Narrow goggles covered Pancho’s eyes. “I must look like a terrorist, Ike,” she muttered, the fabric of the mask’s lining tickling her lips. “In a minute you won’t look like anything at all,” he said. “Unlatch the safety cover on your belt and press the pressure switch.”

Pancho popped the tiny plastic cover and touched the switch beneath it. “Okay, now what?” she asked.

“Give it fifteen seconds.”

Pancho waited. “So?”

With a lopsided grin, Walton said, “Hold your hand up in front of your face.”

Pancho lifted her arm. A pang of shock bolted through her. “I can’t see it!”

“Damn right you can’t. You’re invisible.”

“I am?”

“Can you see yourself?”

Pancho couldn’t. Arms, legs, booted feet: she could feel them as normally as always but could not see them.

“You got a full-length mirror in your locker?” she asked excitedly.

“Why the hell would I have a full-length mirror in there?”

“I want to see what I look like!”

“Cripes, Pancho, you don’t look like anything. You’re completely invisible.” Pancho laughed excitedly. She made up her mind at that moment to borrow Ike’s stealth suit. Without telling him about it, of course.

Covered from head to toes in the stealth suit, Pancho crept slowly, silently along the corridor of Martin Humphries’s palatial underground house. She had come down to the mansion with Amanda, although Mandy didn’t know it. For weeks Pancho had been dying to root around in Humphries’s mansion. The man was so stinky rich, so ruthlessly powerful and sure of himself, Pancho figured that there must be plenty of dirt under his fingernails. Maybe she could find something that would help Dan. Maybe she could find something that would profit her. Or maybe, she thought, burglarizing Humphries’s house would just be a hoot, a refreshing break from the endless hours of study that she and Mandy were grinding through. Besides, it’d be fun to wipe that smug smile off the Humper’s face.

So she had borrowed the stealth suit from Walton’s locker the very next morning after he’d shown it to her. Pancho had gone to bed that night arguing with herself over whether or not she should ask Ike’s permission to use the suit. She had awakened firmly convinced that the less Ike knew the better off each of them would be. So, with a tote bag swinging from her shoulder, she’d gone to the catacombs instead of to work with Mandy, then detoured to the dusty, seldomused corridor where Walton had stashed the suit. She remembered the singsong of the locker’s electronic security code and tapped it out without a flaw. With a glance at the tiny red eye of the security camera on the ceiling at the far end of the corridor, Pancho quickly bundled the suit into her tote bag. Security people can’t watch every screen every minute, she told herself. Besides, even if one of em’s watchin’, I ain’t doin’ anything to rouse an alarm. Pancho then went back to her quarters. Amanda was busily at work in the simulations lab; Pancho had the apartment to herself. Immediately she started putting on the stealth suit.

Once she got it on — and saw in the bedroom’s full-length mirror that she was truly invisible — she went out to test the suit. It worked wonderfully well. Pancho walked slowly, carefully, through Selene’s corridors, threading her way through the pedestrian traffic. Now and then someone would glance her way, as if they’d seen something out of the corner of their eyes. A stray reflection from the overhead lights, Pancho thought, an unavoidable momentary glitter off the array of nanocameras and projectors. But no one really saw her; she drifted through the crowds like an unseen phantom.

She spent the day wandering ghostlike through Selene, gaining confidence in the suit and her ability to use it. The suit fit her snugly, but the boots attached to its leggings were Ike’s size, not her own. Pancho had solved that problem by wadding stockings into the boots. They weren’t exactly comfortable, but she could walk in them well enough.

For kicks she lifted a soyburger from the counter of the fast-food cafeteria up in the Grand Plaza when no one was working the place except a dumbass robot. She immediately realized, though, that if anyone saw a soyburger floating in midair it would cause a fuss, so she dropped it into the recycler at the end of the counter before anyone noticed her.

By mid-afternoon Pancho returned briefly to her quarters, took off the suit, and dashed out for a quick meal. She was famished. Being invisible makes you hungry, she joked to herself. By the time Amanda returned from her day’s work and began dressing for her dinner with Martin Humphries, Pancho was back in the stealth suit, standing quietly in a corner of the bedroom, waiting for Amanda to finish her damned primping and go out.

A cloak of invisibility, Pancho thought as she rode the escalators a few steps ahead of Amanda, down to Selene’s bottom layer. What did they call those fancy suits the toreadors wear? A suit of lights, she remembered. Well, I’m wearing a suit of darkness. A cloak of invisibility.

She had to keep her distance from everyone. If somebody jostled into her they’d know she was there, invisible or not. Pancho felt glad that Selene did not allow pets. A dog would probably have sniffed her out easily. The escalators got less and less crowded as she went down level after level. By the time she was riding down to the last level, she and Amanda were alone on the moving stairs. Once at the bottom, she waited for Amanda, then fell into step behind her. Mandy was heading for a private little dinner with Humphries. Just the two of them, they thought. Pancho smiled to herself. If the Humper tries anything Mandy doesn’t like, I’ll coldcock him. I’ll be her guardian angel. Then she wondered just how far Mandy was willing to go with Humphries — and how far she could tease him without getting herself into real trouble. Well, she shrugged to herself, Mandy’s a grownup, she knows what she’s doing. Or she ought to. Mandy looked like a princess in a fairy tale, wearing a short-sleeved frock of baby blue with a knee-length fringed skirt. Modest enough, Pancho thought, although on Mandy nothing could look really modest. Not in the eyes of a man like Humphries, anyway. Pancho couldn’t recall seeing the dress before; Mandy must have bought it in one of Selene’s shops. Everything cost a fortune there, except for stuff actually made on the Moon. Is Humphries buying her clothes? Pancho wondered. He hadn’t given Mandy any jewelry, she was sure of that. Mandy would have showed it off if he had.

Amanda walked purposively down the length of the corridor and into the grotto that housed the Humphries Trust research garden and house. Humphries was at the front door to greet her, all smiles. Pancho slipped in behind her, nearly brushing Humphries’s hand as he pulled the door shut. If the Humper felt anything, he didn’t show it. Pancho was in the house and he didn’t know it. As Humphries guided Amanda off to the bar, Pancho stood stock-still in the foyer. A man like Humphries would have a state-of-the-art security system in his home, she reasoned. No matter that the house was in Selene; Humphries would insist on topflight security. He might give the human staff the night off for his dates, but he wouldn’t turn off his alarm systems. Motion sensors were her big worry. Humphries obviously wouldn’t have any working in the residential wing of the house. But the offices would be another thing altogether. She could see the long, spacious living room and the corridor that led to the formal dining room and, beyond it, the library/bar. That was the direction Humphries and Amanda had gone.

On the other side of the foyer was a single closed door. Pancho guessed that it opened onto the suite of offices and laboratories that the ecologists used. Would he have motion sensors set up in there? Probably not, she thought, but if he did… There must be a central control for the security system. Most likely in Humphries’s own bedroom or his office. His bedroom? Pancho grinned at the thought. That’s one room in the house where he’d have any motion sensors definitely turned off! Slowly, on tiptoes despite the thick carpeting, Pancho made her way up to the second floor. The master bedroom was easy to find: beautifully-carved double doors at the end of the hallway. She eased the door open. No sirens, no hooting klaxons. Could be silent alarms, she told herself, but if he’s dismissed the servants for the night he’ll have to come up here his own self, and I can handle that, easy. The room was sumptuous, and Humphries’s bed was enormous, like a tennis court. That bed could handle a whole squad of cheerleaders, she thought. Prob’ly has, Pancho told herself.