“Well, Harald,” he said, turning to the silver-and-pearl boy, “you want to ride a flickerwing, do you?”

Harald examined him coolly. “Starflight employees of less than Board status usually address me as Master Lindstrom.”

Garamond raised his eyebrows. “I’ll tell you something about space-flying, Harald. Up there the most minor technician is more important than all your Admincom executives put together. Do you understand that, Harald? Harry?” I’m more of a child than he is, he thought in amazement.

Unexpectedly, Harald smiled. “I’m not interested in space-flying.”

“But I thought…”

“I told them that because they wanted to hear it, but I don’t have to pretend with you, do I?”

“No, you don’t have to pretend with me, son. What are we going to do for the next two hours, though?”

“I’d like to run,” Harald said with a sudden eagerness which — in Garamond’s mind — restored him to full membership of the brotherhood of small boys.

“You want to run?” Garamond managed a genuine smile. “That’s a modest ambition.”

“I’m not allowed to run or climb in case I hurt myself. My mother has forbidden it, and everybody else around here is so afraid of her that they hardly let me blink, but…” Harald looked up at Garamond, triumphantly ingenuous, “…you’re a flickerwing commander.”

Garamond realized belatedly that the boy had been manoeuvring him into a corner from the second they met, but he felt no annoyance. “That’s right — I am. Now let’s see how quickly you can make it from here to those statues and back.” “Right!”

“Well, don’t stand around. Go!” Garamond watched with a mixture of amusement and concern as Harald set off in a lopsided, clopping run, elbows pumping rapidly. He rounded the bronze statues and returned to Garamond at the same pace, with his eyes shining like lamps.

“Again?”

“As many times as you want.” As Harald resumed his inefficient expenditure of energy Garamond went back to the stone balustrade of the terrace and stared down across the gardens. In spite of the late afternoon sunshine, the Atlantic was charcoal grey and tendrils of mist from it were wreathing the belvederes and waterfalls in sadness. A lone gull twinkled like a star in its distant flight.

I don’t want to go, he thought. It’s as simple as that.

In the early days he had been sustained by the conviction that he, Vance Garamond, would be the one who would find the third world. But interstellar flight was almost a century old now and Man’s empire still included only one habitable planet apart from Earth, and all of Garamond’s enthusiasm and certitude had achieved nothing. If he could accept that he would never reach a habitable new planet then he would be far better to do as Aileen wanted, to take a commission on the shuttle run and be sure of some time at home every month. Ferrying shiploads of colonists to Terranova would be dull, but safe and convenient. The ion winds were fairly predictable along that route and the well-established chain of weather stations had eliminated any possibility of being becalmed…

“Look at me!”

Garamond turned, for an instant was unable to locate Harald, then saw him perched dangerously high on the shoulders of one of the statues. The boy waved eagerly.

“You’d better come down from there.” Garamond tried to find a diplomatic way to hide his concern over the way in which Harald had increased his demands — emotional blackmailers used the same techniques as ordinary criminals — from permission to run on the terrace to the right to make risky climbs, thus putting Garamond in a difficult position with the President. Difficult? It occurred to Garamond that his career would be ended if Harald were to so much as sprain an ankle.

“But I’m a good climber. Watch.” Harald threw his leg across a patient bronze face as he reached for the statue’s upraised arm.

“I know you can climb, but don’t go any higher till I get there.” Garamond began to walk towards the statues, moving casually but adding inches to each stride by thrusting from the back foot. His alarm increased. Elizabeth Lindstrom, whose title of President was derived from her inherited ownership of the greatest financial and industrial empire ever known, was the most important person alive. Her son was destined to inherit Starflight from her, to control all construction of starships and all movement between Earth and the one other world available to Man. And he, Vance Garamond, an insignificant flickerwing captain, had put himself in a position where he was almost certain to incur the anger of one or the other.

“Up we go,” Harald called.

“Don’t!” Garamond broke into an undisguised run. “Please, don’t.”

He surged forward through maliciously thick air which seemed to congeal around him like resin. Harald laughed delightedly and scrambled towards the upright column of metal which was the statue’s arm, but he lost his grip and tilted backwards. One of his feet lodged momentarily in the sculpted collar, acting as a pivot, turning him upside down. Garamond, trapped in a different continuum, saw the event on a leisurely timescale, like the slow blossoming of a spiral nebula. He saw the first fatal millimetre of daylight open up between Harald’s fingers and the metal construction. He saw the boy seemingly hanging in the air, then gathering speed in the fall. He saw and heard the brutal impact with which Harald’s head struck the base of the statuary group.

Garamond dropped to his knees beside the small body and knew, on the instant, that Harald was dead. His skull was crushed, driven inwards on the brain.

“You’re not a good climber,” Garamond whispered numbly, accusingly, to the immobile face which was still dewed with perspiration. “You’ve killed us both. And my family as well.”

He stood up and looked towards the entrance of the main building, preparing to face the officials and domestics who would come running. The terrace remained quiet but for the murmur of its fountains. High in the stratosphere an invisible aircraft drew a slow, silent wake across the sky. Each passing second was a massive hammer-blow on the anvil of Garamond’s mind, and he had been standing perfectly still for perhaps a minute before accepting that the accident had not been noticed by others.

Breaking out of the stasis, he gathered up Harald’s body, marvelling at its lightness, and carried it to a clump of flowering shrubs. The dark green foliage clattered like metal foil as he lowered the dead child into a place of concealment.

Garamond turned his back on Starflight House, and began to run.

He had, if he was very lucky, about one hundred minutes. The figure was arrived at by assuming the President had been precise when she told Garamond to wait an extra two hours. There was a further proviso — that it had been her intention to leave her son alone with him all that time. With the full span of a hundred minutes at his disposal, Garamond decided, he had a chance; but any one of a dozen personal servants had only to go looking for Harald, any one of a thousand visitors had only to notice a bloodstain…

The numbers in the game of death were trembling and tumbling behind his eyes as he stepped off the outward bound slideway where it reached the main reception area. His official transport was waiting to take him straight to the shuttle terminal at North Field, and — in spite of the risks associated with the driver being in radio contact with Starflight House — that still seemed the quickest and most certain way of reaching his ship. The vast ice-green hall of the concourse was crowded with men and women coming off their afternoon shifts in the surrounding administrative buildings. They seemed relaxed and happy, bemused by the generosity of the lingering sunlight. Garamond swore inwardly as he shouldered through conflicting currents and eddies of people, doing his best to move quickly without attracting attention.