"I can try."

"They must be installed by morning. No one must know."

"You got it," said Buzz Kuttner, going back to the van. There was a handcart and a dolly out by the freight door, and he used them to trundle the jukeboxes and their optical WORM-Write Once Read Many-drives back to the cool room with the mainframes.

When he got the first one back, Jones wasn't there. Of course, he might have been lurking among the furnaces. Kuttner felt eyes on his back. Suppressing a shudder, he got the other machines in place and set about hooking them together.

From time to time he was aware of Jones hovering beyond the radius of the eye-stressing twenty-five-watt light like an expectant undertaker. He didn't know why that image jumped into his mind. Maybe it was the guy's hollow voice and gaunt look.

To keep himself from getting too edgy, Kuttner started talking a blue streak.

"You've made a smart purchase here, Jones. These optical drives are going to be state-of-the-art deep into the twenty-first century. You won't have to replace these units until the next depression-God forbid."

"I understand that a stationary crystal data-storage unit capable of being read by moving lasers has proven workable on the laboratory level," said Jones.

"That so? Well, if you ask me, it's a long way from the laboratory to the kitchen-if you know what I mean."

"May I ask you where you get your equipment?"

"Different places. A lot of computer outfits going under these days, or dumping product. I pick up what I can where I can."

"Can this equipment be traced?"

"Not through me. These are XL SysCorp jukeboxes. The best. A voice on the phone lets me know when they have some available. I meet a guy I don't know, cash changes hands, and I come away with my truck riding low on its springs." Kuttner stopped. "That reminds me, you in the market for a new terminal?"