'

There was a pause.

'Mr Hendry,' asked Kin, 'did I say anything there about nuclear-disarmament dinosaurs?'

'No, but--'

'We build worlds, we don't just terraform planets. Robots could do that. We build places where the imagination of human beings can find an anchor. We don't bugger about planting funny fossils. Remember the Spindles. Supposing the colonists here turn out like them? Your fossil would kill them, blow their minds. Docked three months' labour. You too, Miss Plante, and I don't even want to know for what reasons you were helping this nitwit. You may go.'

She switched off the recorder.

'Where are you going? Sit down. All that was for the benefit of the tape. Sit down, you look dreadful.'

He was no fool. She saw the embryo hope in his eyes. Best to scotch that now.

'I meant it about the sentence. Three months' enforced vacation. It's on the tape, so you won't talk me out of it. Not,' she added, 'that you could.'

'But we'll have finished this job by then,' he said, genuinely hurt.

Kin shrugged. 'There'll be others. Don't look so worried. You wouldn't be human if you didn't yield to temptation. If you feel bad, ask Joel Chenge about the boots he tried to lay down in a coal seam. They didn't ruin his career.'

'And what did you do, Mizz?'

'Hmm?' The boy was looking at her sidelong.

'You sort of give the impression I've done something everyone else has done. Did you do it too?'

Kin drummed her fingers on the desk. 'Built a mountain range in the shape of my initials,' she said.

'Whee! '

'They had to rerun almost half a strip. Nearly got fired.'

'And now you're Sec-exec and--'

'You might be too one day. Another few years they might let you loose on an asteroid of your very own. Some billionaire's pleasure park. Two words of advice don't fumble it, and never, never try to quote people's words against them. I, of course, am marvellously charitable and understanding, but some other people might have made you eat the book a page at a time under threat of sacking. Right? Right. Now go, the pair of you. For real this time. It's going to be a busy day.'

They hurried out, leaving a coral trail. Kin watched the door slide across, staring into space for a few minutes. Then she smiled to herself, and went back to work.

Consider Kin Arad, now inspecting outline designs for the TY-archipelago:

Twenty-one decades lie on her shoulders like temporal dandruff. She carries them lightly. Why not? People were never meant to grow old. Memory surgery helped.

On her forehead, the golden disc that multiple centenarians often wore -- it inspired respect, and often saved embarrassment. Not every woman relished attempted seduction by a man young enough to be her great-to-the-power-of-seven grandson. On the other hand, not every elderly woman wore a disc, on purpose... Her skin was presently midnight-black, like her wig -- for some reason hair seldom survived the first century and the baggy black all-suit.

She was older than twenty-nine worlds, fourteen of which she had helped to build. Married seven times, in varying circumstances, once even under the influence of love. She met former husbands occasionally, for old times' sake.

She looked up when the carpet cleaner shuffled out of its nest in the wall and started to tidy up the sand trails. Her gaze travelled slowly round the room as though seeking for some particular thing. She paused, listening.

A man appeared. One moment there was air: the next, a tall figure leaning against a filing cabinet. He met her shocked gaze, and bowed.

'Who the hell are you?' exclaimed Kin, and reached for the intercom. He was quicker, diving across the room and grabbing her wrist politely yet agonizingly. She smiled grimly and, from a sitting position, brought her left hand across and gave him a scientific fistful of rings.

When he had wiped the blood out of his eyes she was looking down at him and holding a stunner.

'Don't do anything aggressive,' she said. 'Don't even breathe threateningly.'

'You are a most unorthodox woman,' he said, fingering his chin. The semi-sentient carpet cleaner bumped insistently around his ankles.

'Who are you?'

'Jago Jalo is my name. You are Kin Arad? But of course--'

'How did you get in?'

He turned round and vanished. Kin fired the stunner automatically. A circle of carpet went wump.

'Missed,' said a voice across the room.

Wump.

'It was tactless of me to intrude like this, but if you would put that weapon away--'

Wump.

'There could be mutual profit. Wouldn't you like to know how to be invisible ?'

Kin hesitated, then lowered the stunner reluctantly.

He appeared again. He wiped himself solid. Head and torso appeared as though an arm had swept over them, the legs popped into view together.

'It's clever. I like it,' said Kin. 'If you disappear again I'll set this thing on wide focus and spray the room. Congratulations. You've managed to engage my interest. That's not easy, these days.'

He sat down. Kin judged him to be at least fifty, though he could have been a century older. The very old moved with a certain style. He didn't. He looked as though he'd been kept awake for a few years -- pale, hairless, red-eyed. A face you could forget in an instant. Even his all-suit was a pale grey and, as he reached into a pocket, Kin's hand moved up with the stunner.

'Mind if I smoke?' he said.

'Smoke?' said Kin, puzzled. 'Go ahead. I don't mind if you burst into flame.'

Eyeing the stunner, he put a yellow cylinder into his mouth and lit it. Then he took it out and blew smoke.

This man, thought Kin, is a dangerous maniac.

'I can tell you about matter transmission,' he said.

'So can I. It's not possible,' said Kin wearily. So that was all he was -- another goldbricker. Still, he could turn invisible.

'They said that it was impossible to run a rocket in space,' said Jalo. 'They laughed at Goddard. They said he was a fool.'

'They also said it about a lot of fools,' said Kin, dismissing for the moment the question of who Goddard was. 'Have you got a matter transmitter to show me?'

'Yes.'

'But not here.'

'No. There's this, however.' He made a pass and his left arm disappeared. 'You might call it a cloak of invisibility.'

'May I, uh, see it?'

He nodded, and held out an empty hand. Kin reached out and touched -- something. It felt like coarse fibre. It might just be that the palm of her hand underneath it was slightly blurred, but she couldn't be sure.

'It bends light,' he said, tugging it gently out of her grip. 'Of course, you can't risk losing it in the closet, so there's a switch area -- here. See?'

Kin saw a thin, twisting line of orange light outlining nothing.

'It's neat,' said Kin, 'but why me? Why all this?'

'Because you're Kin Arad. You wrote Continuous Creation. You know all about the Great Spindle Kings. I think they made this. I found it. Found a lot of other things, too. Interesting things.'

Kin gazed at him impassively. Finally she said, 'I'd like a little fresh air. Have you breakfasted, Jago Jalo?'

He shook his head. 'My rhythms are all shot to hell after the trip here, but I think I'm about due for supper.'

Kin's flyer circled the low offices and headed northward to the big complex on W-continent. It skirted the bulk of what had been Hendry's machine, its new pilot now laying down a pattern of offshore reefs. The manoeuvre gave them an impressive view of the big collector bowl atop the machine, its interior velvety black.

'Why?' said Jalo, peering. Kin twirled the wheel.

'Beamed power from orbiting collectors, slaved to the machine. If we flew over the bowl we wouldn't even leave any ash.'