Kate looked for a fuel dump and found it, a heap of 150,000-gallon fuel bladders that must have been brought in by sling via helicopter. The bladders were surrounded by a Ready Berm, and a drive-through berm was inflated nearby, where a dump truck was being fueled with a collapsible hose connected to a fuel pump connected to one of the bladders.

Where they getting their electricity? Kate said into her mike.

Oil-powered generators for now, George said, the static making his voice sound as raspy as hers, but they‘re looking into wind and solar and hydro. One of the engineers told me it‘ll probably be a combination of all three. And they found a lowsulphur coal deposit up the valley, they‘ll probably rope that in, too. Gravel? They‘d need a lot of gravel for roads and pads for building sites. The production life of the Suulutaq Mine was projected at twenty years. Twenty-year-old buildings in Alaska were regarded as permanent, if not downright historic. He pointed at a notch in one wall of the valley. They found all they need in a creek bed thataway.

They keeping to leased property? Not encroaching on Iqaluk?

He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. Do you really think they‘d screw around this early in the game?

I think nobody‘s watching them very close yet, Kate said, and I think they‘ll try to get away with as much as they can before anybody is.

Scattered around the valley at various distances from the camp were five drill rigs. All five were active, the crown and traveling blocks and drill lines visible and in motion through the network of the derricks.

George made another circle. The Beaver was just lifting off the end of the runway for the return trip back to Niniltna. Seen enough?

Kate nodded, and George brought them into a neat three-point landing on the rudimentary gravel airstrip that had been bladed when the snowpack melted, which, along with everything else, had cost GHRI a whale of a lot of money. But at eight hundred dollars, no, Kate corrected herself, now more than nine hundred an ounce, they could afford it. Recessions always drove people toward gold and stocks in gold mining companies. It was the commodity that never failed. And Alaska had more of it than almost anyone else in the world, and the Suulutaq Mine had more of it than any other mine in Alaska.

They got out of the Cessna, Mutt trotting ahead to baptize a compactor, which appeared to be the single piece of heavy equipment within ten miles that wasn‘t at present in motion. Kate and George walked toward the edge of the small rise that supported the airstrip, where they paused for a moment to look down at the camp. There were five small modulars and two large, arranged in two rows. Doors were connected by rudimentary wooden boardwalks, Kate would bet at the insistence of the people who had to mop the floors.

They followed the road down the side of the rise. The mud was beginning to dry out under the influence of the increasing strength of the sun, but it still sucked at their feet as they dodged heavy equipment to the entrance of the office building. There was a bull rail with electrical plug-ins out front with a pickup and a van nosed up to it. Placed conspicuously over a generously sized set of double doors was a large and colorful rendition of the Global Harvest sunrise-over-the-Quilaks logo. It was, Kate had to admit, very attractive.