“We can’t have a godless secularist ruling these people!” Morgenthau said fervently.

“I’ll need some ammunition, something to hold over Wilmot.”

“A carrot or a stick?” Morgenthau asked.

“Either. Both, if possible.”

“We’ll need someone to review all his personal files and phone conversations.”

Eberly nodded. “This must be kept totally secret. I don’t want even Vyborg to know that we’re going through Wilmot’s files.”

“Then who should do the work?”

“You,” said Eberly, so clearly and precisely that there was no room to argue. Morgenthau’s heart sank; she saw long dreary nights of snooping into the professor’s phone conversations and entertainment vids.

She lapsed into silence, thinking hard as they walked slowly along the path.

“Well?” Eberly prodded.

“It might be very boring. He’s nothing more than an elderly academic. I doubt that there’s much there to use.”

Eberly did not hesitate a microsecond. “Then we’ll have to manufacture something. I prefer to find a weakness that he actually has, though. Drumming up false accusations can be tricky.”

“Let me talk to Vyborg about it.”

“No,” Eberly snapped. “Keep this between the two of us. No one else. Not yet, at least.”

“Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “I understand.”

All the time during the long walk back to their offices in Athens, Morgenthau thought about Eberly’s commitment to their cause. He’s seeking nothing more than his own personal aggrandizement, she thought. But he has the charisma to be the leader of these ten thousand people. I’ll have to put up with him. Wilmot, she told herself, is an out-and-out secularist: an atheist or an agnostic, at best. Find something that will hang him. I’ve got to find something that will hang him.

SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 28? DAYS

“I haven’t slept with him, if that’s what’s worrying you,” said Kris Cardenas.

Holly looked into her cornflower-blue eyes and decided that Kris was telling the truth. She was spending an awful lot of time with Manny Gaeta, but it was strictly business, she insisted. On the other hand, Manny hadn’t asked Holly out or dropped into her office or even phoned her since the night he had walked Kris home.

And Malcolm was as cool and distant as ever. All business, nothing but business. Some love life, Holly thought. It’s all in tatters.

“I’m telling you the truth, Holly,” Cardenas insisted, misinterpreting Holly’s silence.

“I know, Kris,” she said, feeling more confused than unhappy. “Point of fact, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. He’s a dynamo.”

The two women were having a late lunch in the nearly empty cafeteria, well after almost everyone had cleared out of the place.

Cardenas leaned closer to Holly and confided, “He hasn’t come on to me at all. If you weren’t interested in him, I’d be kind of disappointed. I mean, I’m a lot older than he is in calendar years but I’m not repulsive, am I?”

Holly giggled. “Kris, if you’re interested, go right ahead. I’ve got no claims on him.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, not really. In fact, I think I’m better off with him off my scanner screen.”

Cardenas raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Really,” Holly said, wondering inwardly if she were doing the right thing, “his only interest in me was purely physical.”

“A lot of relationships have started that way.”

“Well this one’s over. It isn’t really a relationship, anyway. It never was.” Holly was surprised that it didn’t hurt to admit it. Not much, anyway.

Cardenas shrugged. “It’s a moot point. He’s nothing but business with me.”

“Prob’ly in awe of you.”

Cardenas laughed. “I’ll bet.”

“Sure.”

“Never mind,” she said, waving one hand as if brushing away an annoying insect. “You said you’ve got a possible lab assistant for me?”

“Maybe,” Holly said. “I haven’t raised the idea with him, yet. But he’s got some of the qualifications you’re looking for. An engineering degree—”

“What kind of engineering?”

“Electromechanical.”

“How recent?”

Holly pulled her handheld out of her tunic pocket. Raoul Tavalera’s three-dimensional image appeared in the air above their table, together with the facts and figures of his dossier.

Cardenas scanned through the data. “Whose department is he working in?”

“Maintenance,” Holly replied. “But he’s just putting in time there; he doesn’t officially belong to any department. He’s the astronaut that Manny fished out.”

“Oh.” She went through the dossier again, more slowly this time. “Then he’ll only be with us until Manny packs up and leaves.”

“I guess. But he’s available now and you said you needed help right away.”

“Beggars can’t be choosy,” Cardenas agreed. “I’ll have to talk to him. Has he agreed to work with me?”

“He doesn’t know anything about it yet. I can set up a meeting for you, though.”

“Good enough.”

“In my office, kay?”

Cardenas thought a moment. “That’s probably better than inviting him to my lab. He might be scared of having nanobugs infect him.”

Tavalera looked suspicious as he sat down in front of Holly’s desk. He arrived promptly on time, though; that was a good sign, she thought.

She had asked him to come to her office fifteen minutes before Cardenas.

“What’s this all about?” he asked, almost sullenly.

“Job op,” said Holly brightly.

“I’ve got a job, with the maintenance crew.”

“Like it?”

He scowled. “Are you kiddin’?”

Holly made a smile for him. “I’d be worried if you said you did.”

“So what’ve you got for me?”

“It’s in a science lab. You’ll be able to use your engineering education, f’sure.”

“I thought all the science slots were filled. That’s what you told me when I first came aboard here.”

“They are. This is with Dr. Cardenas, in her nanotech lab.”

His eyes widened momentarily. Holly could sense the wheels churning inside his skull.

“Nanotech,” he muttered.

Holly nodded. “Some people are clanked up about nanotechnology, I know.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you?”

Tavalera hesitated a moment, then replied, “Yeah, kinda. Guess I am.”

“You’d be foolish not to be,” Holly agreed. “But working with Dr. Cardenas, you’ll be working with the best there is. It’ll look cosmically good on your resume, y’know.”

“The hell it will. I wouldn’t want anybody back on Earth to know I’d been within a zillion light-years of any nanobugs.”

“Well,” Holly said, “you don’t have to take the job if you don’t want to. We’re not going to force you. You can always stay with Maintenance.”

“Thanks a bunch,” he groused.

He was still wary about the idea when Cardenas arrived. She seemed uncertain about him, as well.

“Mr. Tavalera, I can’t work with somebody who’s frightened to be around nanomachines.”

“I’m not scared of ’em. I’m just scared they won’t let me go back home if anybody finds out I’ve been workin’ with you.”

“You can demand a complete physical,” Cardenas said. “Then they’ll see you’re not harboring any nanobugs in your body.”

“Yeah,” he reluctantly admitted. “Maybe.”

Holly suggested, “We can keep your employment with Dr. Cardenas completely off the record. As far as the authorities Earthside will know, you worked in Maintenance all the time you were aboard this habitat.”

“You can do that?” Even Cardenas looked incredulous.

“I can do it for special cases,” Holly said, thinking about how she would have to keep Morgenthau from poking her fat face into Tavalera’s official dossier.

“You’d do it for me?” Tavalera asked.

“Sure I would,” said Holly.

He looked unconvinced, but he abruptly turned to Cardenas and said, “Well, I guess if you screw up and let killer bugs loose, everybody in this tin can is gonna get wiped out anyway. I might as well work with you. Beats overhauling farm tractors.”