Women, of course, and whatever it was they did to men. Was Roachie volunteering, Ethan wondered? He certainly knew the technical end. Ethan admired his courage, even if his self-description was bordering on the swelled-headed. Probably needed it, to psyche himself up. Ethan did not begrudge it. For Desroches to leave his two sons, on whom he doted, behind for a whole year…

"He should also be a man free of family responsibilities, that his absence not put too great a burden on his designated alternate," Desroches went on.

Every bearded face around the table nodded judiciously.

"—and finally, he should be a man with the energy and conviction to carry on regardless of the obstacles fate or, uh, whatever, may throw in his path." Desroches' hand fell firmly to Ethan's shoulder; the expression of smug approval on the chairman's face broadened to a smile.

Ethan's half-formed words of congratulation and commiseration froze in his throat. Running through his formerly-teeming brain was only one helpless, recycling phrase: I'll get you for this, Roachie….

"Gentlemen, I give you Dr. Urquhart." Desroches sat, and grinned cheerily at Ethan. "Now stand up and talk," he urged.

The silence in Desroches' ground car on the drive back to Sevarin was long and sullen. Desroches broke it a little nervously. "Are you willing to admit you can handle it yet?"

"You set me up for that," growled Ethan at last. "You and the chairman had it all cooked up in advance."

"Had to. I figured you'd be too modest to volunteer."

"Modest, hell. You just figured I'd be easier to nail if I wasn't a moving target."

"I thought you were the best man for the job. Left to its own devices, God the Father knows what the committee would have picked. Maybe that idiot Frankin from Barca. Would you want to put the future of Athos in his hands?"