“Better remember who’s running things here, Jackson!” Mallon snapped. “It’s not what you need that counts.” He took another turn up and down the room, then stopped, facing me.

“Look, Jackson. I know how to get around in this jungle; you don’t. If I hadn’t spotted you and given some orders, you’d have been gunned down before you’d gone ten feet past the ballroom door.”

“Why’d you let me in? I might’ve been gunning for you.”

“You wanted to see the Baron alone. That suited me, too. If word got out—” He broke off, cleared his throat. “Let’s stop wrangling, Jackson. We can’t move until the Bolo guarding the site has been neutralized. There’s only one way to do that: knock it out! And the only thing that can knock out a Bolo is another Bolo.”

“So?”

“I’ve got another Bolo, Jackson. It’s been covered, maintained. It can go up against the Troll—” He broke off, laughed shortly. “That’s what the mob called it.”

“You could have done that years ago. Where do I come in?”

“You’re checked out on a Bolo, Jackson. You know something about this kind of equipment.”

“Sure. So do you.”

“I never learned,” he said shortly.

“Who’s kidding who, Mallon? We all took the same orientation course less than a month ago—”

“For me it’s been a long month. Let’s say I’ve forgotten.”

“You parked that Bolo at your front gate and then forgot how you did it, eh?”

“Nonsense. It’s always been there.”

I shook my head. “I know different.”

Mallon looked wary. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Somebody told me.”

Mallon ground his cigar out savagely on the damask cloth. “You’ll point the scum out to me!”

“I don’t give a damn whether you moved it or not. Anybody with your training can figure out the controls of a Bolo in half an hour—”

“Not well enough to take on the Tr—another Bolo.”

I took a cigar from the silver box, picked up the lighter from the table, turned the cigar in the flame. Suddenly it was very quiet in the room.

I looked across at Mallon. He held out his hand.

“I’ll take that,” he said shortly.

I blew out smoke, squinted through it at Mallon. He sat with his hand out, waiting. I looked down at the lighter.

It was a heavy windproof model with embossed Aerospace wings. I turned it over. Engraved letters read: Lieut. Commander Don G. Banner, USAF. I looked up. Renada sat quietly, holding my pistol trained dead on my belt buckle.

“I’m sorry you saw that,” Mallon said. “It could cause misunderstandings.”

“Where’s Banner?”

“He… died. I told you—”

“You told me a lot of things, Toby. Some of them might even be true. Did you make him the same offer you’ve made me?”

Mallon darted a look at Renada. She sat holding the pistol, looking at me distantly, without expression.

“You’ve got the wrong idea, Jackson—” Mallon started.