“Wilmer says we can.”

“Right. Notice I’m not asking if we want to try.”

“You’re missing a couple of other questions, though. Can we persuade other people that we need to try?”

“I’ll work on that. So will you.”

“And what sort of staff changes will we need? Just yesterday I saw a paper from Bruno Colombo approving the transfer of the shield’s chief engineer to the asteroid capture problem. Now that looks like a terrible idea.”

“Ah.” Lopez turned away so that Celine could not see his face. “I agree with you, I see possible problems there. Let me look into it.”

She read worry in his tone. “Do you want me to get involved?”

“Thank you, but no.” He turned to Celine, and his face was impassive and unreadable. “I will speak with Bruno Colombo, and anyone else who seems appropriate. If I need help, I will call you. How long do we have?”

“Astarte said the wave could hit as soon as a month from now. Let’s hope she’s wrong.”

“If she’s right, that’s no time at all.” For the first time, Lopez’s amiable face bore signs of weariness and worry. “Excuse me, Madam President, but we must stop this meeting right now. I have calls to make.”

The private line rang and rang. Lopez was ready to give up calling the Virginia underground location and try The Flaunt when at last he heard a waspish voice at the other end.

“Yes, what the hell do you want?”

“Gordy, this is Nick Lopez.”

“I know it’s Nick Lopez, you stupid asshole. Didn’t we agree that we were the only people who would have access to this line? What do you want? I’m busy.”

“We have a problem. A big one. We need to get Hyslop assigned back to Sky City, and we need to do it as soon as possible.”

“No fucking way. Hold it, I’m switching to a general circuit visual.” There was a fifteen-second pause, during which Nick wondered where in his hideaway Gordy Rolfe kept his private line. It was certainly well hidden, because Gordy would not permit visuals when he was using it. There seemed little point to the line, however, if Gordy was willing to put discussions like this onto general circuits.

At last the miniature screen in front of Nick Lopez shimmered with color. Gordy Rolfe appeared, a tiny scowling gnome. The green of the habitat was visible in the background. Rolfe was holding a wire cage containing half a dozen guinea pigs and the same number of white mice.

“Now, what’s this crap you’re giving me?” he began. “You agreed just a few days ago that we had to get Hyslop out of Sky City before he put the shield back on schedule and picture-perfect.”

“I just sat through a presentation that changes everything. Listen to this.” Nick ran through what he had heard an hour earlier, while Rolfe sat with barely controlled impatience.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said when Lopez finished. “So you like the little black one. Fine, screw her if you get the chance. But even if you believe those two weirdos, so what? The blast gets here sooner than anybody thought. Earth gets crisped a few years early. Big deal.”

“The wave will hit before the shield is ready. We’re talking billions of deaths.”

“Don’t say that, Lopez, you’ll make me weep.” Rolfe put down the cage that he was holding and glared out of the screen. “Look, I don’t give a damn about who gets offed. The way they’ve treated me, I’ll be glad to get rid of most of the fuckers. I’ll be snug down here, let ’em go. And good riddance.”

His expression suddenly changed, and his eyes glittered behind the big lenses. “Oh, but I get it. I see what you’re really worried about. You don’t give a shit about people getting fried, any more than I do. You’re afraid that the place the Argos Group is building for you won’t be ready in time. Well, don’t sweat it. I’ll put in triple shifts and quadruple the workforce. You’ll be all set in your private pleasure palace before the first protons hit.”

Nick had learned to control his feelings before Gordy Rolfe was born. He grinned and said, “That easy to read, am I? But Gordy, finishing my place isn’t the real problem. We both know there’s no payoff for either of us if Earth gets clobbered too badly. You need customers, and I need an infrastructure. If these scientists are right, we’ll not have either after the storm. Hell, we may not even be alive to worry about it. We have to get Hyslop back up there and let him try to finish the shield, at least until we have a better take on this new thing.”

“And suppose he gets the shield back on schedule, and the storm’s not as bad as your pinhead scientists are saying?”

“Then we’ll find some other way of slowing down the project. Look, Gordy, there’s another factor here. I’m a public figure. I can’t say, ’Pull up the ladder, Jack, I’m on board.’ You see how it will go — everybody will cry out to finish the shield as soon as possible, and the first thing that Bruno Colombo will do is assign Hyslop back to his old job anyway.”

“You told me that you had Colombo in your pocket. You say ’shit’ and he squats.”

“True. But Gordy, I can’t make him into what he isn’t. Bruno comes across impressive, but inside he’s cream cheese. If people like Celine Tanaka start leaning on him, he’ll cave. And I daren’t try to stop it. Remember, I have to act like I’m on the same side as they are.”

“So you want Hyslop to have his old job back, and go charging all over Sky City poking into anything he likes? No fucking way, Jose. Lopez, you’ve lost your mind.”

“Don’t give me no shit about losing my mind. You listen to me for a minute.” Nick hadn’t been in a street fight for half a century, but it was amazing how easily you dropped back into it. He lowered his voice to a growl. “We’ve got no choice on this one. We’re talking a crash project, balls out, shield modification in a month or less. Hyslop, he’ll be too busy to worry about anything else going on. And just to make sure, we keep somebody close to him with one hand on his dick — your woman Wheatstone. You say she’s ambitious, does whatever it takes. Well, tell her to prove it. Control Hyslop. If the shield changes get made and there’s no particle storm, we can still switch him back to the Aten asteroid work. Okay?”

“Might be easier to off him and have done with it.”

“No. Suppose we need him again? Reason we’re worried is the same reason he’s useful. He’s smart, does things nobody else can.”

Rolfe nodded grudgingly. “All right, all right. Would have been easier to off him in the first place. Except everybody was telling me how useful he’d be on the Aten asteroid work. Okay. Do it.” He picked up the wire cage and peered in at the contents.

“More experiments?” Nick asked. If the fight was over, he was more than ready to change the subject.

“Continuation of one in progress. I pulled these from one section of the habitat a few weeks ago. Now the newborn dino count is way up. So I’m putting mice and guineas back in, along with more food for all of ’em. Want to bet that the dino count doesn’t start down within two weeks, food or no food? And the mammals thrive?”

“I’m not a betting man, Gordy. But I want to be sure we’re agreed. Hyslop can be reassigned to his old job on Sky City?”

“I guess. Go ahead and do it.” Rolfe seemed to have lost interest in the subject. He was crouched down on his haunches. His attention was on the guinea pigs and mice, nosing about their wire cage as he placed it into the hollow middle section of the transparent door leading through to the habitat.

Suddenly he stood up and walked forward to the camera, so that his image stared out of the display at close range. Nick could see each individual dark whisker on Rolfe’s upper lip, and the pore-filled skin around the gray eyes.

“Just one thing I don’t want you to forget, Lopez.” Rolfe was smiling. “I’m going along with you on reassigning Hyslop to the shield because it doesn’t make much difference to me. I plan ahead in ways you don’t even dream. But I want you to know that so far as I’m concerned, it’s your ass on the line, not Hyslop’s. Fuck this up some way, so word gets out that the Argos Group has been playing games with the shield deliverables and also skimming a little off the top, and I will become very upset. I don’t think you want me very upset.”