As if he could read her thoughts, the Nairobi representative added, in a confidential near-whisper, “Besides, an alliance between your corporation and mine will outflank Humphries Space Systems, so to speak. Together, we could take a considerable amount of market share away from HSS.”

Pancho felt her eyebrows hike up. “You mean the asteroidal metals and minerals that Earthside corporations buy.”

“Yes. Of course. But Selene imports a good deal from Humphries’s mining operations in the Belt, too.”

The big struggle, Pancho knew, was to control the resources of the Asteroid Belt. The metals and minerals mined from the asteroids were feeding Earthside industries crippled by the environmental disasters stemming from the greenhouse cliff.

“Well,” said the Nairobi executive, with his gleaming smile, “that’s just about the whole of it. Does it strike any interest in you?”

Pancho smiled back at him. “ ’Course it does,” she said, thinking about how the kids she grew up with in west Texas would cross their fingers when they fibbed. “I’ll give it a lot of thought, you can believe me.”

“Then you’ll recommend a strategic alliance to your board?”

She could see the eagerness on his handsome young face.

Keeping her smile in place, Pancho replied, “Let me think it over, get my staff to run the numbers. Then, if everything checks out, I’ll certainly bring it up before the board.”

He fairly glowed with pleasure. Pancho thought, Whoever sent this hunk of beefcake didn’t pick him because he’s got a poker face.

She got to her feet and he shot up so quickly that Pancho thought he’d bounce off the ceiling. As it was, he stumbled slightly, unaccustomed to the low lunar gravity, and had to grab a corner of her desk to steady himself.

“Easy there,” she said, grinning. “You only weigh one-sixth of Earth normal here.”