aesthetic level—even for a product of the '60s like Edwina, who had come of age in the full flowering of the Sexual Revolution. She then let her eyes drift from the big photo above the mantelpiece to the pair of smaller ones flanking it. They too were framed with gold-leafed wood, but color photos and streamlined, minimalist frames alike spoke of more modern provenance than the sepia centerpiece.

The resemblance between Edwina and the people in the two companion photos was even more pronounced. The man in the photo on the left had supplied most of the genetic input evident in Edwina's appearance, while the woman in the photo on the right had provided a good deal of much-appreciated editorial tweaking. Thus the keen, gung-ho go-getter looks of Edwina's father were nicely softened by her mother's influence, leaving their daughter looking less like a hawk and more like a lamb. For this, Edwina was thankful.

"Not that I'm not deeply grateful to you, Daddy," Edwina told the photo. "After all, looks aren't everything. Especially at the bank."

You know it, kiddo, the photograph seemed to reply, and Edwina liked to believe she could see the long-gone yet still beloved twinkle in her father's eye when he said that.

It was the same sort of twinkle that had lit up his face when he was about to make a fresh "kill" in his ongoing role as a highly paid, extremely effective corporate lawyer. Litigation was his lifeblood, but investment savvy was his vocation. He took his income and sank it into a portfolio that fairly gushed profits. His dream had been to make enough money to buy one of the smaller Hawaiian islands and set himself up as an independently wealthy writer of science fiction, his first true love.

Alas, the dream was not to be. (And a good thing, too. Edwina had found some of her father's old notebooks with ideas for his Great American Sci-Fi novel. Nothing good