He was a large man. It looked as though someone had handed his parents a blueprint of a baby and told them to scale it up by a factor of one and a quarter.

“This is a joke, right?”

“On the contrary, Ms. Next. Based on past experiences, we have decided that complete and utter disclosure is the only policy worth pursuing as far as your good self is concerned.”

“You’ll excuse me if I remain unconvinced by your perceived honesty.”

“It’s not honesty, Ms. Next. You personally cost us over a hundred billion pounds in lost revenue, so we regard our openness as a sound business strategy—albeit of an abstract nature. Because of this, there is no door closed to you, no document unreadable, no member to whom you may not speak. I hope I am candid?”

“Very,” I replied, put off my guard by the corporation’s attitude. “I have a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Naturally,” replied John Henry. “The majorettes would like to perform, if that’s all right with you?”

“Of course.”

So we watched the majorettes march up and down for twenty minutes to music of the Goliath Brass Band, and when it was over, I was driven in John Henry’s Bentley toward the Goliath head office, a mighty 110-story building right at the heart of Goliathopolis.

“Your son and family are well?” asked John Henry, who aside from a few more gray hairs didn’t seem to have aged a great deal since we last met. He fixed me with his piercing green eyes and poured on the natural charm he’d been blessed with.

“I expect you know full well they are,” I replied, “and everything else about me.”

“On the contrary,” protested John Henry. “We thought that if even the sniff of surveillance was detected, you might decide to take action, and action from you, as we have seen to our cost, is never less than devastating to our interests.”

“Ah,” I murmured, suddenly realizing why there had been a deafening silence from Goliath over the years.

“So how can we help?” asked John Henry. “If,” he added, “we can help at all.”

“I want to find out what advances you have made in transfictional travel.”

John Henry raised his eyebrows and smiled genially. “I never thought it would remain a secret from you forever.”

“You’ve been leaving Outlander probes scattered all over the BookWorld.”

“The research and development on the Book Project has been somewhat hit or miss, I’ll admit that,” replied John Henry candidly. “To be honest, I had expected you to call on us sooner than you have.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Of course. And since you are here, perhaps you would grace us with your comments on the technical aspects of our project.”

“I promise nothing, but I’d certainly like to see what you’re up to.”