"Calm down," Cooper said, his voice gentling.

"Calm down?" She stopped and swung around to face him again. "If you don't care about the risk you took with your own life or your parapsych profile, how about considering the damage that you did to my career?"

Cooper's mouth thinned. "What occurred was Guild business. It will not affect your career. I give you my word on that."

She resumed pacing. The only other alternative was to pick up a few of the smaller alien artifacts that decorated the chamber and start hurling them around the room. That would be undignified.

"Guild business," she repeated coldly. "You know, somehow I just knew you were going to say that."

"The incident will not affect your career at the college."

"Pay attention, Mr. Guild Boss. Members of the faculty have been dismissed from Aurora Springs College for less than this."

John's snowy brows bunched. "No one is going to fire you because of this."

"Don't bet on it, Dad." She stalked past the full-length portrait of her several times great-grandfather, John Sander St. Clair, the first chief of the Aurora Springs Guild. "The Academic Council has a very strict Code of Conduct. Article One, Section a, Paragraph la, forbids every member of the staff from, and I quote, 'engaging in any type of behavior that might embarrass the college or reflect badly upon this institution. Such behavior shall be grounds for a formal reprimand, or, in the most serious cases, dismissal. "

For the first time, Cooper showed an expression other than cool patience. It wasn't much of a show of emotion, to be sure, only a slight increase in the intensity of his unusual blue eyes, but she had been around him enough in the past two months to sense that he was starting to get irritated.