Melissa. Paul thought about her as pushed himself across the barren rocky plain. Sweet silky Melissa. I knew she'd be my downfall. I knew it, but I let it happen anyway.

SAN FRANCISCO.

Paul's tour of the corporation's divisions took him to Houston Denver, Los Angeles and finally to the struggling nano technology division in San Jose, squarely in the dilapidated heart of what had once been called Silicon Valley.

Joanna stayed in Savannah. They had not made love since the ill-starred trip to the space station. The night after Greg's confrontation over the videodisk, Joanna had flinched when Paul had touched her in bed.

"Not now," she said. "I just can't."

Trying not to feel angry, Paul leaned against the pillows and grumbled, "You're acting as if I did kill Gregory."

Joanna turned to face him. "Maybe we did, Paul. In a way."

Paul started to shake his head.

"He found out about us," Joanna said. "That might have driven him to kill himself. We're responsible."

The hell we are."

"Why else would he do it?" she asked, her voice filled with anxiety. Yet her eyes were dry and clear. "Unless Greg's right and somebody actually did murder him?"

"He blew his own brains out," Paul insisted.

"But why?"

Paul thought a moment. "Good question. I'll ask McPherson to look into it."

"What do you mean?"

"There must have been some reason for Gregory's suicide. And I don't mean us. Let McPherson hire some investigators. There's a lot about Gregory's life that we don't know about."

Joanna's face hardened. "There's a lot about his life that I don't want to know about. Not the details."

"Okay. But I want to know the details. I want to know if there's anything there that could be a reason for his killing himself."

"Such as?"

"How the hell would I know? Let McPherson look into it."

Joanna agreed-hesitantly, Paul thought. But they didn't make love that night, nor any night afterward until Paul left on his swing of visits to the corporation's facilities across the country.

Paul was surprised to see Bradley Arnold at the Houston division. The chairman of the board was sitting in the division manager's office when Paul arrived. He looked uneasy, his bulging frog's eyes darting back and forth between Paul and the division chief, who was coming around his desk, his hand extended to Paul.

"I didn't know you were coming here, Brad," Paul said as he shook hands with the youthful division manager. "I could have flown you out in my plane."

"I'm on my way to a meeting in Tokyo," Arnold said, fiddling with his ill-fitting toupee nervously.

"Tokyo? By way of Houston?" Paul forced himself to chuckle as he sat beside the chairman in front of the manager's desk. Arnold refused to fly in the Clipperships. He would take all day to get from Savannah to Tokyo on his private supersonic jet rather than make the jump in forty minutes aboard a Clippership.

"I wanted to stop off here and talk with you," Arnold replied. Turning to the manager, he added, "In private."

The manager took the hint and excused himself. Once he shut the office door behind him, Paul asked, "What's this all about, Brad?"

Radiating earnestness out of his florid face, Arnold said, "I know it looked as if I were on Greg's side, back there at the house-"

"It sure did," said Paul.

"But I'm on your side, Paul. I want you to understand tha and believe it."

Yeah, Paul said to himself. And Brutus loved Caesar so much he stabbed him.

"I wanted that meeting to be a reconciliation between you two. I had no idea Greg was going to make the demand he did."

"You didn't seem terribly surprised," Paul said.

"Oh, but I was!"

"If I remember correctly, you told me that you were going to play Greg's videodisk for the rest of the board members."

"I had no choice!" Arnold pleaded. "Greg's going to do it anyway, so I went along with him. How can I act as a mediate between the two of you if he doesn't trust me?"

Paul looked into Arnold's hyperthyroid eyes and saw nothing but ambition. He's playing both sides of the street or trying to. If Greg can shove me out of the corporation, Brad runs the show. Greg'll be CEO but Brad will be pulling the kid's strings. If I hang in and beat Greg, the bastard wants me to believe that he's been on my side all along.

"All right," Paul said calmly. "What are you going to do about the disk?"

Arnold spread his chubby hands in a gesture of helplessness. "What can I do? Greg's determined to show it to each and every member of the board. All I can do is try to downplay it, tell them that Gregory had turned into a paranoid alcoholic and committed suicide."

Pouncing on that, Paul demanded, "You'll say that to the board?"

Arnold nodded.

"In front of Greg?"

"Yes."

Thinking swiftly, Paul said, "All right, then. Can you call an emergency meeting of the board as soon as I get back from this trip? Let's get this out in the open and finish it, once and for all."

Bobbing his head up and down, Arnold said, "The quarterly meeting is due-"

"I don't want to wait for the quarterly meeting," Paul snapped. "Call a special meeting and play the videodisk for them all at the same time, before Greg can get to them."

"I think he's trying to meet each board member individually," Arnold said, "and show the disk to each of them in private."

"All the more reason for speed, then. Set up an emergency meeting right now." Paul pointed to the phone console on the manager's desk.

"Yes, good thinking." The board chairman pushed himself out of his chair and went to the phone.

Nodding, satisfied, Paul got up and headed for the door. "Thanks, Brad," he called over his shoulder. "Have a good meeting in Tokyo."

Arnold waved to Paul, the phone receiver in his other hand. But as soon as Paul left him alone in the office, he phoned Gregory Masterson III in Savannah.

Melissa Hart was also at the Houston plant. She told Paul she had come to help negotiate new work rules for the factory that was being converted from making commercial airliners to building Clipperships.

She was at the Los Angeles facility, too. And then, when he got to San Francisco, Paul saw her walk into the lounge at the Stanford Court.

No one who could afford to avoid it stayed overnight in San Jose: despite all the efforts at rebuilding the area after the economic collapse that had swept the American computer industry at the turn of the century, the slums were still dangerous and dirty. The corporation's travel office booked Paul into the Stanford Court Hotel in the heart of San Francisco.

The nanotechnology division was Greg's special baby; his father had let Greg pump money into a nascent technology even though any hope of profitability was years, maybe decades, away. The board of directors had tried more than once to admit defeat and close the division down. Then they wanted to move it away from San Jose, to a'safer' location in Nevada.

Paul had led the fight to keep the nanotech division in San Jose; he had convinced the board of directors that the corporation had a responsibility to keep as many jobs in the region as possible. His strong moral stand-and a stiff helping of government subsidies -swayed the board to do the right thing. And take every public relations advantage of it that they could.

It was late afternoon. Paul had just arrived in San Francisco; tomorrow morning a limousine would take him to the waterfront, where a helicopter was set to fly him to San Jose for the day's meetings and inspections of the labs and prototype factory. Then, back to the airport and home to Savannah. And Joanna. And Greg.

He stopped off in the lounge for a soothing shot of mellow golden tequila. Cool and dimly lit, with soft music purring in the background, the lounge was less than half full; mostly businessmen and women finishing their day with a drink and some chat.

Then Melissa walked in, tall and beautiful. Men and women both, they all looked her over, from her slick pageboy hairdo to her slitted ankle-length skirt that opened to reveal her long shapely legs as she walked to the bar.

She went straight to the chair beside Paul.

"You following me?" he asked as she swivelled the chair and sat on it.

"I was going to ask you the same question," she said, smiling slightly.

"I don't know of any labor negotiations set for the San Jose division," he said.

"My office has a few complaints of discrimination," Melissa replied. "Thought I'd try to defuse them before they get serious."

The bartender came by. She ordered a glass of chardonnay. Paul got a refill on his Tres Generacidns.

"Discrimination?" Paul asked. "Against who?"

Melissa took a sip of wine, then answered, "The usual: Asians claiming the Hispanics are picking on them; Hispanics claiming the Asians won't promote them. Small stuff, but it could get nasty if we don't take care of it right away."

A faint hint of her perfume reached him: subtle, suggestive, it reminded him of the times they had shared.

"So you're not following me, after all."

Melissa shook her head.

"Greg didn't ask you to keep tabs on me?"

Her eyes widened with surprise. "Greg and I are finished. Didn't you know that?"

"Finished?"

"He dumped me. Just like you did."

"I didn't-"

"And for the same reason," Melissa said bitterly. "Joanna." - "What?"

"He's jealous of you, Paul. And not just over the CEO job. He doesn't want you with his mother."

Paul downed half his tequila in one gulp. Feeling it burning tinside him, he muttered, "The kid's crazy." ..'He needs help, I agree," Melissa said. "He might do something violent."

"Violent?"

"It was scary," she said. "I thought he was going to turn ton me."

"Why didn't you leave him?"

She stared down into her wine. "I... To tell you the truth, Paul, I was afraid to. I was almost glad when he told me he wanted to end it."

Jesus, Paul thought Her job is to handle cases of discrimination and sexual harassment, and she can't even take care of herself.

"He had to get real teed off about it," she went on, almost in a whisper. "He couldn't just tell me he wanted to end it He had to get raving and yelling like some monster. I thought he was going to belt me."

"Greg?" Paul couldn't believe what she was saying.

But Melissa nodded solemnly. "Underneath all that self control he's a wild man. He's like a bomb, all wound up tight and ready to explode."

"Maybe we ought to get the company shrink to look him over,"

"You'd have to tie him hand and foot first."

Paul finished his tequila and motioned to the bartender foi another. Inevitably he invited Melissa to have dinner with him, and they made their way-Paul just a bit unsteadily-down the stairs to the venerable Fourneau's Ovens.

"Like old times," Melissa said, smiling at him.

"'Yeah," Paul agreed. Old times. Life was a lot simpler then. No ties, no responsibilities.

As they sat across the table from each other Paul thought, It was a mistake to get married. Joanna doesn't love me. She just wants me to run the company for her until Greg's old enough to take over. Marrying me kept it in the family, put me under her control. She doesn't love me at all. We had better sex when we were sneaking around behind Gregory's back.

Do I love her? The question startled him. He stared at Melissa, coolly beautiful, just an arm's length away. The street outside was darkening into evening, people were walking by, the sky was fading from pink to violet. He remembered their times in bed together. No holds barred; no questions asked. Just pure physical pleasure.

Do I love Joanna? he asked himself again. If you have to ask, the answer must be no. What the hell is love, anyway? Then why did you marry her? He knew the answer, or at least he thought he did. To take control of the corporation. To keep them from scrapping Moonbase.

But you must have loved her, he insisted to himself. You were wild about her. Yeah, before we got married. Before all this corporate crap got in the way. Before this mess with Greg came up.

I did love her. Maybe I still do. But Greg's between us now.

And then Paul realized the truth. I don't know if she cares more about him than me. If we get right down to the crunch, would she take me over her son?

No, he realized. Never. She picked me as a stand-in to hold things together until Greg's ready to take over. She didn't realize that he'd challenge me right off the bat. And now that he has challenged me, will she back me or him?

Paul thought he knew the answer.

And here's Melissa sitting close enough to touch, smiling and sad at the same time, talking about old times and looking at me like she needs me again. And I need her. I really do. I need somebody. I'm all alone in this.