“What have you been up to lately?” Humphries asked casually.
Truthfully, Pancho reported, “We’ve started the detailed mission planning. Randolph’s picked out a couple of target asteroids for us to rendezvous with, and now Mandy and me are workin’ out the optimum trajectory, trip times, supply needs, failure modes… stuff like that.”
“Sounds boring.”
“Not when your life hangs on it.”
Humphries conceded the point with a nod. “The construction of the propulsion system is proceeding on schedule?”
“You’d know more about that than I would.”
“It is,” he said.
“That’s what I figured. Dan’d go ballistic if there were any holdups there.”
“Amanda refuses to see me,” he said.
For a moment Pancho was jarred by the sudden change of subject. Recovering quickly, she replied, “Mandy’s got enough on her hands. This isn’t the time for her to get involved with somebody… anybody.”
“I want her off the mission.”
“You can’t do that to her!” Pancho blurted.
“Why not?”
“It’d ruin her career, that’s why. Bounced off the first crewed mission to the Belt: how’d that look on her resume?”
“She won’t need a resume. I’m going to marry her.”
Pancho stared at him. He was serious.
“For how long?” she asked coldly.
Anger flared in Humphries’s eyes. “Just because my first two marriages didn’t work out, there’s no reason to think this one won’t.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Besides,” Humphries went on, “if it doesn’t work out she’ll get a very handsome settlement out of me. She’ll never have to work again.”
Pancho said nothing. She was thinking, If it doesn’t work out he’ll use every lawyer he’s got to throw Mandy out into the cold without a cent. If it doesn’t work out he’ll hate her just as much as he hates his first two wives.
“I want you to help convince her to marry me,” Humphries said.
Pancho’s mind was spinning. You gotta be careful here, she warned herself. Don’t get him mad at you.
“Mr. Humphries, that’s something I just plain can’t do. This isn’t a business deal, I can’t talk her into doin’ something she doesn’t want to do. Nobody can. Except maybe you.”
“But she won’t see me!”
“I know, I know,” she said, as sympathetically as she could. “It’s just too much pressure for her, what with the mission and all.”
“That’s why I want her off the mission.”
“Don’t do that to her. Please.”
“My mind’s made up.”
Pancho sighed unhappily.”Well, you’re just gonna have to talk to Dan Randolph about that. He’s the boss, not me.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Humphries said firmly.
“I wish you wouldn’t. Whyn’t you let us go out to the Belt. When we get back Mandy’ll be able to give you her full attention.”
“No.” Humphries shook his head. “You might not get back.”
“We will.”
“You might not. I don’t want to take the chance of losing her.”
Pancho looked into his eyes. They were still cold, unreadable, like the eyes of a professional card shark she’d known once while she’d been supporting herself through the University of Nevada in Las Vegas by working at one of the casinos. Not the eyes of a lovesick swain. Not the eyes of a man whose heart might break.
“Better talk to Randolph, then,” she said.
“I will.”
Feeling weary and more than a little afraid of what was going to happen with Mandy, Pancho got to her feet. Humphries stood up, too, and she noticed that he was several centimeters shorter than she’d thought him to be. Glancing down at his sandals, she thought, the sumbitch must have lifts in his regular shoes.
“By the way,” Humphries said, his voice hard-edged, “someone’s hacked into my private files.”
She was genuinely surprised that he’d found out so quickly. It must have shown on her face.
“Randolph is a lot smarter than I thought he was, but it won’t do him any good.”
“You mean he’s the one who hacked you?”
“Who else? One of his people, obviously. I want you to find out who. And how.”
“I can’t do that!” Pancho blurted.
“Why not?”
“I’ll get caught. I’m not a chip freak.”
His eyes bored into her for a painfully long moment. “You find out who did it. And how it was done. Or else.”