The rest of our conversation was little more than gossip about our mutual friends on Eyebrow Cay. Eventually we told each other good-night and signed off.

I left the com center and shuffled through the darkened ranch house toward my bedroom, brooding about mortality and about two very different old men and the influences they'd had on my life.

It had been a busy day. Tomorrow would be even busier in Toronto. If Lorne Buchanan yielded to my pressure, I'd have to touch base with Efrem Sontag and arrange for him to take charge of the sensitive information.

And there was Jake Silver. Maybe he and I could have dinner, perhaps catch the acclaimed new production of Macbeth at the Winter Garden Theater, if he hadn't already seen it. Both of us were Shakespeare buffs. The Bard had a keen understanding of the criminal mind, and so did Jake and I.

As it happened, I never got to see the play. The damned criminal minds were already cooking up a different sort of melodrama.

Starring me.

Chapter 3

Chief Superintendent Jacob Silver of the Commonwealth Criminal Investigation Department was a man done wrong by fate, who managed to crawl out of life's manure pile with a rose in his teeth.

He reminded me a bit of myself.

Banished to the outermost Perseus Spur for daring to blow the whistle on a superior who'd taken a big bribe from the Carnelian Concern, the powerful producer of electronic weapons and devices, Jake Silver had been demoted to the tiny Public Safety Force of freesoil Kedge-Lockaby. He'd been stuck in this dead-end office on a minor resort world and Throwaway haven for nearly ten years before I arrived in 2229, newly disenfranchised and determined to pickle my brain in ethanol as a prelude to suicide.

Jake had no difficulty ferreting out the true identity of the derelict who called himself Helmut Icicle when I applied for K-L resident status. During my slow rehabilitation, he occasionally called upon my ICS expertise to outwit visiting corporate connivers-most notably a gang of Native American sharpies from Infinitum, the monster entertainment Concern, who tried to seize control of K-L's casino. A takeover would have deprived the little planet's schools of their principal source of revenue. I showed Jake how to legally spike the redskins' guns, and he and I became cautious friends.

He risked his professional neck to help me during Rampart's fight with Galapharma.

So I made a promise-rashly improbable at the time-to do my damnedest to get him posted back to Earth. I was able to come through for Jake when Simon and Eve pressured me to head up the legal case against Gala. Rampart itself didn't have the political clout to bring the Super back to his family in Toronto, but its prestigious venture-credit stakeholder, Macrodur Concern, sure as hell did.

Macrodur is the proverbial 400-kilo gorilla, the largest and most connected of the Big Seven Concerns by reason of its monopoly on computer products. I made Jake Silver's reinstatement-with promotion-at CCID headquarters a condition of my acceptance of the interim CLO gig. Macrodur wanted me as chief architect of the case against Gala just as badly as Rampart did. The gorilla leaned. The fix went in.

The upshot was that Jake Silver returned to a cushy staff job in the capital cop shop.

He and I had a celebratory dinner at Truffles, then for two years we mostly went our separate ways.

Using the ranch's secure landline, I called him before breakfast on the morning after the big verdict, announcing myself to his assistant as "Helmut Icicle, confidential informant."

The face that appeared on my vidphone display was leaner than it had been on K-L and more mastifflike. The jowls drooped and the shrewd, watchful eyes peered from deep pouches that were not disfiguring but seemed oddly appropriate to a watchdog lawman.

Chief Superintendent Jacob Silver was now fifty-six years old, no longer the sweaty, sartorially challenged mess I'd known on K-L's Big Beach. He wore a black cashmere sweater vest over an expensive pink designer shirt, and his gray hair was carefully styled.

Jake's greeting, however, had all its old familiar charm.

"Mother-o'-pearl!" he groaned. "If it isn't Hell-Butt, the conquering shyster and tsar of tsuris. I smell trouble... Don't tell me! Payoff day is here. You want reciprocity for engineering my transfer, and I have to put my decrepit cock on the block for you again and risk losing my pension."

"I need a very small favor," I soothed him. "Nothing to jeopardize your desk-riding posterior. How are Marie and the kids and the grandkids?"

His forbidding features relaxed into a rare broad smile. "They couldn't be better, thanks to you. Nice going, shooting down Galapharma." He chortled wickedly. "On the other hand, that interview in the Wall Street Journal sure made you look like a horse's patoot. You gonna hook up with Rampart permanently now?"

"I'm thinking about it. I may postpone the decision indefinitely. Meanwhile, I'm doing some private investigating. I need to find a guy."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Here it comes ..."

"Hamilcar Barca Tregarth," I said. "Nicknamed Barky. Disenfranchised for gunrunning and peddling embargoed high tech to aliens around 2201. He used to operate in the Spur but fled to the inner Orion Arm or maybe the Sag Whorl after escaping custody on Tyrins. He might still be alive."

"That's it?" Jake seemed disappointed.

"Locate Barky Tregarth for me, Super. I'll be grateful. Buy you a steak tonight at Carman's. Also treat you to Macbeth if you're free. Got two good seats."

" 'By the pricking of my thumbs,'" Jake quoted the Scottish play," 'something wicked this way comes!' I hope that's not you, Hell-Butt."

"Absolutely not. I am a paragon of corporate probity. For the moment, anyhow."

"Okay. I accept your offer to dine. Sorry about the Shakespeare, but Marie and I saw the production last week. Bring one of your ladies and give her a treat. Micklewhite and Dorsey are outstanding as Lord and Lady M. The set designers got the holo FX right without screwing up the traditional mise-en-scene."

"Always a good thing."

"You want to hold a minute, I'll check the roster of lowlifes for Tregarth. We might hit an instant jackpot. Why is his name familiar?"

He turned away from the phone to consult his computer.

I considered his suggestion about feminine companionship only momentarily. My sex life had been pretty arid during the trial, due to the long hours of grinding work. When I did take a rare break, it had invariably been a casual fling with one of the politically active sophisticates I'd met through the Reversionist Party. Their partisan intensity had been a welcome distraction from the legal fray.

But now, with the trial over and my imprudent blabbering a hot topic on the capital grapevine, the last thing I needed was the company of a political woman. I'd go to the play alone.

Jake Silver was emitting a ruminative humming sound as he searched for my quarry.

Finally: "Last domicile of record for our chum is on Manala, Sector 4. It's one of those aster-oidal fueling way stations located at the rim of the Sagittarius Whorl, almost out in Red Gap. Nasty shithole, as I recall, but handy to the trans-ack producers. Eleven years ago one H. B. Tregarth was nabbed and fined a whopper for violating the Y'tata high-tech weaponry trade interdiction. He left Manala and hasn't been arrested since, or compelled to submit a verifying DNA sample for any other reason. He's not in the rolls of the officially deceased, either-which may or may not prove anything. He might have died without a genetic assay. Most Throwaways do. As far as the Commonwealth of Human Worlds is concerned, your Barky doesn't exist."

"Rats. I was afraid this wouldn't be easy."

Jake glowered at me. "You really really need to find him?"

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

All I said was, "Is there any unofficial way you can track him down?"

"There are always ways. They can take time, which I don't have, and cost money, of which I am chronically short. Why don't you hire one of the big tracer outfits? Or-" He broke off. You could almost see the legendary lightbulb clicking on above his head.

"Wait a second, now. Tregarth last came to our attention peddling actinic-beam weaponry from a Carnelian subsidiary to the Y'tata. It occurs to me there's something quick and dirty I could try."

"Do it."

"Meet me in the lobby of CCID HQ about 1730 hours. Bring an open-ended blind EFT card. If my idea pans out, maybe you can use the card to buy something besides a night on the town."

He ended the call and I went to breakfast, whistling "Empty Saddles in the Old Corral."

Rosalia served me huevos rancheros and a honey-sweet Chilean watermelon the size of a grapefruit, remarking that my father had already left for Toronto in his private hopper. Not in a good mood.

"Too bad," I remarked. "I hope it wasn't something I said."

I'd already talked to Jane Nelligan at Rampart Tower, a couple of time zones ahead of Arizona, asking her to get a status report on the refit job on Makebate and make appointments with Adam Stanislawski and Lorne Buchanan. She called back as I was finishing my second cup of coffee, and I answered on my pocket phone.

"Chairman Stanislawski has a very crowded schedule today," she said briskly. "He can see you for fifteen minutes at noon in his office at Macrodur Tower if that'll suffice.

Otherwise he's not available till Monday."

Jane is always brisk, as well as tactful and awesomely efficient. Since I am nothing of the sort, I value her as a pearl beyond price. She is married to the head vet at the Sunder- land Racecourse, has twin sons in business school at Commonwealth UT, and copes like a steely eyed drill sergeant with the forty-six gung-ho lawyers who comprise Rampart's Toronto-based legal staff.

I told Jane that a noon touch-and-go at Macrodur was dandy. All I wanted to do was get Adam's reaction to my nomination. Unless I missed my guess, his opinion was going to coincide with my own and save me a lot of aggravation with Simon and Eve.

"Lorne Buchanan's gatekeepers were reluctant to accommodate you," Jane continued.

"I took the liberty of taking your father's name in vain since you told me the meeting was urgent. That did the trick. Citizen Buchanan prefers to come to you. He won't be in his office today."

"I can't imagine why."

"I've made the appointment for 1430 hours in our penthouse conference room. Citizen Buchanan will stay as long as need be. His security people insist on sweeping the place for bugs before the meeting. They want to check you out personally, too. I couldn't get them to budge on the stipulation."

I laughed. "Perfectly acceptable. See that Rampart InSec returns the courtesy to El Queso Grande himself and his flunkies. Also, alert Karl Nazarian to expect one psy- chotronic interrogation subject following Buchanan's meeting with me."

"Himself?" Jane's eyes widened.

"Yep. And I want the results before the end of the afternoon."

"Right... The final fuel-bunker and radiation barrier modifications of your starship were completed last week. The survey instrumentation is installed, except for a Carnelian LRIR-1400J scanner that seems to be on permanent back order."

"Tell the mechanics to find one any which way and plug it in immediately. I don't care if they have to steal it off a Carney dock or buy it on the goddamn black market."

"Very well." She turned away from the phone video pickup, then returned holding a StelEx letterpak. "This arrived less than an hour ago, marked 'personal and confidential.'

The sender is your friend, Captain Bermudez."

"Would you please open it?"

She did. "A small e-slate requiring your ID for activation. And this."

She held up a platinum neck chain holding two gold wedding rings.

I felt my breath catch. Mimo had been holding the rings for me ever since they were rescued from the stomach of a house-eating sea toad. They had belonged to me and my former wife, Joanna DeVet.

I told Jane, "Please put the rings and the slate in my office safe."

"Right. There have been more messages for you since we spoke earlier, most of them from the media. I gave them the standard referral to our public affairs department.

Geraldo Gonzalez also called and said it was very important that you and he talk before you, urn, quote, flit off to some godforsaken boonie planet, unquote."

Gerry chaired the Reversionist Nominating Committee, the group empowered to select the single Commonwealth Assembly delegate the party was newly entitled to, following the latest poll of CHW citizens. The committee had been deeply divided on my tentative candidacy, in spite of the fact that I was their principal financial resource and had also brought them the publicity that had finally gained the party its lone seat. However, certain Reverse stalwarts felt I wasn't anti-Big-Business enough to be their standard bearer.

Others contended I was too flaky. Both points were valid.

After reading last night's Journal, Gerry and his crew were probably scared to death that I'd accept the Rampart chairmanship, mutate instantly into a capitalist swine, and cut off all their lovely money.

"I'll give Gonzalez half an hour. Make the appointment for 1300 in my office.

Anything else?"

"Bethany Frost heard you were coming in. She wants to talk to you briefly about your brother, Dan."

"Rats." This I didn't need. "Maybe for a few minutes in my office, if there's time after I finish with Buchanan. But I'm off to meet Jake Silver around 1715. Two for dinner, just me for the show. Cancel the second Shakespeare ticket. Jake begged off."

"I'll take care of it. Is there anything else you need me to arrange before you arrive? A limo and security escort for the restaurant and theater?"

"Nope. I'll wear my Anonyme and take the Path just like an ordinary citizen. Media stalkers will never notice me in the capital crush. I'm in disguise." I held the phone at arm's length so she could check me out.

I'd seen no reason to conform to Rampart Concern's dress code during my stint as Chief Legal Officer, since I rarely left the tower. My customary work attire of ratty jeans, scuffed boots, and tired western-wear shirts had scandalized Jane Nelligan sadly, although she never said a disapproving word. Today, however, I'd donned a featherweight charcoal worsted business suit with a matching silk turtleneck, a muted aquamarine scarf, and a silver neck brooch inset with a small nugget of turquoise. The only vestige of maverickhood I'd allowed myself were a pair of well-polished, low-heel, pointy-toed, Tony Lama cowboy boots in black mokcrok, peeking out from beneath my elegantly creased trousers.

"Unbelievable," Jane murmured. "You'll certainly impress Stanislawski and Buchanan. If they recognize you at all."

"Oh, they will," I said dryly. "I can guarantee that."

I said goodbye and finished my coffee. Then I exited the ranch house through the kitchen, kissing Rosalia the cook on her cheek as I passed by.

It was a beautiful Arizona morning, clear and cool, with the sun shining over Buzzard Roost Mesa and warblers singing their hearts out among the ponderosa pines. I heard the faint whinny of a horse from over by the stock barns. Maybe it was Billy, saying hasta la vista.

Empty saddles in the old corral.

Carrying a briefcase full of executive paraphernalia, I trudged down the manicured gravel path to the hopper pad, where my Garrison-Laguna hoppercraft waited. No pilot. I almost always do my own driving. It's a control thing.

Control.

I'd fallen asleep last night brooding about it, and when I woke my mind was firmly made up. It wasn't going to take me months to decide on my future-assuming I had any when my Haluk excursion was over. I knew for certain that I'd never again relinquish control of my life to any person or any institution. Not to Rampart Amalgamated Concern. Not to the Reversionist Party.

The head seat at Rampart's boardroom table had never been a viable career choice for me. It was true that I'd be in a powerful position to advance Reversionist ideals if I became Rampart's chairman. Setting the agenda and having a tie-breaking vote on the board could significantly affect company policy. But the personal independence that had always been so important to me would be lost if I took Simon's place. I'd be fenced in by constant decision-making, forced to weigh every action and utterance because it could influence the lives and fortunes of billions of people, poisoned by creeping expediency, morphing inevitably into the kind of corporate drone I professed to despise.

I couldn't do it. My skills were adversarial, not executive. I'd been a competent cop, a cunning legal strategist, and a damned fine vigilante. But I was no organization man. No way, no how.

Serious politics wasn't an option, either. It was one thing to play grandstanding left- wing firebrand as I'd done two years earlier, trumpeting radical ideas without taking responsibility for their implementation, happily twisting establishment tails while the tabloid media egged me on: Asahel Frost-another rich man with a big mouth and a bee in his bonnet, convinced he has the answers to the galaxy's ills!

I still thought my answers were good ones. However, serving as the sole Assembly Delegate of a fledgling splinter party was simply not a practical course of action. Why, I'd have to learn tact and diplomacy. Legislative horsetrading. The art of graceful compromise.