“What kind of a favor?”

Killifer shrugged his bony shoulders. “He wanted a sample of nanomachines. He was a big mucky-muck with the corporation, the president’s son, for chrissakes. So I gave him a sample like he asked for and it turned out bad, her new husband got killed up here. And I got blamed for it.”

“I didn’t know,” Deems said, awe in his voice.

“She said I could work on the Moon until she was ready to let me come back or she’d fire me and sic the police on me. I was too scared to realize that she couldn’t rat me out without turning in Greg, too. So I spent five years digging tunnels.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. By the time she was willing to let me come back Earthside I was so adapted to one-sixth gee I had to spend another six months doing special exercises to build up my muscles and bones. My heart, too.”

“But you made it back okay?”

“Yeah. Except the everything I had on Earth was gone by then. My girl had married somebody else. My parents died within a couple of years. My career in nanotech — forget it!” Killifer snapped his fingers. “Nanotech was dead in the States and everywhere else except a few universities. And you don’t lose five years in a field like that and then boogie back in get a university slot. I came back here. Been a Lunatic ever since, a rock jock.”

“No wonder you’re pissed.”

Killifer leaned across the little table menacingly. “I don’t want you telling anybody else about this, understand? Not a word.”

“Okay, okay.” Deems backed away slightly. Smoothing the front of his wrinkled jumpsuit, he said, “But it seems a shame to take it out on little Douggie.”

“Who cares? He’s his mother’s son.”

“Still…”

.’She’sthe one who forced Brennart to take the kid along. Stuck him on top of me.”

“He’s not on top of you. He’s just an observer. On the org chart—”

“He’s a snoop from Mama in Savannah,” Killifer growled. “Little bastard’s only eighteen years old and they put him in ahead of me.”

“But—”

“Don’t try to bullshit me, pal! He’s the boss’s son, for chrissakes. Everybody’ll be falling all over themselves to be on his good side.”

Deems shrugged. “I talked to him yesterday. He seems like a nice-enough kid.”

“See what I mean?”

Looking more startled than usual, Deems shook his head in denial and disbelief.

I’ll fix him,” Killifer grumbled. “Put the kid ahead of me, huh? She’ll pay for that. And everything else she’s done to me.”

Doug Stavenger knew that his mother was worried about him. She thinks I’m just a kid, he knew. She thinks an eighteen-year-old isn’t smart enough to take care of himself.

But my father wasn’t much older than that when he flew his first solo. And what’s age got to do with it, anyway.

As soon as Doug arrived in his quarters at Moonbase — a standard cell along one of the tunnels carved out of the rock, not even as large as the smallest compartment aboard a cruise ship — he put in a call to his mother in Savannah.

At first he merely assured her that he was all right and the trip to the Moon had been safely uneventful. Soon enough, though, they began to talk about the coming expedition to the south polar region.

“I’m going to make a point of meeting everyone who’s going on the mission,” he was saying.

“Douglas, I don’t want you taking unnecessary risks,” she said sharply to her son.

Doug’s image in her phone screen grinned at her as soon as her words reached him.

“Trying to sound business-like, Joanna said to her son’s smiling image, “You’re going along on this expedition for one reason only: to make certain that all the proper claims are made and all the legal forms filled out exactly right. That’s your job. I don’t want you traipsing around on some adventure when you should be tending to the legal formalities of this expedition.”

His smile did not fade an iota while he waited for her words to reach him on the Moon.

“I know, Mom. Don’t worry about it. Masterson Aerospace will have a full and legal claim to operate in the Basin, don’t worry about it.”

“We’re not the only ones interested in that region,” Joanna warned.

But Douglas had not waited for her reply to him. He kept right on, “And we’ll be the first group there, don’t worry about it. Nobody else is going to contest our rights.”

“Don’t take foolish risks,” she said, sounding more like a worried mother than she wanted to.

This time he listened, then replied, “I’ll be okay. Mr. Brennart is about as experienced as they come. He’s a living legend, really. We’ll be in good shape, don’t worry. What can happen to us?”

But even as she promised her son that she wouldn’t worry, Joanna wanted to reach out across the quarter-million miles separating them and bring him back safely to her side. She worried about Brennart. It seemed to her that the man was working too hard at increasing his reputation, taking risks needlessly.

Doug said good-bye to her at last, and she blanked the phone screen, then sank back into her caramel brown chair. It subtly molded its shape to accommodate her. In its armrests were controls that could massage or warm her, if Joanna wanted.

All she really wanted was her son safely by her side. Both her sons.

Trying to drive away her fears and apprehensions, Joanna concentrated on her work for hours. Long after darkness fell, long after the corporate headquarters building had emptied of everyone else except its lone human guard monitoring the security sensors and the robots patrolling the hallways, Joanna remained in her office, studying reports, scanning graphs, speaking with Masterson employees scattered all around the globe and aboard the corporation’s space facilities in orbit.

It was almost one in the morning when she wearily got up from her chair and went to the closet next to her personal lavatory. Joanna felt growing tension as she took off her dress and stripped down to her bra and panties. She reached into the closet and pulled out the sensor suit. It hung limp and lifeless, gray and slightly fuzzy-looking, in her hands.

He always called precisely on time, and she was slightly behind schedule. Quickly, Joanna stepped into the full-body suit and pressed closed the Velcro seals at its cuffs, ankles, and running down its front. The suit felt itchy on her skin, as it always did.

Taking the helmet from its shelf in the closet, she went back to her recliner chair and sat down. As she plugged the virtual reality suit into the chair, her wristwatch announced that she had one minute to spare. One minute to try to calm down a little.

She pulled the helmet over her coiffure, but left the visor up. This must be what a spacesuit’s helmet is like, she thought. Or a biker’s.

The phone’s chime sounded in her earphones. Joanna slid the visor down and said, “Hello, Greg.”

Her son had not changed much outwardly in the eighteen years since Paul’s death. Still darkly handsome, pale skin stretched over high cheekbones and strong, stubborn jaw. Eyes as dark and penetrating as glittering obsidian. Just a touch of gray at his temples; it made him look even more enticing, in her eyes.

“Hello, Mom,” he said somberly.

Even on this tropical Pacific beach he wore dark slacks and a starched shirt. His shoes and slacks will be soaked by the surf, Joanna thought, then reminded herself that Greg was actually in his own office, quite dry and probably amused at the flowered wraparound pareo and oversized mesh shirt mat she had programmed into her virtual reality costume.

They were standing on the white sand beach on the lagoon side of Bonriki. The airport was hidden by the high-rise office towers of the town, but out in the lagoon Joanna could see the floating platforms and work boats of the sea-launched rocket boosters. Almost on the equator, Tarawa lagoon was an ideal launch point for Pacific traffic into orbit. The island nation of Kiribati was getting rich on its royalties from Masterson Aerospace.