Zimmels made her the inevitable offer: join Boston, or get shipped back to Earth where JSKP will probably have you prosecuted, and certainly have you blacklisted. Unemployment and the dole for life.

Boston gained an ardent new supporter.

That was a long time ago, lynette mendelson said.

It certainly was. And I'm willing to overlook it, i told her magnanimously. But how do you think your Boston friends will react to knowing you've been supplying the Police Department, and indirectly the JSKP, with the names of their members, and information on their activities for the last two years? Eden has already had its first murder, so I suppose a lynching is inevitable at some point.

You bastard!

You knew perfectly well what you agreed to, Lynette; being a police informer is the same as paying taxes and becoming one of the undead, it lasts for ever.

Zimmels was paying me.

I doubt it.

Well, go ahead and blow me to Boston, then. Fat lot of use I'll be to you then.

Fat lot of use you are if I'm not kept regularly updated.i paused; in this game you have to know when to allow a little slack. i'd run enough informers in my own time. But I do have a small discretionary fund available.

You'd better not be shitting me.

Would I?

All right; but I want real money, not some poxy taxi-driver tip. I'm taking risks for you.

Thank you, Lynette. I want to know about the argument on the timing of when Eden should declare independence. Just how heated was it?

It wasn't heated at all, not on the surface. These people are born-again politicians, everything they say is smooth and righteous. Policy discussions are all very civilized.

But there was some objection to declaring independence right after the cloudscoop is lowered. Parkinson wanted to wait, I know, he told me. According to him, you wouldn't have enough money from a single cloud-scoop's revenue to fund the buyout.

That was Bob's big justification, yes. Penny's argument was that everything is relative. If today's operation can buy out today's shares, she said, then it makes no sense to wait a decade until the profits go up, because the equity base will increase proportionally. If anything, it makes the situation worse, because investors will be far more reluctant to let go of a sizeable ultra-stable successful He3 mining operation, which is what JSKP will be with more cloudscoops and the Callisto mass driver. By waiting you're just adding to the complexity of the leveraged buyout. But if Boston launched its buyout now, they'll still be able to attract investment for all the planned expansion projects, because the bankers don't care who's calling the shots as long as revenue keeps coming in. The whole point of the Boston takeover is to ensure the He3 mining doesn't become invalid, they can't afford to do without it. If you ask me, the whole timing issue was a clash of personalities between Penny and Bob. They got on pretty well before, then she started accusing him of only joining Boston to help JSKP delay independence, maybe even postpone it indefinitely. That he was a straight company man.