Astonishing that he should be a dentist. Tremaine could conceive of no circumstance, no emergency, under which he would allow the man to insert his fingers into his mouth. Elliott was the nephew of Steven Fisk, whom he resembled not at all, and Tremaine had taken a near-instant dislike to him on meeting him the day before.

Little wonder. Like his uncle, Fisk had a way of provoking confrontation. But whereas Steven's combativeness had been the natural result of a thin skin, an absurdly high opinion of himself, and an unfortunate predilection for brawling, Elliott seemed like a man who had consciously chosen a carping churlishness as the maniere d'etre best suited to his philosophy of life and who worked doggedly at maintaining it. Despite his bohemian appearance he was a smug, captious faultfinder who had taken up an inordinate amount of time at dinner the night before with his aimless quibbling over what he persisted in calling “administrivia."

"Why couldn't…” he had asked in his sulky, complainer's voice a dozen times, and Tremaine had worn himself out fending him off with shrugs and smiles. Why couldn't they be given per-diem expense accounts instead of having to keep track of and record every individual expenditure? (Because that's the way Javelin's accounting department wanted it.) Why couldn't each of them be scheduled to attend only those sessions to which he or she might have something to add, instead of having everybody sit through every minute? (Because arranging individualized schedules was too damn much work.)

The detestable Fisk had even gone out of his way to sneer at the book's title, Tragedy on Ice. Tremaine was still seething about that. What business was it of his? Besides, it most certainly did not sound like something starring Dorothy Hamill.

Dr. Fisk's question this morning was in character. “I'd like to know why you couldn't just give us copies of the manuscript to review individually instead of making us spend all this time sitting around while you read the stuff to us.” He used his forefinger to probe at something-a bug, probably-in the scrubby hair at the corner of his jaw.