“Have you given Pancho the coordinates?”

Fuchs’s face colored slightly. “I gave them to Amanda.”

“I’ve put the data into the nav computer,” Amanda said quickly, looking at Pancho.

Pancho nodded. “Okay. I’ll go check it out.”

“Onward and upward,” said Dan, rising from his chair. “We’ll be breaking distance records, if nothing else.”

“Four AUs,” Pancho muttered, getting to her feet also. She headed for the bridge. Dan followed her, leaving Amanda and Fuchs still sitting at the table.

Pancho slid into the pilot’s chair and tapped on her main touch-screen, the one showing the hunk on the beach. Standing behind her, Dan saw the navigation computer program come up over the muscles and teeth. But Pancho was looking at one of the smaller screens, where an amber light was blinking slowly.

“What’s that?” Dan asked.

“Dunno,” said Pancho, working the screen with her fingers. “Running a diagnostic… h’mmph.”

“What?”

Without turning her head from the display screens, Pancho muttered, “Says there’s a hot spot on one of the superconducting wires outside.” A jolt of alarm surged through Dan. “The superconductor? Our storm shield?” She glanced up at him. “Don’t get frazzled, boss. Happens all the time. Might be a pinhole leak in the coolant line. Maybe a micrometeor dinged us.”

“But if the coolant goes—”

“The rate of loss ain’t much,” Pancho said calmly. “We’re due for turnaround in six hours. I can angle the ship then so’s that side’s in the shade. If the hot spot doesn’t go away then, Mandy and me will go EVA and fix the leak.” Dan nodded and tried to feel reassured.

STAVENGER THEATER

Kris Cardenas marveled at the crowd’s willingness to leave their comfortable homes and jam themselves cheek-by-jowl into the cramped rows of narrow seats of the outdoor theater. A considerable throng of people was flowing into the theater. It was built in the Grand Plaza, “outdoors.” Exactly one thousand seats were set in a shallow arc around the graceful fluted shell that backed the stage. Even with three-dimensional interactive video and virtual reality programs that were nearly indistinguishable from actuality, people still went to live performances. Maybe it’s because we’re mammals, Cardenas thought. We crave the warmth of other mammals. We’re born to it and we’re stuck with it. Lizards have a better deal.

There was one particular mammal Cardenas wanted to see: George Ambrose. That morning she had phoned the Astro corporate office trying to find him, only to reach his video mail. Late in the afternoon he returned her call. When she said she had to talk to him in person as soon as possible, and preferably in a public place, George had scratched at his thick red beard for a moment and then suggested the theater.

“I’ve got a date comin’ with me,” he said cheerfully, “but we can get together in the intermission and chat for a bit. Okay?”

Cardenas had quickly agreed. Only as an afterthought did she ask what the theater was playing.

George sighed heavily, “some fookin’ Greek tragedy. This date of mine, she’s a nut for th’ classics.”

Usually the theater was sold out, no matter what the production might be. In the days before the greenhouse cliff, when tourism was building up nicely, Selene’s management invited world-class symphony orchestras, dance troupes, drama companies to come to the Moon. Now, most of the performances were done by local amateur talent.

Medea, performed by Selene’s very own Alphonsus Players. Cardenas would have shuddered if it had mattered to her at all. Still, the theater was fully booked. Only Cardenas’s status as one of Selene’s leading citizens wheedled a ticket out of the system, and she had to go all the way up to Doug Stavenger for that. He smilingly admitted that he wasn’t going to use his.

She barely looked at the stage during the first half of the performance. Sitting on the aisle in the fourth row, Cardenas spent most of her time scanning the crowd for a glimpse of George Ambrose’s shaggy red hair.

When the first half ended, she trudged with the slow-moving throng along the central aisle as they chatted about the play and the performances. Cardenas felt surprised to see so many gray and white heads among the theater-goers. Selene is aging, she thought. And very few of our people are taking nanobugs or other therapies to stop it. Finally she saw Big George, like a fiery beacon bobbing head and shoulders above the others.

Once past the last row of seats, most of the crowd scattered to the concession stands spread among the plaza’s flowering shrubbery. A maintenance robot trundled slowly along the periphery of the crowd, patrolling for litter. George was at the jam-packed bar. Cardenas hung back, waiting for him to get his drink and work his way out of the crowd. When he did, he had a plastic stein of beer decorated with Selene’s logo in one hand and a skinny, hollow-eyed redhead on his other arm. She was pretty, in a gaunt, needy way, Cardenas thought. Nice legs. The drink in her hand was much smaller than Ambrose’s. Big George spotted Cardenas and, leaving his date standing by a flowering hibiscus bush, walked toward her.

“Dr. Cardenas,” he said, with a polite dip of his head. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got to get a message to Dan Randolph,” she said. “As quickly as possible.”

“No worries. Pop over t’ the office tomorrow morning. Or tonight, after th’ show, if you like.”

“Is there some way I could talk to Dan without coming to your offices? I think I’m being watched.”

George looked more puzzled than alarmed. “You could phone me, I suppose, and I’ll patch you through to the radio link.” He took a pull from his stein. “Can we do it tonight?”

“Sure. Right now, if you like. I wouldn’t mind an excuse to leave this show. Pretty fookin’ dull, don’tcha think?”

“Not now,” she answered. “That would attract attention. After the show. I’ll drop in at friend’s place and call your office from there.”

For the first time, George showed concern. “You’re really scared, are you?”

“I think Dan’s life is in danger.”

“You mean someone’s out to kill ’im?”

“Humphries.”

George’s face hardened. “You certain of that?”

“I’m… pretty sure.”

“Sure enough to want to warn Dan. From a safe place, where the phone won’t be bugged.”

“Exactly.”

George took a big breath. “All right. Instead of all this pussyfootin’ around, you come with me after the show’s finished and I’ll put you in an Astro guest suite. That way I can protect you.”

Cardenas shook her head. “That’s kind of you, but I don’t think I’m in danger.”

“Then why th’ cloak and dagger stuff?”

“I don’t want Humphries to know that I’m warning Dan. If he knew, then maybe I would be in trouble.”

George thought that over for a few moments, a huge red-maned mountain of a man towering over her, scratching his head perplexedly. “All right,” he said at last. “Back to Plan A, then. I’ll go to the office after this fookin’ show and you call me there. Okay?”

“Yes. Fine. Thank you.”

“Sure you don’t want some protection?”

She considered his offer for several heartbeats, then said, “Thanks, but I won’t need it. And I’ve got my work to consider. I can’t run the lab from an Astro guest suite.”

“Okay,” said George. “But if you change your mind, just holler.” Martin Humphries was reclining in his favorite chair, watching a home video of his own performance, when the phone buzzed. Irked, he glanced at the console and saw that it was his emergency line. He snapped his fingers, and the wallscreen lit up to show the woman he’d sent to follow Cardenas. She was a nondescript clerk from Astro Corporation’s communications department who needed extra money to bring her younger sister up from the ravaged ruins of Moldavia. “Well?” Humphries demanded.