«Ah!» I clicked my fingers as the full realization hit me. «You're going to engineer a leveraged buyout from the existing shareholders, and probably try to oust the existing board members as well. No wonder you need all that money.» I stopped, recalling the briefing files I'd studied on the JSKP. «But even that can't be enough. You only have a few billion available. JSKP is a multi-trillion-wattdollar venture; it won't break even for another fifty years.»

«No government on Earth is going to disrupt the flow of goods from this hypothetical nationalized factory. They can't afford to, the product it manufactures is unique and extraordinarily valuable. Ultimately, the courts and the financial community will permit this proposed managerial restructuring, especially as full compensation will be paid. Nobody is trying to cheat anyone out of anything. A large proportion of the money which Penny and other philanthropists have pledged to this hypothetical government will be spent on legal battles; which are shaping up to be very violent and depressingly prolonged.»

«Yes, I see now.» I stood up. «Well, providing I can verify this hypothesis , I think you and the other trustees can be removed from my suspect list. Thank you for your time.»

Harwood lumbered to his feet. «I hope you find Penny's killer soon, Chief Parfitt.»

«I'll do my best.»

«Yeah, I guess so.» His expression turned confidently superior. «But don't count on having too much time. You might just find you ain't gonna be here for very much longer.»

I stopped in the open door, and gave him a genuinely pitying look. «Do you really think that Boston won't need a professional police force if you ever do manage to form a government here? If so, you're more of a daydreaming fool than I thought.»

• • •

Pieter Zernov was a lot more cordial than Harwood; but then we'd got to know each other quite well on the Ithilien . A modest man, quietly intelligent, who kept most of his opinions to himself; but when he did talk on a subject which interested him he was both coherent and well informed. It was his nomination as a trustee which made me inclined to believe Harwood's explanation about what Boston intended to do with the money. I trusted Pieter, mainly because he was one person who couldn't have killed Penny. The way it looked at the moment, the murderer had to have been in the habitat for at least a couple days prior to the murder.

A time when Pieter was on the Ithilien with me. Good alibi.

I found him in the JSKP's Biotechnology Division headquarters, supervising Ararat's germination.

«It ought to be Penny doing this,» he said mournfully. «She put in so much work on Ararat, especially after her accident. It's a tremendous improvement on Eden and Pallas.»

We were standing at the back of a large control centre; five long rows of consoles were arrayed in front of us, each with technicians scanning displays and issuing streams of orders to their equipment. Big holoscreens were fixed up around the walls, each showing a different view of Ararat as the large seed floated fifteen kilometres distant from Eden. The foam which protected it during the flight from the O'Neill Halo had been stripped away, allowing the base to be mated to a large support module.