Beside him his boss's fingers had already keyed another sequence. Three Palms flowered in the Chrysanthemum's wake, vivid magenta plumes fanning round the smoke trails that symbolized their trunks. Behind them, on the ground, white and emerald fire burst from the first of the seven Cakes. A bit too fast, he protested silently, as he always did. Let them savor the last one a bit . . . But he knew his boss's eye was set on the height of pyrotechnic ambition: New Year's Eve, running the Sydney fireworks display.

Picture the Bridge, Darryl thought, its famous bow ablaze from end to end with sparkles, blazes, shooting stars, jets, and serpentines of light . . . Two rockets shot roaring through the Palm dust and burst high overhead, showering down a double wave of first red and then fierce emerald, and beyond the firing enclosure the crowd went Aaah again. Might be worth the effort, he conceded, if what you wanted from life was to make people sound like that.

Another Cake erupted in blue and crimson showers. Three Peonies followed, bursting into brilliant gold amid a shower of sparks, while a salvo of flares bloomed overhead in silent, searing white. The click of keys faded as Darryl sank with the crowd into the salvos of color and fire, the crackling, hissing crump and thump, the exhilarating stink of gunpowder that infused it all.

Then the last fusillade subsided; the exclamations stopped. The smoke began to drift away. At his side Darryl's boss said, "OK, Mr. Tomasetti. You can start disconnecting now."

"Right, Dora." Twelve months, he grumbled internally, since sugar went belly up and I had to quit the cane-farm and leave Inverside; six months since the Centerlink employment woman slotted me in here. There can't be ten years between us. And you've been "Dora" to me for weeks, but whatever I say, I'm still "Mr. Tomasetti" to you.

He moved warily out into the mortar-infested, lead-entangled, smoke-wreathed park. The distant football lights were on, but here it seemed dark as natural night. Experience identified the blot of the big firing desk. He found his pocket torch and located the main switch.

Thought I knew the Chinese, Darryl's mind ran on as his fingers yanked plugs. More clannish than the Italians, and G.o.d knows Inverside famiglie were tighter than the Mafia. But four or five generations and some Chinese're still old-style: make a good living running restaurants, sell fireworks to these round-eyes, but no fraternizing. No mixed marriages. No half-breed kids. Even if you go native enough to have a daughter with Dora for a first name and Yee for a last-or would that be the other way about?

His refractory mind's eye presented an image of his ex-wife: tall, broad, and exuberant, North Italian fair. And then of his boss: five feet four to his gangling six-one, delicately boned as a sparrow, silk-straight hair blacker than his south Italian curls, exquisite features, and the cla.s.sic epicanthic fold above those almond eyes . . . Could be, he grumbled, as he traced the first rail-lead to its socket, those Chinese grandmas know what they're on about.

With the nearest Cakes disconnected and their mortars packed, he gathered up an armload and headed for the gate. The steady ebb of headlights said most of the crowd had gone, but just outside the fence the field-lights backlit one motionless shape.

"Yeah, mate?" Darryl worked the padlock, edged through, and swung the gate to at his back. "Help you with anything?"

The shape moved closer. Appeared to be Male, by the shoulders, half a head below Darryl's height. Very well cut hair, to judge by the silhouette, and-was that actually a coat? In Ibisville, on a hot Australia Day evening in January?

"Yes, please." The voice was as quiet, polite, and precise as an ABC news anchor's, and a strange p.r.i.c.kle went down Darryl's neck. "I wish to speak with Miss Dora Yee."

Bloke wears a coat and talks like he's straight from the Abe's head office. A bit out of place, but why's he p.r.i.c.kling my neck? It's just an ordinary voice. Except that undertone, like the sound down on a half-bad mike. That sort of whistle-crackle? Whine?

"If you will ask her to come here?"

She won't like that "Miss" and I don't like you. The judgement came faster than reason, faster even than the training of his job. "You'll be hauling gear and helping out in the workshop," Philip Yee had said at the interview. "And watching out for Dora on site. For setup and firing, she's the best we have, but sometimes people want to come round. They can be a bit odd. And for a woman . . ." He had lifted his well-shirted shoulders in a tiny shrug they both understood: Just being a woman can bring her more trouble than a man. You're along as muscle, in both senses of the word.

"I'll put this lot in the van." Darryl tried for noncommittal, if not polite. "Then I'll ask if she can spare a moment. What was your name again?"

The featureless head inclined. The precise, disturbing voice replied, "Miss Yee knows my name."

Arrogant so-and so. Darryl clumped to the van, fuming under his breath. He flashed the remote, and the side-door amid the painted coils of fire-breathing dragon unlocked. Who does he think he is? "Miss Yee knows my name." Firebug? No. Seems sane enough. I just don't like the feel of him.

He shoved the mortars into their chest and locked it. Locked the van for good measure and thumped back to the gate, past the waiting shape. As he clicked open the padlock he growled, "I'll see what she says."

"He says I know his name?"

"Yeah. Would that be right?"

Darryl's boss was reserved, formal, always impeccably polite, efficient as the computers she controlled, and usually as quick. The long pause made Darryl want to step closer. Perhaps between her and the gate.

"I can tell him to go . . ."

"No."

"Dora . . ?"

"No," she said again. She came away from the console. "I'll speak to him. Mr. Tomasetti, could you stow the computer gear?"

She never lets me touch the comp. She always puts her electronic stuff away herself. She means to keep me out of it. If I disobey she'll fry my circuits. But . . . Darryl stood in the half-dark staring after the small figure walking away, stiff-backed as a soldier going into battle. Blast it, Dora, I know you hate coddling, but-!

Half an hour and three miles later, when the light turned red at the big riverside intersection, Darryl finally dared break the hush in the van's front.

"Ah-what did that guy want?"

He felt the air bristle.

"Sorry, not my business, but he seemed odd to me."

I couldn't hear a word even when I sneaked in tackling range, and you hardly talked two minutes, but I could read the body-speak. And if I'm just the gofer, he let the silence add, it's my job to be a trouble-sniffer as well as muscle. The whole firm understands that.

"And how-um-how did he know your name?"

He knew better than to expect an answer like, "One look at the van, with 'Yee's Fire-Sights' in the psychedelic colors I strong-armed my Dad into using for promotion, would tell him that." But again, the silence was extraordinarily, unnervingly long.

"He's an agent," Dora said.

"For a job? A big job? Then why's he shimmying around sites in the dark instead of ringing the office like anybody else?"

"It's . . ."

And it isn't like Dora to stop in mid-sentence. His stomach sank. Is this not an agent at all? Is this something else? Some-one else?

"It's-an unusual job."

But it is a job. His stomach settled. Just a job, and by the sound, not a job she likes.

"They want a low quote?"

"No." Another pause. "They're willing to deal. To meet almost any price we name."

"Any price? This isn't illegal, is it? They want the gunpowder for pirates? They're gonna sell flares to terrorists?"

"No." But she didn't sound irritated, or even affronted. Not, he thought, that he would have known if she was.

"Well, Jeez, Dora, what's it about, then? And why's he asking you?"

The light finally changed. As the traffic creaked forward Dora let the words out, more reluctantly than she would have let him key through an entire firework display.

"It's a deal with the firm. But the thing they want most is mine."

When Darryl reached home the Messages light was blinking on his phone. He dumped his protective coat and levered old-fashioned wooden louver windows open, then pressed Read as he switched on the ceiling fan.

"Dad," said his son's voice, "I'm short four hundred bucks for the iMax bill this quarter, I just hadda watch the tennis live . . . I'll pay it back in February, I promise. Thanks, Dad . . ."

Idiot, Darryl grouched, and hit Next. His daughter said, "Dad, I've got summer school in Brisbane this week, can I leave the cat with you again? You know the food she likes. I'll bring her round tomorrow. Thanks, Dad . . ."

Darryl scowled, sighed, and pressed Next again. His wife said crisply, "Darryl, will you just talk to Roberts for once? You can't make that place pay any more. You know you'll never go back. And we'll all get something out of the land-price. Roberts can arrange an auction. Phone me tomorrow night."

Then it's gone for good, Darryl told the peeling rafters. The farm Granddad knocked out of the scrub, the farm Dad built up to a showplace. The farm I couldn't save. He went into the kitchen, the best-renovated room in his downstairs half of the old Queenslander. As he filled the electric jug his rebellious mind added, But I can cope with bills and cats and thieving lawyers. If Dora'd just come clean, I bet I could handle the bloke that's monstering her as well.

Fire-Sights had a small job next evening, a twenty-first birthday party in Ibisville's most expensive suburb, high on the side of Fortress Hill. The worst part, in Darryl's opinion, had been trying to trench mortar beds in almost bare native rock, while the owner's wife fended him off her orchids and the owner decreed repeatedly that no fallout must reach the neighbors-"we can't afford damages!" And Darryl bit his tongue on, So why'd you order fireworks? and kept muttering, "Be okay. The boss set it up. Unless you gave her bad measurements, everything's jake. She doesn't make mistakes."

Except when it came to shutting me up, he fumed, finally navigating the van back down the narrow twist of street, while the noise of young male jollification echoed behind them, and Dora beside him sat wordless as a tomb. Whoinh.e.l.l does he think he is, that bloke, coming after her to a private function, hanging about at the top of the drive, cutting me off like a front-row forward to jabber at her . . . And the confounded party making so much noise I couldn't get a word except "offer" and "terms and conditions." Or that last bit, after she snapped him off: "The family thinks otherwise."

But I got the way she went absolutely rigid then. And the tone of that, "Excuse me," before she dodged like a veteran winger, and then-then she had the nerve to call, "Mr. Tomasetti, let's go!"

So I couldn't even stop to deck the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, let alone dig out the story, or get him off her back for good.

Darryl learned the family's thoughts next morning. He was in the workshop, lackadaisically checking leads on a voltmeter, when he saw Dora vanish into the block across the yard. Weekly schedule-meeting, he thought. Philip Yee's office. But as he pa.s.sed, headed to Dora's own office for the next work-list, the voices inside carried even through a closed door and air-conditioning.

"I said No, and I mean No!"

A male rumble where Darryl, frozen on one foot, caught, ". . . from the start . . . University . . . supported you . . . computers, no matter what your mother said . . . married . . . years back . . . biggest deal we ever . . . owe the family . . . !"

"I won scholarships to Uni, and you know it. You wanted me to do IT for the firm. I did it. I don't owe you . . ." Dora's voice began rising. ". . . make deals for the firm and good luck with it . . . but not . . . deal for me!"

The door k.n.o.b grated and blinds rattled. Darryl had just time to whisk back before Dora slammed the door resoundingly and swept away.

"Ah, boss?"

He had knocked, and stuck his head in first for good measure. She was behind her battery of keyboards and monitors, shuffling papers that would be lucky to survive. Her face was rigid, but when her head flew up he very nearly recoiled.

"Oh-Mr. Tomasetti. The work-list . . ." She's gritting her teeth, he thought, and that final waver almost undid him. He pushed the door wide enough to step through and said brusquely, "The work-list can wait."

"But I haven't done it yet-"

"Whatever you do's OK with me."

Another door slammed. A truck pulled in. Voices rumored while they stared at each other, both of them realizing, understanding, accepting all that had been said.

Then Dora looked down at the papers in her hands. Squared them, as precisely as usual, set them down, and glanced by reflex at her main monitor, and then Darryl said, "What is it with that deal, anyhow?"

Their eyes met. He held his breath. Then her shoulders slowly loosened, and she started to speak.

"The client's from overseas. It's confidential where. They're bidding for a very big display, they're worried the opposition might, I don't know, spy, outbid them, maybe even try sabotage-We've said we'll plan the project, and we put in a shadow quote, but they want us to do the set-up as well. And send a technician. They still won't say where, but they keep saying, money's no object. Make the quote whatever you like. Just guarantee the personnel."

"And that's you."

Their eyes met again, acknowledging their just-altered status. No longer employer and casual worker, but a leader given personal allegiance. And in return, offering confidentiality.

"What else is it they want?"

Her hand twitched on the monitor rim. Darryl shut the door and said, "Something of yours, you said the other night. So not just being there. Something you've made-something you've . . . done?"

"Mr. Tomasetti." She looked thoroughly surprised. "That's very . . . Yes, something I've done. With the-um-programming-um-"

Her visible attempt to dumb it down was too much.

"Look, I know I'm just a broken-down cane-farmer, only fit to pay kids' bills and mind the cat and run round gofering, too old to get the half of this. But just once, can I be Darryl the Dumbo while I try?"

"Oh!" He had startled her again, but this time into her very first spontaneous laugh. "Mr . . . Darryl. You are not dumb. You've learnt the job faster than anyone else. And you notice things. Okay. I've been messing with the algorithms. For the setup software, I've, um, worked out a new choice path, so you can trip several fuses simultaneously."

"But don't we do that now?"

"Not quite. This system still uses sequential firing. We've made it faster and faster as computers improved, but it's still sequential, it will be even if they get it down to nanoseconds. But this-" her eyes gleamed, "-this is different. Eventually, this'll need a whole new way of programming. I'll maybe have to figure out an entire language. We can't even use it with this system, it's too different."

"Then why do they want it? How'd they know about it, anyway?'

"My father." Dora's nostrils pinched. "I told him something. Just a bit. Of course he blabbed it, trying to sew up the deal, my daughter's a computer wizard, she's got this wonderful idea . . ."

"So that's all they know?" He had begun to relax when he saw Dora's face change. Her eyes flew to the monitor and her hand dropped automatically to the mouse.

"You told somebody else." Of course she would, his ever-reserved boss was only human. There would be some specialist, some other young IT genius, who would really understand. A sudden pain went through him, in the vicinity of what he vaguely considered his heart.

"E-mail," Dora said. "They could hack our server and monitor the traffic. My traffic. If they're as paranoid as they seem, they'd do that the minute they started checking us out. And when Dad spilt the beans . . . We have ordinary encryption, but somebody serious . . ." She jerked the mouse. Two clicks and a s.n.a.t.c.h of Microsoft melody and the screen turned blue. Preparing, even Darryl knew, to shut down. "But that'll only get them into the desktop." She was breathing visibly faster. "That's why they're still chasing it, me, the firm. The new stuff's on my palmtop, that's never been connected. And I never let it out of my reach."

"Jeez." Darryl felt his own heart speed up. "This thing. This could be more than a new way of doing fireworks, couldn't it? This could be something really-" his son's slang returned to him, "-really out there. Couldn't it?"

The face Dora turned on him spoke for itself. He swallowed involuntarily and wilder thoughts flew past him, international deals, big money, battling corporations the size of Microsoft. Burglary, mayhem, kidnapping. Security, new locks, maybe a watchman at the office. As for Dora herself-Jesus, where in Ibisville do I turn up the likes of a personal bodyguard?

Time stuck. Then a nanosecond showed him the rest of the hypothesis. If we hire anyone they'll know we're onto them. Dora has to have someone, but she's already got all she can have.

The bodyguard has to be me.

Dora tolerated his popping in and out of her office almost hourly. Working late before the next night's job, she accepted his offer of a visit to McDonalds for them both, and even took the hamburger with an absent smile. But she objected strenuously when, the job over, he insisted on following her to her unit, locking the van, and escorting her upstairs.

"There was nothing tonight," she was protesting as they turned the last corner. "They've probably given up. They won't-" She stopped in mid-step and Darryl shot past her to the top of the stairs.

The block corridor was dimly lit after eleven PM, and the interloper had again positioned himself against the light. Darryl heard that unmistakeable voice ask, "Miss Yee?" and his own fuses popped.

"She said, No, mate. And when women round here say, No, they mean, No!" He felt Dora climb the last step and nudged her behind him. "Now why don't you just get out?"

The silhouette did not move. Blocky sod, even allowing for the suit. Korean, maybe? That'd go with the English. And the local ignorance. Darryl balled his fists to step forward and the silhouette spoke.

"Who is this man?"

Dora's hand shut suddenly and fiercely in the back of Darryl's shirt. She wormed up beside him and said rapidly, "Darryl, this is-Major. Major, this is Mr. Tomasetti. He works for us."

"Major, huh? You military?" Darryl ignored the twitch at his sleeve.

There was a pause. Just before Darryl broke it, the silhouette said, "Mister Major." The head turned slightly. The peculiar voice asked, "This is your mate?"

"My-No!" Dora very nearly yelped. "Darryl's just looking out for me . . ."

Mate, Darryl translated belatedly, doesn't mean friend this time. It means-d.a.m.n!