"Cheese," I said, or something like that, and took a walk aroundTensquare, by myself.

I mounted each Rook, checking out the controls and the underwater videoeyes. Then I raised the main lift.

Malvern had no objections to my testing things this way. In fact, heencouraged it. We had sailed together before and our positions had even beenreversed upon a time. So I wasn't surprised when I stepped off the lift intothe Hopkins Locker and found him waiting. For the next ten minutes weinspected the big room in silence, walking through its copper coil chamberssoon to be Arctic.

Finally, he slapped a wall.

"Well, will we find it?"

I shook my head.

"I'd like to, but I doubt it. I don't give two hoots and a damn whogets credit for the catch, so long as I have a part in it. But it won'thappen. That gal's an egomaniac. She'll want to operate the Slider, and shecan't."

"You ever meet her?"

"Yeah."

"How long ago?"

"Four, five years."

"She was a kid then. How do you know what she can do now?"

"I know. She'll have learned every switch and reading by this time.She'll be all up on theory. But do you remember one time we were together inthe starboard Rook, forward, when Ikky broke water like a porpoise?"

"Well?"

He rubbed his emery chin.

"Maybe she can do it, Carl. She's raced torch ships and she's scubaedin bad waters back home." He glanced in the direction of invisible Hand."And she's hunted in the Highlands. She might be wild enough to pull thathorror into her lap without flinching.

"...For Johns Hopkins to foot the bill and shell out seven figures forthe corpus," he added. "That's money, even to a Luharich."

I ducked through a hatchway.

"Maybe you're right, but she was a rich witch when I knew her.

"And she wasn't blonde," I added, meanly.