor. Her mother was putting jars of herbs back onto the shelf.

"What's this?" It looked like some sort of fluffy pastry with a glaze on it and a fruit stuffing.

"Apfel strudel." Roween turned from her task. "Or at least I hope so." She eyed the tray dubiously.

Mitra grinned and hitched herself up onto a stool. "Papa got another cookbook?" Reconstructing the recipes from very old cookbooks was the activity that kept her parents happy in their spare time. Chelan's role was that of procuring the cookbooks and at least trying to translate the recipes. Roween was chef extraordinaire.

"So what is apfel strudel?" She hoped she'd said what her mother had.

"I'm not quite sure." Roween leaned back on the island counter, keeping one eye on the cook top. She had a few minutes before anything needed her. "We've got a really old one this time. Terran, before they even standardized weights and measures."

Roween frowned slightly. "I'll never know how Chelan found this one. Some kind of museum thinning out its inventory I guess - but they don't do that often! Still," she shrugged, "he has friends all over the place at museums and antiquarian book dealers. I never ask too much."

Mitra watched in amusement as her mother meditated on this problem. Personally she could never imagine her father anything but scrupulously honest. It was likely though that some friend he met at a conference or wherever would call him first to let him know something was coming on the market. Everyone liked Chelan.

"So," Mitra prompted again, "what is apfel strudel?"

"I think," her mother emphasized the think, "that apfel is apple, or at least a fruit of some kind. By my first half a dozen tries I would say that if it is apple, it was some type that has been bred out that was much harder and drier than the current apples on any planet. For the last three tries I've used crab apples and at least I'm not getting mush. So I think I'll see if I can find someone who imports Terran crab apples. As to what strudel means, I assume it's some sort of generic name for pastry.

"What a guessing game though! So much wasn't there - they just assumed you knew how to do things, like roll the dough out. Then the measures weren't standard. In one recipe in the book they actually referred to a tumbler of water. Chelan eventually learned a tumbler was a drinking glass, but that can be almost anything." Roween shook her head in disgust. Her own recipes were as precise as scientific formulas.

Mitra wasn't fooled. These challenges and any resulting successes were a source of real pleasure for her mother. "So is it good?" she stretched her hand towards the pan.

Roween slapped it back. "You'll ruin supper. Of course it's good. Would I serve trash? What is debatable is if it's apfel strudel."

"So, what is Papa doing?"

Pretty soon supper would be at the stage where it was best to stay out of the kitchen. Mitra always felt obliged to offer help, and she knew that from her mother's perspective her kitchen skills were totally inadequate.

"Working in the library."

When her big brother Niki left home, his room had been converted to a library and office, which essentially meant it was walled with bookshelves that housed her father's antique book collection. Mitra's friends could never believe that he actually owned paper books, much less a roomful of them, but the books weren't as much museum pieces as you would think. In Chelan's opinion some books would always be printed for the pleasure of handling them, and it seemed that most families had favorites that had survived the generations and were eventually sold to raise cash. Mitra loved them, even those with musty brittle yellowed pages.

Mitra found herself disappointed. She had learned early on not to interrupt her usually tolerant father when he was working. She was also a little hurt he had something so pressing it outweighed her visit, not that she'd exactly expected him to just sit and wait while she showered and such after already waiting for her all afternoon.

Trying to be reasonable and charitable she asked, "has he got some paper he just has to get off?" Chelan firmly believed in taking all editor's deadlines seriously. Roween totally ignored them.

"Actually no." Roween looked tolerantly amused. "He's doing simulations lately."

"Simulations?" Mitra was mystified. What did a historian simulate? No, that wasn't quite fair. She had heard of historians who simulated famous battles then played 'what if' games, like what if this decision had been made, or what if these troops were here, not there, and such. But these had nothing to do with her gentle father.

Roween's attention was shifting to finishing supper. "Yes. The last three or four years it's been growing on him. He takes whole historical cities and tries to simulate them. Not just where the important buildings were, but how the infrastructure worked, what materials it would take to build them now, where the ordinary people lived, what must have been grown locally, and what must have been imported to shops, traffic flows, the whole bit. It's almost getting to be an obsession."

"Wow." Mitra was impressed. It was complicated enough to simulate a current city. She remembered taking a course on urban planning as a breadth requirement as an undergrad. But to do it for an ancient city with any kind of historical accuracy was a lot of work. "Will he show me some?"

"How many weeks do you have?" was Roween's dry reply. She was already turning to the wall oven. She opened it and lifted out a heavy ceramic casserole.

As Roween uncovered it the fragrance of the moist steam was unmistakable. Chicken. Mitra came to peek, just to be sure, and there they were, a row of plump golden chicken breasts on a bed of rice with all sorts of things chopped in. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She found she was blinking and sniffling. She grabbed for a tissue from the box Roween always kept on the counter. Roween had trouble with onions. No matter what tricks she tried, she couldn't dice them without tears pouring down her face, and she had no intentions of not cooking with them. Hence the tissues.

"What's the matter with you?" Roween asked more sharply than she intended, but Mitra had her worried. There had been something brittle about the gaiety of the shopping trip and her nonstop chatter, and the child was nothing but bone. She finished glazing the chicken, returned it to the oven, and turned to her daughter leaning her ample hips on the counter and crossing her arms.

"Nuh, nothing," Mitra managed. "It's just you don't know how I've dreamt of chicken."

This could have been very flattering to Roween, but never in her life had Mitra been nostalgic about home-cooked food. When it was presented she ate enough that she should look like a walking blimp and never gained a smidgen of fat, but that was it. Mitra was just as happy taking a reheated processed meal out of a cater unit.

"Since when are you nostalgic about my chicken? Didn't they feed you on that planet either?" She was starting to wonder just exactly what this assignment had been like.

"Not chicken." Mitra tried to laugh it off.

"Then what did they feed you?" Chicken of some form was as basic as fish on most worlds.

"Hydroponic veggies, grains, symbiofish, powdered protein."

"And?" Roween prompted.

"And that's it. They can't afford to import a kilo more than they need."

No wonder the child looked peaky. No doubt a good nutritionist could create a 'nutritionally balanced diet' out of that with the help of vitamin and mineral supplements, but adequate and healthy were galaxies apart. Food was meant to feed the soul, not just allow cellular replication.

"That's criminal."

"No." Mitra actually laughed at the outrage on her mother's face. "Reality. But," she smiled impishly, "can I have a piece of apfel strudel now?"

It was amusing to watch the conflicting emotions on Roween's face.

The need to nurture won. Besides, she'd never seen Mitra ruin her appetite no matter what she put in her mouth before a meal. "Go ahead. But just one."

*****

Chapter 9

Mitra took the biggest piece she could see and bit in. "Mmm." Real apple - no, crabapple - she corrected herself, and knowing her mother, real spices not flavoring agents. "So," she asked between bites, "what's new around here?"

Roween was at the cook top now, checking that the water in the steamer was just under a boil. If that Niki was on time she should start the vegetables in a few minutes. And the sauce for dessert - she wasn't trusting the apfel strudel being enough with Niki around - was at the stage where she would need to finish flavoring it before pouring it over their pears she was poaching. The pears were a Plenatan variety, proudly grown by Chelan in the back yard. Four had been ceremonially picked last night. The soup was fine, simmering just under a boil, but in a few minutes she would need to add the fungi she wanted tender, not soggy. As she worked she told Mitra the goings on of various neighbors.

Very few had lived there when Mitra was young. Most were just names. She let the talk flow past her and concentrated on savoring the apfel strudel.

"And Beti says hello and to stop by before you leave."

Mitra focused. Besides living two houses down, Beti Windegren was Roween's colleague, and best friend since meeting at university when Beti was doing her minor in genetic engineering. To Mitra the willowy Oriental with quiet manners and a gentle voice was Aunt Beti. When Mitra was an adolescent she had turned to Aunt Beti with all of the problems a girl can't talk to her mother about. Her husband Ceb Windegren, a rather austere looking blond man, had always been somewhat of a distant figure in her mind, something to do with law. He had rarely been home. Mitra and their son C.C. had always played together, and he had stayed with them now and again when Beti was away terraforming somewhere she thought too dangerous to take a child.

C.C. was not quite a year older than Mitra. He had his mother's oriental looks and a tendency to puppy fat. She and C.C. had got along happily enough until they were both in their mid twenties. Then, since they were showing no signs of marrying, their mothers had decided it would be nice if they married each other. They had avoided each other since, although once or twice early on she had been tempted to call C.C. and find out what he thought of the marriage campaign. It infuriated her.

"How's Aunt Beti?"

"Not bad, busy as ever, but she's getting a few joint problems. It's just at that nuisance stage where you know it's there but it's not worth fixing yet."

Mitra nodded, hoping her mother wouldn't go off about her own back problems.

But with the pears and soup taken care of Roween looked at the clock, mentally cursed her unreliable son, and got the salad out of the refrigerator to toss in the Suranan fire flowers that would have been too likely to bruise done earlier.

"That looks pretty," Mitra commented. "Will Niki eat it though?" The flavor of the petals was pungent.

"No." Roween was indifferent. "He can pick around the flowers like your father. Silly the ideas people get about food." She stuck a finger in the dressing and licked it, and decided the herbs needed adjusting now that they had sat awhile. As she selected the proper bottles she returned to the topic of her friend. "So, as I say, Beti is fine, but that C.C.," Roween sniffed audibly, "he gives her nothing but trouble. Terraforming here, terraforming there. All over the galaxy. Did you know he's going to Drezvir? You must have missed each other en route."

"Drezvir? Are you serious?" Mitra knew that with the power station up and running the next item on the Farrese agenda would be terraforming, but this seemed unbelievably fast for their style. And not once, not even in cafeteria gossip, had she heard C.C. mentioned as a candidate for the job.

Roween was offended. "Why should I make something like that up?"

"It's just strange. I mean Drezvir is nothing, in the middle of nowhere, and I end up there, then C.C.."

"Coincidences happen." Roween returned the salad to the refrigerator and rinsed her hands.

"Poor C.C.," Mitra said thoughtfully. "If I'd known I could have warned him off." She tried to imagine the gregarious, party-loving C.C. on Drezvir and didn't get there.

Roween shrugged. "Terraformers are used to primitive conditions. It's a routine part of their contract that they get to provide habitats to their own standards. After all, they work in all environments from arctic to undersea. They make very sure they're comfortable. Then too, they make sure their supply chain is outside local jurisdiction. The last thing they need with a tight time window is some ag. idiot holding up seedlings. Beti always runs her food in with the specimens."

"Smart woman! Ari should have consulted her about setting up our contract!" Mitra sighed. "I suppose C.C. will survive then."

"At least he'll stay out of trouble there. When he's home he thinks he's a big shot, telling everybody how to run things. He needs a wife to settle him down."

Mentally Mitra groaned. Surely Roween and Beti weren't still on that track. She hastened to move the topic to safer ground. "Big shot? That doesn't sound like C.C.." She remembered him as a boy and a young man. He was only interested in having a good time. Good-natured and intelligent, he certainly liked the good life, but big shot? No. He'd never thrown the weight he literally carried around. Still, that was more years ago than she cared to remember.

"Big shot," Roween repeated firmly, giving the towel she was drying her hands on a snap. "Always telling the politicians what to do. His face in the news with a microphone shoved up in front of his big mouth."

Mitra was shocked. Roween was rarely this censorious of anyone but Niki. "Let me get this straight. C.C. is a politician?" She tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

"Politician?" It was Roween's turn to be incredulous. "C.C.'s no politician. He's turned into an environmental activist."

"C.C.?" That was even harder to credit. Still, there were worse things than being an environmental activist, depending on exactly what Roween meant by activist. Most planets had areas they mistreated, and terraformers were naturally supportive of environmental issues.

"That's weird, but it's not necessarily terrible, Mama."

Roween pursed her lips again. "Since when does a little boy have all the answers? I know biohazardous waste is an issue. Haven't I lived with it all my life? But C.C., he thinks he knows it all, simplifies the issues. Goes on talk shows, gives lectures, gets people all riled up."

Mitra suppressed a smile. This topic had always been a sore point with her mother. While Roween was always careful and responsible with materials she handled or created, she hated bureaucratic red tape and thought the issue should be left to the professionals involved. Somehow, because she was responsible she thought everyone would be. Mama was just a little naive, but Mitra didn't want a fight before her first meal.

"Well," she said lightly, "maybe Drezvir is a good idea for him after all. The site manager Olan Rostin has this bright idea that they can use the abandoned portions of the mines to store toxic wastes the other planets don't want, including biohazards. Maybe C.C. can consult on that as well as the terraforming and everyone will be happy. Ship all the junk there, fuse it into the rock walls, and forget it."

Roween was seriously alarmed. "Are you sure Mitra, or just gossiping? That is exactly the sort of thing C.C. is fighting. He figures every stage of transport increases the risk, and that 'out of sight and out of mind' is a fool's game. He wants facilities to either destroy waste at the site or store it there. 'Where they see it daily' he says."

Mitra grinned. "Maybe I left Drezvir too soon! It sounds like it could get really interesting."

She thought about the C.C. she remembered, more funny than anything, always the clown, with a soft streak for any lost cause. Maybe that was how he got into being an activist. Then she thought of Olan Rostin and stopped smiling. For all the politeness and civility he could lay on when it suited him, that man was solid steel.

"All the same, I'd bet on Rostin. He's one tough-minded man."

"That's as may be." Roween had to restrain herself from saying more. She reminded herself that if C.C. just married Mitra he would settle down. "But you don't know C.C. anymore."

She gave Mitra a resentful look. How she and C.C. kept managing to miss each other was beyond her. But that wasn't the point right now. She was truly worried now from what Mitra had said.

"He's changed Mitra. Why, on his staff there's this man Leeth -"

Roween bit off her words. What she had been about to say would definitely not forward Mitra's interest in C.C., not that there was any. She shot a worried glance at her daughter, but Mitra had totally lost interest in discussing the Windegrens. The discreet chime of the surveillance system had sounded and the screen showed her brother walking down the path.

"Niki!" Mitra was off the stool heading for the door, her sandals slapping on the tiles.

Roween checked the simmering soup and the poaching pears, then looked at her time strip. Niki had certainly cut it fine, but at least he hadn't ruined supper. Not that he was likely to on purpose. Roween took a quick look at the reunion on the screen. Niki was looking more like her brother every day. He had the dark brown hair, the angular good looks, the lean build and medium height that the men in her family had. Sometimes it seemed all he'd got from Chelan were his light blue eyes.

The soup started to foam up, and Roween hastily removed it from the heat. Niki hadn't ruined supper, but he'd come close. The last few years he was turning into a fair cook himself, so he knew how much work a good meal was. The problem with him was that he had no sense of time. She touched the contact for the library.

"Chelan, Niki is here and I'm serving." Roween had learned long ago not to ask if he was ready. He invariably wasn't. She didn't expect a reply. Instead she shifted her focus to the screen where Niki and Mitra were involved in an enthusiastic embrace and smiled. Mitra had offered Niki unqualified hero worship from the very start, and he'd been happy to accept it, not rejecting a little sister so many years younger. Some boys would have found her a nuisance. She watched them talking a moment longer, then went to put a first course on the table.

*****

Chapter 10

Now that supper was almost over Roween felt free to relax and declare it a success. Considering the fact she had just thrown it together, the meal had turned out well. Mitra had actually seemed to both notice and enjoy what she ate, especially the mountain dove. Roween could still hardly believe that there wasn't even chicken or fish on Drezvir. Well, give her a week or ten days and she'd have that girl of hers looking less peaky. A nice rare steak tomorrow at lunch, she thought. That would start putting some color back into her. As it was, the child was all eyes under that ridiculous haircut. She consciously reined in that line of thought and took a calming sip of liqueur, focusing her attention on the bubble-thin iridescent glass.

There really were times when Chelan's taste for the antiquarian had its advantages. Their dining room was such a case. On a frosty evening like this it was at its best. The rose-colored velvet curtains shut out the night with an infinitely warmer, more luxurious feeling than shades or blinds or that polarizable glass she hated. They made the nuisance of finding someone to clean them and the fact they were dust magnets between cleanings a worthwhile trade off, at least until whatever cleaner she was using went out of business. Then she threatened to tear them down and throw them out until she found the next cleaner.

The hand-dipped beeswax candles were imported for a fortune from an artisan's studio on Terra. Burning in cut crystal holders their delicate scent blended with the smells of the meal, and they gave a glow electric lights couldn't duplicate. They reflected in the polished dark wood of the table so attractively too. At least Chelan had let her have a permanent finish put on it!

The placemats were hand work too, crocheted in an elaborate pattern as a gift by a colleague. Her pride and joy though were the plates. They were centuries old Tamaran porcelain with an intricate delicate rose pattern on the rim. The color wasn't even faded after all that time, and she had used the exact shade of rose for the curtains and the striped upholstery on the high-backed chairs.

At the moment Meg and Basil were perched on the opposite ends of the curtains, sharpening their beaks. Even they had been on good behavior tonight. They had only come down to the table once, when Niki was feeding them the red flame flowers out of his salad.

When it had become obvious Mitra wanted to forget Drezvir, not to speak of it, Niki had told funny stories about the office, and Chelan had described parts of his simulations he hoped would interest her. As for herself, she hadn't had much to say because her current research contract was with a pharmaceutical company for a change, not one of the terraformers she usually worked for, and they were very strict about proprietary information. But she had told a few stories about her current grad students.

***

Everyone was reaching the stage of being full and getting a bit drowsy and not having much left to say. Roween expected in a few minutes Niki and Mitra would go see what they could find on holovision, and Chelan would wander back to the library. When she cleared up she would join Niki and Mitra and see if there was a good concert on.

"Apfel strudel or not, these are great." Niki took a second good-sized square and bit into the flaky pastry, relishing the contrast between it and the soft fruit filling. "Cinnamon and what else?"

"Do you want all my trade secrets?" Roween was pleased.

"Actually, I want the entire recipe. Between the two of us we'll start the next trend in desserts."

"Are you into cooking now too, Niki?" Mitra was amused.

"He has to be, no woman to cook for him." Roween was resigned.

"What happened to the long queue just waiting to get their hearts broken?" Mitra asked.

"The line thins out pretty fast with age." Niki wasn't concerned. The line was still as long as he wanted. But he also wanted a change of topic before Roween got off on her 'I'll never see grandchildren' theme, so he asked "So, what are you going to do with all that money, Mitra?"

He knew how much she had been making in salary plus isolation pay, because every pay day a percentage was routed to him before Mitra ever saw it. As an investment consultant and stockbroker, Niki took it as one of his family responsibilities to see that his little sister, who seemed to have no sense of financial responsibility, was taken care of.

"I'm going to Gingezel as soon as I leave here!" was the prompt and ecstatic answer.

"Gingezel?"

Three voices echoed around the table. Roween's was heavy with censure, Niki's held tolerant amusement, and Chelan's lively curiosity.

"Yes, and I'm going to stay there till I've spent all that money! I have to have earned it for some reason."

Mitra also helped herself to another serving of the whatever it was. She wondered idly if she would pay later for eating so much rich food after the restricted diet on Drezvir, but doubted it. She could usually eat anything and this was really good.

"Not your extra bonus too." Roween was appalled. Mitra was capable of it too.

"What extra bonus?" Niki asked his sister suspiciously. He hadn't heard of any extra bonus.

"Well, it was for if I stuck it out to the end." Mitra hedged.

"How much?" Niki asked firmly.

Mitra set her jaw. "I'm spending it, Niki. You take lots already."

"It doubles her isolation bonus." Roween volunteered.

She got a murderous look from Mitra who didn't remember telling her.

"Mitra, even you couldn't spend that much!" Niki said shaking his head.

"I could on Gingezel!"

"Why do you want to go to a place like that anyway?" Roween did not approve of Gingezel. She kept thinking of all of the useful research that could have been funded with the purchase price of the planet, to say nothing of what the development costs must be.

"Because it's just for having fun, and Drezvir was no fun at all! I've had it with work."

"Mmm hmm." Niki didn't believe that for a minute. Mitra was always sick of working one minute and excited about a new idea the next.

"There's plenty of work on Gingezel for the people that live there," Chelan interposed.

Mitra thought about this. "I suppose so, but that's true at any resort." She looked imploringly at her father for support. "Wouldn't you like to go there?"

He looked uncomfortable. "I can't say I'd mind, but I've never taken a vacation without your mother and I'm not starting now."

"Mitra," Niki said sternly, "you're trying to change the topic." He held out his hand.

"No!"

"Yes! I'm sure even on Gingezel you can stay long enough on those isolation credits to make that slave driver boss of yours worry you aren't coming back."

Chelan intervened. "Now Mitra dear how much isolation pay did you get?"

Mitra told him.

"That much?" His eyebrows rose. "I'm sure you can have a lovely holiday for that. Why don't I use my computer to check a few places out, or have you already? If I can find something affordable, Niki can invest the rest for you and you can just do it again in a few years."

"Well..." Mitra wavered. There was something attractive about the idea of going back if she liked.

Chelan didn't give her a chance. He stood up and walked to her chair, stooping to kiss the top of her head. "Finish your dessert dear, then come see what I've found. What sort of place do you fancy?"

"Sun, sand, and water," came the prompt reply, "but not tropical. I think that could be too much of a shock to the old system."

"Very good." He patted her shoulder and wandered off.

"If you're finished I'll clear up." Roween stood up with obvious ill grace. "You don't need to help."

Mitra and Niki were both much too excited to be handling her best antique china and the fine crystal. It had taken her whole marriage to collect unchipped service for six in the delicate rose floral. She didn't want to have to start over again.

Mitra looked at the retreating back, ramrod stiff and radiating disapproval. "I don't think Papa is ever getting to Gingezel, do you?"

"No." Niki added slowly, "The funny thing is I think he'd really like to go. Usually he's not much for vacations unless they're in some museum. But Gingezel seems to have caught his fancy. He never mentions it when Roween is around, but if we're lunching or something he talks of it a lot."

"Poor Papa. I'll have to take hundreds of images for him."

"That might make it worse, silly." Niki held out his hand again. "The money Mitra."

She pouted. "I am not giving you my credit strip here at dinner."

"I don't expect you to. I want a hand shake that if Chelan finds somewhere nice that costs less than you expect, I get the extra money to invest. You know you can have it out anytime." He also knew that as soon as money was out of her current account Mitra forgot about it.

Reluctantly she put her tiny hand in his. Since childhood neither had gone back on a hand shake. Niki gave it an exaggerated shake across the table, then released it.

"C'mon let's go sit somewhere soft."

*****

Chapter 11

Niki and Mitra headed down the short corridor to the well-worn living room. Niki sprawled in Chelan's high-backed leather chair. Mitra curled up on the end of the couch, yawning.

"So are you going home to Pendrae first to check on your apartment and stick your head in at Dellmaice Power Systems?"

Mitra shook her head. "If the apartment has survived subletting this long it will a little longer. I've told Elin's daughter to stay on and expect me when she sees me."

"Isn't that a little hard on her, or is the vacancy rate high there?"

"I've no idea, but she's a quiet little thing. We can share until she resettles herself. Besides, it would waste a week just getting there. As for Dellmaice Power Systems, I'm not even telling them where I am, or Ari will think of some reason to call me back."

"Uh huh." This might be true, but to Niki it did not sound like a very good strategy for staying on the good side of a difficult boss. "How much vacation is due anyways?"

"All the vacation for the three years. So that's more than four months. It's more if I decide to take the overtime, but I haven't decided yet." She yawned again and tucked her feet up. "Maybe I won't even go back then unless I'm broke. But then I can always have you send me that money, can't I?" She was almost asleep, full to satiation for the first time in years.

Niki thought of what he knew of Ari Dellmaice and Dellmaice Power Systems. He did not think, vacation technically due or not, that he would appreciate a senior engineer disappearing for a quarter of a year or more.

"Mitra," he said, trying to get her to focus, "did you ask if you can take all the vacation at once?" Rules and practices varied so much from world to world.

"Why should I? It was due."

"Mitra!" Niki was stern. "You could be getting in trouble."

Mitra shot upright. "Can't you ever quit being the big brother?"

"Easy! But you are risking getting Ari Dellmaice very angry. I know you could work anywhere, but - Galaxy knows why - you seem to like it there. Why make it hard on yourself? Take a month or six weeks for now, then more later." To his surprise, Mitra giggled, looking about nine years old and very pleased with herself.

"Ari will be mad all right, but not for long. Not when he sees what I have."

She was so transparent. She obviously had worked out something and was dying to tell him. He couldn't resist. Niki said indifferently, "that's nice, Sis. Shall we find a good concert before Roween gets here?"

"Niki!"

Mitra was more than reproachful. She looked hurt almost to the point of tears. Why was it always so easy to tease her, and after all these years why did she still fall for it?

Niki laughed. "Silly, can't you tell when I'm teasing? Of course you can tell me all about your great new reactor. At least I assume it's a great new reactor?"

She shouldn't tell him. Not after that! But she really needed to. Niki was her touchstone, the one whose judgement mattered even if he didn't technically understand her. It had always been that way. He had listened to her plans for doll houses and helped her with her little garden plot. He hadn't got cross like Roween had when, suddenly at 14, she wanted to wear trendy clothes. Instead he had secretly advised her on the shops his sophisticated 20-year-old girlfriends used, and warned her not to tell Roween.

"Actually no, it's not a reactor. It's on the geothermal side." She sighed, "I suppose that was the one good thing about being on Drezvir. I had never seen a geothermal unit being installed right from the mine extension stage on. But the way they do the extension and the installation limits the potential for power extraction unnecessarily."

The words kept tumbling out. Niki watched her and let them flow past. He judged, as he always did, by Mitra. There was no hesitation, no wondering. She was totally confident. When she finally ran down he said, "so, it sounds like you have another winner."

"Oh, do you really think so?"

"You think so, and that's what matters."

She smiled and stretched. It was so nice being home. This house was still home, not her apartment on Pendrae. She looked around absentmindedly, then suddenly asked, "where's Papa?" as if Chelan should have been sitting there with Niki listening to her.

"I suspect he's hunched over his terminal in the library wondering what happened to us."

"What happened to us?" Mitra repeated blankly. "Oh oh. Was I supposed to go see what he was doing, not wait for him to come get me?"

"Uh huh, but I wouldn't worry. He'll love the chance to research Gingezel without Roween having grounds to complain."

***

"Well dear, does this look any good?" Chelan asked. They were looking at a low aerial view of a community that was less than a city and more than a village. It half encircled a lovely bay that seemed partly harbor, partly a long stretch of white beach.

"It's lovely," Mitra breathed. The day the image had been recorded was perfect. The sky was blue and there was just enough wind to have sailboats tacking in the harbor. Mitra was no sailor, but she loved to watch sailboats, preferably from the comfort of a shore-side outdoor restaurant with an iced beverage in her hand.

"I think the weather should be what you wanted. It's southern temperate, and in their year it's just approaching early summer. Now, I should tell you that's a large lake, not salt water. Do you want a closer look?"

Chelan was rather proud of the computing equipment he had acquired for his simulations and of course used to access the hyperweb as well. He had installed sliding panels in front of an entire wall of books to use as his projection surface. At that size you had a real sense of being in his simulations, or in this case on Gingezel. The resolution was excellent and you could move through the most complicated virtual scenes very smoothly and essentially in real time.

"Should we start at the harbor and take a virtual walk to the hotel I thought you'd like?"

"Sure."

Mitra was amused. Chelan had obviously not been wasting his time. The image shifted to one of standing viewing the harbor, then they turned, moving along, with yacht moorings on one side of the lane and a mix of shops and restaurants on the other. It was peaceful and relaxing and not at all what Mitra had expected.

"But it's all so old looking!" she blurted out.

The buildings were either natural stone and looked centuries old. They could have come from the first century of any of the planets settled in the earliest wave of human expansion out from Terra. The town could be on Rujjipet or Tamara or even the southern hemisphere of Plenata. Even the stone steps were worn down as if by millions and millions of footsteps. She thoroughly expected to see settler women in those rather peculiar tunics with pointed shoulders favored in some not particularly accurate docudramas, not the rather ordinary mix of locals and tourists she saw. Mitra knew the town couldn't be more than five years old, but it looked ancient.

"Oh dear!" Chelan was concerned. He'd tried so hard to get it right. "I rather thought after Drezvir, where I assumed everything was modern if rather utilitarian, you'd like a change for your holiday. There are ultramodern cities as well, although I'm not sure any have been built with exactly this climate."

Mitra was distracted by the weight on her shoulder as Meg landed and settled herself.

"Holiday?" Meg repeated and rubbed her head against Mitra's cheek.

"That's right Meg," Mitra said. "Do you know what holiday is?"

"Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!"

Mitra winced at the screech in her ear.

The Kael household celebrated pretty well any holiday from any planet that caught Chelan's fancy, but Mitra knew this Terran one was Meg's favorite. Meg loved the idea of a tree in the house just covered with glittering ornaments she could drop on the floor and watch smash.

"Not that kind of holiday Meg."

As Mitra was wondering if it was worth explaining, the virtual scene caught Meg's attention.

"Water!" Meg loved water more than holidays.

"Water?" Basil asked from the table beside Chelan's armchair where the parrots had been eating nuts. He was still more interested in the nuts though.

"Oh dear." Chelan was flustered. "They aren't supposed to be here when I do simulations."

"Why?" Niki asked.

"That started the trouble. Basil got confused and tried to fly into one of my simulations. He stunned himself on the wall, and Meg got pretty upset."

Niki winced and turned to look at Basil. He definitely was not one of the galaxy's brighter lights. Mitra followed suit.

Chelan continued. "I'm afraid when he came to she got a bit abusive, or at least I'd judge that by the bits of Plenatese she threw in."

Meg seemed aware that they were all looking at Basil. "Pea brained idiot!"

Mitra suppressed a smile. "Meg, that's not nice! Papa, where did she learn that?"

"From your mother, I'm afraid. Her most recent grad student is a bit of a disappointment."

"Water?" The nut was finished and Basil seemed to be trying to peer past them to the virtual scene.

"Oh no you don't, old chap." Niki intervened, taking firm hold of Basil who tried to twist and peck him.

"Water!"

"That's right, but you can't play in that water. Roween must be through dishes now. Why don't you go have a water fight in the big sink?" He headed for the door and released Basil.

"Water fight!" Basil was heading for the kitchen.

"Pea brained idiot!"

Mitra had walked after Niki. "Meg, give it a break. Go fight."

Meg muttered a bit, then launched herself after her mate.

*****

Chapter 12

"You know rather a lot, Chelan." Niki chuckled. "Been doing a little research on the sly?"

"Well..." Chelan was uncomfortable.

Mitra gave him a hug. "I would too! I've been glued to the news and every special about Gingezel since it got going. Hyperweb access was too restricted on Drezvir to get more than that." She took another look at the image. They were now standing still near an outdoor restaurant with blue and white striped umbrellas shading clean white tables, each with a jug of brightly colored flowers. It looked perfect.

"It might be a good idea at that, but what about the hotel? I detest quaint hotels!" She definitely did not trust her father's taste after some of her childhood holidays. "I mean, I expect on Gingezel they could look quaint and still function..."

"I assure you the hotel I thought you would like is most modern, inside anyways. We're almost there."

As they moved along, the harbor shifted to wider sand beaches and the road moved inland enough to allow for buildings, mostly hotels and restaurants on the sand side. They looked like the other buildings Mitra had seen, but there was no mistaking the uniformed doormen at the hotels, and all of the restaurants had menus posted in attractive brass and glass boxes by the door. She'd been on several worlds as well as Plenata where that was the custom and rather liked it. It was fun to wander about reading them, instead of the commercials on your compad, until one looked good.

Chelan paused the simulation before a hotel about a third of the way down. Mitra looked at the name above the door. The Sandy Cove. From the front there was nothing to distinguish it from the others they had gone past, except the doorman had a rather subdued uniform. How had Chelan chosen this one? She really hoped it wasn't because it was antiquarian. She was completely set on marble, faux or real, chrome and all the spa fixtures.

Then they were in the lobby, and Mitra sighed.

Niki whistled softly. "Not bad."

The lobby was all light and space, in cream marble, brass, and mirrors. There was an entire wall of glass looking onto the lake. On the floor were very thick carpets in green and the same luscious apricot Mitra had seen the girl at the spaceport wearing. Mitra decided apricot must be the color of the season. On a glass table near the door was a bouquet of orchid-like flowers, the arrangement taller than Mitra. This hotel was obviously targeted at the Genie set, those fortunate few who could galaxy hop in their hyperspatial yachts.

Feeling rather pleased with himself Chelan asked, "Would you like to see a room?"

Mutely Mitra nodded. This time there was a discontinuity in the image. Whoever had done the virtual imaging had obviously decided that going up the elevator and along the corridor was boring, because they were suddenly in a room. Only it wasn't a room. It was a spacious suite, as charming as the lobby was opulent. The color scheme was the same - blond marble, apricot, and green, but the portions were different. The marble was confined to the floor, and the walls were cool green. There were two sofas, three arm chairs, a table large enough for six to dine at, an elaborate media wall, and a desk that looked like it doubled as a virtual conferencing center. Beyond sliding doors was a balcony, and beyond that the stretch of beach. They moved to look into the bedroom. The bedspreads and curtains - here Mitra paused to look twice because it was the only place she had seen curtains beyond her parents' home - were green with apricot flowers. As for the bathroom, it was a mini spa. She couldn't complain.

"Well?" Chelan demanded. "I can show you the dining rooms and the pool they have in case guests don't like the lake, but I thought you might like something to see when you get there."

His daughter didn't answer. She had taken the controls from him and was looking at the rooms from various angles. Chelan gave Niki an amused smile.

Niki responded with a 'what can you do' shrug. Then he thought of something.

"Chelan, these are very complex virtual images. Could we have visited the other hotels?"

"Of course, or the shops, or the restaurants but I have to leave something for Mitra to explore when she's there."

"And the other resorts?"

"They're all the same."

"But this can't be coming from Gingezel over the hyperweb!"

Niki used the hyperweb to trade of course, but it had really bogged down over the last four or five years. He knew the costs of sending all but the most encapsulated data, and also the frustration of the galaxy-wide wait. Communication was essentially instantaneous between hyperspatial points on the hyperweb, but prior to transmission and after transmission data had to be routed. This induced some latency, and the exponentially increasing load was straining the planetary portions of the system, which made the latency even worse. That of course was not mentioning the odd piece that just plain got lost.

"No. They set up their own hyperweb. I think a full set of images is stored on their node servers for each planet - and people can log into it from the regular hyperweb free of charge to look things up."

"Mmm. If that was in the ad campaign I wasn't paying attention." Niki looked at the image. Mitra was now standing on the balcony looking out at the beach. "I'll have to check some out."

"It's worth the time." Chelan added, "Gingezel really had to have a separate hyperweb for more than the sales images. It handles the bookings and makes sure the guests can always stay in touch with their businesses without the standard hyperweb problems."

"Of course," Niki replied dryly. "You really have been checking this out."

"Well..." Chelan was uncomfortable again.

"Niki! Don't tease Papa."

Mitra's sudden participation in the conversation made both men jump.

"Finished looking dear?" Chelan asked.

"It's perfect." She reached up and kissed his cheek, then returned the controls to him. "I expect," and she gave Niki a rebellious look, "staying there will take all those extra credits, but it will be worth it."

"Oh, it might not be as bad as you think," Chelan replied vaguely. "I'll check prices for you. Three weeks or so?"

"That sounds about right. Then if I have any credits left I can sight-see around a bit."

"I'll check for you then."

"On their dedicated hyperweb," Niki informed Mitra.

"Really?" Then after a pause to think, "well, I suppose that cost wasn't much compared to the planet."

"I'll bet that has Roween almost as mad as the planet though," Niki observed.

"What exactly has Mama upset about Gingezel?" Mitra asked in honest confusion. There had been the odd person on Drezvir who really hated it, but that was just plain jealousy.

"The usual." Chelan sounded tired. "The money would be better spent on scientific research, and in the case of the dedicated hyperweb, that fact that only Gingezel guests and people inquiring about Gingezel have access, that it also hasn't been made available to researchers who need to collaborate."

"That would slow it down pretty good," Niki said dryly. "As far as I've observed, scientists manage to use up any resources made available in a very few years."

Mitra was still confused. "But Roween," she was totally unaware she had shifted to her mother's professional name to discuss her career, "has never had funding problems. And they say the Gingezel consortium is funding interstellar exploration indefinitely as part of the purchase contract."

"Besides," Niki added, "no one could have raised that kind of money for pure research. There has to be some payback potential at least, and leisure activities for the ultra rich is as good as any."

Chelan smiled wistfully. If only his wife were capable of being as reasonable as his children, but she wasn't.

"No one said Roween was sensible on this point."

"Mama -" Mitra began in indignation.

But Niki put a firm finger to her lips. For such a little thing Mitra had great lungs and a voice that could carry from one end of the house to the other if she got excited, and for the last thirty seconds he had been aware of the muted but unmistakable sounds of an Anton concert just beyond the closed door.

"Softly, Mitra." He kept his finger in place. "Roween has a right to her opinions, and she's not likely to change them. She's looked forward to this visit for months, and has just finished going to all the work of making you a fancy supper. What she deserves now is a little company, so what do you say we go listen to the concert with her."

Mitra pushed the finger away.

"Yes, big brother."

It was said without rancor. She headed towards the door. It would have to be Anton that Roween found. She sighed.

"Shall I check out that hotel then?"

"Book it!" Mitra said happily and gave her father her wrist cuff with her credit strip. She smiled, "and don't worry, we'll keep your little secret. I'll tell Mama I've been looking at your simulations most of the time, not that we've been drooling over Gingezel."

Her father agreed to this more readily than she expected. Usually he was uncomfortable with even the smallest social lie, the dear. Mama must really have it in for Gingezel. Mitra sighed over that as she went out the door after Niki. It was going to make the next two weeks awkward. She had no intentions of talking about Drezvir, and Gingezel was obviously off the list. Her ideas for the geothermal unit were fine to tell Niki, but they were too new and fragile to hold up to the sort of challenges her mother would test them with. And Roween's current work was all proprietary. Oh well, Mitra sighed again, there were always clothes. But talking clothes for two weeks could get pretty boring.

***

As he watched his children leave, Chelan's thoughts were remarkably similar to his daughter's. Perhaps he should talk Roween into their both taking some leave and having a proper holiday, maybe drive into the hills and see the autumn colors. With it so early in the term at the university she had insisted they keep up their teaching schedules and let Mitra fare for herself part time. But maybe a holiday would be better.

Chelan sighed, his gentle face slightly sad as he shut the door after his children. It wasn't that Roween didn't love her children. She did, passionately and possessively, and that was the problem. Neither of them would ever live up to her idealistic image of what they should be, although they had been delightful as young children and had turned into very likable adults. She had always wanted to mold them and each had fought it in their own way. With Niki there had been open confrontation from his preteen years on. With Mitra it had been more a case of trying to please, then sort of shying off to safer ground when she realized it could never happen. Her rebellion had waited until she had a career of her own and some confidence.

What Roween had never seemed to realize was that if they had been the placid malleable creatures she wanted them to be, they would also not have had the independence and creativity of mind she demanded even more. Chelan had often wondered what she would have done if either had been stupid, or worse still, just plain lazy. He expected it would have been a disaster.

In his case, he rather doubted it would have mattered too much as long as they were fundamentally good people. He wasn't too sure exactly what 'good' was, he just knew he divided people into categories, 'good' and 'not so nice'. He considered his children good even if there had been that spot of trouble with Niki.

Perhaps it was just easier for him. He was very fond of his children, and would not have missed raising them for anything. Now that they were adults he very much enjoyed their companionship, but Chelan knew he had never loved them passionately. His love for Roween was the only intense passion he was capable of, and after all these years it still surprised him.

Chelan sighed again and entered an access code for the Gingezel Hyperweb. A dissonant chord from the Anton concert reached him through the closed door and he winced. He might just stay here and see how the various cities were progressing until the concert was over. They'd never miss him.

*****

Chapter 13

Niki approached the seating area by the media wall with real pleasure. The Anton Band had been his favorite ever since they arrived on the scene. "You found an Anton concert," he said with approval. "What vintage?"

"Six years ago," Roween said with satisfaction. That had been the peak of their most creative and experimental period.

"Great!" Niki settled himself beside his mother, where the impact of the speaker system was best.

Absolutely terrific. Mitra went and sat as far from the media wall as she politely could. She was stuck here for an hour and a half or so listening to pure noise. They'd been even worse than usual back then. Mitra tried to remember if she had ear plugs stashed in the bottom of her shoulder bag. Maybe in a bit she could go to the bathroom and see if she could find them.

In the meantime she tried, "wasn't there a new one on?"

Roween had been focused on the concert. Now she favored her daughter with an incredulous stare.

"Mitra, I know you pay absolutely no attention to current events, but there are limits!"

Roween returned her attention to the concert. They were playing a favorite passage.

Mitra was torn between asking what associated with Anton could possibly be a current event, and saying Roween should have tried coping with the abysmal media access on Drezvir.

Niki intervened before she could open her mouth. "Anton has folded Mitra."

"What? When did that happen?"

She forgot she couldn't care less. A band couldn't be at the very top like they had for so many years and just fold.

"About three, maybe four, months ago."

Dumbfounded, Mitra looked at the band with more interest. The Anton Band had always had the same look. Skin-tight glittering jumpsuits, faces painted to where they were just masks. Anton himself, a tall slender black, always wore electric blue. The rest of the band wore darker colors.

She would have thought at least Lilla would have gone on about it; she was such an avid Anton fan. But then that was about the time Ari had been on Drezvir and they had done the first approach to half power. She might not have listened.

Mitra moved closer to Niki. "What happened?"

"It was pretty dramatic. It was a stadium concert being carried live on all the networks. After the third number Mrail just walked up to the front where Anton was standing. He said 'Anton, we're sorry, but you refuse to listen. Maybe now you will.' Then he and the rest of the band put down their instruments and walked off the stage.

"Anton just stood there for a minute looking stunned. Then he said, 'call a bloody commercial break will you!' Then he turned to the audience and said, 'hang tough. I'll sort this out.' and went after the band. Well you can bet no one was moving!" Niki had thoroughly enjoyed the drama.

"Niki!" Roween objected but he ignored her.

With a martyred sigh she picked up headphones. Excited children! And this was such a good concert.

"Well, after the commercial Anton walked back on stage looking really subdued. He pushed that mop of hair of his out of his face and said, 'okay everyone. I'm sorry, but this concert and the rest of the tour are cancelled.' He had to start yelling then to get heard over the din. 'Hold it! You'll all get your money back, plus a credit for the recording of your choice!'

"That wasn't cutting much and it looked like the police had a riot on their hands. Anton waved something that must have meant max the volume to the sound crew, then yelled, 'shut up and listen!' That worked too. The volume probably had everyone wondering if they could still hear anymore.

"Then he half grins. 'That's better. You all came for a good time. Right?'

"There was a sort of answer. Anton waved the response up 'You came for good a time. Right?'

"'Right.' It was a roar that time. Then he says, 'good. Let Us is coming back, and I'll perform with them.'"

"Lettuce?" Mitra asked. She really was out of it on the pop scene. "Like salad?"

"Let Us, like 'let us help you with that'. They were the warm-up band. You know how he always insists on an on-planet warm-up band?"

Mitra nodded. It seemed to be an Anton policy to give planetary-class performers some galactic coverage. There was always someone you'd never heard of, and it was pretty eclectic. Once it had been a symphony orchestra in their formal dress. "What were they this time?"

"Let Us is an all-woman band. Sort of soft popular with a lot of ballads. The lead singer is a little redhead. Looks a bit like Sinda, but she hasn't the figure. But the blond lead guitar ..."

"Uh Huh. Forget sexy blonds Niki. What happened to Anton?"

"Well, the local crowd was on his side now, yelling 'Let Us' - the home team makes good and such. The band came out, and Anton shook hands with the lead singer. Then he went to the back where Mrail's keyboard is. He just sat there for a song - I suppose getting over the shock and listening to their sound. Then he came in on the second song. The lead singer did a couple Johnnie covers, and he sang duet."

"Anton covered a Johnnie song?" Mitra was incredulous. "I wouldn't think he knew any."

"He must be a secret fan," Niki said. "He did a good job. Anyway when it was over, Anton came up front again. This time he gave each girl a kiss. Then he says with this amused grin, 'now that we're done, it's safe to tell you that none of the networks dropped the feed. You played galactic. So the contracts are transferred to you as the performing artists.'

"Talk about totally stunned-looking women. They'd just thought they were keeping the stadium from getting trashed. It's a good thing they hadn't known earlier on, or they'd have never played a note. After all, besides the exposure, they'd have to play for years at planetary level to make what Anton does - did," Niki corrected himself, "from the networks for a single show."

The money side of anything always fascinated Niki.

"Then Anton wished them well on the galactic stage, got the crowd on its feet applauding, and while the women were crying all over each other he just walked off. Gone. That's the last anyone knows about him or The Anton Band."

So Anton was gone. While Niki went back to the concert Mitra debated whether or not it was a blessing. Or was she being unfair? She did have two Anton recordings that were favorites. It was just that they kept doing this experimental trash.

While she was watching, Anton turned and the spotlight shifted to Mrail. She could believe that guy had been the bearer of bad tidings. He had blond hair and a truly evil-looking demon face. He always wore black with charcoal colored glittery patterns like swirls of smoke.

"He gives me the creeps!"

"Mrail?" Niki asked abstractly. "I suppose so, but you have to admit no one in the galaxy matches him on a keyboard."

Mrail was executing a complicated and, to Mitra, painful passage. It was definitely a blessing the band had folded. She let her mind drift to a question she had on some ceramic components in the geothermal unit. She wondered if she dared join Chelan in the library and contact an expert she knew in materials science. She decided it would be pushing her luck. But after this song she was definitely finding those ear plugs.

*****

Chapter 14

Late breakfast on the shaded terrace could be addictive. Mitra yawned and stretched luxuriously, shifting her chair slightly for a better view of the lake, every bit as blue and enticing as it had looked in the virtual image. It was a beautiful morning, clear, calm, and cloudless, with only the promise of the heat that would build up later in the day. With no wind there were no sailboats for her to watch, but some kind of sea birds were wheeling about, and there were a few power launches out.

The terrace was intimate and relaxing. Irregular flagstones dotted with terra cotta pots of flowers filled the U-shaped space between the wings of the hotel. Tables set with white china on apricot mats fringed the edges of the terrace, snuggling up close to the rough limestone block walls. Each had its own umbrella providing a pool of coolness. On her table there was a casual arrangement of flowers in a bud vase of crackle glass that matched her water carafe. Others had small pots of flowering plants, or similar vases of flowers.

Enjoying the luxury of not having a reason to hurry, she was working on a delicious fruit salad and sweet rolls at a leisurely pace. On Drezvir there had always been too many things to do, and at home Roween and Chelan had both had early classes. But here there was no reason not to just relax.

It was her second morning at the hotel and she was beginning to get a feel for the routine. Mitra decided she was definitely one of the late risers. It wasn't that the staff let her know she was inconveniencing them. The motto was definitely 'we are here to serve, and graciously'. It was simply that the delightful terrace was largely deserted and the indoor cafe totally so.

A motion at the corner of her eye made her turn her head. She was not the latest arrival then. A very elderly man was making his way towards the far end of the terrace, with the maitre d' positively hovering. Despite his frailty the old man radiated power, and Mitra wondered who he was, or more accurately had been. It was easy to slip into the habit of observing the other guests and wondering who they were. Everyone here had the potential to be someone important. She watched as the man was seated at an isolated table, his back to the other guests. For a moment she had seen his profile and he had looked infinitely sad.

Feeling rather like she was intruding on some private grief Mitra shifted her gaze to the other guests. She was starting to recognize some of them, like the woman about her own age seated alone at a table, drinking iced tea and reading. She had been on the terrace yesterday too. She was apparently the mother of the two noisy and energetic young girls who spent the morning in the adjacent pool, wearing themselves out. At least for their mother's sake, Mitra hoped they were wearing themselves out. There was also a middle-aged couple lingering over coffee and rolls. Today they seemed to be debating the merits of an afternoon's sailing if the wind picked up against a drive up the coast. Yesterday they had been discussing shopping for art at some gallery she would have to find time to visit.

Mitra's gaze continued on. At the table nearest the wall of glass of the lobby was a man having an iced glass of something fruity looking. By his appearance she would swear he'd been up for hours and this was just a break, not breakfast. No one could look that awake at breakfast. He'd been at the same table yesterday, and today she was curious enough to take a really good look.

The man was not exactly handsome but he wasn't bad looking either. His features were regular in a comfortable, rather lived-in looking face, dark eyes, a straight nose, the lower lip full between noticeable lines. At the moment his forehead was furrowed with concentration lines. She suspected his hair had been dark brown, maybe black, but it was prematurely so heavily frosted with gray it was hard to judge its color or his age. He was perhaps about Niki's age she guessed, maybe a bit younger. He was slightly above mid height and his frame was solid. He obviously worked out a lot but not for muscle definition.

In fact he was the most attractive man she had seen on her holiday so far. There had been a number of young through middle-aged men on the Gingezel pleasure liner she connected with, but none had been to her particular taste. They had been pleasant enough, and some distinctly handsome, but she decided she must have become picky after so much time alone. Aunt Beti would have said the biochemistry just wasn't right, but Mitra had always liked to think there was something more spiritual to it than that.

This man was also the one who had started her on her guessing game, because he was obviously really someone. You could tell just looking at him that he would be competent at anything he chose to do, but it was more than that. He had the air of a man who was totally relaxed with himself and as far as he was concerned the galaxy was doing just fine, even if right now the concentration had turned into a scowl.

Even the staff treated him differently. He didn't get the impersonal deference a well-trained hotel staff gives all guests. They were polite of course, but they treated him like family. Coming in this morning she had heard him calling the waiter Greg and asking how his son's soccer game had gone the night before. She wondered how many times he had been lucky enough to afford to stay here and for how long, to get to know the staff that well.

Mitra's speculations ended abruptly as the man looked up from whatever he had been doing on his compad and caught her watching him. Mortified by the obvious amusement on his face she frowned and turned her attention to her plate, picking up her spoon and dipping it into the bowl that had held fruit salad. Belatedly she remembered she'd finished it a few minutes earlier. That was even more embarrassing. Did she pretend there was something in the bowl and to eat it, or leave the spoon there? She could still feel the amused eyes on her.

"Miss Kael, can I get you more fruit?"

The waiter Greg was at her elbow almost before the spoon was in the bowl. On the evening of her arrival it had been Dr. Kael this, Dr. Kael that, until in a fit of total of exasperation she had called the concierge and said she was on vacation and wanted no honorifics. They reminded her too much of Drezvir.

Grateful for the interruption, she smiled. "Thanks, just a small serving." He disappeared and she applied herself to a sweet roll, studiously not looking at her fellow guests.

What was the etiquette with these people? Were you chummy or aloof? Concentrate on breakfast and forget the man. All the same Mitra looked up eagerly when a shadow fell across her table, and stopped. But it was only the woman with the kids.

The woman smiled. "Hello. Isn't it a lovely morning?"

Mitra politely returned the smile. "Gorgeous."

That appeared to be all the encouragement the woman needed. She pulled out a chair and perched on the very edge. Up close she wasn't at all what Mitra had expected. From a distance all you could tell was that she was a slender mid-height blonde with long hair. Mitra had imagined her elegant and aloof in a gown, immaculately made up, hair in an elaborate coil. But up close there was a hint of sunburn turning to freckles on her nose, her eyes were friendly, her mouth was distinctly too large, and the smile seemed genuine. In fact she looked pleasant and rather ordinary.

"I do envy you your late breakfast," she said with a sigh. "The girls have had me up since dawn."

The waiter reappeared, not only with more fruit salad, but with another basket of rolls. "Mrs. Wyntre, can I get you another iced tea?"

The woman shook her head. "I have to collect the girls, or they'll come looking for me, dripping all over everyone like yesterday." She made no move to leave though.

"They're your daughters?" Mitra assumed so, but she wouldn't have sworn to it. One was dark, and the blond one was such a chubby little thing she certainly didn't resemble this woman.

"Yes," their mother sighed. "I had this wonderful idea that we needed to spend some time totally alone, a mother/daughter bonding sort of thing." She made a small grimace. "All I can do is plead temporary insanity. Thank goodness they're both into synchronized swimming and practice all morning."

Mitra smiled. She was deciding she could like Mrs. Wyntre. Unfortunately she couldn't think of anything tactful to say. She was spared the problem by shrieks and giggles coming from the path to the pool.

"Not already!" Mrs. Wyntre leapt to her feet. "Yesterday I got carried away reading and they came up and disrupted everyone." She took off at a trot.

Mitra remembered yesterday too. As much she liked Mrs. Wyntre, it might be wise to be long gone by the time the girls were dry and dressed and their mother was wondering what to do with them next. At any rate one question was answered. Mrs. Wyntre was chummy.

Mitra took one last spoonful of fruit salad and a bite of sweet roll, washed it down, picked up her beat up shoulder bag, and walked briskly towards the hotel as the noise of the children increased behind her. Chummy. She smiled at the man and said hello on the way past. Too self-conscious to wait for an answer, she kept walking. She did notice though that it looked like he was working on something technical which rather surprised her. And his eyes weren't really brown, they were flecked.

*****

Chapter 15

Dr. Dreen Pendi looked at the retreating back of Miss Kael with a mixture of surprise and amusement. He knew her name because he had asked Tomao, the concierge. He hadn't asked anything else because he wouldn't have been told. A hotel of this calibre did not allow the employees to gossip about guests. Whoever Miss Kael was, she was a distinct asset. The majority of the guests were late middle-aged or older, except of course for the young woman with the two little monsters. The younger crowd tended to stay at Joran's hotel down the road.

But there was one thing he was sure of. Whoever Miss Kael was, she was somebody. You could tell that by the way the staff watched her. She didn't have to ask for anything, like just now. She just lifted a spoon and the waiter came to see what she needed. Even more to the point she didn't even notice. She took it as her due.

The only other one they were treating the same way was old Jorgus Brenya. Dreen didn't know him personally, but he recognized him and knew of him. You couldn't follow the financial news and not know his face. He was here, Dreen presumed, for some privacy to recover from the death of his second son. The old lad had out-survived his wife and now all his children. There was a third generation of course, but from what Dreen heard they weren't up to their grandfather's calibre.

Dreen wondered idly if Jorgus Brenya might be part of the Gingezel consortium. He was staying in the penthouse suite of the expensive wing, the same wing Miss Kael was staying in. He knew that because he'd seen her taking that bank of elevators. He rather expected Brenya kept the apartment full time for his personal use like Joran did the penthouse in his hotel. That might mean this was his hotel, a sign he was in the consortium.

Exactly who was in the consortium was one of the best kept secrets Dreen had come across. Joran was. He knew that because within hours of the consortium getting together and having the bright idea of buying a planet an excited Joran was calling him by secured virtual conference to tell him about it.

***

It had been one of the last good times for Joran. His lean black face had been alive with excitement, his whole frame taut. In Dreen's memory Maillie was leaning over his shoulder, hugging him, petting him, trying to calm him down. But it had been useless. In her own way she was as excited as he was, her sculpted café-au-lait face glowing.

"Guess what!"

From Joran this tended to be an alarming question. Over the years Dreen had seen Joran through way too many 'Guess whats!' Still, if Maillie was pleased, it couldn't be too bad. In fact, now that Dreen took a better look, it might even be great. Well, time to start guessing. Joran demanded at least three guesses before he got fed up and told you.

"You're nominated for six Galactic Awards."

It would have to be six to top his record of five.

"No." Joran's face was a big grin.

"You're hosting the Galactic Awards."

If so, whoever set it up was either a lunatic, or suicidal.

"Not even close - but that would be fun!"

"Uh-huh."

"Maillie. Quit fidgeting woman!"

Joran pulled his wife onto his lap, petting her close-cropped curls with one hand, his other hand cupping her breast.

That unconscious action gave Dreen an idea.

"Maillie is pregnant?"

Dreen knew they'd been wanting a family, but with Joran's killer touring schedule it wasn't happening.

"Not yet." Joran nuzzled her slender neck. "But we're working hard."

"Joran!" Maillie protested, but she was laughing.

"All right, I give up."

That was allowed after three guesses.

"I bought a planet."

That was good. Dreen raised tea roses, and his mother's greenhouses were almost professional. They had both been trying to get Joran to try raising plants, any plants, as a way to calm him down a bit. He had to admit Joran wasn't calm now, but any new venture large or small started with this kind of excitement. He could imagine Joran and Maillie's beautiful tropical home on Laurion filled with orchids or whatever.

"What kind?"

"Habitable. In fact, almost perfect. It will hardly need terraforming. It's only a day and a half, maybe two, by Genie for you on Tranus. Closer to Laurion!"

A planet. Not a plant. A planet. Dreen felt the wind go out of him. He shook his head to clear it. "You bought a planet?"

"Well," Joran conceded, "not just me. A bunch of us were having supper, and Jon came in all excited." Jon Melcrist was his Genie pilot. "He'd been talking to some friends just back from an exploration voyage a little further out on the rim. They'd found this fantastic planet. And you know how it is. We all started wondering what they'd do with it. Then someone said, 'Maybe we should buy it.'"

"You said," Maillie corrected gently.

"Okay. I said," Jordan agreed. "Anyways, it's ours!"

***

It was always like that. When Joran needed someone to talk to he called, whatever the time of the day or night. But Joran had flatly refused to say who else was involved, and Dreen knew better than to push. He didn't really care all that much, but he liked a good puzzle and had tried sorting this one out on his own with no luck at all. He expected that to get very far he'd have to do some very illegal hacking, something he said he'd never do again in his life.

Back to work, Dreen told himself. As delightful as sitting on a terrace in one of the most charming and exclusive cities on Gingezel might be, this was not a vacation. It didn't work though. His mind kept straying to the new arrival. She both intrigued and attracted him. She was tiny and he liked small women. She was attractive too, despite that ridiculously boyish haircut. Still, who was he to judge? It was probably the height of fashion on some world he didn't know. She looked quite intelligent too, which mattered a lot to him. Larna, his last girlfriend, had not been intellectual. Dreen was sure there had been a lot of other things going for her, but he couldn't think of many. No. That was being unkind just because he was still smarting from the split. He'd been fond of Larna. But he had found it very frustrating not to be able to talk about his ideas at any level at all.

He didn't really expect a woman to share his passion for computing theory because not many did. The two Dreen knew well who did both worked for him, and that made them firmly out of bounds as far as he was concerned. It wasn't that he was opposed to career relationship mixes. The best integrated systems testing team he had was a husband and wife team. But he was founder and president of Nemizcan Computing, and to him this made any potential personal relationships with his staff awkward. And as far as women he'd met at conferences went, so far either the chemistry hadn't been right, there had been serious conflicts of interest, or they already had a permanent partner, like Tina.

But from Larna he had learned the hard way that a woman had to at least be enough of an intellectual to listen and comment, not yawn and change topics. The closest he had done to finding the right woman was early on when as a student he'd been involved with an aspiring architect. They'd had a good time and been fascinated with each other's careers. Unfortunately their relationship hadn't survived its first serious test. He had gotten over the pain and they were still friends in a distant sort of way. She invited him to openings of her new buildings and he never went, and he sent her complimentary versions of new software. She was now happily married to a former friend and had two children. He was sitting alone on the terrace on Gingezel.

Dreen gave the coding one more half-hearted try. The fact he had been getting uncomfortably close to a complete block on the idea he was trying to capture didn't help either. He didn't like letting Joran down. They'd been best friends since undergrad days, when they were both homesick off-worlders on Rujjipet. Back then Dreen had been studying computing science and Joran doing honors physics. But Joran hadn't stuck it out. His musical talent had been too great to waste and he had achieved superstar status under the name Anton. And now Joran was getting over his own total block, one that had started when Maillie had died three years ago. Dreen had given his personal promise to make a one-of-a-kind composition package for him.

But Dreen knew he couldn't do it, at least not today. He slammed the compad shut and stood up. What he was doing couldn't be forced. Either you focused and it came, or you didn't and you messed up. Dreen knew perfectly well that there was still plenty of routine work to do on the installations for the prototype Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb system, but he didn't intend to do any of it unless he didn't connect with the Kael woman. Wayd, the intended hub manager, was shaping up well. He and his staff were handling the installations competently. In fact they didn't need him at all. He simply had a personal goal of completely installing a system by himself twice. It was too easy to slip into being the top designer, the desk man. But so far there wasn't a system at Nemizcan he couldn't run or repair in a pinch. Dreen didn't want that to slip.

The hacker attacks he was worried about wouldn't come until the prototype was fully up and running and being tested. Until then he and his design team were largely fine-tuning defense strategies. In fact, he could have slipped back to Head Office on Tranus for a few weeks, but he didn't want to with Joran and his band tentatively sorting out their differences. The awkward role of mediator was a distinct improvement over having a shattered Joran as indefinite houseguest. Dreen knew that was exactly what would happen if things fell through. Joran would be back on Tranus in his apartment, possibly forever. Now though, as he thought of Miss Kael, he was glad he'd stayed on.

*****

Chapter 16

Mitra stood in front of the hotel irresolute. Where to go? All of Crescent Bay was probably charming, so she might as well flip a coin. Sooner or later she would have to find a shop and get some sun clothes but she wasn't melting yet. She and Roween had amused themselves for a good part of her visit at home trying to create some kind of holiday wardrobe in shops that were exclusively into winter wear in a cold region. They hadn't had much success. They could have shopped online of course, but that would have defeated the purpose of getting them out of the house. Still, they had filled one suitcase, and she had the lightest outfit on. The green silk shirt with sleeves rolled up and twill pants would do until the heat really started to build up mid afternoon. So Mitra was in no hurry. She felt like she was standing there rooted, happy to feel the sun on her face and just look down the street.

"Are you going anywhere in particular?" Dreen asked.

It had been a very, very long time since he had tried to pick up a total stranger. He was pretty sure he'd completely forgotten the rules. Maybe, he thought wryly, he should trade off with Chett now and then, just to keep in practice. He couldn't think of a faster way to lose the best Vice-President of Field Operations he'd ever had though than to try to chain him to a desk, however temporarily or luxuriously, while he was the one to roam the galaxy.

The unexpected voice so close behind her made Mitra jump.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Mitra turned to find the man standing there. She smiled drowsily. "My fault for daydreaming."

Dreen liked the smile. It was natural, unaffected. He smiled back.

"Nice ones I hope."

Mitra stared blankly for a minute. Her brain didn't seem to be processing words too well. Then, embarrassed as he was obviously waiting and starting to look amused again, she said hastily, "nice enough. Just sun dreams."

"Sun dreams?" It was Dreen's turn to be confused.

"That's what my father used to call it when I was little. You know, when it's so lovely and sunny you can't think. All you want to do is just be alive."

"Sun dreams." Dreen tried the words on for size. "I like that."

He liked Miss Kael too on close-up inspection. She had lovely eyes in an expressive face that he rather expected could set in total determination. And so far she hadn't frosted him. Dreen wasn't totally sure how he'd fare though, since this was a league he had never tried to play in before. Thanks to Joran he slipped in and out of contact with the galactic elite now and then, but he knew it wasn't his level. He had the wrong sort of ambitions, technical ones. But right now he intended to try, and he would guess by the embarrassment and rather becoming blush she wasn't going to frost him either.

Feeling about fifteen years old and more than a little awkward himself, Dreen tried again. "So, when the sun dreams are over are you going anywhere in particular?"

"Not really."

Now that sounded really exciting. Dummy. Just about on par with the rest of the conversation. He'll think you're an idiot. She'd really lost her touch on Drezvir.

"Well, would you like company going nowhere in particular?" Dreen persisted. Now that he was this close to Miss Kael he wasn't giving up just because the 'where are you going' line wasn't working. For the life of him he couldn't think of another though. "The town is very nice for just walking."

Then for his own benefit as a stern reminder, Dreen added, "I've got somewhere I have to be in an hour-and-a-half, but nothing until then."

Damn it. That sounded like he was working her into a schedule. She was looking at him with an assessing expression, and he braced himself for the 'no thanks buddy'. Well, he'd asked for it, hadn't he? But he didn't see how to retrieve things without making them even worse.

But Mitra hadn't heard that part. All she heard was this man asking to keep her company. Now she was wondering how to say yes and still get that sundress before she expired from the heat, because after being locked up in the Drezvir habitats, damned if she was going to hide in climate controlled comfort. There was a problem though. His clothes were only slightly more fashionable than Chelan's. So he belonged to the same school of dressing. Early on in life find something that suits you and stick to it. Wear an item until it's totally worn out, then reluctantly go to a shop and buy an exact duplicate. Chelan hated any stores except bookstores. She expected this man was the same.

Mitra said cautiously, "company would be nice, but what's your attitude on shopping? I desperately need a sundress."

Dreen detested shopping, and she certainly didn't look like she needed anything. She looked lovely in pants and a shirt. But he couldn't believe he was getting a reprieve. Under the circumstances he'd have agreed to pretty much anything. It was unsettling though. She'd more or less said yes, but she was still giving him that assessing look, and it was definitely not an assessment that implied if this goes well we'll see about tonight. Suddenly his brain made the link. He looked down at his just short of disreputable tropical suit and smiled.

"Shopping is fine, as long as it's only a spectator sport."

Mitra blushed again. Had she been that transparent? Couldn't she say anything to this man without putting her foot in her mouth?

"Great. Let's go then."

To cover her embarrassment she arbitrarily turned right, and started walking.

Dreen fell in beside her. She really was a cute little thing, and very natural. He hadn't expected much else though. As far as his limited experience went, the richer and more powerful people were, the less pretentious they were in private life. Business was another matter. Each had their own style there.

He said, "by the way, my name is Dreen Pendi."

"Mitra Kael."

Automatically Mitra stopped walking and extended her hand. As Dreen took it in his in a slightly formal handshake, she decided his touch was nice, very nice. She took a better look at him, not at his clothes. That was very nice too. She let her hand stay in his a little longer than socially necessary.

They strolled aimlessly, angling away from the harbor and towards the center of town, the conversation limited to comments on the buildings they passed, the weather, Mrs. Wyntre's children, and other polite topics strangers use to fill conversational gaps. Mitra slowed to look at the window of every shop they passed, whether it was a bakery or high-fashion. After Drezvir she was prepared to be entertained by all of them. She wasn't particularly impressed with the women's wear shops though. They passed five, and they had her making comments that made Dreen laugh about the colors and styles.

Suddenly she froze in front of a window, eyes wide. "Oooh!" It was a long, ecstatic breath. Perfection. Every last item.

Dreen couldn't see anything different about this shop. He started to ask what she saw that was special. "Mitra -"

But she came back to life and without so much as a glance at him made a beeline for the door. She had to have that skirt, and maybe a tee, and....

Not totally sure he was welcome, and even less sure he would like the proceedings inside, Dreen followed at a slower pace. Mitra was already deep in conversation with an elegantly dressed middle aged blonde. Mitra was pointing at the window and talking fast. The woman was nodding and giving her professionally assessing looks. She took time to look up at the newcomer, a question in her eyes. Dreen pointed at Mitra, and received an imperceptible nod, then the woman refocused on Mitra.

Dreen just stood there feeling awkward. He had so far managed to avoid shopping trips for anything other than housewares or furniture with the ladies in his life. Even then he preferred to ignore complaints that a sofa or chair should be tested for comfort and to shop online instead. So he had no idea what to expect, or what was expected of him. There was no doubting the shop's elegance, but there seemed to be an overwhelming abundance of brightly colored clothes and accessories everywhere, on racks, on counters, in cabinets, and artistically displayed on the walls.

As Mitra headed towards some freestanding screens the woman came over. "This could take a while." She gave an expressive shrug. "Miss Kael certainly knows what she wants, but the size ..." She shrugged again. "I will certainly have the items she wants sent in by courier for her approval, but the best courier cannot have them for this afternoon's heat. So we will see what we can do. Do you want to come back in say three-quarters of an hour, maybe an hour, or would you prefer to wait?"

She smiled a professional hostess's smile. "We have a seating area with a media wall where you can monitor the news and stock market, watch sports, whatever, and I can have one of the girls get you a drink or something to eat."

Dreen definitely wanted to go for a walk. This was not his element. But that ran the risk of coming back and finding Mitra gone. He gave an equally polite and meaningless smile.

"I'll wait."

"Very good."

She moved off towards the dressing room at a pace just short of hurrying, stopping here and there to select items.

Shopping with Mitra certainly was a great spectator sport Dreen decided, and rather redefined the idea of an icebreaker. She was treating him like an old friend, and an intimate one at that. He couldn't say he minded that at all and he'd been treated to a fashion show. However that last outfit, enchanting though it was, had really driven home how unnaturally pale Mitra was. He would swear she hadn't seen sun in years. For a moment he wondered about prolonged illness, but rejected it. She was too vivacious.

More likely she was from one of the planets where it was unsafe to get even limited sun exposure. If so, and she intended to run around three-quarters naked all afternoon, she'd be burned for sure even wearing a sunblock. Dreen got up and approached the young lady who had brought him an iced tea.

"Do you have any tops, things to cover up with that are sunblock fabric?"

"Of course."

Dreen would have guessed by the rather mask-like look that except for her professional courtesy she would have been offended. He hadn't doubted a good store on Gingezel would have sunblock fabrics, but what he didn't know was what to ask for in women's wear.

She continued. "For Miss Kael I'd recommend a large scarf, or we can order in a top. Shall I show her some?"

Dreen shook his head. "It's a gift. Can you show me some scarves?"

"Of course."

"Do you have a geometric?" Dreen had no idea of Mitra's taste, just his. "I think -"

But the young woman touched a finger to her lips and nodded towards the screen just as Mitra appeared. This time it was in what looked to Dreen like an above knee-length T-shirt in the iciest blue. It was belted with a narrow silky scarf of darker blue and there were blue beads around her neck dressing it up.

"This is the last," Mitra announced.

Dreen wasn't sure if this pronouncement was to him or the girl.

Mitra turned to Dreen.

"What are we doing next? I have to decide what to wear." Rather wishing he hadn't got bored and started wandering about the shop, and that she had him to herself in the alcove she added, "I mean respectable or not." Mitra blushed slightly, then frowned, cross at herself for blushing. Some of the outfits had been too sexy for family resort wear.

So, the day wasn't ending yet. Dreen found he was quite pleased with that.

"Lunch," he announced firmly.

"Where?"

Mitra had visions of an intimate little café on the harbor with Dreen looking at her the way he had when he saw her in that tiny camisole. If so, the camisole was what she'd wear.

"The hotel third down from ours." Then as her face fell he added, "they have a steel band I want to listen to. And," he teased, "you can be as unrespectable as you want."

"Oh," the shop girl put in, "they really are outstanding, aren't they?"

The enthusiasm in the girl's voice was real. So maybe a hotel was fine. There was always another day for the harbor, Mitra thought luxuriously. I'm on holiday.

"Respectable," Mitra decided reluctantly. She didn't need matrons glaring because their husbands were watching her, not them. "I'll only be a minute - have them pack the skirt set, the short set, and order the sundress. I'll wear this."

Before he could stop himself Dreen asked, "didn't you bring anything with you?"

Then he kicked himself. How unsophisticated could you get. She probably had trunks of clothes and this spree, even though it was more than he would voluntarily buy in a year, was probably just amusing herself.

"No," Mitra replied cheerfully and headed for the dressing room.

"Well, that's one way to travel," the girl said with obvious envy.

"I think we have more than a minute," Dreen remarked dryly.

"Oh yes, a scarf. It must be a square, not a shawl - she is so petite. You said a geometric." She brought out a solid blue/green scarf with an intricate geometric border in turquoise and blue. "This would go with all her outfits." She shook it the gossamer fabric out.

"I like it." Dreen could imagine Mitra wearing it.

The girl nodded her approval. "Even if she is going to wear it, shall I wrap it? That is always nicer for a gift, and there will be time." She had just seen her employer heading towards the dressing room with two more belts, one a lovely apricot silk sash, one of blue green leather. Lucky woman that Miss Kael.

Dreen nodded.

*****

Chapter 17

"There. That only took a minute."

Mitra startled Dreen, appearing suddenly in the entrance to the alcove. It hadn't been a minute. She had been a good twenty-five minutes, and he had started to watch a soccer game.

"How's the game going?" Mitra had followed soccer at the interplanetary level - prior to Drezvir that was. They didn't carry it there. Her father had got her interested as a child, and she had even played when she was very young and the size difference with others her age wasn't so marked. She liked the fact it was the only sport whose rules were essentially unchanged from pre-galactic days.

"Not to my liking. My team is down three to nothing going into the second half."

"Ouch." Mitra took a look at the screen where an attempt at a goal was being set up. "They should have kept him on the disabled list another month, not put him back in goal." She and Chelan had spent most evenings watching sports.

She was showing signs of settling in to watch so Dreen turned off the screen.

"I can only stand so much being embarrassed for the team at once. I don't want to see this kick."

Mitra laughed.

"Are you ready to go then?" Dreen asked. She was empty-handed except for her floppy sun hat.

"Finally." There was no apology in Mitra's tone. "They're sending things to the hotel."

"Great. I'm hungry." Dreen stood up and stretched, then stooped remembering the bag at the side of the chair and picked it up.

"I thought you said shopping was a spectator sport," Mitra teased, assuming he'd slipped out for a quick purchase.

Then she recognized the bag and her face fell. So there was a Mrs. Pendi, or her equivalent back at the hotel. She imagined some elegant creature of leisure who woke up mid afternoon then devoted herself to preparing to look glamorous for the evening, and she was surprised how much the idea that he had just been entertaining himself with her hurt. She cursed herself. Was she so lonely she was going to fall for the first nice-looking male with friendly eyes and a smile that made her melt? She was losing her survival instincts.

Watching her Dreen thought he had never seen anyone so transparent. He also thought her eyes were a little over-bright before she averted her head. He wished he dared to reach out and turn her to face him. However despite the flirting trying on clothes, except for that handshake she had instigated automatically she had avoided even the most casual contact. He gave the hovering shop girl and proprietress a look that said 'OUT'. Miraculously they took it that way, because the proprietress suddenly remembered that she and the girl had to attend to a display on the far end the shop.

"I've seen people look happier about a present."

That brought Mitra around. He'd been right. Her eyes were wet. He said carefully, watching her, "just for the record Mitra, there isn't a Mrs. Pendi or anyone else back at the hotel, or anywhere. Okay?"

Dreen wasn't sure who would be more mortified. After all, he just met the woman, and he was telling her intimate details of his life. But he had to say something to erase the look on her face.

Mitra wasn't embarrassed though. She burst out laughing.

That completed his mortification.

"Sorry Dreen," she managed.

She was sorry too. The poor man looked like he wished the floor would open up then and there and swallow him.

"But you've got to stop doing it!" Dreen looked no wiser and equally embarrassed. She shook her head. "Don't you realize? That's the fourth or fifth time you've read my mind and I've only known you since this morning. I'm going to be afraid to even think! A woman has to have some privacy." He was starting to smile now too, obviously looking back over the morning.

Suddenly dead serious Mitra asked, "You aren't psychic are you? A Psi Talent?"

That would explain it. The few really first-class Talents were among the most important individuals in the galaxy.

It was Dreen's turn to laugh. "Not a chance. Girlfriends," he paused, then said with emphasis, "previous girlfriends have claimed I'm exceptionally dense."

"I doubt that."

It was nice to see him laugh and know all those lines weren't from concentration. She put on her best wheedling voice, "So, do I get my present, or is it for later? I love presents."

Dreen laughed again. "You sound just like a seven-year-old."

"Good." Mitra was pleased with herself. "I was trying to."

"It's for now." Dreen formally held out the bag.

He did not, to Mitra's relief say 'I hope you like it'. That always made her feel she was on the spot before the gift was even opened. She took the bag and perched on the edge of the chair. She had no choice. It was a nice, big, man-sized chair.

Rather to Dreen's surprise she began to carefully untie the elaborate bow. He would have sworn she was a tear-apart-and-leave-a-crumpled-heap-on-the-floor type of parcel unwrapper. She then carefully smoothed and folded the ribbon, placing it in the bag. He leaned against the door jamb watching as she repeated the process with the paper. He wondered what she would do with them back at the hotel. She was as absorbed as a child would have been too.

Mitra opened the box, breathing a sigh of pleasure and relief. You never knew with gifts.

"It's lovely." She carefully fingered the geometric pattern, not disturbing the meticulous folds, then went to replace the lid.

"You're supposed to wear it."

It was not a suggestion and Mitra looked up confused. Dreen hadn't struck her as the bossy type.

"I'll fry," she protested. Then to placate him she added, "I can wear it this evening."

If there was a this evening. She didn't like being bossed around, and she wouldn't have accepted the gift if she thought it had any kind of strings attached.

"I know I'm not supposed to do this," Dreen managed not to laugh at her, "but before you tell me to go to hell, it's for your own good. It's a sunblock and you're white as a ghost. You may fry in it, although that sales girl claims not, but otherwise you'll burn till you get no sleep for a few nights."

About to protest that she never burned, and unless she was on a planet with UV problems she only used a sunblock for long exposures, Mitra looked at her arm.

To Dreen's amusement she picked up a fold of the white skin, examining it like it belonged to someone else.

"You're right," she said. Score another one for Drezvir, damn the place. "Thank you for thinking of it."

Then, before he even realized what she was doing, she stood up, crossed to Dreen, and on tiptoes gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Now, let's eat. I'm starved."

*****

Chapter 18

"So, do you know what a steel band is?" Dreen asked, totally sure of the answer.

"They originated on Terra, in pre-galactic times. The art form is largely lost there now, but it was taken to two or three other planets where it continues. They literally pound on steel pans that are segmented to produce the notes, as far as I know." Mitra looked at Dreen smugly, pleased at being able to answer. His total astonishment was a reward in itself.

"Are you a musician?" He was rapidly revising his thoughts.

"Don't I wish! To my, and my mother's regret, I take after her. I love music and couldn't play a note if my life depended on it. What I have is a father who is into history, and a mother with a huge music library."

They were crossing the hotel lobby now and Mitra could hear muted music.

"Is that the band?"

"Mmmhmm."

Dreen was subtly trying to hurry Mitra. He hadn't forgotten his appointment even if she had. Joran and the band still had a lot of negotiating to do, and they'd planned a session for today. They preferred public places - that kept them all on good behavior. Very good behavior, since at the moment not one of them wanted to be recognized. Dreen was official mediator. Obviously with Mitra as his guest, the mediating session was postponed, but everyone would be wondering what was up.

But Mitra did not want to hurry. This was the second hotel she had been in on Gingezel and she wanted to look. The ambience was definitely different. There wasn't the same subdued opulence. Everything was light and airy in off-whites with splashes of turquoise and a lot of potted plants.

"They're still playing Dreen." The concierge smiled from his desk. "One set left after this."

"Good." Dreen smiled back and decided to definitely hurry Mitra. He took her arm. "Look later, listen now."

"All right."

She let herself be led onto a terrace much like the one at their hotel. It was largely filled, most of the diners finishing their lunch or lingering with dessert and drinks.

As they stepped through the door the maitre d' came hurrying up. "Dreen, I've kept your table. I see you have a guest. Will you both be dining?"

"If it isn't too late."

"Never for you. You can find your way? I will check with the chef. There was fresh red fish, but it has been popular."

Nice service, Mitra thought as she followed Dreen along the terrace. Obviously everyone knew him here too. She'd meant to concentrate on the music but the band had just stopped. An exceptionally handsome black man with a real mane of curls, dressed in a baggy T-shirt and threadbare pants left the bandstand and came towards them, a frown on his face.

"Dreen, when you're late, you're late! I was giving up on you! What -" Then he caught sight of Mitra and the frown changed to a charming smile. "Hello, Pretty Lady. Now I know why Dreen's late."

The appreciation in his voice wasn't lost on Mitra. She found herself smiling back, getting lost in incredibly warm brown eyes.

It was not lost on Dreen either. He put a possessive arm around Mitra's waist, drawing her both forward and towards himself. Damn it, Joran, just for once back off. I got here first.

"Mitra, this is Joran Lantonnel. Joran, Mitra Kael."

There was a distinct warning in his tone Mitra decided, and for a moment the two men seemed to be holding a private conversation with their eyes. Then the man Dreen had called Joran gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Mitra. Are you enjoying Gingezel?"

He was still pleasant, but Mitra decided there was a definite withdrawal.

"As much as I've seen."

Mitra was finding herself not at all unhappy about the possessive arm still at her waist. Men, she decided, were the same everywhere. There was nothing like the arrival of some competition to focus their attention.

"Look, Dreen, I've got to talk to you about that -"

"Mr. Lantonnel!" The voice of the female of indeterminate age bearing down on them was determinedly over-bright.

"Damn," Joran muttered under his breath. Then he turned with a professional smile. "Yes?"

"Do you think in the next set you could play -"

Not minding the interruption since Joran was obviously upset with one of the band's proposals and would no doubt say something a stranger shouldn't hear, Dreen led Mitra to a table near the bandstand. He got salutes and hellos from the rest of the band as he went past.

Well, at least the band was looking normal. Laurence Lampery, or Perry the drummer as he was known to Anton band fans, was deep in conversation with Bernard Anseldes. It obviously had something to do with the set they just played, because Laurence was beating out a rhythm on the table as he talked. He was an intense man, with fair skin, black hair, and blue eyes. He broke the rhythm to give Dreen a quick thumbs up and flash him a smile. Then he returned to his task. Dreen relaxed a little. He knew Laurence, like Joran, from back in their pre-Anton university days on Rujjipet. If Laurence said things were fine, they probably were.

Bernard didn't take his eyes off Laurence's hands. Bernard had a medium build like Laurence, but there the similarity ended. He had a good-natured round face, dreamy almost unfocussed eyes, and café-au-lait coloring. He'd been cheerfully trying this steel band, but percussion was not his thing. He was a passable strings player - just. The reason he was with the band was because his voice harmonized beautifully with Joran's. They had met when his boy band opened for Anton on Calixa. When the boy band, and then Bernard's attempt at a solo career flopped, Joran had offered him the job. Bernard had said yes, and had changed his stage name to Des.

Fredrico Moore, or Ico the bass player, said something derogatory to Bernard, grinned, and slapped him on the shoulder. If Dreen hadn't known who he was, he would never have connected Fredrico playing pans to Ico playing bass. On the pans Fredrico was a skinny mass of nerves, pounding away all over the place, competing with Laurence for complexity of rhythm. Get him holding a bass guitar and he drifted off into this meditative reverie, coaxing out low slow sweet notes.

Uth Korikofsky, Papa Ikof to Anton fans and literally the grandfather in the group, was leaning back with his eyes closed, getting some sun on his face and presumably less on his bald head. He was a solid, coarse-featured blond who looked like he'd spent his life working out of doors, not playing the hottest jazz clubs in the galaxy prior to joining the Anton band. He and his granddaughter Kori were the horn players. Uth was quite competently playing pans. Kori definitely was not.

Kori, Maria Korikofsky and the baby in the band, didn't have a single percussionist instinct. She was a disaster on the pans and the guys had unanimously voted she didn't play. She was stage manager. She was a slender, gorgeous, shy blonde, just eighteen. At the moment Paulo had his arm around her and Dreen winced. That might be camaraderie, but more likely it was a complication Joran didn't need. Kori smiled at the ground after catching Dreen's eyes for a fleeting second.

Paulo Zouaf was the band member with an ego the same size as Joran's and Dreen was pretty sure he'd instigated the walk out. Paulo was a tall skinny Latino with a very creditable series of jazz string albums he had released solo. He gave Dreen a curt nod. Then he noticed Mitra and gave her the the once over, twice. Very slowly the second time. Dreen appreciated that even less than Joran's coming on to her.

They were almost to their table before Dreen could catch Bojo's eyes. Bojo Camrail as always was seated with his back to the courtyard. Dreen had honestly thought he would refuse to play in the steel band. It was playing in broad daylight without the demon's mask makeup he wore as Mrail. There was only his unruly mane of blond hair to hide his face. The best plastic surgeons in the galaxy had tried to rebuild it, but there hadn't been much success.

But Bojo was playing. A tribute to his loyalty to Joran, Dreen supposed. That, and fascination with the pans. Music, any kind of music, was Bojo's escape from life.

Dreen smiled his hello, and nodded towards the entrance where Joran was now surrounded by seven middle-aged women who looked like they were all talking at once. Dreen raised a questioning eyebrow.

Bojo waved a hand in a 'so-so' motion.

So he wasn't as optimistic as Laurence. Dreen took another look at the entrance. As he watched, Joran pushed his hair back in the gesture he used when losing his temper.

"Bojo," Dreen said quietly, "I think Joran needs a rescue."

Bojo turned briefly. "Shit." He leaned over. "Bernard. Go help Joran with the old birds."

"Sure. No problem."

As far as Dreen could tell, everything was 'sure, no problem' with Bernard. That was no surprise. Bernard would never have achieved a Galactic Music award on his own. With Anton, four lined a shelf in his study. And no doubt Bernard grinned for hours every time he checked his bank balance. And now he was on indefinite vacation on Gingezel. Not bad for a ghetto kid.

***

As Dreen was seating Mitra the maitre d' appeared.

"Sorry Dreen. The red fish is gone. But the chef says he'll make you a steak just the way you like them." The man transferred his attention to Mitra. "And perhaps the lady would like a green salad?"

No way! Mitra was used to this. At her size waiters were always trying to starve her. But she was not eating green stuff. "Thanks, but I'll have a steak too. Medium rare."

"But of course."

Mitra transferred her attention to the band, wondering how Dreen had come to know them. They sure looked disreputable. About all you could say about any attempt at uniform dressing was that they all wore old tees of some color or other, and old pants or jeans. Except the old guy wore shorts which wasn't a great idea given his vein knotted legs. She assumed the hotel had hired them for the novelty value of steel pans. The steel pans themselves looked interesting though, and Mitra hoped she'd get a closer look later. Fascinating technology. Chelan would love to hear about it.

The next set started and Mitra shut her eyes, letting the soft liquid sound flow over her. It was lovely. Tough or not, these guys could play. She thought of the five Anton concert reruns her mother had made her sit through. Why couldn't they sound like this?

*****

Chapter 19

Yawning, Mitra stood and moved her beach towel back into the shade the brilliantly striped arc of fabric provided. She scanned the beach for any sign of Mrs. Wyntre and her two monsters. They were blessedly not in sight, or ear shot. She had done her duty in that respect at lunch, thanks to not being able to eat fast enough to avoid them joining her for dessert. She was too used to Tessa, and her best friend Ginny, both quiet girls, to appreciate the Wyntre children. They had names, and she'd been told them several times, but she was making a point of not remembering them.

There was no sign of Dreen. Disappointed, Mitra stretched out on her stomach. She hadn't seen or heard from him since lunch yesterday. He had politely apologized that he really did have an appointment to keep and stayed on at the other hotel. She thought they had hit it off well, but he must not have. Obviously tonight she'd have to do a little more exploring on her own. There must be some good nightlife down by the harbor. She let herself be lulled almost to sleep by the warmth and the sound of the water two meters away.

Mitra awoke from her light doze to the sense of someone close by. She opened her eyes to a close-up view of men's summer shoes and the cuffs of worn out business pants. It had to be. She was smiling as she rolled onto her side.

"Dreen."

"Did I wake you?" He squatted down.

"Only sort of. Where have you been?"

"Working."

***

Dreen was just back from finally doing a Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb installation without help and was feeling rather pleased with himself. The space exploration crowd weren't the only ones who were going to be seeing a lot of money from the Gingezel consortium. Nemizcan was too. He hadn't expected that. Of course there would be a hub or hubs on Gingezel to support their business clients, but Nemizcan did user interfaces. Dreen had kept close to that corporate model, even if in the last few years he had started to feel like he'd done the same thing forever.

Then he had been approached by the Gingezel consortium to try to achieve a dedicated hyperweb that preferably was hacker proof but at the least was significantly superior to the current hyperweb for security so visiting business people could treat Gingezel as a second home. Dreen had resisted. Hacking was a young person's game as far as he was concerned.

He had to admit though the man he had met and re-met and re-met knew all the right buttons to push. He suspected that this was in large part due to coaching by Joran, although all Joran had said to him was 'Do it Dreen. You're bored and getting boring.' In spite of himself Dreen had ended up intrigued with the challenge and eventually he agreed to do it. But it didn't change the facts. He was out of date, out of practice, and too old. He needed help.

So he set up a competition. He designed a security system. The primary algorithm was the Asherton-Holton algorithm in a limiting case they never taught in grad schools. Only the military used it. Any really serious hacker knew the algorithm and how to break it, but they never talked about this. The military had no sense of humor. Using it would cut out the amateurs though. The next layer he made a little harder. The last was completely his own. He left a hole, just. Then he mounted a time-limited public challenge. There was enough of a purse to get it taken seriously, but he knew that wasn't the point. He wanted the kind of hacker who was doing it just to prove that they could.

It took a while for the security system to be breached. Dreen had reached the point where he thought he had made it too hard and was starting to wonder if the current generation of hackers weren't great. Then two succeeded. He didn't count on them identifying themselves of course. Someone could lie for the credit. His software had traced them the microsecond the system was breached. When he had traced the hackers, he hired them. Evrit was a computing science major, and to be honest a bit of a stuffed shirt. Brys was a shy, self-educated manual laborer. They were young, keen, and were teaching the old dog new tricks.

The three of them had designed the beta version of the Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb system that was currently being installed between some hotels and businesses in Crescent Bay and the Nemizcan Head Office on Tranus as a test. There was no sense doing more until it had survived the inevitable flurry of hacker attacks it would get as soon as word got around it existed.

Dreen had been doing the hands-on work because he liked it and because he was ultimately responsible for the system. Besides, he needed to keep in practice.

***

"You aren't working now." Mitra teased.

"No. I'm taking a break to ask you if you'd be interested in supper tonight."

"I'd love it." Why play games? "Where?"

"Well, unless you care, I have a favorite place at the far end of the harbor. The cafe is in a little interior courtyard, not overlooking the bay. But we can have drinks somewhere else later and watch the boats."

Dreen's knees were getting tired, and he shifted his weight, then winced. He was feeling the physical work. Between a certain amount of cabling plus a lot of finicky internal modifications to units that all seemed to demand awkward postures, he was sore.

"You tight?" Mitra asked. "I'll rub your back."

"That's imposing. You're stretched out half asleep."

"Shoulders then."

Mitra had the feeling that now that the invitation was accepted Dreen was anxious to go back to whatever he called 'work' on a planet like this. Making money she supposed. She wanted company, so she sat up. She pointed.

"Sit down. Here."

Dreen shifted from squatting to sitting on the beach towel, and Mitra knelt behind him, starting to work on his shoulders with remarkably strong hands. They were also very good at finding the sore spots.

"That's great." He leaned into the massage.

"Wish you'd agreed to a back rub?"

"This isn't it?"

"No. I'd meant take off your shirt and stretch out on the towel and I sit on your bottom and do it properly."

She didn't repeat the offer though, and Dreen wished he hadn't been stupid and said no. He was enjoying the contact very much. Then she hit a really sore spot and he flinched.

"You're a mess," she said accusingly. "You need a massage."

"No thanks."

Massages were medical and he avoided medical anything as a matter of principle.

Mitra rocked back on her heels. "You mean you don't like massages?"

She adored them. In fact, now that she thought about it, the hotel was bound to have someone good available.

"I got cured with a soccer injury during first-year university."

"Oh." Mitra was enlightened. "Hospital clinics and such?"

"Don't remind me." Dreen turned to be able to see her, since she seemed to have stopped.

Mark had been just the same when he hit his repetitive stress problems. He hadn't even given therapy a fair chance. Three sessions and he flatly refused to go again. That was when Mitra had learned the basics.

"It's not like that at all. I'm talking about the privacy of your hotel room - or I suppose the exercise facilities if you prefer - soft music and such. Very relaxing." She slanted a look up. "You can probably even get a pretty woman masseuse."

"You volunteering?" She'd asked for that in his opinion.

"Dreen!" Then looking past him, "oh oh!"

He followed her look. That blonde with the monsters.

"Time to leave?" he suggested.

"And fast."

Mitra was stuffing things into her shoulder bag.

"Then get off the towel." Dreen folded it. "Come on."

They headed for the hotel, but Mrs. Wyntre was on an interception course.

"Mitra!"

Mitra stopped, but Dreen kept walking, only acknowledging the woman with a polite nod. Mitra looked at the retreating back with some embarrassment.

"I'm afraid your friend doesn't like us ever since the girls drenched him the other morning."

They hadn't accompanied their mother. They were running in and out of the waves, shrieking at the top of their lungs.

"You aren't off somewhere?" Mrs. Wyntre asked, the blue eyes hopeful.

"I am sorry, but I was hoping to see if I could get a massage on this short a notice." Mitra gave her shoulders an exaggerated flex. "I'm all knots."

"Ooh. Do get Trevarr. He has the most wonderful hands." Mrs. Wyntre looked dreamy then refocused. "Then off you go - it is rather late and he's popular."

"I'll see you later then." Mitra left in relief.

Dreen was waiting for her with the towel just inside the lobby.

"That was rude!"

"That was self defense! You haven't been drenched by those kids yet." He gave a disarming smile. "Besides, you were all visiting at lunch so I was afraid you were making friends."

"Lunch?" Mitra eyed him with suspicion. "You saw me stranded at lunch and didn't rescue me?"

"Mmm Hmm. I was going to ask you to join me, but I was a little late. So I left you to your new friend and went down the road and listened to the steel band."

"Thanks a lot!"

Dreen said mildly, "I'm sure the mother is a nice enough woman. You could have been making friends and I would have been intruding. Now I know and another time I'll bail you out." He asked with mild curiosity, "how did you escape this time?"

"I said I wanted to sneak in a massage this afternoon if I could get a booking. She was useful though. She said to try for someone called Trevarr."

"Trevarr?"

"Do you know him?"

"Possibly. I know a man called Trevarr who is co-owner of the Sports Medicine Clinic here." Dreen was steering her towards the desk as he talked. "Let's see what Tomao can do, then we can decide what time to get a table for supper."

*****

Chapter 20

Mitra tied the thin robe Trevarr had given her around her waist and stepped back into the sitting room. He had the massage bench set up, and was rummaging in a tote bag he had plopped on the table.

"Hi," she said to his back.

"That was fast." Trevarr Hendor turned around with a polite smile.

Very nice, Mitra thought, looking at the clean-cut young man with dark blond hair and blue eyes. He had that exceptionally healthy look that seemed to be reserved for serious athletes. When Mitra had asked, he had said he ran marathons. That figured. If his hands were as good as Mrs. Wyntre said, the women in town must all be falling for him. If Dreen wasn't already on the scene, she'd consider it herself.

Mitra came over to see what he was doing, then stopped, looking at the sleek metal object beside the bag. A neuroblock. Mark had used one to keep going with his repetitive stress problem. She did not approve of them.

"I thought those were prescription." She pointed. "At least, they are on my home world."

"Here too. I have the right medical degrees to prescribe use. But," Trevarr smiled with amusement at her nervous look, "I certainly don't use neuroblocks in routine massage. It was just on top of my oils." He had meant to use it to calm down his right forearm, but she was too fast returning.

"Have you any allergies not on record?" Trevarr had already reviewed her records from the central medical files.

"No." Then remembering the dry shampoos in the Farr sector Mitra added, "make that a maybe." She told him the problem.

"And you never checked it out?"

"There weren't the facilities."

"Well, you should some time and I'll update your file when we're finished here. For now we'll stick to a basic oil then, no additives, not even fragrance. But if you want I'll give you some samples to spot test on your wrist for future visits."

He rummaged deeper for samples. Then he started to remove some ampoules fit tightly in their cases. Damn, his fine coordination was off.

Mitra focused after his third fumbled try. "You're tired," she said accusingly. "You're sneaking me in after a long day." She reached for the box and took a sample out, no problem.

"I'm fine."

Trevarr had already put in more than a full day working on the Tamaran Octagla team, but Tomao had asked him to come in as a favor.

"Liar."

Before Trevarr realized what she was doing, she steadied his forearm with one hand and dug in firmly with the thumb of the other right at the spot that had given Mark had trouble. She was strong too after those three years on Drezvir.

Trevarr couldn't hide the flinch, and they glared at each other.

Mitra found her voice first. "That neuroblock is for you," she said bluntly. "You trying to become someone's patient?"

"You a professional?" That dig had been right on target.

"Would you be more likely to listen if I said yes?" Honesty won, and Mitra smiled candidly. "Actually I just had one first-class stupid boyfriend who, amongst other things, wrecked himself. Then he misused a neuroblock to turn a problem into a disaster. He flatly refused to go to physio so I learned the basics. The way you jumped, I'd say you're trying the same pattern."

"Possibly guilty," Trevarr admitted. "I'll have my partner check things out." The way that dig was still smarting he'd been pushing his luck.

"Partner? Then are you the Trevarr with the Sports Medicine Clinic that Dreen knows?"

"Dreen Pendi?" Trevarr nodded. "I know him."

"Then I suppose you're overdone from riding herd on that team-sized quantity of jock types I saw obviously working out on the beach this morning."

Trevarr suppressed a smile and nodded. That 'team-sized quantity of jock types' as Mitra put it were the galactic Octagla champions from Tamara, here for preseason treatment and training since they'd had three serious injuries winning that championship game.

Octagla was arguably the most demanding sport in the galaxy. It was certainly one of the roughest anyway, since it was played in three dimensions and cross-checking with the sticks was allowed. It was one of the space station sports, mostly played by the elite who could afford to train there from childhood on, although Octagla scholarships did exist. Teams of eight played in zero gravity in a honeycomb shaped arena with goals in each end. The object was to pass a ball from player to player using sticks with deep loose nets and then shoot it into the goal. It took coordination and fast adaptation since you had to allow for whether or not you were sticking to a wall, or mid-space and weightless.

The Tamaran team were among the highest-paid athletes in the galaxy. Once tuned up they were doing a series of exhibition games at planets en route home, then starting a season of defending their championship. He didn't think a single one of them would have liked being dismissed that casually by a pretty woman.

But things were getting off track. Trevarr said, "now that you've sorted my life out, let's give you that massage. What do you want? Whole body? Tomao didn't say."

"Not with your arm. Let's skip it."

"It's truly not a problem and I'm all set up."

Mitra hesitated "Back maybe? Is there someone else you can have come in for the rest in the next day or so?"

"Of course. Up you go."

Mitra settled herself. "Dreen is the one who really needs this. His back's a mess."

Trevarr could believe it. It had been quite funny watching Dreen slowly lose his temper trying to do the Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb installation at the clinic. His senior systems man Gali had eventually intervened. But then Gali and Dreen went right back to the founding of Nemizcan, so Gali could afford to insult the boss. He had too. He just said right up front he was taking over or they'd still be there at midnight. According to Wayd though, Dreen was keeping at it and intended to until he did two complete installations by himself. Dreen should have some really interesting knots by now.

"Why doesn't he give me a call?" Trevarr asked.

"I don't know. Something about a college injury and getting turned off at a hospital." She was starting to relax. He did have wonderful hands.

"Well, if he decides to, tell him I'll work him in and," he shoved Mitra back down, "don't squirm! I promise, I'll offload one of the jocks."

He was starting to find this new client amusing. He expected she ran in two modes, flat out or sound asleep, and butted into everyone's business without even realizing it.

"Dreen might prefer my partner Mai though. He knows her too, so she wouldn't be threatening."

"Does Dreen know everyone here?"

"Pretty well. After all, he's been here three months or so, and he's the friendly type."

It would appear Dreen Pendi was much more interesting to Mitra Kael than the Tamaran Octagla team. That should complicate Dreen's life. So far as Trevarr understood, he'd been dodging anything more than casual female acquaintanceship. At least that was the complaint he'd heard from the single women in town.

Mitra was drifting now. Three months here. She thought she was doing well to manage three weeks. It must be nice. He wasn't snobby though, and he didn't act like he had money to throw around. Like his worn-out clothes.

"Hey." Trevarr's voice was soft in case she was half asleep.

"Mmm?"

"Talking about messes, what have you been up to?"

"Oh." She tried to think. "Too much work, too much stress, no relaxing, not enough exercise." Unless putting a power plant together was exercise. "But," her voice was blurry, "I'm on holidays now."

Uh-huh. Two modes, and right now it was sound asleep, which must take some doing Trevarr thought, with the knots he was working on.

*****

Chapter 21

He might as well be amused, Dreen told himself, because Mitra sure was going to be. Dreen was standing in the lobby staring in the mirror. Up in his room he'd been running late from a last minute bunch of questions from Wayd about the next installation. Wayd Meeran wasn't really the kind you could put off with a 'later, I've got a date'. Wayd was all career perfectionist, with his serious dark chestnut face, close cropped hair, business suit that still looked immaculate after a hard day's work, and total focus on his job. So Dreen had answered his questions.

Finally in his room and feeling pressured, Dreen had decided he had better dress for supper. So he had grabbed his new casual suit and put it on in a hurry, not really thinking about it. He simply hadn't wanted to keep Mitra waiting on the off chance she was on time. Unfortunately she hadn't been, and he had now had fifteen minutes to pace around the lobby, be restless, and wonder why he had ever even bought the thing.

The ridiculous suit was a legacy from when it had looked like Larna would be joining him on Gingezel. In fact, it was a legacy from the only time she and Joran had ever collaborated on anything. Why did it have to be on ganging up on him? He looked at the suit with distaste. It wasn't amusing, it was embarrassing.

When Larna had heard about Gingezel, she had been delighted. Dreen remembered the expression on her soft-featured oval face, the slide of her sleek fawn hair as she got animated and started tossing it around. She would quit her job, which he knew she couldn't care less about anyways, and go with him. He could see the idea shaping in her mind - the lady of leisure, having the time of her life. It would suit her too. Entertaining and being entertained was her element. That was his most lasting image of her, wearing her moss green hostess gown, makeup perfect, hair smooth and shining on her shoulders.

But he hadn't intended to allow it on Gingezel. His attitude had been simple. No way. He was going to Gingezel to work, and she made that hard enough on Tranus where she held down a middle-management position with a food retail chain. If she had nothing to do, she'd make sure he didn't do anything either.

They had snarled at each other a bit, then compromised as they always did. She would join him when the job was over and they would tour around. Dreen had said for two weeks, but he knew that Larna intended to extend that to a month. He didn't really mind. She was good company travelling.

Then Joran had arrived. Dreen had to admit that hadn't been great. In fact, in some ways it had been worse than when Maillie died. At least then Joran had walked in himself, and he'd had his music to lose himself in. This time he'd been more or less delivered by two of his Genie pilots, Jon and Arn, and he had been totally shattered. With the band gone he had nothing left.

It was the first time he had shown up at Dreen's door obviously on drugs too. Dreen had damned near slammed the door in his face, best friends or not. But Jon had quietly said to take him for the night anyway, and not to do anything rash until he had talked to Bojo. Then he'd given Dreen a number where Bojo could be reached, with the instructions to not under any circumstances give it to Joran. Then he and Arn had taken themselves off to the space portel to wait it out.

He'd put Joran safely in the spare bedroom, then had had that long, long talk with Bojo. Besides performing as Mrail, Bojo was the Number Two man in the Anton business empire and in his own way had worked as hard to support Joran when Maillie died as Dreen had. The result had been that Dreen had decided it would be an act of cruelty to do anything but support Joran again. But he'd been worried and started calling during the day to check on him, something he had never done before.

The times no one had answered, then Joran said he'd been in all day hadn't helped. The fourth time it happened, Dreen had cheated and used Joran's GPS nano-chip implant to find him. All the band members had global positioning satellite chips meeting the interplanetary standard because the band members were high-risk candidates for kidnapping and ransom threats. As well as being in a registry, each was encouraged to give the code to two family and two non-family members. Dreen had Joran's. He'd found Joran in a rough area of the city he personally didn't know, and that had worried Dreen too. But the directory showed it was a drug treatment clinic, so Joran was trying. He obviously just didn't want Dreen to know he had a problem. That was dumb, since no one could have missed it, but Joran was pretty scrambled so Dreen had played along.

They settled into the routine they always did when Joran visited. Dreen went to work, and when he came home they had supper delivered from whatever restaurant Joran had decided met his fancy that day. They ate, then sat down in front of the media wall to watch sports on holovision. While they watched, they talked. They talked high-tech, Joran's passion astrophysics, the performing arts, old friends, business, and even occasionally the sports they were watching. If Dreen was home early enough, at some point they went down to the gym for a while or out jogging, then settled back in. Their routine hadn't changed for over a decade, and now Joran clung to it desperately.

There had been nothing to interest Larna in that routine, not even the suppers. They meant she had to cancel all the suppers out she and Dreen, or more accurately she, had agreed to before Joran had arrived. She wasn't even allowed to throw the Anton name around. All she was allowed to do was say an old friend of Dreen's was in the city, so they were very sorry, they were canceling out, and no, she didn't know when they would be free. She'd hated that, but the plans for Gingezel had kept her going. And when Joran finally got it through his brain that Dreen really couldn't cancel and decided he might go to Gingezel too, she started having obvious fantasies of mixing with Joran's celebrity friends.

That was when this new suit business had started. Dreen had figured her fantasies were in the not-a-chance category. If Joran did anything there, it would be an exact duplicate of what he was doing here in Dreen's apartment, except Johnnie or whoever else of his friends were on Gingezel would be there too. If Larna was bored by him and Joran discussing what the implications a newly discovered white dwarf with spectral anomalies were on the currently favored theory of deep stellar interiors, he doubted she'd be any less bored by Johnnie sitting there in the ratty old green sweater Sinda had knit for him in one of her rare domestic moods and throwing his two credits worth in.

***

Still, one night the new suit idea had suddenly appealed to Joran's sense of humor. So Joran and Larna searched the hyperweb for increasingly outlandish outfits to scare him with.

Then as abruptly as he'd been amused Joran got bored. Midway through a session he told Larna, "get out of that site. It's useless! A bloody waste of time." Impatiently pushing Larna aside, Joran went to another site. He entered an access code and provided biometric scans as Larna watched wide-eyed.

Immediately the greeter said, "Welcome Anton. Do you want to see new inventory to match your profile on your personal model, or browse?"

Joran said, "Browse," then let Larna take over again, pointing at a couple showrooms. "Those are Sinda's favorites. Have a good look at them first. C'mon Dreen I need a beer."

Out of the room he grinned. "That should keep her busy for an hour or so. Let's get the start of the Octagla game."

It was the first game of the galactic championship semifinal between Tamara and Terra. Joran knew everyone on Tamara. Their paths kept crossing when there was an Anton tour, and they played pickup together when the band was unwinding from a concert.

The game was close and hard fought. After eight minutes of overtime Tamara was fading visibly. Coach Isley decided to end things one way or another. He signaled a slingshot play. Big Luis and Maras, the two massive defensemen positioned themselves, feet firmly adhering to the one court surface out of eight that was arbitrarily designated as the floor. Roban and Mercan, the inside wingers, were jetting up mid court, carrying the ball. It looked like Roban was setting up to pass to Rundell on outside right. Daron, the star center, came jetting past the defenseman at full speed.

"Do it!" Joran was on the edge of the couch seat as his friend faced his first big risk of the play. At the speed he was going if either Big Luis or Maras grabbed him wrong he faced a dislocated shoulder at best. After all, either defenseman weighed at least one hundred kilos more than he did and that made them very solid tethered objects.

But Big Luis and Maras were right on. They grabbed Daron as he went past, catapulting him as hard as they could, increasing his velocity and applying a strong torque so his direction changed much more abruptly than possible using the air jets. Roban faked a pass to Rundell, then at the last second shifted to a behind-the-back pass to Daron. It was the kind only Roban could do, and it hit dead center in Daron's carrying net. The opposing defense and goalkeeper didn't have a chance if they played by the rules.

Miraculously they did. The defenseman who managed to sail within range delivered a clean, legal crosscheck that simply sent Daron spinning. He was too seasoned a pro to lose the ball. He just used the added momentum to get a harder shot off. It went in upper left. Tamara was starting the series one up.

The crowd went wild. Shouts of "Tamara! Tamara!" mixed with "Superstud! Superstud!"

Joran grinned. "Looks like Daron's scoring in more than one way tonight."

Suddenly they realized that Larna hadn't resurfaced yet. They wandered out to find her still roaming the fashion site.

"Well?" Joran demanded.

Larna hesitated. "Joran, it's fun to look at, but these aren't styles we see on Tranus. And everything is rather expensive..."

Joran grinned, "and Dreen's conservative and cheap. I'll give it a shot." He took over. Styles went past in rapid succession, a frown forming and deepening with each rejection. Suddenly Joran stopped. "There. It's too conservative to be really stylish, but lose a kilo or so and you'll look great, Dreen."

***

So here he was in the subdued elegant lobby of a Gingezel hotel in an intensely lemon yellow suit that cost six times what he'd normally be comfortable paying, with a bright blue shirt that hurt his eyes where he saw the two colors meet at the front and cuffs. Dreen didn't think much of how the trousers clung to his thighs either. Maybe Joran was right, he needed to lose a kilo or so. And he was going to supper with a strange woman, not Larna who had caused all this trouble in the first place. She was not joining him later on Gingezel, or ever again.

***

That had come a few nights later. It had been a terrible day at work. Not a disaster, just one with too much to do, a host of medium-sized problems and no one else in a good mood either. When he packed it in at 10:30 the To Do list for the next day had been just as grim. He reached the apartment sometime after 11:00, and Larna was waiting for him at the door. There was no loving kiss, no searching look, no 'Oh you looked wiped you poor thing.'

Instead, she said abruptly, "I have to talk to you. Now."

By the tight look on her usually kind face, Dreen figured he didn't want to talk to her. But he dutifully followed her into their bedroom.

Once the door was solidly closed, Larna announced, "I really tried Dreen, but I've had it! Either he goes, or I do."

There was no doubt Larna meant it. While she elaborated on this theme, Dreen leaned back on the door, arms crossed on his chest, and seriously thought about the two options. If he sided with Larna, what happened? First, he'd have to throw Joran out. He sincerely doubted he could do it with Joran so obviously and painfully trying to piece his life back together. There was too much risk that a third blow would be one too many for his old friend.

Assuming he could, what then? For sure he and Joran would never have a good relationship again. It would be the end of over fifteen years of friendship. And what about him and Larna? Tonight would be a write-off for sure. She rarely lost her temper, but when she did it stayed lost. So he'd still be hearing about this, and whatever else she'd been storing up, at 4:00 a.m. It would make work tomorrow hell, not that she cared. To her Nemizcan was where he went in the morning and came home from at night. All she knew about it was that she used a Nemizcan interface daily at work, and that his owning Nemizcan gave her great social prestige. She didn't want to know more.

By the time she came home from work, she'd have calmed down though and be the gracious winner. They would settle back into their regular pattern. He realized, as he watched her without listening to a word she was saying, that the normal routine was the big problem. It was not that he didn't enjoy Larna's company. There were a number of things they shared, beyond his bed, that he really enjoyed. They went for long walks in the nearby park and along the river. They explored little galleries in the evenings and on weekends, then wandered into some little restaurant for a meal. They took drives in the country. She helped him pot his tea roses. All that sort of thing. But these had been slowly dropping out of their life in favor of little, and not so little, suppers at friends, or with friends coming here. Her friends, never his friends. And it was escalating. Lately there'd scarcely been a new performing arts event of any sort that he was allowed to skip and there was always a lavish party afterwards. He was tired of it.

So, what happened if he sided with Joran? Joran had not been there at the door to meet him. But as he'd walked past the living room Joran stopped watching the Octagla game to look at Dreen and say, "Do you realize you've worked half the night? You must be wiped. Grab a beer," he waved his, "and catch the last fifteen minutes of the game. It's 12 - 7 for Tamara. Roban is really hot tonight! Then let's finally eat."

And that was what would happen. They would finish watching the game while he let himself relax. Then Joran would call some restaurant and bribe the manager and chef into some sort of delicious meal even though it was too late. Then while it was coming Joran would ask what had gone wrong at Nemizcan, and actually listen to the answer. Then they would talk it over, through the whole meal if it took that long, until Dreen was happy and saw some solutions. Then, because Joran was a night person and because Dreen needed to wind down, they'd go up to the rooftop garden and just sit and stare at the cityscape. Maybe Joran would take his beat up old acoustic guitar. It had arrived from the space port a few days earlier along with his keyboard. Dreen had no idea if he'd touched either yet.

That would be it, except when he came home from work the next day there would be no Larna, and there would be an empty bed that night. On the other hand, he would have permanently cured the unwanted social routine, because all her friends would side with her and never invite him to their homes again. He decided he could live with the empty bed.

Dreen realized Larna had run down and was watching him, her face hard and unfamiliar.

He said, "I'm sorry you feel that way Larna. You know I'm very fond of you." That was true. He didn't love her, but he was usually fond of her. "But if you feel that way I can't stop you." Then at the venomous look on her face, he added with a look and tone that matched hers, "and don't make the mistake of dragging Joran into something that's between you and me. If you do, I'll personally help you pack."

That was the kind of confrontation Dreen usually went to any lengths to avoid. But after the way work had gone, he rather suspected he'd enjoy it.

Larna didn't take him up on the fight. She silently walked to the closet. Dreen went to the kitchen not for a beer but for a fruit juice and some nuts. Watching Tamara win 20 - 12 was only interrupted by the front door closing.

***

That hadn't been the end of things of course. Eventually there had been a call, and there was Larna, her fawn-colored hair freshly styled and sleek on her shoulders, her face prettily made up, the necklace they'd seen in a little gallery and he had bought her as a birthday present peaking out of the neckline of a pinkish blouse.

"Dreen." She looked hesitant, not hostile. "I'm sorry I lost my temper. I should never have asked you to side against your best friend." She gave him her special smile. "I miss you."

There had been time to soften a lot. Dreen had long ago given up expecting to not make compromises in his love life. He was starting to remember the pleasant times more than the irritations, and to definitely regret the empty bed. Larna was a warm and responsive partner.

"I miss you too."

While he was hesitating trying to decide what to say next, Larna said, "You'll be going to Gingezel soon."

There was a pause and he waited, fully expecting her to say they should get together before then. He would like that.

But she continued, "I was talking to some mutual friends. They say Gali's wife is going with him - for the whole stay."

Keya, Gali's wife. Of course she was coming with them. He couldn't imagine this adventure without her, just as now that he had been reminded, he couldn't imagine the adventure with Larna. And that was what she was working around to. There would be a reconciliation first, but sooner or later he'd hear 'If Keya is coming, why can't I?'

Dreen looked at Larna, sitting there quietly waiting for him to finish thinking like she always did. Larna, who was daring to compare herself to Keya. Keya had been part of Nemizcan since its first day. In fact, her idea had inspired Nemizcan. And she'd never taken a credit in payment for all her work. Larna on the other hand had never even managed to quite find time to tour the Nemizcan complex. Of course Keya was coming to Gingezel. He and Gali wouldn't think of anything else. And damned if Larna was. His jaw tightened.

"Yes. Keya is coming for the whole stay." Dreen added deliberately, "She always has been."

There was a silence, then Larna said very quietly, "I see," and called him two names he hadn't thought were in her vocabulary. She then broke the connection.

***

He was paying for that last shot of course. He and Larna had been together long enough to legally be a couple, and either could sue the other for a settlement. He sincerely doubted she would have if he'd invited her for that vacation on Gingezel, then slowly eased out of things back home. She was not naturally vicious. But that parting shot had hurt and she had really lost face with her friends not getting to go to Gingezel.

Still, beyond deliberately embarrassing him by going for a court settlement, it hadn't been bad. She had a good job and personally he wasn't that wealthy. Nemizcan was still in an expansion stage. All of the ever-increasing revenues went back into people and equipment. He'd got used to a low income, and had never bothered to pay himself more than an low executive salary. It would probably stay that way because he didn't want more.

Larna ended up with a monthly payment that would let her throw a couple more of those lavish supper parties she loved each month, and a month's vacation on Gingezel, the value predetermined. It wouldn't let her come here to Crescent Bay, but she'd have fun in the bigger cities. As long as he didn't have to be part of it, he hoped she did have fun.

*****

Chapter 22

"Dreen, can I get you anything?" Tomao asked as Dreen paced the length of the lobby for the ninth or tenth time.

"No, thank you."

The reply was automatic. Then Dreen looked at his time strip. Mitra wasn't late, she was really late.

"Wait. I'll change my mind there." Dreen looked around the lobby. If he went to the café he might miss Mitra. He looked at the elevator doors.

Tomao suppressed a smile. "The green banquettes have a good view of the lake - and the elevators," he added, unable to resist a little teasing.

"Thanks."

Dreen headed for the banquettes. He must look ridiculous pacing around. It wasn't until he was seated and had shifted his position twice to get the view he wanted of the elevators that he realized he hadn't said what he wanted. However Tomao was already at his station murmuring into his compad. Oh well. It didn't matter.

How long did he give Mitra before he decided he was being stood up? Larna had always been anxious to get to events. She was ready early, trying to hurry him. Keya on the other hand had no sense of time. She got to classes on time, but that was only because Gali dropped her off. He'd give Mitra a little longer.

One of the girls from the café arrived with his favorite mineral water. "Thanks," Dreen said absently, his mind determinedly on Keya to not worry about Mitra.

***

Darling Keya. When Gali Nellar had arrived on Tranus and Dreen met Nemizcan's first employee at the space port, he was surprised to find Gali had a wife in tow. It was something Dreen had never thought to ask about. Gali was shy and rather homely, with sallow skin and slightly curly, wispy hair that was somewhere between muddy blond and brown. You didn't think of him having a love life. You didn't think of the physical Gali at all. You thought about what was in his mind.

But there she was, a sunny, round-faced blonde wearing tight fitting jeans and a red and white stripped T-shirt that had obviously been slept in for the whole trip. Her hair was in a serviceable plait down her back.

"Hi Dreen, I'm Keya." She smiled. "I'm bound to be a terrific disappointment because I'm a complete idiot about computers. How someone so smart like Gali married someone who has trouble even getting the right sandwich out of a cater unit, I'll never know, but there it is."

By the time the luggage had been claimed it was obvious to Dreen that the gentle, retiring Gali totally adored his wife. By the time they had driven out of the space port in the rented GV he had learned she was an elementary school teacher, and that was how she'd put Gali through his Ph.D.

By the time they were halfway to the little apartment she and Gali had rented, Keya had learned that Nemizcan didn't really exist yet as a physical entity beyond the lease on some office space that started in one week - two weeks before Gali was due to start work.

"I'll spend the next two weeks buying furnishings and setting up the office, like you and Gali are furnishing and setting up your apartment."

Keya stared. "That's totally ridiculous and a waste of talent! While I'm shopping for stuff for the apartment, why don't I do the office up too? I'm really good at cheap, and you wouldn't believe the stuff around at liquidation sales and auctions, as long as you don't care much about color or things matching. I'm happy to do some scrubbing."

A beaming Gali nodded. "She's been great while I've done my degrees!" He had been on scholarships of course, but they had saved every credit they could for a venture like this.

"Can I pay you?" Shopping was something Dreen had been dreading doing although he wasn't sure where there was room in his carefully worked-out budget for Keya as an employee.

"Pay me?" Keya had a pretty accurate idea of what Gali was getting into. She had encouraged him to do what he wanted and to turn down three prestigious offers from big companies. But until she got a teaching position it was going to be pasta bought on sale and pray you get paid so you can cover the rent, or those precious small savings would be gone. Still, Gali would be making something that was all his for once.

"Why should I get paid for having fun? I love to shop. So I'll find stuff in the mornings while you two get a head start on your software, then we can have sandwiches - can it be at your place Dreen till I set up the kitchen? And then I can show you what I found and you can cart it to the apartment or the office."

"Umm, Keya is your apartment totally unfurnished?"

"Of course." She was wide-eyed. "Rental agencies charge a fortune for junk." Then she smiled, "I buy junk too, but it's my junk."

"But how are you sleeping?"

"Oh, we'll try to buy a bed today."

It was already late. Dreen changed direction for his apartment, and Keya and Gali settled in on the sofa bed in the living room. His place was at a worse address, but at least it was furnished with old stuff from his parents' house. His mother had insisted he take some things when his father threw him out for refusing to come work at Pendi Industries.

Over supper Dreen gave Keya his office shopping list. It went fine until he mentioned the secretary's desk.

"Dreen, have you hired a secretary?"

"Not yet." He'd been stalling. He was terrified of that interview.

"Then why a secretary's desk? Do you need one \- a secretary I mean? I mean, no offense, but you're a couple of years from having customers."

"Yes but -"

"And you can all answer your own calls."

"Yes but -"

"And I know from Gali's work you write your own documents."

"Yes but -"

"So why spend the extra money?"

"Because we can write our documents, but there are going to be a lot of them pretty fast. I'm not going to pretend I'm that kind of organized, and I don't expect Gali or anyone else to be either. And there's payroll and accounts and such."

"Oh." She looked at Dreen and thought about Gali. "Good point. But then you really want an administrative assistant not a secretary."

"Do I?" The fine point was beyond him, and he got a lecture.

"But still Dreen, it costs money. It's midterm and my teaching license won't be processed until next term at best. Why don't I start you out?"

"Only if I pay you."

"Dreen, you're a darling but you're stupid about money. Before you're finished you and Gali will need every fraction of a credit you have, so stop trying so hard to spend them. I suppose," she looked around the windowless three room dump, "that's because you - or your family - is rich."

"How did you decide to that?"

She ran her finger across the scarred old table. "The stuff you have. It's old, but to get secondhand like this I'd have to go to a classy antique dealer. There it would cost more than new stuff. We won't be able to afford either for years. And the paintings - they're all signed originals."

He looked at her. How else did paintings come?

***

Nemizcan settled into its routine. Then one Sunday afternoon came the first surprise visit from Joran. They had all been working too hard for days. Suddenly there was a shout from the door.

"Hey, Dreen!"

"Joran?" Then they were pounding each other on the back with stupid grins on their faces.

"What are you doing here?"

Joran was immensely pleased with himself. "I couldn't be on Tranus and not see you, and I wanted to surprise you. So, I hitched a flight with someone who was at the concert last night." Anton was at that time doing their first off-world tour as a warm-up band. "I can stay until 2:00 a.m., then there's a commercial flight I can take back and catch the tour. I tried your place first, then here."

Joran looked around at the cramped, shabby, windowless space and the five faces - two men, three women - staring at him with undisguised curiosity. They had figured out this was the guy they had all gone over to Dreen's two nights ago to watch on holovision, and they had all done the reasonable thing. They had collectively stopped work to sit and stare.

He threw an arm around Dreen. "I take it you haven't quite made it big time yet. Neither have I. But we'll get there. So introduce me around."

Looking at Joran you sure wouldn't know he wasn't big time. He was going through his young celebrity phase. His pants and some elaborately knit sweater were in the Anton blue. His shoes could probably have bankrolled Nemizcan for a week. There was heavy gold jewelry at wrist and throat, and some kind of gemstone earrings were barely visible under very long hair. The guitar case carefully leaning against the wall was equally expensive.

As he explained later to Dreen in private, he and the band were wearing their bank accounts because if there was anything the celebrity press could smell in an instant it was cheap flash. If he had his way the Anton Band was skipping the struggling artist stage, coming in as a class act, and rising from there. When they were on top then they could relax and slop around.

To Dreen this had the characteristics of most of Joran's logic. When you heard it you had the feeling there must be some really big hole you just couldn't quite see. But later, when you looked at it from various angles to find the hole, it sort of started to make sense, which was very unnerving. As it was, he couldn't have looked more exotic.

Dreen started at the nearest desk. "Joran, this is Gali. I've told you about him."

Jordan nodded. "Glad to finally meet you."

"And this is Jann Denari."

"Pleased to meet you, Jann." He rewarded the dark-haired, mahogany-skinned woman with a warm smile.

"Jann's our interface expert." Dreen stepped over a mess of cables. "And this is Sam Ieona, a code designer like Gali and me. He also keeps this place running."

"Sam," Joran nodded to a stocky oriental man. It was hard to tell, but he'd guess Sam was a good ten years older than him or Dreen.

"And this is Philomena Karri."

Joran smiled as Philomena shot him a quick glance through thick lashes, blushed attractively, and stared at her feet. Latina girls were adorable, and this coder of Dreen's was still a girl - just out of college he'd guess.

"Hello Philomena."

No answer.

"And over here at our administrative assistant's desk ..." Dreen stepped over more cables. "Watch it!"

"Sorry. Was that attached to anything crucial?"

Joran crouched to assess the damage. He held up a male network connector.

"This end's intact anyway. Where does it go? This place is a maze."

"Here." Sam took the connector and plugged it in. He looked at the screen. "No harm done."

"I'm Keya." She rose. "Gali's wife. And don't worry. I do that all the time. I told Dreen to buy those metal strip cords go under, but they rearrange stuff about three times a day."

Joran took the outstretched hand.

Keya was entranced. When she figured out that he didn't bite, she said hesitantly, "Joran, everyone swears they'll be finished in about an hour-and-a-half. And they'd better not be lying or one Sunday dinner is ruined." She gave Gali a mock frown. "Would you like to come too - or do you and Dreen want to go somewhere alone and catch up on news?"

Joran knew what going somewhere with Dreen would mean, an inexpensive restaurant or cater unit food eaten in the apartment - if Dreen's apartment even had a cater unit. Looking around, he doubted it. So it would mean Dreen's idea of a sandwich. And he was finding out that galactic touring was pretty much what he'd expected - not great. Hopping from planet to planet and learning what space lag was like made you inclined to not complain anymore about jet lag. And even if you were wiped, once you got somewhere you were expected to put on a significantly better show than a planetary band. What else were you being paid the extra money for? But that was sometimes hard to do because of the cultural thing. You couldn't always play the audiences the way you expected to. That added stress. And portels were the same whatever spaceport they were attached to. Plastic furniture, plastic food. A family style dinner sounded great, and he'd take the risk that if Dreen liked these people he would too.

Joran said, "I'd love to come," and gave Keya his warmest smile.

"Great." Keya mentally tried to figure out if there was enough food or if today she was starting the diet she had been threatening to go on for a month. Then she drew Dreen aside.

"Dreen how did you get to know someone like Joran? He is absolutely the sexiest man I've ever met."

Unfortunately both Joran and Gali were within earshot, and everyone else for that matter, because you couldn't have a private conversation in that office. Dreen figured that little comment would set back Joran and Gali's chance of developing a reasonable relationship by about two years. Joran responded by spending the next hour and a half amusing himself flirting with Keya when he wasn't peering over Dreen's shoulder and offering unwanted advice. That rounded that figure up to a nice solid five years or so by Dreen's guess.

After that Sunday dinner Joran took his guitar out of its case and sang his new song. Carefully tuning his guitar he explained, "This is the first thing I've written that might be worth a galactic release. It will need polishing though." He started the ballad.

By the time he was finished Keya and Jann were crying. Three months later the polished version was released on the brand new Anton label. It came in at a respectable Number 26 on the Galactic Pop chart, and climbed over a period of three weeks to an even more respectable Number 8. The next year when Anton toured, they weren't a warm-up band.

***

Meanwhile life at Nemizcan settled into routine until finally the day came when they had some finished product, not even that many months behind schedule. It wasn't the whole secretarial package they had planned as their first product in a business suite. It was only one component, but it was finished and it was great. They tested it against all the industry benchmarks, and it matched the competition on four, was a bit better on one, and totally outclassed everyone else on two more. Dreen decided to spring for the very expensive competition office software suite that had the highest ratings, and they spent the afternoon doing test runs of their choosing, not industry benchmarks. The results were even better.

Everyone was so elated when Keya got there that they didn't even complain about the jelly rolls, everyone's absolutely least favorite snack. They went on and on, talking and celebrating.

Then Sam said, "Keya try it. We need some user input."

"Hey, I'm not a computer person. Remember?" Keya didn't want to spoil their success.

"Great," Dreen said. "Our customers might not be either."

"Well...." There was an audible sigh. "I'll try."

After all, it couldn't be that bad. She'd heard nothing but talk about this secretarial software since Nemizcan had started. Keya dutifully moved to the administrative assistant's desk and started to read the user's manual while they continued their ecstatic post-mortem.

It was about an hour-and-a-half later that they realized Keya was still reading.

"Keya. Are you going to take all night?" Gali demanded.

"No."

Not very confidently Keya walked over to where they were running their software and took Gali's chair, the blue leatherette one with a taped over hole in the seat.

Twenty minutes later, no one was smiling. They had thought the software was so transparent, so easy to use, and Keya hadn't even managed to launch it successfully yet. Crash it, yes, in several ways no one could figure out. Launch it, no.

She looked at the worried faces. "Maybe I'm just too stupid. Maybe I should get someone else."

"Who?" Dreen was depressed. It wasn't any good having a really powerful word processing suite if no one could use it. They'd all known the interface was just something they'd slapped together for in-house use, because there was no sense doing a full fancy interface until they'd proven they could design the calculation engines that were behind it. But he hadn't thought it was that bad. Even more importantly, Keya seemed to be really fighting some of their key concepts too.

"The principal's secretary?" Keya was depressed too, but she felt like this was all her fault. "She runs stuff like this all the time."

Well, it was an idea anyway.

*****

Chapter 23

Dreen took another futile look at the elevator as it unloaded three middle aged women dressed for supper in floral dresses and narrow brim hats. Pretty soon he was going to have to admit Mitra stood him up, but not yet. He returned to his memories.

***

The next day Keya returned, secretary in tow. "We're here. I promised Janet a pizza afterwards for taking up her evening. And a free software suite when it's released." She beamed first at Dreen, then Gali.

The latter seemed to Dreen like quite a bit of nerve on Keya's part. They were now all thinking in terms of if, not when, but Janet, a plump blonde of Keya's age, seemed happy with the idea. They found out she was used to one of the low-end packages, set her down in front of the user's manual, and not wanting to crowd her went back to work. After the experience with Keya they figured this could take a while.

But in less than ten minutes a cheerful voice said, "What do I do next?" She'd always thought reading manuals was a waste of time anyway.

"Try to run it while they all stand around and watch," Keya announced.

"All right."

It was not a flawless launch. In fact, it involved two episodes of swearing, one reluctant return to the user's manual with a suggestion that they could get around to implementing full online help any time, and a little, just a little, prompting from the audience. But then the module was running and without asking what to do next, Janet started to exercise it. Part way through she stopped and six faces froze into expressionless masks.

"Wow! How did you get that so fast?"

Six faces unfroze into happy grins.

Janet played for another ten minutes or so then announced, "Well, it's as good as or better than the trash I'm using at work. But what do you expect to get when the administrators who decide what you run don't use it themselves?"

They then got a succinct twenty-minute lecture on what was terrible about that competitor's package, and a much shorter list of what wasn't exactly terrible but could be improved on in theirs. And heaps of praise on the speed. She liked the pizza too.

The score: one win, one loss.

***

None of them intended to stake their future on that small a sample. Who else could Keya get? Well, she was going to the dentist in two days. She'd see what she could do there. Meanwhile, they would keep busy assessing the secretary's comments.

The day arrived, and Keya showed up late with apologies. "There's a technician happy to come, but she has a date tonight and will come tomorrow. Meantime," Keya beamed, pleased with herself, "I stopped at the corner store by our apartment and the owner was actually there, not his teenage daughter. I asked him to come. He said he would, but it'll be after 9:30 when he closes for the night."

She looked at their less than enthusiastic faces. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure he's the right kind of user Keya." Dreen was being tactful.

"But he's a businessman and this is business software." She knew at least that much about it.

Dreen gave Gali a 'she's your wife' look.

"But Keya, love, we aren't targeting that kind of business yet - inventory control and such."

"But you will."

"Eventually yes -"

"And the same fancy suite you've got will be part of it."

"It will be the basis of part of it yes, but -"

"So tell him you aren't quite finished yet, and to pretend the rest is there," Keya announced cheerfully and went to do her marking.

It was well after 10:30 when they heard someone at the door, and Dreen opened it to greet their next tester. The corner store owner was perhaps 55, short and a smidgen on the solid side, with just the first dustings of what he personally considered to be distinguished gray at the temples.

Julio nodded to his regular customers Gali and Keya, then solemnly shook hands with Dreen as a fellow businessman. Then he took time to look around with real interest. There were always reports on the holovision business segments about this high-tech company or that, but he'd learned a long time ago to not always trust what you saw on holovision. This was a chance to watch the real thing. Julio was grateful to Keya, and slightly nervous.

What he saw relaxed him. The room was as comfortable and shabby as his office behind the corner store. The high-tech companies you saw on holovision were always fancy places. In fact, some were more elegant than restaurant dining rooms he'd eaten at, except they looked more like dentists' offices. This approach made sense though. Why spend a half credit you didn't have to on something the customers never saw? But even though he wasn't a computer person, he could make a guess that all the equipment he saw scattered around on desks, shelves, and the floor wasn't just good, it was the best. He took another look at Dreen, one with more approval. He was young, but he had his priorities right.

Once Julio was introduced around he relaxed a bit more. They might all be geniuses for all he knew. He knew Keya was quite convinced Gali was, but then a wife should feel that way about her husband. He knew he certainly wished his wife did. But to him they all looked and acted like Keya and Gali, nice friendly ordinary young people.

Dreen explained, with a certain note of apology in his voice, "Thanks for coming. I have to tell you that the module we want tested is actually targeted more at office type businesses - you know, secretaries and such. We're going to work on a package for small retail business to use, but," Dreen shrugged, "it hasn't been made yet. I hope this is all right."

By the cautious looks Dreen and Gali were giving the beaming Keya, Julio concluded that quite possibly pretty young Keya had messed up. He gave Keya, who was starting to look uncomfortable a reassuring smile. "Not to worry." He settled in to read the rewritten manual.

Julio read it carefully but he couldn't see was what the software suite, once it was running, had to do with his business. Dreen and Gali's explanations convinced him they were probably both very bright, but the explanations were of no particular help. Keya's 'well, right now you kind of have to pretend' was more understandable, but he had no idea what he was supposed to pretend.

After a polite interval of poking around with the package Julio thought it was safe to give up.

"Thank you very much for this opportunity," he said formally, and he was sincere since it had been interesting. "Now," he twinkled at Keya, "how about that pizza?"

The pizza was a success. It turned out the young people's favorite pizzeria was run by his wife's second cousin. They knew and liked each other, but they'd both been so busy lately they hadn't seen each other. It was late enough that business was tapering off. In honor of his cousin the pizzeria owner broke out a bottle of vintage wine that definitely wasn't on the menu, and joined them for a nice gossip.

The score: one win, one loss, one polite but very confused businessman.

The bonus: they were now considered family at the pizzeria.

***

"Do you want me to find someone else?" Keya asked doubtfully about a week after the dental technician was a disaster. Even she was starting to admit this off-the-street testing wasn't exactly a success.

"I'm not sure." Dreen was tired and depressed. "I suppose secretaries would be fine. Do you know any more?"

"No."

She'd worked through her list of acquaintances. Keya sighed. "It isn't that your software isn't clever," she said loyally, "it's just that people have no imagination. If the screen doesn't look exactly like what they're used to, they can't pretend. If you could make the screen look the way the person wanted, then when you got to something you hadn't done yet, you could say 'pretend this works' and just carry on, and no one would care. I suppose that's too hard to do." Keya had given up trying to figure out what was hard or easy in software design.

"Not really." Dreen answered automatically. "All we would have to have is a series of templates in a palette and mock up the screen."

His depressed brain caught up with his mouth and he looked at Gali. They stared at each other. Not mock up a screen with superficial cosmetic templates. Have each component on the palate a fully functional module with hooks to the underlying structure. Let every customer have a totally customized, fully functional secretarial package, or business package, or whatever. The home user who blogged and wrote a novel, or kept their recipes on line would use the same calculation engines as Julio at his corner store, or a secretary, or the woman who checked you in at the spaceport. But each interface would be totally different and just right for them. They both knew what the other was thinking. The words came out disjointedly and fast. At last they stopped for breath to look at the confused Keya.

"She's your wife Gali, you get to hug her first."

Which Gali did enthusiastically.

"Did I do something right?" Keya gasped when she caught her breath.

***

Right? Dreen asked himself now, sitting in the hotel lobby on Gingezel. All she did was create Nemizcan then later get him the angel investor they needed desperately. Darling Keya.

Out of the corner of his eye Dreen saw the motion of an elevator door. He turned his head slightly in anticipation, but the only occupant was a tall, slender gray-haired matron in a perfectly tailored navy suit. A suit the color he should be wearing. Navy, or beige, or gray. His shirt might not look too bad with navy. The doors closed behind the woman as she headed towards the dining room at an unhurried pace. How many old women stayed here anyway? Dreen had counted twenty-three so far.

Picking up his mineral water and starting to wish it were something stronger, Dreen returned to his reverie. What would Keya think of his suit? When she stopped laughing she'd probably make him turn so she could see it at all angles.

***

"Dreen." Keya was breathless and she looked harried. "I'm late for class - the meeting ran for ever - but guess what - I've got a businessman - a real businessman." She was still a bit defensive about the corner store owner. "You know, the kind with an office in a high-rise with real windows - and he'll come tonight to test the software. I'll be about an hour late because the committee meeting is on again. But he said he'd give me a ride. He -" There was the sound of a bell in the background. "Damn. I'll see you later."

She was gone.

His office full of eavesdroppers was looking at him with cautious optimism. The templates for the interface - minus the hooks to the actual guts of software - were in place. The resulting interfaces had been declared cool, sexy, and gorgeous by a number of secretarial types, depending on their vocabulary. But the opinion of the businessman, presumably an administrator of some sort, the kind who said yes or no to how money is spent, would be invaluable before they formalized that design spec and started to think about implementing those hooks.

Dreen looked back at the faces. "Well, I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be. And I guess we've learned to get as many opinions as we can before getting too attached to a design." He turned to Gali. "Do you have any idea who Keya's talking about?"

"Sorry. I think the committee is about fund raising for a new outdoor athletic area - soccer field, track equipment, that sort of stuff. But I don't know who's on it."

Dreen shrugged. It was almost 3:00 so they would know soon enough. Despite his apparent nonchalance, he hoped this meeting would go well. Dreen was still convinced that the idea of the customized screens, and the use of templates to make them, was the most important idea they had had. But capturing the essence of that idea before it escaped had been a major deviation from his and Gali's carefully developed plans. So now he was looking down the road at money problems. They weren't very far down the road either, and they were serious. Like flat broke. A favorable opinion from someone known in town, maybe even a letter of recommendation of some sort could tilt things in his favor at the bank. Money was tight in all sectors right now. Everyone was carefully not calling it a recession, but it was.

Dreen knew his team wasn't seriously worried. They had made the connection to Pendi Industries, and while they applauded his determination to make it on his own without any help from his father, deep down they were convinced that if worst came to worst he'd ask for help rather than throw away all their work. This was a serious problem, because deep deep down he knew they were dead wrong. He wouldn't ask for or accept a single credit from his father. Beyond that he didn't know what he'd do.

He had been thinking about shopping their prototype around to 'a businessman with an office with windows' as Keya put it as sort of a desperate last resort. But he had planned on renting a meeting room for that, wearing a business suit, making a formal presentation, all of the moves he knew perfectly well how to make. You couldn't be Oren Pendi's son and not know how that level of business negotiations were conducted. But that was irrelevant if Keya was bringing someone here. Dreen looked around the shabby little room, wondering if he could do anything to make it look better. He sighed. There wasn't much he could do. It wasn't unduly messy or dirty. It was just a dump. He went back to work.

***

Dreen smiled despite his anxiety about Mitra being late. Keya had certainly found herself a businessman all right. She had shown up with megadeveloper Nevin Pennell in tow. That had been a shock. Besides his wealth, Nevin was his father's best friend. Nevin had listened, asked questions, and gone for pizza. The next day Nevin had said he wanted in on one condition - that Dreen never tell his father. Dreen honestly still had no idea if Oren had ever found out. Nevin had also given Dreen the best advice he had ever received. Don't rush going public. Nemizcan was still a private corporation.

***

Even though she had napped off and was late, Mitra dressed for supper with care in the dress that had so attracted her in that shop window. Dreen hadn't even noticed it, so it would be a surprise. The dress had come in that morning by courier in her size, and it was perfect. It was a simple slip of fabric in a cut that could only be done by the best designers and had, to be quite honest, looked like nothing much in the window. But she had known how it would look on her, shoulders bare except for tiny straps, the dress just skimming her slender frame. The blue green was a shade she loved too. Luckily it went with the tones in the scarf Dreen had given her because she wanted to wear the scarf.

Mitra hesitated over shoes. High-heeled strappy sandals would look divine, but Dreen had implied that they might walk back along the harbor. Better a sensible heel then. Dreen didn't seem to mind her being so short, and as Mark had used to tease her, her feet were so tiny they looked dainty in safety shoes. She frowned, and tried to put Mark's extremely unpleasant memory away. Well, at least she wouldn't be repeating that kind of mistake. Dreen was probably some kind of financial business type whose eyes would glaze over at anything to do with engineering, unless maybe it was the growth potential of some engineering stock. She didn't mind. After all, they were only spending some time together on holidays.

Her hair was easy. It was still very short, but the hair dresser on the luxury liner had come up with a very daring geometric cut that she liked. And he had assured her it would grow out to the tousled look she wanted with no problems. So, for tonight it was a sleek cap. The makeup was easy too. Just a few discreet touches to polish the natural color that was returning with the sun.

Then it was time to hesitate again. Dreen would probably be wearing exactly what she had seen him in ever since she arrived, conservative business wear, and she didn't want to make him uncomfortable. But this was her first night out on Gingezel, and she wanted to celebrate, to feel special. She opened her jewelry case and took out her turquoise earrings and choker set, a birthday gift from Chelan sometime or other. The earrings dangled almost to her bare shoulders and set off the short hair. Perfect. She snapped on her heavy cuff, picked up a tiny evening bag, feeling naked without her canvas shoulder bag, took one last look in the mirror, approved, and closed the door.

***

There was no sense kidding himself. Mitra had stood him up. Dreen rose and walked over to the row of privacy call booths. Was there any sense calling? It wasn't that many hours ago they'd planned supper. Nothing could have come up. She'd changed her mind, that was all, and obviously wasn't the type to apologize.

Somehow that didn't seem like her though. Irresolute, Dreen paced the length of the lobby. Maybe he should call. Maybe he should give her a few more minutes, then go eat himself. His favorite little restaurant was holding a very special table for him.

A motion in the mirror caught Dreen's eye. Mitra was standing there looking absolutely lovely in some little slip of a dress and huge dangly earrings. She was obviously looking for him, and had not recognized him. He just hoped she hadn't been there long enough to think she'd been stood up. He turned and started walking toward her.

"Mitra! Have you been standing there long?"

"Dreen?"

Her eyes had slid right past the man in the yellow suit, and even now she could scarcely recognize him.

"That bad, mmm?" Dreen made a face and looked down at the suit. "If you're happy to wait, I can go change. I was just held up and running late and..." He shrugged an apology at his bad taste.

"And then had to wait for me." Mitra smiled her apology in return. "Sorry about that. But Trevarr's massage put me sound asleep. When he was finished I just staggered off to bed and finished the nap. I think it was too much sun."

While she'd been talking she'd been looking at the suit. Actually, it was rather attractive and the cut was distinctly flattering, bordering on sexy. She'd seen a few similar ones in equally bright colors on the luxury liner, but none with that extreme a cut.

"Actually, I like the suit. It's just that I..." She floundered, and then figured she better say it since Dreen had the queerest look on his face. "It just isn't what I expected you to be wearing." She hadn't thought of him as the brilliant plumage type.

"Me either," Dreen said and relaxed a little. She really didn't look like she minded. "It's one of those mistakes that end up in closets."

"And I thought you said you hated to shop," she teased.

"I do. That was the problem." He forestalled further questions by adding, "It's a long story that can wait until dessert." With luck she'd have forgotten by then. "Shall we go?"

Mitra nodded and took his arm. Then, when they were almost at the door, "Oh, I forgot. You're supposed to call Trevarr and say if you want him," she smiled, "or his lady partner to give you a massage tomorrow."

"Am I?" It sounded like he was stuck. "Trevarr."

Dreen was sure Mai was professional, but he would be uncomfortable with a woman giving him a massage.

"Great. Tell Tomao and let's go eat. I'm starved."

*****

Chapter 24

The menu was posted beside a wide walkway between two buildings. A rounded script said that tonight they had rack of pork ribs rubbed with garlic and herbs, pasta with sausage and sun-dried tomatoes, or fresh fish simmered in white wine. Apparently you ate what the chef wanted to cook or you went somewhere else. The walkway had obviously been planned as the entrance to the restaurant. There were planters at regular intervals, vines, attractive metal sculptures, and at the far end, a fountain splashing down one wall.

"Dreen, this is lovely."

"I'm glad you think so. Will there be something you want to eat?"

In many ways the basic edible foodstuffs did not vary much from world to world, but each planet had preferences in how they were prepared. Dreen knew he was pretty easy going as long as the spices were not too exotic or strong, but he had no idea about Mitra.

"Pasta." Mitra adored pasta of any kind.

They went into the courtyard. There was a large central fountain and the tables were shaded by vine covered arbors. The light was soft and dappled and the air full of delicious smells.

An attractive redhead came forward to greet them. "Dreen, we are pleased you could come. I think you'll especially like the ribs."

She led them to a table beside the fountain.

Mitra noticed there were some kind of brilliantly colored fish she had never seen swimming around, and she was watching their antics when she realized she was being spoken to.

"Pardon?"

"Do you know what you'd like?"

Apparently you didn't get a menu. Mitra wondered if that meant there was no choice on the withs, not that it mattered. "The pasta please."

"Then I recommend either our green salad or the antipasto plate with it."

The redhead smiled at Dreen. "I didn't give you a choice because I know you don't like cold soup. The choices with the ribs are chilled soup or the salad."

"The antipasto please."

Mitra was still off salad greens.

"Very good. And we have the wines you requested when you made the reservation, Dreen." She left.

So, Dreen was into wines. Mitra filed that away.

"What wine?"

"If you ask, there is a bit of local stuff around now. I asked if they could have a selection available that would go with whatever you ordered. I thought you might like to say you'd tried a Gingezel wine. Obviously there aren't any aged vintages available yet, but I think you'll like it."

"That was thoughtful."

She was deciding he was both polite and attentive to little things. Mitra also revised the decision that he was into wines. She would be getting a lecture by now, not a casual reference to 'the local stuff'. A young waiter appeared with their food, and Mitra let conversation lapse. She had noticed at lunch yesterday that Dreen totally focused on a plate of food until it was about a third gone, then he got chatty again. She got a mild surprise though.

After two bites of a roll and a forkful of salad, Dreen announced, "it's still rather warm. Do you mind if I shed this jacket?" The majority of customers were casually dressed, so he wouldn't be offending anyone.

"No." That polite behavior again. What would he have done if she'd said yes? Sat there and sweated?

"Good." He stood up and took the offensive yellow jacket off with relief, then sat down and focused on the food. He loved their creamy salad dressing and the big fluffy rolls you tore apart to eat.

"Dreen." It was the hostess. "Do you mind? I just have to feel that shirt."

Without waiting for an answer she ran a caressing finger down his upper arm. "Oh, lovely. What is it?"

"I have no idea. Shall I look for you later?"

"Please. Then give me a call."

She had a soft, purring voice Mitra noted with disapproval. She wasn't much more pleased with the look on Dreen's face. The redhead ran another hand across the broad of Dreen's back, smiled, and drifted off.

Dreen was intensely amused. That was a new experience for him. Maybe he should let Joran shop for him more often - but Joran was never choosing the colors again!

"And who is that?"

Dreen wondered if Mitra realized how sharply that had come out. He would definitely have to have Joran shop for him more often. He got married women petting him and jealous dates.

"Our hostess," he teased.

"I know that." Mitra's lips set in a thin line and she tried to distract herself watching the swimming fish. Men. Or was it just that she could really pick them?

Dreen was watching the averted face. That strong a reaction was definitely not warranted. And now that he thought about it, that was twice she'd worried about women in his life. Either she was still smarting from someone, or she was compulsively possessive, something he definitely did not want or need. Well, he'd find out.

"All right, sorry I teased. That is our hostess. She's also the wife of the chef, co-owner of the restaurant, its business manager, and mother of two boys aged five and eight. If, on top of that she has the energy to play around, it sure isn't with me. I doubt it though. They seem a perfectly happy couple. She's probably looking for inspiration on a birthday present. Like I've already said once, I'm unattached at the moment."

Mitra was completely unconvinced and it showed.

"Hey. I'm serious. Let's sort this out. I do not play games about things like that. You look like maybe you've had trouble on that score though. Have you?"

Had she had trouble on that score? What a question!

***

Suddenly Mitra wasn't staring at her almost uneaten antipasto plate, carefully centered by the waiter on the green vine patterned placemat. She was looking at a half eaten plate of fish on a silver-tone placemat on the elegant lustered glass and chrome dining table in the very expensive condominium she had thought was going to be her permanent home.

The condo was at an address Mark had said he had wanted to move to for years, so when it came on the market, they went together and snapped it up. The whole place was beautiful, all geometric, subdued, and elegant. In the dining room everything but the table was built in, the storage units, the bar, the cater unit stocked by the best gourmet caterers in the city. Paintings, rotated four times a year by a prestigious gallery, provided interest on walls without intruding on the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of the room.

The fish was ice cold despite its being delicious like all the food from those caterers. The problem with the meal was the atmosphere. It was no longer quiet, or peaceful. They were having one hell of a fight.

Mitra watched as Mark pushed his placemat aside and took his compad out. He was wearing the dark brown jumpsuit he liked to change into when they got home. It was unzipped half way down his chest. He knew she thought that was sexy, and it was, even in the middle of the fight. But then Dr. Mark Laratte was a very sexy man with his thick almost black hair combed back from a high broad brow, fair skin, and intense dark eyes set under brows that quirked down slightly towards his nose. His mouth was mobile, his jaw line strong. He was well built. Mitra was used to the fact that women always looked twice when he walked past.

"And I say it has to be in the control system." His voice was ice.

Their problems had started two weeks earlier, with the newest reactor at Dellmaice Power Systems, one Mark had designed. Mitra had been hired for that project, and it had been exciting, the kind of project she'd dreamed of. Every stage had worked. Even the prototype's first approach to full power had been perfect.

That had been that. The unit couldn't sustain full power operation for more than five or six hours. When the safety system tripped out and shut the reactor down wasn't consistent, but it did it every time. And who was going to buy a reactor that had that kind of an attitude problem? 'Let the bastards freeze in the dark' was definitely not the approach you wanted your power system to take at peak load.

Mitra was not so sure it was the control system. Her specialty was power distributions, not control, so she couldn't swear it wasn't. But instinct told her to look elsewhere and she had been. So had the rest of the team. To be quite honest, they'd been looking everywhere and anywhere they could think of and getting absolutely nowhere.

Ari was starting to really put the pressure on too. If they didn't at least have an idea of what the problem was very soon, it would look bad to the potential customers. Problems during commissioning of a new system weren't a big deal if you solved them. But a whole team scratching their heads did not amuse Ari in the least. He'd announced that if they had not sorted their problems out by the end of the week he'd bring in Tranngol Cebron to do it for them.

Dr. Tranngol Cebron was the head of the Risk and Safety section, and his people certainly did have the techniques to look at the system piece by tiny piece until they sorted any problem out. But it was a major loss of face to have to use them this late in the project, to say nothing of the fact it was one hell of an expense and delay. And Mark, she had learned by now, did not like to lose face. He was fine as long as he was at the top, but only if he was at the top.

That wasn't a problem though because Mark had both the talent and the discipline to be at the top. Even though they were the same age, he was way ahead of her. Dellmaice Power Systems had picked him up straight out of university. Why not? He had first-class honors, without a grade below perfect. Mitra had a good first-class honors degree, but not a perfect one. She'd bounced around a few smaller companies before being hired by Dellmaice Power Systems as a mid-rank engineer calculating power distributions for Mark's reactor. By then he had already established his reputation at Dellmaice Power Systems and had Ari's backing to fly his own design.

She and Mark had hit it off from the start. He'd gone out of his way to help the new employee settle in, to show her the ropes. And oh, he was good. She liked the way he thought, his organization, his discipline.

He liked the way she liked him.

They both seemed to be in the handful of employees that routinely stayed on until sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 at night. Mark would open the door to his large corner office when the general crowd went home and their floor was quiet. She would watch him there at his desk. Hers was about halfway through the huge open workspace with its irregularly spaced sound partitions, workstations, and desks. Usually about 8:30 or so he would get up and walk to the cater unit across the open space from his office. Then with a beverage in hand he would walk around to see how everyone was getting on. He liked to talk at that time of night, and that was how Mitra had learned about Dellmaice Power Systems, with Mark perched on the edge of her desk.

It had seemed natural one night when he asked her if she wanted a ride home and something to eat on the way. And it had seemed even more natural a few weeks later when he asked her if she thought she could handle a personal relationship with her boss.

Perfection. All of a sudden they both had someone to share their life with that they also shared their work with. They could wake up with a bright idea and tell the other at breakfast. They could bitch about Ari over late supper. Or they could just lock the door and forget it all - and was Mark ever good at that. When their relationship just kept working out, they started to think long term, then forever.

Ari had been pleased too. When it was obvious that Mitra was settling in and would do well, he started to talk of her own project not too far down the road. The hybrid idea had come to her soon after moving in with Mark, and Mark had supported her, making sure she got a fair hearing from Ari. A settled couple, both talented project engineers, was the kind of workforce stability Ari liked.

These last few days though had Mitra wondering if she should have asked Mark if he could handle a personal relationship with an employee. He seemed to be having a terrible time remembering they both wanted the same thing, to get his reactor up and running.

There had been another team meeting that afternoon, and for the first time she had been really exasperated with Mark. He would only listen to the team members that were agreeing with him, that the control system must have a marginal error in design somewhere, so the reactor crept ever so slowly into an unstable regime. It was possible. The control engineers were reworking the design and trying to define a conclusive test. But in Mitra's mind it wasn't the only option. So, over supper she had been trying to quietly get him to look at the whole picture. Only it had been getting less quiet by the minute.

"But Mark," she felt obliged to give it one more try, "you have to acknowledge that Elin -"

"I have to do no such thing!" Mark stood up abruptly.

Damn. "Where are you going?"

"Back to work. If I can't relax and eat a meal in peace in my own home, I may as well go where I can work."

The glare that accompanied that last shot left no doubt as to whether or not she was invited. Mitra sighed and waited until she heard the door shut. Then she went into their office and accessed Dellmaice Power Systems with the secure link.

Elin Kubo was their safety system designer, attached for the duration of the project to their staff from Tranngol's section. Mitra like the middle-aged, dark-haired, honey-skinned, solidly-built woman. Elin had designed safety systems all her career, mostly at Dellmaice Power Systems, and she was very competent. At the meeting this afternoon she had quietly voiced some valid concerns about whether or not the materials the safety system sensors relied on would generate an accurate signal if the fluid regime wasn't exactly what they thought it was.

Mitra called up the core maps, the calculations she had done showing the energy distributions throughout the reactor. She was interested in full power. She started working her way through the various sets of operating conditions that could occur. It was complex. Mark was right to that extent. The control system would have to be smack on or you'd drift with time, but Elin was right too. The sensors they were using were slightly over prompt. They'd been designed so that the signal they put out rose a bit faster than the reactor power. So if there were hot spots... She kept looking.

It was about 1:00 a.m. when Mitra realized Mark wasn't home yet. She had better call and apologize. There was no answer though. That either meant he was still furious and refusing to recognize her call, or he was driving home. So she tried the security desk at the entrance.

"Oh, Mitra." All the evening shift knew her. She was always working late. "You looking for Mark?"

Mitra nodded.

"He checked out a little while ago. He should be there soon."

Mitra disconnected. She'd get ready for bed. She was heading to the bedroom to change when she saw the mess in the dining room. She had totally forgotten about it. She'd better clear up that reminder of problems, and fast. She stuffed the dishes into the sanitizer, then had a quick shower to relax. Still no Mark. She knew where he'd be, on his favorite drive curving along the river out of the city. He liked it best at night, the city lights a massive wall on the other side of the river. She wished she was with him, sitting close, listening to music. It was something they often did before coming home.

***

The weight on the bed and some small noise woke her.

"Mark?"

"Sorry, love." His hand touched her hair. "I was trying not to wake you."

"That's all right. What time is it?"

"Late." There was a pause, then, "I'm sorry I lost my temper."

He slid into bed.

"That's all right. Ari is pushing us all way too hard."

"Let's forget it," he said softly.

She smiled sleepily. She knew what that meant. Mitra moved onto his shoulder. Boy, had she been out cold. He'd even showered without her hearing.

"You smell good." She started stroking his chest.

But Mark caught her hand, bringing it to his lips for a kiss. "Let's get some sleep, okay? We've got a meeting at 8:15. Roll over and let me curl up to you."

He sounded tired.

"All right." The time on her bedside alarm caught her eye. 3:30. He must have done a shift in the office here too when he got home. No wonder he was tired. Mitra fell back asleep.

*****

Chapter 25

Mitra transferred her gaze to the fish pond. A small yellow fish was aggressively chasing a blue one three times its size, something that normally would have amused Mitra. She didn't even see them. She was too lost in the past.

***

The next few days were all work. Mark was defining the test he wanted to put the control system through. Mitra was studying power distributions and hardware schematics when she wasn't having Elin lecture her on sensor composition.

Then came the day of the test. The morning was spent by the team in one last walkthrough of what was expected, then getting Ari's final signed approval. At 1:10 exactly, after a lunch no one ate, they put their coats on and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine and frosty air to walk over to the massive, squat, windowless building that was the Dellmaice Power Systems construction site for prototypes and test beds for partial and complete systems. Tranngol Cebron joined them. As Head of Risk and Safety he tended to personally monitor potentially dangerous tests.

The building was not designed for aesthetics. It was designed for structural integrity and ventilation control because quite often testing involved deliberately blowing a subsystem or entire power system to test the consequences. This procedure was nicely glossed over as destructive testing when talking to the other inhabitants of the industrial park.

Everyone, including Ari, went through the usual rigorous security at the entrance. They hung up their coats, handed over the compads they were taking in, and were screened head to toe for metals, certain chemicals, and radioisotopes. Then it was time to strip and put on their protective coveralls before they headed for the reactor test bed.

The immense reactor hall was dominated by massive scaffolding on all sides that held the test instrumentation. Ari and Mark had a few words with some of the technicians, then both signed off the authorization for disabling the safety systems while the team milled around. That finished they climbed up to the control room, sited rather like an expensive spectators' box at an arena but filled with walls of displays and instruments, not luxury seats.

"Dr. Dellmaice, Mark." It was the senior operator. "Just confirming things one last time. We let this little baby drift. You've taken the safety systems off-line, and you don't want me to do a manual shut down either, no matter what happens."

"That's right." Mark was matter fact. "We've been over the approach to full power most likely to bring the instability on, so let's do it."

They came up to full power, and waited, and waited. It was a marginal instability, so there was nothing else to do. Then, ever so slowly the power started to creep up. Mark flashed Mitra one quick smile, then his, and everyone else's eyes were on the displays.

It was slow, painfully slow, but it was steady. About an hour and ten minutes later Mitra knew she was sweating. Everyone else looked nervous too, except Mark, who was still impassively watching the displays and Ari, who was equally impassively watching Mark.

Ten minutes later the senior operator asked quietly, "Are you deliberately going to blow her Mark? If you are, I want to evacuate nonessential personnel."

"Power will peak approximately one and a half or two per cent below an explosive overpower, then drift back down to five per cent below peak, then repeat to a lower peak on almost the same time frame." Mark was calm.

The man looked at Ari.

"I think we have to institute a full response, Laratte. I trust you, but that's cutting it too fine. I'll hear about it from the civil authorities otherwise." Ari had known from the briefings it probably would be close, but he had waited on reality before making a final decision.

Mark nodded. He knew Ari's and the operator's responsibilities. "Clear them out."

The operator's hand closed the contact. "All personnel not involved in the test are to leave the building for a secure area. I repeat. All nonessential personnel are to leave the building."

The operator initiated an automated sequence that Mitra knew would shut down the ventilation for the building, initiate the onsite stay-in klaxon, and contact the civil authorities, just in case. Of course, it was just in case. Mitra knew it was both silly and disloyal, but she found herself wondering just how projectile resistant the transparent ceramic they were looking through was. She was being silly because it was chosen to withstand accidents, and disloyal because Mark wouldn't be wrong. But she was worried. And suddenly she was intensely aware of the weight of the gas mask hanging on her chest. For the first time, she wished that they could get a decent seal for her with a full face mask. Even with goggles some of her upper face would be exposed. But Mark wouldn't be wrong. At least she hoped not.

Was Tranngol nervous too? Mitra took her eyes off the monitors to look at him, but his tall, heavy-boned frame betrayed no tension. He looked like he always did, quiet and thoughtful, just possibly a bit pale around his blue, green, and gray eyes. Mitra knew that he preferred a full bushy beard to go with the wavy black hair that he wore an imposing shoulder length, and that he used to only shave it when he expected he needed a tight fit on a gas mask. But he'd been clean shaven for almost a year now. People had started to use the missing beard as an indication of potential trouble. She wasn't even sure he was a bit pale, because his skin was naturally fair, even at the height of summer.

A small change in the monitors shifted her attention off Tranngol. The power peaked at exactly 1.35% below an explosive overpower, held there for 10 minutes, then ever, ever so slowly started back down.

Ari crossed to Mark, only his dark eyes showing his relief. "You're going to do one more cycle to be sure, then make your mods?"

"That's right."

"I'm glad you found your problem Laratte. It's a good system." From Ari that was high praise. Then with a shake of his head and what could have been admiration in those dark eyes, "Damn it Laratte, you didn't even sweat!"

Mark just smiled, and Ari left.

They did one more excruciatingly slow cycle confirming that Mark was spot on with his predictions for the instability. He was elated. The operators took the reactor power down, and the technicians made the changes Mark wanted to the control system. After reconnecting the safety systems, they brought the unit up to full power for an overnight test.

It was celebration time. The whole team, Ari as well, went out for a very late supper at one of the city's best restaurants. Mitra and Mark went home for their private celebrations after that. Their lovemaking was as good as it had ever been, and Mitra wrote off the troubles they had been having to stress.

They weren't asleep yet when the call came at 3:11 A.M. There had been another full power trip. This time Mark didn't argue when Mitra wanted to come.

They worked through until regular quitting time at five in the afternoon, and Mitra kept her mouth shut. There was no sense antagonizing Mark when he was trying so hard to cope. But she poured over the sensor logs and core maps. The sensor outputs were all just the same as before he'd adjusted the control system, so he'd fixed a problem, but not the right one.

***

"But Mark, can't you at least consider the possibility of a sensor problem?"

It was two days later. At least this time they had finished supper and were sitting in front of their terminals in their home office.

"Look at some of these potential hot spots. They are near this set of sensors. With the sensors almost 102.5% prompt, they're a hair trigger under that circumstance."

"Since when are you an instrumentation expert?"

"I'm not. I'm just repeating what I heard."

"And not what I hear."

Because everyone is afraid to talk to you, dummy. How do you expect to work with your team if you're building a wall between you and them, Mitra thought bitterly. Why had she ever thought Mark was the easiest man she'd ever worked with?

"All right, so let's start with the premise I could be wrong. But hear me through. I need you to listen to me." Somehow that was the right thing to say because at least he shut his mouth and looked at the screen.

"Let's take this group of sensors near the top, and compare their output signal to what you'd get if we moved them down, to here. You know with the materials you used you're worried about gross, not localized overpower."

But Mark hadn't heard that part. He was scowling again. "Moving them is a major redesign. We'd have to rebuild."

Oh Mark, don't you realize there's going to have to be a second version anyway? "This is strictly hypothetical. If the sensor near the top has void going past, even just a few bubbles, nothing extreme, you could get some really bizarre electronic noise as the sensor moves in and out of a liquid regime. Couple that to it being overprompt and the fact you're sitting at full power and -"

"There is no void." Mark's tone allowed for no argument.

"With the hot spots and complicated structure -"

"That has been allowed for with the fluid pressures. There would be a direct shift to a superheated liquid regime. Minute prenucleate gas at most."

Mitra thought about the last time she had boiled pasta. Those little bubbles that almost got to the surface and collapsed - prenucleate gas - weren't all that minute, and they varied in size a lot.

"How the hell do you know? Did you stick your head in there?"

Of course she was talking to his back after that. That time he came back at 3:15 A.M. She pretended to be asleep. He didn't try to wake her.

***

Two days later Ari called in Tranngol. He named Mitra as the official liaison. He told her it was because she knew the most about the reactor next to Mark, and that there was no way Mark could handle the time demands Tranngol would make and still manage the project. The gossip in the team was that Ari was fed up with Mark's stubborn streak. As far as Ari was concerned, one bad temper around the place, his, was plenty. She had no idea what Ari told Mark, but that was the first day Mark started snapping at her at work, not just at home.

A few days later, absolutely nothing she did met his standards. About 7:30 Mark stopped at her desk.

"I don't know how long I'll be. Why don't you go home?"

Mitra nodded in relief. She needed some quiet time just to get her balance back. She put on her favorite music and just soaked in the tub. Then she made a simple egg supper that would never have been good enough for Mark.

This time he got in at 3:20. She knew the shower he'd taken had not been at home, because she was still awake trying to sort out what she'd done wrong. She heard every noise he made.

"Mark?"

"Sorry I woke you."

He was obviously in a good mood. There was no tension or aggression in his voice. So it might be safe to give things a try.

"I'm sorry I've been rubbing you the wrong way."

"Don't worry about it, Mitra. We're both under a lot of stress." He yawned. "Come curl up and let's get some sleep."

The next morning at coffee a woman from accounting stopped by on the pretext of needing to talk to a friend of hers who also worked on the team. She made a point of telling Mitra that she'd seen Mark the night before in one of the lounges downtown, with a redhead. Mitra wasn't surprised. Their sex life had dropped to pretty much zero, and she'd stopped trying to write it off as stress. A zero sex life wasn't Mark's style. When he was stressed he needed the release in bed to get the tension out of his system. All the same, she didn't thank the woman from accounting for telling her.

***

"Is this how you thank me for all the help and support I've given you? When you showed up here you didn't know a thing about handling yourself in a first-class place like Dellmaice Power Systems. I help you get established. Show you the ropes. And what do you do? Try to steal my project. My project, damn it! You know I've got Ari planning to put your hybrid on the books. But that isn't good enough for you, is it? On no. You have to go after mine."

They were ruining steak and salad this time. That afternoon there had been a meeting where Tranngol listed what he felt needed to be done, and Ari had made a point of sitting in. He was getting a lot of nervous calls from potential customers, and he needed some firsthand answers, not a report. Tranngol did most of the talking, asking questions. But as his liaison Mitra had provided most of the answers. So Ari had started asking questions of her too, not Mark. What the hell did Mark expect to happen since he'd been frosting Tranngol as thoroughly as he had been her?

"I'm not trying to steal your project. In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to save the damn thing since you're doing pretty much zero on that score." It seemed that when the control system idea was proven totally wrong, Mark had frozen.

"I'll get there."

"Sometime late in the next century! What's with you lately Mark? It's a team. Remember? There's nothing wrong with getting some help. No one except you expects you to be perfect."

"Right, and they'll do an end run around me like you did."

"I did no such thing!"

"Right. Then why the hell is Tranngol replacing a whole set of instrumentation with various diagnostic equipment? You've pushed the instrumentation as the problem all along."

Mark had objected to the retooling, and Ari had told him bluntly, in front of the team, to shut up until he had a better idea. So that was what was the matter.

"Tranngol is trying to get more information - something we could all use. Including you Mark."

"When I need you to advise me on how to run a project, I'll tell you."

"Right." She threw his favorite word back at him. "I'm just supposed to spend the rest my life being a little support engineer while you're the big shot. Think twice on that one."

She'd just said it because she was angry, but by the look on his face, she'd hit home. That was crazy. He'd gone out of his way to help her. Or, she thought with sudden insight, was he glad to do that because he thought she'd never catch up? She had no interest in that kind of competitiveness. If that was what his problem was, they didn't have a problem because she wasn't competing. She was just doing her job.

"Mark -"

But he was already standing up. "Fine. If that's the way it is, I'll do that thinking. At work."

This time she followed him. "Mark! This is crazy. Get it through your head I'm not competing with you. There's no need to. There's room for both of us." She could tell he was too angry to listen. Mitra shrugged helplessly. "All right, go. You need to calm down. But Mark, we've got to learn to support each other."

"Right. The way you've been supporting me." He was at the door.

"Yes. Believe it or not, I have tried to support you. When you get away from me and think, you'll see it." She braced herself. "But Mark, when you've calmed down and need to unwind, come home this time. Don't pick up someone in a lounge again."

For a moment she thought he was going to try to slap her face. She was mad enough she was just daring him to try. He'd get a close-up view of thick gray plush carpet for his efforts if he did. She'd matted a lot bigger men than him when she was still competing. But all that happened was he carefully closed the door in her face.

That night he didn't bother to come home. In the morning Mitra packed her bags and checked into a hotel.

***

Dreen was watching the quiet little face, now totally devoid of the animation he had come to expect there. He hadn't meant his question to be so painful, but he definitely had his answer. Somewhere in this galaxy one total idiot was walking around, because that was what he would have to be to cheat on someone like her. Dreen couldn't say he minded in the least. It meant there were no prior claims. But by the look on her face, he'd better not let this train of thought continue or their night would be ruined.

"Hey." He got no response and he reached out and put his hand on hers. "Whoever the bloody fool is, I'm not him."

Mitra was trying to focus, but she'd missed the words. It was disorienting though to be sitting - where were they - that's right, in a restaurant courtyard with Dreen's hand on hers.

"Pardon?"

"You were drifting, not that I mind. It gave me an excuse to just sit and watch you. But you've hardly touched your antipasto, and I expect they're holding the main course until you do."

That got him the ghost of a smile.

"And you're hungry?"

Dreen smiled back. "Hungry enough to help if you'd like. And while I'm raiding your plate, you can tell me how I got lucky enough that you decided to holiday in Crescent Bay."

She obviously wasn't going to touch the food. Dreen hoped holiday plans were safe as a topic.

"Do you always turn the most everyday things into pretty compliments?" Mitra was refocusing on the man across from her.

"Do I what?" Dreen was confused and slightly embarrassed.

"Make compliments." She smiled. "It's nice." She pushed her plate toward the middle of the table. "Try this." She pointed.

"What is it?" Dreen eyed the marinated something suspiciously.

"How should I know? Veggie something. It's good though."

Mitra surprised him by stabbing a piece.

*****

Chapter 26

"Actually," Mitra said after having polished off three very tasty marinated black olives and almost choking on what she thought was a strip of pimento but turned out to be a hot pepper species probably from Laurion, "I didn't really decide to come here. I knew I wanted to come to Gingezel for a nice holiday, but that was it. When I told my father, he went looking at places on the hyperweb and found this one. I almost risked insulting him - the virtual town looked so old! But then I thought about the harbor, and looked at the hotel. Papa has this fantastic projection system in the library - it will project onto a whole wall. Anyways, I decided it might be nice and relaxing for two or three weeks. I can always tour later."

"Well, I'm glad your father talked you into it." Dreen smiled. He was about to say more, but the waiter arrived with the entrees followed by the hostess.

"Dreen, don't mention the shirt if my husband answers when you call, okay? It's a birthday idea." She hurried off to greet a couple standing uncertainly in the entrance.

Dreen gave Mitra a mildly 'I told you so' look but didn't push it. Instead more to keep conversation going than anything, he asked, "What kind of computer system?" He didn't expect a knowledgeable answer, and most of his attention was on the grilled ribs.

However Mitra knew exactly what Chelan had. She'd spent a large part of her visit home admiring the system, testing it, and drooling over it. She also had no problem with the idea of eating and talking at the same time. So, she proceeded to tell him.

Dreen was more or less stunned, both by the technical exposition and the system. It appeared he'd found someone who understood and admired real computing power, at least at the user level. He tested this by a few simple questions. She rattled on happily for about five minutes after each. Mitra made a few simplifications and mistakes, but not many. Then there was the system itself! At first he thought Mitra had it wrong, but clearly she didn't. Her father, Papa as she called him, apparently had an absolute top-of-the-line virtual reality simulation workstation in his library - just to access the hyperweb.

Dreen knew the system. It had come out almost a year ago, and it was truly fantastic. He was under increasing pressure to get some for his designers back on Tranus. He had resisted so far with various creative reasons because the damn things would cost Nemizcan a small fortune. It wasn't that he didn't like his teams to have the best, or that he had to fuss that level of equipment cost anymore even though the workstations were expensive. But they didn't need virtual reality simulation capability. They didn't do virtual reality after all. And he knew once there were workstations the cost he was worried about would hit, the time out from any real work while everyone played. So he was trying to delay until the new model was released in a few months. That was expected to bring prices down - and increase the capabilities to where all of the Nemizcan designers including himself would be taking a six-week collective vacation at work while they played with it. As it was, he obviously had a test user to ask questions, even if she'd only played on the hyperweb.

Mitra watched in amusement as Dreen seemed torn between attacking the ribs and asking her questions about Chelan's system. It was a safe topic of conversation, right up there with sports. It was amazing the men in all sorts of walks of life who were computer fanatics. As the questions slowly ran down she asked, "and what do you have?"

Dreen was mortified. While his apartment was set up as an extension of his Nemizcan office and lab, when he relaxed he didn't spend all that much time on the hyperweb. He was more inclined to head for the gym or work on his plants. Joran had helped him put together a truly impressive sound system for his media wall, but that wasn't what she was asking about. She was asking about his hyperweb access, not the media wall it fed to, and it was basic. Good quality of course because he couldn't tolerate garbage, but nothing like her father's. Still it was a direct question and had to be answered.

Mitra however was delighted. "That's the same system as mine! But," she made a face, "I haven't upgraded for so long it's embarrassing. I was going to when I get home, but my brother says to sit this round out - there are a few instabilities. Is he right?"

It was her turn to get a lecture, and she was surprised. Computers must definitely be a hobby because this wasn't a casual user critique like she'd had from Niki. Dreen knew what was wrong, why, and what the proposed fixes were. And he wasn't too thrilled with some of them either.

"So I sit this one out?"

"And the next one if you aren't desperate."

"No, not desperate." It should be such a luxury to get back on the hyperweb that anything would be fine.

Dessert was a three-tiered trolley with very rich looking pastries on one level, fresh fruit salads on another, and sorbets on the third. The waiter wheeled it over, but the hostess was presiding. Dreen assumed with Mitra's size, and given the fact she'd just packed away a good sized plate of pasta that she'd go for a fruit salad, or sorbet. But after very intense consideration she opted for fudge cake.

"And you Dreen? The same?"

The hostess knew his weakness for rich desserts, but he wasn't indulging it tonight. The way these pants clung he was going to lose that kilo or so. "The lime sorbet."

"Very good." She served them. "Dreen, are you by any chance free the evening after tomorrow? There's a soccer practice for the kids and it will save my husband calling if you can let him know now."

Dreen knew that with the restaurant hours all her husband could offer the team was part-time managerial work doing paper work, organizing support, and such, and Dreen was in the useful support category. He liked coaching the lads.

Dreen looked at Mitra. "Am I free? I'd say only if you have other plans."

She smiled. "Can't you do both? I'm a soccer fan." She liked the idea of more time together.

"These are just kids, and it's a practice. That's pretty far removed from what you see on holovision."

Mitra laughed. "I know that. I played as a kid until size was too much of a disadvantage. For a while being small and agile even gave me an edge, but eventually I couldn't run fast enough. Everyone but me hit growth spurts."

Dreen turned to the hostess. "Take that as a yes."

"Thanks." She turned to the waiter, instructing him to take the trolley to another table.

"So what do you help with at practices?" Mitra somehow liked the idea that he worked with the local kids, but it didn't seem the sort of thing you came to Gingezel to do.

"I help with the passing drills. It's my first try at coaching, but I did play at the university level."

"I'm impressed."

"Don't be. It was ages ago."

She let it drop. She'd reserve comment until she saw him on the field. Instead she said, "Do you know everyone here?"

"Not everyone." He had no idea who the proprietress at that women's wear store was, or the saleswoman he had dealt with. "But a fair number. After all, I've been here three months and it isn't a big place."

That was what Trevarr had said too, but it seemed hard to believe. "Do you mean literally here, in Crescent Bay, or touring around Gingezel?"

"Here."

"But you are touring?" Mitra couldn't believe anyone would come to Gingezel and not tour around.

"I don't honestly know." Without Larna to push him he hadn't given it any thought. "It isn't like I'm not coming back."

Three months plus how much longer in Crescent Bay, and not worried about sightseeing because you're coming back? Mitra suddenly felt very provincial and sincerely hoped he didn't ask her about her vacation plans that until that moment had seemed wildly extravagant. To forestall that likelihood she quickly cast around for a change of topic. Niki had been really excited about the recent announcement that I.C.E., Interstellar Courier Express, was going to build a deep space station dedicated to servicing their expanding Genie business. She'd try that.

The Genie had been developed as a racing yacht. It held the galactic records for length of hyperspatial jumps, how quickly the next jump could be calculated, and how well it could position itself for the jump. In the general opinion of the populace of the galaxy the early race pilots - those of almost a decade ago - were crazy. It was an opinion borne out by the mortality rate. The Genie's name had been given by an irate space traffic controller. In a memo to the racers she had said 'if you don't stop those new race craft popping in and out of the traffic lanes like a bunch of damn genies, we'll legislate it so you stay out.'

In the last four or five years though Genies had become accepted as the ultimate luxury yacht, or corporate yacht if the company could convince shareholders the price wasn't outrageous. And now I.C.E. was experimenting with it for their courier service. There were more cautious pilots now of course, but it was still very fast.

Mitra didn't know as much as she'd like to about the space station on the engineering side. The project hadn't made Drezvir news, and she hadn't done any digging at home. She intended to get filled in when she got back to Dellmaice Power Systems though, because while Niki was excited, she had real reservations about the whole idea. Odds were that Dellmaice Power Systems was doing the power system, plus someone she knew was bound to have a friend working on the structural side. Still, Dreen wasn't an engineer. He'd probably side with Niki, and just see the potential revenue and assume it could be built.

She said, "So what to do you think of the new Genie space station?"

Dreen was equally relieved to find a safe topic, and one he knew something about. "In principle the idea is good. For sure the current ones aren't set up to handle Genie traffic, and Interstellar Courier Express loses a lot of the time they gain using a Genie when one has to refuel at the current space stations or spaceports. And the transfers of cargo are so slow on the current stations that they can only do single user or single destination dedicated runs. If they can pull it off so that they can do mixed loads with cargo transfer at space stations and reroute it, I think the only limit will be availability of pilots."

That was exactly Niki's line. She sighed. "Why is everyone just assuming they can do it?"

"And who exactly is everyone?"

"You, my brother. He's all excited about the increased volume they could move."

"A lot of people are, but take me off the list. I said 'If'."

"You mean you don't think they can do it?"

"They might. But my guess is Nevin finally bit off more than he could chew."

"Nevin Pennell, the megadeveloper? You know him?"

Dreen nodded, more focused on trying to remember what Nevin had said that was or wasn't proprietary than the rather awed look on Mitra's face. He was pretty sure the timing requirements for robotic transfers weren't proprietary, although obviously the solution would be if some brilliant designer ever came up with one. He started telling her about that, and was about ten minutes into it, with her cake half gone, when he realized he'd been totally running on about a bunch of technical stuff.

"And," he took a spoonful of the largely melted sorbet, "I'm boring you."

"Not at all." Mitra was sincere. It sounded like a fascinating problem, and she was starting to think of solutions. She also wondered what else Dreen knew that was tellable.

"Yes, I am," Dreen said firmly. She was just being polite. He'd quit before he hit the totally turned off glazed eyes stage. "So, do you have a favorite café for a drink and watching the boats?"

He'd obviously gone as far as he could without talking proprietary material. That was too bad. Well, she wouldn't push.

"Not really. I haven't had time to try them yet. Do they differ much?"

"At the risk of insulting proprietors that really do try hard, no."

*****

Chapter 27

They stepped out of the walkway between the buildings and crossed the busy road to the harbor. It seemed like most of the residents of Crescent Bay were either out for a drive or walk. The light was soft and golden now, just edging slowly towards the long summer dusk. Mitra walked to the stone wall at the edge of the sidewalk and leaned on it, staring out at the bay.

"How beautiful."

"Yes." Dreen was not looking at the bay though. His eyes were on Mitra. "I don't think I have had a chance to tell you how lovely you look."

Mitra was more uncomfortable than flattered. The compliment was too direct. It also made her suddenly very aware of the man standing beside and slightly behind her. They were moving to the next stage. It was what she had thought she wanted since she'd seen Dreen, but now she stood there immobile, eyes on the boats.

Dreen moved a step closer, resting a hand on her waist. "May I?"

Not totally sure what he was asking Mitra half turned. Dreen gently tipped her face up towards him, stooping down to kiss her. It was not what Mitra expected for a first kiss. It was very brief and matter-of-fact, rather like the kind you give your spouse when they get home and you truly are glad to see them, but honestly you're a lot more worried about burning the veggies you're stir-frying. His eyes as they met hers asked if the next one could be very different. Oh yes. Mitra leaned towards him.

"Sorry Mitra." Dreen took a step back firmly distancing them. "I'm a very private man, and you just hit my limit for public displays." There was a constant stream of people flowing past, and several had nodded their greeting. "Would you like to walk?"

Why not, it was a lovely night. Mitra nodded. However, they did not go down towards the restaurants as she expected. Dreen headed them two blocks towards the very end of the harbor, then they re-crossed the road.

"Where are we going?"

"Through that gate." Dreen pointed down the side street to a massive wall with a gate set in it. "On the other side is unterraformed Gingezel, and I thought you might like it."

Mitra's mind was immediately filled with the holovision specials she'd seen, and she was fascinated. As they walked through a residential block and neared the gate though, caution exerted itself. "Is it safe?"

"Everyone swears that it is. There are no dangerous animals near here, although there is a midge-like fly that's a real nuisance in early spring and they tell me again in the fall. Apparently there's also a plant that grows in the river beds that can cause a rash, but it's easily identifiable and not found near the town site." He looked up at the wall. "This thing rings the town, but it's closest here. As far as I can see, it's to protect Gingezel from us, not the other way around."

Mitra nodded. That could be true. A lot of effort seemed to be going into protecting the indigenous species on Gingezel.

Dreen opened the gate and they stepped through onto a well maintained forest trail. The trees crowded right up to the wall and in their thick shade it was definitely dusk. Mitra looked around, entranced. She had forgotten how truly beautiful a natural area could be. The hoped-for holiday in the hills simply hadn't materialized back on Plenata, and the closest she had been to the wilds were a couple of evening drives into farmland. But here everything was in natural disorder, plants crowding each other and the trail the only human touch. She took a deep breath. It smelt different. Not unpleasant, but different. A rather minty spicy smell. Each planet tended to have its own smells once you got away from the cities.

Mitra turned to Dreen and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you for sharing this."

"You like it then?" The question was more or less rhetorical. Ever since they had walked through the gate she had been as wide-eyed as a child, staring at the shrubs, reaching out to touch the rough bark of a tree, tipping her head way back to stare up at the canopy of leaves.

"Love it. What is the delicious smell?"

Dreen bent down at the side of the trail and picked a waxy leaf off a small creeping vine. "This stuff. I don't know the name, but if you walk further up the escarpment to where the trail is less maintained, it grows across it. When you crush it walking the scent is almost overpowering." He handed the leaf to Mitra and she broke it in half. Immediately the air was filled with scent.

"I believe you."

Then she froze at the sound of a loud rustling in the undergrowth, Dreen's reassurances that there was nothing harmful here were discounted.

"What's that?" She was edging closer to Dreen.

He smiled. "I think I know." He was studying the ground in the direction of the noise. "Yes, there he is."

"Where?" Mitra was relaxing a bit since Dreen wasn't even nervous.

He took her and positioned her where he thought she could see, then pointed. "There, low on the ground by the ferny thing. A little brown guy."

It took a few moments because she was looking for something huge, not tiny and the creature's back was dappled, making it hard to spot. "That little thing made that racket?" She was incredulous.

"I think it wanted us to see it. They can be quiet if they want to."

As they were talking the creature was edging closer. As it cleared the shadow of the fern she could see that it was some sort of fawn brown rodent-like creature with a body about the size of a Terran squirrel's, or a Calixan long-haired bush rabbit's, but with a short tail.

"Curious are you?" Mitra asked and knelt down, extending a hand.

The creature froze, then resumed its slow progress until it was almost at Mitra's hand. Then it quickly extended its own hand-like paw for the briefest touch. She didn't move and it sat for a moment considering. Then it came closer, touched her again, then rubbed her hand with its nose.

"So that's how you socialize is it?" Mitra asked the bright-eyed creature. "I wonder if you'd let me -" she started to move her other hand, and in an instant it was gone without a sound. "No," she sighed, "I guess not."

"How did you do that?" Dreen demanded.

"I don't know." Mitra rose from her crouch. "Animals usually like me. I think it might be that I'm small, like a child. They often react well to children, if you've noticed."

"Well, whatever it is, I'm jealous. I've been trying to get close to a pikkant - that's what they're called - ever since I saw one."

"Did you see where it went from your angle?"

Dreen shook his head.

Mitra was disappointed. She would have liked a longer look. She took one last survey of the area and gave up. There was no trace. "Where does this trail go?"

"It slowly zigzags up the escarpment. The view up top is stunning. But," he added hastily, "it's too late to start up now, and neither of us is dressed for it." She was now obviously totally focused on exploring a bit.

"I suppose you're right." Mitra looked along the dusky trail wistfully. Then her mind shifted to other kinds of exploring. "On the other hand, it is nice and private here."

Which was exactly why Dreen had chosen the place. "It is, isn't it?" he agreed.

*****

Chapter 28

"Are you sure it still sounds like a good idea?" They were standing in Mitra's spacious sitting room. Dreen very much wanted to spend the night, but things were moving pretty fast and he didn't want to hurry her.

"Very." Mitra step closer, tipping her face for a kiss.

But Dreen kept them firmly apart, a hand on each of her shoulders. He smiled. "If I succumbed to that temptation, I'd end up sleeping in my shorts and wandering around the hotel unshaven in the morning. If I'm being practical, I'd better be practical."

How did he keep turning things into compliments? She smiled back. "So be practical, go get your things."

"I'll be a few minutes. I'm on a different floor and wing of the hotel."

She nodded and after a chaste kiss to the top of her head, Dreen left. Mitra looked around the room. Housekeeping had been through and everything was tidy. All there was to do was adjust the lights. She dimmed them to her liking, softening the already pastel shades in the room until the green walls were almost colorless and the apricot sofas and chairs glowed warm and inviting. She stepped into the bedroom. It was ready too, the bed coverlet removed and the covers turned back on her side. She liked that. After the first night the morning maid had obviously put her preferred side on the chart for the evening maid. She carefully folded the other side down then went into the dressing room and adjusted her makeup.

Dreen still wasn't back. There had probably been messages for him she thought realistically, and he was the responsible type who would answer them. She probably had time to change. She went to the closet and got out the purple and blue caftan she had purchased on her first day home on Plenata. She put it on and encircled her tiny waist with a gold belt. Then she slipped her feet into high heeled strappy sandals.

She was starting to feel edgy now, wishing he'd get back and they could get past the awkward waiting stage. She went back into the sitting room and opened a bottle of chilled white wine. She poured a glass and went and stood by the media wall, looking at the hotel's selection of music and hers. She decided that the best selection in each collection was that really old Anton album, and she was too nervous to bother looking for anything on the hyperweb. She started the music and went to sit and listen. Then restless again she stood and pulled the curtains so she could watch the moonlit harbor.

***

"Sorry that took awhile." Dreen was apologetic. He was also a mixture of amused, embarrassed, and mildly excited by the novelty of the situation.

It had a been a long time since he'd made love other than in his own bed. If he discounted his most recent holiday with Larna and made it making love to a stranger in her bed, it was a very, very long time. He was amused and embarrassed because in the that's-the-way-it-goes category, while his return to his room had been through deserted corridors, on his trip back, case in hand and obviously not checking in or out, he'd run into three couples and two members of the hotel staff. He knew one of the couples well enough to talk to, and it had amused him that the wife had handled the situation by treating him like he was invisible and continuing her conversation with her husband. The man had given him a tolerant smile. He reflected that it must be like this all the time for Chett, living on the road.

"I had a couple messages I couldn't ignore. Mostly I'm late though because I changed. When I thought about it, I didn't think I could make love not feeling like me."

"I'm glad you did." Mitra was sincere. She didn't quite like that bird of plumage touch. It was too much like Mark.

"You are?" Women usually didn't like the way he dressed. He looked down at the old casual grey shirt and pants in surprise.

Mitra nodded. "You look comfortable now, like you're in old friends."

Which was exactly how he felt, but he didn't expect Mitra to understand, not after that little shopping spree yesterday. He smiled at her, then looked down at his hand. "Shall I keep going on the awkward domestic side and dispose of this stuff?"

"May as well."

"Would you mind pouring me a drink while I do that?"

"Not at all. What would you like?" She hoped it wasn't something that either she couldn't mix, or required special programming of the catering unit.

"Mineral water."

"Mineral water?" It slipped out because it wasn't the direction she was thinking.

"I had more than enough alcohol at supper. It changes some sensations I'd personally sooner it didn't."

Mitra looked guiltily at the wine glass on the table. She didn't think she and Mark had ever made love totally sober.

"Or, if you are more comfortable with company, make me a very weak spritzer."

"Mineral water it is." She headed for the fridge.

"Good." Dreen stepped into the bathroom and put his shaving kit down by the sink Mitra obviously wasn't using.

He looked around the bathroom with interest. His was nice enough, but this was a real spa. It definitely had potential if her tastes ran to water games. He started to unpack a few essentials. Oh yeah. Now how to deal with that one with a stranger? What would Chett do?

Mitra didn't even have the bottle opened when Dreen reappeared in the bathroom door with a hard-to-read expression on his face.

"Mitra." He came to a full stop.

"Mmm?" she said encouragingly.

Get it over with. "More awkward stuff. I've got an implant." Not all men could tolerate that form of birth control, but it didn't bother him, and both he and Joran had taken that route at university. "And I'm perfectly healthy. But I don't expect you to take my word for either, so if you want me to use a condom or you want to use a gel, that's fine. Just say."

That just set a record for fast and blunt, Mitra decided with amusement. "I've got an implant too, and I'm healthy too. Let's keep things natural."

"Thank you." He really hadn't expected that; it was a bonus.

She watched the retreating back, still amused. Then memory stirred. No, it wasn't a record for fast and blunt. Drezvir was. Only the words there were different. 'I've got an implant, and as far as I know I'm perfectly healthy. But I'm also spaceflot, quite sexually active, and way overdue for a screening, and damned if I'm going to go through that here even for you. So it's condom time unless you want to risk a nasty surprise on a lab report, which I wouldn't recommend.' It must be the current etiquette for the sexually responsible male. Well, it beat stalling until the last minute when neither of you felt like talking, much less being responsible.

***

Dreen stood in the doorway, watching Mitra. She was standing looking out at the bay and she didn't see him. What was he supposed to do now? The mood they created by the forest was totally lost between the taxi ride back to the hotel and all this embarrassing stuff. He walked to stand beside her. "Thank you for changing Mitra. You look lovely." He'd been so nervous he hadn't noticed until now.

"Thank you." Mitra was feeling the same constraint he did. What did you do next? The music changed to the next song, her favorite on the album.

It caught Dreen's attention. "You're listening to Anton."

"Do you mind?" Mark had hated this album although he liked some Anton works. He liked his music suggestive and sexy, not blatantly romantic.

"It's my favorite," Dreen said honestly. "I think it's the best he's written yet." He knew this song was Joran's favorite too. He'd written the song, and the album, in the first year after his marriage to Maillie.

Dreen remembered the year so very long ago. He'd been house guest at their place on Laurion quite often. It had been nice to see Joran finally settling down and in love. Standing there listening to the song and watching the moonlight, he suddenly remembered a night not much different from this, a warm summer evening. He'd gone to his bedroom window to take one last look at the night before turning in, and Joran and Maillie had been down below on the terrace, all alone, dancing in the moonlight to this very song. Dreen had stood there in the shadow, watching them, and he had thought he'd finally started to understand how Joran could suddenly write the kind of music he was. They made a striking couple. Maillie was tall for a woman, only 3 cm shorter than Joran, and beautifully sculpted. The description that always came to Dreen's mind was elegant, but to him that implied a coldness that Maillie didn't have. Her face was as lovely as her body, the skin pale honey, the eyes and hair as dark as Joran's. As he watched, the dancing had changed to lovemaking, as slow and beautiful as the song he was now listening to. He had known he should turn and go to bed, that Joran would have never forgiven him for staying and watching. But he had stayed. In a few minutes they had gone in, and for the first time in his life he had been intensely jealous of his best friend. Not because he had Maillie. Dreen liked, but he did not love Maillie. But because he had someone like Maillie.

Now, standing here with Mitra, Dreen had the irrational desire that tonight, his night, would be like that one was for Joran. He had danced with Larna, but only in public - at parties or in clubs. They always got home too late afterwards to do anything more than go to bed and sleep with work the next morning.

He turned to Mitra, now more than half embarrassed and very unsure of his reception. "Would it be too silly and romantic to ask you to dance?"

***

"Dreen Pendi!" Mitra pushed Dreen back to where she could look him in the face. She was in equal parts irritated and disappointed. After the evening so far, so loving and romantic, she had really thought he would be good in bed. "Are you one of those men who thinks lovemaking should last about five minutes?" It was a slight exaggeration but not much at the rate they were going.

"Me?" Dreen was honestly confused. "Mitra I'm just scrambling to keep up with you."

"I am not in a hurry!" Mitra was indignant. After waiting so long, she wanted things to be right, and to last a while.

What else did you call it, Dreen wanted know, but this definitely was not the time to argue the point. "All right," he said soothingly, "I'm sorry I got it wrong." He stroked her cheek. "Tell me exactly how long things should take so I know."

"Until breakfast." That would be wonderful, a whole night of loving she thought luxuriously.

There wasn't a chance. They were both way too aroused. "All right," he said agreeably and slowed proceedings down more or less to a standstill and waited for the explosion. He'd bet she was cute when she was really mad.

It didn't take long. "Dreen!" Mitra was totally exasperated. The man was impossible. She gave him another shove.

Dreen couldn't help it. The look on her face! He was laughing. He kept his mouth shut, but he was laughing. The quiver in his belly muscles gave him away.

Mitra opened her eyes wide and gave him a suspicious glare. The bastard was laughing at her! All right, that was it. She'd made a big mistake but that mistake was over. He was out of here. "All right. That's it -"

Dreen was kissing her shoulder, moving slowly towards the tender spot where her neck met her collarbone at a rate that felt sensually right to him, while his hand caressed one tiny breast, the feather-light touch hardening the nipple.

Mitra's sentence trailed off. She just lay there for a minute, feeling his exploring hand and mouth. How could the man get inside her head like that? Then very gently she reached out.

***

"It isn't even morning yet." Mitra teased. She was curled up on Dreen's shoulder, totally content. Everything had been wonderful. She idly traced a pattern on his chest.

"No." Dreen agreed. He captured her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. "I thought with immediate needs met, you might want to spend the rest of the night exploring."

"Oh." She hadn't expected that. It was a lovely idea though. He was nibbling on her fingers now. But - she tried to suppress a yawn.

Dreen smiled down at the little form. She was sleepy. That wasn't surprising. It had been pretty intense for both of them. He said tactfully, "Myself though, I wouldn't mind a few hours sleep." He also wouldn't have minded not sleeping, but some sleep would improve his functioning down at the office. "I've done it for so many years I automatically wake up at 6:30 a.m. I can wake you then if you like. Or, if you wake up first, you can wake me. I'll warn you now though that that takes some doing, so be persistent."

Mitra smiled back and didn't try to hide the yawn this time. "You wake me." She nestled closer, but Dreen started to extricate himself.

"Mmm?"

"I'll be back. I'm just headed for a shower."

Big soft beds, warm showers. Her nice private man, she thought sleepily.

Dreen stood a moment by the bed, then gently tucked the covers around Mitra. She was already sound asleep. She was so lovely. He reached down and barely touched the silky cap of hair, afraid of waking her.

*****

Chapter 29

"Where have you been?" Gali demanded as Dreen walked into what would eventually be conference facilities at the hotel and were for now the Nemizcan offices and lab. Besides being very late, Dreen was dressed in an old gray shirt and casual pants, not the business suit he had adopted as he became more the businessman than the software designer. He looked happier like this, Gali decided. He should never have compromised.

The Nemizcan office was a large open space that had one corner turned into a small boardroom, complete with full virtual conferencing capability for a table that could seat twelve. Dreen had claimed this as his office. The main room could be partitioned in half, and this had been done, the area at the rear going to the technicians. The front had been converted to an open plan office for the programming staff. Along one wall were a series of privacy booths providing the same virtual conferencing capability for individuals. All but two of these had been designated for customer support, at the moment only for the trial hyperweb. Regular support was still being routed to Tranus.

At a glance Dreen would say it was a slow morning for questions about the trial Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb. Only three of the support staff were talking, and only one of them had that glazed, rather desperate look that occurred when their sixth or seventh try at an explanation didn't work. He'd give that one about four minutes before she gave up and fetched Gali. In theory she should get Wayd, but they all liked Gali better. He always seemed to succeed. He said he just pretended he was talking to Keya.

"Chett's been trying to get hold of you every fifteen minutes for almost two hours, and he claims you weren't taking calls in your room before that."

Gali was giving Dreen a speculative look that amused him. "He would have to be, wouldn't he? Did Chett say what's wrong?" There had to be something wrong. Chett Linderson, his vice-president of Field Operations, was the totally independent type.

"Not to me, so it must be serious," Gali said.

"Okay. I'll sort it out. How is everything going here? I assume Brys is long gone?"

"Long."

Her coworker Evrit was at his work station at the side of the open workspace.

"Good morning, Evrit."

Evrit un-pretzled his slender frame and looked up. "Good morning, sir."

For a moment Dreen wondered if Evrit had a problem and as always was too polite to ask for help. His expression was intense and slightly disoriented. But with Evrit that didn't mean much. His face, framed by close-cropped blond hair, was angular with eyes that were slightly too close together. Those eyes gave him a somewhat disoriented, bewildered look at the best of times. Or maybe, Dreen thought, he just was disoriented and bewildered. Life rarely met Evrit's expectations for being well ordered. The safe way to judge was by whether or not Evrit was chewing on his stylus. Dreen tried to remember if it was in his hand or his mouth when he came in. Definitely his hand. Evrit had been taking notes. So he could talk to Chett first.

Dreen gave Evrit a nod. "I'll see you later, when I'm through with Chett."

"Yes sir."

First Chett, then Evrit with his 'yes sir' routine. Dreen had been pretty sure nothing would pull him down today, but now he had his doubts.

He turned to Gali. "Are Wayd and the crew busy assembling the equipment for this afternoon's installation?"

"Yes. No problems there."

"Okay. I'll just say hello there first since I don't know how long Chett will be." He started towards the technicians' work area.

Gali smiled. "Do you think you can dodge the 'where have you been' that easily?"

"If you insist on knowing, with a singularly pretty little brunette. I'll transfer calls in the future."

"It wouldn't hurt," Gali said dryly. "Or check messages. I'd guess Chett left a string of them." It appeared Dreen was over Larna then. Good. He was always happier with a woman in his life. Well, he'd save questions for later. Chett did seem to consider talking to Dreen as urgent.

***

"So, you've decided to surface have you?" Chett was looking at Dreen with amusement.

Dreen in turn was studying Chett for any signs he was really upset. That was the one advantage of a really decent virtual conferencing facility. It was like the person was with you - full 3D and real time. In this case he was conferencing with a tall slender blond with blue eyes and a handsome boyish face framed by slightly curly hair worn fairly short. As always Chett was wearing a perfectly cut business suit, dark taupe today. He liked clothes and wore them well, and travelling as he did he had access to the best tailors in the galaxy.

Chett had been with Nemizcan for almost six years now. Besides being totally competent, which had been accepted as a given for the job as Vice President of Field Operations, Dreen had selected him for some particular attributes. He had an extremely robust physiology that seemed almost impervious to the galactic equivalent of jet lag, the vagaries of diet on various planets, and most minor planetary viruses. He had no personal entanglements, and most importantly, he seemed to actually enjoy spending eighty percent or so of the year travelling the galaxy.

As it was, there was nothing to give Dreen any clues. Chett looked a mixture of irritated and amused, very normal. Dreen worried when he started to do his real relaxed, soft voice trick.

"Sorry Chett. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. What's the problem?"

Chett ignored that. Now that he finally had Dreen, he was much more interested in what was going on there. "So, who is it?" he asked much more bluntly than Gali would have dared.

"A lovely little brunette who arrived at the hotel a couple days ago. I'll route calls in the future."

"Not on my account. I'll manage."

"So what's the fuss then if you're managing?"

"I just wanted to get my side of a story in first."

"Uh huh. What have you been up to that needs that?" Chett was capable of the odd rather creative move, but he rarely explained or apologized.

Chett steepled his hands and leaned back staring into space over Dreen's shoulder. So he was upset after all. Dreen focused a little harder.

"As of the end of work today one mid-rank screen designer is out on the street. No termination notice, no termination pay, no references. One hub manager is now answering customer calls for one year as probation, but will never, never, have a position of responsibility again. She should probably be on the street too, but I'm getting soft."

"They're not going to be calling me," Dreen observed. "They'll be calling Labor Relations, if they haven't already. What time is it there anyways? I forgot to check before I called."

"9:30 PM. I was giving you another forty-five minutes or so, then I was going to lock up the Exec and head for the portel lounge to find myself some company for a late supper and with any luck breakfast." The Exec was the corporate space yacht that was also Chett's office and in emergencies, his bedroom.

Dreen ignored this digression. "So what did they do?"

"One of the sweetest little dual accounting systems I've hit yet. And that fact," he said grimly, "is why there won't be complaints to anyone but you. I've had the appropriate notary in to document everything and seal it away. One squawk and I'll lay fraud charges."

"So why didn't you?" Dreen was mostly just curious. He let Chett call his own shots on this sort of thing.

"I would on any other planet, but the courts here are totally bogged down. They hadn't run enough through yet to go for major charges. I figured it wasn't worth the nuisance value. If a new potential employer calls and asks why no reference, I'll just tell them what I found. They can take their own risks."

"And why did you keep the manager?"

"Because I couldn't make up my mind if she was just incompetent or actually involved. She claimed a lot of family problems and being inattentive. The family problems are real enough, I checked around. But they could have her wanting money too. So I've put extra audits and spot checks in place, just in case she is involved too. If she's dumb enough to try again, I will prosecute. But if she just lost focus, she doesn't need to be job hunting right now."

Dreen grinned. "Definitely getting soft."

Soft was the last thing Chett would ever be, but he was fair. If he said there were reasonable grounds for doubt, there were reasonable grounds for doubt. "As far as I can see from what you told me, you made the right moves."

Chett nodded, then shrugged his frustration. "I'll just never understand that kind of misapplication of talent. If the guy had put that kind of effort into his job, he'd be top rank by now with no need for the money. I accept it as an empiricism, but I don't understand it."

"Good. If you did, I'd be one real fool to have you in your position, wouldn't I?"

Chett relaxed and smiled. "Good point." He stretched, trying to ease the day's tension. "While we're talking hubs and before I head off in search of some R and R, how's Wayd doing?"

"Fine." It was said with a singular lack of enthusiasm.

"But?" Chett countered. "If he's a problem, let's sort it out now. He was my choice, but I'm not infallible. I can give you half a dozen alternatives. There are a lot of settled planets. We have one or more hubs on most of them. That's a long list of candidates."

Chett had picked Wayd both for competence and because he was an overall manager on a world with a few dozen small hubs, the structure they expected to evolve on Gingezel.

Dreen shook his head. "Truly Chett, he's fine. He knows his job, clients relate well to him, and he's merged the team well. It's strictly personal. I want to get along with the guy but we can't seem to get beyond the ultra polite formalities stage. Is he like that with you?"

A brief smiled came and went. "Definitely not." Chett thought about it. "I expect it's because it's the first time he's hit the Head Office crowd. I didn't think to warn him what to expect. You all play it very loose compared to the hubs. You don't have the customer response issues to deal with, and," the brief smile again, "they report to me, not you. I usually keep things pretty tight and formal because my visits can't be that frequent and I want everyone to know exactly what's expected in between. Sometimes I'd swear your crowd just sort of feels their way along."

Dreen wasn't offended. "Call it managing the creative process." He shrugged. "You could be right."

"Want me to talk to him?"

"No. It's not that important. After all, in the long term he reports to you, not me. I'm just here until we finish the final software installation and test for hacker security."

"All right. I'm out of here then, and you can go have a late breakfast with your brunette."

Dreen made a face. "No such luck. She surfaces around noon." He added glumly, "she's got me booked for a massage next."

"And that's torture?" Chett laughed.

"In my experience."

"Then broaden your horizons my friend. You're on Gingezel after all. When I think about the erotic massages a couple planets specialize in -"

"Forget it Chett. You've got Gingezel wrong. It's all squeaky clean, wholesome family stuff. And," he added firmly, "the masseur is an athletic young man who runs the Sports Medicine Clinic."

"I wouldn't trust to that as a guarantee of anything," Chett said cheerfully, "but actually that's the word about Gingezel working through the spaceflot. What I don't understand is how they manage. I mean the place must be a magnet for every criminal element in the galaxy."

"It is." It was Dreen's turn to smile. "And they've an interesting way of handling it. Want the details?"

"You know them?"

"Enough. There are both security implications for our secure hyperweb and some special encryption requirements. If you've got a few minutes I'll transmit the rules that go with their Criminal Class Visa."

"They seriously have a Criminal Class Visa?"

"Do you think they want to exclude that kind of money? They just want everyone to understand the ground rules - they're here to spend, not make money." Dreen found the document. "Here you go."

It was displayed on the virtual screen that appeared between them and he watched Chett's face as he started to read the very formal looking document with the Gingezel letterhead and seal:

"Criminal Class Visas

Thank you for applying to visit Gingezel. You have quite arbitrarily been judged either to be a member of the criminal class, or to be related to, or affiliated with the same. As such you are eligible for a Criminal Class Visa, which has certain restrictions. We have tried to make these rules and their implementation as civilized and unobtrusive as possible so you can have a pleasant vacation as long as you behave yourself. They are however nonnegotiable, as is your inclusion in this class of visa. Therefore prior to our processing your visa application you must agree to the following rules. They are stated in simple StanGalLan, not legalese, so there can be no claims of misunderstanding.

You must agree to:

1) The continual wearing of electronic surveillance equipment providing continuous audio and location monitoring. This equipment is sealed at the time of activation and its removal (if you can figure out how) will result in immediate escort to the nearest port of entry and your deportation for life. As part of our policy of being civilized, the surveillance equipment is designed to be indistinguishable from currently fashionable designer jewelry to save public embarrassment. The design is constantly changed to keep in style and to avoid a black market in duplicates with prerecorded harmless conversations, so don't bother to try to make one..."

Dreen watched as Chett worked his way through the long document.

The final screen came up:

"In summary, everything, including the body strip search and confiscation of personal possessions is very civilized and totally nonnegotiable including your receiving this criminal status. Since Gingezel is deemed a business and all residents are employees or their direct dependents, we are exempt from all Interplanetary law except as it pertains to certain aspects of labor relations as applied to non-unionized private corporations and this has nothing to do with labor relations. So we get to make the rules. If we all agree to this, we should get along fine and you can enjoy a stress free holiday. If you wish to proceed, please sign the attached and have it notarized. Assuming you agree to terms, we hope you enjoy your visit to Gingezel."

Having skimmed the document, Chett read it again slowly, a slight smile on his lips. Then he transferred his attention to Dreen. "This is a joke, right? Some humor I just haven't come across yet that's going around the hyperweb."

"I assure you, it's exactly what they send out to anyone they doubt. I got that copy from Ralin Heusgar, their chief of security. There are implications for the secure hyperweb, plus I was just plain curious about how they handled criminal activities. By the way, as you read, some they just plain reject with no negotiations - repeat violent offenders, that sort of thing."

Chett was shaking his head with open incredulity. "Do they actually get any takers?"

"Oh, they get takers all right. About ten days after we got here a family checked into the hotel - husband, wife, teenaged kid. Very recognizable."

"Dreen, you're being cagey. Are you trying to protect the guy?"

Dreen was uncomfortable, but if he dodged it Chett would push harder. "Ghen Kulgalu."

Chett whistled. "The drug lord. Or at least the assumed drug lord and legal pharmaceuticals king. He's sure good at making certain that someone else always takes the fall. I bet he brought a real interesting personal supply."

Dreen shook his head. "I don't think so. I think it's purely business to him. He was extremely critical of Joran for using the stuff."

"You talked to the man?" Chett was incredulous.

Dreen shrugged. "He was impossible to avoid. He just sort of came up and introduced himself. Then after that, if he came into a restaurant where I was or anything like that, he'd come talk for a bit."

Chett was amused. "With all those restrictions, what did he do?" His smile broadened into a grin. "Besides irritate you."

"It wasn't funny Chett."

"Only to an observer," Chett agreed. "But I'm serious. What did he do with himself?"

"He spent a lot of time proving to his teenaged son he could do more laps of the pool than the kid could."

"Are you talking about Ranga?" Chett asked.

It was Dreen's turn to be surprised. "Do you know him?"

"Of him. Only, if you're smart, you just use the name Ranga and never admit to the Kulgalu part. In fact most people don't even think of him being a Kulgalu which is funny isn't it, since they look so much alike."

Dreen mentally compared father and son and nodded. They both had the dark prominent brows, the high forehead, the deeply set dark eyes that in Ghen's case were formidable and in Ranga's case broody. They both had the strong nose, the soft well-shaped mouth, the same chin. But in both cases their most recognizable feature was the mane of thick wavy brown hair worn shoulder length, tousled, and rather stringy looking, although that must be intentional since they could afford the best hair dressers.

"Ranga is the focus of most of the Octagla talk on Tamara right now. They say if he keeps playing like he does and doesn't put on a late growth spurt and lose his coordination, he'll be picked up in the Galactic underage draft once he turns eighteen. Tamara is really dealmaking to get him. Apparently if he was three or four centimeters shorter, he has the kind of moves where he might displace Superstud as center. That's a pretty impressive line to put a kid on if the rumors are true. As it is, speculation is he'll work left wing with Roban." Chett frowned slightly. "Funny, I've never seriously thought of him as Ghen Kulgalu's kid until now. How does he get on with his father?"

"Not great as far as I could tell. Ghen positively doted on his wife, Vailla. I'd guess she's a second one. She was noticeably younger than he was, vaguely pretty but definitely not too bright. The kid didn't even try to be civil to her. I think he was making an art of pushing it not quite to the limit where his dad would decide to risk getting thrown off planet for belting him for his mouth. And at night Ghen and Vailla would dump Ranga at an arcade and go down to one of the little restaurants by the harbor and hold hands."

"A typical family vacation." Chett was still having trouble with that. "Twenty-four hour monitoring must put a damper on anything more than hand holding."

Dreen shrugged. "Maybe he just writes it off as an occupational hazard. At least here he could take her out to a restaurant where, if he didn't recognize the patrons, he didn't have to be busy calculating his odds of surviving to dessert."

Chett held up his hands in surrender. "You win. It has a sort of twisted logic to it."

And that raised something in the back of his mind that just might give him some handle on who was in the Gingezel consortium. Like the rest of the galaxy, figuring it out was a major guessing game for him. He'd have to think a while.

"The place is squeaky clean. Go enjoy your nice therapeutic massage." He smiled. He'd needed a good laugh the way the day had gone, and Dreen and Kulgalu was the best he'd had in a long time. "And be careful making new friends." Then a thought crossed his mind and the smile broadened into a grin. "Your new little brunette doesn't by any chance have any jewelry she never takes off?"

"Chett, that isn't funny!"

Dreen was remembering the ornate jewelry style cuff Mitra wore instead of a simple wrist band. He'd never seen her without it. But she'd never seen him without his wrist band, had she? You simply didn't take them off, with all your credit information and identification in them.

"Yes it is. You should see your face." Chett was laughing out loud now.

"You think it's funny? All right. Try this one on for size. Ghen Kulgalu is a real fan of Nemizcan. He made a point of saying we have the best business software around and he couldn't run things without it. You want to try using that as an endorsement?"

"The son of a bitch! He had the nerve to say that?"

Dreen laughed. "You're right. It's funny."

"It is not! And why the hell didn't you tell me?" Chett was furious. "Or is Rodd on top of it?" Rodd Turpene was their Vice-President of Marketing.

"It is so funny. You should see your face. And no, I did not tell Rodd. Come on Chett, be a realist. If the best corporate fraud brains in the Interplanetary Judiciary can't sort through the maze of companies he hides behind, Chett Linderson or Rodd Turpene sure aren't going to. If you can't find him, you can't turf his accounts. And a lot of the pharmaceutical companies he owns are legitimate and provide needed medications."

"He's your friend. Bloody ask him."

This time Dreen was too amused to take offense. "He is not my friend. But the funny thing is, if it wasn't for what he represents I think he could be. I sort of had to keep reminding myself who he was."

"Dreen." Chett was calming down. "Are you warning me off?"

"Galaxy no! It's just in the good luck category."

Chett's smile was back. "It is, isn't it? But I'll damned well try. Talk to you whenever."

"As always. Have a good night."

Whenever with Chett could be two hours, two days, or two months. It was all the same to him and Dreen was used to it now.

***

"Dreen." It was Wayd Meeran, a slight frown creasing his regular-featured black face as he studied the schedule he'd called up. "I forgot to ask if you're doing the installation this afternoon."

Why can't I get on with him, Dreen asked himself. Wayd looked exactly what he was. Thirtyish, competent, businesslike, energetic, good with people. Well, good with everyone but me, Dreen amended. Then he gave himself the same answer he had Chett. It didn't matter.

"If it isn't inconvenient."

"Not at all. I'll set it up." Wayd nodded politely and headed back to the technicians' room.

Another example, Dreen thought sourly. Gali would have said, "Thanks for the warning. I'll pack spare parts." Dreen sighed and headed for his room. He was late. Evrit would have to wait.

*****

Chapter 30

An unfamiliar minty scent and the sound of soft music greeted Dreen as he opened the door to his suite. As he walked down the short hall to his sitting room Trevarr looked up from where he was sitting in a chair by the balcony door. He was obviously having a drink of juice, working on a package of nuts, and reading.

Trevarr gave Dreen a disarming smile. "Excuse the totally unprofessional behavior, but I didn't think you'd mind. The floor manager let me in to set up about fifteen minutes ago, and when I got finished setting up, I couldn't resist the idea of a little quiet time. It's been a madhouse since the Tamaran Octagla team arrived."

It was Tamara's first try at preseason conditioning and training on Gingezel, and Trevarr hoped to make them regular visitors to his clinic. That depended, however, on his success with the rather daunting injuries the team had sustained breaking Pendrae's stronghold on the galactic championship. The two most severely injured players were no help either. Maras was fighting him every step of the way, pushing to get back from his injuries so hard that he was risking compounding them. Roban on the other hand was totally choked.

"I'm glad you relaxed. I was feeling guilty for being late." Dreen was trying to ignore the very functional and medical looking table at the side of the room. "A call from my field manager for the hubs ran over a bit."

Trevarr was clearing up the debris of his snack. "That guy must have quite a job. A hub is what you call one of your centers that distributes software on planet, monitors customer use, bills, does the custom screen designs, and provides user support right?"

Dreen nodded.

"And you have them on all the worlds?"

"The majority. There are a few worlds we prefer not to deal with. And a few new ones we're still setting up on. But that's balanced by ones where either because the population is huge, or the way their infrastructure is designed, we have a few dozen hubs."

"That's a lot to manage." Trevarr smiled. "Better him than me. One clinic is quite enough. You ready to go?"

Dreen was not looking all that happy. Belatedly Trevarr remembered Mitra's comment about Dreen having been turned off massages. "Oh yeah, Mitra said you had a bad experience with this early on. What happened?"

Mitra had a big mouth. Dreen said reluctantly, "A groin tear playing soccer, second year university."

Trevarr made a sympathetic face that made Dreen feel slightly better.

"Something like that is a problem. We can't use too much pain suppression medication or healing is impaired, and in the therapy sessions you need the pain to judge by so a neuroblock isn't great. Plus, as well as keeping the patient supple while they're healing, you want to rebuild the muscle too. I bet," he grinned, "by the end of the first session you weren't too sure lunch would stay down and you were damned sure you weren't going back for the next session. Then coach said oh yes you were, or you were off the team. We count on that sort of incentive. "

To Dreen's surprise he found he was smiling back. "Like with the Octagla team?"

"That group of professional masochists? Nothing bothers them." Trevarr snorted. "You're crazy to play that game pro anyways."

It was not, Trevarr thought, that these guys were particularly inclined to be brawlers, although he could not personally remember ever seeing an Octagla player back down from a fight. Not even the small centers. In fact, they were often the chippiest players on the team. Their professional preference though as a whole was to concentrate on the game, and it took some concentrating. All of the rules were designed to keep the play going at a fast pace, and to maximize the shots on goal. All eight court surfaces enclosing the zero gravity area were active play zones, as was all of the court space. The players bounced off the walls as freely as the ball, or if it suited them, ran on the walls or roof although there hadn't been a good roof runner in the league since Torin's time. In free space they used a combination of momentum and skillfully directed jets. You had to have exceptional spatial coordination to not get disoriented when the other players were just as likely to be upside down or sideways coming at you. There was a lot going on too, with a team consisting of five forwards, two defensemen, and a goalkeeper.

Then there was the ball itself. It really was not wise to lose track of that fast-moving projectile for a split-second, and even though Trevarr practiced a lot, the bounces off the walls set at 120 degree angles to each other still threw him. What amazed him though, was the stick handling of the pros making passes or shots on net. They made moving that ball around look so smooth and it wasn't. Catching a pass in zero gravity then converting the resulting angular momentum into what you wanted was a real art compared to similar planetside games where your feet were rooted to the ground.

The sticks had a shaft that was solid - a bit thicker than the average broom. The catching net was very deep to hold the ball, but shaped to allow re-throws. It took skill to handle one - either for ball handling or as an offensive or defensive weapon.

There were pages of rules as to what was, or wasn't legal in Octagla, but they condensed down to two very simple maxims: 1) Do not hit or kick an opponent in the head or groin, and 2) if you do, and it's artistic enough to look accidental, you'll probably get away with only a five minute penalty, so it may be worth a try depending on the circumstances. The result of this mind set was that a player simply expected to come out of the game black and blue.

Trevarr held out his hand. "Here. Give me your hand."

Reluctantly Dreen did.

"I'm as strong as they come, but this won't be a deep massage." Dreen didn't need it and neither did his own forearm. Trevarr was working the base of Dreen's thumb. "It will be about like that." He kept going until he found a sore spot. "Not," he dug in, "that." As Dreen made a face he said, "The terminology varies. That's called 'sour' where I trained." He looked at Dreen. "Trust me?"

No, but he'd better since Trevarr was here and set up. "Of course. What now?"

"Strip." Trevarr tossed him a folded robe. "In the bathroom if you're the shy type. Here if you don't give a damn." He was pulling the curtains. "Shorts too unless you want me to skip buttocks and abs."

"Trevarr is this your usual professional manner?" Dreen was starting to be amused.

"No," was the cheerful reply. "But I don't get to watch the average hotel guest - or corporate president - crawling around my office floor swearing."

Why, Dreen thought as he started to strip, couldn't Wayd be a bit more like Trevarr. In some ways they were alike. They were similar age, both competent, both energetic. Trevarr ran his clinic, Wayd would run the hub. But you could relax with Trevarr.

"Okay. Up you go on your belly. And oh yeah, remember to breathe please."

"Breathe?" Dreen was confused.

"I've had a couple clients decide to stop lately. I honestly don't know if they drowsed off and had undiagnosed sleep apnea or if the rhythm of the massage threw them and they forgot, but it scared the living daylights out of me."

"All right. You don't try to kill me off, and I'll breathe."

***

Not long after Trevarr started Dreen decided it was a big mistake he'd waited this long to try massage again. Trevarr was very good at what he did, which wasn't surprising. Gingezel only took the best.

"Okay! Turnover time."

Dreen complied and shut his eyes again, half drowsing and too relaxed to think until Trevarr hit a tender spot in his abdomen and the muscles involuntarily went rigid.

"Sorry!" Trevarr gave that up as a bad idea.

Dreen caught his breath and reminded himself he had promised to breathe.

"You didn't get that crawling under desks."

"No," Dreen agreed with a smile. Then with a natural association he said, "Chett - that's my field operations man - was sure this being Gingezel I was booked for an erotic massage. I guess he's hit them on a couple of worlds. I bet that's not part of your medical degrees." Dreen had noticed that Trevarr had an impressive display of them on his wall.

"Wrong there." Trevarr moved on to thighs. "I'm probably from one of the worlds your friend was talking about. The standard internship includes a stint at a sex therapy clinic, so I can and have done erotic massages for both sexes. But," he added with a disarming grin, "don't use that as a conversational filler please. I'll never get any peace and quiet if that gets around."

I bet you don't get much peace and quiet anyway, Dreen thought as he lapsed into a heavier drowse, although he'd only seen Trevarr in groups, never with anyone special.

Trevarr finished and looked at Dreen laying there half asleep. The guy had pretty well been relaxed into oblivion for a while now, and given the schedule he usually kept it seemed a shame to disturb him. "Dreen," he said softly, "shall I just throw a blanket over you and send someone for the table later?"

"No." Dreen forced his eyes open. "I told Wayd I'd do the installation this afternoon." Was it that time already? He sat up and Trevarr handed him the robe.

Trevarr watched Dreen get to his feet, then went and looked in his bag of goodies, biting his lower lip.

Dreen caught the expression and his relaxation disappeared. "What did you find?"

"Nothing." Trevarr looked up in surprise, and his eyes narrowed. "Nothing is wrong unless you've been dodging a medical and ignoring some problem." Dreen was the type. "Have you?"

"Dodging yes. Ignoring no."

"Then quit being stupid!" The smile was back. "But from the little I could judge, you're fine." Dreen looked completely unconvinced and Trevarr felt vaguely guilty. He had no idea what he'd done, but the guy had been totally relaxed a moment ago.

"Look, I meant it. You're fine, but if you want a fast assessment of your conditioning - not your health - I can do it. I usually wouldn't away from the clinic, but you can call it a favor."

Knowing he was probably both imposing and being stupid, Dreen nodded. He hadn't liked that look.

"Okay. From the massage I can tell you your muscle tone is good. Not great - you aren't in heavy training - but good. I didn't find any lumps, bumps, or fat deposits either. You're starting to thicken up a bit in the trunk rather young, but I'd bet it's genetic so don't get talked into fighting nature, or at least get a genetic assessment first.

"Give me your arm." Trevarr pinched a fold. "Good muscle to fat ratio. That doesn't need calipers to tell. As for aerobic capacity or an accurate idea of strength, that is test-equipment time." He gave Dreen an assessing look. "The only problem I can see coming is your standard occupational one - lower back. You've fair muscle on either side of the spine, but let's give it a better check. Touch your toes, or palms on the floor if you can do it."

Dreen complied while Trevarr's strong hands explored the area.

"Okay. Up and arch backwards. Overextend - I'll balance you." He put an arm across Dreen's upper back while his other checked the area. "Not bad, but you'll thank yourself a few years down the road if you start emphasizing that area now.

"Other than that, I imagine I'm feeling a slight muscle mass difference on the sides of the upper trunk. You're obviously on a regime that's right for you - you like it well enough to keep it up and you're in decent shape, but I think you're deviating a bit. Let's do a rough strength check." He held up a palm. "Push my hand aside with your right. Your left." He linked his hands. "Pull them apart. Use both of yours first. Now right. Left." He nodded. "A definite difference in strength. Point it out to your gym manager when you get home, or would you sooner have someone at the clinic go over your routine with you?"

"May as well. If I'm doing something wrong, I don't want it to become habit."

"Fine." Trevarr gave fleeting thought to pushing for a medical too, but Dreen was probably totally healthy. "Are you happier? What happened there anyways? One minute you're half asleep, and the next you're upset."

"You scared me."

"I scared you?" Trevarr was mystified. "You'd better say how, or I'll leave a trail of scared clients."

His call tone sounded. He frowned. Mai. She wouldn't be calling for something minor. "I'd better take this."

"I'll go change, give you privacy."

"Don't bother. It will be fast. There won't be anything more confidential than the fact Maras wrecked his leg, which everyone in the galaxy who watched that game knows. The angular momentum of the body jam that pinned him against the net was really something, wasn't it? And as to the fact he's a real pain, once again everyone in the galaxy knows that."

Maras was the first string left defenseman for Tamara. He was big, even by Octagla defenseman standards, the meanest enforcer in the league, and tough. Trevarr was getting really tired of his scowling, ugly, black face. He knew Maras had made an art form of that scowl to intimidate people. It worked too \- it intimidated him. But he couldn't let on. The accident had resulted in a complicated fracture and a ruptured muscle. Maras was trying hard to get back into shape, but he was doing it in his usual aggressive manner where this injury needed some patience. And it was being a real battle of wills for Trevarr to not have him damage himself further.

He answered the call. "Mai, what's wrong?"

Dreen had met Trevarr's partner, Mai Chekar, at the clinic. She was a tiny Oriental in her mid twenties. Not as tiny as Mitra, but close, and she had a very delicate build. She also had the cutest baby girl Dreen had ever seen. She was nursing her, so she brought her to the clinic.

"Maras. He won't accept me as boss and he won't listen to a thing I say."

Trevarr thought fast. "I'm booked, but I can get back in an hour or so. Don't do the massage. I'll do that when I get there. Just slap him in the water massage tub for twenty minutes. It will do that leg a lot of good."

That earned Trevarr a creative description of what Mai considered her likelihood of pulling that off. It was largely variants on why didn't he just ask her to go play in fast-moving traffic.

Trevarr let her run down. "So do whatever you think will work. If you can get volunteers, slap him in restraints. Use a loaded weapon if you can talk Ralin into a loan." The Head of Security was Mai's neighbour. "Bribe him with the offer of a porn movie, or a rated action flick, or for that matter anything he wants in the ceiling holovision. If all else fails, cry. Just get him in.

"But twenty minutes. No more. Then pull him out and dry him off and get him on the treadmill. An ambling walk only. No resistance, no speed. Ten minutes on, ten minutes rest. Sitting rest. A total of three sessions on."

"He won't do it. He'll insist on resistance and he won't rest."

"He damn well will. Spell it out in nice simple three and four letter words he can understand that if he doesn't bring that leg back properly he'll never walk normally, much less play Octagla."

"He won't listen."

"Well, if all else fails call Coach Isley."

"Can't I just do that first?" Mai asked wistfully.

"Definitely not. We have to at least make a pretense of earning our money. But call him if you have to." Then inspiration struck. "Bribe him!"

"With what?" Mai's lips turned down at the corners. "He can buy anything in the galaxy he wants."

"Tell him if he's super co-operative he can hold your daughter while he rests."

Mai's face brightened. "That might work. I think Kimi likes him too. She likes to pull his hair, anyways." Maras preferred a very elaborate hair style of braids and gold hair tubes. Kimi loved to catch the gold tubes and try to rip his hair out.

"No accounting for taste, is there?" Trevarr asked cheerfully. "Good luck." He disconnected and turned to Dreen. "That was all confidential and you didn't hear a word of it. Right?" They had said more than he had meant Dreen to hear.

"Right." Dreen smiled. He liked the relationship Trevarr kept with his staff. He was mildly concerned though. "If Maras is that much of a problem, aren't you being a little hard on Mai?"

"Mai? You're kidding. She's the only one in the clinic who can handle the team. To a man they've decided she's absolutely adorable and are falling all over themselves to please her. They even clean up their language when she walks in - they seem to have decided she must have delicate sensibilities to match her looks."

There was suddenly a look of pure mischief on Trevarr's face. "They're also terrified of hurting her, which will prove real interesting in a couple weeks when we start going up to the space station for one-on-one free-fall reflex training. Mai's strong as iron and really fast. She was a center for a couple years at the planetary pro level at Pendrae. She played for the Nebula, but obviously these guys didn't watch her. They aren't making the connection."

His grin widened. "You should see the twists she can do in free fall with her tiny size. You lose focus for a fraction of a second, and while your brain is trying to figure out how the hell she got to where she is, she's decked you. And I mean decked. She's got dirty moves that match any these guys see playing galactic pro. I took her to task for that once, but all I got for that was a wide-eyed innocent look and 'me dirty Trevarr? You should see my brother' - Do you remember Torin?"

Torin? Dreen nodded astounded. Torin was in the Galactic Sports Hall of Fame as the all-time greatest roof-running center. He'd actually managed once to get tickets to a game Torin played in towards the end of his career. Joran had flown in just for the night.

Trevarr continued. "Well, he's Mai's brother but the guys haven't made that connection yet either. She continues 'you must come from a soft planet Trevarr'." He laughed. "I warned Isley. He's going to record the sessions and replay them when the team needs taking down a peg or two.

"I don't suppose you hit the kind of problem we have with Maras? Clients that are totally uncooperative and abusive."

"In the same physical space, no. But other than that, our customer support sees plenty. You wouldn't believe the number of people that expect them to mind read, and if they don't guess right in the first thirty seconds..." Dreen shrugged. "What really frustrates customer support is when it has nothing to do with our software - it's a system problem or some totally unrelated software.

"With all those hubs we've had a chance to try pretty much every approach there is, and to collect a lot of stats. We've improved a lot, but we decided that no matter what we do there will be a finite percentage who just wake up with a case of the nasties and decide to take it out on us."

"So you just shrug?"

"No way!" Dreen grinned. "We allow for the bad day syndrome, but we flag the user. They get five bad days then we cut access back to e-mail. Then we take a serious look at the pattern of the complaints and if they are consistently expecting the impossible, we close the account and politely suggest they give someone else their custom. That usually gets us one beaut of an e-mail.

"All the really nasty e-mails get posted in the coffee room of the hub for rating - you know, breadth of profane vocabulary, originality of threats, that sort of thing. Then once a year the hubs each pick their top three and we have a companywide run off. That's good for a laugh and a few good fights because there are always complaints about the winner, things like 'no one would've said that', and 'it has to be a fake!'"

"I like that. If you can't have control of a situation you might as well have fun with it. Do you mind if I pass this on to my staff?" Trevarr asked. "We could all stand a little amusement on how to deal with clients right now."

"I'll get you a copy of the last competition to pass around. The winner set a new high - or low."

"Thanks, now can you tell me what upset you?"

"You were standing there frowning and biting your lip."

"Was I?" Then Trevarr's face cleared as he remembered. "Oh, I probably was. But it wasn't your conditioning." He looked slightly embarrassed. "I was trying to decide if I knew you well enough to butt in on your love life."

"Love life?" It was Dreen's turn to look lost.

"Yeah. You see, it's pretty obvious you and Mitra are exploring a relationship. And I got thinking of the heavy work schedule you and all your people have, and the fact she's on holidays. That's going to mean some long days for you and some pretty fast gear shifts for the night. I was going to offer you a shower gel that's a mild stimulant. It gives a nicer ride than caffeine. But it's prescription - psychologically addictive with overuse - and I'd have to give the warning-on-misuse lecture. Then I'd have to explain why I was suggesting it in the first place anyhow, which was embarrassing. Which," he grinned, "I ended up doing anyways." Trevarr stopped to catch his breath.

Dreen was amused, and rather touched. Trevarr really was a nice guy. "Thanks Trevarr. Sorry we got at cross purposes."

"Don't worry about it." He looked at the time on his wrist band. "This time though I really have to go."

"Have I made you late for an appointment?"

"No. Just cost me lunch."

"Trevarr!"

"It won't be the first or last." Trevarr smiled reassurance as he continued packing.

"Now I do feel guilty."

"Don't."

"At least let me buy you lunch tomorrow to make up for it."

"Thanks, but not tomorrow or the next week or so. My schedule won't handle it."

"And I can't speak for my evenings." Dreen frowned. "What about breakfast? I'm up at 6:30 and Mitra surfaces around noon."

"That would be great. I'd love to have you to myself and ask a few dozen questions about how the hubs are run - anything that isn't proprietary that is."

"You'd probably get better answers from Chett \- or Wayd for that matter, but I'll try."

But the phrase 'alone to myself' had triggered a thought. The only time other than bed he and Larna had been alone together was breakfast, and he had treasured those quiet times. Trevarr kept quite a social schedule too, so he was probably imposing.

"But Trevarr, perhaps your partner counts on mornings to get to see you." He wasn't sure there was a partner, but it never hurt to be polite.

Trevarr shook his head. "We're both the 'get up and go to work' type. Coordinate life in five minutes over a snatched breakfast and get on with the day."

"All right. But you're welcome to make it a threesome."

"There's no need. My partner wouldn't expect it." Trevarr was finishing packing up.

"But it's not an imposition. You both have to eat anyway."

Dreen was doing his damnedest to be sociable, but all of a sudden he was getting some strange body language from Trevarr, like he was getting frosted. It wasn't like he was creating an awkward situation either. He hadn't been even casually involved with any woman from town, so it couldn't be fear of an 'oh look who's here' scenario.

"I would really prefer not," Trevarr said firmly. "I'll have the table picked up later. Just call the office and tell them when you want me to meet you for that breakfast."

"Fine, and thanks again."

Dreen watched the retreating back. That last little polite icy behavior could have been Wayd it was so distant. Wayd? No, not Trevarr and Wayd. Wait a minute. Trevarr hadn't once used a personal pronoun. And as far as surprises at breakfast went, that one would be in the awkward zone for sure. Wayd had moved in with someone local six weeks ago and had declined to say who. So it wasn't impossible at all.

Dreen hesitated, then as Trevarr's hand was on the door he said, "Trevarr."

"Yes?"

It was the same sudden polite distancing. He'd risk it. "Look, you can tell me off if I'm wrong, but have we just carefully been not talking about my hub manager, Wayd?"

He didn't need an answer. It was written all over Trevarr's face. "But Trevarr, why aren't I supposed to know?" Dreen was honestly confused.

Trevarr came back into the sitting room. "He thought you'd disapprove."

"Of the alternative lifestyle, the being involved with someone local, or you in particular?"

"The first two. Especially the second one. Although," there was a ghost of Trevarr's usual smile, "you can add the last to the list if you're inclined to." There were strong rules about Gingezel employees not getting involved with guests, and Nemizcan was in a gray zone. They certainly weren't guests. Wayd would be here permanently. But they weren't employees either.

"Mmm. That no involvements with the guests." Dreen realized suddenly he was breaking that rule with Mitra, but he considered himself a visitor. What was Wayd? "I'll check Wayd's status. I doubt there's a problem." Dreen smiled. "Putting the employer and employee thing aside, personally if the two of you are happy I'm pleased for you."

*****

Chapter 31

Keya took one last look at the dining table. Those flowers she got at the market this morning did look rather nice in the blue vase, all yellow and white and sunshiny. They suited her style of floral arrangement too, which could tactfully be called casual and pretty much amounted to plopping flowers in a vase exactly as they came in a bunch either from a florist or the yard. Her excuse was that she never had time to spend on things like arranging flowers, but the truth was she'd sooner spend time in the kitchen, or talking to her company, because when they had company was about the only time she bothered with flowers. Gingezel was the exception to that. She kept finding gorgeous bunches when she walked through the flower section of the open air market.

Satisfied that all was in order, Keya proceeded to the kitchen and checked that the casserole was not in danger of drying out. It had been done a good 40 minutes now, but early on she had developed a tried-and-true set of recipes that stood up to Gali's habit of occasionally showing up a couple or three hours late. It looked like this would be one of those days. Keya didn't waste time speculating why, or interrupting him with a call to find out why. In her experience, computers had an infinite capacity to mess themselves up in one way or another, and Gali never seemed to be happy unless he knew why. This seemed a bit of a waste of time to her, because the next time it would mess up in a different way. But there you were. It kept him happy, or at least he stayed happy unless she interrupted him.

Instead, she returned to what she had been doing, deciding what to tell her daughters when she called them after school. This was one sore point in an otherwise lovely stay on Gingezel. At the last minute the girls had decided they wanted to finish the term on Tranus where their friends were. Keya had wanted to delay coming too, but for once Gali had been obstinate. He said he hadn't had her all to himself for years, and the girls would be fine living with Jann. That was true enough, and Jann kept swearing they were no trouble, but she missed them.

The other sore point, this Gali having her all to himself, was related to the girls not being here. Never, in all his life, had Gali had her all to himself. They had always both been very busy, first as students, then with her supporting him while he did his graduate degrees, then starting Nemizcan - what fun that little office had been - then her teaching and his working, then a family. This couldn't even be called a second honeymoon because there hadn't been a first one, not even a long weekend. There hadn't ever been a long holiday anywhere until the girls were old enough to enjoy it. Before that when they had an occasional string of three or four days off, they had spent the time fixing up whatever cheap apartment they were living in and enjoying whatever free cultural events the city had.

But now Gali had her all to himself. This was fine, but he was busy and she wasn't, and really, you could only spend so many hours a day planning romantic evenings or little outings. The maintenance for the little furnished apartment was minimal, so Keya had most of every day to amuse herself. And to think that Gali had wanted them to stay at the hotel so there was no housework and she could have a real break. She would have gone mad.

As it was, she had developed a routine that pretty much used up the hours. It was based on cooking, which she enjoyed even if she wasn't into gourmet stuff, and walking enough to undo the effects of all this extra cooking. Keya knew every street in the town as well as the townspeople now, and most were starting to see her as a semi-resident. What she liked to do best though was to walk out of town, away from the escarpment. There were market gardens there, and usually she bought a bit of something to eat at supper. That combined the two occupations, cooking and walking.

None of this interested the girls in the least, and Keya was getting desperate for conversation topics. She flatly refused to get into describing what she saw in the shops. She would only start an 'oh Mom that sounds divine can I have it' cycle with Gia who was just discovering clothes.

She was still meditating on this when she heard the door open. Gali. At last! Even her casseroles had limits. Keya rose and went to meet him. He was looking very pleased with himself.

Keya smiled. "Have you been keeping me waiting while you were being clever?"

Slipping her arms around his waist, Keya felt a twinge of guilt at the roll he was developing. After all, Gali didn't have the time she did to walk off all this fancy food she was cooking. She gave him an extra enthusiastic kiss to make up for the guilt.

Normally Gali would have noticed but he was too full of news. "Guess what?" he asked, then answered the question before Keya had a chance to guess. Her guesses were always distracting and he wanted to tell her what was going on. "Dreen has a new girlfriend."

"Really? Who?" Keya was immediately diverted.

"I don't know. I haven't had a chance to ask."

There were limits to this tendency of her husband to get lost in his work. Keya released him and said resignedly, "I suppose you were too busy working something out."

"As a matter fact, no. I was working. That's why I'm late, but Dreen was a couple of hours late showing up, talked to Chett for a few minutes, and took off."

Keya totally forgot the drying out casserole. This was much more interesting. "It's serious then?"

"I have no idea. Apparently he took off for a massage with Trevarr. And then comes the real news." Gali paused for dramatic tension.

"Yes?" Keya prompted dutifully, schooling herself not to look disappointed when this real news turned out to be a new operating system release.

The casserole was shifting from dry and slightly brown to distinctly burnt at the edges, but Keya was oblivious to this. She'd been snacking as she cooked, and snacking more as she waited. Now she was trying to figure out if it was best to ask Dreen directly about his new girlfriend, or to try to be somewhere they were and get a look at her. Dreen could be very private sometimes.

Gali, however, was ravenous. "Keya, is that smell lunch burning in the oven?"

***

They were seated at the dining table. The flowers were still bright and sunny, and lunch wasn't that bad Keya decided. She'd only had to scrape off one, well, maybe two centimeters of really dark stuff at the top at the very edges of the casserole. And the salad was as nice as when she'd made it, and there was a lovely crusty loaf of bread, fresh from the baker's that morning. Keya had changed the menu to include some nice herbed cream cheese just in case Gali wanted to fill up on that instead of casserole. She helped herself to casserole. Gali helped himself to bread and cheese.

"So?" Keya asked dutifully after the first bite. It wasn't bad at all. Just nice and browned tasting. "What's the big news?" She could always finish deciding what to say to the girls while Gali told her about whatever.

"The Nemizcan head office is going to be in Crescent Bay after all."

Gali was very pleased with the effect of this news. Keya had a good appetite, and usually she said 'that's nice' and went on eating. But this time she stopped eating, stared, and even put down her fork.

"But I thought Dreen was changing his mind every day between here and one of the megacities."

"Well, the plans just got firmed up." Gali was going to stretch this out.

"Oh, that's wonderful. This is so much nicer than a big city. But why?"

"Apparently Wayd and Trevarr have a serious romance going. After Dreen made his announcement I saw the first real smile I've seen on his face."

"We'll have to have them over for supper to celebrate!" This was her reaction to any good social news. "No wonder he's been so blue - they would have been continents apart!"

So they were siting the hub here. Keya's mind was racing. Helping with the design when Nemizcan finally got an office complex was such fun. Keya sighed in relief. She had a project.

*****

Chapter 32

Dr. C.C. Windegren, terraformer, and Mrs. Cusioni, elementary schoolteacher for the combined 10 and 11 year-old class on Drezvir eyed each other warily over her desk, deciding how to proceed. Since each was used to having his or her own way, their current conversation was getting extremely difficult.

"I believe we have reached an impasse."

Mrs. Cusioni folded her bony hands on the clear surface of her well-ordered desk. She inclined her head slightly, the reddish light giving nonexistent highlights to her sparse grey hair. Neither these, nor the olive green Drezvir Mining Guild coverall, did a thing to enhance her sallow complexion. Her lips compressed into a thin line of disapproval, and if possible her erect posture became even more rigid.

"Oh, come on, let's give it one more try."

C.C. instinctively smiled his most charming smile, the one he had used on school teachers in his youth. It had got him out of a lot of scrapes and once or twice even made him teacher's pet. He sprawled back in his chair, lifting his left ankle to rest on his right knee, placing the ankle precisely in the center of a brilliant magenta flower. Since there was no reason to wear anything special on Drezvir, he and his team had decided they might as well each wear their favorite uniforms. His favorite was their dark blue plus green plus floral tropical camouflage coverall. It fit well on his square-shouldered, well-muscled body. The smile fit equally well on his broad masculine face.

The smile didn't cut any ice with Mrs. Cusioni. She had been hired for her ability to turn cheerful, even boisterous, youngsters into solid, stable, hardworking miners. She classed C.C. as a mischief maker who never grew up, and wondered who his lax instructors were.

"It would be too traumatic," she said sternly, getting tired of repeating herself. She was so used to being taken as an authority on children that explaining her position never once occurred to her.

"Yes." C.C. suppressed a sigh. How many times had he heard that in the last ten minutes? He tried a different tack. "But you didn't object to their meeting Darwin." He pointed at the small fawn-colored rodent, a Gingezel pikkant, currently sleeping in the patch of rusty sunlight on the far end of Mrs. Cusioni's desk.

Mrs. Cusioni's gaunt face softened into unfamiliar contours. "Darwin is adorable." He reminded her somewhat of a pet Estoffian wiglet she had played with as a child when visiting her aunt. Then aware of her sudden weakness, she said briskly, "it would be inadvisable for the children to mature without actually contacting other species. If they did, only seeing them on holovision, and then if something as simple as coming across a pet dog or cat on a holiday happened, it could be more than they could handle."

"Exactly," C.C. agreed with the arrogance of a terraformer who has spent over a decade shaping worlds to his whims. "We hope it won't be too long before there are a diversity of life forms on Drezvir, but to be realistic there will not be any near the settlement in these children's lives, or their children's. But chickens will be here."

His first move on arrival had been to tell Olan Rostin he was setting up a habitat as a giant chicken coop. It would improve their food supply, reduce import costs, get the people more interested in the food cycle, and provide the terraformers with preferably tons and tons of lovely acid chicken shit. An acid manure would be ideal to break down that rock out there.

"Yes," said Mrs. Cusioni, exasperated with his denseness. How could someone so stupid have a professional degree? Irritation finally drove her to explain herself. "But Darwin is a pet. You eat chickens. The children will make pets out of those cute little balls of fluff." Her face softened again. Those freshly hatched chicks were so cute. She'd gone and looked at them several times. "And they will be heartbroken when it's time to slaughter them. They could even stop eating."

Oh. C.C. came to a full stop. He said cautiously, "are you a vegetarian?" He wasn't. He was too used to setting up predator-involved life cycles to be at all upset with his own role as an omnivore, but he respected the alternate view.

"Of course not," Mrs. Cusioni said briskly. "It would be most inefficient not to consume all food sources available."

"Then surely, you must realize that farm children on every world cope quite happily with raising animals for consumption. As far as I know they turn out perfectly well adjusted."

"But they are used to animals. The chicks have novelty value here." She checked herself in time not to say again that the chicks were cute.

C.C. lost patience. "So tell them to make pets of the layers, not the broilers."

***

"And these are the quotes for the fish processing facility?" Olan Rostin glanced at the figures on his screen, read them again more carefully, then looked at the young man across from him with real approval. He seemed to be proceeding with the terraforming in a timely and businesslike manner. Hiring C.C. Windegren had been the one move in his management of Drezvir that could be considered an extravagance. C.C. was expensive. Not as expensive as his mother to be sure, but expensive. Still, the word going around was that he had learned a lot from her, and he was one of the terraforming elite allowed to work on Gingezel. That fact had appealed to Olan - that poor old Drezvir should be given the same care Gingezel had.

"That's right. These are the major players. I can get more if you want." C.C. was heading for the coast in a day or so to set up the first fish farms, and they were spending the morning confirming the plans to be implemented in his absence.

Olan hesitated. "Fish farming is outside my experience. Is there a cost benefit to using a smaller player? After all, reliability is essential here, and these estimates are already lower than I expected."

"That's why I went to the big firms. As for the cost -" C.C. smiled and resisted the temptation to cross his legs. "I passed on the standard terraformer's discount. We're big customers, you know."

"How so?" Olan did not know, and he liked to understand the ins and outs of business dealings.

"Obviously we don't fish farm on uninhabited worlds, but as Beti pounded into my head early on, on an inhabited world it's almost your first move. After all, while intellectually everyone on a planet might agree that terraforming is good and that they want their great great grandchildren to have a different life, in reality they get tired of what is essentially an endless tax on them pretty darn quick if they don't see benefits. A nice fillet of freshwater or saltwater fish at supper is a visible benefit, and establishing fish farming is relatively easy."

Olan rewarded C.C. with one of his rare smiles. "An excellent benefit." Symbiofish were an efficient use of hydroponic waste, and vice versa, but they simply did not have the flavor and higher protein of water farmed fish with a larger range.

The night before C.C. had invited him and five randomly-selected miners to supper at the terraformers' habitat. They had been served samples of the six species C.C. felt would do well in Drezvir waters once algae they could eat were introduced, to see which appealed to the Farrese palate. There had been unanimous agreement that two were delicious, though not the ones the terraformers seemed to prefer. But as Dr. Windegren said, tastes differ. He approved of the fish, and the young man's consistent efforts to find some immediate quality of life or financial benefit from each stage of the terraforming process.

"And your initial experiments with establishing fish are going well?"

One of C.C.'s first actions had been to section off parts of one of the seas to experiment with inducing T3 algae blooms. The monitors had indicated several were doing well, and after last night appropriate fish had been ordered.

Rostin honestly wouldn't have been surprised if C.C. had left it like that - released the algae into the currents and the fish to follow it. But he had insisted on this ordering equipment for a largely automated fish farm, and once it was thoroughly established and stable in the Drezvir environment, training members of the Mining Guild to run it.

"Very." C.C. said.

Olan looked at the figures again. The equipment the young man had recommended would pay for itself in less than three years in reduced imports.

"Very good. I'll review the quotes in detail once we're finished."

C.C. nodded. "And that brings us to the micro systems."

If Olan Rostin had been a different man C.C. would have said 'now that you're softened up', but he curbed his tongue for once. He knew the micro systems were an issue Olan was less comfortable with and still hadn't bought into. C.C. was a firm advocate of establishing small fully evolved micro systems with life-supporting micro climates judiciously scattered across the planet. With luck, they would not only take hold, but spread. Even C.C. had to admit that on Drezvir the most likely scenario was that they would not take hold but would need continual maintenance. So, what they were really talking about was a series of parks showing what Drezvir might eventually be like. A series of expensive, high maintenance parks.

"I've found a valley within driving distance of the settlement. It has the depth and topography to be a natural lake when the atmosphere wets up."

C.C. said 'when'. Olan mentally corrected that to 'if'.

"Dr. Windegren, you must realize that water is a major concern for the settlement. We can barely afford enough for our own use. I certainly cannot justify importing a lake full of water just to establish a park. If the colony could afford further imports, we would use them here."

C.C. stared. "Import? You mean you transport water from other planets rather than mine the polar caps?"

Mine the polar caps? What bizarre ideas these Outsiders have.

For a moment the two men stared at each other.

Then C.C. couldn't help it. He laughed. "But you're miners." And he'd thought the stink and the level of hygiene was a cultural thing.

"Dr. Windegren," Olan's tone was repressive, "we mine ores. Hard rock mine. Strip mine."

"Sorry." C.C. didn't want to alienate this difficult man. "But could you mine ice? It might solve some of your problems. Let me show you the way the firm I know does it."

***

Twenty minutes later, Olan looked at the screen one last time. He was not impressed. The firm might know ice, but their mining techniques sounded antiquated. The guild could do better. If they could learn how, it was a permanent solution to the colony's water shortage and most of the complaints he got. He half listened to the rest of C.C.'s spiel, his mind on mining ice. The guild might even try competing with this company on other planets. It was an interesting possibility, most interesting.

The young man was finished now though, and he was staring out the window obviously collecting his thoughts. Olan suppressed a sigh knowing what was coming next. He wondered why he seemed destined to be plagued by chickens. First there had been all that trouble Mitra Kael had caused in the cafeteria. Then he had had to listen to a two-hour lecture this morning from Mrs. Cusioni.

But C.C. did not have chickens on his mind. He was looking at the fine dust sifting around in the ever-present wind and thinking about how devoid the atmosphere was of just about everything, and of Leeth's joking remark that even pollution would be an improvement. That comment had run through his mind again and again.

It was an idea he had run across once before, on an exam when he was doing his master's. The instructor had hypothesized a marginally habitable planet and then had based the examination on developing a number of scenarios where the planet was exposed to heavy industry prior to traditional terraforming. Some of the results of his calculations had been so counterintuitive C.C. had been sure he'd failed the exam, but there had been no time to rework anything. He had just kept going, trying not to choke on the exam as his brain rejected result after result. He'd got an 89% though, and the class had spent the next two weeks discussing those results - how the introduction of a level of pollution that could range from deleterious to just plain disastrous in an advanced ecosystem could actually help under some circumstances.

The question was, was Drezvir such a circumstance? Abruptly C.C. turned to Rostin. "Mr. Rostin, have you ever considered bringing in heavy industry?"

Olan was offended. "Dr. Windegren, I assure you I have had the utmost respect for the problems of terraforming. Beyond the inevitable disruption of the mines I've done my best to keep the planet untouched."

C.C. smiled his disarming smile. "And done it well. But in this case it might be like the chickens where you were correct and prudent to err on the side of caution, but it was not necessary."

He'd heard from one of the laborers helping construct habitats about Mitra's try at bringing in chickens and it almost ending in food riots. He could just see her in his mind, as tiny and feisty as ever, and the smile broadened. The fact she was completely right and being ignored would really set her off. But he doubted that Olan saw the least bit of humor in it.

He continued tactfully, "In the case of the heavy industry prudence is not necessarily wise."

"I'm sorry." Olan was lost. "I don't understand."

C.C. made a face. "I'm about to permanently damage my reputation as an environmentalist, but an idea has been growing on me. I've been honestly wondering if Drezvir would benefit from your granting one hundred or two hundred year leases - I haven't thought about it that far yet - to really dirty industry that has trouble on established planets. And," he hastened to add at the look on Rostin's face, "I'm not out to permanently ruin Drezvir. The idea would be to seed the atmosphere with some greater diversity of compounds than it has now. Nothing that could cause long-term toxicity to life forms like heavy metals, but things like greenhouse gases to increase the carbon dioxide and moisture and encourage plant life, NOx and SOx for the same reasons, and complex nontoxic organics more or less for the hell of it. That sort of thing."

Olan was watching the young man. He seemed perfectly serious. "You mean this?"

"It's unconventional and I need to research it, but I seriously think it may be the way to go. You have vast continents, so there need be no conflict on siting. But to be honest I've only heard of this as a theory. I'll have to do some research and a lot of simulations. I'd start with talking to my mother and her friends to see if they know if it's ever been done."

"But it is an interesting idea." Olan was suppressing his growing excitement. He could imagine there could be considerable profit in those sorts of leasing arrangements. "Perhaps you could do some of that research while you are on the coast, and we could discuss it again when you return."

He looked at C.C., once again approving of the young man. He knew a lot complained about the younger generation in general, and young Outsiders in particular, but if this young man and Durstin were any example, he was impressed. Durstin was proceeding very well with their plans. The new fuel was being fabricated, and he was managing the existing facility very easily. They were right on their time line.

C.C. nodded. "Now, about the chickens -"

Olan cut in. "Don't worry about that. Mrs. Cusioni is just overly protective of her charges."

Mrs. Cusioni had never once protected the children, but he'd deal with her later. One well-meaning teacher had just lost out to basic cupidity.

*****

Chapter 33

C.C. looked from the children to the chicks, then back again, trying strictly as an academic exercise to decide which were more terrified. They were in a habitat room being used to raise a batch of newly hatched chicks to a size where they could more or less fend for themselves. It was modified only by the infrared lamps hung at intervals to keep the chicks warm. The children had dutifully filed in behind him stepping over the low barrier. They were a docile crowd in his opinion. Once inside though, they had pressed against the wall closest to the door, crowding as close to each other, and the door, as they could get without standing on each other.

The chicks had no inhibitions about standing on each other. Reacting to the crowd, or quite possibly the children's fear, they headed for the farthest away corner, and as far as C.C. could judge, were now about six deep in the corner itself and doing their best to increase the depth. Keep that up and the bottom ones would suffocate. He sighed. This was definitely not working. Mrs. Cusioni had obviously worried for nothing. The children were not going to make pets out of the chicks.

"Leeth," he said resignedly, "go unpile them. And you may as well stay there. They aren't afraid of you and they'll just come back."

C.C. watched as Leeth Kembel nodded impassively and headed for the corner, stooping with each step to move enough chicks to put his foot down safely. His weather-beaten face framed by dark hair was expressionless, as it always was when C.C. gave him dirty work. Since joining the terraformers as a manual laborer, Leeth had rapidly inherited most of the dirtiest work since he never complained about anything.

Once in the corner he started unpiling the chicks with surprising gentleness, talking softly as he did so. "Little idiots. What good is this doing? No one's going to hurt you -" When he reached the bottom of the heap he picked up a chick, examining it closely.

"Is it all right?" C.C. asked.

"Just a bit stunned."

"Good." It would be docile then. "Give it to me."

C.C. approached the edge of the mass of chicks and reached an arm out to take the chick, carelessly cradling it in his cupped hand. It was a bit wonky, that was all. He returned to the children.

"Does anyone want to touch a chick?" he asked without much hope.

He had thought the idea of first getting the children interested in the chickens, then teaching them how to do the basics of caring for them so his whole crew could go seaside was a good idea. After all, feeding the chickens was one of the first chores a farm kid takes on. But these kids were still in a state somewhere between frozen and bolt and run.

He scanned the faces for signs of interest. Mostly they looked a little green and they were all avoiding eye contact except for one gangly blond girl with a gap between her front teeth and bright turquoise socks. She was watching every move he made, and she wasn't pale and green. She was kind of purple and seemed to be holding her breath.

"Want to touch it?"

Tessa was forced to exhale to answer. Oh well, she couldn't have held her breath much longer anyway. It helped though not to breathe much.

"Will I hurt it?" she asked, then carefully took another breath and held it.

C.C. watched this procedure with amusement and the beginnings of understanding. "Never realized how much a chicken coop can stink looking at holograms, hmm?" he asked.

Tessa nodded agreement, but that made her forget to hold her breath again. "It's pretty bad," she agreed.

"Well it's a bit stinkier than usual because with the thin atmosphere we have to filter the air, not flush fresh air through," C.C. said. "Partly the smell is the food that they get." He pointed to the feed trays. "Partly it's the chickens, but mostly it's that these chicks aren't toilet trained - not that you can train the big ones either."

He waved a hand at the dropping-splattered floor. Most of the class responded by looking at the floor, then their feet with horror. However the little girl was obviously staring at his hand with real concern.

"I'll risk it," C.C. said and held the chick closer to her.

Tessa reached out a cautious finger and touched the semi-comatose chick. "It's soft." Her voice was awed. The only other animal she had ever touched was Darwin, and his fur felt very different, kind of thick and shiny.

"Want to hold it?"

"Can I?" Tessa forgot she was trying to hold her breath and that the chick might make a mess on her hand.

"Sure, but your hands are pretty little, so let's use both of them. Like this." C.C. showed her with his own, then carefully transferred the tiny creature. "Just don't squish him. His cousins already did a good enough job of that!"

That got him a shy smile before she was totally absorbed in the chick. C.C. noticed a smaller Oriental girl edging closer for a better look. That was better. C.C. looked for a boy who was probably the class show off and who wouldn't dare look like a coward to his mates.

"You." He pointed. "You brave enough to come pick one up on your own?"

The lad looked like he was sincerely considering a loss of status, then one of the other boys said something C.C. couldn't catch with the word Tessa in it, and the boy flushed and stepped forward.

Tessa was totally lost in holding the little creature. It hardly weighed a thing. It was soft and warm, and she could feel it breathing, and the beating of its heart. Then it started to move!

"Dr. Windegren!" There was real alarm in her voice. "It's awake."

"That's all right," C.C. said from where he was trying not to laugh at the nervous attempts of the lad to catch a chick, but there were enough snickers from along the wall he figured he'd better not laugh. "The way you're holding it, it can't get loose or twist and hurt itself. Just say hello."

Tessa obediently lifted the chick to eye level. "Hello."

The chick was having no part of this. Finding itself constrained, it tried a futile struggle then hunkered down, eyes firmly shut, heart racing.

"I think it's scared."

"Probably," C.C. agreed. "You'd be too. Just wait a bit."

In about a minute an eye cautiously opened and the girl and the chick stared at each other.

***

"Guess what we did!" Tessa demanded as her mother came into their apartment.

She and Ginny were sitting at the table, supposedly doing their homework, but Lilla had her doubts about this judging by the excited faces and the giggles she'd heard as she opened the door.

"I have no idea," Lilla said as she pulled a chair up to the table and eased her slender frame onto the chair, brushing her long blond hair off her shoulders as she sat.

Oh, that felt good. Her feet had been aching for almost an hour now. She really did have to find time to go get a new pair of safety boots. Even the best cushioning didn't last forever. She looked from one girl to the other, pleased with the happy faces. Actually, she knew exactly what they had been doing. She and Blayne had been required to sign a consent form for Tessa to visit the baby chicks. Mrs. Cusioni had been very worried about that visit, worried for nothing by the looks of it. These were not traumatized faces.

"We went to visit the chicks!" Ginny said.

Lilla transferred her attention to the short Oriental girl, coming just to Tessa's shoulder. Her father, a mining engineer, was Blayne's shift foreman, and Ginny seemed to have inherited his scientific bent. She always came in first on the science projects.

"They were so cute," Tessa added. "And I got to hold one!"

"Did you?" Lilla focused at that. "What did it feel like?" She got a detailed description starting with a demonstration of how to hold your hands, and proceeding with considerable repetition through the whole experience.

"Well, you had quite a day," Lilla said when Tessa finally wound down. She got gingerly to her feet. "I need a drink of juice." She looked at the glasses on the table. "Would you two like more, or will it spoil your supper?"

Tessa held out her glass. "Thanks, mom."

It seemed like she could never get full, and her mother was complaining that her wrists and ankles poked out of her clothes way too far now, and they weren't even six months old. She didn't mind though. You could see the real nice socks Mitra gave her better that way. The turquoise pair she was wearing today was her favorite.

"No thank you." Ginny said politely.

While Lilla poured the drinks, she watched her daughter. Tessa was fidgeting with her hair, and squirming in her chair. She was working up to something.

"Mom." Tessa found her courage all in a rush. "Can I help take care of the chicks? C.C. said -"

"That's Dr. Windegren, dear."

"He said to call him C.C.," Tessa protested.

"That's fine, but you are still to show respect and call him Dr. Windegren," Lilla said firmly.

Tessa thought about protesting that she had called Mitra 'Mitra', not 'Dr. Kael', but she figured she just might hurt her chances with the chicks. So she said meekly, "Yes Mom," paused, then tried again. "Can I help take care of the chicks? Dr. Windegren," she said it carefully and didn't even make a face, "says if our parents agree, we can take care of the chicks while the terraformers are at the seashore."

Lilla had not heard this from Mrs. Cusioni, and she looked doubtfully at her daughter. "That's a lot of responsibility. What would it involve?"

"Looking to see if they're eating their food, or just making a mess with it. The food is dispensed automatically," Tessa recited, quite pleased with herself, "but the system can't tell if they munch it, or just throw it around in a food fight." She smiled, looking suddenly almost cute. She liked the way C.C. - she was going to think of him as C.C. anyways - said things.

"And check their water supply to make sure nothing is blocked, or that the water is not getting all spilled and splashed around." Ginny added, looking very serious.

"And," Tessa made a face, "clean up the chicken shit." She added emphatically, "It stinks!"

"Tessa," Lilla said severely, "I will not have you using language like that! Where did you learn that word!"

"What word?" What had she done wrong now?

"The term you used for chicken manure. It is not a respectable word."

"But that's what Dr. Windegren calls it." This time Tessa braved a protest.

Lilla sighed. From the little she'd seen of Dr. Windegren, she wasn't surprised. "But it is not a term you will use in my home, and that's that."

"Yes mother." Tessa sighed in turn at the unfairness in life.

Ginny looked from mother to daughter. It did not look like things were going well, and this was bad. She and Tessa both wanted to take care of the chicks, and in their strategy session they had agreed that Lilla was the softest parent, and if they got her to agree, then Ginny could use the argument that Tessa was going to help.

Now she braved participating. "Dr. Windegren," Ginny carefully used the honorific, "says the manure has to be scraped up because the chicks aren't smart enough to get out of the way of robotics, and of course if one of the robotics senses them its stops, so the cleanup never happens. And he likes to let the chicks run around loose. Did you know he's going to use the manure to start plants growing on Drezvir?"

Ginny hoped this would help. Lilla worked in the hydroponics shed and loved plants.

"Chicken manure?" Lilla tried to remember if she'd ever heard anything special about it.

Ginny surreptitiously prompted Tessa with her foot.

Tessa hadn't really listened, she'd been so busy watching the chicks. "I think it's supposed to be very acid or something and break up the rock?"

Ginny nodded emphatically. "It's not good used directly for lots of plants when it's fresh, but it will break up the rocks, and it's fine for plants once its aged." She had been hanging on every word C.C. had said. "And," she added, eyes shining, "we can do experiments to see if it makes the lichen here grow faster!"

"And," Tessa really liked this part, "we even get paid. A whole lot! Please mom!"

Lilla looked from one expectant face to the other, quite aware she was being set up. But they looked so happy and excited. Still, it was a lot of responsibility. She would have to find out what adult supervision there was.

"I have to talk to your father, Tessa. Now don't you have homework to finish?"

The girls nodded and dutifully picked up their compads. But this time it was Tessa who nudged Ginny with her foot. They'd won. Blayne never said no to anything Lilla wanted.

*****

Chapter 34

"And here come what look like a couple of fathers," C.C. observed.

He insisted that the terraformers eat one meal a day in the Mining Guild cafeteria so they were accessible to the community. This was not popular with his crew. They said the food was lousy and most made themselves a fast sandwich first and only had a drink. The exceptions were C.C., who thought that would be insulting to the miners, and Leeth, who seemed to stolidly eat anything put in front of him.

So far the sacrifice had been a waste of time. The miners would respond to a direct greeting with a polite 'good day', but that was about it. Now, however, two men were making a determined if cautious approach to the table where the terraformers sat. It was impossible to read their expressions.

"I hope they're happy, not about to pull the kids out of feeding the chicks," Leeth said in a low voice to C.C. who was sitting beside him. "I can't tell with this crowd."

"You afraid you'll have to stay on after all shoveling chicken shit?"

"Yup. I expect you've got something even dirtier waiting at the coast, but at least that will be outside where I can breathe. Even if it requires a trickle tube," Leeth added as an afterthought.

"Don't bet on that." C.C. said with a teasing grin.

"You sure know how to make a guy look forward to getting up in the morning," Leeth responded without rancor. Then he turned his attention to the approaching men.

There were no hard feelings on either side in this exchange. Leeth knew perfectly well he'd been hired to provide muscle for all the really lousy jobs that couldn't be automated. In his late thirties and routinely unemployed, he had been glad simply to get the job. The fact it involved off-world travel, that his boss C.C. cheerfully chipped in on the dirty work, and that C.C. treated him as an intelligent human, not just muscle, were all unexpected and much appreciated bonuses.

On C.C.'s side, Leeth himself was a bonus. Getting someone to fill that particular job on a terraforming team was tricky. There was no good reason why someone capable of more would take the job. So you tended to get as applicants either the mentally slow or those with severe personality problems. Neither was a great option in the prolonged and often dangerous isolation terraformers faced. Some dealt with this by hiring co-op students, as C.C. had himself before Leeth. They were bright and good company, but there was constant turnover. Leeth, on the other hand was bright, good company, and it looked like he was a permanent employee. He was also an ex-con, which was why he had taken the job.

C.C. had endured an exceptionally long lecture from his usually liberal-minded mother on the sheer stupidity of including anyone criminal in the close quarters terraformers shared, and he had wondered if she would turn out to be right. But he had liked Leeth in the interview and had decided to risk the older man on one assignment.

It had more than worked out. By nature, Leeth was both a joiner and an activist. On his first day at work he couldn't help overhearing C.C. and a couple of his colleagues debating their environmental concerns in the habitat lounge, and before long had joined in. Leeth had made it clear that he would have absolutely nothing to do with any activity that put him at risk of more prison time. But short of that, he was game for anything and he had definitely changed the perspective of C.C. and his friends. C.C. was quite sure they would not have been able to stall the Dellmaice Power Systems project on Plenata without some of Leeth's ideas, and that joint endeavor had moved them from a working relationship to being friends.

***

"Dr. Windegren." Ken Kwan stopped a respectful distance from the table. He didn't know what to make of these terraformers. They were very different from the Dellmaice Power Systems employees and other staff that had been building the reactor. They were obviously a closed group. They were also noisy to the point of being boisterous, and almost had a swagger to them. Even without the jumpsuits of various brilliantly colored camouflage cloth they invariably wore, they were identifiable as an elite that knew it was an elite.

"I'm Ken Kwan, Ginny's father. And this is Blayne Clinder, Tessa's father." He pointed to Blayne who had stopped an even safer distance from the table. "We wanted to thank you for getting the girls involved with the chickens." Then in alarm as C.C. seemed to be going to rise out of politeness, "Please, don't let us disturb your meal."

"Some meal," C.C.'s other neighbor muttered under his breath, looking in disgust at the watery powdered egg omelette. He'd been too involved in a simulation for the fish farm to remember to make a sandwich. Those chickens had better grow fast.

C.C. neatly elbowed him and said, "It's no disturbance. Won't you join us?"

Ken looked doubtfully at two vacant chairs at the end of the table, then at Blayne. But the two women sitting across from Dr. Windegren were too fast for him.

The redhead rose. "I'm finished. Please, take my seat." Her friend, a chubby blond joined her in the escape.

With no choice other than being extremely rude, Ken and Blayne sat down.

They approached their meal with a stoicism that matched Leeth's, C.C. noted. Once they seemed to be settled in eating, he tried conversation. He expected it would be solidly up hill.

"Blay," he hoped he had the name right, "did you know that Tessa was the first one brave enough to hold a chick?"

Blayne looked up with mild surprise. "No, I didn't." He politely returned his attention to his plate. You didn't watch people at meals, or disturb them.

Ken had travelled more than Blayne and he knew that the relative silence observed at meals in the Mining Guild was not the norm. So, even though it was uncomfortable, he made an effort. "She's like her mother. Lilla loves anything that grows, but all she has here are plants. If there weren't import restrictions they would have Blayne's home full of pets."

The effort made, Ken returned to his meal.

*****

Chapter 35

Erlin Dellmaice looked with satisfaction and pride at the space station model that took up almost half of the free space in the large brightly colored play room. He and his dad had worked on it for two nights now, and it looked just like the new Genie space station they were going to build. He knew because he had studied all the images he could find on the hyperweb. It needed a little finishing of course, like over at the far end where the regular ships would dock, but Dad had said he might have time to help again on the weekend. Erlin stretched his slender frame up to his full height to put one last piece in place on an antenna array, then stepped back to admire the effect.

"What do you think?" he asked his father. The glow in his eyes said what he thought.

"Just right," Ari said from where he was sitting on the floor watching his older son.

Ari had decided about a year ago that Erlin would never be a big man, but he'd put some height on over the last few months. He was still painfully skinny though, inside his green play suit. Ari had finished the chores Erlin had assigned him a few minutes earlier, and had been deciding he would have to find time at lunch tomorrow to check out model Genies and space transports on the hyperweb. They could hang some from the ceiling.

"What do you think to -" he began proposing his idea when a motion in the corner of his eye made him turn his head. Son Number Two had just launched a large remote-controlled truck at top speed towards the structure.

"Hey you!" Ari dived for his son, diverting the truck with a scissor kick. He bodily lifted Sander from the controls. "Just what do you think you're doing?" he asked as he gave Sander a perfunctory swat on the bottom.

Ari got a pleased grin for an answer, and he rolled onto his back, dragging his son with him for a tickling match.

"Oof!"

That kick from Sander had some punch to it, but then Sander was sturdy, short and big-boned. Ari rumpled his hair, a couple shades lighter brown than his own or Erlin's, closer to Naura's shade.

"Hey you!" Ari tightened the grip on Sander's hair as Sander tried another kick. "Watch your aim." With his free hand he tickled Sander's waist. Sander giggled and tried to squirm away.

The squeals attracted Erlin, and he dived in. They rolled around like that until Erlin remembered he was mad at Sander for almost wrecking the space station and took a swing at him. Ari shoved them off him at that point, and left them to settle things between themselves in the boys-will-be-boys category until he realized Erlin wasn't just taking swings at Sander. He was methodically setting about beating the life out of his kid brother.

"Break it up!" The swat Erlin got was not perfunctory. It got Ari a resentful glare that he missed because all of his attention was on Sander who was sprawled flat on his back looking disoriented.

"Sander are you all right?" Ari asked with real concern.

Sander sat up. "Me?" He gave himself an experimental shake. Everything seemed to work. "Sure."

The grin was back. Boy, he'd never managed to get Erlin that mad before. He looked around the room speculatively. Nanny hadn't come to make him go to bed yet. His eyes stopped on the model.

"Sander, making the model was a lot of work. Erlin and I want to work on it more on the weekend. And I," Ari emphasized the 'I', "want it in one piece then. Hear me?"

"Sure." Sander shrugged. He didn't want to get his dad mad. He might not come to the play room for a long time, and it was nice him being here. He looked around for further inspiration.

Ari sighed. "Sander, do you think you could just stay out of trouble until bedtime?"

Sander gave this serious consideration, screwing up his little face. "Dunno," he said at last.

Well, at least the kid was honest. Ari looked around the room for inspiration too. His eyes fell on the little white art table. "How about you draw me a picture?"

"Okay." He'd draw a nice picture of a Genie getting blown up by a space torpedo. Sander toddled off, the tail of his bright red T-shirt hanging out over his chubby little bottom.

Ari shook his head. Nothing seemed to bother Sander. Erlin was a different matter. He turned his attention to his older son who was glowering at the brother he obviously considered inadequately punished.

"You," Ari said. "I want to have a little talk with you."

Erlin knew that tone. "Why?" His chin went up just like Ari's could. "I didn't try to bust the space station."

"No," Ari agreed. "You just tried to finish off your brother."

The look he got from Erlin said 'so what', but Erlin kept his mouth shut. Ari paused, thinking. Naura would have been horrified by what he'd just seen, but he had grown up in a large family of mostly rough-and-tumble boys, although his sister Kara, a year younger than him, had as good a left as any of them. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, bloody noses, and black eyes from accidents and what were reported to the grown-ups as accidents were a part of daily life. You just didn't bleed on the good furniture or the rugs. He doubted a morality lecture on violence would get any further with Erlin than it would have with him at that age.

So Ari said, "You aren't playing fair." Erlin was big on fair. "Let him get a growth spurt so he's your size and it's a fair fight. Then you're welcome to try to beat him up, and if you end up the one with a busted nose, you asked for it. But not now."

Ari watched as Erlin took some time considering this, then he got a reluctant nod.

"So what am I supposed to do?" Erlin asked bitterly. "Just let him wreck stuff?"

"No. Do what I just did. Stop him, then get him distracted with something else. And, if Sander won't listen to you" - this was distinctly probable - "get grown-up help. And, if you absolutely have to belt him," Ari shrugged, "belt him. But only hit him once, and not hard enough to do any damage." At the gleam in Erlin's eye, "and only as a last resort. Hear me?"

Erlin sighed and nodded. He didn't think much of these ground rules, but he respected his father.

"All right. I'll try."

"Good." Ari relaxed. Erlin kept his word. "Now -"

But Erlin interrupted. "And now I get to see if your way works." He said this with a singular lack of optimism.

Sander had given up on his drawing since he couldn't find the orange marker he wanted to use for the flames. He'd tried yellow, but it didn't look right. So he'd been studying the forbidden space station. His intentions to destroy it were long forgotten. He was trying to figure it out, and he didn't understand part of it. Now, he stood up and carefully approached the structure, craning his neck to look up to the top. Standing a safe distance away he pointed.

"Erlin, whas dis?"

Ari winced. Sander had trouble with his 't' and 'th' sounds, and he wondered how long it would take Naura to stop calling it cute and admit Sander had a speech defect. The longer they left it the harder it would be to fix. But he had been reluctant to say anything. The last few times he had criticized anything on the home front, he had been told flatly that unless he intended to be there sometimes he could keep his mouth shut. That was fair enough. The last eighteen months had been hard on Naura too, and it was a miracle her temper had lasted as long as it had. So now that things were settling down he was giving her a very wide berth and trying to make amends by spending as much time as he could with the boys.

As Ari watched, Erlin joined his brother, and with animosity apparently forgotten started an animated explanation. The ten percent that was based on the little that was actually being said on holovision was quite accurate for a boy of his age. The remaining ninety per cent was pure imagination and left Ari fascinated. He had no idea Erlin was so taken up with space. Erlin had never even been in space. There had been no reason. Both sets of grandparents were on planet, Pendrae had good family resorts, and Ari saw all of the space travel he wanted to in business.

Now Ari found himself thinking he would have to at least take Erlin up to the space station. There was no reason why he couldn't come along on the first leg of a business trip. He was old enough now to take the trip down on his own as long as Ari put him on the shuttle and his mother met him at the spaceport. Before he said anything though, he'd have to check his schedule. Ari made a point of not making well-intended promises then canceling out. He'd had too many of those from his own father.

The lecture got even more animated. Maybe, Ari thought, their next vacation should be at one of the family-oriented space portels on the space station. They all had theme parks where little ones like Sander could float around weightless. Sander would love careening off the walls. And they had science centers for the older ones like Erlin who could understand weightlessness better. The more he thought about it, the better he liked the idea. There was a time too when he and Naura had enjoyed the novelty of weightlessness. For a few years she had come up with him quite often on the first leg of business trips and he personally suspected that Erlin was a space baby. The question was, when could he manage a vacation? What he should do was simply make the time once the Plenata unit was licensed. That was two months away at the outside.

The lecture on the space station was interrupted by Sander's nanny coming to get him. She stopped at the door on her way out. "Erlin, don't forget your homework," she said as she removed the protesting Sander from the room.

"I don't have very much homework," Erlin said to his father with cautious optimism. "We could build some more."

"Sorry." Ari ruffled his son's dark hair. "You may not have much homework but I have a solid three hours or so. So we'll have to finish up on the weekend."

There was a new energy company just making its presence known, and he wanted to find out a little more about it. Tonight was his chance. Tomorrow they started reviewing the first cost estimates on the proposed megacity units, and they were going to cost a fortune even by Dellmaice Power Systems standards. Ari intended to focus exclusively on that review until it was completed. He'd like to think they would get finished with two days free before the last round of licensing meetings on the Plenata project started, but he doubted it. Something always had to be revised.

So it was look at the new company tonight or in a month or so, and he wanted it to be tonight, because he wanted time to think about this particular startup. He couldn't say he was worried. Every year there were a handful of startup companies in the energy sector. Most were spinoffs or reconfigurations or mergers of existing companies. These tended to survive in the niches they were good at. A few came out of nowhere like this new company. These tended to not survive. But it could be done. He'd done it. You moved around, did your apprenticeships, made your contacts, didn't tip your hand until you were ready to move. It could be done.

Usually though, the startup tipped their hand and got a very rough ride from the big players. It was almost impossible not to. Inevitably someone talked to a friend or relative who talked to a colleague who talked to - and so it went. Without that much effort you could find out just who the players and their backers were and what their strategy was long before they went public. But not this time. Someone had sat on this crowd but good. There was no gossip floating around, and no details beyond the standard publicity release which didn't tell you a thing. Apparently if you wanted the details and to meet the principals you came to the table with money. A lot of money, or no one senior even returned the call. That was unusual too. Whoever this was, they thought they were worth one hell of a lot more than Ari had when he was at that stage. Obviously no one would be talking to Dellmaice Power Systems, but his staff had pieced together what they could and he wanted to meditate on it and see if any potential players came to mind. But not right now.

Erlin was violently disappointed. He had honestly thought he was going to get his father all to himself for at least a little bit, something that almost never happened. He tried to look like it didn't matter.

That only made Ari feel worse. He said, "I don't know about you, but I could stand some sustenance before I hit that homework."

"What's -" Erlin couldn't pronounce it. It sounded like it might be a reprieve though. "What's the big word?"

"Eats." Ari smiled. "Personally I'm good for about three cookies. What do you want?" He headed for the cater unit. "My quota." The house cater system was programmed to only allow each boy a certain number of snacks a day, mostly fruit. Otherwise they'd never eat properly at meals.

"The same?" Erlin asked hopefully. "And some milk."

"Sure."

Naura would kill him. The kid would end up with indigestion and probably those nightmares that had been such a problem when he was Sander's age would come back. Ari added apple juice for himself to the rest and carried the snacks to the art table, squatting to sit down on a lemon yellow child sized chair.

"So," Ari asked conversationally, "where did you learn to fight like that?" That was bothering him. Besides going at Sander with real intent, Erlin had known what he was doing.

Erlin washed down the mouthful of cookie. "Marty was having trouble at school." Marty was his best friend. "Some guys a grade up were picking on him. And they're older and bigger," he said in an injured tone. "So he told his dad he wanted to go to one of the schools where you learn to fight. His dad said no, the first things you learn about fighting you should learn at home, and if it was time, he'd teach him. So I asked him if I could learn too and he said sure." Erlin trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

Ari partially relaxed. Marty's dad was all right. Martin wouldn't teach the boys anything they shouldn't know. Ari decided when he called to thank him though, that he'd ask him to throw in a few morality lessons too, warn him that Erlin was going after Sander. But Martin would never have started to teach Erlin without Ari's consent, and Erlin had that look he had when he wasn't exactly lying but he was skating pretty fast.

"And?" Ari prompted. Then when Erlin didn't answer, "Finish what Martin said, Erlin."

Erlin looked sullen.

"Erlin."

There was a warning tone in Ari's voice that Erlin knew quite well. He muttered, "he said he'd teach me if it was okay with you."

"And you just decided not to ask?"

"You weren't here." Erlin was defensive now.

"And you know perfectly well how to send an e-mail," Ari shot back. "You spend half your time at a computer." He didn't like being deliberately deceived.

Erlin's head went up in a fair imitation of his father's. "You never answer them!"

"I what?!" That was one thing Ari prided himself on. No matter how busy he was, the first thing he did at coffee breaks and lunch was to check for priority messages from home. He answered them too, even if it meant no break or no meal. "I answer e-mail from you."

"Sure." Erlin was mad now. "The ones that don't matter."

*****

Chapter 36

"The ones that don't matter?" A suspicion started to form in Ari's mind. "Erlin. The other ones - the ones that mattered. Where did you send them from?"

"Friends' houses, sometimes school, the sports complex, places," he finished evasively.

Like the mall, Ari finished for him mentally. They'd take that fine point up later. The mall was strictly out of bounds without adult supervision, but Erlin was about the age he'd personally started sneaking off to places like that. Where had the years gone? He kept thinking of Erlin as little like Sander... Sander.

"Because Sander snoops at your mail?"

It was a rhetorical question. Sander wasn't much of a reader yet, but he was quite capable of having figured out how to get the computer to read his brother's mail to him. Ari ran his hand over his eyes.

"I'm sorry Erlin. I think I've been filtering out your mail." He removed his hand. "Do you know what I mean?"

By the expression on the little face, Erlin definitely did not. How to explain? Erlin was at the age where he was and wasn't computer literate at the same time.

"Erlin, think of your much-hated web nanny. It only lets you get certain kinds of messages from certain places, right?"

Erlin nodded.

"Well, a filter is kind of like that. It only lets certain messages get to me."

"But you're a grown-up!"

This was shattering a basic concept Erlin had. When you got big you didn't have a web nanny and you could do what you wanted on the hyperweb.

"Yes, and a businessman. I get literally thousands of messages a day and I'd get nothing done if I read or listened to all of them. I have the computer find the important ones, and filter out the rest. To be quite honest, most days I delete the rest without looking at a single one. And," Ari truly felt guilty, "yours have been in the ones I delete because I haven't been checking for an Erlin signature. When you were little like Sander you didn't sign stuff half of the time, so I just set my computer up to make all mail and messages from this house a priority."

He looked at his son. "I'm sorry, but all I can do is correct that from now on." He took out his compad and made the adjustments. "There. Now anything from Erlin will get a priority listing and I'll answer it the next coffee break or at lunch, so the longest you'll have to wait is a couple of hours."

"Thank you," Erlin said politely. He supposed an answer sometime was better than never.

"Not good enough, huh?" Ari studied his son. Erlin was a responsible kid. "All right Erlin, let's give something a try. I can set things up so that important messages from you get handled right away. But you have to promise not to misuse this Erlin." He did not think Erlin was following him.

"Think of when I was explaining how a cargo bay worked."

Erlin nodded. He'd liked that, being talked to like he was a grown-up.

"Well, if your mom came in and interrupted, and you had to go do something, when you came back we'd have to start all over and we might forget some good stuff, right?"

Erlin nodded again, beginning to understand. "So I might stop you when you were telling someone at work something neat?"

"Or they were telling me. Do you think you could be responsible?"

It was like when he asked Sander if he could behave. There was no easy answer, and the face screwed up with the effort of thinking. They were good kids, and intrinsically honest.

"I'll try."

"Fair enough. Now, this we definitely do not want Sander to figure out, or he'll drive me nuts. So we're going to have to give you a password, and show you how to hide it while you're writing the letter. And promise never to say it out loud. For that matter, I'll show you how to totally delete your letter if you want, so there's no record of it anywhere."

Naura wasn't going to think much of that move. Ari watched the excited little face. Just offhand he'd say he was setting himself up for a couple of weeks of steady interruptions until the novelty wore off. That was all right.

"Let's go over to the computer then. You have to learn to do this one on a keyboard, because Sander could eavesdrop. Right?"

"Right." This was great, something that was just between him and his dad, that not even his mother would know.

"So." Ari paused, hands over the keyboard. "What password do you want?"

Full stop. With such a momentous decision to make Erlin's usually creative mind froze.

Ari gave him a few moments, then said, "Just for now, how about we use 'son 1'. You can think about a better one, and change it anytime as long as you tell me first."

Relieved, Erlin nodded.

"All right, this is what you do with this hand." Ari showed him slowly. "And you type with this hand."

Erlin watched the blank screen, fascinated.

"You can keep it like this for the whole message but then you can't proofread it. It's probably better to show the message, then delete it unless Sander is truly breathing down your neck."

He typed 'test message'.

"And, you send it," he said. "This is what happens at work," Ari added as the tone he'd designated for urgent messages from home sounded. He took out his compad, called up the message, and showed it to Erlin. "Now, you try it."

After a few tries Ari said, "I need another glass of juice. Send me one there." Erlin was still looking to him for approval on each move.

"All right." It wasn't very confident.

Frowning with the effort of remembering everything in sequence, and not making a mistake one finger typing because he almost always used voice, Erlin sent the words 'test message' again. He felt a strong wash of relief go through him as the tone sounded.

"Great." Ari returned to the beaming boy, unwanted glass of apple juice in hand. "And this is what happens if I ignore it." The tone sounded three times and quit. Now, as he sat down, it started again. "If I keep ignoring it, it keeps at me. So -" he grinned - "you'll get your answer."

He couldn't disable that feature either. Ari had added it after he'd made the mistake of not checking an urgent home message because he was in the middle of a meeting with a major off-world partner. When he checked it an hour and a half later at coffee, he'd found it had been sent by Naura from the ambulance taking Sander to Emergency. Of course he had called her. He had found they were home by then, and one justifiably furious wife had said no, Sander's injuries were not minor but what did he care, and had disconnected.

Ari had cancelled the rest of the afternoon's meetings then and driven home, scared. He had found Naura looking pale and distraught with the nanny hovering over her. Sander was as happy as could be, with a broken arm immobilized, assorted bandages, and the beginnings of a great shiner. He had fallen off a high counter and hit himself on a chair on the way down. How he had managed to get up there in the first place in the length of time the nanny was in the bathroom was anyone's guess. Sander, with a very limited vocabulary, baby talk and lots of gestures had told him all about the wonderful exciting things that happened, starting with an ambulance ride. Ari had realized then that raising this one could be very different from raising Erlin. Now Ari reflected that if Sander didn't change, he had the makings of a first-class mercenary, or if his coordination developed, an Octagla player. Which brought him full circle. Tough little guy or not Sander was significantly smaller than Erlin.

"Erlin," he asked casually, "do you remember exactly what you said about Marty's problem?"

Erlin was confused by this jump in the conversation, but a lot of times grown-ups didn't make sense. "Not exactly."

"Well, tell me again, with your brain in gear this time."

Dutifully Erlin began. "Some guys in the grade up were picking on Marty. They were older and bigger -" His eyes widened and he flushed. "Oh."

"Oh," Ari agreed dryly.

Erlin's chin went up. "Marty wasn't pestering them!" he said defensively.

"All the same, that's no excuse for someone to beat up on someone littler than they are." Ari let it drop at that. Push it any more and Erlin would really get his back up. Instead he said conversationally, "little brothers can drive you nuts, can't they?"

"Did yours?" Erlin asked with real interest. He knew his father was the fourth child in a closely spaced family of six.

"Him?" Ari was dismissive of his brother. "He never was too bright. You could usually figure out what he was up to and outsmart him. The problem was that he was Mama's little baby. Do anything to him and he'd go running to her and you were in trouble. With the rest of us, try snitching and Mom would just tell you nobody liked a tattletale. No, the one that drove me nuts was your Aunt Kara."

"Aunt Kara?" To Erlin she was only a name he'd heard a couple of times when he asked who the people were in family holograms.

"Yeah. She was only one year younger, and she was a first-class pest!"

"What did she do?"

"The usual. Used my stuff, snooped in my drawers, played practical jokes on me, hung around when my friends were over, snitched on us and got us in trouble."

"You said grandmother didn't listen to tattletales," Erlin said accusingly.

Ari was amused. Erlin didn't like inconsistencies in life. When he'd been little there had been a couple of fairy tales he flatly refused to listen to a second time because they had inconsistencies he couldn't stand.

"Well," Ari said, "there were a few things that got her upset enough she was inclined to forgive the source."

"Like?" Erlin was curious. He couldn't imagine his dad doing anything bad.

"Like sneaking to the mall," Ari said dryly.

Erlin squirmed. He didn't like it when his dad used that funny voice. It wasn't exactly like he yelled at you, but it was like he knew stuff. It seemed a real good idea to get him off malls. He and Marty had only gone there twice, just this spring.

"What did you do?"

Ari shrugged. "There wasn't much to do. Kara is one of those people with a huge amount of energy and back then a lot of it went into tormenting me. I tried to keep ahead of her, but -" He shrugged again. "I mean, you don't go around beating on girls."

Erlin nodded solemnly. He and his father had agreed on this basic tenet of male chivalry some time ago.

Ari had a faraway look. "I think that I had pretty much decided she'd been put into this galaxy just to ruin my life. Then, when I guess I was only a few years older than you, one day she really went too far. I'd been working for weeks and weeks making a model of a space freighter. I had it all finished except for the markings, and I was stalling around because I couldn't make up my mind on the planet of origin."

This time Erlin's nod was sympathetic. It was the kind of important decision you didn't want to rush and get wrong.

"Well, there'd been a dead boring math class so I had lots of time to think, and I decided it should have a Tamaran registry and haul the special holovision screens they make there."

Erlin nodded again. It was a good choice. The screens were really neat, and it meant the freighter would go to every port in the galaxy, a very important consideration. It pleased him that his dad had been doing so good on these things.

"I was going to do the markings right after sports practice." Ari's mouth twisted into what might be a smile. "But Kara got there first. When I got to my room, there was the model sitting on my desk. She'd painted pink and purple flowers all over it. Well that was it. I'd had it. There was no sense complaining to Mom, she'd just say 'so, paint over it'. But that was no good. Paint wouldn't look like a metal alloy finish. But Dad would understand when he got home, and this time Kara was going to get it.

"In the meantime I went storming down to her room, and started yelling at her. She started yelling back, and it got going pretty good, and before long everybody that was nearby came to listen.

"I honestly don't know what I said, but all of a sudden she took a swing at me. I don't mean she was waving her arms and hit me, or she belted me with a pillow. She always did that. She took a real swing and it hurt. I told her to knock it off. She took another swing and it landed too.

"I decided, girl or not, that was it. She'd been putting a lot of height on over the summer and she had a couple of centimeters on me, so no one could say I'd picked on someone littler than me. And I had plenty of witnesses that she'd hit me first." Ari stopped, a rueful expression on his face.

"So what happened?" Erlin demanded.

"She beat me up good. She knocked two teeth loose, and one of them went through my lip so I needed stitches." His tongue traced the still scarred underside. "That was really bad because it meant I had to go find Mom, and she had to take me to Emergency and that was one of the things that really upset her. I couldn't talk on the way down, but on the way back she started pressing me and I had to make up a stupid story about falling off the gym equipment in the yard."

"And then you couldn't play on it anymore?" Erlin asked sympathetically.

Was Naura that overprotective of the boys? Not that it would do any good with Sander, but Erlin would probably listen. Ari added that to the mental list of things to discuss with his wife. It was getting dauntingly long. If they ever stopped snarling at each other and started talking again, he and Naura were going to have a lot to talk about.

Ari answered Erlin. "No. Your grandmother was good that way. Apparently she was a bit hard on my oldest brother, but by the time I came along she just patched us up and let us get on with it. I got a pretty good lecture on paying attention and not being clumsy though."

They both worked on their cookies and meditated on the injustices of life.

At last Erlin demanded, "So what happened when Grandpa came home?" He was rather frightened by the brusque overbearing man, and much as it sounded like his aunt had asked for it, he was worried for her.

Ari grimaced. "Oh, I trotted down with my model, looking for sympathy. He took one look at it and burst out laughing. Said it was the stupidest looking thing he'd seen in ages. Then he took a good look at my mouth, and made me take off my shirt and had a good look at my chest and back and arms. Mama had bought the fall-off-the-gym-equipment story, but Dad wasn't buying it for a minute. For a long time he just sat there, looking at me, and I was getting scared. But he wasn't mad. He said that it looked like I was losing out to the women on all scores today. He warned me I was in my mother's bad graces because of the mouth, so keep my head down for a while. And as for Kara, since he figured she'd probably stay bigger than I was for a while, I'd better get one hell of a lot better at ducking. He'd give her a lecture on not fighting, but with her temper he doubted it would help.

"Then he gave me a clout on the back and said as far as he had figured it out, the best thing to do on a day like this was to go out with the guys and forget about women. He asked if I had homework, because if I didn't we could go into the city and watch a game if there were tickets left to anything that late in the day. Of course I said I wanted to go. Everything was sold out, but he called around a bit, and one of his friends with a box for the soccer season had room, so we went in." Ari's eyes were far away. "The game was great, and afterwards some of the players came up to the box."

"Then it was all fine after all," Erlin said with pleasure. He liked happy endings, and he couldn't think of a better one. Ari had had the night with his dad, seen a game, and even met some stars. He'd never met anyone famous.

Ari said in a surprisingly gentle tone, "If that's what you want, we'll leave the story there."

"It wasn't all fine?"

"No. It definitely wasn't all fine. You see, I lied about the homework. I really wanted to go into the city with Dad, and I was sure I could do it later after the game, so I told myself it wasn't really lying. But with the players coming to the box, and Dad sitting around visiting his friends, it was midnight or so before we started back. I remember falling asleep on the way home and after that I don't remember a thing until I got shook awake in the morning. I'd slept through my alarm and only had time for a glass of milk.

"The homework had been an important essay that had to be handed in first period, so that was that. I got detention for a week, which had Mom furious and she was already mad at me. Worse still I had to miss ball practice, so the coach benched me for the weekend. The only good thing was Dad had left on a business trip first thing in the morning.

"Then," Ari made a face, "Dad got home from his business trip. Dad got a real earful from Mom, and if I thought she was mad -" He shrugged. "He told me he didn't know which was worse, lying to him like that or being irresponsible about my schoolwork, but I had a month to meditate on it because I was totally grounded. While I was sitting there he called the coach and apologized to him that he would have to replace me because I couldn't make practices or games for a month."

"That wasn't fair! It wasn't your fault."

"It certainly was fair, and it was my fault. No one made me cover up the fact my work wasn't done. Actually, I think if he hadn't felt sorry for me about Kara I'd have fared worse."

"Did it get any better with Aunt Kara?" Erlin was still determined to retrieve something positive out of the story.

"Not that you'd notice," Ari said. A smile suddenly crossed his face at a memory that hadn't surfaced for years. "I thought I was being really clever about the damned model, that I'd turn the trick around on her. So I didn't throw it away. I hid it in the top of my closet, and when her birthday came around, instead of buying anything with my allowance, I wrapped it up and gave it to her. But," he was chuckling now, "she loved the damned thing. Said it was the best present she got, and it hung in her room for years."

Erlin gave his father a dubious look. He failed see anything remotely funny in the birthday twist. They lapsed into silence, chewing on cookies. Erlin's thoughts were uncomfortable. Nothing in the narrative seemed to bode well for his future with Sander.

Ari was actually thinking about Kara for a change, instead of just accepting her. After all, one did just accept relatives.

At last he said, "You know, the funny thing is, Kara and I ended up great friends."

"You did?" Erlin was openly skeptical. It sounded like the kind of thing grown-ups said to make you do things you didn't want to do, like be good to your little pest of a brother.

"The truth." Ari crossed his heart. "It happened the year I turned seventeen and discovered engineering. So did Kara, and all of a sudden we were spending all our time together instead of with our friends. Her girlfriends just wanted to hang around the mall and flirt with the boys. And my friends wanted to hang around the mall and be flirted with, when they weren't at practice of some sort or another.

"But Kara and I were spending all our time at science centers going over models and simulations piece by piece, trying to figure out how they worked. When it looked like this wasn't just a passing fancy, Dad bought us a software simulation package actually used by engineers. Then no one saw us except at meals. It stayed that way until we finished university. Then I went off to work for a power utility in the other hemisphere. A year later she went off world to her first job on the Genie project."

"Aunt Kara designed the Genie?" Erlin's eyes were huge.

Ari felt obliged to slow down this instant case of heroine worship. "Kara was a very junior engineer working on the propulsion system for the first Genie."

It didn't work.

"A propulsion engineer?" Erlin breathed. "Then what did she do?"

"She's stayed a Genie designer. She's one of their senior engineers now. I always thought she had the most fun though during the testing in the early days, especially with those early race pilots. She kept at it until she got a copilot's license herself, so she could do more than just be an observer." He added as an afterthought "she even married one."

"Aunt Kara is married to a Genie race pilot?" Erlin demanded in an accusing tone. To have never been told about this bit of family history was gross negligence on his father's part. The early race pilots were his heroes. He had holograms of all of them, and knew all of their statistics by heart.

"Was," Ari corrected.

That was an irrelevant detail. "Who?" Erlin demanded impatiently.

"Arn Torson," Ari replied.

Arn Torson. He was Erlin's favorite. He did not hold the spectacular records that Jon Melcrist did, and had not had some of the narrow escapes that Eli and Rhea had, but he had the second-best aggregate winnings in those early years right after Kim. Consistency was an important thing to Erlin. Besides that, he now flew the Allegro. The Allegro was a mythical Genie, the best and fastest space ship there ever would be. There had never even been an image posted of it on the hyperweb, and some of his friends said it wasn't real and that Arn and John and Rhea had just lost their nerve and retired. But his father said the Allegro was real and he believed him.

As he thought this over, Erlin's brain made a connection and his eyes narrowed and hardened. "Are you saying Arn Torson is my uncle, and you never told me!" he accused his father in a tone that would have done Ari justice at a design review meeting.

"I'm not sure being married to Kara for a couple months years and years ago counts," Ari said, "but I suppose you could be right." He was trying to hide his amusement at Erlin's intensity. "What do you want me to do about it? Give Arn a call and ask for an autographed hologram for you?"

Erlin couldn't quite believe his father was casually calling his hero by his first name. If his eyes were large before, now they were literally saucers.

"Would you?" he breathed.

He'd asked for that. "Sure," Ari answered. They hadn't run across each other for quite a few years now, but Arn was a relaxed easy-going sort of guy, and fortunately he'd been charitable enough not to hold Kara against her relatives. Who knows, he might even see it like Erlin did, and give the kid a call sometime.

Since his dad seemed in a good mood, Erlin decided to voice a question that was bothering him. "Why isn't Aunt Kara married to Arn Torson now?" He couldn't imagine why, if she'd been so lucky, she hadn't stayed married.

Ari shrugged. "You don't ask Kara about her ex-husbands. By the way, Arn was the second. She's now on her fourth and I'll guarantee it won't be the last. As for Arn's version," Ari remembered running across Arn on a space station about a year after the split, "he said he never got his timing right. He was always making passes when he should be ducking, and ducking when he should be making passes. He said it was starting to affect his concentration racing." Ari could believe it too. Arn had spent those married months with a kind of dazed, bewildered look on his face. "So he decided to pack it in before he killed himself, and stick to what he was good at. Racing was a lot safer than your Aunt Kara."

Erlin was not much wiser for this explanation. He was deciding whether or not to try again, when the door opened.

"Erlin! You still have your homework." The nanny was flushed and cranky sounding. She froze in the doorway. "Sorry Dr. Dellmaice. I didn't realize you were still here."

She looked, Ari thought, rather like she thought he'd bite, which he suspected was a totally accurate assessment. "It's all right Nanny, I have homework too."

For the life of him, he couldn't remember this one's name. Erlin had been easy on nannies, but Sander's seemed to have a survival period somewhere between three and five months. That earned him a doubtful look as she herded Erlin out the door.

*****

Chapter 37

Ari decided this nanny wasn't even going to make three months. Was Sander that impossible, or was the profession attracting a lower caliber of girls lately? He remembered Erlin's first nanny. She had been the cutest little thing, with bright red curls, freckles, and a real sense of fun. Competent too, no nonsense. But the last three or four had been a downhill slide. Not one had been worth a second look, not that that mattered. You hired them for competence, not beauty, but he wasn't sure of the competence either. He rather suspected Sander managed them, not the other way around. Now, Martin had a lovely girl in right now for their two youngest. She was a quiet-mannered brunette with the prettiest eyes and a warm smile. The children adored her. He would have to ask what agency they used. About all you could say for the last few Naura had hired was that they were consistent.

Consistently ugly and stupid. Ari looked at that from another angle. Could Naura be making damned sure there was no competition on the home front? The idea neither amused nor flattered him. He was insulted to the core. Could Naura possibly think that was why she had hardly seen him the last year or so? That he had someone on the side? Was it conceivable that she didn't know how he felt about her? He loved her. Ari had no clear idea what that meant, but that didn't particularly bother him. If the question of what love was had stumped poets and philosophers since the beginning of mankind, he wasn't likely to get far on the topic. He was quite happy to take as the working definition the fact that to him Naura was totally different from any other woman in the galaxy. When he met her, he stopped looking, and that fact was good enough for him.

Beyond loving her, which he gathered could be a totally irrational thing, he was lucky enough that she was the kind of wife he had always wanted. Ari had no particular illusions about his shortcomings, and Naura both tolerated and counterbalanced them. She was kinder, easier going, and more tolerant of life than he was. She helped him laugh. She helped him relax. Still, she paralleled him too. She had her own writing career that she did well in, first as a science writer and now as a children's author. So she understood how hard success was to achieve, and he was proud of her successes. Yes, she was everything he wanted.

And he needed her. Sexually, galaxy how he needed her and that was going absolutely nowhere. It had been going absolutely nowhere for so long Ari was afraid to count. They had got into a pattern where if he didn't arrive home too tired to be interested, they were committed socially, or she was up against a deadline on one of her books. The last time he could remember, they had come in at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning after a party, and he had decided he didn't give a damn how tired he was at the 8:30 design review meeting. But sex hadn't been good for either of them and he hadn't pushed since.

Mostly though, he needed a friend. Ari knew he was too domineering and aggressive to make or keep friends easily, so it had come as a pleasant shock that your wife could be your friend, your best friend. Naura had become just that, his best friend and he relied on that fact to keep his balance in life. But lately he hadn't been doing any better on that score than on sex. Get two sentences into a conversation and they were snarling at each other.

Ari got up to stand at the window, watching the deepening dusk of a perfect spring evening. Those kid-sized chairs were as uncomfortable as his thoughts. What did the woman want lately anyway? Back in some rosy past his memory couldn't find anymore, they had agreed they wanted children, agreed that she had the job flexibility to stay home with them. So what did she want?

Ari slumped against the window sill and answered himself with the same brutal honesty he always looked at life with. What she wanted was a husband that came home before midnight, a husband who wasn't so tired that all he wanted was a shower and some sleep. A husband who, if he wasn't exhausted, had the time for romance not just fast sex. He knew that really mattered to Naura. She was very feminine. She liked the flowers and candles and romantic suppers. She didn't like to go to bed just for sex, and she didn't want to go to bed until she had time to pretty herself up and to put on some little silky thing or another. And when they were in bed, she liked gentle lovemaking, slow with lots of words, romantic words he had trouble with. Ari had taken the trouble to push himself through a rather steep learning curve about romance to keep her happy. It wasn't natural to him, but she had been worth it back then. So wasn't she now?

Of course she was, but romance took time and surely she knew that, damn it. The Dellmaice pride and temper took hold. It wasn't his fault, this past year. Did she want him to lose everything he'd built? Did he make the Drezvir project go sour? Sure, he'd make money in the long run with the modifications Rostin insisted on, but that was way down the road. What he'd had to put up with was overrun after overrun, with one of his best project engineers tied up when he needed her desperately on the megacity units. Did he do that on purpose? Did he ask for that son of a bitch Windegren to make ruining his life a personal hobby? Hell, as soon as Windegren left Plenata, that project went right back on track. And hadn't he started coming home early as soon as that had happened?

Well, life was a two-way street. He had needs too. Didn't he need a little support, a little love, not a cold shoulder when he was bending himself out of shape to make things up to her? Maybe if that wasn't good enough, maybe he should find some company where he was appreciated. He was sick and tired of a stressful day at work, then worse at home. He just wanted to relax. That was all, just relax and quit trying for a few hours, just a few hours.

Ari stood staring out into the quiet night, trying to calm and empty his mind. The lights went on at Martin's house next door. It would be getting quiet there too, the children in bed. Maybe he should call their nanny up and ask her if she'd like to drive into the city for a drink now that her day was over. She had, in that quiet gentle way of hers been letting him know that she thought Erlin and Sander had an attractive father. It had amused him as it was a perfectly safe flirtation. But now he wondered if she'd say yes if he asked her out. They could both stand that, a harmless little drink somewhere after they had both had a long day.

Harmless, hell! Ari stopped the line of thought, aghast. He had just been seriously considering the stupidest mistake a man could make, and right after telling himself he loved Naura. Were things that bad? Because whether or not he was in love, he meant stupid. Capital letters S-T-U-P-I-D. Look at where that move had got Mark Laratte.

As far as he could see, Mark Laratte and his half-brother were guys who had everything: smarts, money, drive, discipline, the kind of looks women go for. Ari had tried to hire both of them, but the brother was a computer fanatic and didn't want to work in the energy sector. Ari had tempted Mark to Dellmaice Power Systems though, and had watched him from the moment he walked through the door. As Laratte had effortlessly moved up through the ranks Ari had honestly wondered if he had found the ideal heir. And what does the guy do? Throws it all away because he hasn't got the sense to stick to his own bed.

In Ari's mind there was not the slightest doubt that infidelity was what had done Laratte in. After all, Kael was not the kind of woman to put up with that kind of nonsense, and everyone at Dellmaice Power Systems had known he started sleeping around after he stressed out when his reactor was unstable at high power. Ari grinned suddenly. Given the sorts of things Kael was saying to him at work towards the end, the fights in private must have been beauts. She had a mouth when she lost her temper. The grin broadened. He got a kick out of Kael. He didn't understand her, but he got a kick out of her.

But when it came right down to it, what else could he do though but fire Laratte? The pair of them were turning the whole damned company into a battlefield. Both he and Laratte knew Kael was twice the engineer Laratte would ever be. She didn't seem to see that, but both he and Laratte knew. She didn't have the drive or discipline Laratte did, but she had a feel for power systems that was exceptional. That was why she was the one who found the problem with Laratte's system, not Laratte.

So why the hell hadn't he simply had his fun and games at home, and kept her happy? He'd be well on his way to being a vice president by now instead of who knew what. Ari knew that Laratte had hung around Pendrae for a while with some woman. He had never heard the woman's name. Then apparently Laratte had gone back to Calixa, making noises about teaching or maybe consulting. But he couldn't honestly see him being happy doing either.

What had happened to Laratte had bothered Ari for a while. He had wondered exactly which of his competitors Laratte would resurface with. Just because he was forced to make Kael his choice, it didn't mean he hadn't hated to see Laratte leave and join someone else. It didn't happen though. There was no official word, not even gossip that Laratte had moved to any of the major competitors. After about eighteen months he had stopped looking and decided Laratte really was taking a change of direction while he licked his wounds. Perhaps he had opted for that teaching or a stint with a small planetary utility.

It just went to show you what could happen to a man when he messed up his family life. Not, Ari amended, that he'd end up with the same degree of problems as Laratte. Naura wasn't the explosive type. All he'd end up with was a continuation, or possibly a mild aggravation, of the current cold shoulder, snarl routine. That was all. Wasn't it?

Maybe it was his own thoughts about the nanny, but Ari found himself suddenly thinking of the illustrator Naura was collaborating with on her current book. For the last six months or so he'd been here when Ari got home more often than not, even if it was after midnight. The boys were treating him like family. He was a pleasant chap. That was all. Besides he was four years younger than Naura, and Naura wasn't like that. Was she?

Ari pushed that thought out of his mind, or tried to. Don't be stupid he told himself. She loves you. Besides, he had always firmly believed a man would be able to tell if his woman was sleeping with someone else. She would feel different having sex after she was with another man. Yeah, and when was the last time he'd had a chance to test that theory, or was likely to? Ari slammed a fist into the wall beside the window as he discovered he had a much more vivid imagination than he'd ever given himself credit for.

He stood there, staring at the night, trying to erase the images. It truly was a beautiful night. The purple tones of the sky were deepening now to where stars could be seen through the still bare tree branches. What the hell was he doing anyway, with a night like this? Ten years ago it would have been Naura he took into the city, so why not now? Sure, he had that startup company to look at, but it would be there a few weeks from now. Or maybe with luck, it wouldn't be there. Maybe it, and the big money that was being rumored around it, would be history and he was wasting his time tonight. He wasn't going to do that. He wasn't going to make the kind of mistakes Laratte had.

***

"Oh, Ari. I thought Erlin said you had three hours of homework."

Naura only had about twenty percent of her mind on her husband. She was chewing on a full lip, lost in thought. Her slender, dainty frame was leaning forward, her blue-gray eyes staring at a screen. Those images Roween Kael sent were just perfect, but using them would require a lot of rewriting and she wanted her first draft finished tonight or there would be real deadline problems a few days from now. She had the technical content of the sections she was working on right, but the cadence she wanted wasn't there when it was read aloud. That was important in a children's book. If she just changed the seventh word in the sentenced to -

"I'm not doing it unless you turn me down. It's a beautiful night. Let's drive into the city, go to Riverside like we used to." The night life there would just be starting. They could poke around in the shops and galleries then have a drink in a lounge, listen to some music, maybe dance a bit.

"Hmm?" She hadn't been listening.

"I said," Ari repeated with a note of irritation that got her full attention, "that we should drive into the city, go to Riverside like we used to."

She stared, rebellious thoughts coursing through her mind. Ari, whatever put that idea into your head tonight of all nights? If that homework you have been telling me for days had to be done tonight or it wouldn't ever be done was just a story, my deadline coming up isn't. And I may not run a corporation, but my little career happens to matter to me anyway - and I intend to be professional about it. I do not make promises to editors I can't keep. Couldn't you have given me some warning?

During the silence Ari's eyes had been darkening and his chin went up. "Of course, if you're turning me down, maybe I should do that homework."

She knew that look, and that tone. He wouldn't ask her again, tonight, or for the foreseeable future. And if she said one word of what she'd been thinking they were going to have one hell of a fight, quite possibly the one neither of them knew how to back out of. Then suddenly, as she hesitated, there was a flash, just a flash of vulnerability behind the Dellmaice pride. This invitation cost like hell she realized. It wasn't just a whim. That homework was real and important, and he was trying to put them first.

She smiled. "Of course I'm not turning you down. I'm trying to decide if there's time to change."

Ari almost said, 'don't bother', then he remembered that getting dressed up was part of the fun for Naura. "Of course there's time."

Now came the tricky part Ari thought grimly. She liked it when he remembered her clothes, but he had no idea of her current wardrobe. If she had been kidnapped today the kids would have had to give the description. She liked him to notice her hair and makeup too. He realized with a sense of guilt that her hair was shoulder length, not mid back like he expected. How long ago had she cut it? Since the shorter length was looking natural, it had to have been a while. And how long had it had red highlights? He wasn't sure he liked them. He liked her mid-brunette coloring. So he had better not touch hair. That left clothes, since he had never wanted to know about makeup.

"Could you wear the green sweater you look so pretty in?" She must have a dozen green sweaters, so there was bound to be one that was right for now.

"And the pretty matching scarf you gave me for my birthday last month?"

Naura was reasonably sure that he had first set eyes on the scarf the same time she had, and had no memory of it now. Still, a shopping service was better than showing up for a birthday empty-handed. It meant at least he remembered the birthday, and told them her favorite color.

"Great." Ari couldn't decide if she was toying with him or not. "Off you go. Do you mind if I wait here?"

The sweetheart. Ari really was trying. Naura had had visions of coming downstairs to his office and finding him totally involved in his homework, the trip forgotten. But what would he do for fifteen or twenty minutes? On-line had the same risks. Maybe she shouldn't change. Then inspiration struck.

"I've got something for you to look at that should make you laugh." She returned to her desk and called up a series of images on her computer. "I was really stuck on my book. I didn't want to leave kids thinking that current bioengineering is some sort of magic that can solve every problem in the universe, but I didn't want to scare them with some of the grizzlier disasters either. They imagine enough monsters under the bed on their own. So I contacted Roween Kael and asked her if she had any examples I could use." Naura smiled and shrugged. "I figured she could only say no."

Ari was surprised, and mildly impressed. As far as he was concerned, Roween Kael defined the femme formidable. He would never have thought Naura had the nerve to contact her. He was also curious now. "So what did she send?" He walked over to join Naura.

"These."

The first image was of two brilliantly green parrots having a water fight in what must be the Kael bath tub. There was about three centimeters of water in the tub, and water flying everywhere.

Ari grinned. "Those don't look like much of a disaster."

"They are named Meg, for nutmeg, and Basil. They were bred for a heavy-metal world, but apparently there's a sterility link you can't get around for the animal life she created. So that's sad, but it won't scare the kids." Naura relinquished her seat. "Look at the rest. They're just as cute."

"Thanks, I will."

Ari took the seat and Naura gave him a kiss on the top of his head. He really was trying. Somehow she'd find time for her editing tomorrow.

She left, and Ari started looking through the images. They were all as amusing as the first, which surprised him. He did not associate a sense of humor with Roween Kael. He cycled through them again. No, of course not. That had to be Roween in the image at the kitchen counter, an older woman seen almost from the rear, just a hint of the cheek of her face. She was stirring something. One of the parrots was on the counter wearing a tiny homemade chef's hat and holding a piece of vegetable that it obviously expected to be added to the bowl. He knew you were not supposed to personify animals, but if a posture ever spoke of martyred patience, the parrot's did.

The holographer had to be Kael's father. He didn't know the man, or anything about him, but Ari decided he liked his sense of humor. He was looking at the house now as much as at the birds. Now and again he had wondered what it was like for Kael to be Roween Kael's daughter. He rather expected growing up in her mother's shadow was why she just assumed you were expected to be first-class and never put herself forward. She got all feisty if someone was incorrect about anything technical, and she was always elated over her newest idea, but that was about it. She always seemed to be pretty much unaware of how good she was.

Sitting back, Ari wondered where Kael was now. He grinned. Haran Barloth had come back from Drezvir just fuming. Kael had told him in no uncertain terms that she intended to get lost until her leave or money ran out, whichever came first, and no it wasn't any business of Dellmaice Power Systems where. Barloth called it professional irresponsibility. Ari figured Barloth was just smarting because he'd never been really told off by Kael before. Personally Ari wasn't surprised or worried. She'd be back sometime.

With the Drezvir reactor up and obviously running well, Ari was feeling pretty mellow about Kael. After Drezvir, it wasn't surprising that she'd had it. He was just lucky she hadn't packed it in and quit. As it was there was no need for her on the megacity units during this budget session since design work was frozen for the duration. So she might as well enjoy herself wherever. She'd be back early anyway. She always was, with some bright idea she wanted tested out yesterday. Ari idly wondered what the next one would be, then told himself no, don't think work. Not tonight. Instead he started reading.

"Here I am at last." Naura stayed in the doorway, trying not to be irritated. Ari would have to get bored and start reading her work. He should know by now that she absolutely hated anyone to read her early drafts.

Ari turned smiling, about to compliment the writing, but the words got lost. "How can a mother of two boys looks so gorgeous?"

Naura had changed into pants of some suede-looking beige stuff, a soft mossy-green sweater, and a quilted jacket that matched the pants. Her hair was held back by what he assumed was the birthday scarf. As to whatever else she'd done, it was great.

Thank you very much Ari! Naura's eyes flashed. Do you think I'd let myself go just because I have two children and I'm not heading out the door every morning anymore? The words died before they reached her lips though. There was a wanting-you look on his face that she hadn't seen for a long long time. The dear, he didn't mean to be clumsy. It just came naturally.

Naura found herself smiling back. "Their old man doesn't look half bad either." Then because he was just standing there obviously without the slightest idea of what to do, she said, "Well, do I get a kiss for my efforts?"

*****

Chapter 38

He was going to do this. He was not going to make an idiot of himself again. Well, not yet, Joran amended as his stomach knotted and threatened to climb his throat. A bit later he might be racing Bojo for the toilet, but at least he could walk in the door.

Joran and the band were standing in the moonlit parking lot of what could have been a private home on the outskirts of Crescent Bay except for the parking lot and the fact no one lived there. They were all clustered around him, instruments at their feet, waiting for him to make the first move. He couldn't see their eyes, which was probably just as well. It meant they couldn't see his either.

"Let's do it." He picked up his guitar and keyboard and started for the door.

That was all he ever said, before going on stage or starting a recording session. It was all the band needed to break the spell. They picked up their own instruments and followed.

Joran took a deep of breath and touched the door contact. His hand was scanned, his retina too, and the door silently slid open. They stepped into the softly lit foyer decorated in shades of blue, ranging from navy to electric Anton blue. There was no new smell - after all, the building had been here for over three years. But it had the empty smell and feel of a building that hasn't seen human occupants.

The recording studio was to have been a birthday present from Maillie. A surprise that ended up not a surprise because she had found she had to ask him questions, that she couldn't get all the answers from Timoth, the Anton Sound Master. So they had agreed that what would be the birthday surprise was walking into the building. But then she -.

'Stop it!' Joran shouted in his brain. 'Stop it.' Think of all the love she gave you, and do this for her. Then move on with your life. You'll be doing that for her too.

"Very nice." It was Uth's slow rumble. "Which way Joran?"

There was a choice of three passages. One was to the sound technician's studio. A faint smell of coffee drifted down that corridor. Timoth and his crew had come out a couple of hours ago to bring the studio to life. To the left would be the individual sound booths that would be used for laying down single tracks. But tonight that wasn't what Joran was doing. He was recording the way he liked best, with his stage band, all playing together.

"This way." He walked to a set of double doors and pushed one open.

If the foyer was elegant perfection, this was like coming home. The microphones, the dangerous kilometers of cables waiting to trip the uninitiated, the chairs, stools, tables, music stands, instruments stands. His - oh galaxy! Joran had forgotten that. On shaky legs and with eyes so wet he almost tripped on a cord, Joran walked over to where his old keyboard stood under a softly glowing pot light. It was his lucky keyboard, almost beat to where it didn't work. But it did. It took a fortune in repairs, but it did. Maillie had swiped it for the studio, saying he could use his spare for a month or so. Maybe, if he'd kept the lucky one, his luck would have held. She'd be here, beside him. Maybe -

The band looked at each other in alarm. Laurence took a step forward and put a hand out to touch Joran's arm, then pulled it back. The grief was too palpable, too private.

"Joran, are you all right?" Bojo's voice was taut with concern.

Fucking stupid question. Joran didn't bother to answer it. He just stood there, moving his fingers a couple centimeters above the keys. In his mind each key changed to the color of its note as his finger passed it. Joran was a synesthete. He saw sound, heard color. He moved his fingers faster, blurring the rainbow.

Paulo looked at the studio, the band members, at Joran with tears streaming down his face. Calmly and deliberately, his face hard, he took his guitar out of its case. Sitting on his stool, he played the first verse of M's song. Bojo gave him a look that could kill. Bojo would want Joran to be the first to make music here. Tough on him. Bojo was way too soft on Joran. He'd have let Joran keep going on drugs until he killed himself, and now he'd let him break down. Was that being a friend?

All but Joran turned his way, listening. Paulo let the last chord die. The acoustics were incredible.

"That was good." Timoth's crisp voice came from the sound booth. "I'll need it again to be sure of the levels."

"Kori. Keep me company and give him some high notes."

Kori gave Joran a nervous look. But he was still staring at the keyboard. She looked at her grandfather. Uth nodded, unpacking his own horn. The rest took this as their cue and started to settle in.

"All right." Timoth's voice stayed crisp, professional. "That set those levels. Now I need a keyboard. Either one."

Bojo said quietly, "Do you want me to do it?"

Joran looked up at that. No. That was not what he wanted. But did he have a choice?

"Play to her eyes." Paulo said quietly. They all knew M's song inside out.

"Whose?" Joran's voice had a bitter twist to it.

"Remember the brown eyes. Play to the blue."

***

The steel band was playing nights now, and their music had changed. It was softer, dreamier, perfect for dancing under the stars. Mitra was sure this last song was the prettiest thing she had ever heard. It was romantic, gentle and dreamy, and somehow infinitely sad. She did not want to leave the comforting warmth of Dreen's arms, and she did not want him to see the tears in her eyes either. It was silly to let music get to her like that. But the set was over, the couples were returning to their tables, and Joran was leaving the bandstand, headed in their direction.

"Hello Pretty Lady."

Mitra didn't know why he insisted on calling her that unless it was to irritate Dreen. He knew her name by now.

"Can I talk to Dreen for a minute?"

"Of course." Mitra smiled.

Joran took Dreen by the arm and forcibly turned him away, walking him across the courtyard. What the hell? Mitra stared at the retreating backs, openmouthed. Then suddenly feeling rather foolish left standing there, she went back to their table and sat down. Curious, she peered across the lamp-lit floor. It was too dim to see faces clearly, but she knew Dreen well enough by now to know by the set of his back that he was upset. As for Joran, he was talking fast and using his hands a lot.

Not wanting to intrude, Mitra looked away. One of the band members was talking to some of the hotel guests, some were at a table having drinks, and one was sitting by himself at the back of the stage. She had noticed before that he wasn't the social type. He was a funny-looking guy, with unruly shoulder length blond hair and a face too asymmetrical to be comfortable to look at. She supposed that was why he was a loner. He didn't like being stared at. It was funny though, now that she thought of it, that he hadn't had surgery for his appearance, being in public as he was. He could play though, almost as well as Joran.

***

"All right Joran, what is it?" Dreen freed his arm and eased his shoulders. "I kind of like using that arm now and again." He had seen Joran get himself into some queer moods before, and he didn't like them.

Joran braced himself. He had to get this out before he lost his nerve. "Dreen, if you don't mind my saying so, you're being one stupid man. I mean, I know that as far as you and Mitra are concerned all you need for this to be a perfect holiday is a nice big bed and room service for breakfast, but you're on Gingezel for god's sake. It is the most beautiful planet in the galaxy."

Joran's eyes turned soft, almost pleading. "Take her on a holiday, Dreen. Show her all the pretty places before it's too late. That way, when the little bird has flown back to wherever she came from, you'll have first-class memories." The kind of memories he and Maillie should have made, but he'd been too busy, too stupid. "You're in love man, if you're so much of an idiot you haven't figured it out."

Joran took a fast step backward. "You gonna hit me here, or wait and do it in private?"

He eyed Dreen warily. Dreen was usually patient, calm, and fair, but living with him had taught Joran that beyond a certain point he could explode. Obviously that crack about being too stupid to know he was in love had pushed him past that point.

Dreen took a long uneven breath, calming himself, trying to get his anger under control. What the hell right did Joran have to be pushing him? Pushing him to do something he had known he should do for days, because he couldn't stay much longer on Gingezel. He'd been here weeks too long already. Mostly though, Joran was right - damn him! He was hopelessly in love.

There wasn't a single thing he could do about it either except create the memories. The little bird, as Joran had put it, would fly away sooner or later and when he explained he had to go back to his very everyday work it would be sooner. If he were galaxy class, like Joran, maybe it wouldn't be that way. Maybe he'd have a chance for more than a romantic interlude. But Dreen had never deceived himself and he wasn't starting now. It wasn't as though Mitra was snobby or in any way made him feel inferior. When they were together everything was perfect. It was just that she made it clear that this was an isolated bubble in time. She never spoke of her past, or asked of his. And she had never once mentioned the future, alone or with him. For the first time in his life Dreen was seriously jealous of Joran's Anton persona.

He took another breath. "It's okay Joran. I won't hit you." He looked at his friend. Joran's eyes still had that softness he hadn't seen for a long time now. He said more gently, "You're right. I'll make the memories."

He knew what Joran meant. Don't be like me, with my future gone and wanting to change the past. Dreen knew Maillie had loved Joran deeply, had supported his music, and had hated every minute of the circus his life as Anton demanded. They had lived in snatched moments together until the night he got the message she had died half a galaxy away in an accident. Joran hadn't even had a chance to bury her. Custom had demanded her cremation and a memorial service days before he could get there. Dreen knew how much of that Joran would change if he could.

Joran let himself breathe. He was never quite sure how Dreen would react, even after all they had been through.

"So did you like the song?" To Joran it was a natural continuation of the conversation.

Dreen nodded. "It was the best love song you've ever written." He didn't say how relieved he was Joran had managed to write at all.

Joran nodded, not in vanity but accepting the assessment because he agreed with it. "I wrote it for both of them \- Maillie and Mitra."

"I know."

"I hadn't thought I could write again."

Joran thought back. It was Dreen who had talked him into having the band bring their families to Gingezel to cool down after the split. Then, when Dreen had to go to Gingezel himself, he had encouraged Joran to follow him there and join the band. Joran had. What difference did it make where he was? Initially he had avoided Gingezel since it was part of his and Maillie's dream, but he'd thought that now he was too depressed to care.

To his surprise though Joran had found a change. He could sleep. He could enjoy being alone. He walked for hours along the beach just staring at the lake. He missed the music though, and he had decided it would be fun to teach the band to play steel pans. He hadn't played one since his teens. They had been flown in from his home city on Laurion - the best pans were made there - and after a few weeks of cautiously trying working together again, the hotel had itself a steel band. The staff were under dire threats of what would happen if they even hinted at who the band was. Then had come his request to Dreen to write a composition package for him. Then, watching Dreen and Mitra in love, the song.

"I added lyrics and we recorded it last night." He swallowed hard, tears stinging his eyes. "We used Maillie's studio."

"Did you?" Dreen stared. He had been sure that studio would never be used. But more than that, Joran rarely recorded his lyrical work, although when he did they went galaxy-wide platinum overnight. He had assumed that recording was another block now, possibly even stronger than composing.

"It's yours. I set up an account for the royalties." Joran turned abruptly to the stage. "Have a good holiday."

***

Mitra was still staring at the solitary figure in the shadows at the back of the stage, a puzzled frown crossing her face, when Joran returned to the stage, the rest of the band a few steps behind him. He went back to speak to whoever it was - she couldn't remember the man's name - and suddenly it clicked. Only the image in her mind wasn't of Joran in that horrid T-shirt with drumsticks in his hand. The tableau in her mind had a man in a skin-tight blue and black glittery jumpsuit. He had turned while a spotlight temporarily illuminated the devilish looking blond keyboard player at the back. Anton? It couldn't be.

Or could it? Mitra had some vague memory of something about Anton that she didn't really pay attention to at the end of her stay on Drezvir. Lilla was a great Anton fan and she'd been going on about something, some scandal or other. What was it? Something about his just disappearing? And wasn't that what Niki had said too? Well, Gingezel was as good a place as any to disappear to. Mitra tried to remember how many played with Anton, and what they looked like but she couldn't really. She rarely paid attention to them on holovision and had never had the desire to go to a live concert. That one album of his was incredibly pretty and romantic, but most of it was pure noise to her ears. 'Redefining the art form' and terms like that were used by ecstatic critics. She supposed she just didn't have the right ear.

But that wasn't the point. Could Joran be Anton? Anton had one really strange-looking guy in his band, Mrail. She hadn't paid enough attention to swear it was the same man and the makeup like a devil's mask Mrail wore was no help. But it could well be the funny-looking guy was Mrail. She tried to imagine Joran looking like Anton, in a stage costume not a T-shirt and chinos, with his hair styled and extreme stage makeup. It worked.

Mitra was still staring open mouthed when Dreen came up behind her and kissed the top of her head. She jumped. "Dreen, Joran's Anton!"

"Hush Mitra!" Dreen looked around hastily but no one was paying any attention.

"Dreen. He is, isn't he? Joran -"

"Mitra hold it down." When Mitra was excited she was loud. "Come on, let's take a walk along the beach."

"Dreen." Mitra was exasperated. He wasn't listening. "I said -"

"I heard. I'll talk to you on the beach, not here."

It was not negotiable. Mitra sighed and rose, wrapping her shawl around her and picking up her shoulder bag. She gave one last look at the stage. Anton. Arguably the best performer in the galaxy. He was in the top five anyway, no matter who made the list. She had wondered what Joran had to do with someone like Dreen. Now she saw it the other way around. Dreen was no musician, she knew that. But there were galaxy-wide promoters who were unknown but were just as powerful as the musicians they represented. It made her power systems seem pretty unglamorous and now Mitra was glad she'd kept her mouth shut. She hadn't on purpose. Not talking work had just been part of forgetting Drezvir. In fact, if Dreen was connected with Anton, it made the question of why he was paying any attention to her even more confusing, but she did not want to think about that now. She wanted to know about Joran.

*****

Chapter 39

"Is this far enough?"

Mitra was sure she sounded petulant, but they had walked for ages, and for once Dreen had not accommodated his stride to hers. She had sand in her sandals, she was sure she had ruined the very expensive pair of stockings she had put on because it was a cool evening, and Dreen hadn't said a word. In fact, if it weren't for the negligent arm around her shoulders she would say he had forgotten her.

" Mmm?" It was totally unfocussed. Dreen was thinking about love, and Joran's advice, and a lot of things he didn't want to remember.

"Dreen! I didn't come down on the beach this time of night for exercise. Can I finally talk? Or," she added acidly, "are we walking out of town? If we are the road would be better footing and faster."

"Sorry Mitra." Dreen sighed. "I was thinking."

And not about me, Mitra thought bitterly. "So, when can I talk?"

"You're talking aren't you?"

If it hadn't been Dreen, she would have taken that as an invitation to a really good fight, but he was never cross with her. She remembered him talking to Joran, and suspected she was getting the backlash of whatever that scrap had been. Well, she'd try to find out although she supposed it might be business Dreen couldn't talk about. But first things first.

"Dreen, Joran is Anton isn't he?"

There was a pause.

"When did you figure it out?"

"The funny-looking blond guy. He's been bothering me. I mean, he isn't someone you pay attention to, and I didn't before either. But Joran went back to talk to him and all of a sudden in my mind I saw this scene from a concert where they temporarily panned Mrail in the back. And all of a sudden Joran was Anton."

Dreen nodded. "Yes. Joran is Anton and Bojo is Mrail. For that matter, they're all members of the Anton band."

Poor Bojo, he thought. Mitra's description pretty well summed him up - the funny-looking guy at the back I don't remember, even if his keyboard playing is phenomenal.

"But what's he doing here?"

"He's on vacation, like all of us. And while he's here Mitra, he's Joran." The tone was repressive, final.

Right, Mitra thought. It was fine that we were all chummy and friends as long as everyone was laughing at me for thinking Joran was a hotel musician. But let's make it very clear that you don't belong in the sphere Anton is in.

"Excuse me!" Mitra pulled herself free from Dreen's arm.

She would have stalked down to the water's edge but the sand was too soft so she sort of padded and scuffed, looking for something to kick. The cool breeze felt like ice on her burning cheeks and she was barely aware of the moon or the lapping waves.

Dreen watched her go. For once he didn't have the slightest idea what was going on in that little head. She was really angry though, and it was something to do with Joran. He sighed. He'd better start again from the top and see when she blew up. That might give him a clue. He walked towards the water line, watching Mitra standing there like a statue. Well, at least she wasn't walking away again.

"Hey Pretty Lady. What's wrong?" Dreen didn't even realize he had slipped into Joran's title for Mitra.

Mitra saved him the guessing game. She rounded on him. "Right. You two have had lots of fun laughing at the pretty lady who's too provincial to even know who she's with. Have I been amusing enough? I suppose -"

"Mitra!" Dreen reached out to hold each arm. "For galaxy's sake, no one has been playing with you! Don't you understand? Joran is the real person. Anton is the fantasy, the creation. And Joran, the real person, likes you."

In fact, Dreen suspected Joran more than liked Mitra. He suspected that if Joran had been far enough down the road to recovery to think of an involvement, old friends or not, Joran would not have respected his prior claim. It was something he didn't want to think about too hard. They had competed for girls a couple of times at university, and he had lost both times.

"No, I don't understand."

Mitra supposed she should break loose and stalk off but she didn't want to. She wanted Dreen to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything would be all right. She had been like that ever since she heard that song. Kind of scared but she didn't know what of.

"Okay. Let me try again." Dreen turned Mitra slightly to where he could see her face in the moonlight. "Joran is human Mitra. When he's Anton, when he's on tour, all he does is give. He becomes what all those millions and millions of fans want him to be. He gives them the music, the performances, the persona they want. But no one can give forever. He has to rest. But it's more than that. He has to totally lose Anton or some time he won't be able to go back to being Joran." And it came too close to happening this time, Dreen thought with pain. "If people here find out he's Anton, his rest will be over."

"But couldn't you trust me?"

So that was it. "Of course we could. To be honest, I don't think either of us ever even thought about it. I know I didn't. And..." Dreen stopped, considering. "I think Joran wanted a woman who was friends with him for once, not someone falling all over him because he was Anton. I don't know for sure. I'm not Joran." He searched her face. Mitra was obviously thinking. "Do you understand?"

"I think so." It came out slowly.

Mitra was thinking of Drezvir. She was never alone there, never free from pressure, always dealing with someone else's needs. After three years she had been a wreck. She tried to multiply Drezvir up to a galaxy and couldn't. But the idea made her stomach knot and she felt a pang of real pity for Joran. Then too, she'd lied when she said she was never alone. There had been some snatched time, usually late at night when there was no ongoing disaster, when she had time to work on her designs. She thought of the music Anton/Joran had composed that she actually liked.

"Dreen," Mitra asked suddenly, "is that why there hasn't been any new music from Anton for what, four or five years? He was touring steady. Is that why he came here - to be able to be creative and write again?"

The jump and its accuracy startled him. She'd looked truly concerned too. Dreen heard himself saying, "It's all right Mitra, he's writing again. You heard his new song just now."

"Joran wrote that? I thought it was the most beautiful thing I've heard." She gave an embarrassed little smile. "Usually the stuff that he writes makes me want to turn my ears back like a cat."

"He wrote it for you, you know."

"For me?" Mitra was wide eyed and confused. "Why would he write me a song that makes you want to cry?"

Oh Mitra. Dreen bent forward and covered her mouth with a kiss.

***

They were walking again, slowly retracing their steps. More of a breeze had come up, and in the distance they could see the riding lights of a yacht bobbing above the waves.

"Dreen."

"Hmm?" This time the tone was contented, not abstracted.

"What were you and Joran fighting about?" The arm around her waist stiffened, and the silence got uncomfortable. Mitra wished she had kept her mouth shut. "I'm sorry. I'm sure it's none of my business."

Dreen surprised her by sighing.

"It's all right, you can ask. He was just giving me some good advice in a rather unpalatable form. He started out calling me stupid and it went downhill from there."

"Oh." Mitra was surprised. Joran tended not to watch his tongue, but it didn't seem like him to antagonize Dreen. "That was out of line. No wonder you got mad."

To her surprise, Dreen chuckled. "Well, he's called me worse. When we roomed together as undergrads he had a pretty foul vocabulary. Being in the public eye has smoothed off the rougher edges."

"You went to university together?" Mitra hadn't expected that.

"MmmHmm. Two offworlders on Rujjipet trying to keep scholarships and not act as lost as they were feeling."

Mitra couldn't imagine either of them being at all like that, but before she could say so Dreen continued.

"Why, what had you thought?" He wanted to know.

"I don't know. Somehow I got the impression you were working together."

"On a little project. Mostly he's on vacation though."

Evasions. Well, it was a sphere she didn't know. She'd give Dreen the benefit of the doubt it was something confidential, not that he was shutting her out.

She shifted ground slightly. "Can you explain something about Joran?"

"Probably not."

It was good-natured though, so she continued. "If Joran can write such beautiful works, why does he write the other stuff? I mean, I know he's your friend and I shouldn't insult him, but some of it I can't stand to listen to."

Dreen laughed. "You aren't offending me. I can't stand it either. But I think intellectually I can appreciate what he's doing. It's the same thing with anyone really good who masters something. Some people are just happy with the mastery. But the truly creative people have to push the limits of the art form or the technology."

Dreen's good mood faded. And what about you, Dreen Pendi? he asked himself. What limits have you pushed since you got out of the military? Not many since the early days with Gali. Even the Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb was pretty safe. His hackers had done most of the pushing. It was pretty hard to stretch the limits when you were playing it safe. But that would change if the composition package came off.

'If' was the operative word, because he'd been stuck since before Mitra arrived. Dreen had a clear idea in his mind what Joran wanted but what he didn't have was a clear idea of how to achieve it. Joran wanted to use the fact he was a synesthete and saw music as color and color as music. He said the fact that the effect was strong enough that the white keys of his keyboard were a series of rainbows as he went up and down the octaves helped him play, especially if it was a bit manic on stage. He was less sure that it helped when composing. Joran said sometimes it was hard to write down the chords he knew had to be there to capture the music in his head, because the colors didn't look pretty. Sometimes the effect was so intense he had to rewrite a song.

Now he wanted to try to make the synesthesia an advantage song writing and use it to compose. Joran didn't mean he simply wanted to put down squares, or circles, or whatever of color instead of musical notes, ending up with a static abstract he could read like a sheet of music. That would be interesting, and useful, and from Dreen's point of view, simple. What Joran wanted to do was to be continuously changing the painting on the screen, and as he did so to hear a flow of music. Preferably the one in his head, thank you Dreen. Again it was interesting and useful, but from Dreen's perspective very tricky. Take something as simple as a rapid drum beat, don't even think about melody. Was it indicated by the speed Joran moved at, the size of the color areas, their intensity, proximity, or what? And that was simple compared to melody. Still, backing off and relaxing with Mitra had somehow given some ideas time to get into his mind, and Dreen knew now that if he focussed he could do it.

Mitra hadn't noticed Dreen's abstraction or his change of mood. She was watching as the riding lights of the yacht disappeared around the cliffs on the west end of the bay and thinking about her hybrid design. In a small way she must be like Joran. She still did not know whether she had been trying to prove what the technology could do, or what she could do. The two were too mixed together in her mind, but she had pushed the limits and it had been exhilarating. Ari hadn't liked it though. He said it was unsafe, that she should back the design off, but she hadn't. And she was right. She knew it.

She said, "I think I know what you mean."

Suddenly Mitra shivered and rubbed her arms.

"Cold? Do you need my jacket?"

"Not really. A goose just walked over my grave."

"A what did what?" Every now and then Mitra said the strangest things.

"It's just a saying. For when you suddenly feel frightened for no reason. A premonition maybe. Maybe I'm just tired." Suddenly she was exhausted.

"I'm sorry. I walked you too far." Dreen couldn't stand the sad little face in the moonlight. He made a fast decision. "I'm taking Joran's advice."

That got him a not particularly curious look. Mitra must be really exhausted then. "How would you like to go on a tour with me? See all of the sights of Gingezel?"

"Oh Dreen!"

Starting her tour had been on Mitra's mind lately. For all of her big talk with Niki, she really didn't want to stay on Gingezel forever. Those modifications she wanted to make to the geothermal unit were beginning to gel in her mind, and the odd hour she snatched here and there when Dreen was busy, usually at the gym he said, wasn't enough. She really needed her office at Dellmaice Power Systems, her peers, and her technical staff. She wanted to see Gingezel first since she might never have another chance. She hadn't known what to say though. Dreen seemed so happy in Crescent Bay with the sun and the sand, so she had kept quiet.

Now she said, "That sounds wonderful." Then she added with a trace of her usual animation, "when can we start?"

"Is tomorrow soon enough?"

"If I can sleep to noon." Mitra yawned.

*****

Chapter 40

Niki sat at his desk drumming his fingers on the dark wood. He had learned to prefer natural materials from Chelan. Wood was an incredibly extravagant indulgence though. None of the trees indigenous to Plenata produced furniture-quality wood, and any attempts to introduce genetically engineered off-world trees had been unsuccessful. Niki was sure none of his clients could tell his desk from any of the simulated wood ones in the other offices, but he knew, and his fingers knew.

How long had Mitra been on Gingezel now? Ten days? Two weeks? Something like that. He imagined her having the time of her life. Mitra liked her creature comforts, she liked excitement, and she liked entertainment. And above all else she loved adorning herself. How she had survived on that dull mining planet for three years was beyond him, but Niki had no doubt how she was recovering. She would be going through money like water. He smiled with real affection at the thought of his little sister hitting the - how many - boutiques designed to tempt the jaded elite of the galaxy. Left to her own devices she wouldn't just come home broke, she'd be in debt until the next equivalent of the Drezvir project came along.

Niki was quite sure of that, despite Chelan's tactful intervention. Chelan's behavior that night really was amusing. Niki had thought his father didn't know how to lie, but the rates he had quoted Mitra for her one month stay hadn't rung true. Chelan had claimed there was a marketing promotion with a discount for a long stay and Niki hadn't argued. But later when Niki had checked privately, the current rate was twice the one Mitra was paying. Chelan's little trick would keep Mitra on Gingezel longer since she would get huffy and refuse direct help and she needed the rest. He had never seen her so strung out, and it was highly debatable how much the visit home had helped.

Niki wished her a good time. All the same, it was a good thing he'd taken that extra bonus. Added to the ten per cent of her salary always put into the investment account he managed for her it would make a respectable sum, and would probably cover her extravagances. But Niki knew, in fact he had known for days, that he wasn't going to leave it at that. Once she had a taste for the high life, Mitra would want more. Why not? She worked hard, she was the best. Why not play hard?

Niki's fingers slid over the voice contact on his desk. "No interruptions please, for the rest of the afternoon. You've already cleared my appointment book and I'm in the middle of an analysis. Crises can be referred to Brian or Sanja."

"Yes, Mr. Kael" came the perfectly modulated voice of Brenna, his secretary of six years.

She was as elegant as any of the other fixtures at the agency. But it was her beautifully controlled voice, her serene face, and her unflappable manner that made her priceless. The most panicky clients seemed to calm down just talking to her, and were almost coherent by the time they were passed on to him. It was amazing how nervous people got about money.

Niki sat a while longer, drumming his fingers. Then a wicked little boy smile spread across his face. This afternoon was going to be fun, more fun than he had had in years. His fingers touched another contact and the paneling covering a wall of video screens slid aside. There they were, all of the stock markets he had been monitoring carefully for three days now. He routinely monitored them of course. That was a major part of his job, handling the investment portfolios of people with large enough portfolios to afford, or need, the agency. He was good at it. He picked the trends as well as any of his colleagues, and resisted that common failing of staying in rising markets just a little too long to catch the peak, and hitting the downside instead.

But that was not what he had been doing the past three days. He had not been looking at trends. He had been carefully studying the noise, the minutiae of the millions of transactions that daily kept the commerce of each sector of the galaxy going. He had watched and analyzed, selected and rejected, and now he had an even dozen exchanges that he would trade on if they were still behaving as he had predicted. They looked right, not of course that when it came down to it Niki intended to trust his eye. Every little fluctuation would be analyzed before he did anything.

The wicked grin still in place, he walked to a wall foiled in a shimmering pattern rather like a thin oil slick on water. He touched a portion that only he and the firm's senior partner knew contained the scanner that would validate either of their fingerprints. Niki knew that while this was happening his retinal pattern was also being scanned. He supposed this was so no one could cut off his hand and fool the touch sensor. A slight temperature variation under his finger told him the process was complete.

"Niki Kael M02SV7C4W." Would it work? His throat was scratchy. Niki tensed as he waited. The security firm, a paranoid crowd as far as he was concerned, had assured him that the triple check was necessary and that a voiceprint was used as well as just the password. Today of all days he did not need those big mean-looking security boys on his neck if the voice print was wrong.

However, as had been the case every day for the past four and a half years, he passed the test and a portion of the wall slid silently aside. Niki reached inside, pushing various items out of his way. Damn! Where was it? He started again and found at the very back the memory pac that stored his computer code. Specifically, it stored the code he had developed to play the noise.

***

Niki knew he had always been an intense disappointment to his mother. As far as she was concerned he had a fine mathematical mind, but he refused to apply it. Or more accurately he refused to apply it to anything but money. Money had only one importance in life to Roween, to fund science. One night he'd got her into an argument and got her to admit money also enabled one to eat, but she was so far removed from that level of financial worries that they never entered her mind. When her universe was proceeding as it should, the money for scientific funding was simply there. When it was not, she had to jump through various hoops and over hurdles to get the money, but once she got it she forgot about the hoops and hurdles and got on with the important thing in life, science.

But Niki was only interested in money. How it was made, how it was spent, who made it, who spent it. When it finally became apparent that she hadn't won, Roween had tried to reconcile herself to reality. She had told Niki there were worse things one could be than an economics professor. Some she knew were excellent theoreticians. Then Niki had delivered the final blow. He did not want to be an economics professor, he wanted to be a trader. She had washed her hands of him.

As Niki carried his precious memory pac to his desk, he thought how wrong Roween was thinking she had not influenced him. When he had been in his second year at university, she had spent several evenings teaching him the basics of chaos theory, hoping to interest him in pure mathematics. While he had pretended boredom to not give his mother the least encouragement, he had secretly been fascinated. He had loved the classic example where, given the right conditions, a butterfly flapping its wings should be able to cause a typhoon half a globe away. Incredible.

The idea had stayed in the back of his mind for years, and as Niki watched the millions of daily transactions on the various exchanges, he began to believe that they resembled a chaotic regime. That had got him curious. Why wasn't chaos theory being used as a market analysis tool? Niki had researched that for months with Chelan's help. They discovered it had been off and on, ever since trading had been computerized in the early days on Terra. The fact trading had ever not been computerized had sidetracked things for a while. Niki couldn't imagine how you traded without computers. For once though Chelan couldn't help. He had found three references that said 'before computing was introduced.' That was all.

A slight frown crossed Niki's face. He was sure he'd seen a reference to pre-computerized exchanges recently. Where? Oh, that was right, it wasn't a reference. Sanja had mentioned it to him. She'd been a futures trader and was fascinated by the history of traders like herself. He would have to ask her where she got her facts and pass the paper on to Chelan. He made a note on his compad, then returned to analyzing the metal manufacturing exchange that looked most like a chaotic regime to his eye.

As the computer did the analysis, Niki's mind returned to the past, and his early days of research into chaos theory. After about a year he had decided that there was the usual human 'in and out of style' use pattern. Someone would have a great predictive code based on chaos, and it would be used for a few years - or decades - then be replaced. As far as that went, he found chaos theory codes were out of fashion more than in. That didn't surprise him. The modeling behind the codes was difficult, and traders were like anyone else, they didn't like to use what they didn't understand. Sometimes too, the codes were too accurate, and the traders felt threatened. Who wanted to look bad if their 'expert advice' wasn't as good as a code? Or worse still, who wanted to be replaced by a code? None of the codes stayed accurate though. If they were really good, everyone eventually bought in. And as soon as everyone was doing exactly the same thing, the market behavior wasn't chaotic, and the code failed.

The fine structure of the current exchanges had looked like a chaotic regime to him though, and no chaos theory based codes had been around for half a century or so. It had definitely been time to try one. Niki had de-archived a couple. After all the trouble of getting them to run, they didn't work. He found the theory behind a couple of other codes, developed his own, and it didn't work either. Niki remembered he had been immensely pleased by that.

He was definitely not pleased now though. His eye was off. The metals exchange was not going to work. He moved on to the second on his list, suppressing jitters. Before, when the old codes hadn't worked that meant something had changed mathematically. Could that have happened again, in so few years? Be patient, he told himself. There are eleven more exchanges to try and you've been wrong on guesses before.

Niki forced his mind back to those optimistic early days. He had decided it was going to be much more interesting to find out what had changed mathematically than just to use a code someone else had developed. He had set to work. He had postulated and tested several reasons for the math to change - the degree of regulation of the exchanges, a tendency now for more unprofessional 'day traders', size changes of the exchanges, and just plain changes in the psychology and expectations of investors. The current exchanges were not exactly like anything he had seen the theory applied to, but there were analogies as well as differences. Niki had set his capable mind to extending the theory to handle those differences. Rather to his surprise, he had enjoyed himself. It was quite a change to stretch himself beyond what he had ever thought he could do. It hadn't been easy though. In fact, the theory alone had taken years. He'd had to develop different models and extrapolation algorithms. Then had come the rather embarrassing realization he'd been solving the wrong problem.

Niki gave a rueful smile at the memory. He had been so totally focused on getting a code like the existing chaos theory codes to work that he hadn't really focused on what they did. Their purpose was to predict what a particular stock would do in chaotic market conditions so you could invest in it to make money.

Niki didn't want to do that. He wanted to identify the butterfly. To find the one stock where a modest investment would make the whole market take off. He wanted to flap those fragile wings and see the typhoon. Still, by then he knew what he was doing, so the changes to the theory didn't take long. Not years, only four months. Then there had been the coding, the cautious simulations, the revisions.

At last Niki had been ready to try it. The first few trials had been disappointing. He had managed a limited success, in that he took the chaotic market regime up a settle point or two above where it would normally have traded in the current conditions. But that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to see the butterfly spread its wings and create the typhoon. It was frustrating as well, because it was tempting to put more money in to drive the market up, but that wasn't the way his theory worked. Large investments - his or anyone's - took the market out of the chaotic regime. So it was back to revising the theory and the code.

Then one day, it happened. His timing, the chaotic regime, and the initial conditions he perturbed, were perfect. He made his modest purchase, the butterfly fluttered its frail wings, and the sector Niki had been playing took off. It was incredible.

*****

Chapter 41

Incredible? And so would this market be. Niki stared, and reran the simulations. Talk about set for that typhoon, and there was more than one stock that would do it. No way. He wasn't risking that kind of trouble again, not even for his sister. Oh well, maybe it was lucky on three. Niki called up the next sector.

Not, of course, that he had seen trouble coming back then. All he had been was elated - and naive. Niki sighed. It had been a typhoon all right. Still, it really had been amusing for the next few weeks to hear first his colleagues and then the media pundits trying to explain the sudden market rise. There were a lot of meaningless words about unexpected strength in this or that sector, buyer confidence, and such. There was also a lot of private head scratching. Then there was a lot of issuing of revisions of the standard broad-trend predicting codes.

It had been almost six weeks before the typhoon was over and a suitable chaotic regime occurred again. Niki had waited another week to be sure and tried again. Success! Even now, with the consequences firmly in mind, Niki felt the thrill down his spine. He'd succeeded. He and his clients had also become significantly wealthier. Niki had kept his small investment in, and once the rise was well established by major players buying in and the chaotic regime had shifted to a bull market, he took some large funds in as well. Then, when the rise ended, he had settled back to look for another chaotic regime in a different market, this time on a different planetary exchange to be sure his code was robust. He had also anticipated himself watching even more head scratching at an interplanetary level. Fool!

Why hadn't he allowed for the head scratching going on at the regulatory bodies? They accepted market volatility, but only within limits. Two record rises on the totally innocuous Plenata Exchange with no apparent reason had upset them. They had set the bureaucracy to work to find the culprit, because they were pretty sure there was one. Eventually, as they had worked their way through the transactions of the day, they had come to him.

Why hadn't he had the brains to keep his mouth shut? They had approached him expecting routine answers to routine questions. They expected him to say that he had made his small investment according to some diversification or rotation scheme he was pursuing, and then later, like so many others, saw a good thing and got on board. After all, that was what he was, a competent, routine trader. Why hadn't he left it at that? Weren't there a million parables about the consequences of showing off?

Niki could still see the shock on Oleg Dorogov's face when he proudly told him what he had done. As far as he had been concerned, his program outperformed any of the broad-trend analysis software by a few orders of magnitude. In fact the only reason he hadn't told anyone earlier was that he had been around his mother enough to want to exercise the code a bit more before giving it to a colleague to beta test.

Niki had had an audience, even if it was only one junior member of the regulatory board sent to do grunt work. His audience however was singularly unamused. Niki remembered Oleg straightening his stocky frame to its full height, which wasn't much. The thick black solid line of his eyebrows had formed a V, and his beefy face had been one big frown. That should have been the warning. Niki had ignored it. The request to call his superiors should have been the second warning.

But, idiot that he was, he'd simply seen it as a chance to explain exactly what he'd done to a group of people who would appreciate his work. Well, it hadn't quite played out that way.

In the clarity of bitter hindsight Niki could tick off the points that must have been in their minds. First off, the regulators had not understood a word he was saying. Not a one of them had heard of chaos theory based codes. Second, he did not seem to see any harm in causing such a wild swing in the market. Third, he proudly announced he had caused the earlier one. Finally, he seemed to see no reason not to continue his course of action and then to make the same trick available to others. Oh yes, it was so clear now.

As it was, he'd been stunned when in a remarkably short time for this particular body he had found himself before a preliminary hearing that had rapidly turned into a disciplinary hearing.

***

Third time lucky. Niki came out of his reverie and paid serious attention to the results. He simulated an investment. A bit too much volatility. He increased the investment to see if that would damp the swing, then methodically tested incremental increases and decreases until he found exactly what he wanted. He was not going through another disciplinary hearing.

As the code analyzed the fourth market, Niki returned to the past.

***

Several things had rapidly become clear even to him. The regulators did not understand chaos theory and were completely convinced he was involved in some sort of insider trading, possibly through others fronting for him they hadn't found yet. As they had bluntly said, to their experience it was as likely an explanation as any for what had happened, and talk of some miraculous mathematics was a smokescreen. Once they had decided this, the likely outcome was a rapid end to Niki's career. He had been unable to believe it, to react rationally.

Fortunately Chelan had intervened and got Arol Mertel, the Kael family lawyer, to advise the lawyers retained by Niki's firm. While he was no mathematician himself, Mertel had advised and represented Roween for twenty some years now, and he knew quite a bit about how to explain science to the judiciary and the bureaucrats. He had suggested that an impartial expert in chaos theory be brought in to assess Niki's theory and code, and the likelihood Niki had done what he said he did. Reluctantly, but not wanting to be seen to be unfair, the board had agreed.

A mathematician called Barranb Vigell at a small university on the remote planet of Kytherial had been chosen from a list provided by a university on Plenata. His, and for that matter his university's, only claim to fame was a paper he had presented on chaos theory at a very prestigious conference when he was twenty-six. Now fifty-seven he had been delighted both by the honor and a second opportunity for interstellar travel. Of course it had meant a delay in proceedings while he traveled first to a city with a spaceport since the planet only had four spaceports, then past the galactic center to Plenata. Then there had been a further delay while he assessed Niki's work. Niki's trading license had been suspended for the interim.

There had been a series of scenes with his mother, but he could not decide which emotion dominated for her, indignation about the suspension, alarm at the possible consequences, or pride at the rather clever mathematical extensions Niki had made.

***

Niki smiled ruefully and moved on to the sixth market. The last one hadn't been responsive after all. Why he had taken things in stride, he'd never know. He supposed his judgment had been severely impaired both by the knowledge he had done nothing wrong and pride in how well his code performed, solidly outperforming broad-trend analysis codes. He'd used the suspension to take a skiing holiday, his first real holiday in years, and had thoroughly enjoyed it.

The final scene, the disciplinary hearing, was etched on Niki's memory. He could replay it at will.

***

On the appointed day the disciplinary committee, Barranb Vigell, Niki, and Niki's counsel had assembled in an austere meeting room of the Trade Commission offices. Niki's attention was on Vigell, the stranger who would decide his fate, and he immediately warmed to the man. Vigell was a lot like Niki's father, a balding, faded, middle-aged academic.

The chairman spoke. "Doctor Vigell, have you had adequate time to review Mr. Kael's work?"

"Quite, quite." Barranb Vigell was visibly nervous.

"And in your expert opinion, could his code have done what he claims?"

Niki found himself nervous as well, sweat starting to trickle down his back. He remembered Mitra saying she was terrified at her Ph.D. oral exam. It wasn't that she didn't know her work was good. It was a question of whether or not these strangers would understand and accept it. And if they didn't, it was back to square one.

"Most definitely." Barranb beamed at Niki. "In fact, some of his mathematical extensions to the theory are positively brilliant. Most brilliant."

"Could you explain yourself Dr. Vigell?"

"I'll try. Perhaps a little history would help. Applications of chaos theory to the stock market have been tried for centuries. In fact, the most successful application..."

The words flowed around Niki, and he only listened to a few of them. This guy really knew his stuff. Would it be proper to introduce him to Chelan once this was over?

"But recent applications, say the last two hundred years, have not been successful, and the idea has lost popularity. We've tended to refocus on meteorology." Barranb gave Niki an apologetic shrug. "I rather regret that now, because some of the theoretical extensions Mr. Kael made are fascinating."

He went on and on, and Niki's heart sank as the regulatory committee got more and more lost. At last Barranb was finished, and he beamed around at the glazed faces.

"Well, yes. Thank you for your trouble Dr. Vigell." The elderly chairman was making the appropriate noises prior to dismissing this most disappointing and expensive person.

But Oleg Dorogov, young and aggressive, and the man who had discovered the problem, was less reluctant than the rest of the committee to appear an idiot. He said, with the appropriate deference his junior position demanded, "One moment. May I ask a question?"

The chairman nodded reluctantly, looking with displeasure at his dark, stocky, junior colleague.

"Are you saying unequivocally that using this code can cause this sort of extreme market upswing with just a small investment?"

"With the right initial conditions, yes."

Barranb had explained later that he had been pleased that someone seemed to have grasped what he was saying. He was used to giving seminars without a single question afterwards and polite conversation about the weather and university politics at the obligatory post seminar coffee.

"I'm no theoretician," Oleg continued, "but I think I remember a few things from university." His thick black eyebrows came together. "What would happen with different initial conditions?" he prompted.

Niki's stomach sank. He knew what the answer would be, and so did Oleg. Oleg just wanted this to come from the expert.

"There could be a smaller rise, essentially no effect, or a comparable drop," Dr. Vigell explained patiently to the men who had brought him across the galaxy and put him up in a very nice portel for weeks. He could afford to be magnanimous.

There was stunned silence.

Finally the chairman found his voice. "A comparable drop?"

"Oh yes." Dr. Vigell chirped on happily. "As I said earlier, nothing in the original mathematics is unidirectional in that respect. And certainly not the excellent way Mr. Kael," and here he beamed again at Niki, "extended them."

Niki was sure, for one agonizing minute, that he was going to cry. While an unprecedented upswing in the markets might get a - wrongful in his case - call of foul play, a comparable drop would be an out and out disaster. It hadn't worried him. After familiarizing yourself with enough simulations you got a feel for the initial conditions that led up, and down, and no responsible trader would cause a crash despite the potential for selling short. But now, looking at the faces, his unwarranted optimism finally evaporated. He was in real trouble.

"Thank you Dr. Vigell," the chairman said with real appreciation this time. "You have been an invaluable expert, and your contribution will be seriously considered. I now declare a recess, after which we will inform Mr. Kael of our conclusion."

Somehow Niki didn't like the word 'inform', or the icy glare he got from the chairman.

In an anteroom Barranb Vigell tentatively approached Niki. "It would have been most improper to have spoken to you prior to now, but I want to say how impressed I am with your work. While studying your work, Mr. Kael, I have come up with one or two minor refinements of my own. Perhaps you would consider our pursuing them, then collaborating on a paper?" Barranb smiled shyly. "My return passage isn't for six weeks. It seemed ridiculous to come this far and then hurry back.

Niki agreed. It looked like he would have nothing else to do with his time for the indefinite future, maybe for the rest of his life.

The disciplinary committee in the meantime had a problem. While they still did not even vaguely understand this chaos stuff, they were pretty sure they knew bad news when they heard it. Still, they had reluctantly become convinced Niki Kael was not a villain. At worst he was a naive optimist, but all the same, he was dangerous. They pondered, and being fair men, pondered more.

At last, the disciplinary committee reconvened minus the expert who had eventually given up waiting and gone off to move himself to lodgings more suitable to his salary than the almost palatial ones the committee had decided they might as well spring for if they were bringing him this far.

"Mr. Kael". The chairman was at his most formal and repressive. "You have a six-month suspension of your trading license. Renewal is dependent on never again causing such wild swings in the market. If you do, suspension will be permanent. Do you understand me, Mr. Kael?"

Those seemed like suitable words to the committee who didn't understand what he'd done.

Mutely Niki nodded.

"We appreciate the assessment of this expert. However, now that you have our attention, it would be most imprudent to indulge in any form of insider trading. This may well be a temptation to you, given your, um, family connections. Once again, do you understand me Mr. Kael?" This was just in case the expert was wrong.

Oh yes, he understood. Niki understood at last.

***

It was the last market to test. Niki mentally crossed his fingers. He really wanted one more that was right. He wanted this to go as well as that paper he and Vigell wrote.

That paper should perhaps have been a source of joy or at least reconciliation to Roween, but he had never so much as mentioned it to her and he still had no idea if she knew it existed. She had been in a hospital recovering from stress-induced illness at the time, and the doctor had denied him visits. She'd never mentioned his code or chaos theory since.

Niki reflected that the next few months had been a low spot. He had taken the committee's words to heart. He began to completely avoid trading in energy or biotechnology sectors that could be even remotely connected to his sister or mother, an extreme his colleagues found amusing. And he had regretfully concluded he must never again see the butterfly flap its wings.

All right! Niki grinned. He had his set of markets to try. Was he being an absolute idiot? For that matter, did he care if he was being an absolute idiot? Niki knew quite well that he was resilient, as well as naturally optimistic. Look at that disciplinary hearing. Except for those two rules burned indelibly in his memory, within the year he was back to normal. Within two years, just theoretically he had told himself, he was implementing Dr. Vigell's minor improvements to his mathematics. Niki grinned again. That had been a nice lie to his conscience. And today he would play. It would not, after all, cause a wild swing in any market. He would just cause a modest hiccup in the selected markets scattered throughout the galaxy, raising their close two settle points at most. So he was following the ruling to the letter. And once the upswing was established he'd put Mitra's money in for the rise. His sister would do well, very well.

Niki began his investing. Within three hours he had gotten back out of two markets. The rest would take varying lengths of time, up to a few days, to reach their settle points. He was quite pleased and had only scared himself once, when it looked like he might have misjudged and caused another wild swing. But it had damped out almost before he'd finished drenching himself with sweat. It would take until the last market settled to be sure, but this should give him enough money for the next step - to put Mitra into the big league venture-capital market.

*****

Chapter 42

"Oh look," Mitra said in a half whisper. "Who are they?"

Dreen had just finished helping Mitra out of their taxi. Now he turned to follow her gaze. All along this restaurant-lined street in the theater district taxis and chauffeured limousines were unloading their passengers, but it was obvious who she was referring to. Two vehicles up an exotic, statuesque, black couple were standing giving instructions to a chauffeur.

"No idea."

"Where do you think they're from? I've never seen anyone like them."

That was a question Dreen could answer with relative confidence. "Laurion."

The woman looked a lot like Maillie, and she was wearing an ethnic-style dress with an elaborately embroidered bodice like Maillie and her friends had favored.

"Is this our restaurant?" Mitra transferred her attention to the gleaming glass wall beside them. She could just see tables through the semi-opacified glass.

"That's right."

"Impressive." Mitra took his hand and squeezed it.

Dreen smiled. He had to admit the tour was a good idea. Mitra was childlike in her enjoyment of each new sight, prepared to be totally delighted with anything he chose for them to do. The result was that while he was usually an indifferent traveler himself, he was spending a significant amount of time each morning researching the attractions of Gingezel and laying out the 'grand tour' as Mitra called it. The rest of the time between his usual 6:00 a.m. waking and Mitra's reluctant 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. rising he spent working on the composition package, or in holoconference with Nemizcan Head Office or Crescent Bay.

They had gone to the coast, then taken a leisurely cruise north in a chartered yacht since neither of them knew the first thing about any sort of sea vessel. To their intense relief they had found that neither was prone to seasickness and had relaxed into the timeless routine.

One lazy afternoon had been spent picnicking and making love on the sandy beaches of an isolated cove. Neither of them had seen anything like the place. Cliffs literally overhung the beach since their lower ten or twenty meters had been eroded by intense storms or higher seas. They were black, and gray, and solid looking but in reality they were subtly cracked, with small shrubs growing in the most inhospitable looking places. In contrast the sand was white and spotlessly clean, the shallow waters the palest turquoise green. At the deepest the water was perhaps two man-heights, and the only access to the cove was to come part way in a small launch, then wade the last ten meters or so in ankle-deep water. The water had been lovely, almost bathtub warm, perfect for playing in. The sky above had been intense blue with only the occasional fluffy cumulus cloud.

The crew had tactfully gone exploring down the coast and returned to pick them up at dusk. As soon as the crew had left, Mitra had been out of her clothes and urging Dreen out of his and into the silky warm water. It had been a perfect day, relaxed, happy, loving. The kind of a memory Joran had wanted for them.

Slowly the entire coastline had turned rugged as they moved farther north. The sandy beaches gave way first to rocky beaches where they picnicked with the crew, then to cliffs with forest above. Once the yacht had carefully eased its way into a long fjord to let them see a waterfall dropping over a hundred meters straight into the sea.

Eventually they had put in at a northern port, not a village like Crescent Bay, but a large city, modern and bustling. In a chilly shore breeze smelling of pine, they had worn sweaters and walked to galleries displaying the best art of dozens of planets. In one of those galleries Mitra had read an announcement of the season's performances at a Performing Arts Center in another city. Mitra had said she had seen the holocast of the grand opening. Dreen had decided then and there that she should see a live performance. So they had chartered a jet and flown inland.

It was the kind of spontaneity and extravagance that was foreign to him, but Dreen knew Joran would approve. Or at least Joran had approved of the gesture, if not going to a performance there. Dreen had tried not to mention what they were doing to Joran, because the center had been built for him, but he would never perform there now, just like he had refused to go to the inaugural concert that should have been his. But Joran had jumped on the evasion and forced Dreen to tell him. Then he'd looked away to hide tears, and said 'enjoy it. It's a beautiful venue.' Dreen didn't tell any of this to Mitra. It would spoil her enjoyment.

***

The restaurant was a study in subdued opulence, mostly decorated in shades of wine and gold, with nothing to detract from the food. In contrast the diners were a distinctly noisy and festive crowd, more interested in talking in a dozen languages, laughing, and watching each other than in the excellent cuisine being placed in front of them.

Dreen and Mitra had a relatively private table in a little alcove, which quieted the general din to the point where they could at least hear each other speak. Dreen watched Mitra dutifully pushing salad around the plate, working up to eating some. Her eating habits fascinated him. At her size he had expected her to live on soup and salad and not much else, but she outdid him at most tables and seemed to like any and everything except salad. At every meal she ordered one, played with it, with obvious reluctance forced herself to eat some, then with great relief went on to the other courses.

Remembering it was rude to watch someone else's plate, Dreen shifted his attention to Mitra. It was the first time he had seen her in formal evening wear and she looked lovely. Low-cut gowns were the fashion, but she had chosen a high-necked sheath that fell to her ankles in a loose drape of blue-green velvet that matched her eyes perfectly. The arms and shoulders were completely bare, and she had one of the shawls she seemed to love draped over the back of her chair. Around her neck was a heavy gold chain and an ornate pendant of a green stone he'd never seen before. Mitra said it was an antique from a planet Dreen had never heard of, although if it was an old planet he supposed they had a hub there. He didn't keep a list in his head. If he remembered he would have to ask Chett.

He caught Mitra's eye. "Going to give up and eat it?"

"Thanks!"

Mitra put down her fork. She couldn't do it. The combination of the trip to the Performing Arts Center and the plate of green stuff staring at her was too much of a reminder of Drezvir. Her mind was full of Lilla, and little Tessa who would never see Gingezel.

Dreen offered her a roll instead. She broke it open, slathered it with butter, and took a bite.

"So, where were you when you watched the inaugural concert?" The worst she could do was be evasive, and this was the only tentative link she had ever given him to her past.

"Watching with a friend, and her husband and daughter." The question caught her unawares and she answered without thinking.

Dreen was watching her face. "The memory isn't a happy one."

It wasn't a question, but he hoped for a denial because he was afraid he had been clumsy and had spoiled the mood of their trip by bringing her here.

"No." Then since he was obviously waiting she went on reluctantly, "It's just that when the concert was over, Lilla - that's my friend - gave her daughter a big hug and said 'some day you'll go to Gingezel!'"

"And you don't think she will?" Dreen was confused. Surely to Mitra's friends Gingezel was the next playground.

"Tessa? She hasn't a chance. She's a cute little thing, preteens, blond and slender and quiet like her mom, but her mom is just a hydroponics worker and her dad is a rock face miner. Her only chance of even getting off planet would be a scholarship and she's not bright. She's good with her hands and can tend plants already, so I expect she'll take on her mother's line of work."

Somehow Dreen found he wasn't surprised Mitra had a hydroponics worker for a friend. She seemed to make friends in record time with anyone they came across. All the same, he was unsure how to respond.

Mitra spoke into the silence, "How about you? Did you see the first concert?"

"As a matter fact, yes."

"Where were you?" Mitra expected him to say here, at the Center, and wondered if she'd seen Dreen in a pan shot of the crowd.

"All alone in my condo."

Larna had been on one of her middle-management training courses. She loved them. She was indifferent to her job, but she loved the courses. Thinking about the differences between the two women, he wanted to close the distance between himself and Mitra. Since Mitra had been open he decided to risk it.

"I'd spent all afternoon at a meeting that had not gone at all well and I was exhausted. All I wanted was something undemanding to stare at until I relaxed enough to sleep, and it was the first thing I found. Usually," he made a face, "I avoid ballet or opera, but it worked."

He'd chosen the day of their visit to make sure they weren't going to ballet or opera, but to a romantic farce. He looked at Mitra and made a conscious decision to continue. He had to try to bridge this gap in their intimacy.

"I woke up almost at dawn, frozen, and too stiff to move. I don't remember what was on then. I got myself onto the bed and stretched out for a couple more hours of sleep. It wasn't worth undressing. Then I got up, showered and shaved, and went back to the next round of meetings." He watched Mitra's face. "Not very glamorous, is it?"

It wasn't. She had imagined Dreen living in some large establishment well populated with servants. Whether or not it would be an isolated house like her parents' or part of a complex would depend of course on the customs of whatever planet it was he called home. But this sounded like a lonely hardworking bachelor who was between women and not taking care of himself. She could believe it. Even on this trip he was working hard. He was up at dawn, and frequently when she partially awoke she could hear his voice in the sitting room of whatever suite they were in, or up in the main cabin when they had been on the yacht. She hadn't made anything out yet, but he was either using his computer in voice mode or was holoconferencing. He would put in three or four hours of work before she moved, then pretend they were on vacation unless Joran or someone called.

In fact, the description sounded a lot like her brother and any of half a dozen men she knew at Dellmaice Power Systems. For that matter, she had had a few nights like that herself. Mitra wanted to go hug him, and tell him he didn't have to ever be lonely anymore, but it was a public place, even if they were in a quieter alcove.

So she said gently, "no it doesn't sound glamorous. It sounds lonely, and sad, and like a man who works too hard."

Dreen told himself this time he must be reading her mind wrong. He must be imagining what he was seeing in those beautiful eyes, seeing what he wanted to see. The urge he had been fighting for some time now was back. He wanted to say 'Marry me, Mitra. Somehow I'll make it work. I don't care how. I just can't imagine anything else.' But this candor, this opening up beyond the here and now, was so new and fragile he was afraid of destroying it. Dreen didn't know what to say, so he reached across the table and touched her hand.

A very prosaic motion behind Mitra caught Dreen's eye. The waiter was frozen half way into the alcove, aware he was interrupting a romantic moment but not sure what to do. He caught Dreen's eye and jerked his head back towards the kitchen as a question. Dreen hesitated, looking at the entrees he was balancing and the madhouse beyond. Practicality won. They had a show to catch, the chef had a horde to feed, and Mitra could get really cranky when she was hungry.

Dreen said, "go ahead and serve," and shrugged his apology to Mitra. "I think it's too crowded to ask them to serve later."

She smiled back and squeezed his hand, then let it go as the waiter started to serve. That was one thing about Dreen that simultaneously exasperated and pleased her. He was invariably polite and considerate to the various waiters, doormen, and such they met on the trip, even when it inconvenienced them. Then as the plate was put in front of her and the delicious aroma wafted up, Mitra forgot her pique. She was ravenous.

"It smells wonderful," Dreen commented when they were alone again. "What is it?"

He'd gotten into the habit of letting Mitra order. She was much more knowledgeable about food than he was, and so far he'd liked her choices.

"It's from the Terran sector. Does barbecue mean anything to you?"

Dreen shook his head. "I might have read it on a menu, but it doesn't register."

There had been about even odds it would. The early settlers had taken food and recipes from planet to planet. If Dreen had known the word, it would have made the description faster. "It's meat slow cooked over an open flame, or hot coals, or something that simulates that." She took a bite. "This is good."

Dreen followed more cautiously. "Not bad. You were saying?" he prompted.

Mitra disposed of a few more mouthfuls. "There's always a glaze, slightly or very hot. This is slightly."

"You could have fooled me."

Dreen's mouth wasn't quite burning, but it was close. But then he wasn't a hot food fanatic.

"I think," Mitra took another bite and savored it, "this is the standard sugar and vinegar and tomato, with some honey too, onion, garlic, red pepper, and hot pepper, plus some sort of Terran style herbs like thyme. I don't really know, every planet has its own herbs. I'm not sure what the carbohydrate is. It's some kind of grain, maybe indigenous to Gingezel, or maybe a rice derivative."

Dreen continued to be amazed at her knowledge of food. "You must be quite the cook," he ventured.

"Me?" Mitra was horrified. "My mother is the cook. I just eat the stuff." As Dreen looked skeptical she continued, "She and my dad have a hobby of recreating antiquarian recipes. While I was growing up there were always experiments going on." She reflected. "I guess it got me into being adventuresome in restaurants though."

"That sounds like a great hobby for a couple." It also sounded exotic and very expensive to Dreen. "I bet you ate some wonderful stuff."

"Occasionally. Most often they ranged from slightly peculiar to disasters." She grinned, remembering.

"What are you thinking of?"

"At the table?"

"That bad?"

"Well -" Mitra made a face.

"Don't. You're just making me curious."

"Okay. Ever seen an octopus?"

"I don't think so."

"You might have at an aquarium. They're Terran. Big things. A sort of a bulbous head and all kinds of tentacles hanging down that they grab stuff with. Strong too."

"Oh. I think I've seen them in horror holos, not in an aquarium. You ate one?" Dreen was wondering if he wanted to know.

Mitra giggled. "It wasn't that bad. They found a menu for a meal where raw octopus was one delicacy. Can you imagine trying to buy octopus? It wasn't in any on-planet food delicacy stores. And you can't really go to the aquarium and say 'would you mind slaughtering the octopus for lunch'? They're apparently tremendously expensive and a real draw. Kids love watching them and scaring themselves silly. Mama thought about using one of our Plenatan mollusks, but Papa can't stand them and she did want to be authentic. Eventually they found a place on Terra that would export a bit freeze dried." She took time to work on the lovely barbequed meat.

"And?" Dreen prompted. The barbequed meat, if he was saying it correctly in his mind, was pretty good if he toned it down with the grain dish.

Mitra giggled again. "There was only a tiny bit shipped, and even getting that on planet was almost impossible \- Ag officials don't like stuff they're not used to." She reflected. "It would probably have been easier to import a live one and to deal with officials used to zoos. Anyway, eventually we got it. My mother thought she was doing everything right. But it ended up looking like a chunk of grey putty and had the texture of plastic."

Sure he'd hate himself Dreen asked, "and the taste?"

"Not much at all. I drowned mine in salt. I have no idea what it was supposed to be like fresh and properly prepared."

"My sympathy." He ate the last of the meat. "Now, enough horror stories. What do you eat after this for dessert?"

"Chocolate anything, preferably ice cream."

***

The crowd was streaming toward the Performing Arts Center. It was finally dark at their latitude, and the hall at the far end of the plaza was a study in floodlit organic curves designed to optimize the acoustics. In contrast the plaza was a study in sparse geometric shapes. They were walking across a paved area of contrasting rectangles like a gigantic game board, each square half a city block. At the intersections of the rectangles sculpted pillars of some softly luminescent material Mitra didn't know rose tens of stories. They were quite an engineering feat, and Mitra wished she had paid more attention earlier. She stopped and craned her neck back to look up. Gingezel's moon was there, framed by two pillars of light, one pink, one blue.

To hell with being an engineer. She returned her focus to a human level, and tipped her face gently to be kissed.

"Thank you Dreen, this is a marvelous idea."

*****

Chapter 43

"Niki, I've got that information you wanted if you have some time."

"Sure, Collan. Go ahead." Niki smiled at the serious-looking middle-aged cherub who was calling him.

Niki noted that although Collan Rydler was perfectly groomed, clean shaven, and wearing an immaculately tailored business suit as always, the potbelly he had been developing over the last few years was pressing the mint green shirt. That wasn't the only change in Collan. As he explained to Niki, now that he was pushing sixty he had the experience to temper what in his youth had been a tendency to thrill seeking. He claimed that since he represented some of the most aggressive venture capitalists around, he could leave the thrill seeking to them. Niki wasn't sure he was buying, but he did see a change.

"Don't suppose you can tell me who the mystery client is?"

"Sorry." Niki didn't want Collan to know it was Mitra. He had suspected for years that Collan was soft on her, and it could affect his judgment.

Collan shrugged. "It's harder to make the match blind, but here goes. If your time is wasted by my being off base, it's your own fault."

Niki smiled again. Collan was never off base, and never wasted anyone's time. If he said a project was worth considering, odds were it was at least gold or platinum.

"So waste my time."

Collan called up some documents on a screen that was out of Niki's line of sight.

"First, we'll look at entertainment." There was a constant, insatiable demand from the populace of the galaxy to be amused, thrilled, and otherwise entertained. "Ever heard of the planet Wysteral?"

Niki shook his head.

"No one has. That's these kids' problem. They're a good little holovision company, with competent writers and good actors. Made a nice little reputation locally. Operative word is little. Think they have the stuff to skip a few steps and go sector wide. They might too. Their stuff is fresh, not provincial, and a couple of the leads have real charisma."

Niki nodded, asked a few questions, and made a few notes.

"Okay. Next is a simugames company. They're into a blend of virtual reality with real settings. You know the kind of thing - role-playing against virtual players in a drama set in a real locale. They have a few scenarios they want to interest the Gingezel consortium in, but of course that means LAVISH." He said the last word with capital letters. "Their technology is the best -"

Niki raised a defensive hand. "Spare me!"

"I forgot. You're one of those diehards who think games means some kind of board and playing pieces you hold in your hand."

"That's right." This was an old argument and Niki knew his cues. "Chess is almost as old as mankind." He thought fondly of the antique set Chelan had given him. It was hand carved out of malachite and onyx and the chess pieces were various mythical creatures.

"It's fine if you want to sit still and kill a few hours." Collan was dismissive.

Niki grinned. He had played Collan, and he was as good as they came. He had obviously killed more than a few hours this way, but Niki wasn't about to spoil the argument.

"Okay. You're the action man. You want to bet they end up with more simugames on Gingezel than gaming tables?"

"And lose a bet?" Collan was horrified at the prospect. "I misspent much of my youth at gaming tables, and I value those years highly." He called up another folder. "Moving on. University stuff, Chemistry Department. New polymer with interesting optics that make it a likely candidate for the fashion industry. Fortunately the Dean has the sense to be partnering with some outside players. There are a few potential problems there I'll brief you on if this is where you want to go, but it's one of those risk/return tradeoffs."

"Mmmm. No." Niki liked them, but not for his sister. "That's it?" The list was about as long as he'd expected given the criteria he provided.

"Not quite. There are two you wouldn't touch." There was a sudden gleam in Collan's eyes, "unless you've softened your definition of insider trading?"

"No way."

"Okay, you'd have to hand off this client to Brian or Sanja then, but here goes. The first is agribusiness. Another planet I'm sure you never heard of, Azuramer -"

"Wrong!" Niki interrupted. "Big Luis is from there." Big Luis was a defenseman for Tamara. "It's a water world with no Octagla teams. A scout on holidays picked him up."

"I forgot. You're one of those Octagla fans who knows every stat for every player. Well, anyway this planet has an indigenous berry. Nice flavor for desserts, jams, and so on but it's been hard to domesticate. The yield per bush hasn't been worth it, and they tell me the damn things prefer wild conditions to good soil." Collan shrugged at this strange behavior. "Anyway, they've bioengineered a higher yield plant that actually likes decent treatment and produces. They're doing test marketing to the export luxury market. If the reception is what they expect, they'll work the acreage up to a major industry."

"Purple cloudberries?" Niki asked.

"As a matter fact, yes." Collan looked interested. "Was this one of Roween's projects then?" If so, he'd rate it even higher.

"No. She served them for dessert over ice cream a few nights ago. For what it's worth, they get my vote."

"Great. Maybe I'll try them then. You know I'm not an experimenter when it comes to food, and I'd intended to take the market researcher's word on this one." Collan paused, "I'd forgotten food was her hobby. Any great new rediscoveries lately?"

"One even you would like. A fluffy pastry stuffed with spicy apple. Dripping with butter."

"Does she mind self-invited coffee guests?"

Niki suppressed a smile. Pastry was Collan's weakness, along with any other sweet confection.

"Probably not, and she'd be glad to see you. But I have the recipe and I've been wanting to try it if you'll risk my cooking. Thursday?"

"Great. We haven't got together for a while. By the way, I heard Mitra was on planet recently, but our paths didn't cross." Collan gave a rueful smile. "They rarely do, more's the pity." This line of thought, however, brought him back to work.

"This is the last one." Collan called up another document. "This is in the energy sector." He looked hard at Niki. "By any chance has Mitra jumped ship?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just thought I'd ask," Collan said mildly.

The total confusion on Niki's face could not be faked. He was being honest, even if it looked like he was going to be in one of his touchy moods where he refused to discuss anything more relevant about Mitra than her wardrobe.

"We all know only her project for the Drezvir Mining Guild saved Dellmaice's ass and unless there's some follow-up soon people will get restless. This new venture," he shrugged, "I don't know why, but it felt like your lovely sister's touch."

Niki smiled. "Still dreaming hmm?"

"What's the harm? I don't mix fantasy and reality. I learned years ago that Mitra doesn't even see me. But back to business, if this isn't hers, she had better start looking over her shoulder. It's the kind of stuff she does, hybrid units, but the efficiencies - if they can achieve design claims - make Dellmaice Power Systems look pretty lousy." He studied Niki. "Now I'm in a tight spot. To tell you any more would involve proprietary information. I know you're still being careful, and this really is your sister's game. Still, it looks very good and I don't want to short that mystery client of yours."

Niki hesitated. There was still no way he wanted Collan knowing the client was Mitra, and he could guess if he said keep it.

He said, "Send it to Sanja."

He couldn't use it for Mitra, but Sanja owed him a few favors. Besides she might have someone of her own that would be interested, so it wouldn't be a waste of time if she ended up curious and looked at it.

Niki continued, "Send me the cloudberries, the simugames, and the entertainment company." The cloudberries were kilometers removed from anything Roween was currently interested in unless you counted dessert.

"No high fashion?"

"The client is somewhat risk adverse."

"Pity." Collan shrugged, then brightened. "What time Thursday?"

*****

Chapter 44

They were back in that isolated bubble of time. There was no past, no future, only the delicious, endless now. Mitra leaned back against the soft gold and pink and purple paisley patterned silky cushions, letting the thick warm air caress her skin. It was almost dusk and they were seated near the prow of a small sailing boat that was making its sedate way across an almost mirror-smooth lagoon toward some of the most beautiful and fantastic buildings she had ever seen in her life. How the boat managed to move at all with so little wind was beyond her. It was small and shallow, and the sunset-striped sail seemed immense, but that was all she knew. Being a sailor wouldn't have helped much either, because the boat was a historical recreation of a craft that hadn't been seen since the early days of Rujjipet.

The pink and honey colored buildings of Candi Dua were from the same era on Rujjipet, a planet that she was totally unfamiliar with, except for the fact their Octagla team always beat Plenata. The information at the hotel said Rujjipet was one of the first planets settled, so presumably Chelan had heard of it. She'd have to ask him. There was one immense building rising in steps to a pinnacle behind a series of large square ones with what looked like two or three storey high-arched windows. They were all built out into the bay, and off to the right was a lower building or perhaps a colonnade with marble columns linked by more of the same lovely arches. Wherever on Rujjipet they were copied from, they were beautiful. The proportions were perfect, and the buildings seemed to float above the water.

As the dusk was deepening the purplish mauve of the sky and the pink stone were blending towards the same color. Mitra watched the lights come on along what she decided must be an arched colonnade, enhancing the rosy shades against the mauve. She turned to Dreen. He was sprawled back in the seat, legs out in front of him, a negligent arm partly around her shoulders, partly just resting on the cushions. It was good to see him so relaxed.

"This is the best city yet!"

"It's really spectacular," Dreen agreed. Then he focused. The warmth and the gentle rocking of the boat had lulled him almost to sleep. "You're not doing too bad yourself. The tropics agree with you."

They did too. Mitra had been letting her hair grow, and it was well below her ears now in a soft tousle of not exactly curls but more than waves. The humidity enhanced the curliness, and made her lightly tanned skin velvety soft. She had also responded to the heat by deciding to run around as close to naked as being in public allowed. Tonight she was wearing the camisole she had bought the first day they were together and a brightly printed silk scarf tied as a skirt. She was still out to set the marathon record for shopping as far as he could tell, but she had pretty much shifted from clothes to jewelry, much to Dreen's relief. He hated carting too much baggage about when he travelled.

"Are you completely sure the restaurant will let us in dressed like this?" Dreen asked for the sixth or seventh time.

With a mixture of resignation and curiosity Dreen had allowed Mitra to shop for him when they reached the tropics. He wasn't sure how, but she had found a kind of men's shop he had never come across. This being Gingezel it was all good stuff of course, but it was obviously aimed at men who shopped the way Mitra did. It was slightly more orderly than the women's shops she preferred, but there were all kinds of things hanging about to touch. You could look at the actual texture and color, not a hologram, and everything could be tried on then and there.

When he commented on this while the salesman was out of earshot Mitra had said the difference was that this store was fashionable. That had bordered on a cheap shot, but Dreen had to admit he'd never dressed like this before. His pants were baggy and of some sort of creamy-colored gauzy material he normally would have hesitated to wear. They were cool though, and kept all but the midday heat from bothering him. With them he was wearing a blue mesh T-shirt, one he would have hesitated to wear to the gym even as a kid. Still, when he saw the combination, he found it interesting. Joran had laughed when he saw it, but Dreen didn't care. Mitra was the one who counted, and she loved it. She'd been delighted with her success.

"Very sure. We'll just find a little cafe and sit on the terrace."

"We are going to the museum first though?" Dreen confirmed.

They were going to tour the museum that was housed under the large building. Dreen liked museums well enough. The variety and creativity of human endeavor, to say nothing of human stupidity at times, always fascinated him. But Mitra was almost fanatical about them. He didn't think they had missed one yet, and once they were in, the only ways that he had found to get her out again were either to make sure she went in hungry, or to a make persistent pass at her and get her mind onto things other than history. Tonight he was counting on her being hungry.

Dreen tightened his arm around her bare shoulder and smiled at her radiant face. He was looking forward to their evening. Perhaps here, with the setting so lovely, and the climate so warm and relaxing, they could finally bridge that gap and create a future together. Perhaps here, wandering down some little street, or sitting on a terrace and watching the moon he could say those words that wouldn't come out.

***

Dreen splashed his face with icy water and toweled it off. Well, he was feeling better than last night anyway and that was a relief. He still hadn't decided if he'd caught some minor illness, the seafood hadn't agreed with him, or if it had been too much of the unaccustomed heat. Whatever it was, he had not felt well at all. Sleep had helped though, and his exercise session seemed to have largely completed the recovery.

Maybe breakfast would finish it. Dreen walked quietly into the sitting room and got himself a glass of juice, a muffin, and a mug of coffee. He seated himself at a wicker table in the cool mint-green sitting room, with the glass of juice in hand and his compad in front of him, feeling at peace with life again.

All in all, Dreen decided, he was quite pleased with the way the software development for Joran was going. That initial block, well, he couldn't see now for the life of him why he'd been going in that direction. He'd had the structure of the problem all wrong thinking of the fact Joran always laid down his music in various tracks. But that wasn't the way Joran painted. He jumped from color to color, finishing one area, moving to another, coming back to the first. So the sound couldn't be in end-to-end tracks. It had to be in bursts of completed or partially completed sections. That might be a little hard for Joran to get used to, but it would work. The consequence of thinking tracks had been that he had been fighting himself every step of the way. Still, the fight had defined the true issues in his mind. Now that he had it right, it was just a matter of coding. The structure had fallen out so easily this time he was sure it would work.

It was a bit after seven. He would just review the entire structure once more, end to end, then start the actual coding of the first module. Dreen summoned the appropriate documents.

He was half way through the second section when the call tone sounded.

"Damn."

He wanted to do this review all in one session to be sure there weren't any subtle continuity errors. Still, almost no one knew where he was, and if it was Joran he could tie him down a bit more on some tonal issues. Dreen looked at his compad identifier. It was Evrit, his young hacker. He connected. Evrit was looking somewhere between worried and slightly green. Well, it had to happen Dreen told himself. Let's find out how bad it is, and focus on damage control.

*****

Chapter 45

"Good morning, Evrit. At least, is it morning there?"

"11:47 a.m. sir." Evrit could not bring himself to call Dr. Pendi 'Dreen' the way older staff did and Dreen seemed to prefer. He compromised on 'sir'.

"So how far did they get?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"The hacker Evrit. Nothing else would have you calling me."

He was studying Evrit. The frizzy blond hair was a mess. Usually there wasn't a hair out of place. Dreen decided Evrit had been running a hand through it. The too close-set eyes were somewhere between worried and panicked. He suppressed a sigh. Sometimes Evrit was too intense. He was intelligent enough though, with a very strong natural mathematical gift. But his greatest strengths were determination, patience, and the ability to retain incredibly complex patterns in his head, much like Gali.

Evrit was also not a true hacker in Dreen's estimation, in that he was totally responsible and had only entered Dreen's competition because it was a legitimate contest by a respected firm. The idea of breaching someone else's property or privacy appalled him and at times had limited his estimation of their problems. He tended to think that if he wouldn't do something, no one else would. Flexibility was not a gift of his either. Now Dreen would guess by his expression that this attack had come from a direction he never anticipated and it had really thrown him.

Evrit in turn was watching Dr. Pendi, not quite able to absorb his apparently taking this in stride. He was still largely in shock, feeling totally miserable, and quite sure he had somehow failed. He didn't even try to respond to the question. He simply started to give Dreen the report he had spent the last twenty minutes composing.

"As you know we have been getting hacker attacks since literally hours after we installed the Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb prototype."

Dreen nodded in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. Obviously he was going to get a recitation. He just hoped Evrit got through the salient points before his obviously tissue-thin control broke.

Evrit continued, "None until now have penetrated past the first level of defense, and we've traced them."

He didn't know if he approved or disapproved of Dr. Pendi's approach of just scare them thoroughly, don't charge them. He supposed it was charitable of Dr. Pendi, but they were after all violating, or were trying to violate, what was supposed to be a secure web, and one to be used for sensitive business issues at that. He came from a business family and had grown up respecting words like merger, takeover, proprietary, and such.

"At 10:47 local time today a more successful attack was mounted." Evrit stopped and swallowed, his rather homely face taut. "To be precise, all levels were breached and the hacker left a calling card. Any further damage has not been found." He looked beseechingly at Dr. Pendi. "You know that doesn't mean there isn't any."

Dreen nodded. No success, then suddenly a total breach? "Damn! So, who was the bastard?"

Then as Evrit looked distinctly about to be ill, he said with an apologetic smile and trying to moderate his tone, "Sorry Evrit, it was bound to happen. But we don't have to be happy do we?" Evrit obviously wasn't and he expected an answering smile but he didn't get one.

"I'm very sorry sir. But we don't know. The trace was deflected."

"Deflected? Are you sure?"

"Reasonably sure, sir. The trace went back to a florist shop on Tamara. Dr. Nellar contacted the local authorities assuming it was an employee - you know the route we've been taking - find the person and scare them but don't press charges."

Dr. Pendi had left Dr. Nellar in charge of the whole project when he went off with that woman. Evrit had to admit Dr. Nellar, a senior staff member, was technically competent at system installation, but he was here to help Wayd Meeran get the hubs going. He had not been on the software development team, and as far as Evrit knew he was not a software developer. Somehow that fact obscurely made Evrit feel that responsibility he neither wanted nor deserved had landed on him as the senior analyst on the project. In this case, he honestly did not know if they had done the right thing or not.

Evrit continued defensively, "But the place looked totally innocent to the authorities, and there had been no unauthorized access to the shop or system. Dr. Nellar talked to the proprietor. I was in on the call." He paused and swallowed, then said, "I'd say the florist just barely runs his accounting packages and he's the most computer literate in the place."

The trace had been deflected. That took some doing. It also meant the trace was expected. Dreen found interest overriding his anger. "And the calling card?"

"So far it's just been telling us that whoever needs a vacation on Gingezel. The intervals are random. We haven't touched it."

Dreen nodded. Trying to access or disable calling cards before they were contained could lead to activation of destructive, or at least nuisance, code. He'd left a few himself.

"And Brys? What did she think?"

"She's asleep sir."

"Well, get her up and pour enough coffee into her to have her more or less awake by the time I get there. I'll head to the airport now and charter a jet."

His other hacker, Brys, had higher odds of finding the solution than Evrit. For a good-natured, wholesome-looking creature she had a remarkably devious and totally amoral mind. She knew most of the dirty tricks in Dreen's book and had added a few of her own creation to Dreen's repertoire. He suspected she also knew, and for that matter had created, quite a few she hadn't told him about. Dreen found himself wishing the hacker had succeeded on Brys's shift, not Evrit's. It would be so much easier to be talking to Brys. She would understand.

He could imagine the frown mixed with admiration on her not quite plump face, with its regular features framed by dark blond hair caught in a pony tail. Brys was two years Evrit's junior with no formal education. A night hawk, she started to focus about ten or eleven at night, peaked between midnight and three, and just kept going until she got whatever she wanted to do done. She tended to wake up sometime mid afternoon so there was some chance she would be more or less thinking by the time he got there.

"Anything else sir?"

"Yes, Evrit. Relax. You can't solve this one if your stomach is in a knot. It isn't your fault you know. I didn't expect this beta version to be impenetrable." But I sure as hell hoped it was since I don't have any more ideas, Dreen added to himself.

"Yes, sir."

By Evrit's face he had no intention of relaxing. If he was always like this he'd have a bleeding ulcer at twenty-five.

"Cheer up Evrit. We'll control any possible damage, then try to disable the calling card. That will give us an idea of whether or not the sender is malicious or just having fun."

"Fun?" Evrit was shocked to the core.

"Fun." Dreen sighed. "Never mind Evrit. You wouldn't understand." Brys would.

"But if they are out to cause damage, not just to prove that they're smarter than we are," which, he thought to himself, is probably a large part of your being upset, "you'll get your wish. I'll find him or her and nail them to the wall." He would too. The thought did not please him, but this web had a lot of security implications, and he had accepted that when he took the contract.

"Yes, sir." Well, at least that was a relief. The boss appeared to be going to be sensible.

"Okay. We've done this in theory lots of times. So call up the manuals we wrote and try to contain the thing. I'll be there as soon as I can."

Evrit brightened. That was true. They had planned for this and had written it all down. If he could get Brys moving, they could largely have everything in place before Dr. Pendi arrived.

"Yes, sir!"

Dreen disconnected.

*****

Chapter 46

"Mitra." Dreen was sitting on the edge of the bed. He gave her shoulder another gentle shake and was rewarded with a sleepy smile and half-open eyes. "Sorry to wake you up Mitra, but I've had a business call and there's something I have to go take care of."

"Before breakfast?" Mitra stretched, trying to half wake up.

"I ate ages ago, and I do have to go." He touched a sleep-flushed cheek and she took his hand, nibbling on the fingertips.

"Where?"

"Back to Crescent Bay." She was nibbling again. "You really wanted to look at the historic re-creations here. Why not stay? I'll be back in a day or two."

He really hoped she'd take him up on the suggestion. Besides the fact he didn't want any distractions, that museum last night had finished him for the indefinite future as far as history was concerned. Unfortunately there had been both jewelry and fashion exhibits, and his feet still ached. Mitra had been so entranced she had forgotten she was hungry, and he had eventually had to resort to Plan B and make a pass at her. But before returning to the hotel, Mitra had decided she was hungry after all and found some little seafood place. Perhaps it had been the heat or fatigue, but for once he hadn't been with her on her choices of food. Nothing had tasted good and the foreign lumps kept making him think of octopus.

By the time they returned to the hotel he hadn't felt very well, and had hoped she'd forgotten Plan B. But no such luck. Not that it had been bad, but he did perform better and enjoy himself more, Dreen thought wryly, when his eyes weren't glazed, his brain wasn't numb, his stomach wasn't queasy, and his feet didn't throb. Still, by the sleepy smile and the nibbling she was happy enough.

"A day or so?" Mitra stopped nibbling and looked at him wider awake. For a moment she was tempted to invite herself along, but by the look on his face he was going to be very tied up. And she really did want to see more of this incredible re-creation. Chelan just had to come sometime.

"All right. How can I reach you?"

"I'll leave my number, but Mitra, I'm truly sorry. You may not be able to always reach me. I don't answer calls when I'm in meetings. I'll be staying at the same hotel, so they should have my schedule." For now Nemizcan was using the hotel's secretarial and other services.

He tried to lighten it. "Besides, you'll probably be sightseeing when I'm free. Messages okay?" While Dreen had a Gingezel number since he had to be accessible, Mitra had flatly refused to get one, so unless she was at the hotel he wouldn't be able to reach her.

She mocked a frown, then smiled. "I'll live."

She stretched luxuriously. She was in too good a mood to be cross. Last night had been wonderful. She couldn't believe the jewelry in the museum. And the clothes! They sure knew how to design back then. Some of the really old stuff was incredibly pretty, some of it looked funny, and some of it had potential as modern clothing. Then that little restaurant under the colonnade had some of the best seafood she'd ever eaten. And when they finally got back after another leisurely boat trip across the lagoon, well, she knew Dreen had been really tired but she liked taking the initiative in bed sometimes, and she was pretty sure he hadn't minded at all.

"So what now?" The invitation in her voice was unmistakable.

Dreen was thinking fast. Surely even on Gingezel it took a while to line up a pilot and service a jet. He smiled back. "Hang on a minute and I'll let you know."

He turned and touched the contact to the desk. "Could you tell me how soon a chartered jet can be available at the airport?" There was a pause while Mitra seemed to be counting the vertebrae in his spine slowly, one by one. It was distracting.

"One can be ready in seventy-five minutes."

They were less than thirty minutes from the airport. That left more than a half-hour. "Very good. Please make the arrangements to go to Crescent Bay."

"And return?"

"I'm not sure when. I'll sort that out at the other end." Mitra had reached the top of his spine and was working back down again.

"Very good, Dr. Pendi." The desk broke contact.

"Are you Dr. Pendi?" she asked sleepily. Mitra had never heard anyone use the honorific. She found she liked the idea.

Dreen turned. "Didn't you know you'd found a smart man?" He smiled as Mitra started easing his shirt loose.

"Oh, I knew that." She started on the next button.

Dreen slid in beside her and she rolled towards him, unsuccessfully smothering a yawn.

"Sleepy?" Dreen smiled and gently kissed an eyelid.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Stay that way. You did all the work last night."

"Dreams," she agreed, shutting her eyes and stopping the not very successful attempt to wake up.

"Dreams," Dreen agreed.

"Best dreams?" she murmured hopefully.

"Best dreams," he agreed, wondering just exactly what he was getting himself into.

***

Dreen was five minutes late for his flight before he even bothered to check the time. It was another five before he could convince himself he cared and make himself sit up. Mitra was sound asleep. Moving as quietly as he could he collected his clothes and headed for the shower to wash off the sweat.

Dressed and packed, it was time to try a page from Joran's book. He connected to the private charter section of the airport. "Dreen Pendi here. Something came up and I'm a little late leaving. Would you please tell my pilot I'm on my way now."

"Certainly Dr. Pendi." The young man had been calling things up as he spoke. "The winds are developing favorably. You should largely make up the lost time."

"Thank you."

And it was as easy as that. Dreen was smiling as he disconnected. He walked over to the bedroom door and opened it quietly. Mitra was still asleep. It was funny, when she was awake she had so much energy you forgot how tiny she was. But asleep like that she seemed so little and vulnerable.

"Sleep well." He hesitated, then added, "My love." It was awkward, consciously trying on the words he had used for the first time this morning. Love was not a word that came easily to Dreen. He had last used it more than fifteen years before, and now, thinking about Mitra he wondered if he had been kidding himself then. He hadn't thought so at the time, but it had been nothing like this. And standing here is not going to get you on that flight, he told himself sternly. Quietly he shut the door.

*****

Chapter 47

Evrit, Brys, and Gali looked up as Dreen walked into the Nemizcan office. They were clustered at one of the tables in the open workspace. He decided Evrit looked better for a bit of time and doing something. Brys was still blurry around the eyes, but apparently thoroughly enjoying herself. Gali did not look at all happy, and that worried Dreen. Gali had pretty much hit the 'seen it all' stage. If he was worried it must be bad.

"Well, how is stabilizing the system going?" Dreen asked Evrit, since technically in his absence Evrit was the senior person on the software side and this was a software problem. He knew how much form mattered to Evrit.

"Not too bad." Evrit was working as he talked. "It's probably a good thing we aren't integrated with the regular system yet. The way the hacker just walked in, it's hard to say how well a firewall would hold. But we've tried to box off the calling card, and we ran extensive diagnostics. There's no evidence he or she did anything beyond leave one. Now we're installing every preventive measure in the plans plus every new diagnostic Brys and I can think of."

Dreen nodded. "So what's the problem?"

"Problem?" Evrit was blank.

Dreen shifted his gaze to Gali. "Gali, what's wrong? I know you too well."

"Nothing is exactly wrong," Gali said slowly and reluctantly. "It's just that the message has changed."

"And?" Dreen prompted.

"And I don't like it," Gali said bluntly, his homely face grave.

Dreen's eyebrows rose. That was a pretty strong statement for the usually quiet and cautious Gali.

"So what's the message?"

Rather to his surprise Brys answered, not Gali.

"It says 'if you're so damned smart Pendi, where is my vacation?' in Voice 14 Female. You know - Linda 14." Linda 14 had been one of the five most popular voices for three of four years. Brys added calmly, "I'm unpopular over that one. It started when I tried to unwrap our little present."

"You see," Gali intervened, "there's a personal component I don't like."

But Dreen was ignoring him. His focus was on Brys sitting there in her baggy old sweatshirt and baggy pants, her mane of brownish blond hair tied in a pony tail like a child's. There was a large half-finished mug of coffee in front of her and her oval face was totally devoid of makeup.

"And why, exactly, did you decide to poke around before I got here?"

The tone made Evrit, who was completely innocent, squirm in his seat. It went right off Brys. Dreen was pretty sure he knew why she had poked, but he wanted to hear it from her.

"You know as well as I do," Brys said cheerfully. She'd figured Dreen out a while ago. He was mad, but not at her, at the hacker.

Dreen leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest. "Enlighten me."

"Okay. For the benefit of those with limited education who haven't taken extracurricular hacking 217, this nice little piece of work will not sit there indefinitely saying 'hi there'." This was for Evrit's benefit and she gave him a dirty look. Brys was still mad he hadn't woken her earlier. "There will be a built-in timing algorithm, and at some point it will activate an aggressive line of action of some sort."

She looked meditative. "Given how whoever just walked in like the deterrents weren't there, I'm not sure I want to find out what that action is. The code however will also have a defensive line of action." She shrugged. "I bet that was the least aggressive of the two. We had it as encapsulated as we were going to get, and we were timing out. I poked."

Dreen nodded. He'd left a few calling cards in his day. Nothing nasty, but most of them caused a few problems if disabled, and were a first-class nuisance if not disabled reasonably swiftly.

"You did the right thing."

Brys shot a vindictive glance at Evrit who seemed to suddenly find the crease in his trousers fascinating. That was the last thing he needed now, Dreen thought, his team at odds with each other.

He continued, "What I'd like to know is how the trace was deflected." He'd spent the whole flight trying to figure that out.

"Oh," Brys was casual, "deflecting the military trace we used isn't bad. I know three algorithms myself that would do it." She added meditatively, "I suppose there may be some I don't know." She shrugged again. "It's something you don't talk about, and they aren't exactly posted on the hyperweb."

"No," Dreen agreed dryly. "And thank you for not telling me when we were setting the trace up. And if the military trace is easy, what are the hard ones? I might add you also neglected to mention tougher alternatives to the trace we used when we developed our system." Dreen was starting to be angry with Brys.

"Yes, well," Brys was still more amused than uncomfortable, "given your, umm, military background, and the fact you used the military trace to trace me, I thought you preferred it. I assumed you knew the others." She shrugged again. "You can dodge them all, so what's the difference?"

Dreen was staring at Brys like she was some alien species. He did not advertise his detested military stint any more than he mentioned his trial. His family knew. Nevin knew. His roommates at the time he was arrested knew. None of these would talk to Brys. A few of the oldest employees like Gali knew, but again they knew better than to talk of it.

So Brys had obviously done a little research before taking her job and knew where to look from seeing his name there before, because no mention could come up in a hyperweb search. There were only two places where she could have stumbled across his name. The military site he worked at and the Interplanetary Judiciary database. He assumed even Brys couldn't crack the Judiciary, so she must have been in the military system at sometime, seen his name, and remembered it.

"Speaking of my 'military background' as you put it, has their trace by any chance changed? Or did your old dodge work?"

Gali coughed to cover a laugh.

"Those hidebound idiots?" Brys was disdainful. "They won't ever change that antique code."

"Careful girl. You just let me implement that antique code and never once said a thing." Any amusement was gone now.

This was not lost on Brys. "No, you don't understand! First off, I really didn't think our hyperweb would crack, certainly not easily. In your contest that third level was the best I'd seen. It took me weeks to find the hole. Ours is better, with no deliberate hole. As for a trace, you have to know what to expect to dodge it.

"The military was a good bet since you don't, umm, advertise your military connection. For Gingezel most hackers would expect the one the securities commission uses, or one similar to it." She added appreciatively, "it's pretty good. The best though are the bio-weapons research crowd, but then they attract good brains, don't they?"

"I expect so." Dreen decided to take pity on Evrit who obviously hadn't understood a word of the exchange. "Early on I was a hacker Evrit, but not as good as Brys. I got caught and was given the option of doing computing for the military as service for the damage."

He didn't mention the other option - prison. Presumably even the proper Evrit could figure that out.

"Oh, I -" Evrit was stunned. He didn't have the slightest idea what to say next. Except for that woman he'd just taken off with, Dr. Pendi was very proper and Nemizcan was a very respectable company.

"I expect this kind of trace was new back then," Brys said charitably.

"Does that relegate me to the antique category too?"

Brys actually flushed. "I'm sorry. My mouth gets away on me sometimes."

They were all saved the problem of who says what next by the well-modulated tones of Linda, female voice 14. "If you're so damned smart Pendi, where's my vacation?"

Gali was right. There was a personal edge to that. He'd have to think about that, about who might have it in for him.

Dreen turned to Gali. "I see what you mean."

"Any ideas?"

Slowly Dreen shook his head.

Gali shrugged. "So what now?"

Dreen turned to Brys. "You," he said sternly, "will teach me the deflection algorithms. All the ones you know." He emphasized the 'all'.

Reluctantly Brys nodded her acquiescence. Just offhand Dreen would say she didn't like the idea. At the moment he wondered just how far he could trust her, and he was very glad that the security classification of the work had required P3's, Class 3 Psychological Profiles, of both Evrit and Brys. The profiles weren't infallible. After all, they weren't the legendary mind probes of fiction, but they went a long way. In Brys' case they had shown significant psychological scarring which the testers said was not anomalous given her planet of origin, the police state Ennup 10, and social status - low. It also confirmed what at the time Dreen had wanted to hear. She was exceptionally intelligent, totally amoral, and very devious.

Now, those attributes looked like a two-edged sword. Being a hacker was how she had survived mentally on Ennup 10, escaping the harsh reality of her life each night after a hard day's work by testing her untrained mind against the best in the galaxy. Just how many of her secrets would she really give up? Still, the profile had indicated she was capable of intense loyalty, and Dreen had no doubt she both wanted and liked her job. The question would be how to ensure, if push came to shove, that Brys would be loyal to Nemizcan, not exclusively to Brys.

Dreen asked, "if we look at all the algorithms the hacker might have used to dodge the trace, can we sort of work backwards and find out where we'd have gone with no deflection?"

Brys shook her head firmly. "No. There will have been a random number generator used in conjunction with an encryption as good or better than ours. We'd need both the random sequence and the key to figure out what the jumps were."

Dreen nodded. It was what he expected.

Brys continued, "We have two options, and I've never tried either. We can try to figure out which deflection algorithm he or she used, and try to use it against them, you know, enhance our trace to not get tricked next time."

"Or?" Gali prompted as Brys seemed lost in thought.

"Write a completely new trace of course. No one would expect that."

Into the prolonged silence that followed that suggestion female voice 14, Linda repeated "If you're so damned smart Pendi, where is my vacation?"

"Damn!" This was from Brys. "I think the pressure just accelerated. That's the first interval tighter than half an hour. And," she sighed, "we need time to poke and understand his mind. It really would help us second guess which algorithm he used to deflect the trace." She didn't even notice that she had decided the hacker was male.

"Time?" Evrit asked. They had the calling card well contained. As for the idea of either coding to prevent the deflection of the current trace, or writing a new trace, well surely that was for the next version. It could take man years.

"Before he comes back dummy! He hasn't got his vacation yet, or whatever he wants. This round was just to get our attention." Brys shook her head at Evrit's stupidity.

"If you're so damned smart Pendi, where's my vacation?"

Brys used some expletive Dreen didn't recognize and his insert didn't translate so he assumed was from Ennup 10, then shifted to StanGalLan.

"That wasn't two minutes! Any bets on how fast we find out how good our containment is?" Then she sighed. "All the same I sympathize with the sentiment. What a place for a vacation!"

She'd done on-line research. There were a couple megacities you wouldn't believe, with everything connected. She could spend weeks exploring them, and it would be safe too, you wouldn't have to continually be watching and listening for trouble. Brys was an agoraphobic city girl, and Crescent Bay had no appeal to her. She rarely left the hotel.

Dreen said casually, watching her face, "That can be arranged."

Brys smiled wistfully. "Yeah, maybe when I'm gran's age." Most of her pay went home to her family. She kept just enough for a subsistence living that was a light year better than she had ever known back home.

"There are performance bonuses you know."

"And what do I have to do to earn one like that? Tap into Treasury? Fix your taxes?" Brys had assumed he was teasing and was reverting to her usual protection from life. If you can't hide and be invisible, turn it into a joke.

"No," Dreen said, catching and holding her eyes. "Just the opposite. No," he repeated with emphasis, "NO hacking and wandering the web where you shouldn't be when you're working for me. Keep yourself well-behaved, and put your energy into solving our little problem here. Either way - solve it, or prove to my satisfaction it is unsolvable," Dreen smiled, "because I can't expect what can't be done - and you're on. A two-week vacation anywhere you want on Gingezel with money for expenses."

Brys was looking at him wide mouthed. "You're crazy."

"No, prudent."

It took her a couple seconds to work that out, then he was rewarded with a brilliant smile. That transformed the plain, rather dowdy girl into something very different. Heaven help the man who falls for you Brys, Dreen thought.

"You're on! Now let's move it before Linda starts yapping again."

Dreen turned to Evrit. "This is a team incentive."

The response was more sedate but equally stunned. "Thank you, sir!"

Dreen turned back to Brys. "I'm not trying to slow things down, but I think the most useful thing I could do right now is spend ten minutes with Gali thinking about who might be behind this."

"It wouldn't hurt. Good luck." Brys was already only half paying attention.

Dreen wondered first if either she or Evrit had noticed the shift in team leadership from Evrit to Brys, and second, if he was crazy.

*****

Chapter 48

It appeared that Gali had not missed the shift, and also that he had his doubts. Whether or not they went as far as questioning his old friend's sanity Dreen couldn't tell by his face.

Gali contented himself with a mild, "I hope you know what you're doing this time, Dreen."

They were sitting at a small table in Dreen's suite. They had agreed, without speaking a word, that this conversation should be well out of earshot of the youngsters.

"She's my best bet Gali."

"I don't doubt her brilliance, but can you trust her?"

"Not as far as I can throw her."

If Gali had seen those psychological profiles he'd have even more doubts. Dreen watched, wondering what would come next. Despite all their work together, their minds were too different for either of them to be able to totally guess the other's response. It didn't help that Gali was so reserved either.

Eventually Gali spoke, running a hand over the almost bald spot that until four years ago had been mousy brown hair. To Dreen this was a sure sign Gali was very unhappy.

"I'm not sure I like your buying loyalty."

It was, as far as Dreen could remember, the first open criticism Gali had ever voiced.

"It's not quite that simple, Gali."

There was no response to that. Dreen made his second major decision in ten minutes. If he ended up tied up elsewhere, which was always a possibility since in his experience trouble came in clusters, Brys and Evrit needed to have an experienced manager with them. They would handle the software fine, but not the security-related issues that could get pretty tricky if the hacker was found, or might get even worse if he wasn't.

"Gali, you haven't worked the coding side for years, but we both know you can. Will you take on project management if I'm not able to be here? Someone has to ride herd on those two hackers."

Quite some time ago Gali had got bored with coding and become fascinated with the hardware and firmware side, and had shifted to system integration for the incredibly complex systems Nemizcan used. Dreen hadn't argued. He liked people to do what made them happy. But Dreen could still remember the early days when they had coded together. Besides being a superb theoretician and programmer, Gali had an exceptional memory. He could retain several screens of pattern for three or four days as midterm memory. Dreen had spent a lifetime trying to match that, but his retention had stayed 25% behind Gali's.

As Gali eyed him evenly, all Dreen could see was a slightly-built middle-aged man with a fair complexion, receding hair, and a mild, intelligent face. A lot of people tended to underestimate what went on in Gali's head. He didn't intend to. He waited.

"You're losing your touch Dreen, or this hacker has you running scared. That's the second move you've made in the last half hour I'd say was beneath you. I ask to know what's going on with this buying loyalty, and you say you won't tell me unless I jump blind into something I may well regret. I've been with you since the beginning Dreen. Don't start to play games with me now. Do it this way and I'll say no right now."

Well, Gali was partly right. This hacker stuff must be clouding his judgment because he'd never thought Gali would see his action as game playing, and Dreen could usually see both sides of an issue.

"Sorry Gali. I didn't mean to seem to be playing games with you. It's just that to get any further talking about Brys I have to go into her P3, and you know the privacy rules on those."

Gali's face cleared. A P3 psychological profile could only be made known on very limited grounds. Being the person's immediate superior on a project requiring one was one of those grounds. "Got a few hiccups has our young lady?" he asked.

"That doesn't take a P3 to figure out," Dreen replied. "Now, I still have to know if you're interested Gali, or we can leave it and get down to what we're supposed to be doing. Coming up with possible names for hackers."

"I need time to think it out Dreen."

Dreen watched as Gali rose and walked out onto the balcony, his mind full of the past, not only his and Gali's past, but parts of Nemizcan history Gali didn't know even though he had been there. It had all started with the businessman Keya had innocently brought to beta test just about at the time they were looking at flat broke and money was tight. Dreen had been cautiously optimistic that night. A favorable opinion from someone known in town, maybe even a letter of some sort could have tilted things in his favor at the bank. It had been starting to look like his only option, because he would not have asked for or accepted a single credit from his father in those days.

***

Keya's unmistakable voice in the hall alerted the small overcrowded Nemizcan startup office that the visitor was coming, and Dreen went to open the door. There was Keya, her arms full of long cylinders of some sort, the visitor politely behind her.

"Look what I've got! A friend of mine at the gallery said they were throwing out all the store samples of their reproductions because they were too shopworn, so I asked for them. I spent lunch sorting through them - some are really grim. Why does anyone make stuff like that? But it left all of these. And you've got to see this one hologram -" she tried to point with her chin to the proper cylinder and almost lost her grip on the lot.

Gali rescued her. In the excitement of new goodies they crowded around to look, the visitor forgotten. After all, Keya was always dragging someone in but it had been eight months since they had anything new to look at on the walls.

This was just as well, because the visitor and Dreen were frozen, staring at each other in total shock. With the whole megacity to choose from Keya had found Nevin Pennell. From Keya's perspective this could have been a real coup. He was a megadeveloper specializing in space ports, medical and government complexes, and supermalls all over the globe. Recently he was getting into whole enclosed megacities. For any young entrepreneur to even be greeted by him, much less to get five minutes of his time was enough to turn that person's head. Somehow Keya had talked him into a night of his valuable time.

This presumably accounted for her excitement, although Dreen wasn't sure knowing Keya. She should have recognized his face from holovision newscasts. He was a solidly built but not heavy man, slightly above average height and in his mid fifties, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a quiet face. He had been a fair athlete in his youth. She certainly must have known his name from the committee they were both on, but she wasn't great at connecting those sorts of facts.

However, Dreen did not need holovision to recognize Nevin Pennell. He was staring at his father's best friend.

Nevin recovered first. At his age he was getting rather used to surprises and awkward situations. He put forward a hand. The other was holding a box of doughnuts it had been obvious Keya couldn't handle along with the prints.

"Hello, Dreen. So this is where you've been hiding yourself."

Nevin honestly hadn't known. He knew Dreen was back on Tranus, in the city, and had an apartment almost in the slums. That was all. He hadn't seen him. That was also all Oren knew, and was all that he was likely to know short of doing a lot of registry searches or having his son trailed. Oren didn't seem to be quite that angry. Yet.

"Sir." Dreen politely extended his hand.

"Well, the military at least seems to have taught you manners," Nevin observed dryly. "You've never called me sir in your life, so don't bother to start now."

He released Dreen's hand and stepped into the room, looking about with curiosity. His observations were pretty much the same as those of the corner store owner, and he approved of the room for the same reasons. But he had a much more accurate idea of what the computing equipment cost. He would have been very impressed if he'd known how little Keya had paid for the lot of it at bankruptcy and liquidation sales.

Dreen watched the slow deliberate assessment with a sinking heart. So much for any hopes he'd had of looking good enough to bring in an investor as a last resort. This would go straight back to his father, and if Nevin didn't talk it all over the city, Oren would.

Nevin's practiced eye moved on to the young people clustered at the table. "I assume one of those men is Keya's husband?"

It was a gentle reminder that Dreen was neglecting his duties as host. Gentle, but a rebuke all the same.

"Yes, I'll introduce you. I think," he smiled in apology, "they're calming down now. Everyone is pretty tired of the same walls and I can't afford a holoprojector."

Nevin frowned. It was easy for Dreen to guess what he was thinking. With the increasing shift to megastructures on Tranus for energy conservation and climate control, interior offices, shops, and apartments were common and usually had the equivalent of windows with projections of outside images, complete with birds, clouds, wind stirring the trees, seasonal changes, and such. They were inexpensive enough that any small business could afford a low-end unit.

Dreen grinned. "It's bad." Why pretend when the man wasn't blind? "But not that bad. The problem is I'd have to get the very top end unit."

Nevin's eyebrows rose in enquiry. "Why so?"

"I found out I hired not only a bunch of programmers, but a bunch of tinkerers. Gali - that's Keya's husband \- is the worst. If I bought a holoprojector that wasn't the top-of-the-line, and you know what they cost, within a week they'd all decide it just wasn't performing. Then they'd decide to tune it up. They'd take it apart, sealed units and all, and poke away until they decided they'd figured out how it worked. Then they'd decide how to reprogram and redesign it. Meanwhile we'd all be stepping over the thing and no work would get done.

"Eventually it would get put back together, and odds are it would be improved, but I guarantee on the first two tries it wouldn't even power up. And for sure we'd get nothing done while they were side-tracked. That," he grinned with tolerant amusement, "is why I can't afford a holoprojector."

"That sounded like the voice of experience, not speculation." Nevin ran his eye along the row of expensive computing equipment.

"They wouldn't dare," Dreen said grimly. "It was the office manager's printer. She had a resolution problem realignment wouldn't fix. The damn thing was apart for three weeks." He shrugged. "It now has excellent resolution. The warranty is of course completely void, and galaxy knows what we'll do when the new software upgrade that was supposed to be out last week is released. For sure it will be incompatible with some of the tricks Gali tried."

"If the machine is working now, can't you leave it?"

"And not have the latest software release? " Dreen's tone was dry. "C'mon, I'll introduce you."

Nevin extended the hand with the doughnuts. "Where do I put these? Keya had us stop on the way."

To Nevin that was another very reasonable economy; no catering unit or catering service. This office was so cramped everyone must get on each other's nerves to some extent, so going out for a snack was a good excuse to leave for a few minutes. Looking at the two men and two women peering over Keya's shoulder, there was no evidence of strained relationships though. Everyone was excited and happy, and now that they were closer to the table he could see the hologram. The artist was clever. She always did garden or forest scenes that morphed if you moved sideways to show animals and occasionally fantasy figures you would swear weren't there when you looked straight on. His wife loved them, and they must have half a dozen or so originals scattered about the place.

Dreen took the doughnuts. Trust Keya to make Nevin stop at a doughnut shop somewhere.

He raised his voice. "Everyone, our tester tonight is Nevin Pennell." He waited for a look of recognition on faces he didn't get, however Keya did give a kind of guilty start for not introducing the visitor.

Dreen continued. "Nevin is a megadeveloper - things like the spaceport you arrived at." His team were all offworlders except Philomena. "And you've probably seen his headquarters downtown. It's the twin office towers where one looks like there's a giant staircase coming out of the wall, with a fountain down it."

That got recognition, and Keya's face changed to a delighted smile. It was so obvious she was thinking 'didn't I do good' that Dreen couldn't help smiling too. He noticed the slightest twitch to Nevin's lips.

Before he could complete the introductions Nevin said, "Now Keya, which of these men is this husband I've heard so much about?"

Keya looked at him in total astonishment. To her it always seemed that anyone should be able to pick out her Gali on his merits.

The less attractive of the two young men stepped forward. "I'm Gali, sir."

"I understand I should be congratulating you \- you just had a book published."

Gali smiled tolerantly. "Keya is exaggerating. I only contributed two chapters."

"But it's going to be a teaching standard at a master's level." As a teacher Keya was excited and proud.

"That's an achievement in itself."

"Thank you sir." Gali wanted to put a fast end to this conversation. Keya was starting to push his publishing to the point where his co-workers were getting very tired of the book. He didn't want that to swing to jealousy.

Dreen bailed him out by completing the introductions.

That formality behind him, Nevin asked "So what do I do?"

Keya was used to this, "Well, first you have to read the user's manual. Then you have to try to start the program. That's always fun - it crashes in all sorts of ways."

"Keya," Dreen was trying to keep his voice level, "I don't think we have to waste Nevin's valuable time that way."

"That's right, pet." Gali was always fast at picking up cues. "I think that part is pretty well debugged. You've personally found most of the really creative ways to crash it." He smiled at her fondly.

"Well..." Keya shrugged reluctantly. She always liked that part. Gali looked so cute standing there frowning and running his hand through his hair until it was all spiky. "After the program is running, they make up the screen - the interface," she corrected herself, "exactly the way you want." She smiled happily. "That makes it so much easier to play 'let's pretend' on all the parts they haven't done yet. I mean, there's a button or something, and you can just say, let's pretend that works and carry on."

She was so proud of the fact Gali and Dreen said that interface idea of hers was a great idea, and everyone did like it.

Thank you very much Keya. Dreen was wondering how Gali would react to his wife being throttled in public. It wasn't that what she said was untrue, but talk about putting things in a bad light. He was trying to think about how to retrieve it, but she was rattling on.

"Then you test the part that is done. It works real good, and everyone likes it. Then we all go for pizza."

Nevin nodded gravely, trying not to smile at the look on Dreen's face. It matched the school principal's at times during the committee meeting. He was used to Keya by now.

He said, "I think I can manage that. But Dreen, if you don't mind, I would like to not skip any steps. The only reason I agreed to come was because I realized from what Keya was saying that I'd get a walk through of how software is actually designed. I've never done that before, and I like to learn how things are made. So could we start with the manual? And," he smiled at the young people, "please be patient with questions. But I expect for a while I'm just sitting reading, so please do what you'd normally do now."

"Eat." The smile on Gali's face transformed the plain features. He opened the doughnuts.

Nevin looked at the gooey mess inside with mild alarm. "Keya," he said accusingly, "you said you'd get a plain one for me."

"I did. It's in there somewhere." She found it half hidden by a flap of the lid.

"Dreen, why don't you get me started?"

"What do you want, Dreen?" Keya asked.

"Whatever." The way his stomach felt he wasn't going to eat it anyways. Keya handed him a doughnut heavily drizzled with chocolate.

"Thanks."

*****

Chapter 49

When they were at Dreen's terminal and the rest were eating their doughnuts , looking at the posters and all talking at once, Nevin said quietly, "Relax, Dreen, I'm used to Keya from the committee. I do take it though that this interface isn't just window dressing to hide some gaps in design - you were too upset." To his surprise, Dreen laughed.

"Actually, in a way it is, or at least it started that way. But that isn't what it will be." He hesitated, but he didn't think Nevin would talk to anyone who could steal their ideas, and he honestly wanted an opinion besides his and Gali's. "You see, Keya was bringing a really eclectic crowd in to test the software, and our finished modules only handle the secretarial sort of office management functions. If she didn't bring a secretary, they didn't even try to relate to the software. They might use the same function in a different way, but they simply couldn't be abstract like that.

"Then Keya said it was too bad we couldn't just make the screen look the way each person expected, then they could imagine easier. We said sure, we could do that with a series of templates. Then, Gali and I got the same idea at the same time. Not meaningless templates but templates with hooks to the guts of the code. So each interface would be custom designed for each user. It changes our whole idea of what we want to build."

"Each user literally - like to go and visit each one for a consultation, or a small subset like an office?"

"We haven't thought it out that far." Dreen said candidly.

"Putting that aside, technically can you do it?"

"With time." Which was exactly what they didn't have.

The expression on Dreen's face wasn't lost on Nevin. He didn't push. "Well, I'll get on with this." He waved at the screen.

***

Dreen didn't expect the manual to hold Nevin's interest long, but the couple of times he looked up, Nevin seemed totally absorbed. So Dreen got busy working on his compad at a spare chair. Eventually the coffee break ended and the rest went back to work too. Keya started her marking.

A hand on Dreen's shoulder made him start.

"Dreen, can I ask a few questions?" Nevin asked quietly.

"Sure."

"I've read this twice and I'm confused. Is it describing how to use the one unit you've finished, or is it for general purpose use later?"

Dreen had to think about that. "Both I suppose. It was for the secretarial section, but with the introduction of the templates the launch has changed, so parts of the manual will be used for everything."

"Then I won't ask if it's finished, it's obviously evolving. But, no offense Dreen, you'd better consider hiring a professional writer before you release this. You'll more than make up the cost in technical support calls." He smiled to soften the criticism. "Did Keya cope?"

"No." Dreen returned the smile. He'd forgotten how well he liked Nevin. "She sat reading for an hour-and-a-half, then never launched the software."

"Well, I think I'll do better than that. Do you want me to try now?"

The launch did go smoothly. Nevin decided that either they'd got the worst of the bugs out, or reading the manual twice had helped. Then the dark haired, mahogany skinned young woman introduced as Jann Denari sat down beside him. She was well into her third trimester of pregnancy and looked uncomfortable.

"What interface are you used to?"

Dreen added "Jann has training in interface design, and she's the artistic one. Plus she's been researching the various competition."

"Can you really reproduce just about anything?" Nevin asked.

"Approximately." Dreen elaborated. "We aren't looking for copyright problems. The appearance is similar in what is used where, but not exact. We're developing our own style - the Nemizcan look."

"Can you show me the ones you've done? I'd like to see them, but not if it takes too long."

"Sure." Jann ran through a series of screens ranging from technical displays to inventory control to secretarial text editing.

"Nice," Nevin said appreciatively. "Now will you make one for me?"

"Sure. What are you used to?"

Not surprisingly it was an upper end management software suite used for costing, project management, time lines and such.

"What screen do you use a lot, and not like much?" Jann asked.

It seemed a queer question, but Nevin answered it. In literally minutes a screen performing the same analysis was mocked up.

"Now, why don't you like it? You see," Jann explained as he looked bewildered, "I'll show you how easy it is to change the screen so you get exactly what you want."

The complaint however turned out to be a lot more than cosmetic or ergonomic. Nevin didn't like the way some of the data was displayed and the fact that to do certain things he needed multiple windows.

Jann shook her head. "Dreen, it's your turn." Then to Nevin, "I can do it cosmetically, but you're talking major structural changes. We can't do that automatically right now. But Dreen can manually change the structure as he builds the interface."

Dreen shook his head. "I'm not focused. Gali, do you mind?" Right now he couldn't even manage a simple if-then-else.

Gali replaced Jann. "Okay. Say it again slowly."

Between each of his comments and the change on the screen there was a minute or so's wait while Gali typed something or another. Nevin couldn't see anything happening.

"There. If this worked - " Gali gave a wry smile - "you would have all the functions you want."

"Yes... You say 'if'. Does that mean you haven't got it working now?"

"That's right."

"If the changes are still just cosmetic," Nevin asked, "what were you doing then?"

"Having my best shot at estimating the high level code it would take to do this. Once we have the templates functional - hooks and all - it will be automatic. But we wanted to catch what you said. You see, none of the software suites do what you want and it isn't that the competition is stupid or lazy. There has to be an implementation problem. And we wanted to do more than catch it by a mock screen and what we would remember verbally."

Nevin eyed the very ordinary looking screen with obvious disappointment. There was nothing that looked different for all of Gali's typing.

"Do you want to see what he did?" Dreen asked.

Nevin nodded. "I probably won't understand, but yes."

Gali called up his coding, and Nevin's guess was right. It was a cryptic mass of symbols and letters. "Somehow I thought high level code was almost like spoken language."

"It can be. That slows me down - I'm used to this. Shall I have it translated for you?"

Nevin nodded and the symbols were replaced by terse text. As far as he bothered to scan it, it did sound like what he'd said, at least sort of. There was a lot of other stuff too.

"And if you want to see it as a symbolic diagram - all the relationships - actually that's the most useful form and the one I work with most..." Gali changed screens again and pointed. "That is the pattern - how the parts of the code to date call things, interrelate, all that sort of stuff. These boxes are calls to the computer functions, these to modules of ours, these indicate where I've referred to something non-existent. And..." His voice trailed off. "Dreen. Come take a look."

Dreen moved to peer over his shoulder.

Gali pointed. "Either I screwed up, or this is why no one does this. Can you see the problem?"

Dreen frowned. "Try this." He made two changes.

"That's a start. But this," Gali pointed again, "is one hell of a bottleneck. We'd need -" he stopped at Dreen's pressure on his shoulder.

"Later Gali. This is wasting Nevin's time." He looked at Gali. "Can you hold it until tomorrow?"

Gali nodded "Sure, but do you mind focusing too. It's going to take both of us to get this sorted out."

Dreen nodded and studied the screen for a few minutes. "Okay."

Gali returned to the interface screen.

"What was that last bit about?" Nevin demanded. "Doesn't the computer just store it all?"

"The code and patterns, yes. Your reasons, no. So if you can't remember all your reasons, you're essentially either starting fresh - or relying on comments. Gali and I can both remember all the logic behind a pattern for at least three or four days - midterm memory. If, say, I changed a thing on that screen Gali would pick it up on sight tomorrow."

That sounded impressive to Nevin, but maybe that was because he wasn't used to this stuff. After all, he expected he could put an architectural drawing in front of Dreen and he'd be lost, but if someone changed a drawing on him he would probably pick it up. He said "Can you all do this?"

The other heads shook no.

"Jann has quite a short term gift," Dreen volunteered. "She can work on a complex a pattern and as long as she gets back to it in three or four hours, she can comment it then. Gali is exceptional in how complex a pattern he can hold, and in what percent shifts to long-term memory."

"How much more complex than you - or is that a rude question Dreen?"

"Not at all. Twenty-five percent or so. By the way, what you saw was a pretty simple example. Gali can retain several screens like that."

Nevin nodded. "So, what now? I know you want me to test the secretarial suite you've completed. But to be quite honest, from what I understood from reading the manual it isn't something I'd use. It's something my office manager or our secretarial staff would. So, I can try. But if it's possible I'd sooner see how it performs against the competition. I assume you've benchmark tested it?"

Dreen nodded, and the team who had been standing around watching brightened. This wasn't the usual request. They hadn't had the chance to show off before.

"We'll set it up - it will only take a few minutes. What do you want to compare to?"

Nevin gave a quiet smile. "The best commercial software of course." He had no idea how Dreen's software would stand up, but for sure they weren't worried.

About twenty minutes later Nevin said, "Are you sure you haven't just been selectively showing me the cases where you look good Dreen?"

Dreen shook his head. "That was the full standard test suite."

"Then I'm impressed." Nevin meant it.

Dreen grinned. "Do you want to see one that is cooked to make us look good? It isn't a standard test."

"Sure." Dreen obviously wanted to show off, so why not let him. Five minutes later Nevin was staring at the top competitor's software just grinding through the first stages of what Dreen's software had finished. "That's pathetic. Is this strictly a pathological case you cooked up to look good, or is it used sometimes?"

"Actually, a certain class of users hit it a lot." Dreen explained who and why.

"Now I really am impressed - and saturated! Any odds on that pizza?" Nevin asked.

This surprised Dreen. He had expected Nevin to make polite excuses at this stage. But then Dreen had been expecting polite excuses for more than two hours.

"Sure. It isn't fancy. It's down in the basement of this complex."

"I think that's an empiricism. Good pizzerias aren't fancy. As long as they have black olives and extra hot sausage." Nevin had explored pizzerias on twelve planets now, including Italian ones on Terra. Pizza seemed to be one of those comfort foods that humanity had taken with them and not changed from planet to planet, although he had heard they were quite different on Calixa.

Over the pizzas, one with double olives and sausage, Nevin told them stories of his first try at business, a clothing wholesale distributorship sited in a warehouse in the depths of the slums. He said it had an office that made theirs look like a luxury hotel. He had two partners his own age, and they had all been sure they'd end up rich. By that, at their age, they'd meant able to take a vacation in the sun in the worst of the winter. They'd had a great time, had not known half of what they should have, and had gone spectacularly bankrupt at the end of eighteen months. Nevin figured it was the best business education he'd ever had. The pizzeria owner had joined them about then with a bottle of wine - they were extended family now - and they'd all sat talking very late.

***

Dreen and Gali were sitting there bleary eyed and rather fuzzy-brained staring at the screen that had puzzled them the night before, hoping for inspiration that wasn't coming. They were in a good mood though. If they figured this problem out they'd really have something.

About 11:00 Nevin called. "Good morning, Dreen."

Nevin looked depressingly awake and crisp in his city suit.

"Thanks for last night. I'm sure you and Gali are busy sorting that problem out, but do you think you could tear yourself away for lunch?"

"Thanks Nevin, but it's really not necessary." Dreen was reluctant on two scores. If Nevin was just being polite and returning the hospitality, he'd sooner keep working with Gali. On the other hand, if Nevin had decided to call his father, he really didn't want to hear about it.

"I insist." Nevin's face remained pleasant, but it had the nature of a command.

Dreen gave in with reasonably good grace. After all, Nevin had given them a lot of his valuable time and one very good idea. "Then thanks. What time do you want me to meet you?"

"Can you be downtown - my office - by 12:30?"

"It shouldn't be a problem."

Nevin hesitated, "And Dreen, if you store a suit jacket around there somewhere could you wear it? I'm not sure where the secretary booked us - I forgot to ask."

"No problem." It would mean a trip to his apartment and a head to toe change but he'd still make 12:30.

"Great. See you then."

Dreen sighed. "Sorry Gali. It looks like I've got to go change and then head downtown."

"What are you so grumpy for? Maybe he wants to give you money." Gali and Keya had talked about that when they got home.

"Fat chance."

*****

Chapter 50

Dreen was so absorbed in his thoughts that he never noticed Gali move from leaning on the balcony rail to one of the padded lounge chairs.

***

"Make yourself comfortable, Dreen." Nevin was taking a call.

"You have someone there?" an older man dressed for a construction site asked.

"My next appointment."

"I won't keep you then. We're pretty well finished anyway -"

"We most certainly are not." Nevin's voice was cold. "Let's get one thing very clear. Before I go home tonight I'm going to know who screwed up - and I mean a well-documented case, not speculation. Or I'm going to assume it was you. Do we understand each other?"

The man looked uncomfortable, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded.

"Good. You can reach me here anytime today."

Nevin broke the connection and turned to Dreen. "Sorry about that, but I told my secretary to just show you in. Still, maybe it's just as well. Now you won't be surprised that there's been a change of plan, and we'll have to eat catered food in my dining room.

He frowned. "Some bloody idiot of a subcontractor at a spaceport I'm building substituted inferior materials. They could have caused structural problems, and it will take us over a month to rip things out and rebuild. But what has me absolutely furious is that the building inspector caught it, not us." Nevin gave Dreen a tired, bitter smile. "So now I have to find out why some very competent people suddenly got blind. Welcome to the joys of management."

"Was it likely to be the man you were talking to?"

"I sincerely doubt it. But he is quite capable of being soft, or listening to excuses. That's why I came down on him so hard. Anyway," Nevin shifted gears, "first, thanks for last night. I really enjoyed it."

Nevin was relieved that Dreen had a very respectable suit on, even if it wasn't very fashionable. But then Oren wasn't much of a dresser either. Maybe that was why he and Dreen had such problems. They were alike in so many ways.

"I'm glad you did. I was afraid we were wasting too much of your time."

"Wasting my time? Just the opposite. Just a minute, Dreen." Nevin closed the contact to his secretary. "Will you cancel the dinner reservation and arrange for a meal in my dining room? I have to be here to take calls. And please hold the next arrival until I say to let them in."

'The next arrival.' Dreen's stomach knotted. He was quite sure Nevin meant well, but if Oren walked in that door he was walking out of it.

"Sorry, but I didn't want us interrupted. Seriously Dreen, that visit was far from wasting my time. I liked what I saw: what you're doing, how you're doing it, who you were doing it with. I also," he looked at Dreen, "got the impression you were at the stage where you could stand a major cash infusion, a way to hire the extra staff you would need to finish off that interface idea of yours in a relatively short time frame." That was a lot more tactful than saying that it looked like they were crowding flat broke and folding. "If we can find a route we're both happy with, I'd like in."

"Sir?" Dreen was so startled it slipped out. This was so far from his line of thought despite the teasing from Gali that he felt stunned.

Nevin gave a wry smile. "Salute me and I rethink this." He paused, "Seriously Dreen, I think we could work something out we're both happy with. There is," he looked uncomfortable, "just one thing." Nevin looked off into space. "Your father."

Dreen forced himself into stillness. Here comes the conditions, the 'live your life his way'. Tight spot or not, he wasn't buying.

Nevin frowned. "Dreen, there is no easy way to say this. Oren and I have been friends for a long time, but I've never told him how to run his business and he's never told me how to run mine. Maybe that's why we've stayed friends. But I don't think he'd take this one as pure business if he found out about it. I can't ask you to lie to your own father if he asks straight up. And obviously my name would be on documents if he searched registries. But I'd really appreciate it if you didn't draw his attention to my approaching you, much less talk about any deal we might make."

'If he found out', 'didn't draw his attention to'. The phrases rang in Dreen's brain. Did Nevin mean Oren was no part of this? He said bluntly, "You mean you haven't been talking to Dad?"

"No, and I don't intend to - about any business dealings anyway. This has nothing to do with him, does it? Unless you talk, that is. Do you intend to?"

Dreen gave a sudden grin, very unlike his father's. "That isn't very likely is it, since we aren't even speaking to each other?"

Nevin returned the smile. "I'll take that as no, you don't intend to speak to him. Good. Then we can cover some basic ground before we're joined by - I'm not quite sure whom the way the day is going.

"You see," he added, looking at Dreen's totally confused face, "I don't know high-tech. Sure, I liked what I saw, but I want protection for both of us. We need to set this up right. So I called the president of Connectors and asked if they could fly someone in for a dinner meeting. He said yes, but if he said who it was, it didn't register." Nevin apologized, "Sorry,this has been a bad day."

Connectors was a firm that provided a link between venture capital and entrepreneurs, but usually they dealt with well-established companies. It started to get through to Dreen that Nevin was dead serious, and he had mixed emotions. It certainly would solve his probably unfruitful round of visits to financial institutions. But he knew Nevin could be very domineering at times.

"What do you envision?" Dreen asked cautiously.

Nevin was not stupid. He could imagine what was going through Dreen's mind, and he didn't blame him. He knew what it was like to be building a not totally shaped dream. You were territorial.

He said, "I have a few conditions I want us to go over privately, to make sure we have a reason to go on." He grinned suddenly, "First, no more openly talking your ideas around. Have you ever heard of a nondisclosure agreement? You shouldn't have said a tenth of what you did last night without one."

Dreen was more amused than defensive. "Keya's tended to bring in people who weren't a risk." Lawyers were expensive. He'd learned that.

"Well, after last night, no risk-taking, okay? I had one drawn up. I signed it, backdated to yesterday. See if it's acceptable and if it is, use it from now on."

Dreen was familiar with the basic minimal NDA from some of his master's work, and with full security documents from his military stint. This was in the middle. He raised inquiring eyebrows.

"I wanted to cover today, Dreen, and I don't think we can get valid advice unless you talk freely about your background. But I don't think you want it talked around the industry. This will effectively curb any gossip."

Dreen looked grim, but to Nevin's relief, he nodded. Good. The worst was out of the way then.

Nevin continued. "Okay. Next, I may be wrong, but I think you intend to release your finished secretarial suite to generate some revenue to fund the completion of that custom interface idea of yours. I don't want you to do that - you'll create a market image that you'll never get past. I'll cover the short term lack of revenue, because in the long run, it's the custom interface that will make your company."

"I'm not sure I'd call letting me do what I want to do, but don't see how to do, a condition. But your suggestion isn't a problem," Dreen replied.

"Next. Time frame. Without scaling up so fast none of you can handle it, with a bit of careful hiring could you bring a product on with that custom interface in say eighteen months?"

Dreen shook his head. "You're asking for a tied down estimate on something not fully specified. Don't hold me to it, but two or two and a half years feels more reasonable." He shrugged. "Even that could come unglued. That's part of the game."

"Well, you know software. Do you mind if I have you talk time estimates over with the consultant though?"

"I don't mind." The consultant would probably roughly double his estimate because they didn't know his team. Dreen wondered how Nevin would react to that.

"Next. This isn't teasing Dreen. I don't think it's a problem, because you aren't like that, but let's get it very clear anyways. Just because you're spending my money you don't get to change lifestyle, okay? Some day you may be able to afford real estate like this," he waved at his luxurious office, "but you take it out of your cash flow when you're stable. Not out of my money. And your personal salary is frozen until you can do the same. Staff salaries are up to you. You know what it takes to keep your team."

"Fair enough."

There was a discreet chime which Nevin ignored.

"I think that only leaves one more thing, and it's more a case of understanding each other than a requirement. If I defined a spectrum where doing the work because you like it was at one end and getting rich was at the other, where would you fit? And I mean all of you - because I'm assuming your friends I met last night will form the core of your company."

"Not getting rich, or they wouldn't be working for me." Dreen smiled.

"I don't want a facile answer, Dreen."

"It wasn't. Gali and I spent days talking that side of it out before I went ahead and set things up. None of us would object to a comfortable lifestyle." He couldn't resist adding, "Or windows. But what is important is to be able to do the work we want, the way we want. Gali and I made sure the rest feel the same."

Nevin nodded. That was the impression he had come away with. "You see, it makes a difference in dealing with Connectors. They know their business, but they tend to push for going public, often a little too early for my taste. In your case, I'm not sure you should ever go public. At least not until..." He paused looking for words and started again. "I think I mean going public would put you back where you have been to some extent, with a lot of external forces calling the shots. You need time to shape things. And barring gross stupidity on your part, I'm not about to push you on how to do things. But there was the possibility at least that you were all working for nothing for now, hoping to get rich on stock sometime."

Dreen took his time to think about it. "I think you're talking further down the road than I've made any firm decisions about."

"Fair enough, but just for now will you trust me? We'd better discourage the Connectors people in that aspect. You can always change your mind later."

"Fine."

"Good, are you comfortable if the consultant comes in now?"

That was a rather stupid question for Nevin. Dreen had come down expecting to meet his father, more or less have the law laid down, and see the end his dreams. Instead, in less than an hour his whole life was being rearranged into what would become its course for the next few decades. Of course he wasn't comfortable, prepared, or anything else. But the consultant had been waiting for some time now so he just nodded.

Somehow he had been expecting a middle-aged man, someone like Nevin, but a woman of about thirty-five walked in the door. She had crisply curled blue black hair, fair skin, and pale blue-gray eyes. She was wearing a business suit and looked almost as tired as he felt. Nevin still looked totally fresh. 'Didn't the man need sleep?' had been his thought then.

***

The woman approached Nevin, hand outstretched. "Mr. Pennell? I'm Mrs. Loban. I was already in this part of the continent so it was possible to get here by noon. I understand you want advice on a computing venture?" She gave a curious look at Dreen, trying to place him and unable to. A slight frown creased her brow.

"Thanks for making it here on such short notice, Mrs. Loban. Let me introduce Dr. Dreen Pendi."

Dreen stepped forward for the obligatory hand shake. "Mrs. Loban."

"Dr. Pendi." She took another, more careful look. The frown disappeared and was replaced with a smile. "Any connection with Pendi Industries?"

"Dreen is Oren Pendi's son," Nevin said smoothly. "But before we start talking, he has an NDA for you to sign. I've already signed one."

"Of course." She settled herself in the indicated chair and skimmed the form. Then she focused and read the NDA again. "This is very non-standard."

"Yes it is, isn't it?" Nevin replied equably. "And you don't find out why until you sign it. So are you curious enough to sign, or do I hire a different consultant?"

Mrs. Loban shrugged and signed, then rubbed her eyes.

"So, to save us all time, do you know of Dreen and what he's doing?"

"I'm terribly sorry, but no. And I pride myself in knowing the computing business. So that raises a few questions." She gave Dreen a polite, apologetic smile. "The first obvious one, Dr. Pendi, is who are you? The other is why, if you are the heir to Pendi Industries, are you doing a deal with Mr. Pennell?"

The smile she gave Nevin was warmer and she temporarily looked less tired. "Your reputation with us is that you like tangible assets - something you can touch."

The reservations didn't surprise Nevin. She was there to protect him after all.

"While you don't know Dreen, you may have heard of his chief programmer. He just had a book published. A Dr. Gali Nellar."

Mrs. Loban was staring. "You've hired Gali Nellar?"

"Why? Is something wrong?" Nevin was worried by the expression on her face.

"Besides I don't know whether to laugh or cry? Do you realize how many major players have been bidding for him, then about a year-and-a-half ago, maybe longer, he just dropped out of sight."

"Then Keya wasn't exaggerating?"

"Keya?"

"His wife and the founder of the Gali Nellar fan club," Nevin said dryly.

"No, I doubt she's exaggerating. Besides being a very talented theoretician, he has this memory trick he does, a pattern recognition sort of thing. It greatly increases his speed developing complex code."

"What's he worth?" Nevin asked bluntly.

"I obviously didn't see the offers he got, or the one he took. But his salary range would be high." She gave a range.

"By the stunned look on your face Dreen, I assume that isn't what you pay him?"

"No." Revealing Gali's more or less subsistence pay would be embarrassing.

"Well," Nevin said cheerfully, "keep him happy."

Before Mrs. Loban could ask how he had attracted Gali if not by money, Nevin continued, "Apparently Dreen has that same memory trick. At least Gali says so," he added at her look of total disbelief.

"You do?" she asked politely.

You could read the 'then why haven't I heard of you' on her face.

Dreen nodded. "My capacity is twenty to twenty-five percent below Gali's. I'd like to say it will build with practice, but I don't think so."

"That's still impressive," she said noncommittally.

The disbelief was still there. Dreen didn't know what to do.

Nevin intervened. "And now, I think we get to the NDA part of things. Mrs. Loban, would you re-ask that question about Pendi Industries. And Dreen, I really don't think this woman can help us without your co-operation."

Dreen nodded without enthusiasm. He hoped Nevin's lawyers knew what they were doing writing that NDA, or Nevin wasn't doing him any favors at all.

Confused but compliant, Mrs. Loban asked, "And the connection to Pendi Industries?"

"As I said," Nevin answered, "Dreen is Oren's son, but that's the end of the connection. They more or less haven't spoken to each other for about five years now, ever since the Dreen got a little too creative on the computing side."

There was a silence.

"That was your cue Dreen, or do want me to tell what I know?"

"No." Dreen sighed. "I suppose it isn't really all that complicated a story after all. I was just starting my Ph.D. program, and I was doing some hacking. I got caught by a military installation with a fancy trace."

***

Dreen was talking to the wall but he wasn't seeing Nevin's office. He was back in his bedroom at his parents' house. It had been the long break between terms and he'd come back to Tranus for a visit. But once he got home, he'd never been so bored in his life. Talk about stupid. Sitting there in Nevin's office Dreen wondered if life would ever be that good again. But bored he'd been, and he'd spent most of his time in his room computing, largely on his thesis work, but also doing some hacking.

He'd finally breached the military site they had all been trying to crack, and he was feeling rather pleased with himself. He was taking a good look around. They had some code structures he'd never seen, and he was trying to figure out what they were for when the door to his room opened. His father was standing there looking angrier than Dreen had ever seen him.

"Just exactly what kind of computing are you doing up here?" Oren had demanded. He didn't need an answer. Dreen's face gave him one. He was across the room in four steps.

Dreen never saw the blow coming. He'd been totally focused on the two uniformed policemen standing in the doorway. It took him full on the face. While he was absorbing this second shock, because Oren had never been violent to him in his life, his father turned on his heel and walked back to the policemen.

"Arrest him," he said to the two men who had observed this bit of domestic violence impassively.

Then Oren left.

Dreen hadn't seen his father again through his whole ordeal. He hadn't even had the wits to disconnect his computer from the military site. He'd been too busy trying to find something to stanch his nose bleed.

***

Dreen returned his attention to Mrs. Loban. If she had noticed his pause, there was no sign. "The University intervened on my behalf. I ended up with a conditional sentence, that if the military was happy with three years of my working for them I wouldn't have to serve time and records of the charges would be suppressed. I worked there, a combination of database design and," he gave a wry smile, "anti-hacker security."

Dreen shrugged. "They were happy. I almost didn't get my degree though. There was no time to continue the research I'd been doing, and all my work was classified. It took quite a bit of creativity to abstract some of the military work enough for it to be unrecognizable as such when published, and a lot of negotiating by my thesis supervisor to get permission for me to use it. When I got out I defended my thesis, presented the results at a conference where I met Gali, then returned to Tranus and started my own venture here."

"The military let you work on classified areas after you violated their security?" She was openly skeptical.

Dreen colored and didn't answer.

"Finish the story Dreen," Nevin said. Then when nothing was coming he added, "Or I will."

"All right." It was grudging. "I spent two months in prison before the military would consider the compromise. They insisted on a full psychiatric and psychological assessment."

Nevin said cheerfully, "They decided he was stupid, not criminal. And he was free high level help."

"And the estrangement? Your father didn't like the embarrassment?"

"Hell no." It was Nevin again. "He was furious that once they locked Dreen up they didn't keep him there. Oren is," he said judiciously, "a singularly uncompromising man."

"Oh." Mrs. Loban obviously didn't know what to say to that. Then she remembered something. "Wasn't there a young man that they did prosecute? Was that before or after you?"

"After." Dreen was talking to his shoes now, not the wall. "His name was Leeth Kembel. He was at a technical college, not a university. I think they took the line that if the military didn't prosecute, they would."

"He got quite a sentence didn't he?"

Dreen nodded. "He won't be out for two years."

Mrs. Loban frowned, then said slowly, "wasn't there some case made he was trying to tamper with some crucial codes?"

Dreen nodded, looking grim.

Nevin knew that look from Oren. "What's up there, Dreen?"

"I was the one who gave that evidence - I was called as a hostile expert witness. It probably gave him an extra two or three years."

***

Dreen hadn't been able to handle the idea of giving evidence. He had tried desperately to get the young man the same terms he had. Finally he'd been bluntly told to shut up or he'd finish his term in prison too. Then a few days before he was to be called as an expert someone had let it slip that Leeth only had a public defender. Dreen had used one of his precious time-limited calls to call his father.

It was the first time they had seen each other since the night of the arrest. Dreen hadn't wasted time with apologies he knew would be rejected, or by asking his father's opinion about what he was going to propose, since he knew Oren would veto the idea. Dreen had a modest inheritance from his grandmother, and he told his father he wanted him to use it to get Leeth technically competent legal counsel. He had been half way through describing what technical knowledge was needed when the call timed out. Dreen had wondered if his father would do it, but when he'd been called as an expert witness the man who questioned him knew his stuff.

Dreen hadn't thought much about it again, but the day he got back on Tranus he had learned his ideas of legal costs were as naive as the rest of his ideas. His father had presented him with a copy of the bill he personally had paid. It was three times Dreen's inheritance. Oren had said Dreen could start paying it off by showing up to work at Pendi Industries the next day.

That had caused one hell of a fight. This one hadn't been violent, just bitter. Dreen had got through his military stint hanging on to dreams he had no intentions of giving up. He would repay every last credit, but not that way.

Now, he reflected, he was going to owe his father's best friend even more. But at least Nevin was volunteering willingly.

Nevin's voice brought him back to the office.

"Did he know you were a hacker too - that you got off?" Nevin asked this with real curiosity. He'd never heard this part of the story. If there had been a mention of the hacker on the news, he had never associated it with Dreen, and Oren had never said a thing.

Dreen nodded.

"I bet that's one man who hates your guts!"

***

Three days after meeting Nevin, Dreen and Gali were finally getting a handle on that problem. When he got back to his apartment at 2:00 a.m., there was a string of six messages from his parents' number. He ignored them. He'd cope with that in the morning. He was just falling asleep at 2:30 when the muted call chime sounded. He got up, afraid now that something was seriously wrong. His father was sitting there in a robe, looking tired.

"You'd be one hell of a lot easier to get hold of if I had your business number, or you returned calls."

It was not a good beginning. "Sorry. Is everything all right?" Dreen asked in alarm.

"Oh we're both fine. It's just that I ran into Nevin at the club today. He said quite by chance a young woman on a committee he serves on dragged him out to see a high-tech company, and it turned out to be yours. He said he was impressed with what you were doing and the people you work with. He also said he had more fun than he had had in years testing your software. That you have some standard rigmarole you run people through. Said I should call and see if you needed more volunteers. Said that they made a damned good pizza in the basement of the building, and that's the payoff for showing." Oren came to a full stop.

Dreen realized that was as far as his father would ever come. Oren would never move from 'Nevin said' to 'could I' any more than he himself would ever be able to say how glad he was of the call.

"We always need more volunteers." Dreen kept his voice neutral. "Are Thursdays still your free night?" He was five years out of date on that.

Oren nodded. "So how the hell do I find the place anyways?"

***

And that had been that. Except that after the Thursday night Oren had cancelled his planned expansion onto a prime piece of real estate in the industrial park and had gone to the trouble of finding and licensing a less attractive site. The day that Nemizcan Computing was prepared to shift from prototype design to producing a final version of their first product he'd given the site plus money for building to Dreen. Keya had spent days having a great time working with the architect designing the relaxation rooms, a meditation park, and the exercise center.

***

Gali knew absolutely nothing about the details of the meeting, only that his and Keya's guess that there was an offer of money coming was correct. Now, Dreen wondered what secrets of his own Gali had. He looked out, confused when he couldn't see Gali. It took a while to see his feet protruding from a comfortable lounger. It looked like his thinking things out could take a while. Dreen started to think about who might have a personal grudge. He supposed he should start with former employees. Most were just cases where their interests had evolved, or an offer had come up that he couldn't or wouldn't match. But a few had been pretty bitter.

*****

Chapter 51

Gali sat there looking out at the perfect day, the jewel of a lake. Oh Dreen. Sometimes you really put your foot in it, without even meaning to. Suddenly he felt very old even though he was only three years older than Dreen. He didn't like that. His mind was as good as ever. Or was it? You met a young coder like Brys and you wondered. Could he still code like her? Could he keep up to Brys or Evrit? He had been wondering that ever since Brys suggested creating their own, unbeatable trace like it was a sensible, matter of fact thing to do.

At last the balcony door slid open and Gali stepped back in.

"I've been thinking," Gali said as he settled himself, "that Brys is probably wrong, and there would be four, not three dodges for the military trace."

So that was it. Gali had sidetracked himself on a technical issue. Well, it was important. He would hear him out, then ask if he needed a few days for considering the team leader job. They did need to get back downstairs. "How do you figure that?"

"She's bright, but she seems to think exclusively of software. Sometimes, by the questions she asks hanging over my shoulder, I'd swear she's only seen one or two terminals in her life, and never had the case off one."

That was quite probable Dreen thought, but it was not information he could give Gali. Why couldn't the man have just come in and said yes or no? Usually Gali was straightforward to deal with, even if the direction he came from was surprising at times.

"Anyway, that's the way she would look at the problem, as software outsmarting software. But there's another side. A hyperweb has a lot of hardware out there, and even given all the protocols, each piece has to establish a handshake with whatever is coming in. Confuse that handshake - make the trace think it's talking to something else somewhere else - well..." He let it trail off.

Dreen nodded. It was the direction his mind had been going on the flight. It was tricky though.

"If it can be done."

"It's been done. I'm afraid I'm talking what Brys would call antique code. But, well..." Gali was acutely embarrassed. "I wrote it myself. It was after that fellow got sent to prison for violating the military database." He looked at Dreen.

"But then you'd know all about that wouldn't you, you were there at the time. Anyway, it was the first time I'd heard of that kind of tracking. That was pretty stupid you know, letting the galaxy know it existed. I suppose it was meant to be a deterrent - don't try or we'll get you and hang you out to dry - but all it was was a challenge. It took me almost a year to write my deflection code, and another few months to get my nerve up to try it. I was almost through my degree and I didn't want to wreck my life." Then Gali realized what he'd said. "Sorry Dreen." Dreen had told him briefly that he had been caught hacking that base.

Dreen shrugged and actually smiled, "Why? All you're proving is that one of us is cautious if not completely prudent. That's been good for Nemizcan, hasn't it?"

Gali smiled back and shrugged off the compliment.

"Anyway, eventually I couldn't stand not knowing if I'd beaten the problem so I tried it." He shrugged again. "What else can I say? I'm still here unscathed. I expect that was after your time?"

Dreen nodded. "Yes, there was only the one breach in the time I was there." He looked at Gali. "Is all of this just for my education, or are you implicitly saying yes?" Gali had an undefinable animation he hadn't seen for a very long time.

"Yes, on two conditions."

"Which are?"

"First, I get the whole story on Brys. I won't walk through a minefield with no map. Second, I get to do some serious code development, not just project management."

Dreen raised his eyebrows.

"Is that a problem?" Gali asked.

"A surprise, not a problem."

"Oh, I'm rusty as hell, but with the current development tools and Brys and Evrit there, it'll come."

Dreen nodded. Just offhand he'd say that old excitement about hacking dies hard. That was what had finally hooked him on the Gingezel project if he was honest about it.

"I accept the conditions." Dreen formalized things.

"Okay, so tell me about Brys. I know she's smart, but how smart? Start there."

"She's smart all right. Genius category, the kind that is far enough from the norm they're hard to test because they're such a small sample group and their responses are anomalous."

Gali nodded. He'd been in classes with one like that for his master's degree, which brought something to mind. "Dreen. You implied she had problems -"

"Severe psychological scarring was the assessor's term."

"Okay. Severe scarring. Was she one of those ones they misjudged early on as learning disabled because the normal system didn't understand them and they weren't interested in the system, it bored the hell out of them? I knew a guy like that. Bitter."

Dreen eyed Gali for a moment, then said evenly, "I sincerely doubt the system gave a damn about Brys one way or the other. She's from Ennup 10, lowest labor class, in one of the most suppressive police state sectors." Ennup 10 was one of the trouble spots of the galaxy. It was also outside the Interplanetary Judiciary's authority, and had made it clear that short of losing a galactic war, it was staying that way.

"Such education as she has was largely self-acquired, although for a while she got some social worker interested enough in her to pay for an online course or so. Apparently when she wasn't working or sleeping she lived at a terminal in a university library. Her dream was to eventually get enough of an academic status to get a soft job like a clerk in a convenience store. It was kind of a family aspiration for one of the kids to do that. By the way, all of this slipped out at 4:00 a.m. in an all-nighter. The only thing the evaluation team could get out of her was where she was from. They said that was adequate for the scarring."

"Poor thing."

Dreen nodded. "So you're probably right on the hardware side. I expect she only saw the keyboard and monitor at the library terminal. That's where she got into all-nighters I understand. She'd work the early shift, 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., or 8:00 to 4:00, then sleep six or seven hours, do her share of the housework, then hit the library until it was time to work again. No-one complained she was hogging a terminal since it was the middle of the night."

Gali nodded, then sighed. "I suppose I'll survive, but I think I got too old for regular all-nighters some time ago. Keya won't be thrilled though."

Gali knew Keya still saw Gingezel as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Of course she had been a bit bored and restless once the novelty had worn off, missing the school she taught at, but she had a routine she was happy with now. He'd never seen her enjoying simple domestic things like she did here. She wouldn't like all-nighters though.

Dreen had to suppress a smile at Gali's melancholy expression. "It's not that bad. Most of the time she's completely self-motivating and doesn't even know if someone else is there. You only have to hold her hand if your code is integrating with hers, or for testing. She still isn't a hundred percent comfortable with our standard type of test suites. She was used to an 'if it runs, it runs' approach for her own stuff. Just show up as usual, but make very sure you're wide awake. You'll hear about everything she's done in the past eight or ten hours in the first ten minutes after you walk in the door."

"Still all new and exciting to her, hmm? Well, that certainly isn't a fault." He looked at Dreen. "So, I let her set her own work style and pace unless she's making some kind of a big mistake, and if she needs correcting, I use a light touch. That doesn't sound that bad."

Dreen seemed to be finding some children down on the beach completely fascinating.

"That's because we haven't even come to the minefield yet, have we? We've been taking a stroll through the pasture next to it."

Dreen still seemed fascinated by the six-year-old trying to teach the toddler to skip stones.

"All right, I'll take a guess. I'll start by saying that bonus isn't because you felt sorry because of her deprived background. But I'm still not following you."

Dreen shifted his focus back to Gali. "She's completely amoral Gali. It surprised the testers, so they went at it three or four ways. There's no sign of anything negative - no sadism, she's not a psychopath, nothing like that. In that way she's the good-natured girl she seems to be. In fact, at a personal level she has an aversion to causing anyone physical or emotional pain. For example Brys could never be a surgeon, even if she accepted the necessity of it and knew anesthetics worked. But the ability to form an abstract understanding of things like property rights, codes of law, the sort of stuff that keeps us all nice social creatures, is missing."

"I see." Gali's tone was repressive. "So when she asked if you wanted her to raid Treasury, she wasn't joking."

"Oh, she was joking all right, but that was because she thought I was. You must have figured out by now it's her favorite coping mechanism. If she'd thought I was serious, odds are she would have gone off seriously considering the smoothest way to do it. Treasury is some abstract place with a lot of numbers stored in a database to her."

"And you knew this when you hired her?"

Dreen rounded on Gali. "Yes, I damn well knew it when I hired her! What do you think made her perfect for the job? She knows most of the dirty tricks in the book and has invented a fair number of her own. Did you want me to only hire Mr. Squeaky Clean? He's so proper he's at a disadvantage in this game. She was my best chance."

Gali was totally unperturbed by the onslaught. He said mildly, "As an aside if Evrit isn't that well suited to the job, why did you hire him?"

"His memory. I've never seen anything like it, except yours."

Gali's ability to retain the myriad details of the various platforms and their assorted software where Nemizcan interfaces were used was legendary in the company, and Dreen remembered when they had coded together back in the beginning.

"He's not useless, just too nice, and this won't be where he stays."

Gali nodded. "Which brings us back to Brys. You now have the proverbial two-edged sword on your hands, and I'm even less happy with that bonus stunt."

"Why?"

"I have no problem with Evrit. He missed most of what you said. He's just mildly stunned and confused at the boss's generosity with what he'll honestly take as a performance incentive. The worst that will happen there is he talks around to his friends and they all apply for jobs. Brys figured it out in less than ten seconds. You're paying her to keep her hands clean. So, the next time it costs more. Or, worse still, given what you said, she just takes the money, smiles, and hacks the hyperweb anyway."

Well, at least Gali spelt that out nice and simple. He always had been a logical man. "I hope it won't come to that Gali."

"Why?" Gali asked bluntly.

"The other significant thing that showed up in her P3 is a strong sense of loyalty. At the time of her screening it extended to her family, period. She sends sixty percent of her take-home pay straight back to Ennup 10. The comptroller came to me about it. He was worried she couldn't find lodgings and eat on what was left, but it wasn't his place to question her.

"So I talked to Lindy. Lindy had figured there would be real culture shock, between Brys being so young and coming from Ennup 10, so she had taken her on. She'd arranged for her to stay with the elderly widow of a shift worker at Pendi Industries. All Brys got was a small room, and low rent because she cooked and cleaned the place for the old lady when she got home from work. Lindy said it wasn't fancy but she thought it was better if Brys roomed with someone, rather than lived alone. Brys thought it was great. She had never had her own room. Apparently Brys cried as hard as the old lady when it came time to transfer here. So she is capable of forming additional loyalties."

Dreen was watching the kids again. "So I've done what I can to make her feel loyal to us too. I think she truly enjoys her work, and she gets along with Evrit about as well as anyone could. And since she's been in Crescent Bay, she's had a good standard of living and not had to cook her own meals for once. She has to have enjoyed that."

Dreen thought about Brys' face when she mentioned the vacation, the longing there. "She's probably worked hard every day of her life. I don't like to think I'm stupid enough to try to buy loyalty Gali. I may have suckered wanting to do something for her. Mostly though, I was buying time and gambling that if we treat her decently and she has a good project behind her to take ownership in, Nemizcan might come in for some of the loyalty too."

"Good luck," Gali said dryly, but it almost made sense. Almost, if the loyalty argument held. He didn't know. He still figured Dreen was on very thin ice.

Dreen watched him for a few moments then shrugged. "So shall we have a shot at what we came here to do?"

*****

Chapter 52

"Dreen, I realize this is ancient history," Gali said slowly, "but talking about Brys has it at the front of my mind. By any chance were you part of doing that hacker in? He got pretty rough treatment - the maximum sentence and no parole options."

Dreen shook his head. "I was there when he hacked into the system. It was my last year with the military and I busted my butt to get him the same treatment I had. Everyone except me was happy enough with my working there by then. I even had an offer to stay on, but I hated the place. I told them they'd get a good replacement, and this one might stay. I used every argument I could think of." He made a grimace. "Eventually they got tired enough of me that I was told to either shut up or spend my last year keeping the guy company in jail."

"Les Kembert, that was his name wasn't?"

"Leeth Kembel," Dreen corrected, not enjoying the memories that were surfacing. "I shut up. I was just plain scared. But I bullied the old man into hiring a decent lawyer for the guy on the quiet, so I wouldn't get into worse trouble with the military. A public defender didn't have a chance with the sort of issues involved. It took years to pay Oren back."

Gali shrugged. "So that's that. We can rule Leeth Kembel out."

"Pretty much. I was called as an expert witness by the Judiciary." Dreen made a face. "A hostile witness to be precise. I gave accurate answers. I didn't intend to play games with the Judiciary lie detectors. But I didn't volunteer a single word." He sighed. "That last year was pretty bitter on both sides at the military base as a consequence. Nothing compared to what the hacker saw, I know, but daily life got as grim as the military could make it."

"Which raises another side issue. What are you going to do if you catch this one?"

Dreen was watching the mother collect her children. She'd been sitting in the shade of an umbrella.

"If the hacker does one thing more than insult me, he or she is finished." He looked at Gali. "I don't have to like it, but I accepted that responsibility when I took the job."

Gali nodded, satisfied. It was what he expected.

"So, whose noses could be out joint from Nemizcan, especially on the development side?" Gali asked.

Marketing was a semiautonomous entity. Besides, whoever had done this was a superb software analyst. There is no way they would be marketing with that kind of talent, when R&D was open to them.

"Well, there's obviously Diana, and Wilmer. I had to fire them for plain incompetence. No one could be happy about that."

"I agree about Diana," Gali said, "but surprisingly enough, not about Wilmer. I always wondered what happened to him. He was a nice enough lad even if he couldn't program the simplest structure. I ran into him about five years ago. I would never have recognized him, but he did me. He was looking very prosperous. Apparently once the shock sunk in, he decided he still loved computing even if he was a lousy programmer. He made a lateral move to writing easy-to-understand user's manuals for games companies. Figured if he could understand them, anyone could. You know as well as I do most programmers hate and/or are lousy at that."

Gali grinned suddenly. "Like us. Do you remember that one of the first pieces of advice Nevin gave us was to hire a professional writer because our manuals were terrible? So Wilmer's made quite a career of it. Quite a nice wife, three cute kids."

"I'm glad," Dreen said simply. Gali was right. Wilmer had been a pleasant lad.

"Who else?" Dreen asked. Gali was a lot more likely to have heard who didn't like the boss than the boss was.

"Well, Jerrol and Marion made moves to other companies, because in their opinion they were not appreciated at Nemizcan. I sincerely doubt," he added quietly, "that they were any better appreciated in their new employment. Neither are the type to admit any problems might be theirs. They'd be sure you made some prejudicial comments if they weren't promoted to the level they wanted."

Dreen nodded, accepting Gali's word. Personally he couldn't put a face to either name.

"Then there's Josef. He plateaued early and was really bitter. I understand he totally changed careers. I think he started selling medical instrumentation."

That was a name Dreen could place. A pushy young man who was certainly competent, but not the stellar performer he was sure he was. He was a possibility. Maybe they had misjudged his capabilities.

"Josef was the brightest of the lot. Could he, or any of the others have done it?"

Gali considered. "Not unless they left their competence behind when they came to work. There's always the possibility of help."

There was that. Dreen sighed, suddenly tired of the whole thing. "Well, I suppose we should discretely find out where they are, so that if Brys does manage to outsmart the deflection we know whether or not to look for them in the vicinity. Even that feels like harassing innocent citizens to me though. I don't suppose they will be hard to trace by their employers. I'll leave that to Gingezel security."

He started to move, but Gali motioned him to stay put.

"Umm, Dreen." Gali was acutely uncomfortable.

"Yeah?"

"If we're doing this right, shouldn't you consider, umm, personal complications?"

Dreen was amused. "You mean ex-lovers and spousal equivalents thereof? None of the ladies to date has been a coder, Gali."

"People have friends. Who left mad? Other of course, than Larna." He knew all about her.

This was followed by a long enough silence that Gali found his discomfort giving way to amusement. "The list is that long?"

"No. As far as I know other than Larna it's a null set. All partings were to mutual relief."

Or at least to theirs if not mine, Dreen finished silently. He had been way back in the past, thinking of the architect he thought he was going to marry.

"But when it comes down to it, how do you know what's in another's head?" Dreen asked. Except for little Mitra he thought, bless her transparency. "Or for that matter, how a perspective changes with time."

Dreen stood up abruptly.

"Enough wasting time. Let's go have Brys show us those dodges. Then we can break it to the hackers that you'll slowly be replacing me as software manager." Dreen smiled. "Somehow I don't think Evrit will mind. I think that I permanently tarnished my image as a role model back there."

"And mine's better just because I came up with my own dodge?" Gali laughed.

They started back in good humor. As they reached the door Dreen paused, frowning.

"Gali. I should ask you the same question I asked Brys. If you know the military trace can be dodged, why let me implement it?"

Gali shrugged. "Same answer. To dodge it, you have to expect it."

*****

Chapter 53

Mitra sighed, leaned back in the woven chair, kicked off her sandals, and took a sip of her iced tea. It had an intense fruity flavor, some sort of berry she didn't recognize, but it went down very well in the humidity that had been building up all day. The sun was a dark red ball now as it sank towards the horizon, almost as red as the sun looked on Drezvir. Mitra fidgeted at that thought and turned her chair so she couldn't see it.

She was out on the balcony, and her new view was over a series of rooftops, with just a glimpse of the tower complex and the water in the distance. For sure this view was nothing like Drezvir, there was so much to see. The buildings had varied heights, and were interspersed with open spaces and lush green parks. There was a lot of traffic on the streets too - both vehicles and pedestrians.

For some time Mitra just sat staring, not thinking or wanting to think after all she had absorbed. She had to admit she was glad she had stayed on. That portion of the city where they had re-created the lifestyle of Rujjipet just a decade after it was settled was fascinating. She only wished Chelan could have been there with her. It was like one of those simulations he had showed her come to life. He would have loved it. She had spent all afternoon wandering around and had taken all sorts of images so he'd at least have an idea of what it was like. She would wait until she had finished taking them, then sort them and send the best to him. It was so easy to just drift, but she really should have got in touch earlier.

Mitra did exactly that, let herself drift, re-walking the streets in her mind. She had only dented the surface too. She would go back tomorrow and the next day and note all of the best parts to show Dreen when he came back. Right now though she needed to rest her feet and eat something. Mitra gave the latter serious consideration. The hotel food was very good but not at all adventuresome. It was tempting to try to find another little seafood place and see if it was as good as the one last night.

An even stronger temptation though was to get out those memory pacs and take a really good look at the geothermal design. She had been thinking about the materials problem for the heat transfer she wanted and she was pretty sure her ideas had evolved since she had recorded them back on Drezvir. If only she could remember the name of that solid-state physicist she'd worked with once, or even what planet she was from. She had known a tremendous amount about the kind of ceramics Mitra was thinking about.

Mitra had been trying to remember her name for a week or so now. Adell? Carleen? The last name was solid sounding, like Steele, or Stone. Maybe Roche. Mitra was almost certain she'd recognize it if she saw it on a University listing, but that was going to take forever unless she could at least remember the planet the woman was from. She had brown hair, or maybe dark blond, and wore the loveliest green sweaters with matching earrings. Mitra did remember that. Someone at Dellmaice Power Systems would know, but Mitra flatly refused to call in. She would end up getting conned into helping with some crisis or another and she wasn't ready for that yet.

Mitra gave it one more try and gave up, admitting she was useless with names. She decided she was hungry though and went into their suite. The conditioned air felt chilly after the balcony and she picked up a light sweater she had thrown on the couch. She went over to the console to contact room service and realized the message light was discreetly glowing. Dreen! With a pang of guilt Mitra realized she had hardly thought of him since she got back to the hotel. She had missed wandering around the old town with him, but when she got back all she had wanted to do was flop. Now she closed the contact. Maybe she should have got an on-planet number so he could call her. No. No way. The call she would get would either be Ari or her mother.

"Mitra, I know you're out sightseeing, but we're taking a break for supper and I'm not sure I'll have another chance to call. I hope you had a good day. I'll call back when I can."

There were no endearments, and Dreen looked rather awkward, like someone was in the room with him. Joran probably was, she imagined. She assumed all was going well. He looked more determined than upset, so that was good.

Mitra was wrong on the guess about Joran though. They had all just been taking a short break and having sandwiches from the cater unit. Dreen had gone into his office to call Mitra, but he had felt awkward about opacifying the walls since he rarely did and he didn't want anyone to think that the hacker was getting to him. So his audience had been Gali, Evrit, Brys, Wayd and two of his technicians, and three of the customer-support staff, more than enough to make Dreen feel awkward.

Mitra looked at the time. It was almost 7:00. With three hours difference it was 10:00 in Crescent Bay, so there wasn't a chance Dreen would be asleep yet. He wouldn't be working this time of night either. She placed a call to his number. No answer. He probably still had his call tone turned off. That was exactly the sort of thing he would do, then forget to turn it on. She would get him through the hotel. With a slight smile of anticipation Mitra called the hotel, requesting Dr. Pendi's room. She liked the sound of that. She really would have to ask him what he'd done a degree in.

The hotel however did not put her through. "I'm sorry, but Dreen is in conference right now and not accepting calls. Shall I find out when they will be finished?" The girl at the desk was trying to be helpful. She remembered Mitra and Dreen's weeks there and had been amused at the Dr. Pendi.

"No." Mitra was embarrassed by the idea of interrupting Dreen in the presence of whatever important personages he was still with at this hour. "We're just playing tag with the calls. I'll leave a message."

She thought for a moment, self-conscious herself. It was hard to say if Joran or whoever would come up for a nightcap and hear it or not. Normally Mitra's messages were as uninhibited as her speech, but she really should try.

"Dreen, your message was waiting when I got back. Thanks for finding the time. The part of the city that reproduces the old lifestyle is fantastic and the people actually like living there. Everyone I asked said it was fun. There's so much left to see I'll spend tomorrow at it." She paused, not sure how to close. "I hope it's all going all right," she said softly. Then with more animation, "Say hi to Joran."

Mitra closed the contact. The room was suddenly terribly empty, but the idea of going alone to a restaurant seemed even worse, so she'd opt for room service. She'd keep busy with her design.

***

Mitra yawned and stretched, easing her lower back. She couldn't believe it was after 11:00 already. She looked at the debris of supper she had just shoved aside. She'd get it removed, then get some sleep. If she could sleep that is. She was excited and she wanted to talk to someone. To be precise, she wanted to talk to Dreen, which was rather interesting now that she thought about it. Usually she wanted to talk to Niki at this stage. She didn't of course, because he was rarely around, but she always wanted to. Tonight though, she wanted to talk to Dreen and she was too excited to remember it was his turn to call. She wanted him to look at her the way he did when he was really listening, to finish sentences for her the way he sometimes did, to tell her she was right.

She wouldn't even consider the possibility that a technical discussion would make his eyes glaze over and bring on yawns. She would swear he was doing some kind of coding, or at least technical or financial analysis. The few times she had surprised him getting up early, the screen he'd been studying looked technical, but she wasn't sure what it was.

Suddenly it seemed very silly the way they hadn't talked to each other about their work. Even if hers was pretty trivial, Dreen wasn't the kind to make her feel that way. She'd tell him what she was doing when she talked to him, and ask about this crisis, find out exactly what it was.

Mitra looked at her cuff to see the time, seriously tempted to call. Dreen usually went to sleep around midnight, so there was time. But if he was trying to adjust time zones, it was after 2:00 a.m. there. No, it wouldn't be fair. He wouldn't have taken off like that on something minor, and she would feel terrible if he was asleep. It would wait. She would make a point of calling him at his lunchtime tomorrow.

*****

Chapter 54

Durstin Fallor stood with his head tipped back looking at the row of metal canisters that were suspended from the ceiling like so many sausages. He didn't know what he was looking for. Any useful information was in the analyses he was holding. All same, there was something comforting in looking at the gleaming perfection, in being able to actually touch their on-planet fabricated fuel.

He turned to the short, white-haired man beside him. "All right Fred, let's go over this one last time."

Fred Szatt, manager of the fuel fabrication facility, nodded and reached out to touch the compad Durstin was holding to bring up information on the first fuel canister. He squinted at the first table, turning the network of wrinkles around his bright blue eyes into furrows. The table gave the results of the sample analysis for purity of the constituents. There were similar sample results for the homogeneity of the mixture. Then there were optical scans of the fabricated fuel for surface anomalies, and the tomographic cross sections taken to detect internal flaws. Everything was in order for the first canister. They went through the same slow painstaking process canister by canister.

"Well that's it." Durstin handed back the compad. "You've done an excellent job."

"I hope so." Fred's usually brisk voice sounded flat.

Durstin gave him a more careful examination. He had been focusing on the fuel. "Are you all right Fred? You look tired."

"I am tired. I've pretty much given up on sleeping until these are in the reactor."

"Why?" Durstin asked sharply, the usually soft lines of his face suddenly hard. "Is there something you don't like?" He trusted an expert's opinion over analyses any day.

"No." Fred shook his head. "It's just that this is a new game for us. Give me the right equipment and a load of raw ore, any ore in the galaxy, and I'll ship the purified product. I'll personally swear too that the pickiest customer in the galaxy won't complain about the quality of that product. But they are always the ones to turn that ore into whatever. This is new for the Mining Guild."

"The fuel you manufacture will save the Guild a small fortune." Durstin's voice was matter of fact.

"I'm not arguing that."

Fred knew Durstin was very popular with Rostin because he was saving him money with every move. Durstin was also popular with the average colony member, because the savings were showing up as profits in their pay. Initially Fred had had his doubts about Durstin, but the man had changed since Mitra Kael left. There was a noticeable quiet competence to him that wasn't there before. Or maybe it had been there, but with Mitra around you never noticed it. Now, although there was fatigue on the young man's face, the brown eyes were observant and intelligent, his coverall was spotless, his sandy hair tidy. A man you could rely on to do his job, Fred decided and relaxed a little. A little, but not completely.

"I just won't sleep until the fuel is in the reactor and everything has been running happily for a few days."

"Well, you know this fuel is exactly to specifications. Don't you believe Mitra's calculations that we'll get enhanced load following out of it? It's all been checked."

Fred took his time thinking. Slowly he said, "Yes, I believe her. She's one damned good engineer. I believe you and that friend of yours too. It's just that I'm old enough that the only results I really trust are empirical."

Durstin had gotten cold feet and brought Mark on planet as a consultant to check out Mitra's work in detail. Mark had done that with relish, working and reworking things in the hopes of finding the smallest error so that he could gloat over Mitra finally making a mistake. Durstin couldn't believe how bitter Mark was about her after all this time. It wasn't that he didn't have a full-time woman in his life either, and one that was just about all he could handle too. But then Mark had always had a broody streak.

Mark hadn't found the slightest problem though, no matter how fine he made the calculations. He had at last grudgingly admitted she was completely right as always and that Dellmaice was a fool to have downgraded the reactor power. No redesign was needed to achieve her original power claims, although they both knew how they would redesign a second unit.

"You need to get some sleep," Durstin said. "Why don't you authorize the shipping and pick up a sleeping tab at the clinic and sack out?"

Fred shook his head. "No way. I'm sitting in the truck with these babies, and breathing down the fuel crew's neck until they're installed. Tomorrow I'll sleep."

He gave Durstin a shrewd glance. "You look as tired as I feel. Are you following your own advice?"

"No, and I'll be there longer than you will. I'll stay with the operators for a few hours, maybe the whole shift, and watch the displays. Then I'll think about some rest."

***

Ken Kwan heard the sound of voices down the hall. The rest of the shift had arrived then and would be with him as soon as they changed. They would be putting on close-fitting stretchy jump suits made of a new polymer that enhanced the wicking of sweat to the point where it was almost as comfortable as air conditioning. The fabric was a real blessing in the lower levels of the mine where they would be working, but the suits had one real disadvantage over air-conditioning. They didn't sense temperature, they just enhanced evaporation of sweat. If it was nervous perspiration, the kind he was drenched in, and you were in a chilly room like his office, they were damned cold. Ken shivered.

Oh well, they wouldn't be long now. He had thoroughly reviewed the cross-section simulations showing the fractures that drilling bore holes seemed to invariably produce in the strata at that level. Given the way the natural fissures ran, and the orientation of the strata right there, it was going to be a tricky one. He and Blayne were going to have to keep moving or they'd have the whole damned wall and cavern ceiling down on their heads. Oh well, they had handled this type of fissure before, just not up high like these were.

The voices approached and Blayne, Bruce, Nann, Roddy, Andy, JoJo, Jenine, Max, and Geoff crowded into the tiny office. He caught Blayne's eye.

"All set?"

Blayne nodded.

"Come take one last look then. By the way," he added as Blayne eased through the crowd, "is your Tessa as excited as my Ginny about putting chicken shit on the lichen out there?" Ken gestured vaguely outside.

"I couldn't say that," Blayne said. "Ginny is the smart one. What Tessa likes are those chicks." He made a face. "She's working on me now for a pet canary for a birthday present. I don't know if I can do it, since they're trying to keep Drezvir bacteria free, but I guess those terraformers might know where I can get a safe one when they get back from the seaside."

"What's a canary?"

"A little yellow bird, about the size of a chick. Sings a lot. I guess at one time miners kept them is why Tessa wants one."

"What for?"

"Pre-ventilation days. They'd croak faster than you did, so if they keeled over you got your ass out of there fast."

"Terrific. You want that kind of a reminder in your apartment?"

Blayne shrugged. "She showed me one on the hyperweb. They're cute little things. Anyway," he looked pointedly at the screen, "see anything new?"

Ken shook his head. "You and I take the fissures while our teams fuse the pellets into the bore holes."

Blayne's finger traced a line. "That's really going to take off."

"I know." Ken hesitated. "We can always call this off. Tell Rostin we have to drill on a different face. He won't push for once. He sent that memo around to not try anything dangerous." Ken grinned. "He needs to retire. He's getting soft."

There were nods of assent.

"The next face will fracture too," Blayne said sourly. "As long as we move it, we're fine."

Ken nodded and looked at the seconds on each team. "You both ready to take over if Blayne or I hit trouble?"

Nann and Andy nodded.

"Then let's get going. I don't know about you, but I want as much practice as I can get before the real stuff arrives."

There was a murmur of assent.

Blayne volunteered, "I heard Rostin has replied to an RFQ on viral wastes containment."

"I've heard that too." Ken was unsure where he stood on biohazard storage. He knew how much money they could make with it, and they all knew Drezvir would never be rich on its ores alone, but he didn't like some of the things he'd heard from the terraformers. They should know too, they were pretty candid about the fact they generated some of the worst problems themselves if they were trying to figure out how to combat some hostile microorganism that hadn't been encountered before, or when one of their genetic modifications didn't work. They weren't as bad as the bioweapons crowd of course, but they probably knew a bit about that too. Well, they'd be back in a couple of weeks and he'd talk to them then. They were easy to approach for Outsiders. In the meantime there was no sense worrying about what you couldn't change.

Ken said firmly, "If he has, it's a good reason for us to get our side of things down pat. Let's go."

He stood up and they walked down the short corridor toward the elevator shaft entrance. In the small room at the end of the corridor each miner moved to the locker with their name on it. They put on their equipment belts and strapped on their air tanks. Then each put on their custom-fitted half-face mask and attached the air supply. There was no enhanced atmosphere once they stepped into the elevator. Then came the helmets and lamps. The tinted goggles wouldn't go on until they were ready to start fusing the wall. Each then turned to their partner and checked them out. Your life could depend on this equipment.

The routine drill completed, Ken activated the panel sealing off the elevator from the habitat and waited as his crew silently filed past. Even with the microphones and earphones in the helmets, the half-face mask made unnecessary conversation a nuisance. He stepped into the open-walled cage and they began their slow descent down, their headlamps picking out flecks of minerals on the rock walls as they passed.

*****

Chapter 55

Ginny Kwan tightened the drawstring of her hood securely around her face. Then she fitted the oxygen trickle tube below her nose and strapped the canister to her belt. It was awkward there. She kept bumping it, but there was no room on her back with her knapsack. Then she reached for her knapsack, fitting her arms through the straps and making a face as the heavy weight settled. It contained three full spray bottles of dilute chicken manure, another full spray bottle of water, assorted measuring devices, her mother's geological hammer borrowed without permission for the outing, and her after-school lunch. Knapsack in place, she put on gloves and activated the contact to the airlock to the outside.

Outside, not in one of the connecting snakes. The very thought made Ginny tingle with excitement. She hated being in a habitat all the time. She knew it wasn't practical to be outside other than for work. It had been drilled into her that the oxygen in the canisters was expensive and just dissipated, not recycled like the air in the habitats. But she hated the word practical, just like she hated being inside. And now that she was doing important scientific experiments for C.C. - she refused to call him Dr. Windegren in her mind - she didn't have to worry. She could go outside after school any night she wanted. It was true that she was not supposed go alone, but Tessa would be hours and hours finishing her math homework. She would be back by then.

Ginny stepped through the outer door and out into the thin, biting wind. It would be winter soon, and she didn't expect the lichen were growing much now, but C.C. had said to keep the experiment going until he came back from the seashore, which was fine by her. That would be in a couple of weeks, but she'd happily keep going out all winter if she thought she could sell the idea.

A pile of grit that had blown up by the door crunched under Ginny's foot. She stomped down again, savoring the sound and feel of soil giving below her booted foot. As much as she enjoyed simply being outside alone, she also loved Drezvir, every last millimeter of the parts that she had explored. The shapes of the hills with their changing shadows tempted her to explore them. Every place she went was subtly different in contour and color. Someday she would explore all of Drezvir, but just for now she contented herself with the fact that she had already explored quite a bit of it.

The group of lichen clumps were as far away as she could walk to and still get back for supper, and Ginny went a different way each time. Sometimes she wondered if C.C. knew she'd done that on purpose, but it was hard to tell with him. He wasn't like the other grown-ups she knew. Her mother would have scolded her for the waste of oxygen and told her to use a clump near the habitats, but C.C. had just nodded and said it was an excellent choice, and not to get lost on the way home. But that was just teasing, right? After all, even though Drezvir didn't have a GPS system yet, since they were expensive and there was only one settlement, she couldn't really get very lost. And if she did, all she had to do was wait for night time and walk to the lights. That might be fun too, if a little bit scary.

This time Ginny had decided to try a really different route. There was a deeper fold, almost a valley, two low hills to the west of her lichen clump. She could walk along the bottom of that valley, then up the side and down the little hill, and up, and down, and be at the lichen. It was longer than she'd tried before though, and it would be tough to get back for supper, so she set out at a brisk pace. She was getting good at hiking now, she thought with pride, and you never knew what you might find in the valley. Maybe there would be some plant the terraformers hadn't seen yet, and they would name it after her. Maybe she would find a mineral inclusion, or even a vein. That was why she had borrowed her mother's hammer, so she could take a proper specimen if she did see something. And she had specimen bags too, just in case she found a plant.

***

Ginny slowed down as the slope of her valley became steeper than she had expected. And narrower. Pretty soon if she spread her arms she'd be able to touch both sides. The sides were almost wall-like too, and she was starting to wonder if her plan to climb one might be impossible. Most of the hills near the settlement were really just gentle mounds. Maybe that meant this was some kind of fault line. She'd have to ask a seismologist, not that they were likely to answer her. She was just a child. Ginny hated being told that almost as much she hated the word practical.

Maybe she should increase the oxygen flow to her trickle tube. She was getting winded. But maybe it would be good enough if she just went slow for a bit. Ginny reduced her pace even more, looking around. She hadn't seen a new plant, not even so much as the familiar lichen, but the strata in the rock walls made almost mesmerizing patterns of rust, and red, and purplish grey. She moved closer to the right wall so she could trace a particularly wavy red finger-thick line. The stuff above it was pretty too, almost purple.

Ginny slowed to a halt and brushed the broad of her gloved hand across the purple to remove the ever-present fine layer of dust. It was purple, a real intense purple, almost as purple as sugalite. No. Ginny rubbed harder. Surely it was even more purple than sugalite. But there wasn't any sugalite on Drezvir. It wasn't super, super valuable, but it had steady demand as a gemstone.

Ginny knew these things from unobtrusively listening to her elders. After all, it wasn't eavesdropping if they could see you if they bothered to look, was it? Sure now that she had found something marvelous, Ginny unslung her knapsack to get the hammer. But when she opened it she saw her forgotten lunch. Maybe she'd just have a cookie and some juice before she got that sample. She could sit and think about just how tough the climb was going to be.

***

There were six separate clumps of lichen in the area Ginny considered her experiment. Two, untouched, were the control groups. C.C. had taught her that name. She looked at them first like he said to do. They looked the way they always looked, thin reddish green scum stuck hard to the rock, so that if you didn't know it was alive, you'd think it was part of the rock. Still, she dutifully measured the six diagonals she always did, and the depth, which wasn't much. There was no change. C.C. had said that it could well take years for change to be visible.

She moved on to the patch she misted with clear water, admiring the difference. It had some depth to it now, and a slight springiness to the touch. She could almost measure a depth change, and maybe a size increase along one diameter, but that might be measurement error. Ginny liked that term. It sounded very scientific. Still, she wasn't sure how that could happen. She was very careful to do things the same every time. Measurements done, she cheerfully drenched the lichen, carefully noting the volume of water applied, the date, and the precise time of day.

Next came the fertilized patches. She knelt down beside the one that was receiving the strong manure concentration. Ginny rather suspected she'd killed it. It had turned a peculiar ugly brown color, and it rubbed off the rock like dust now. Still, she did want to do things right, so she drenched it as carefully as she had the one with pure water after measuring the non growth.

The other two were exciting though. They had changed color, each to a different shade of red. The one receiving the lowest concentration was a really pretty bright red now, the other more maroon. Ginny measured the red clump, then remeasured it. She would swear it had grown a whole millimeter in diameter on one of the axes. Elated, she drenched it, then repeated the process on the maroon clump.

And that was that. Ginny pushed her glove down enough to see her wrist band. She knew what time it was. After all, she had carefully recorded the time of each fertilizer application but she kind of half hoped it might not be as late as it was. No luck, it was definitely time to head back for supper. Reluctantly Ginny took one last fond look at her lichen clumps and picked up her knapsack.

The knapsack hardly weighed anything now with all the liquids gone. Ginny looked at the sky. Maybe, if she hurried she could go back the way she came and get more samples of the purple rock now that her knapsack wasn't so heavy. Only she wouldn't go the way she had come exactly. It had been a real scramble to get up the little cliff and her mom was going to be pretty cross about the knee being out of her coveralls, and the scratches. But really, they were nothing. They'd stopped bleeding in no time at all, and had hardly run down her leg, so she hadn't bothered to dig out the bandages at the bottom of her knapsack. No, she'd angle across to get in the valley higher up. Maybe there would be some different plants there.

***

"So the homework was hard tonight was it Tessa?" Ginena asked as she put her tray down on the cafeteria table beside Lilla's, a friendly smile on her round Oriental face.

She didn't have to look down to meet Tessa's eyes anymore. Both she and Lilla had commented that Tessa was really having a prolonged growth spurt, and nothing would keep her from meals. But Ginny was a different story. She would have to take Ginny a sandwich later, and sit there to make sure her daughter ate.

"It was." Tessa scrunched up her face and rolled her eyes. "I hate math!"

Ginena frowned, narrowing her large eyes. Tessa had problems with everything, but mathematics was Ginny's best subject. "Is that what Ginny is working on?" Ginny would stay with an assignment until it was done, so she might skip eating, but math shouldn't be a problem.

Tessa had to finish chewing before she could answer. "I dunno." She shrugged. "I haven't seen her since school. She went to water her lichen."

Lilla looked at her best friend. "Ginny wasn't in your apartment? I assumed she'd gone home."

"No." Ginena sighed. This was getting to be much too common an occurrence. "Did anyone go with her Tessa?" Ginny was not supposed to go alone, but she did whenever she could.

"I dunno." Tessa squirmed. "She didn't say."

"Then she probably did," Ginena said resignedly.

Ginny was probably still with those lichen. That science project, well meaning though she was sure Dr. Windegren was, was one big mistake. Ginena tried, without expecting much success, to call her daughter. If it was dustier than usual today - Ginena honestly couldn't remember if she'd even looked out the window today - or if Ginny was down in one of the folds, she wouldn't get her. Until a decent set of towers were built and satellite links established, ground communication on Drezvir was iffy. Something in that fine particulate ionized and really caused interference.

She didn't get her.

"Do you think she's lost?" Lilla asked with real concern. She didn't add the other thought: 'or hurt'.

"No." This time the sigh was audible. "Just dawdling. She hates to come in. She'll have found some excuse to redo the measurements four times no doubt. All the same," Ginena looked at her plate, "I'd better go get her when I'm done. She's capable of staying out until it's really dark and then she will get lost. The moons are rising late right now." Ginena had lost her appetite, but it wouldn't do to waste food. She started to eat.

"I'll come with you," Lilla said immediately, and also started to hurry her meal.

"Me too!" Tessa said. This sounded exciting.

"You will not. You'll finish your homework."

"But I know the way best."

This was true. The mothers exchanged looks, and Ginena nodded. She had only been out to see the lichen twice.

"Well then," Lilla said, "eat fast. It will be dark soon and I don't want us stumbling around with only beams to see by."

*****

Chapter 56

Ginny's mother was only partially right. Ginny was not with her lichen. She was having the most wonderful time dawdling and exploring down in a deep enough fold that she could never receive her mother's calls or call out. But even by Ginny's own optimistic estimate, she was thoroughly lost. Somehow in trying to cut across higher ground and avoid a scramble she had ended up in the wrong little valley. It had taken her a while to be sure because she didn't know exactly when she should reach the familiar part where she had taken rock samples earlier. Ever the optimist, she kept expecting to get there in five minutes or so whenever she went around another twist in the winding, corrugated, ever-deepening fault.

Now both her time band and her stomach told her she was late for supper, and she had to admit she was in the wrong valley. Also, even though the twists were rather confusing, the valley seemed to have taken a definite dog's leg that she rather expected would angle her away from the settlement. One thing for sure though, the part she was in now was definitely a fault line and a deep one. There was no way she could get up the walls without climbing equipment.

That solved one problem very much to Ginny's satisfaction. She felt rather guilty about not calling her mother, being scolded, and being told to hurry. She didn't want to hurry. This new valley was fascinating. There was more broken rock in it, and a vein of very pretty greenish something was showing off and on in the left wall. She was quite sure it was chrysocolla or maybe even turquoise. She had climbed up earlier to chip a sample off. She liked doing that, breaking rocks. She wasn't supposed to take her mother's geologist's hammer, but she did whenever she came out here. Now it and the two sets of samples were weighing down her knapsack. The green vein was getting harder to see as dusk deepened though, and pretty soon it would be dark in the little valley.

That didn't bother Ginny. She always packed a high-power beam in her knapsack just in case. She supposed though she should get it out before it was too dark to see well and she dropped it or something. That would be bad. There was a nice boulder just ahead. Ginny walked to it, sat down, and eased off the largely empty knapsack. She extracted the beam and clipped it to her belt, then rooted through the various things she carried in her knapsack, just in case. She was getting really hungry with all the walking, and there should be a snack bar. There wasn't though. For a moment she thought by touch she had found it, but it was just a package of the bandages she hadn't bothered to put on her knee. Belatedly she put one on now. It was easy through the hole in the leg of her coverall, and maybe her mother would be a little less cross if she'd covered the scrape up nice. She was on her third sort through things when she remembered she had eaten the snack bar three trips ago and meant to put another one in and forgot. Oh well.

***

Another discomfort forced itself on Ginny's attention in addition to being cold, very hungry, and having a throbbing sore toe that she stubbed right through her boot because she had been shining her beam at the valley wall hoping in vain to find a way to climb up. She hadn't seen the rock at all and had taken another fall, but except for the toe, and dropping the beam, and being afraid for a moment it was broken, it had been all right. Well, mostly all right. Her hand kind of hurt too. But now there was a new, insistent problem. It must really be blowing up top, because there was a high-pitched irregular whine that was setting her teeth on edge.

Ginny tried undoing her hood and shoving her fingers in her ears. It worked, but she couldn't hold the beam well enough with three fingers and a thumb. It jerked too much when she walked. Her head got cold too, and the hand holding the beam got tired. So she gave up and put the hood back up and tried singing instead. Not out loud, in her head. Ginny had admitted now that she was in trouble, and the biggest trouble was that her oxygen was getting low. Singing might use more. So she sang her head.

***

At last! There was a sort of sloping ledge where she could climb up. Ginny did this with extreme care, not her usual abandon, recognizing now that if she fell and got hurt, no one would find her. So she worked her way up, a millimeter at a time. Finally she reached the top, and cautiously raised her head above ground level.

Boy was it blowing and it was cold! A gust almost knocked Ginny back down, and she decided she'd better crawl until she was well away from the edge. She crawled what were probably twenty steps but how did you tell on your hands and knees? Did you call them steps? Then she sat up and played the beam around. It hardly penetrated the dust. They were having a real red blizzard, and it was hard to breathe. She dug in her knapsack for a dust mask and put it over the trickle tube. That was better. Maybe she'd better call home and have someone come get her. Only, when she tried to call all she got was static. She waited two minutes and tried again. Static. Again. Static.

Then for a moment there was less dust, and she saw a distant gleam of light. Home! Then it was gone in the swirling dust. Well, she would wait until she saw it again, then walk that way until she lost the light, then twenty more steps, then wait until she saw it again. When she wasn't walking she would turn her oxygen off until she felt wonky, then on for five minutes, then off again. The dust thinned and she stood up. There was the light.

***

By her beam it seemed like the dust was less, but Ginny couldn't see the distant lights anymore. She hadn't seen them for a long time. Maybe the storm was thicker at the settlement. She was getting shivery though just sitting. Ginny stood up, irresolute. She didn't want to get turned around and go the wrong way. Maybe she should try calling home again. She tried. Static. She stamped her feet and waved her arms and tried again.

"Ginny? Ginny! Where are you?"

The signal was lousy, but she could hear. "Mommy!" She hadn't called her mother mommy for years. That was baby talk.

"Ginny are you all right?" Ginena was terrified of losing the signal.

"Just cold." Ginny didn't mind the rest now if she was being rescued.

"Where are you Ginny? The rescue team and half of town have been searching for you."

"I don't know," Ginny said honestly. "I got lost. I've been walking to the lights when I can see them, but I can't see them now. The dust must be bad there." There was static and she didn't hear what her mother said.

Ginena listened to the static, waiting for the signal to return. Funny, she couldn't see the settlement lights either and they had been clear a moment ago. The static cleared.

"Ginny. Stay put. We're searching a grid and you might move somewhere we've already been. We'll find you. And you have your beam?"

"Yes."

"Shine it in a circle every few minutes. And do you know if you're north or south of your lichen patch?"

"Way south I think, and west maybe."

The contact was gone and Ginny didn't know if her mother heard.

Ginena did what she rarely did. She swore. Damn! Damn, damn, damn! They had never factored in Ginny's being farther back in the hills than the lichen patch. They had assumed she was somewhere between it and town. Oh well, they could correct that now.

***

It was cold, numbingly cold. Ginny shifted which gloved hand was covering the tear in her coverall and which was jammed deep in a pocket. She didn't try to stand up to exercise. She was too shaky and her oxygen was too low. Uncontrollable shivers started again, and Ginny waited stoically for the round to pass. She had her back to the wind and her hood closed to where she could barely see, but it didn't help.

The uncontrollable shaking abated and Ginny halfheartedly wiggled her numb toes. At least all her sprains and bruises hurt less half frozen. Maybe she should check the time, but that would mean uncovering her wrist. Maybe she should try calling her mother again, not that there was much chance of a signal with this dust. She'd try though. Ginny nodded to herself, heartened by the thought.

Re-calling the number was easy with gloves, but it took both hands and the wind bit at her bloody knee. Static. She waited. Static. More static. Then the static faded. Ginny tore off her face mask.

"Mommy!"

Nothing.

" Mommy!" Ginny shrieked above the wind.

Nothing. Reluctantly Ginny lowered the compad. The low battery light blinked at her through her tears. Fiercely she shook her head. No, she would not give up. She would wave the beam in a circle like she was supposed to do.

Ginny carefully unclipped the beam from her belt. The last thing she needed to do was drop and break it. She touched the switch, and light reflected off the dust swirling around her. How far did it penetrate now that the dust was so thick? With no points of reference Ginny couldn't tell.

She would only circle twice, then switch the beam off and put it down for a bit. Once, slowly, as close to all around as she could manage without standing up. Go back the other way. As Ginny was changing hands, a fierce gust of red dust and grit slammed into her and she dropped the beam. It rolled, and went out. Desperately Ginny tried to remember just where it was when it went off. She peered futilely into the pitch black. Another gust filled her eyes with dust. Ginny blinked icy tears out of her eyes. It was the dust, that was all. She wasn't crying.

All right, she would feel for the beam until she found it. Methodically Ginny patted the ground with her free hand. She had to cover her knee again. It was freezing. Nothing. Ginny slid in what she hoped was the right direction, pulling her knapsack with her.

Biting her lip so hard it bled, Ginny at last admitted defeat. She had lost her beam, her only source of light. Miserably she curled up into a tiny ball and shut her eyes. Shutting her eyes was just to rest a little bit. It was bad to fall asleep when it was this cold, wasn't it?

Ginny jerked awake as she started to topple over. Disoriented, she looked at what seemed to be a line of bobbing lights shifting in and out of her vision in the dust. Indifferent, she laid down, using her knapsack as a pillow. Curling into a fetal position she closed her eyes.

***

"Ginny!" Lilla's beam stopped at the crumpled heap on the ground. "Oh, Ginny!"

Trying not to stumble in haste, Lilla closed the distance. She tore off her gloves and carefully eased the ice crusted dust mask from the girl's face. She imagined a breath of steam that could be exhaled air, but the wind dispersed it as fast as it appeared. Lilla held a finger between the trickle tube and Ginny's nostrils.

No. Maybe. Yes! Ginny was breathing. The breaths were shallow, but she was breathing.

Afraid to move Ginny for fear she was hurt, Lilla unsnapped the spare oxygen cylinder from her belt, attached it to Ginny's trickle tube, and replaced the dust mask. Then she opened her jacket and extracted the thermal metallic blanket each searcher was carrying as much for their own safety as for Ginny. Carefully, she tucked it around the inert form.

Only then did Lilla stand to signal the line of searchers. First she faced the direction Ginena was in. Off - on \- off... Lilla repeated the signal they had agreed meant Ginny was found alive. She kept repeating it until Ginena repeated it back, and she saw the signal working down the line. Then, clenching her teeth, she turned to face the howling gale and signaled the other way. The message spread down the line, soon lost in dust.

Lowering herself to the frozen ground, Lilla curled around Ginny to provide her with what warmth and windbreak she could. As she wrapped an arm around her, Ginny stirred.

"Ginny?" There was no answer but the little body nestled into hers.

A beam played across them. Ginena. Carefully Lilla unwrapped herself and started to rise.

"Lilla!" The wind tore at Ginena's voice. "Is Ginny?"

"She's unconscious, but responsive." Lilla wrapped her arms around her friend. "We'll get her home and she'll be all right."

Lights were converging from the dust and dark.

"If this blizzard lets up so we aren't just edging our way home in the dark." Ginena peered into the darkness in the direction she knew the settlement was, then knelt by her daughter. She wished she dared lift her, but forced herself to wait. Medical help would be here in a minute. Barb was just two down the line of searchers from her.

***

Lilla made a grab for the thermal blanket as a gust of wind tore it from her nearly numb hands. Desperation gave her speed and strength. She got it, and increased her grip to vise-like.

They couldn't stay here much longer, huddled under these makeshift shelters. The press-closures linking one blanket to the next were ripping apart more frequently now, letting in the gale. That's what she was doing, trying to hold a gap shut. They were ignoring most of the gaps, but this one would let the wind hit poor little Ginny directly. Lilla shifted and tightened her grip.

Soon, all too soon, everyone would have to shift to their small backup oxygen cylinders. What did they do then? Did they stay and slowly freeze to death, or stumble in the wrong direction in the dark and freeze that way?

Lilla felt something pressed into her free hand. She didn't know who it was in the pitch black, but a small light beam showed her an unwrapped energy bar, then blinked out. Grateful, she took a bite. It would help for a half-hour or so - gear up her metabolism so cold was less of a problem.

"Look! Lights!"

The sudden voice made Lilla start and she almost lost her grip on the blanket tent wall.

A murmur of excitement worked through the rescuers.

She couldn't stand the curiosity. Lilla let go with one hand to turn towards the door of the tent. She couldn't see lights, but there was a defined opening, not just more darkness.

"We're going home!"

The group hug worked its way to her from the front.

"Lilla. I'll hold that," Barb said. "You get Tessa standing up."

Tessa. Lilla had been resolutely not thinking about her daughter. Now she risked turning on her light. Oh no. Tessa was pale and motionless. She was on one side of Ginny keeping her warm, Ginena on the other. They had put two blankets under them and a third on top, but perhaps that wasn't enough... Perhaps... No! Now was not the time to panic.

Lilla knelt down.

"Tessa, dear." Lilla gave her a shake. "Time to wake up."

Tessa opened her eyes. "I wasn't sleeping, I was shivering."

Lilla felt tears of relief. "Well, you'll be warmer walking. The lights of the settlement are visible now. We can go home."

"Good. I'm hungry!"

"You always are," Ginena said, cautiously sitting up and making no attempt to hide her tears of relief. She reached across Ginny to hug Tessa.

"Is there any change in Ginny?" Lilla asked.

"I can imagine more movement." Ginena touched her comatose daughter's cheek. "Oh, I'll be glad to walk in the hospital door!"

***

It was slow progress. The wind tore at them in gusts, and at times dust obscured the lights, but there was progress. The lights were orbs now, not dots on the horizon. They'd get home. Lilla stumbled from fatigue, and caught herself on Tessa's shoulder.

"Careful," her daughter admonished.

Yes, careful. The outlines of the habitats were visible now. They were home!

*****

Chapter 57

The persistent call tone woke Mitra from a heavy sleep. Dreen. She smiled and reached out to close the contact as she sat up and moved within range of the camera.

"Sorry to wake you Miss Kael," apologized the elderly woman at the front desk. "But a request has come in for a secure beam call in five minutes from a Dr. Ari Dellmaice at Dellmaice Power Systems, planet identification Pendrae. Shall I confirm and set up?" She sounded quite happy to reject the call, which she was. She did not approve of waking guests, and Miss Kael was obviously a late sleeper.

Every room's communication center had the capabilities for high-security sealed transmissions and reception, but the setup was usually done by the front desk. Not every client was comfortable with the technology that went behind this convenience. Multiple security services were used, most were mutually incompatible, and some days you would get three or four upgrades. The woman at the desk reflected that her life would get a lot easier if the Gingezel Ultrasecure Hyperweb ever got going.

Mitra was not sure she was awake. "From who?"

The woman consulted her screen. "Dr. Ari Dellmaice, Dellmaice Power Systems, planet of origin of the message Pendrae," she repeated carefully.

Galaxy! What did Ari want now?

"Confirm I'll accept it. When did you say?"

"Three and one-half minutes from now. Shall I delay and give you a full ten?" she asked helpfully.

"Thanks."

She needed that long to get her brain functioning. Mitra broke contact and stood up. That wasn't too bad. She headed for the cater unit. A strong cup of coffee would help. Then clothes just in case she didn't get those ten minutes. She pulled open the closet door and stood there mug in hand. There was a bright array of camisoles, sleeveless sundresses, and backless halter dresses. Somehow she didn't think any of these were the way to face Ari, not that she hadn't worn similar clothes to work. But he had to have had a reason to hunt her up. Great, now what?

Mitra ran a hand through her still not shoulder length hair. She had the bastard to thank for that too. She was wasting time. Mitra headed for the bathroom, put the mug on the vanity top, and washed her face. As she was running a brush through her hair, she saw reflected in the mirror her robe hanging on the back of the door.

Good for Roween! Roween insisted that a woman should not travel without a robe that could be pulled on instantly over any state of undress and in which she would be presentable to anyone who knocked on the door, or could even wear out into the street, in the case of fire. Roween spoke from vast experience. Her luck with hotels pretty much matched her luck with space liners and shipping specimens. Her colleagues always booked into different hotels. She had been interrupted by co-chairpersons of plenary sessions, university deans, and members of the press. She had been in the lobby three times for fire alarms (false), and in the street once (a real fire).

This was the third such robe she had given Mitra, and it was a happy vacation gift. The thickly woven silky navy robe had a metallic gold slub, and it was cut in almost masculine lines. Mitra pulled it on, wrapped it firmly across herself, and tied the belt. She looked in the mirror. It wasn't bad. A touch of lipstick and she would almost look awake. She looked at her wrist cuff. There was time left to use the toilet too.

What was Ari thinking about calling at 7:45 in the morning anyway? Didn't he know how to use the local time lookup feature? Not that he probably cared. She was pushing her second earring in when the warning tone chimed.

Mitra returned to the sitting room and sat down at the table in front of the camera as Ari's image came into view. He did not look like he was in one of his better moods. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair was rumpled, and there was black stubble on his chin. Well, she wasn't in one of her better moods either.

"Good Morning, Ari." Mitra said pointedly.

"Kael, what the hell were you doing wandering off like that? Do you have any idea how hard it has been to trace you?"

"I've been on vacation, Ari. My first vacation in three years. Remember? I didn't know I had to check in daily." The only way to deal with Ari in this mood was to not back down a millimeter.

"Yeah, well we had to contact your family, then systematically go through all the hotels on Gingezel since you weren't at the one they thought you were in."

"Tough. You found me. So what's worth the trouble?" If those idiots on Drezvir were having trouble with maintenance she was not helping out and that was that.

But Ari wasn't looking at her. He was looking at someone else in the room with him. They must have written him a note, because she didn't hear anything, but he nodded and ran a hand through his thick dark hair.

"Sorry Kael. It's 10:45 at night here, and it's been one hell of a day."

Mitra's stomach started to knot. Ari never bothered to be polite except in a disaster.

He continued, "We have a problem and we need you back immediately, as soon as you can get a flight."

"You what?"

Mitra was sure she was staring, but Ari was crazy. "You've got a whole staff of engineers down the hall to solve your problems and you spend hours to call me up and tell me to head for a spaceport?"

Ari forgot he was being polite. "None of their damned power stations blew up Kael! Why the hell I let you the talk me into pushing it like that I'll never know, but you'll get your ass here yesterday."

Ari and the room weren't focusing properly.

Mitra heard herself say very politely, "Would you please repeat that Ari?"

"The bloody hybrid on Drezvir blew a pressure tube. It sheared one helluva lot of stuff when it went."

It couldn't have. "When?"

"A little over seven hours ago."

Seven hours, and she had been peacefully sleeping. Mitra didn't realize she was just sitting there not seeing anything. At last she shook herself. She had to ask.

"Was anyone hurt?"

There was so much automation it was unlikely unless maintenance or some sort of check was going on. The reactor hall wasn't usually very populated. Still, if the supports hadn't kept the tube from shearing other things -. Her mind shied away from what Ari had implied.

Ari was consulting something on his desk. "Two killed, eight hospitalized with undetermined injuries at the time this was sent. I haven't had an update."

It was impossible. Mitra blinked. There weren't that many in there for most maintenance.

"How?" she asked weakly. "There shouldn't have been five in the hall near the pressure tubes."

"Mine crew," Ari said shortly. "They were fusing an unstable wall when the power went. It collapsed on them and it took hours to get anyone out."

It couldn't be. Mitra buried her face in her hands. "Who Ari?"

"How the hell should I know?"

This time she heard the voice gentle, firm, male.

"She has a right to know Ari. She knew these people. It was in one of the reports. I saw it." There was a pause then the voice said, "Mitra?"

She looked up, not to see Ari, but Tranngol, the Head of Risk and Safety. There were tears in his dark eyes to match her own.

"Here are the names." He worked down the list.

Mitra couldn't watch. The names were the mine crew she had done the geothermal installation with. She buried her face again.

"Did you know them well Mitra?"

She nodded into her hands. "Most of them. One -" her voice broke. "Lilla's husband is dead." It couldn't be. Not Blayne.

Tranngol was watching her with concern. "Who is Lilla, Mitra?"

Somehow his huge frame, the shoulder-length mess of black hair, the full bushy beard he was wearing again, and his surprisingly gentle manner were immensely comforting.

"My closest friend there."

Tranngol did not say, as Ari would have, what does it matter who was killed. He said gently, "I'm so sorry Mitra." When she didn't respond Tranngol said more sharply, "Mitra. Are you alone?" The last thing any of them needed now was her incapacitated by shock.

She nodded her head. Oh, where was Dreen?

"Get yourself a stiff drink and come back. I need your help."

Tranngol needed her help. Of course he did. He would have to figure out what went wrong. Mechanically she went to the bar fridge and pulled out the first bottle, splashing some of the contents into a glass with hands that didn't work right. She walked back to the table and sat down carefully.

"Take a swallow." Tranngol waited. "That's right. Now another."

There was starting to be some color in her face. It was a pity she was alone. He supposed the best thing to do was to get her moving. He knew a lot of theory about human factors, but shock wasn't something he'd had personal experience with.

"Okay Mitra, my team and I will be heading to Drezvir as soon as our equipment is on a company transport ship."

She nodded. That sounded right.

"We need you there Mitra. You're the one who knows the design inside out. It's one hell of a long way from Gingezel to Drezvir, so we'll be well ahead of you. Can you spend the trip reviewing the design so it's all fresh?"

Mitra shook her head. "I don't have anything with me."

That was better, she was talking. "I know. I'll transmit a full set of documentation to you when we're done here."

Mitra shook her head again. "You only have the design documents. All of the records of onsite modifications are property of the Mining Guild and are on Drezvir."

Even better. She could still think. "I've been on that. That Durstin fellow has transmitted the full set to me, and I'll pass them on. But do start reading and focus." Tranngol's face was serious. "They're in one hell of an energy shortage now, and winter's coming. The number of habitats they have to support has expanded with the terraformers' arrival, and it's hard to say if the geothermal unit alone can cover base load or not, assuming we can even get it online.

"So far they've been occupied in the mine getting the miners out and stabilizing the situation there. The reactor hall has been left untouched which is to my liking. I want to see the mess as is. We're packing every spare corner of the transport with batteries and fuel cells, but they need the problem resolved so they can re-fire the station."

At least we hope they can, Tranngol added to himself. If the design is void, the settlers are worse off than they were at the first, until we can redesign the unit and bring it back on line.

Mitra nodded. She had forgotten about the terraformers. If they had started nurseries, that could take a lot of power. With that blanket of dust on Drezvir, solar wasn't a viable option. And while wind power would definitely be a significant long-term component of the Drezvir energy mix, at the moment, without on-planet manufacturing, shipping in enough windmills to meet the power needs of the colony was far too costly. They had been experimenting with a couple of units while she was there. But the very capable engineers at Whistle Up the Wind had met their match. They claimed their turbines were up to anything a planet blew at them, but the advertising department had written that claim before they met Drezvir. The fine silt that was always in the air was so small it got into the workings and clogged things. The extreme turbulence near the settlement meant that a lot of the time the turbines couldn't function at peak power, and those lovely big blades weren't really meant to be peppered with pea gravel going a hundred and sixty kilometers an hour or so.

Mitra's mind continued on this safe tangent. The wind power engineers had found some ideal areas on the planet. Unfortunately there were no ores of interest near them, and it was too far to transmit or ship the energy. So for the time being the engineers at Whistle Up the Wind were trying to live up to their advertising by building a more robust, Drezvir-proof windmill.

There was something she couldn't hear clearly. Mitra looked up from studying the table. Tranngol nodded, and spoke to her again.

"They need me in shipping to supervise the loading of our testing equipment and the fuel cells. Don't worry Mitra, we'll sort it out."

Tranngol was gone, and Ari was back, looking, if it was possible, in a worse mood than earlier.

"Listen Kael, there's something we have to talk about. I spent most of the afternoon with the company lawyers. Even if this doesn't bankrupt us, which it probably will -"

But Mitra wasn't listening. "Is Tranngol still there?"

"No, why?" Ari didn't like the interruption but she looked like it was urgent.

"The fuel cells. I don't think they can integrate them."

Ari's eyebrows rose, but all he said was, "I'll link you." They would temporarily lose the secure teleconferencing but that couldn't be helped.

"Mitra?" Tranngol looked harried.

"What cells are you loading? The HC 825's?"

"Yeah, why?" They were Dellmaice Power Systems's top cell, and Drezvir needed all the power it could get to finish stabilizing the mine and restore power to the settlement.

"They've never used them - couldn't afford them. They've always run standard 560's from our competition. They're only 68 percent of our output at their peak performance, usually less. Besides the fact they won't fit one-to-one, plug ours in and throw the switch and you'll blow that station too - if not the whole grid."

Tranngol winced. There was a significant pause, then, "Right. I'll take care of it."

"Tranngol. You'll need the fittings plus converters. You're -" She paused, not sure how to say this tactfully.

"Not bloody qualified? Too right, but Martine is standing here beside me nodding her head and muttering about idiots."

Martine. Mitra felt relief run through her. Martine was a tall solidly-built black woman of roughly Mitra's age. She was also the best technician in the company for that type of installation.

"Anything else they're likely to have forgotten to tell me?" It was a soft drawl.

"Besides bring each bank of cells on real slow? That grid does not win design awards for stability."

"Right." There was a pause. "Don't fret Mitra. Tranngol will sort it out. It can't be your fault."

"Can't it? What the hell else can it be?" Mitra's voice was shaking.

"Unauthorized modification or faulty maintenance after you left, for starters." This was Tranngol. "Or something as simple as a bad tube."

Mitra shook her head. "Those were all tested to our highest QA standards at the manufacturers."

"Tomography will never be perfect Mitra, you know that. It's a mathematical reconstruction of an image, not the real thing even for all the improvements in the measurements and algorithms."

Also manufacturers had been known to fake QA documents, but Tranngol would not make that charge aloud without proof.

"It's a lot likelier to create an artifact and reject a flawless pipe than miss anything," Mitra objected.

Since this was true, Tranngol didn't waste breath arguing.

He simply said, "One step at a time. We'll sort it out. Meantime, thanks on the fuel cells."

***

Tranngol disconnected and Mitra was back looking at Ari.

In spite of himself Ari found he felt sorry for her. He had forgotten how tiny Kael was. She was so feisty he never thought of her size. But right now she looked small and vulnerable and she was shaking. Why the hell did she have to screw up? She was book smart, but also smart on her feet. Look at the way she'd picked up on the fuel cells. No one else had. They were in enough trouble as is. How would it have looked if they had shown up with the cells and no way to install them, or worse still, blown another installation?

"Kael. You have to understand your position in this. It's Tranngol's show now. You have to be there to answer questions, but you have absolutely no authority. You'll watch every step you take and every word you say. Do you understand?"

Mitra wasn't sure what Ari was driving at, but she was pretty sure he'd spell it out.

He did. "Get this absolutely clear. Your, our design, just led to an accident that killed some people. You, and we, want to fix that but there's more to it than that. They've had problems in the Farr Sector. There are too many planets being developed and not all properly. Legally they are really clamping down. Unless Tranngol can show without a doubt there was another cause, you're going to be facing a lawsuit for criminal negligence at best, more likely manslaughter.

"They will use look-through provisions in their laws and go after senior management as well. So you will think twice before one word comes out of that mouth of yours Kael. Do you hear me? The jurisprudence there is the kind of system where we have to prove our innocence, and not them prove our guilt. You are not, I repeat NOT, to give them any ammunition. Understand?"

Mitra was incredulous. "You mean I'm only supposed to help Tranngol if it means that the design comes out clean? We've got to fix the damn thing Ari."

"We have to survive!" Sympathy was evaporating fast. "First off, the company is currently in financial trouble. This hits the media and the stock is worth nothing."

Mitra couldn't believe him. Ari was thinking stock value at a time like this? She was getting furious. It was an improvement, it was helping her think.

"Second," Ari glared at her, "we're having to provide the replacement power plus the analysis team plus a new reactor. Odds are we have one hell of a lawsuit coming. It could last years."

And you're going to make damn sure it doesn't take you, Ari Dellmaice, down with it Mitra thought with sudden insight.

"So don't compound things, Kael."

"Ari are you asking me to do something unprofessional?" she asked angrily.

"Of course not," Ari said soothingly. "All I'm asking you to do is think of the implications of what you say." Trust Kael to take it like that. "Bureaucrats don't always appreciate technology."

Mitra had to grant him that. "I'm not holding anything back from Tranngol," she said stubbornly.

"Of course not. We can talk about it when you get here."

But Mitra was shaking her head. "Why come to Pendrae? It just wastes time."

"There aren't any more direct routes to Drezvir. You know no liners routinely service that area. Once you're here you can finish the trip on a company yacht and save the time of transfers."

"I can save a lot more time if I can hire one here." She added with sudden inspiration, "if you let me take a Genie, I can probably be there within a couple days of Tranngol."

In the last four or five years, a reworked version of the Genie racer had become accepted as the ultimate luxury yacht, or occasionally the corporate yacht if a company could convince its shareholders the price wasn't outrageous. There were more cautious pilots for these of course, but it was still a very fast way to travel.

"You'll never find one." Ari was thinking fast. The more cooperative they looked, the better. The costs would be insignificant compared to legal fees, and maybe Kael would come to her senses on her own once she was over the shock.

"It's Gingezel. If there aren't a few Genies somewhere on planet, there aren't any anywhere."

"You can try. If not, take whatever they have in a corporate class. It's still faster than commercial. I'll tell the comptroller to authorize it."

Mitra nodded. "Thanks."

Ari hesitated, then he said softly, "Good luck Kael."

They stared at each other, both equally surprised and embarrassed.

Mitra said abruptly, "I'll set up for that data download," and broke contract.

She didn't want Ari to see her cry. Why did he have to go soft like that? Ari's being nasty was one of the constants in her universe, and she needed constants right now. With shaking fingers she set up for the transmission. Then she reached for the box of tissues and collapsed. Oh Dreen! She wanted so much to be held. She would call him once she finished crying. No, she would call the spaceport first. Then she'd call Dreen.

*****

Chapter 58

The door opening startled everyone in the Nemizcan office. They stopped working and looked up. It was Joran, looking completely the persona he had adopted, a down on his luck musician who had somehow landed a job on Gingezel but didn't expect it to last. His hair was unstyled, his T-shirt had real, not fashionable, holes in it, and his lightweight trousers were only marginally better. They both would have been better for a cleaning, and he had meant to send them to the hotel laundry, but had ended up busy composing and forgot. The pants had grass stains on the seat and the T-shirt looked suspiciously like Joran had wiped dirty hands on it, which he had after helping some children build a sandcastle.

The only problem was that now that he was composing, recording, and performing regularly again his demeanor did not match the role. He stopped just inside the door and leaned back on the door jamb, arms crossed and looking remarkably like Dreen in one of his determined moods.

"Somebody here is up to his old tricks and has his call tone turned off."

"Sorry." Dreen took his compad out to correct this, but Joran stopped him.

"Leave it like that for another hour. We're going to lunch."

Joran firmly believed that his meals, the time he was composing, and most of the other events in his day should not be interrupted by calls. On the other hand he expected his friends to be continuously available.

"When you didn't answer I checked at the desk. They said you'd been closeted in here all night. I went over and confirmed that story with Keya." Joran still used any excuse he could to visit Keya.

"Dreen, I need to talk to you. You're going to walk with me to one of the harbor restaurants and have an early lunch. It's a beautiful day out. Then you're going to get some sleep. Gali, Keya says if you come home to a nice lunch and sack out, you're not in the doghouse too bad. She was chicken about coming here and backing me up. You two," he looked at Brys and Evrit, "can suit yourselves."

Gali smiled. Keya would never have said anything remotely like that to Joran. But she would worry herself sick if he didn't show up soon. He looked at Dreen, his eyes asking the question.

Dreen stretched in his chair, arching his back, then wishing he hadn't. Even with those new exercises Trevarr had taught him and the ergonomic design of the chair, he was going to pay in his lower back for this all-nighter.

"For once in your life you're right Joran." He looked as his wrist cuff. It was almost 11:30. "I can function one more night if I get about six hours of sleep. So, say one hour at each end of the sleep, and I can be back here about 7:30 or 8:00. Gali?"

Gali's shook his head. "Sorry Dreen. If I sack out I'm gone for a good eight or nine hours."

"Then do it. I need clear heads. If our little friend has to wait a bit longer to have a reinstalled system to attack, tough on him or her."

When they timed out, the calling card managed to get past the encapsulation and to take the whole system down. They were now reinstalling the system, but it was slow work because every last line of code had to be checked for corruption.

"Brys?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine."

That might be true Dreen thought. She was the freshest of the lot. She had only been up twenty-four hours or so.

"Sorry, but for now I'd sooner we were all more less on the same schedule. I want everyone here when he or she comes at us again. If you can't sleep, rest. How long do you need?"

"Six hours are fine."

"Okay, but if you do sleep, sleep yourself out." She was the one he really needed functioning. "Evrit?"

"Sorry sir, I'm like Dr. Nellar. I'll need at least eight." Evrit felt really stupid saying that, but he could hardly keep his eyes open.

"Don't be sorry. You've been awake the longest. Same as Brys, sleep yourself out."

Evrit almost smiled. That made him feel better. He hadn't thought of the fact he had been there the longest.

"I wouldn't advise that sir. I'll have the desk call me in ten hours." He added in explanation, "I turn alarms off in my sleep and sleep forever."

"I use to room with someone who did that. He used to turn off my alarm too," Dreen said with a pointed look at Joran.

Joran didn't exactly sleep forever, but after a few nights of insomnia, if he thought he could catch up he turned all the alarms off; his, Dreen's, and Juttar's. That stunt had made Dreen miss quite a few classes. Dreen reviewed a couple more lines of code, then gently eased out of the chair. Good posture was the order for the rest of the day. Ah well, with any luck the walk would help, and he'd get a heating pack from housekeeping.

"Gali are you coming?"

"I need about ten minutes to finish the unit I'm doing." Then as Joran looked about to speak, "don't worry. I'll quit then and go home for that lunch."

Brys was standing up. "C'mon Evrit. Let's get a sandwich at the cafe."

"Be right with you." Evrit scanned five more lines on a very blurry looking screen. "There." He stood up looking rather wilted, not his usual crisp, perfectly groomed self.

They headed out.

Dreen looked at Gali. "Would you call that a truce?"

"I sincerely hope so." Brys had been snarling at Evrit all night long. "Look, don't wait on me. Go eat."

Dreen nodded.

***

As they were walking through the lobby Dreen said, "Wait a minute." He walked to the desk. "Any messages?"

The middle aged Oriental staffing the desk shook his head no. He was busy with something on his screen.

"Nothing from Mitra? Is she finding she doesn't miss you already?" Joran teased.

"I found one message last night when I took a break. She sent you her greetings." Dreen looked at his wrist cuff. It would be not quite 8:30 there. Mitra would be sound asleep.

"Joran, don't let me go to sleep without calling her, okay?"

Joran nodded.

Dreen added, "I can't say I'm missing this round though."

Joran's eyebrows rose. "Trouble in paradise?"

Dreen thought of their farewell. "Not that kind, old friend. Museums!"

"Museums?" That was a complaint Joran hadn't heard before.

"We see them all, which is fine. But she finally finished me off. We spent three some hours standing on hard marble floors staring at jewelry and women's evening dresses."

Joran nodded sympathetically, although personally he probably would have enjoyed the outing. You never knew where you might get inspiration for new stage costumes. The color the galaxy now called Anton blue was the color of one of Maillie's silk nightgowns. He had liked the shade, and liked the idea of wearing something on stage that reminded both of them of their time together. Funny. He could think of that now without fighting tears.

Dreen continued, "Then she drags me to some little seafood place where they were serving some sort of stew that was all unidentifiable lumps of stuff I'd never tasted before. I kept thinking of octopus."

"What's octopus?"

"Believe me," Dreen said fervently, "you don't want to know before dinner. Look it up on the hyperweb later like I did." Then changing the topic, "what did you want to talk about, or was that just an excuse to mother me?"

"Oh, I want to talk to you." They were outside now, walking towards the harbor in brilliant summer sunshine. "Or more accurately Bojo put me up to talking to you. But you look wiped. It will wait." Dreen didn't look so great.

Dreen yawned. Fresh air wasn't working all that well. Usually it woke him up. What did Mitra call it, sun dreaming?

"I'm curious now."

Dreen couldn't imagine what Bojo could possibly want. Bojo was a strange one. Dreen had known him for years now, but he stayed an enigma. Of course Dreen knew the facts that anyone who looked Mrail up in a fan database did. Mrail had been a first year music student at a prestigious university when, tipped off by a professor that he was the keyboard player they needed, the Anton Band had asked him to join. He did, using the stage name Mrail. Shy, blond, and good-looking with a baritone that blended well with Anton's tenor, he had rapidly become the dream boy superstar.

Then had come his accident with the terrible disfiguring head injuries. First it had been doubtful he would survive, then doubtful he would ever play again. But love of music won. It was what he was living for, and he had returned to the band, no longer center stage with Anton but almost hidden at the back. Slowly he had regained his status as one of the best keyboard players in the galaxy.

Dreen knew a bit more too. He was one of the few people who knew that Mrail and Bojo Camrail were one and the same, since Bojo was almost as fanatical about privacy as Joran was. He also knew at least part of the truth of the accident that had almost killed Bojo, that it wasn't an accident. Dreen also knew that Bojo was the number two man in the Anton empire, and that he was the one who had held it and Joran together through the bad years. Still, Dreen didn't know Bojo. Ever since the accident he had been distant, reserved, and antisocial. Dreen wondered if Bojo even let Joran past that guard. As to what Bojo could want, he had no idea.

"So tell me what Bojo wants. I can listen. He may have to wait for intelligent comment though."

Joran shook his head. "He has to tell you this in person. I'm just delivering the message that he needs to talk to you as soon as he can." There was no bloody way he was getting in the middle of this one. He'd got Dreen away from the computers. He'd make sure he had enough sleep to listen properly. Beyond that, Bojo was on his own. No one sane got mixed up with Ennup 10 politics.

*****

Chapter 59

Mitra made a conscious effort to pull herself together, to stop seeing Lilla's face. There was a lot to do, and sitting crying didn't get anything done. She picked up the glass and sniffed. Whiskey. She wrinkled her nose. That wasn't going to help anything either. She took it into the bathroom with her, poured the whiskey down the sink, then washed her face in scalding hot water. What next?

Once again Roween's training came to the rescue. 'Never deal with severe stress on an empty stomach. Shove some nice sweet carbohydrates down.' That advice had got her through those rough days when she and Mark split up, although she had gained two, well maybe three, kilos. It was too early to eat a tub of ice cream. Mitra walked to the cater unit. A good selection of sweet rolls and jellies were listed. That should do. She made her selection, returned to the table and made herself eat the gooiest looking roll, then drank a glass of milk so she wouldn't feel even worse later on a blood sugar swing.

This finished Mitra returned to the communications center. When the concierge appeared she asked, "Is it possible to get a Genie, or failing that, a commercial class hyperspatial yacht to go to the Farr Sector?"

"Certainly. When would you need it?"

"As soon as possible."

The mustached, perfectly groomed young Latino didn't so much as blink. He just said, "May I contact the Port Authorities and call you back with your options?"

"Thank you."

That was one thing more in favor of Gingezel. Nothing seemed to be too hard. She took another bite of the roll she was carrying around with her as she moved restlessly about the suite. It had to take a while to sort it out. She could call Dreen.

Of course Dreen wasn't answering his calls. He wouldn't be the way the day was going. Well, this time important meetings or not, she was interrupting him. She called the desk.

"I'm sorry Miss Kael," the middle-aged Oriental man at the desk said, "but Dreen and Joran headed out on foot about ten minutes ago. Do you want to leave a message?"

This was definitely not message material. "Thanks, I'll call back. Do you have any idea how long they'll be?"

"I'm sorry Miss Kael."

And that was that.

So what now? There were two more calls she had to make, but both could take a while, so she would wait on word from the spaceport. She checked the progress of the download from Dellmaice Power Systems. It was 30% complete. Then she started to pack. Somewhere in one of the suitcases there had to be something warm. She was shivering. Maybe she should go out on the balcony and stand in the sun for a few minutes. It was bound to be hot. With the humidity almost at saturation the temperature had hardly dropped by the time she went to sleep last night.

Mitra knew that if she went out now there would be a small army of gardeners in the park across the street coaxing the bushes into improbable animal shapes. And those tiny local birds with the brilliant blue and orange plumage would be having a conference in the tree in front of the hotel. She and Dreen had watched them every morning while they ate breakfast on the balcony. But Mitra didn't move. She stood staring at the jumble of sundresses and tops she had thrown on the bed. Then she started shoving camisoles rapidly into the first suitcase.

In a surprisingly short time there was a call. It had to be Dreen! Mitra hurried to the communication center and closed the contact. The concierge looked very pleased with himself.

"You're in luck Miss Kael. A charter Genie landed at the spaceport four days ago. Kim Loderson, the pilot, requested permission for herself and the crew to take leave here until another assignment came in. That means they have all had enough leave to fly again. Kim has been contacted, and they estimate you can meet them at the spaceport in an hour. The Genie can be serviced by then."

An hour? Mitra stared, appalled. That was too fast. Gingezel. Dreen. They couldn't be over in an hour. She had been counting on at least a day, time for Dreen to come to her in Candi Dua.

"Is that inconvenient?" It was obvious Miss Kael was not thrilled with his efficiency, or impressed with who her pilot would be. He had been. As a boy, Kim had been his heroine amongst the Genie racers.

"No, that's very good. Just a little surprising." She tried to smile reassurance. The man had looked so pleased with himself.

"Fine. Now, there are arrangements to formalize with the Port Authority. If there's nothing else, I'll connect you."

"Fine. No!" Mitra added hastily. There was no guessing how much red tape was coming. "It's imperative I speak to Dr. Pendi before I leave. Could you have reception call his hotel in Crescent Bay every five minutes until they get hold of him, then put him through even if I have another call."

"Certainly. Anything else?"

"No, and thank you for your help." Mitra managed to remember to be polite.

"We're here to help. I'll put you through to the Port Authority."

***

The Port Authority was a freckled, brown haired, fresh-faced young girl. Mitra assumed her to be a secretary assistant of some sort, until she started asking questions rather than putting Mitra through to some more senior person.

"Miss Kael?" the tone was deferential.

Mitra nodded.

"I'm Kristina. Could tell me your destination?"

"Drezvir."

Kristina frowned slightly. She was a good six years older than Mitra had estimated, and in a senior position. She prided herself on her memory of stellar cartography. "Could you spell that? I'm afraid I don't know it."

Mitra both spelled it and gave the reference location.

Kristina entered the information into her console, smiling as they were confirmed. "No offense, but that's in the middle of nowhere."

"Yup. It's a mining planet discovered about the same time Gingezel was."

"And your return?"

"Isn't scheduled. The trip is one way." That will cost Ari, she thought.

"Very good." There was a slight, tactful pause. "And your preferred method of payment?"

It was rather like buying new shoes, Mitra thought. She wondered if for most guests on Gingezel it didn't mean anything more.

"The booking is to be charged to Dellmaice Power Systems, planet Pendrae." She gave the appropriate code to contact them. "The comptroller is expecting your call."

"Very good." Kristina was smiling. They were coming to the part she liked best. "Now what are your preferences on provisions? Let's start with any dietary restrictions. Is there anything you prefer not to eat?"

"No." The answer was automatic. The last thing on Mitra's mind was food.

"Fine. Shall I transmit our menu selection?"

"No. I'm not fussy."

Kristina was disappointed. They had worked hard with a five star chef to create such a good menu, and all even the most incompetent passenger had to do was dial it up and eat. She tried to make the best of it. "Well, just let me know your preferences - red meat, fish, poultry, vegetable protein."

She wouldn't see any of them except the protein mixes on Drezvir. Mitra blinked back another onslaught of tears. She was so sure she would never be there again. What a way to go back. Lilla - no! Don't think.

The girl was obviously waiting for an answer. "Equal amounts, I suppose."

"Thank you. Now," Kristina began.

But Mitra's mind made an almost independent decision. It had been working like that since news of the accident. "Wait a minute," Mitra began, "there's only me, and I'm traveling light. Well, relatively light - 3 large suitcases." Dreen had been complaining about the third one.

Kristina nodded. That fit with her conception of relatively light. She wondered what was coming next though.

"Could I use the extra space to store provisions I could offload at Drezvir? It has no viable climate and a very restricted food supply. I could be there for some time. I won't see meat or fresh fruit for the duration."

"Are you serious?" The professional veneer cracked at the idea of an inadequate food supply.

"Totally."

Kristina mulled this over. "I don't see why we can't." Dealing with oddball requests was the challenge of the job. "How much do you want?"

Mitra had been doing some fast thinking. What she didn't eat Tranngol's group would, and it would be less strain on the colony's resources. "Fill all the space there is! I'll share what I can't eat."

"Great." This was starting to sound like fun. "So what do you want?"

"Oranges, apples, pears, anything like that. Any meat, fish, poultry."

"What will you have in refrigeration and cooking facilities on this planet?"

Mitra had forgotten about that. "Only reheat."

"Okay, only fresh fruit you can use within a week of arrival. Mostly meat and fruit that is dehydrated, or vac-sealed, or canned. Stuff like that." Kristina said, mentally reviewing the likely spaceport sources. There wasn't time to order in from the city. She would call in a few favors from restaurants and various space liner suppliers. "Are complete meal packs okay? You have reheat, and our chef is excellent."

"Okay? They'd be heaven." Mitra was temporarily forgetting her problems.

"And what about treats - candy, chocolate, nuts, that sort of thing."

"Not too many. Use the space mostly for basics, but pack some. Chocolate mostly."

Tessa would love chocolate bars. Even as she thought it, reality came back with a vengeance. Galaxy, Tessa's father was dead. She'd killed him. She'd only been thinking about Lilla. She'd forgotten sweet little Tessa. Mitra had no idea what she looked like as she fought down a wave of nausea, but fortunately the girl never noticed. She was busy entering data.

"And alcoholic beverages?"

"No alcohol," Mitra said shortly.

This wasn't a stupid holiday. She was there to work until she found a mistake and fixed it. It was all she could do, try to make things better.

"I'll see what I can do." Kristina announced cheerfully. "We'll expect you in about an hour then."

"Fine. What I do when I get there?" Obviously she didn't go to the standard check-in counter.

"Oh, just go to any of the executive lounges and give your name. We'll come get you when it's time to go."

"And how long do I allow for Customs and Immigration?" Mitra wanted to give Dreen as long she could to call.

"I'll take care of most of that from here. When you present your wrist ID to security, they'll alert a customs officer and they will be waiting. When you get to Customs, it might take a minute." she smiled, "Anything else?"

"Not that I can think of."

"Well, just call if anything comes up. Ask for Kristina and you'll get me." Kristina disconnected.

*****

Chapter 60

Mitra checked her time strip. The next thing to do was to call Elin Kubo. She would risk her being at home. She didn't want to call Dellmaice Power Systems. She asked the older woman at the desk for a secure sealed call and used the time to try harder to find the warm pants and silk shirt she'd worn on her arrival on Gingezel. She had not found them rooting through the suitcases trying to stuff her sundresses into any available corner, but she had found the warm jacket cardigan she had worn in that port city. That would help control her shivering if she ever found the pants and shirt. Maybe for now she should put it on under the robe. She would just check that last pouch first though.

The warning tone sounded and Mitra raced to the communications center, settling the cardigan as a lap rug.

"Mitra, they found you!"

Elin rubbed her left cheek in a practiced circular motion. Her plump face was shiny on one cheek and the forehead because Mitra had interrupted her applying night cream, but she was not remotely sleepy. As she settled herself more comfortably she eased the stand up collar of her worn ruby-red velour robe and pulled a strand of thick graying hair out of the neckline.

Elin didn't bother to tell Mitra how sorry she was the accident had happened. She asked practically, "When can you leave?"

"In less than an hour."

"That's fast." Elin was both surprised and relieved.

"I chartered a Genie. The pilot was taking leave in the city so it all worked out." Mitra smiled wryly. "It will cost Ari a bundle, but he never even argued. It's worth it though, it'll get me there within two days of Tranngol."

Neither of them commented on the fact that Tranngol, not Elin, was going to Drezvir. If a system had trouble, a risk analyst who had never worked on it always came in. You didn't critique your own design, and Elin had designed the safety system and optimized trip margins for Mitra's hybrid system.

Elin nodded, then paused, considering exactly how to say what she wanted to say. "Ari's running scared on this one Mitra."

"Tell me!" Mitra made a face. "One minute he's after my head which is about right for him, the next he's wishing me luck. He's never done that in his life. He scared me."

"Well, don't waste any sympathy there Mitra. Watch him like a hawk. I've worked at Dellmaice Power Systems since just after the start. He'll make damned sure it's your neck and mine on the block, not his. He's never bought that stand behind the staff line." Elin was also one of the senior safety analysts at Dellmaice Power Systems. Like Tranngol, she did risk and safety analyses and she'd seen Ari through problems before, although none compared to this one.

Mitra remembered his 'mess up on this one, and you're out of here Kael'. Well she'd messed up on this one as bad as you could.

Elin was watching her. "Don't tell me he's got you believing it's your fault already."

"Whose else is it?" Mitra asked bitterly.

Elin shook her head. "Look, Mitra, when I took on your project Ari had a little private talk with me first. He said he didn't like the design - you were pushing your luck. He wanted me to find a reason why you would have to back the power down, way down, not just the few percent he reduced the plate power by. He wanted something legit so you wouldn't quit in a huff.

"I told him to get lost. If you're going to play politics, you'd better quit working safety. But," she shrugged, "we both knew that talk had done what he wanted it to. I went into the project nervous. Listen Mitra, I took your system apart every way I knew how. Oh, you pushed the technology all right, but I'd swear the design could handle it."

Elin shrugged again, her plump face furrowed with a worried frown. "I know intuition counts for nothing, but even though I wanted to find a mistake, it felt right. We had that one pegged Mitra."

"Elin, do you know exactly what happened?"

Elin took her time considering that. "Exactly, no. The reports were pretty sketchy when I came home. But from what I've pieced together, they changed to their on-planet manufactured fuel sometime before the accident. The transition went fine. After a bit, since it all seemed to be going well, one of the operators took time to use a toilet. That is the only event noted.

"A couple minutes after he got back, all hell broke loose. The reactor shifted to load following mode when the miners started to fuse the rock face, and as the power demand ramped, the power just kept going up. The control system didn't hold the power down, and when the pressure tube blew on overpower, there was no sign in the control room they were even near a trip limit."

Elin looked at Mitra. "I suppose they were using the Nemizcan displays, not the standard ContSaft ones?"

Mitra said, "Probably. They really like them. And besides, the same thing shows on each type of display, just with different appearance."

"Yes." There was a degree of doubt in Elin's voice. She supposed she was old fashioned, but she didn't like moving away from the ContSaft displays. Still, she wasn't the human factors expert, and Tranngol had said that in the early high level meetings before they had even decided what reactor to target, both the regulatory agency and ContSaft thought it was a good idea.

Elin refocused on the accident. "Anyways, in the reports there's also no evidence that either shutdown system tried to activate. Not," she added, "that they've looked much yet as far as I could tell."

Neither shutdown system even tried to fire? Mitra felt sick again. "And you're serious? You don't think there's one terrible design flaw?"

"No, I don't." Elin was firm. "But I still have to sleep nights, and so do you."

There had to be a lot of people feeling like that right now Elin thought, with a return to the sick feeling she'd had all day. Once the calls from Ari went out, everyone involved in the hardware chain, from the sensors manufactured by Tranus Dynamics to the heavy equipment manufacturer who made the pipes, had to have been having as bad a day as it had been at Dellmaice Power Systems. The ones who would have the roughest time though, like her and Mitra, would be Tina at ContSaft and Chett and the team from Nemizcan. The calculation and computing side of these things was always less cut and dried than hardware.

"That's why I'm reworking every last calculation I did from scratch - no references to my old ones, so I can't repeat a mistake because I'm looking at it and it looks good. I started a few hours ago. And I expect you intend to do the same thing when you aren't tied up with Tranngol. And he'll take the unit apart piece by piece until he's happy." She looked directly at Mitra. "He won't try to protect you or Dellmaice Power Systems, but he won't be after you either."

"I know. I worked with him on Mark's design when I first joined the company."

"I'd forgotten that - I was there too, wasn't I? It's been too long a day." Elin rubbed tired eyes with the back of her hand, but she was relieved. It would be easier for Tranngol. It helped to know how to work with someone, especially on something as stressful as this.

"How did you talk Ari into the rework? I thought you were totally involved in the megacity project."

Elin smiled ruefully. "I'm on indefinite unpaid leave of absence as of 8:00 tonight. That's when I came home. Ari is not in his best mood and we had words. I hope he's in a better one when I get finished this."

"Elin!" Mitra was aghast. She'd caused another personal tragedy to a friend.

Elin wasn't stupid. "Don't add me to your guilt, dear. There wasn't much going on for me in the megacity project right now. Most of their tuning at the moment is financial.

"Ari and I have had this coming for a long time. It's hard to say which resolution is best. Maybe I'm due to leave." Elin considered. "Dellmaice Power Systems has been familiar and convenient while I was raising the kids, and Ari does pay. That was nice too. But maybe that security is starting to cost too much. While I was driving home, I decided maybe he needs me more than I need him."

At the moment the youngest of her three children was in the process of leaving the nest. Jaimi, the second youngest, was in university and she and her girlfriend had sublet Mitra's apartment while Mitra was on Drezvir.

Elin shrugged. "Who knows. Now isn't a good time to make any decisions, but he made me furious and that started me thinking. We'll see." Elin looked at her time strip. "And you're running out of time."

Mitra nodded. "How do we keep in touch?"

"Not easily with the limited communications to Drezvir. I think I'll have to say that if I find anything, I'll officially report it to Dellmaice Power Systems and have them get in touch with Tranngol. He'll pass it on to you. Does that make you feel stranded?"

Yes it did, but there is no reason to tell Elin that.

"I'll be fine."

"Yes." Elin sounded doubtful. "By the way, I assume you want Jaimi to stay on at your apartment then? She's been looking for another place, but not very hard."

"Please."

Mitra blinked back another round of tears. She hadn't even had a chance to see her dear little apartment. It was nothing like the one she had shared with Mark. Everything was comfortable, not pretentious, and it was full of delightful objects she had bought here and there to reinforce happy memories. Like Chelan she was a bit of a pack rat.

"I stopped by on my way home, and Jaimi and I let ourselves into the storage room. I packed a bunch of warm business clothes and a few other things and Tranngol promised to pick them up before he left."

"Pardon?" Mitra decided she must be getting punchy. With everything going on Elin was rooting in boxes of clothes?

"Mitra, dear, do take some advice. You're in a tough spot. By the time you get there everyone will have forgotten every good thing you did, and remember they do not like Outsiders. If at all possible they will make this accident the fault of an Outsider. You are also too young, too tiny, and at the risk of embarrassing you, too pretty. You need all the dignity you can muster. Running around in those ridiculous coveralls looking like a seven year-old won't help."

"Yes Elin." Mitra spoke so meekly they both smiled.

"Now, do go. You must have a million things to do." Elin disconnected abruptly. She hated goodbyes.

*****

Chapter 61

There weren't a million things to do, just two. The one she wanted to do desperately was contact Dreen. It looked like that wouldn't happen. So she better get the other over with. Mitra requested a secure sealed call to Dr. Roween Kael, planet Plenata. Her mother would be at work.

While the lady at the desk was placing the call to Roween, Mitra returned to her packing. She found the warm trousers and the silk shirt she'd worn on her arrival on Gingezel. They were in the outer pouch of the third suitcase, hiding underneath a green gauze nightgown. She slipped them on. That was significantly better. Now all she had to do was find the cardigan she'd had a few minutes ago and that had disappeared, and maybe she'd stop shivering. She hunted, but the warning tone chimed before she found it.

Roween was sitting at her desk in her office at the university. It would be mid afternoon there, and obviously she did not have a class. The desk was littered and she looked abstracted, like she'd been busy working

Roween gave her daughter a friendly smile. She was more curious about what was going on than worried. The call early in the morning from Ari Dellmaice as a whole had pleased her. Dr. Dellmaice had not indicated what he wanted Mitra for, but he obviously did want her urgently. Mitra, for all her success, was still a youngster in her mother's eyes, and unestablished. This haring off on a prolonged vacation hadn't sat well with Roween. Two or three weeks, but no more, was her idea of enough to recover from anything. She was worried that Mitra would be jeopardizing her position at Dellmaice Power Systems. But obviously they needed her. Roween also always enjoyed her brief conversations with Dr. Dellmaice. He was such a gentleman, so polite and deferential.

Roween never realized that Ari made a point of being so. He was, after all, no fool. Roween Kael was a galactic name and she worked with some of his major clients, since the larger bioengineering facilities tended to prefer to have their own power supplies and not be dependent on the planetary grid. She also had influence with the terraformers who both needed their own power sources and provided a continual growth market of new planets.

When the request for this secure call came in Roween assumed Mitra was going to tell her, in confidence of course, about a new exciting assignment. No doubt the silly child would be disappointed about her interrupted vacation, but once she got into the work that would change. Now when she saw her daughter the first misgivings arose. Mitra didn't look upset, excited, or even pouty. She had that very polite closed expression she had used ever since childhood to tell her mother bad news - that the ball had accidentally gone through a neighbor's window, or that while smelling her mother's perfume it had spilt all over the bedspread. Roween wondered just exactly what the adult equivalent was, and why, if it was some disaster she hadn't called Chelan. Mitra always ran to him first.

Roween said cautiously, "Hello Mitra, have you been having a good holiday?"

"Yes, thank you. I'm touring around now. There are some cities Chelan would love." This wasn't working. How in the galaxy was she going to say what she had to say.

"And did Dr. Dellmaice find you?" Roween prompted. "He was wanting your address earlier." There was a reproving tone as she said the latter. It was terribly irresponsible not tell her employer were she was.

"Yes. About an hour ago. Roween -" Mitra took the plunge. She hadn't understood half of the things Ari had said, but she had one thing clear. "There's something -" It didn't work. All of a sudden she was crying. "Mama! You've got to get me a good lawyer!"

***

"Dr. Kael, your flight is ready."

Yes, of course. Her flight was ready. Mitra rose obediently and follow the uniformed young man through what felt like kilometers of corridors. They went up a ramp to an open space craft doorway.

"Hello Mitra, I'm Kim, your chief pilot." A pretty blonde in a deep pink pilot's uniform held out her hand.

Mechanically Mitra took it. "Hello Kim."

"Let's get you comfortable, then we are cleared to depart. You're tiny. Would you be more comfortable reclining than in a chair?"

"A chair is fine."

What did it matter? She was leaving. She was going back to Drezvir, to Lilla, to the mining crew. She hadn't got hold of Dreen. Maybe she'd never get hold of Dreen. He could be anywhere by the time she reached Drezvir and her contact with the galaxy was reestablished.

Mitra bit her trembling lip to stop her tears, then said as calmly as she could, "Let's go."

###

About the Authors

Co-authors Judi Suni Hall, PhD. and Donald S. Hall, PhD. have shared their lives and careers since marrying as undergrads. They both did PhD.'s in theoretical physics, then moved into industry and worked at AECL, Canada's nuclear research lab. As Technical Director of AECL's risk analysis consultancy Judi worked with a number of industries, including the Canadian Space Agency. Don's research on expert systems led to collaboration with some of Canada's top AI researchers.

Their lives were changed by a severely disabling virus and 10 years were a write off. Don now runs Apps & More Software Design and has the caregiver role as Judi is still severely disabled.

In addition to writing science fiction, Judi and Don are internationally published haiga poets.

*****

What happens next to the characters you have learned to care about? Find out in this preview of the next book in the Gingezel series featuring, Mitra, Dreen, and Joran, and making Chett a major player in the game.

To see our art depicting the various planets and to find vignettes filling in bits of history, visit www.gingezelscifi.com.

Gingezel 2: Bad to Worse

Chapter 1

As the Genie hurled up from Candi Dua through the Gingezel atmosphere, Mitra had never been subjected to so many g's. There was good reason why the Genie design made the best hyperspatial racing yacht in the galaxy! Her tiny frame was forced back into a seat designed for passengers of average size. Usually she cursed the problem, but this time she was unaware of the discomfort bordering on pain. It didn't matter, nothing mattered. She was going back to Drezvir.

She'd sworn she would never visit that rock pit of a mining planet again. Mitra had been proud of her work there, proud of her hybrid reactor. She had hated every minute there though, hated the place, hated being an Outsider.

Talk about false pride. The damn thing blew up! Dr. Mitra Kael, Power Systems Engineer. Right. In a quiet way Mitra had been so pleased to be having her own design implemented. Her design was going change the colonists lives, give them a level of comfort they had never dreamed of. Sure. The reality was that the system blew and took the geothermal energy base out with it. The colonists who were going to be so much better off were now fighting for their lives to survive a red blizzard on backup power.

It was all her fault. Tranngol and Elin from Risk and Safety were telling her not to jump to conclusions, but Ari was right. She'd messed up. Not just messed up, killed people.

Now that she couldn't keep busy organizing her departure there was no way to hide from the facts. Blayne and Max were dead. Blayne, Lilla's husband, sweet Tessa's father. The limited report said that the same mining crew she had worked with to install the geothermal units were fusing an unstable rock wall when the power went. Blayne and Max were directly under it. Galaxy! She hope the rest of them weren't still in the mine.

Mitra tried to raise her hands to cover her face but the webbing held them immobile. She blinked large unfocused blue eyes. A tear escaped, then another until they formed a river on each cheek. Her dark hair framed a face that was ashen.

Where was Dreen? She needed him here with her. No, of course, not here. He had nothing to do with Drezvir. She needed to have seen him, told him. In her mind she saw him, so comfortable and loving. He had never said he loved her, but his eyes did. His appearance wasn't anything special, medium height, medium build, lived-in face, dark hair already graying. But their time together had been so special. Why had she kept it like that, an isolated bubble in time? She didn't even know how to reach him once he left the Crescent Bay hotel. She should have left a message, but she couldn't do it. How did you say something like I killed some people to a blank screen. Dreen! Sobs started to keep her tears company and the shaking was back.

***

"Dreen," the oriental man at the desk called when they were about halfway across the opulent lobby. "Mitra's been calling for you every five minutes." He turned back to the elderly couple who were checking in.

"Every five minutes?" Joran raised his expressive eyebrows. "She sounds serious. You'd better be careful my friend. You're one of the last surviving bachelors." There was more than a hint of teasing in his brown eyes and on his black face.

"Serious is fine by me," Dreen said as a smile spread across his comfortable, slightly rugged face that was showing a bit of color from the sun.

He was in a surprisingly good mood for a man whose software system had just been destroyed by a hacker. His back ache from the all-nighter spent trying to solve the problems had eased by the time they reached the harbor-side restaurant, and they had lingered over a long lunch of delicious white fish. They had sat and talked about Bojo, although Joran had skated around what Bojo wanted and simply said that he would have Bojo come talk to Dreen when Dreen woke up from his nap.

Then they had talked about the composition software Dreen was designing for Joran, and Joran's plans for turning the M single he had written for Mitra and Maillie into an album. It had been so good to see Joran looking the way he used to, lean, black, handsome, confident. The Galactic pop superstar, not a drugged wreck. Apparently the album was almost finished. Now that Joran was over his block, all the music that had been tumbling around in his head was insisting on being captured. The album would be a total departure for him and the Anton Band, consisting exclusively of romantic lyrical ballads like the love song M, with nothing experimental. After that, Joran had said he'd see.

Reluctant to leave, they had continued talking about nothing in particular. That had taken them through probably too much wine for midday, but Dreen was headed for sleep and wine never seemed to bother Joran. Then just because it was such a gorgeous day they had walked even further down the harbor, watching the half a dozen or so sail boats heading out into the lake. Dreen had to admit that although he should be viewing the hacker attack as a disaster, or at least as a serious problem, he couldn't remember a recent time when his work had been such fun.

Alone with Joran in the elevator Dreen said, "You know, I almost proposed the other night."

"Almost?" Joran prompted.

"You know how it is. The mood was right, and I was thinking about it, but I hesitated. To be honest, I was afraid she'd say no. Then the waiter came along and the mood changed." The elevator door opened and they stepped out. "There hasn't been a right time since."

"Then make one now, you bloody fool!" Joran said gruffly. "I'll get lost."

Dreen shook his head. "It won't take me ten minutes to show you what I mean on that interface."

With the Nemizcan tool kit templates he could mockup the essential features of a design in minutes. In this case, Joran was looking for composition software where he could take advantage of his synesthesia and paint music.

"I've got a suspicion the palette approach we usually use won't give you the speed and fluidity you want creating shapes, but it's easier to show you why. Why don't you take a drink out on the balcony? Then," Dreen smiled, "you can be the first to congratulate us - or help me finish getting drunk."

Dreen didn't really expect Mitra to say no. And Joran was right. He'd been stalling. The only thing wrong was that Mitra wasn't here, and they couldn't celebrate the way he'd like to. But he'd fly her here, and they'd fix that.

Joran hesitated. He wasn't sure he want to be around for something personal like a proposal, and definitely not this proposal. But he did want that interface finished, and he seemed to temporarily have Dreen's full attention. He shrugged and they stepped into the opulent apricot and green room that served as Dreen's home until the Nemizcan Computing's UltraSecure Hyperweb was on Gingezel. He got a mineral water from the bar fridge, and headed for the balcony.

Dreen waited until the sliding door closed, then put the call through. He knew he had a stupid smile on his face, but it all felt so right. He knew nothing could go wrong.

The elderly woman at the desk answered, not Mitra in her room. "I think Miss Kael has been trying to reach me?"

"Oh, Dr. Pendi. She's gone."

Well, almost nothing could go wrong. Sightseeing must have finally won. He couldn't blame her. Depending on when she started calling, she could have been trying for a while. They hadn't hurried lunch.

Dreen said tolerantly, "Did she say when she'd be back?" Mitra had flatly refused to get an on-planet number for her compad so he had to call the hotel room to reach her.

"You don't understand. She checked out."

"Checked out?"

To Dreen it had always been a ridiculous cliché, but his world turned upside down. She wasn't calling to say she loved him. She was calling to say goodbye. But that was impossible. He remembered their loving as well as sexy farewell, his whispering to the half asleep Mitra from the doorway that he loved her. It was the first time he'd kept a pilot waiting on the runway. She couldn't have left him.

The woman was watching his face. They had seemed like such a nice happy couple. She was sure the trouble had nothing to do with Dr. Pendi. She gave a fast glance first at the concierge's desk, then to the manager's office. But everyone was busy.

She said hurriedly, "I shouldn't be saying, but a secure sealed call came from off-planet, and she booked a Genie to leave right away. She had me calling you every five minutes until she left for the spaceport. She was very upset."

"When did she leave?"

"Thirty-five or forty minutes ago."

She left while he was laughing with Joran. Dreen felt sick. They'd been fooling around, and Mitra had been facing some crisis alone. She needed him, he was sure of that, and he hadn't been there for her. And now she was gone.

"Did she leave a message or forwarding address?" He was hoping against hope, but he had to ask.

"I'm sorry Dr. Pendi."

"Well, thank you for your help." Dreen was preparing to break the connection, but the woman spoke quickly.

"I'm sure this isn't the time to ask, but will you be wanting your room kept until you return?"

Return? What for? "No," Dreen said curtly. "Could you have housekeeping pack my things and ship them here?" He had only packed a bare minimum in his attaché - underwear, pajama bottoms, an extra shirt. He'd planned on a quick round of damage control then returning to Mitra.

"Certainly. A courier will have them there later today." She broke off.

***

For a long moment Dreen start blankly at the space where the woman had been, then he pushed himself to his feet, needing the help of both palms flat on the table. Reluctantly Dreen walked to the balcony door. Joran was leaning out over the railing watching something going on on the terrace below. He didn't move as the door opened.

Dreen spoke to his back. "She's gone."

Joran stood for a long moment not seeing the children on the terrace below. They were the same ones he had played with yesterday, and the little girl with her short brown pigtails and bright blue eyes had turned a few moments earlier, seen him and waved. Now all he could do was hear the words 'she's gone'.

Mitra had left Dreen! That meant she was free, that Dreen didn't have prior claim any more. He felt an intense, primitive surge of emotion, and stood there bent over the railing trying to compose himself before turning around. It seemed to Joran that it took forever to calm that wash of emotion, to be able to see the lake, the terrace, the laughing children. When he dared, he straightened up and turned around, his eyes searching Dreen's face. His friend looked twenty years older, and his skin was a sick color. Comparing Dreen to how he had looked half an hour ago Joran couldn't stand it.

"Where?"

"I don't know. She got an urgent off-planet call and booked a Genie. She left for the spaceport thirty-five or forty minutes ago."

"Then she might still be there." Joran shouldered Dreen aside and ran through the doorway.
