They wrangled over the issue for more than half an hour. Finally Wilmot put it to a vote, and the board decided to generate voluntary guidelines for appropriate dress during working hours. Eberly graciously accepted their decision.

The first step, he told himself.

Pancho paced across her office as she spoke, feeling frustrated because there was no feedback from the person she was addressing. Communications beyond the Earth/Moon vicinity were almost always one-way affairs. Even though messages flitted through space at the speed of light, the distances to Mars, the Belt, and beyond were simply too great for a real-time, face-to-face chat.

So Pancho rattled on, hoping that Kris Cardenas would reply as quickly as possible.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, Dr. Cardenas,” she was saying. “You’ve spent a lot of years there at Ceres and made a life for yourself. But this migration out to Saturn is a chance to build something brand new for yourself. They’ll be happy to have your expertise, you can count on that. There’s probably a million ways your knowledge of nanotechnology will help them.”

By force of habit Pancho glanced up at the image floating in the middle of her office. Instead of Kris Cardenas’s face, it showed only her own neatly typed words.

“I’ll personally pay all your expenses and add a big bonus,” Pancho went on. “I’ll pay for a major expansion of your habitat out there at Ceres. She’s my little sister, Kris, and she needs somebody to watch over her. I can’t do it; I’m hoping that you can. Will you do this for me? Just for a year or so, just long enough so Sis gets squared away and can stand on her own feet without doing anything foolish. Will you help me on this, Kris? I really think it’ll be to your advantage and I’d appreciate it enormously.”

Pancho realized she was practically begging. Almost whining. So what? she asked herself. This is Susie I’m talking about.

But she took a breath and said more evenly, “Please get back to me as soon as you can on this, Kris. It’s important to me.”

In her cozy quarters aboard the habitat Chrysalis in orbit around the asteroid Ceres, Kris Cardenas intently watched Pancho’s earnest face as the Astro Corporation board chairman paced back and forth across her plushly furnished office. Cardenas noted the tension in every line of Pancho’s lanky body, every gesture, every word she spoke.

I don’t owe her a thing, Cardenas told herself. Why should I uproot myself and trundle out to Saturn on that weird expedition?

Yet, despite herself, she felt intrigued. Maybe it’s time for a change in my life. Maybe I’ve done enough penance.

Despite her calendar years, Dr. Kristin Cardenas looked no more than thirtyish, a pert sandy blond woman with a swimmer’s shoulders and strong, athletic body, and bright cornflower-blue eyes. That was because her body teemed with nanomachines, virus-sized devices that acted as a deliberate, directed immune system that destroyed invading organisms, took apart plaque forming in her blood vessels atom by atom, and rebuilt tissue damaged by trauma or aging.

Cardenas had won a Nobel Prize for her research in nanotechnology, before the fundamentalist governments of Earth succeeded in banning all forms of nanotech on the planet. She had carried on her work at Selene for years, helping the lunar nation to win its short, virtually bloodless war against the former world government. But because she had taken nanomachines into her own body she was not allowed to return to Earth, even for a brief visit. She lost her husband and children because they dared not come to Selene and risk being exiled from Earth with her. Cardenas bitterly resented the shortsighted attitudes of the “flatlanders” who had cost her her children and grandchildren, a bitterness that had led her to homicide. She had allowed her knowledge of nanotechnology to be used to sabotage a spacecraft, which caused the death of industrialist Dan Randolph.

The government of Selene locked her out of her own nanotech lab. She fled to the mining station on Ceres, in the Asteroid Belt, where she remained for many years, serving as a medical doctor and eventually as a member of Ceres’s governing board. Penance. She helped to build the miners’ community at Ceres, and she had refused to do any nanotech work since fleeing from Selene.

Am I being foolish? she now asked herself. Should I apply for a slot on the Saturn expedition? Would they take me if I did apply?

Staring at Pancho’s engrossed image frozen on her wallscreen, Cardenas decided to try. It’s time to begin a new life in a new world, she thought. Time for a new start.

The cafeteria was a strange place to hold such a sensitive meeting, Eberly thought. Yet, on the other hand, the clattering, bustling cafeteria was one of the few places in the habitat that would be virtually impossible to bug with listening devices. Too much background noise, too many people moving about.

“I understand that you are from Rwanda,” Eberly said pleasantly, as he picked at the salad on the table before him.

“Col. Kananga was a high official in the national police force,” said Morgenthau, whose plate bore an arrangement of fresh fruit slices.

“So I gathered from your dossier,” Eberly said, with a smile. “It’s unfortunate that you were asked to leave the country.”

If the barb hurt Kananga, the tall, lean Rwandan gave no indication of it. He said merely, “I was asked to clear up a difficult situation, and once I did so, I was rewarded with a choice between a public trial for police brutality or permanent exile.”

Eberly pursed his lips sympathetically. “Politicians,” he murmured.

“Yes,” said Kananga, his voice like the rumble of a lion. “Politicians.”

Morgenthau forced a smile. “Col. Kananga is interested in working with us, Malcolm.”

“Good,” said Eberly, without taking his eyes from the Rwandan’s dark, impassive face. “You could be useful in the government we will set up once we arrive at Saturn.”

“I would expect to keep my position as chief of security,” Kananga said flatly.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Eberly replied. Then he added, “If you can follow my orders absolutely and without fail.”

Kananga allowed the trace of a smile to curl his lips slightly. “I know how to follow orders.”

“Good. If you are loyal to me, I will be loyal to you. You’ll find me a trustworthy leader. I won’t turn on you for doing your job.”

The Rwandan’s smile broadened enough to show some teeth. “Even if I am … eh, zealous, let us say, in carrying out your orders?”