["Oh, very well, dear. You were quite your usual self. I did offer a few minor suggestions online, but you seemed distracted.... Not surprising, in such an important meet- ing.... Anyway, you did well. "]

"Oh. Good," Laura said. She gazed upward. "I'm sure if

I could reach that ceiling and dig around behind those lights,

I'd find holograms or something."

["Why waste your time?"] Ms. Emerson chuckled. ["And spoil their harmless little touch of drama.... I notice that

David has also had a very interesting time.... They tried to recruit him! We've been expecting that."]

"What did he say?"

["He was very polite. He did well, too."]

She heard footsteps. Sticky ambled out of the darkness.

"So," he said. "You sittin' here talkin' to thin air again."

He sprawled carelessly into Gelli's chair. "You okay? You look a fickle pale." He glanced curiously at one of the screens. "They give you a hard time?"

"They're a hard bunch," Laura told him. "Your bosses."

"Well it's a hard world," Sticky shrugged. "You'll be wanting to get back to that baby of yours.... I got the jeep waitin' up on the roof.... Let's move."

The swaying descent from the tower turned her stomach.

She felt greenish and clammy as they took the winding road back to the coast. He drove far too fast, the steep, romantic hills lurching and dipping with the shocks, like cheap back- stage scenery. "Slow down, Sticky, she said. "I'll throw up if you don't. "

Sticky looked alarmed. "Why you nah tell me? Hell, we'll stop." He bounced off the road into the shelter of some trees, then killed the engine. "You stay here," he told the soldier.

He helped Laura out of her seat. She hung on his arm. "If

I could just walk a little," she said. Sticky led her away from the jeep, checking the sky again, by reflex.

A light pattering of rain rustled the leaves overhead. "What's this?" he said. "You hanging all over me. You been taking

Carlotta's pills or something?"

She let him go reluctantly. He felt warm and solid. Made of human flesh. Sticky laughed to see her swaying there flat-footed. "What's the matter? Uncle Dave not givin' you any?"

Laura flushed. "Didn't your mother teach you not to be such a fucking chauvinist? I can't believe this."

"Hey," Sticky said mildly. "My mother was just one of

Winston's gals. When he snap a finger, she jump like a gunshot. Not everyone touchy like you, you know." He squatted beneath a tree, bracing. his back, and picked up a long twig. "So. They give you a scare, do they?" He juggled the twig between his fingers. "Tell you anything about the war?"

"Some," Laura said. "Why?"

"Militia's been on full alert for three days," Sticky said.

"Barracks talk says the terries gave the Bank an ultimatum.

Threaten brimstone fire. But we through payin' shakedown money. So looks like we gonna start poppin' caps."

"Barracks talk," Laura said. Suddenly she felt stifled in the long black chador. She stripped it, over her head.

"Better keep the flak jacket," Sticky told her. There was a gleam in his eyes. He liked seeing her throw clothes off.

"Lickle gift from me to you."

She looked around herself, breathing hard. The fine wet smell of tropic woods. Bird calls. Rain. The world was still here. No matter what went on in people's heads... .

Sticky jabbed at a termite nest in the tree's roots, waiting for her.

She felt better now. She understood Sticky. The vicious fight they'd had earlier seemed almost comfortable now-like a necessary thing. Now he was giving her a look-not like a side of beef or an enemy, but a kind of look she was used to getting from men. He wasn't so different from other young men. Kind of a jerk maybe, but a human being. She felt a sudden gush of comradely human feeling for him-almost felt she could hug him. Or at least invite him to dinner.

Sticky looked down at his boots. "Did they say you a hostage?" he said tightly. "Say they were gonna shoot you?"

"No," Laura said. "They want to hire us. To work for Grenada."

Sticky began laughing. "That's good. That's real good.

That's funny." He stood up loosely, happily, as if shrugging off a weight. "You gonna do it?"

"No.'

"I nah think so." He paused. "You ought to, though."

"Why don't you have dinner with us tonight?" Laura said.

"Maybe Carlotta can come. We'll have a good talk together.

The four of us."

"I have to watch what I eat," Sticky said. Meaningless.

But it meant something to him.

Sticky left her at the mansion. David arrived an hour later.

He kicked open the door and came down the hall whooping, banging the baby on his hip. "Home again, home again.

Loretta was crowing with excitement.

Laura was waiting in the hideous living room, nursing her second rum punch. "Mother of my child!" David said. "Where are the diapers, and how was your day?"

"They're supposed to be in the tote."

"I used all of those. God, what smells so good? And what are you drinking?"

"Rita made planter's punch."

"Well, pour me some." He vanished with the baby and brought her back freshly changed, with her bottle.

Laura sighed. "You had a good time, David, didn't you?"

"You wouldn't believe what they have out there," David said, sprawling onto the couch with the baby in his lap. "I met another one of the Andreis. I mean his name's not

Andrei, but he acted just like him. Korean guy. Big Buckminster

Fuller fan. They're making massive arcologies out of noth- ing! For nothing! Concretized sand and seastone.... They sink these iron grates into the ocean, run some voltage through, and get this: solids begin to accrete ... calcium carbonate, right? Like seashells! They're growing buildings offshore.

Out of this 'seastone.' And no building permits... no impact statements... nothing."

He gulped three inches of cloudy rum and lime, then shuddered. "Man! I could do with another of these.... Laura, it was the hottest thing I ever saw. People are living in 'em.

Some of them are under water ... you can't tell where the walls end and the coral starts."

Little Loretta grabbed her bottle avidly. "And get this-I was walking around in my work clothes and nobody paid any attention. Just another black guy, right? Even with old uhmm

... Jesus, I forgot his name already, the Korean Andrei.... He was giving me the tour, but it was really low-key, I got to see everything. "

"They want you to work on it?" Laura said.

"More than that! Hell, they offered me a fifteen-million - rouble budget and carte blanche to get on with whatever I like." He took off his glasses and set them on the arm of the couch. "Of course I said no dice-no way I'm staying here without my wife and kid.-but if we could work out some kind of co-op thing with Rizome, hell, yes, I'd do it. I'd do it tomorrow."

"They want me to work for them, too," Laura said.

"They're worried about their public image. "

David stared at her and burst into laughter. "Well of course they are. Of course. Well, hell, pour me another one.

Tell me all about the meeting."

"It was bizarre," Laura said.

"Well, I believe that! Hell, you ought to see what they're up to out on the coast. They've got ten-year-old kids out there who were born-I mean literally born-in seawater. They have these maternity tanks... . They have women at term, right ... they take 'em out into these birthing tanks Did__

I mention the dolphins?" He sipped his drink.

"Dolphins."

"You ever hear of laser acupuncture? I mean right here along the spine...." He leaned forward, jostling the baby.

"Oh, sorry, Loretta." He switched arms. "Anyway, I can tell you all that later. So, you testified, huh? Were they tough?"