Moosic thought it over. “But we’ll have to get in there pretty quickly to go after them,” he noted, “and that’s not going to be bloodless. Then we’ll have to have these time suits or whatever they are available for us. I assume they’re going to destroy what they don’t use.”

“That’s where they have us, of course. There are two spares, but they are both down for repairs right now. That leaves the one on the man now downtime, and he’s due back on automatics at six tomorrow morning. That means we have to convince them to go now, then deal with the remaining ones by whatever means we have to use and regardless of costs. Cline knows when that other one comes back, too.”

The security man frowned. “That gives us less than eighteen hours. Why not just cut the power to them when they go back?”

“Because they’d still have those few days of grace to do whatever mischief they wanted before they got absorbed. We must know what they do, where they go, all of it. And even if we cut ’em off, restore power two weeks from now, and send somebody back, I’m told that the newcomer will re-energize their suits anyway. Don’t ask me how—I’m not a physicist.”

Ron Moosic sighed. “And this was supposed to be my first day on the job.”

A MATTER OF PERFECT TIMING

Dr. Aaron Silverberg was anything but pleased. On the one hand, he felt he had the biggest hangover a human could bear; on the other, his baby was in the hands of kidnappers and one of the nannies was telling them what to do.