Nick Lopez knew Gordy’s style. Deference and politeness were for the representatives of the Argos Group, not for its leader. Rolfe played rough, and he hated you to know what he would say next. This time Nick had no idea. Be casual. He said, “I’m sure I didn’t screw up. Hyslop’s an even better engineer than we thought. Leave him up there on Sky City, he’ll have the shield back on schedule before you know it. Neither of us wants that.”

“Okay, okay. Just want to be sure you’re not backing off. I did my part. I sent one of my top people, Maddy Wheatstone, up to talk Bruno Colombo into releasing Hyslop from all shield work. I told her to get Hyslop reassigned to the asteroid capture project.”

Now it was harder for Nick to be casual. “You mean it didn’t work? I thought Hyslop was taken care of. No one gave me any negative feedback.”

“I mean it worked too damn well. Maddy came to see me a few hours ago and asked me what game I was playing. She said that I had told her it would be tricky to make Colombo agree, but that I relied on her to carry out a difficult job. Now she says Colombo served Hyslop up to her on a plate almost before she could ask. I knew that had to be your doing, but of course I didn’t tell her.”

“You never met Colombo?” When Rolfe shook his head, Nick went on, “If you had, you’d understand. Bruno Colombo is big — bigger than me — and impressive. The first time you see him you think he’s really somebody. The second or third time, you see right through him. It’s not a man inside that beautiful suit; it’s a dog waiting to be kicked. I got him his job as head of Sky City, and he’d do anything to keep it. If I say, ’Shit,’ Bruno’s down there squatting before I finish speaking. All I did was hint that I’d be pleased if John Hyslop could be reassigned to help on an Argos Group project. He did the rest.”

“He doesn’t know how important Hyslop is to shield development?”

“It would make no difference. I’m telling you, Colombo’s my man.”

“I won’t stand people like that working for me. I pay for self-starters. If they don’t show independence, they’re gone.”

“You’re lucky, Gordy. The Argos Group is privately owned—”

“More than privately. It’s mine.”

“So it’s yours to do what you like with. It’s different when you’re in my position and you run a public institution like the WPF, with a hundred countries arguing about what your priorities should be. I have to have people like Bruno Colombo, men who’ll scramble to do absolutely anything I tell them. One worry I still have about John Hyslop is that he may be too independent.”

“Could be. Hyslop’s an engineer. Engineers are dangerous because they’re obsessed by facts and you can’t divert them or buy them off. But Hyslop’s working for us now, or he will be as soon as he’s wrapped up what he was doing on the shield. What about the man who’ll be taking his place on Sky City? That’s who I’m worried about.”

“It’s a woman. Stansfield; Lauren Stansfield.”

“Woman, then. What do we know about her? How do we know she won’t be as likely as Hyslop to get the shield back on schedule, or put facts and trends together and come to conclusions that we can’t tolerate? How do we know it’s a change for the better?”

“Gordy, somebody has to run engineering; it won’t run itself. And I’m not a fool. I already looked to see who Hyslop was likely to offer as his replacement. I’ll send you every Sky City background report on Lauren Stansfield. If you like, I can give you a summary right now.”

“Do it. I need to be sure you know what you’re doing.”

It wasn’t a request. It was an order, rudely delivered. Nick Lopez bit back his irritation. Gordy Rolfe had an absolute need to prove that he was the boss. That might be all very well within the Argos Group, where he had total control; but Nick had held senior government positions when Gordy Rolfe was still in diapers. Nick told himself for the hundredth time, Steady. He’s a power-mad dwarf, but we’re in this thing together. Someday, though . . .

“How much do you want to know? Lauren Stansfield is thirty-one years old. She’s from a very rich family back on Earth, but she wasn’t in line to inherit so she took technical training and became a systems engineer. Five years ago a power system installation took her out to Sky City. She stayed there, worked her way up to become top specialist on Sky City life-support systems: energy, air, water, food, she knows them better than anyone.”

“So she’s as bad as Hyslop.”

“No. She’s not as creative, and she doesn’t have the whole shield construction program in her head the way that Hyslop does. Also, she doesn’t know the inventory procedures. Remember, what we have to avoid is a single person who knows procurement for both Sky City and the shield. Hyslop does, and he might easily have compared orders and started counting. Lauren Stansfield won’t.”

“Are you sure she’s not close to somebody who works on shield construction? Someone she sleeps with, some shield specialist who might start comparing notes with her?”

“No. She has no sexual partner at the moment, either gender, and if she ever had one, it was at least four years ago.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Rolfe said mildly. Nick saw the gleam in the other’s eyes. For a man who went out of his way to emphasize oddities in his appearance, Gordy Rolfe took offense easily.

“Of course that isn’t peculiar.” Nick knew the right answer, and his voice was as casual as Rolfe’s. “It’s very convenient from our point of view that she’s a loner. She’s quiet and competent, so she won’t screw up the schedules worse than they are already. But she’s not too smart, either. She won’t make the shield a hundred and ten percent efficient, so that when the particle storm hits, nothing at all gets through to Earth. And she has never shown Hyslop’s flair for putting two and two together and making seven.”

“All right.” Rolfe turned away, as though the whole subject was suddenly no longer of interest. “For the time being we’ll go with Lauren Stansfield. If we have to make a change later, we will. Don’t bother to send me your reports on her. It’s time to talk about the other delays in shield construction. We have to find the cause of those, and we have to stop it.”

Nick followed the direction of Gordy’s glance. The level of light in the room was slowly fading and the vegetation beyond the barrier showed dark and dense. Again there was movement in ten-foot-high grasses, far out from the wall. It took a real effort to focus on Rolfe’s question.

“Gordy, I thought we agreed that the Sky City murders are just that — the act of an individual, sexually motivated. They’re causing additional schedule slippage, but that’s beyond our control.”

Rolfe’s eyes left the gathering gloom beyond the wall and came back to bore into Nick’s. “Bullshit. I used to think we were looking at a solo effort; now I wonder. Either way, we have to make sure we’re the only players in the game.”

“How can we? Suppose some other group has the same idea as ours? We can’t be the only two people on Earth who realize there’s lots of money and power to be had when the planet gets slammed.”

“And plenty being spent right now, if you can get your hands on a little of it. Enough to buy . . . anything.”

Rolfe made a little horizontal circling motion with his hand, palm down. The meaning was clear to Nick. The space shield consumed a third of the world’s industrial production. One percent of that, or even one-tenth of a percent, paid for the development of an Argos Group sanctuary like this a thousand times over. It was less clear who would be invited to share a sanctuary with Gordy Rolfe when the particle storm hit Earth. None of that was Nick’s business. He had his own if-all-else-fails plan.

“I won’t have anyone else cutting in,” Rolfe continued. “Our actions are not the only cause of the slippage. Which leaves the question, what else is there?”