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thought for a moment. "Although . . . I like what you're talking about better direct linking to
touch-type reflexes. Maybe that's something we ought to think about."
"It sounds fine for us as it stands," Kevin said. "How come I've never heard of it?"
"I told you, it's new." Corfe sighed. "Probably it shouldn't be let out of the firm, but in this
situation I don't think I'd be too hung up about borrowing one for a night."
It was the kind of indication that Kevin had been waiting for. He looked at Corfe eagerly.
"Does that mean you're in with us, Doug? You'll help us do it?"
Corfe held up a hand. "Hey, wait a minute. I haven't said anything definite yet. Borrowing a
KE mec is the straightforward part ifwe decide to do it. Breaking into this guy's office is
something else."
All of Kevin's exasperation with the adult world came pouring back. He threw up his hands,
and his voice rose. "But Doug, for two days you've been getting madder and madder about not
being able todo anything! All the way here tonight "
"Shh, Kev." Taki moved his eyes to indicate the house around and above them. "Keep it
down, guy."
Kevin exhaled and moderated his tone. "All the way here you sounded like you wanted to start
a war. Well . . . this is something we cando something active, where we're not just sitting
waiting for . . . for what? I don't know. What else have we got?"
"And soon," Taki put in. "We've got the holiday weekend coming up right ahead. Nobody's
going to be around there then. It would be the perfect time."
They stared fixedly at him, as if daring him to find an objection.
Corfe agonized. Kevin could read his mind: loath to shoot the proposition down, but at the
same time, way out of his depth.
"Okay," Corfe said finally. "So suppose you do get in there, and you're into his computer.
What, exactly, are you hoping to find?"
Kevin glanced uncertainly at Taki. Taki returned a look that was about as helpful as a
write-only-memory chip. They had been too preoccupied with the technicalities to really give
that question much thought. "Well, this codicil . . ." Kevin said finally, to Corfe. "Or something
that talks about it maybe. I'm not sure. . . ."
"You haven't got a clue, you mean," Corfe said. "What does one look like? Where would you
look for something that talks about it? You see you don't know. And neither do I." He had
made his point, and he knew it. So did Kevin. Corfe's tone became stronger. "Okay, in
principle I think you guys may have something. But I'm not the person to say if it has chances.
We've got to bring Michelle in on this too. She's the only one who has the knowledge. And I'll
contact her first thing tomorrow and go into town to put this to her if I can. That much I am
willing to say I'll do. But beyond that . . ." He looked from one to the other and shook his head
gravely. "It'll depend on what she says. Beyond that I can't promise."
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Kevin nodded but looked away at the floor. The fervor had gone out of him. For a while he'd
had visions of Corfe in a role as the leader who would cut through the morass of ifs and buts
like Samson hacking a path through the hordes. He felt now as if they were on a circle that led
back to Monday. As much as he liked Michelle, he just couldn't see her going with the
proposition. Worse still, once she had ruled the suggestion out, any possibility of Corfe acting
further on his own initiative would automatically have been eliminated also.
With that, the subject was exhausted for the rest of the evening. Kevin and Taki showed Corfe
their progress with the flying mecs. Kevin managed to steer one on a full circuit of the room.
That was something of an accomplishment to show, anyway.
Corfe called Michelle's office first thing the next morning Thursday as he had promised.
Wendy, the receptionist, told him that Michelle was out until the afternoon, and had
appointments scheduled then. Corfe left a message for Michelle to call him when she was free.
Vanessa went into the city again too. She told Eric it was to spend the day researching
neurophysiological papers in the University Hospital library.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"You stick to organizing the finances," Vanessa said. "That's what you're better at. Don't
worry about the scientific side. Leave that to me."
"I was just curious."
"There." Fozworth aimed the remote and stopped the tape. It was so brief that Michelle had
missed it, but the expression on Martin Payne's face was not a happy one. Fozworth gestured
toward the screen in a small conference room that they had found empty. "See the tightened
jaw, narrowing of the eyes. . . . There's anger there, but it can't be expressed. Why not? Think
where you've seen that look before: the lover rebuffed; the child ridiculed. It could be for all
kinds of reasons."
"But he recovers quickly," Michelle said from a chair by the corner of the table.
"Oh yes, practically instantaneously. Masking his true self is reflex. Mark of a manipulator.
We've got two of a kind here." Fozworth touched a button, and the figures on the screen
resumed moving, with Vanessa handing Payne a file.
"I think you might find this more interesting," she said.
"What is it?"
"Open it and see. . . ."
Noah Fozworth was a behavioral psychologist at Washington State University. His specialty
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was profiling psychological types and identifying characteristic traits that matched lives of
recognizable patterns. The police department, professional recruitment agencies, social welfare
counselors, and others whose work involved betting on the fruit machines of human nature
consulted him regularly. Michelle had met him a couple of years previously, through a private
investigator who worked for one of her clients.
Fozworth was smooth and round everywhere, with a face rendered all the more moonlike by a
brow that extended to the top of his dome, with a terminator of straight, brown hair running in a
crescent from ear to ear. He was colorful and animated, and on every occasion that Michelle
had seen him, dressed eccentrically today in a canary yellow bow tie with port-wine cord
jacket, which he had draped over a chair. But his advice had generally proved sound, and was
always an education. Since there was little as yet in the way of hard evidence, she had come to
Fozworth seeking reassurance that the suspicions she was beginning to form at least rested on
credible groundings.
He stopped the tape again. "The remark about understanding the science was insulting. A
direct snub. She's doing two things: asserting an area of superiority by putting him down; and
staking out her own future territory. His real feelings are suppressed, maybe because they
clash with his more immediate goals. Very likely, he's not even aware of them. But he can't
stop himself reacting unconsciously." Fozworth waved an arm at the images, frozen once again.
He had already watched the full sequence several times in silence. "And that's what will
eventually bring those two into head-on collision. Right now they can't see it, or they're
refusing to. But the match that will detonate the bomb one day is right there."
"So there's a pattern that you recognize, even in as little as this?" Michelle said.
"Plus the things you've told me. A mark of psychopaths is a need to feel superior in some way,
which they'll express maliciously but always in a controlled way that lets them seem to be just
the opposite on the outside." The arm waved again. "You just saw it. She as-good-as tells him
he's dumb, and moments later she's nuzzling up to him. His feelings tell him one thing, but he
sees another. That's the way people drive each other nuts. If he's a strong personality, he'll
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