Neoform employees were trickling past the reception desk. As each one paused to scrawl his or her name on the signout pad, a light glowed and the company's central computer checked the signature against the template it had on file. If the signature checked, a tone sounded, and Miss Carol released the turnstile.

A woman as gray-haired as Miss Carol stood behind the receptionist.

Bernie, presuming she held down the evening shift, ignored her as he moved over to the counter that separated her from visitors. "Miss Carol..."

"I just called her. She's coming down."

He shook his head. "That's not what I'm here for. I need to see the sign-in and sign-out records for earlier today."

Her eyebrows rose. "You can't do that!"

He sighed. "I can get a warrant if I have to. Someone here sabotaged my Hawk this noon, and I want to see who had the chance."

"But that will take hours!"

"I doubt it," he said. "And besides..." She glanced at a clockface set in her console, and then at her replacement, who simply shrugged and said, "I'll go get a cuppa."

Emily arrived as the other woman left. She looked puzzled, but Bernie quickly explained what had happened. When she said, "Oh, no!" and put a hand to her mouth, he flapped a hand. "I'm all right," he said. "There was a moment there when I was saying good-bye to my descendants, but..." He shrugged and said what he was after.

When Miss Carol objected once more, Emily said, "There shouldn't be any problem. It's on the computer." She moved behind the receptionist and pointed to a slot in the side of her computer terminal. The printer was built in. "And it shouldn't take very long to get a printout."

It didn't. Though she grumbled as she worked her keyboard, Miss Carol was able within minutes to elicit a list, two single-s.p.a.ced pages long, of all those who had signed in or out between 11:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. Beside each name was the time that person had left the building and the time he or she had returned.

"Thank you," said Bernie.

"You can look it over in the lab," said Emily.

They were alone in the lab. Alan Bryant was gone. The broad screens of the workstations were dark, and the papers, books, computer disks, and pieces of apparatus atop the lab's desks and benches had been carefully straightened.

Clearly, Emily and Alan wanted to be able to get straight to work when they arrived in the morning. The desk and bench tops were not empty, though Bernie supposed sensitive material must be kept in a vault at night. At least, that was how it had worked in other labs past cases had taken him to.

"I was about to leave," said Emily. She led him across the lab to a bench with more clear s.p.a.ce than most. When she reached it, she pulled out a chair for him. Then she kept moving, circling the bench until, safely untouchable, she could face him from its other side.

Within himself, Bernie winced. So short a time ago..."Sorry," he said, and he was, for everything. "It shouldn't take very long. But it can't wait."

"Why on earth not?" As if despite herself, Emily leaned forward over the bench. Her blouse gaped, and he deliberately kept his gaze on the sheets of paper in his hand.

"Because it's the first solid clue we've got." He pushed aside the few pieces of workaday clutter that occupied even a relatively clean bench. Then he spread out the pages of the computer's printout. "Whoever planted that chip had to do it when the Hawk was here. They couldn't have done it at headquarters."

She pulled back, found a seat at another bench, pulled it into position, and sat down. "Couldn't they have done it on an earlier visit?"

He shook his head. "Too unreliable. I don't always have the same Hawk. I try, but..."

He leaned over the papers, scanning. He cursed when he realized that the names were in alphabetical order. "I wish it had listed folks in the order in which they signed out."

It was her turn to apologize. "I should have realized." He found his own name. "Here," he said, handing her a page. "Cross out everyone who left before 11:23 A.M. or after 12:47 P.M." He did the same on the page he had retained. Those were his times, and they bracketed the vulnerable period. No one here could possibly have sabotaged the Hawk before he arrived. And the deed had been done before he left.

Together, they studied the names that remained. One had "returned" before she left. "On vacation," said Emily. "She comes in for her mail." Most of the rest cl.u.s.tered near twelve noon. Only one left after 12:15, and that one signed out at 12:20 and back in at 12:29. A delay, perhaps, to allow the parking lot to clear, and then just enough time out of the building to do the job.

Bernie sighed in satisfaction. "The only one." He pointed at the name on the sheet of paper, the d.a.m.ning numbers beside it. "The only one who had a chance. I was afraid there would be more. Or that he would be cleverer."

Emily stared at the page. "But why him?"

Bernie shook his head. "I don't know. But at that party he asked about attempts on your life." When she looked puzzled at the significance of that clue, he explained: "Attempts. Plural. More than one. And at that time, there had been only one that we knew of, the a.s.sa.s.sin bird. No one suspected the Sparrow had been aimed at you. That's when he became a suspect."

"But..." Her eyes widened, as if even now it were inconceivable that anyone would really want to kill her. "But why?"

He picked up the printout, folded it, stuck it in his shirt pocket, and shrugged. "Rivalry, perhaps. Or part of his general mad-on for everyone in sight. You told me about that. Or maybe..." He hesitated.

"What?"

It had occurred to him that if Chowdhury were truly capable of trying to kill Emily, and of doing so with no regard for hapless bystanders, he might well be capable of other evils. And he lived, he had told Bernie at the party, not too far from the Gelarean place. That put him in or near Greenacres. He might have been the one who had treated Jasmine Willison so poorly.

Bernie said nothing to Emily about his additional suspicion. It might be sheer coincidence. There was nothing except his personality that made him think the man was even capable of such an act. But if she met the man before Bernie could gather the final shreds of evidence and make the arrest, her reaction to him, involuntary though it would be, might give away too much.

In fact, he regretted what he had said already. But that was done, past changing, and he would have to make the best of whatever came next.

"He must be scared," she said. "He left no tracks before, but now..."

"I've been around too much," said Bernie. "He must have thought our affair..." She winced when he said the word, and he hesitated. "Our affair was just a blind, while I snuck up on him. Of course he's scared. They always are, and when they panic, that's when they slip. And we get them." It was, he thought, a cliche right out of centuries of detective stories. And though writers often thoroughly fouled things up, some things they could not get wrong. They were just too real, too inescapable as basic aspects of reality.

They were cliches, yes, but no less true for that.

"What next?" She licked those broad lips, and Bernie looked away. "I'll need to get a pair of search warrants. Then, tomorrow, I'll go over his lab and his apartment. Wherever I find him, I'll arrest him. And you'll be safe." And back with Nick, he told himself.

"Can I go with you?" She stood and began to edge, crabwise, toward the end of the bench. The distance between them increased, but Bernie realized that, really, she was drawing closer to him, diminishing the length of the perimeter between them. He held his breath for a moment, though he knew he was being an idiot. She was Nick's. He was, he knew it now, Connie's.

Would she be safe with him? Taking her would not at all resemble standard operating procedure for a cop nailing a suspect. But she was certainly concerned, and he did still feel something--more than something--for her. "Why not?"

Chapter Eighteen.

A LITTLE AFTER Emily had left the house that morning, Nick had busied himself with doing laundry in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Andy he had left in the living room with the veedo running and his plastic Warbirds within reach.

Emily denied it, but he was sure she had a yen for that cop. Maybe more.

He wouldn't be surprised if she actually had something going with him. He had, after all, seen her face when Connie Skoglund had asked her last question. And if she didn't, or hadn't, she wouldn't have said she wasn't about to walk. But she wasn't about to. She said so.

He sorted the clothes as his mother had taught him once, long ago, thinking. The cop was lucky. Two women. That Connie wanted him too. Which one did he want? Lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Or was he? Was he, Nick, luckier than he thought? Bernie could have Connie, she had made that clear. But not Emily, after all. She had said she wasn't leaving.

Nick grinned at the sense of relief that rushed over him. She loved him.

She must. And he loved her. He always had, he always would. He should tell her so, now.

He set dials, pushed b.u.t.tons, and waited a moment while the machine began its noisy labors. Then he went upstairs and checked on Andy, who had folded a throw rug into a mountain range and poised his Warbirds on the edge of the couch. He was launching the 'Birds one by one to strafe and bomb the range while invisible ground forces strove to shoot them down. At the end of each run, the Warbird would scream, roll, and crash noisily before returning to the couch.

The phone was in the kitchen. He punched the Neoform number, got the receptionist, and asked for Emily. The answer startled him: "Oh, Mr. Gilman!

She's in a meeting right now, but she's all right. Really, she is!"

For a moment, he could not speak. Why shouldn't she be all right? He was happy that she was, of course, but...But...He almost shouted the words: "What happened, Miss Carol?" "I don't know the details," she said. A "yet" seemed to linger behind the words. "I'm sure she'll tell you all about it later on. But she is all right!"

He hesitated once more, as uncertain as he had ever been of what to do.

Finally, he said simply, "Tell her I love her."

"Of course you do!"

"What's the matter, Daddy?" Andy was at his knee, looking up, eyes wide, drawn inevitably by the tone of panic in his voice. "Did something happen to Mommy?"

Of course he would think that. Nick shook his head. "She's all right," he said, straining to sound normal, hoping that was the whole truth. "Want to go for a ride?"

"Yeah!" The boy grinned. "But Mommy's got the Tortoise."

"So we'll take the bus."

"The airport?"

"Why not."

Nick had heard that the gengineers had, in the name of historical aptness, experimented with turning greyhounds into ma.s.s-transit vehicles.

Unfortunately, their long, lean bodies had buckled too easily under the weight of loaded pa.s.senger pods, and it had been impossible to correct the problem without losing the greyhound look entirely. Most buses were therefore based, like trucks, on bulldogs. A few were based on Saint Bernards.

The local bus line used Bernies, and the nearest stop was just two blocks away from the Gilman home. After one transfer, Nick and Andy were on the route to the airport, and Nick was saying, "The bus may not stop, you know. The airport's closed."

But the bus did grunt to a halt at the airport. Nick was surprised to see construction crews at work, tearing down hangars and sheds and tending fast-growing squash vines. The young fruit, already visible, were long and thin, like zucchinis, and their upper, sun-facing surfaces were a translucent yellow.

Father and son left the bus and walked past the small, obviously abandoned terminal building. Nick pointed out the bioform bulldozers, enlarged box turtles whose sh.e.l.ls had been modified to serve as earth-moving blades; the Cranes that positioned the young squash next to their foundation cradles on the runways; the antique Mercedes parked, a gleaming, maroon intrusion from another age, behind the terminal. Beside it stood a trio of lean, black-suited, hard-eyed men. They were clearly supervising the efforts of the construction crews, though they did not seem necessary.

They saw Nick and Andy as soon as they rounded the building. The youngest of the three turned, smiled stiffly, and said, "What are you doing here?"

"Just looking." Nick was suddenly cautious. He put a hand on his son's shoulder and held him close. "There used to be an airport here."

"Yeah. The boss bought it when it went bust."

"The boss?" The other's eyes narrowed, as if Nick was too inquisitive. "Florin. Greg Florin."

The name meant nothing to Nick. He shrugged. "What's it going to be now?"

The man sighed. "A farm." He gestured at the growing squashes.

"Greenhouses. And aquaculture tanks. Barns. They figure it'll be close to the market, you know?"

Andy's mouth hung open. "Can we come back later? I wanta see everything!"

The other laughed, a short bark that cut off as if it were against the rules to be amused by anything at all. At the sound, the oldest of the supervisors swung around. He wore a pencil-line mustache, and his hair was graying neatly along the sides. He said, "This is private property, kid. Get lost. And tell your father it ain't smart to ask too many questions."

Andy's mouth still hung open, but no longer with delight. Nick had stifled words that surely would have been unwise to speak aloud, considering the way the strangers had carried themselves. He had turned the boy away, back toward the airport bus stop, and they had left immediately.

Once safely on the bus and heading home, Andy had wanted to know, "Why, Daddy? Why were they so mean?" Nick could only shake his head and repeat the question to himself. Were they just litterheads? Or were they involved in something that could not stand public scrutiny? Or both?

Andy was still upset about the rebuff he had suffered when it was time for Emily to arrive home. Nick was in the kitchen. The boy was in the living room, pretending that his Warbirds were the real thing. As best Nick could make out from the other room, they had come to town to visit Andy himself. When they found the local airport's runways blocked by growing farm buildings, they used their laser cannons, flechette bombs, and poison sprays to clear away the obstacles.

Nick could not help but be amused. Children's fantasies were free, direct, and often violent, and they effectively vented feelings and relieved frustrations. If only adults could use fantasies in the same way! Some could, he knew. But most, most thought that fantasy was for kids. For grown-ups, its only justification was as planning for the real thing.

"Where's Mommy?" The cry seemed plaintive. When Nick checked the clock on the wall, he realized that she had not pulled the Tortoise into the garage on schedule. She was late. He left the makings of dinner scattered on the counter and joined Andy in the living room.

By the time Emily did get home, father and son had been standing by the window overlooking the drive for twenty minutes. Nick, remembering how Miss Carol had alarmed him with her rea.s.surances, had said nothing aloud. He had simply joined the vigil and let the boy lean against his leg.

When Emily finally walked into the house, she was obviously tired. She slumped, and her hair needed the touch of a comb. There was a hint of future bags in the drooping of her lower eyelids, but her eyes remained bright. Her voice was even lively as she said, "You wouldn't believe...!"

She threw her briefcase toward the couch and opened her arms. Nick held her tight. "Try me," he said. When Andy tried to push between them, he let her go long enough to reach down and lift the boy into his arms. Emily kissedtheir son.

In a moment, she looked at Nick curiously. He told her about calling, and what he had wanted to say. She kissed him and said, "It was the Tortoise."

"What happened?"

She explained, accepted his congratulations and hug, and let him lead the way to the kitchen. "Dinner's on hold," he said. "And the wine..."

Nick set Andy down on the counter beside the sink. They fetched the wine, poured, and positioned themselves on either side of the boy. She said, "But that wasn't all. Bernie's Hawk had a chip too, and it went berserk in the air.

He had to shoot it."

"I'll bet he had a parachute!" said Andy. She nodded and squeezed his shoulder. Thus encouraged, and reminded of the death of the Chickadee, he said, "We went to the airport today. And it's gonna be a farm! But they chased us away."

She let him interrupt. When the story ran down, she squeezed his shoulder again and returned her attention to her husband. "And then Bernie had to check the computer at work. That's why I'm late. He didn't even get there till almost five." They clicked their gla.s.ses in a silent toast to survival. She went on: "The saboteur made a mistake. He left tracks." She explained how Neoform's people signed in and out, and how that procedure had let them identify the guilty man.

Andy tugged at his mother's blouse. "Who was it?"

"I don't think you've met him, dear. I hope you haven't." She looked at Nick. "Chowdhury."

"The chowderhead." He said that natural corruption of the name as if it were a curse.

"We'll get him tomorrow. Bernie's getting the warrants tonight." She hesitated before adding: "I'll be going with him. He said it would be okay."

"Can I go too?"