ThatTV magnate? Jennifer asked herself.Oh-ho. It may be blasphemy, but even the seafood here palls after a while.

Yes, Gwen said. Every once in a while I like to know that a higher mammal died for my dinner.

You may not be an entrepreneur by choice, Jennifer said, but that sounds quite sufficiently predatory of you.

Gwen looked up at her. Predatory? Oh, you have noidea, she said, with a clear husky laugh.

God, she's strange,Jennifer thought, chuckling herself.Strange, but sort of fun. That charisma should get damned old after a while, but it doesn't. Just less noticeable. Come on, now, girl -where's your envy and resentment?Gone, it seemed.She'd make a great salesperson, Jennifer decided. The trust me vibrations were strong enough to do double duty as an oboe in a symphony.

She glanced over at the painting of Yolande Ingolfsson again, then glanced back sharply. The background seemed to be a window-seat at first glance . . . itwas a window-seat, but the curved glass behind it framed a landscape on the moon, gray and silver and a ragged crater wall. Above that hung the full earth.

I can see that wasn't done from life, she said.

Gwen glanced over, tilting her face and looking out of the corners of her eyes. No, I did it from memory, she said.

You paint?

It's a hobby.

In your copious spare time, no doubt,Jennifer thought.

You find me a little odd, don't you? Gwen said.

Sharp, too.Alittle . . . out of the ordinary, Jennifer said.

Perhaps I'm an alien invader, then, Gwen said. Her green eyes sparkled. From another dimension.

Jennifer found herself laughing harder. Oh, right. And you prowl the back roads of America in your flying saucer, mutilating cows and performing proctologies on rednecks.

Gwen arched her brows. Proctologies on rednecks? she said thoughtfully. Carefully selected rednecks .

. . with the right prosthetics . . . perhaps occasionally.

Jennifer choked slightly on a mouthful of wine. Who's Adonis there? she asked.

The painting was of a youngish man standing on a vaguely tropical beach; long white-gold hair fell to his broad dark-tanned shoulders. He was wearing only loose duck trousers, and sitting casually on a fallen palm-trunk, looking sleekly muscular and utterly relaxed; if the painting was anything like the person, heads would have turned.Not a dry seat in the house, as Louisa says, Jennifer thought.

Alois, not Adonis. My husband.

The New Yorker set her wineglass down. You'remarried? she said. Somehow it was startling, unexpected, like a cat tapdancing.And I could have sworn Cairstens and she were involved. At least from the way the Californian carried himself. She imagined Gwen next to the man in the painting.And I would have thought they were relatives. Maybe a cousin?

Was; Alois died . . . some time ago. Sporting accident.

Oh.Foot-in-mouth disease, Jennifer. I'm sorry.

Gwen sighed and shrugged. It was some time ago. He-we both-had a taste for dangerous pastimes.

If you do that long enough, it'll kill you. I've just been luckier, so far. In fact, she said, eventually the universe kills everybody; one argument for taking a theistic approach to it, I suppose.

That which kills everybody is God?Jennifer thought. Perhaps not a tactful comment to make. Odd outlook.

You paint a lot?'

It relaxes. Let's finish this Merlot off.

I shouldn't . . .

Work's over, you're leaving tomorrow.

True. There, dead soldier.

The dessert was various tiny pastries of tropical fruits; the pyramid on the serving tray was as colorful as a peacock's tail or a flower market, and she felt almost guilty at disturbing it. Kiwi, mango, mangosteen, sour-sop, and the coffee was Blue Mountain.

This is the life, she sighed.

Gwen leaned back with her cup in both hands, sipping. Its a change from shark hunting, she said. The Wall Street and finny varieties both.

There are sharks in the water here? What a pity. The beach looked gorgeous, not that she'd had time for swimming.Visit the tropics and stare at your computer, she thought.Sheesh. Bah, humbug.

They can be entertaining to hunt, when you feel like spearfishing, Gwen said.

Jennifer looked at her, trying to see if she was serious. Not the Great White Shark, I hope, she said.

No. Another of the white grins. Although I've found some remarkably hostile things coming out of the water at me here, she added. But enough about me. Tell me what life in New York is like for you.

Later, she stopped herself. I'm babbling, she said. You can't possibly want to know about my cat.

On the contrary, Gwen said, finishing her brandy. I adore cats. Let's go for a quick swim, then.

Jennifer hesitated. Not with the sharks, I hope.

I've got a perfectly good pool here.

She hesitated again. You had to watch out about getting too friendly with clients. On the other hand, why not? Nothing wrong with a swim, and Gwen was nice enough-weird, but nice. Also Klein and Coleman were pills. And she felt restless, as if someone were pricking her skin very lightly with invisible needles.

The room swayed a little; she'd exceeded her usual rule of no more than three glasses of Chardonnay or something similar. They walked out to a terrace and down a flight of stairs; the pool was floodlit from below, lined and set among marble tiles and edged with a decoration of colorful Portuguese majolica.

Water burbled from the mouth of a bronze lion, into a rock-edged basin and then into the pool itself.

Which way's my room? she asked, a little disoriented. Got to get my suit.

Why bother? Gwen said, stepping out of her clothes. Nobody here but us girls.

Jennifer gaped as the other hit the water in a perfect arching dive and with hardly a ripple. Her shape eeled down the pool, flashing into and out of the puddles of light thrown by the underwater sconces. She surfaced at the other end, mahogany hair plastered to her head, a flash of teeth and eyes.

Chicken! she called.

Hell with that! Jennifer called back. To hell with being sober and staid.

Hell with the extra ten pounds, too,she thought. She didn't have anything to prove. Still, she kept her briefs on as she waded down the steps. The water was barely cool to the skin, the stone smooth under her feet as she stood hugging herself. Fingers like steel wire suddenly gripped her ankles. She yelled as they heaved her upwards, catapulting her forward into the middle of the pool with a huge splash that sent water fountaining over the cool white and blue of the marble flooring. She whooped and thrashed her way back to the surface, glaring and sputtering.

You looked so much likeSeptember Morn, Gwen said, surfacing not far away.

Showoff!

Carmaggio leaned back in his chair and watched the image of the earth spin slowly over the office table.

It was the size of a large beachball, complete down to the swirling patterns of cloud; if you looked carefully at the edge, you could see a slight diffusion, where the atmosphere would scatter light. He peered closer. The detail got better and better as you approached. He had an uneasy feeling that if you whipped out a magnifying glass, tiny little ships and airplanes would be visible in the sky, and with a big enough microscope you could look in a window in a New York office building and see two men sitting on either side of a desk watching a holograph of the Earth . . . .

I'd like to know how they do that, Bill Saunders said.

There was a slip of something the size of a business card underneath the image, on the businessman's desk table.

I don't even understand TV, really, the detective said. But I can switch it on or off. This quadrant, he added, raising his voice a little. Enlarge.

The sphere vanished, to be replaced by a three-foot-square section. That flashed down and then down again, until they could all see the street outlines of a city; the buildings were perfectly to scale.

Yep. Bill Saunders looked at the holograph again. That's pretty damned convincing. You've convinced me, it's that simple.

He sank back in his chair, fingers steepled and eyes closed.Taking it easier than I did, Henry thought.

But then, he hadn't been easily thrown back in Nam either.

Okay, the businessman said after a moment. Why not the government? I've got some pull with them; they owe me. Not least for staying out in '96, that was close.

Lafarge thinks-and I agree, and our contact with the FBI does too-that we couldn't get anything done quickly. Too much incredulity. And anything the government knew, she'd know. By now she's probably got some influential people working for her.

Yep, the Texan said again. But with this, or a few things more, wecould convince the necessary people.

This Ingolfsson, the time traveler, she doesn't have much fancy gear, you say. We send in a Ranger team, and the problem's solved.

Carmaggio shook his head. He could feel sweat break out on his forehead. The more people in the know, the closer to disaster.

Bill, that's just what wecan't do. Lafarge says these Draka, they specialize in genetics-that fits what Ingolfsson's been doing with her company; yeah, plenty of electronics, but biotech stuff too.

That oil-eating bug, Saunders said thoughtfully. Ifigured that one was too good to be true. But I bought a piece of the action, he added. Made a fair dollar. So, they're geneticists. So what?

So making a plague would be trivial work for her. That's how Lafarge puts it: trivial. They won their version of World War Three with something like that. Something that could wipe out ninety-nine point nine percent of the human race, leaving her to pick up the pieces.

Judas priest, Saunders said. The words grunted out as if he'd been punched in the belly. He sat silent again for a full minute before barking: Why hasn't the bitch done it already?

Thesedrakensis, they're conquerors. As far as I could follow the explanation, they get a major charge out of making people truckle to them. You can't get much groveling time out of a corpse; and it would slow her down considerably, having to make components for her beacon instead of ordering them from working firms. But if Ingolfsson thinks her cover's been blown, she'd do it-Lafarge said he'd bet his life, literally, that something like that is in place right now and ready to roll.

Carmaggio wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Lafarge had had some recordings of what Draka biobombs could do to organisms. Simple death, murderous insanity, hell, some of them haddissolved, rotting while still alive and fully conscious . . . .

Damnation, this is like World War Three, only we've got our finger on the button, Saunders said, rising and going to the sideboard. Speaking of which . . . a nuke? Drastic, but- Lafarge is afraid there's a deadman switch on the bio-weapon, Carmaggio said. His . . . he's got a computer, says it isn't conscious but does things no organic brain can do. And it says the probability of a fail-safe like that is over ninety percent now that he's here and she knows he's here, given what they know about enemy psychology.

I don't know about you, but I could use a drink.

I've tried it, Carmaggio said. Several times since I talked to Lafarge. Doesn't help.

Good thing you know that, but one won't hurt.

It was Kentucky bourbon; Carmaggio took a swallow of the sour mash and bared his teeth at the mellow bite at the back of his throat. He breathed heat, a little of it seeping into his soul.

Yeah, El-tee, it just keeps getting worse. First I had a mass murderer, then a mass murderer who could do weird things, and then a time traveler . . . and now I've fallen into the script of a fucking-sorry -Saunders didn't like swearing- made-for-TV movie. As long as we don't start getting dreams about a little old black lady living in Kansas . . .

Mm-hmmm. Saunders was thinking with his eyes shut again; it emphasized the batlike ears. Then he opened them and looked at the holograph. Heard about something like this in Hollywood. New gadget.

Going to take a lot of expensive equipment, though. He nudged the black rectangle with one finger.

So we can't call in the government, he said thoughtfully. What can we do?

Play for time, Carmaggio said. Stall-she evidently needs the warehouse, and she needs a lot of money for whatever she's doing there. Frustrate her without pushing her to use the . . . biobomb. And then when the moment comes, hit hard, take her out before she can do anything.

Sounds like a longshot.

Yeah. It is. What else can we do?

I'll think about that, Saunders said. In the meantime, we could use some better intelligence. He paused.

Didn't you say that lady friend of yours who works for PB Securities was down there right now?

Henry felt the tips of his ears flush slightly. She's not my lady friend, exactly, he said. Not yet. And we can't get her to pass information. That's thelast thing we could do. Evidently it's impossible to lie to a drakensis, impossible to hide what you're feeling overall. No, Jenny's safe enough-as long as she doesn't know anything. Ingolfsson needs this stock deal too much to risk anything.

I hope.

Jennifer tucked her hands into the sleeves of her thick cotton robe. The wall panels of this upper gallery were murals, some still in progress, eight feet tall by twelve between latticed windows. The style was unfamiliar, a high-gloss realism but slightly stylized. Gwen came in, also still in her robe, wrapping a towel around her hair and then moving to the ebony sideboard by the entranceway.

It just occurred to me, Jennifer said. Ms. Wayne wasn't at the last presentation.

Alice is not feeling well, I'm afraid, Gwen said. She smiled with a peculiar closed curve of the lips, her green eyes holding a secret mockery. Bit of nausea. But we expect her to perk up in a week or so.

I'm sorry she's ill, Jennifer said politely.

She's important to our future, Gwen agreed gravely.

These yours too? Jennifer asked, nodding toward the walls and accepting a sherry.

Yes. In the nature of a hobby, Gwen replied.

Jennifer looked at the mural. What is this?

The panel showed a street scene. Nineteenth century, perhaps, from the wide skirts of the women and the tall hats of the men; but the men wore swords, extravagantly ruffled shirts, and kept their hair in pony-tails; their coats were gaudily striped. Flowering trees thick with a mist of blue flowers arched over brick sidewalks; pillared houses stood back from the street behind wrought-iron fences and elaborate gardens with a hot, tropical look to them. Moving among the elaborately-clad strollers were blacks, in livery or ragged work-clothes, carrying burdens and pulling handcarts, sweeping the street, all lands of labor.