"Oh, come off the dramatics. They're being placed in a perfectly ordinary drilling workers' dormitory, only abandoned six months ago when the field ran dry." Van Atta brightened slightly in self-congratulation. "I found it myself, looking over the possible sites to place 'em. It'll cost next to nothing to refurbish it, compared to building new."

Leo could just picture it. He shuddered. "And what happens in fourteen years, when and if Orient IV expropriates Rodeo?"

Van Atta ruffled his hair with both hands in exasperation. "How the hell should I know? At that point, it becomes Orient IV's problem. There's only so much one human being can do, Leo."

Leo smiled slowly, in grim numbness. "I'm not sure . . . what one human being can do. I've never pushed myself to the limit. I thought I had, but I realize now I hadn't. My self-tests were always carefully nondestructive."

This test was a higher order of magnitude altogether. This Tester, perhaps, scorned the merely humanly possible. Leo tried to remember how long it had been since he'd prayed, or even believed. Never, he decided, like this. He'd never needed like this before. . . .

Van Atta frowned suspiciously at him. "You're weird, Leo." He straightened his spine, as if seeking a posture of command. "Just in case you missed my message, let me repeat it loud and clear. You are to mention this artificial gravity business to no one, that means especially no quaddies. Likewise, keep their downside destination secret. I'll let Yei figure out how to make them swallow it without kicking, it's time she earned her overinflated salary. No rumors, no panics, no goddamn workers' riots—and if there are, I'll know just whose hide to nail to the wall. Got it?"

Leo's smile was canine, concealing—everything. "Got it." He withdrew without turning his back, or speaking another word.

*      *      *

Dr. Yei was not usually easy to track down, it being her habit to circulate often among the quaddies, observing behavior, taking notes, making suggestions. But this time Leo found her at once, in her office, with plastic flimsies stuck to every available surface and her desk console lit like a Christmas tree. Did they have Christmas at the Cay Habitat? Somehow, Leo thought not.

"Did you hear—"

Her glum slouch answered his question, even as his strained face and rapid breathing finished asking it.

"Yes, I've heard," she said wearily, glancing up at him. "Bruce just dumped the whole Habitat's personnel evacuation logistics on my desk to organize. He, he tells me, being an engineer, will be doing facility dismantling and equipment salvage flow charts. Just as soon as I get the bodies out of his way. Excuse me, the damned bodies."

Leo shook his head helplessly. "Are you going to do it?"