It was at Selene that she had met Martin Humphries. He had been her gravest danger: he wanted Amanda and he had the power to take what he wanted. Amanda had married Lars Fuchs in part to get away from Humphries, and Lars knew it.
Now, here out on the fringe of humankind’s expansion through the solar system, she was about to become a shopkeeper herself. How father would howl at that, she thought. The father’s revenge: the child becomes just like the parent, in the end.
“Humphries won’t like competition,” Cardenas pointed out.
“Good!” exclaimed Fuchs.
Shaken out of her reverie, Amanda said, “Competition will be good for the prospectors, though. And the miners, too. It will lower the prices they have to pay for everything.”
“I agree,” said Cardenas. “But Humphries won’t like it. Not one little bit.”
Fuchs laughed aloud. “Good,” he repeated.