"He never had much of a tolerance for pain," Joanna murmured, so low that Paul could hardly hear her over the engines. "His own pain, that is."

"He killed himself to end his pain," Paul said.

Joanna nodded, her face unreadable.

Paul heard a sudden burst of chatter in his earphone. He pulled the headset back on. "Masterson one-oh-one," he said crisply into the pinhead microphone. "Repeat, please."

"One-oh-one, mis is Masterson base. Paul, we just got word that Mr. Arnold's plane has gone down."

"What?"

Automatically, Paul reached for the intercom switch on the control panel and flicked it on, so Joanna could hear the radio transmission, too.

"Arnold's plane is down. Over the Atlantic. Coast Guard's sent out search planes, but they don't expect any survivors."

"What happened?" Paul demanded.

"Dunno. Got one Mayday transmission that said they'd lost power on both engines."

"Holy God."

They flew in silence for a while, Paul's mind churning. Brad's gone. That supersonic blowtorch of his has the glide ratio of a grand piano. Must have hit the water like a bomb. Gripes, what a blow!

But a part of his mind was thinking that with Arnold out of the way Greg had no one of real importance backing him on the board of directors. This strengthens my hand. A lot, he told himself.

He looked over at Joanna. She seemed lost in thought, also. Weighing the odds, he knew. Trying to figure out how the balance of power has shifted.

Just like I am.

The board meeting went on anyway. Most of the directors had come from considerable distances to attend the emergency meeting. The old days when the rich and powerful lived in or near New York were long gone. Now the directors came from Tucson and Aspen, Houston and Sarasota, Seattle and Hilo. Several had flown in from Europe and the Asian rim.

The vice chairperson, a white-haired superannuated woman who had once been the corporation's director of personnel, seemed staggered when Paul told her that Arnold was dead.

"First Gregory and now Brad," she whispered.

She easily agreed to let Paul run the meeting. Paul thought she was eager to escape the responsibility.

Leaving Arnold's seat at the head of the table vacant, Paul convened the meeting and broke the news to the stunned board.

"My God," said one of the older directors, his hair white, his skin gray. "Who's next?"

"I move that we observe a minute of silence for our late chairman," said Greg. He sat halfway down the table, wearing his usual black business suit. He had not even glanced at Melissa, sitting at the end of the table. Paul thought that either he really did hate her now, or they were putting on a damned good act.

Once the minute of silence ended, Paul said, "I suppose we should elect a new chairman right away."

Heads bobbed agreement. Directors turned in their chairs, murmured to one another.

"I suggest we take a fifteen-minute break," Paul said, "then reconvene to hear nominations."

They didn't even bother to vote; just pushed their chairs back and headed for the bar and snacks at the back of the meeting room. Paul saw that the directors clumped into knots of threes and fours. Plenty of whispered conversations. Plenty of sudden, desperate politicking.

Joanna came up to his side. "Do you have a nominee in mind?" she asked.

Surprised, Paul admitted, "No. I haven't even thought about it."

Before Joanna could say anything more, Greg stepped between them. "I need to talk to you," he said to Paul, pointedly turning his back to his mother.

"You can talk to both of us," Paul said, shifting sideways a step so that he was once more side by side with Joanna.

"Certainly," Greg said tightly.

"So?" Paul prompted.

"You were out at the nanotech division, right?"

Paul nodded.

"Several board members want to shut it down."

Joanna said, "It's going to be years before it has any hope of showing a profit"

"Just like Moonbase," Greg snapped.

"What're you driving at?" Paul demanded.

"Just this. You vote to keep the nanotech division going and I'll vote to keep Moonbase going."

Paul blinked with surprise. "You'll back Moonbase?"

"If you'll back the nanotech division."

Glancing at Joanna, Paul thought, This is the way a corporation goes broke; everybody's got his own pet project that he wants to keep alive, so nobody kills anything and we all go down the tubes.

Almost as if he could read Paul's thoughts, Greg said, "Kris Cardenas showed you the lunar construction demo, didn't she?"

"That's right."

"Well, why don't we pool our interests and set up a demonstration on the Moon?"

"Demonstration of what?" Joanna asked.

"Nanotech construction," Greg told his mother. "Set up a construction task for the nanomachines at Moonbase. Use it to prove that we can build lunar facilities at a fraction of today's costs."

"I don't understand," Joanna said.

Feeling suddenly enthusiastic, Paul jumped in, "We can send a handful of nanomachines up to Moonbase and have them construct new facilities out of regolith materials."

"Right," said Greg.j "Can that be done? I mean, now? Today?"

"In a few months," Greg replied.

Paul said, "If the demonstration works, we can cut the costs of Moonbase by half or more."

"And prove to the world that nanotechnology has useful applications here and now," Greg added.

Joanna looked from her son to her husband, then back again. "Greg, that's-beautiful!"

"I think it can work," Greg said. "I'm certain it could work."

"You might be right," Paul admitted. "Gripes, we could build a viable Moonbase right away and start making a profit off it within a couple of years."

"Or sooner," said Greg.

Joanna smiled happily. "This is a fine idea, Greg."

"You're right," Paul agreed.

Greg put his hand out. "Can we work together on this? You and me, Paul?"

Grabbing his proffered hand in his own, Paul said, "Damned right."

"Good," said Greg, beaming. "And once the meeting reconvenes, I've got another little surprise for you."

Paul looked at his wristwatch. "Hey, we'd better get them back to work."

It took a few minutes to get the directors settled back in their chairs around the long conference table.

"All right," Paul said. "Before we get into the regular agenda, we should take nominations for the new chairman of the beard."

Greg spoke up immediately. "I nominate Joanna Masterson-er, Stavenger." Paul stared at him.

"Second," said the elderly woman vice-chair. She's happy with the title she's got, Paul thought; she doesn't want any real responsibility.

"Move we close the nominations," Greg said.

"Second."

Numb with surprise, Paul looked at Joanna, sitting acrossthe table from him. She seemed just as shocked as he was. "Automatically, he called for discussion.

"Let's go straight to a vote," said the old man at Paul's right.

"Let's make it by acclamation," said the vice-chair.

"Hear, hear!"

Paul broke into a grin and got to his feet. The entire board stood up and applauded their new chairperson. Paul went around to Joanna and ceremonially guided her to the empty chair at the head of the table.

The board members sat down, obviously expecting Joanna to make a little acceptance speech. Standing there at the head of the table, she glanced at Paul, then looked at Greg.

"Thank you," she said, her eyes still locked on her son. "This is totally unexpected and a little scary."

Paul noticed that Joanna was resting her fingers lightly on the table top. Her hands were steady, her voice firm.

"I want you to know that I will do my very best to serve you as chairperson of this board. I will do everything I can to fulfill the trust you've shown in me."

Greg's eyes were on his mother, his face blank, emotionless.

"The first order of business I would like to address," Joanna went on, "is unity. I'know my late husband's death has upset many members of this board. And Brad Arnold's, too. But I ask you now-all of you-to put these deaths behind us and work together for a stronger, more productive company."

"Hear, hear," muttered one of the older men.

"I expect no recriminations and no accusations," Joanna said, still looking at Greg. "I want cooperation and harmony. It's useless to dwell on the past; we must look to the future."

They all applauded, Greg the loudest of all. Paul noticed that Joanna said not another word about Bradley Arnold, nor did any of the other board members. Sic transit gloria mundi, he said to himself. Gone and forgotten.

SAVANNAH.

The next three months were the happiest Joanna had ever known. Her son and her husband were working together, forging a bond between them, learning to know and respect one another.

Greg dined frequently at the house. He gave up his apartment in Manhattan to live full-time in his Savannah condo. He and Paul travelled together frequently to San Jose to check the progress of the nanotech program. They had agreed that the first goal would be to have the nanomachines build a complete shelter out on Mare Nubium totally out of local raw materials from the lunar regolith.

"I think we should put the site pretty far out on the mare," Greg suggested at one of their meetings.

Kris Cardenas arched a questioning eyebrow. The three of them were in her cubbyhole of an office, hunched around the tiny circular table she used instead of a desk.

"If anything goes wrong," Greg explained, "we don't want the bugs infesting any of the existing shelters."

"What could go wrong?" Cardenas demanded.

Paul intervened. "I think Greg is right. This is the first time we're trying this. No harm in being a little on the conservative side."

"But we've already programmed a temperature limit into the bugs. They won't operate at an ambient higher than thirty degrees."

"Celsius," Paul said.

"That's what-ninety degrees Fahrenheit?" Greg asked.

"Eighty-six," said Cardenas. "So the bugs can't work or multiply on the surface during- the lunar daytime. Even if they somehow started to spread, you'd have two weeks of lunar night to dig 'em up and get rid of them."

"Still," Greg insisted, "we ought to put the demonstration some distance away" from existing facilities. Don't you think so, Paul?"

"I guess so. No harm being careful."

Cardenas looked more angry than hurt. "You guys act as if we're in a Frankenstein mode. We're using assemblers here, y'know, not gobblers."

"Still," Paul said, "the test site ought to be remote enough so that if anything does go wrong-"

"It won't," she snapped.