"You'll get the entire university shut down, you fool! Don't you understand what kind of power they have?"

Zimmerman wanted to laugh. "They can't shut down the entire university."

"They can and they will, if you try to struggle against them."

"But...' Zimmerman's words died in his throat. He stared at his old friend. Verban was terrified. If the university shut down, who would pay out his pension?

His voice suddenly heavy, Zimmerman said, "What they are doing is terribly, terribly wrong."

"Yes, I know it," said Verban. "But they have the power. And they will use it mercilessly."

"I can't stop my life's work. I won't! There must be some university, somewhere. Perhaps in America."

"Hah!"

"Or Canada?" Zimmerman asked hopefully.

Verban shook his head.

Zimmerman realized he was perspiring. A fear reflex, he knew. They're making me afraid. He felt a sudden surge of hatred for the faceless people who ladled out fear as part of their power.

Verban said, "It's all finished, Willi. Nanotechnology-even theoretical research on the subject will be outlawed once the treaty goes into effect."

"There must be someplace...' Zimmerman muttered.

"Nowhere on Earth," said Verban sadly.

Zimmerman heaved an enormous sigh. But then he remembered that his protege, Kris Cardenas, was now living in Canada. Vancouver, he recalled. Perhaps she can help; after all, she won the Nobel Prize. She must have some influence.

CHELSEA, MASSACHUSETTS.

She was good-looking. Older than Killifer would've liked, but a real stunner despite her age. Skinny, though. Her arms were rail-thin and he guessed her legs were, too, beneath the tight ankle-length skirt she wore. No way of telling how much of a figure she had under that severe outfit. It was plain dull gray from the choker collar down to her plain dull gray shoes. Killifer almost wondered why she didn't wear gloves, every other part of her body was covered. No jewelry at all.

But her face was enough to kill for. A sculptor's dream. The kind of face video stars wished they had. A black Venus, a chocolate-cream-colored goddess of beauty.

As she walked up to Killifer, he was totally unable to stop himself from staring at her. Automatically he got up from the bench where he had been waiting. But then he saw something in her eyes that almost frightened him. Her eyes were pained, haunted, rimmed with red like the fires of hell.

"Jonathan Killifer?" she asked needlessly. Her voice was smokey, low, inviting.

"Jack," he managed to choke out.

"I'm Melissa Hart. Pleased to meet you, Jack." Without a smile, without any change in those burning eyes. "Would you follow me, please?"

Killifer wanted to tell her he would follow her off the edge of a cliff, but her eyes stopped him. In silence he walked beside her down the busy corridor. He noticed that all the people here dressed in gray, men and women alike, the only difference was that the men wore trousers while all the women wore tight ankle-length skirts. Well, Killifer thought, they sure can't run away from you in those hobbles.

He expected her to lead him into her office, or maybe a conference room. Instead he followed her to the end of the hallway, up a narrow flight of stairs, and then through a metal door out onto the building's roof. The open sunlight made Killifer's eyes water.

"We can speak freely here, Jack," she said.

That worried him. Wiping at his eyes, he asked, "Whattaya mean? Is your office bugged?"

Melissa gave him a cool smile. "Jack, the Urban Corps doesn't believe in private offices, not even for General O'Conner. I thought that we could have our first chat here, without anyone else to bother us."

"How'd you find me?" Killifer asked.

"We have sources of information." She walked slowly toward the brick parapet along the roofs edge. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

Following her, Killifer could see that the building was on a hill and the whole city of Boston was laid out before them, beneath the bright cloudless sky. After so many years at Moonbase, the deep clear blue almost hurt. Everything was so dazzling: the green of the trees, the red brick buildings, the glittering glass facades of the soaring downtown high-rises.

Killifer took in a deep breath of real air. It smelled great, with the salt tang coming in off the harbor. He could almost taste it.

"You were born in Boston, weren't you?" Melissa asked him.

He nodded and pointed. "Winthrop. Out there by the old airport."

A Clippership took off from the airport, like a toy at this distance, the thunder of its rocket engines nothing more than a muted rumble.

"Do you remember what Chelsea used to be when you were growing up in Winthrop, Jack?"

Killifer grinned sourly. "A dump. We used to make jokes about Chelsea. It was the bottom of the barrel."

"That's right," said Melissa Hart, like a schoolteacher pleased with her student's answer. "For generations Chelsea was the bottom of the barrel."

"And now?"

"Now it's a model community. The Urban Corps has transformed Chelsea. We brought new industry into the community, new businesses. People have jobs now. They have hope. Crime is down. The schools are turning out model citizens."

"I thought it was the New Morality did that."

"We're part of the New Morality. The Urban Corps, the Angels of God, the Disciples of Allah, St. Michael's Battalion- there are dozens of organizations within the New Morality structure."

"Uh-huh."

"We want your help, Jack."

"Mine? What for?"

"You've worked for years at Moonbase. We need to know all about Moonbase, what they're doing up there, how they operate, what they're planning."

"Why?"

Melissa looked disappointed. "Jack, they work with nanomachines at Moonbase, don't they?"

"They've got to," he said.

"Nanomachines will soon be illegal," she said. "We've got to know how the people at Moonbase will react to the new law."

Killifer turned away from her and looked out at the city again. It was so shining and lush it almost looked unreal. It all seemed clean and fresh. And quiet. Hardly any noise from street traffic. No boom boxes blasting away. No voices raised.

"What's in it for me?" he asked, still without looking at her.

If his self-centered questioned bothered her, Melissa Hart gave no hint of it. She immediately answered, "We'll hire you as a consultant at fifteen hundred a day, with a guarantee of a minimum of one hundred consulting days per year."

A hundred-fifty thousand per year, Killifer realized.

"That should augment your Masterson Corporation pension very nicely," she added.

"My pension, yeah." He wanted to spit.

"It's a very generous offer, Jack."

"For how many years?"

Sounding slightly disappointed again, she replied, "Oh Jack, I can't promise you more than this one year. If everything goes the way we expect it to, Moonbase will be shut down by the end of that time."

"And then what happens to me?"

"We'll see," she said simply. With a glowing smile. But her eyes still radiated pain.

Killifer thought it over briefly. "What the hell," he said. "Why not?"

"Then you agree?"

"If you'll come to dinner with me."

She seemed to think it over with great care. At last Melissa said, "I'd be happy to have dinner with you, Jack. But only dinner."

"Sure," he said. "Just dinner." It was a lie and he knew that she knew it.

The North End of Boston had once been an Italian preserve, but over the decades it had evolved into Little Asia. Vietnamese, Malay, Thai, Indian and a dozen varieties of Chinese now occupied the narrow twisting streets where once a patriot had climbed the Old North Church bell tower to signal Paul Revere.

Over spicy Hunan platters Killifer found himself spinning out his life story to this beautiful black woman with the haunted eyes. As if he couldn't stop himself, he spilled out the bitterness, the rage and frustration of his wasted life.

"But why did you spend all those years in Moonbase," Melissa asked sweetly, chopsticks held gracefully in her long slim fingers, "when you had such a promising career in nanotechnology?"

'She did it," he growled. "Masterson's widow. Then she married Stavenger. She stuck me in Moonbase."

"But you could have resigned and come back to Earth, couldn't you?"

He hadn't intended to tell her about the nanobugs and Greg Masterson and Paul Stavenger's murder. He had never intended to speak of that at all. But by the time dinner was finished and they were walking the crowded, brightly-lit streets, he had revealed himself to her almost completely.

"Greg Masterson murdered his stepfather?"

There was something in the way she said it that brought Killifer up short. Something in her voice.

"You know Greg Masterson?"

She nodded. In the harsh glare of the street lamp her face looked like frozen stone. "I knew him. Long ago."

They walked in painful silence down to the waterfront, where the streets were emptier. And darker.

"My apartment's up there." Killifer pointed to an apartment block across the street from the piers.

"You must have a nice view," Melissa said absently, sounding as if her thoughts were a quarter-million miles away.

"Come on up and see it," he suggested, taking her by the arm.

She disengaged effortlessly. "No, Jack," she said. "It doesn't work that way."

"Come on," he wheedled. "Just have a drink with me."

With a smile that might have been sad, or perhaps pitying, Melissa said, "You don't understand, Jack. I'm celibate."

"You're what?"

"I've been celibate since I met General O'Conner, many years ago."

"Celibate?"

"It's part of our creed."

"You mean everybody I saw in your building...?"

She nodded.

"That's hard to believe."

"Believe it, Jack. Celibacy removes one of the great causes of pain in this life."

"But... but you're so beautiful! It's a damned shame. A waste."

Her eyes flared. "No, it's not a waste. I know what pain can be caused by the attractions of sex. I was caught in that web, once, years ago. It led to nothing but pain and evil, drugs and self-destruction. I nearly killed myself before General O'Conner found me."

"General O'Conner."

"He, wasn't the general then; he hadn't even founded the Urban Corps yet. But he saved my life. He made me dedicate my life to the New Morality and all that it stands for."

"And you've gotta be celibate?"

"It simplifies your life, Jack. It allows you to concentrate your energies on the things that really matter."

"Still seems like a damned waste to me," Killifer grumbled.

"No, Jack. It makes life so much easier. Cleaner. Come back to the office tomorrow, Jack. I want you to join us. We need your help."

Killifer thought, Maybe this celibate crap is just her excuse. After all, we just met this afternoon. Give it time, she'll pull her pants down sooner or later.

"Okay," he said lightly. "See you tomorrow morning."