Rob’s face was perplexed, and he rubbed at his eyes. “Then to hell with it. I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t think it’s possible, either. But I must find some way of understanding what the Goblins are. Did you find out more about their other names, the ones that Senta used?”

“No progress there. No mention of `Expies’ or `Minnies’ — no names at all, in fact. I’ll keep looking, Rob, but I’m at the end of the rope. I need more inputs, or some other kind of break. Do you think there’s anything to help us out on Atlantis?”

“I’m sure of it.” Rob was silent for a moment, recalling the interior structure of the asteroid. “There’s a locked part of the labs, a piece of the central living sphere. I told you how edgy Morel got when I went near it. I’ll see if I can find an opportunity to look there on this trip, and I’ll send it to you as soon as I’m back here. I daren’t risk sensitive messages from there, though, not even scrambled ones.”

“How long before you’ll be able to call me again?”

“That depends what Regulo has come up with out there. It may be as long as a couple of weeks. While I’m gone, would you look at a couple of other things? Find some background on Sala Keino. I know he’s Regulo’s expert on space structures, but I’d like to find out what his personality is like.”

“I’ll try. Any special questions you want answered?”

“Just one. I’d like to know how much interest he has in money.”

“Hm. You don’t bother with the easy ones, do you, Rob?” Anson rubbed again at his chin. “I don’t know if I could answer that question about myself, still less for Keino. Are you thinking of trying to bribe him?”

“No. I want to know how much Regulo controls his actions. I’ve never met the man.” Rob leaned towards the screen. “Howard, I’m running out of time. One other thing. Did you make any progress finding out how Senta got hooked on taliza?”

“Not yet. She has no idea of it herself. I’m beginning to think she has been an addict for a very long time — much longer than the twelve years that she remembers. I suspect somebody was playing games with her memory on this, blocking it the way they have for the Goblins.”

“Morel?” Rob saw Anson’s look. “I know we don’t have any evidence. But she’s scared of him — and I don’t like him, either.”

“That sounds like the sort of arguments I use. Come on, Rob, you’ll never make it onto Darius Regulo’s top ten of the engineering world unless you operate on pure logic.” Anson lifted a hand in farewell. “I’ll keep digging. Remember me to the fair Cornelia. Have you ever noticed that the only person who calls her Cornelia instead of Corrie seems to be her mother?”

“Not quite,” said Rob, as he reached out to cut the connection. “That’s what Regulo calls her, too. With him it’s Cornelia, never Corrie.”

And that’s something I should have noticed for myself, a long time ago, he thought, staring at the blank screen. He had put things off for too long. Much as he disliked the idea, he’d have to bring that subject up with Corrie. But he would wait for the right moment. Private conversation would be difficult on the cramped yacht that would rush the two of them out to Atlantis. It never occurred to Rob that his final thought provided him with one more excuse to delay an awkward confrontation.

CHAPTER 12: “…at the quiet limit of the world, a white-haired shadow roaming like a dream…”

Atlantis was still moving slowly out, away from Earth and farther from the Sun. At an acceleration of only a thousandth of a gee it would take a long time to spiral out to the Asteroid Belt, to the region where Regulo was planning to perform his next project.

“Of course, what we’ll be doing this time is just a small rehearsal for the real thing,” he said to Rob, as they sat again in the big, darkened study. “I’ve picked out a tiny one, just a few hundred meters across. You may think it isn’t worth bothering with, but I want to see if everything hangs together the way I’m expecting.”

“I agree with you. Always do a trial run.” Rob looked at the other man’s gaunt face. There seemed to be an urgency and a hardness there that he had never seen before. “Have you decided yet what your `real thing’ will be?”

“I fancy Lutetia. It’s an asteroid that’s not too far out, a good deal closer to the Sun than any of the really big ones. According to Sycorax, Lutetia is loaded with metals and big enough to be interesting.”

“What’s the diameter?”

“About a hundred and fifteen kilometers, give or take a couple.”

Rob leaned back in his chair. “And you think you can mine that?”

Regulo grinned at his expression. “Sure.” He leaned slowly across the desk and placed the palm of one hand at a point on the top of it. When he took it away, the glowing sign, THINK BIG, was revealed. “See that? You’re getting there, but you have to work at it. You still let your thinking become too crowded. I told you I was going to use a new method of mining the asteroids, and I meant it. Let’s get the screens working, and I’ll show you what we’re about.”

He sat up straight, slowly and painfully in spite of the low gravity. Rob could see him wince at the movement of each joint. “Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“Not one thing,” Regulo grunted. “I don’t feel good today, that’s all. My own fault. I should have had treatment three days ago, and I put it off because we had a problem again with those damned shipping permits. If I ran my business the way Earth handles its trade laws, I’d be bankrupt in a month.”

“I was sorry to hear about your sickness,” Rob ventured. “If you want to put off the demonstration until you feel better, let’s do it. The beanstalk is coming along well, so there’s no big reason why I have to rush back there.”

“Never.” Regulo frowned and braced himself, arms straight, on the front of the desk. “Don’t ever suggest that. What do you think keeps me going? Work, and new ideas. Stop looking ahead, and you’re finished. Anyway, who’s been opening his mouth to you, talking about sickness? I don’t like to have it advertised. Bad enough to have the disease, sympathy only makes it worse. Who told you about it?”

Rob hesitated, not sure if honesty would be the best way to handle the brusque question. “Senta Plessey,” he said at last.

Regulo sat motionless for a long moment, his battered face unreadable.

“Senta, eh?” After a few more seconds he laughed, a harsh and humorless noise deep in his throat. “Poor little Senta. Well, she was aware of my sickness, if anybody was. How is she?”

“She’s all right.” Rob hesitated again, not sure how much Regulo already knew. “Less well than she should be. She has a drug problem, I’m afraid. Taliza — she’s a total addict.”

“With taliza, that’s the only sort of addict there is.” Regulo shook his big head. “I’m sorry to hear that. I ought to have guessed it, though. She would always try anything new, anything for a fresh experience. I used to warn her, but it didn’t make any difference.” He sighed, looking past Rob with unfocused eyes. “That’s bad news. My God, but she was a beauty, thirty years ago. I’ve never seen a woman with her looks, before or since.”

His eyes came back to Rob. “She told you, did she, that we lived together?”

“She didn’t say much about it.” Rob shrugged. “Only that it was a long time ago.”

“It surely was. Back before this” — Regulo rubbed his hand along his seamed jaw — “had a real hold. It took a while to get a full diagnosis. As soon as we knew for sure that it was bad and going to get worse, Senta packed her bags. I didn’t try and talk her out of it. I was going to get more and more like a horror-holo star, and Senta had just two things she couldn’t stand: poverty, and ugliness. The second worry turned out to be stronger. You mentioned that you’d had operations, eh? I could match your sixty-two, and then some.”