"I'm glad it was Bam."

After the long silence, Edith wasn't certain she had heard his muttered words correctly.

"Glad?" she asked.

"Well… not glad, exactly. But…' His voice faded away.

The damned spacesuits took away all the visual clues, Edith realized. All she had to go on was his voice in her earphones. She couldn't see his face, his eyes.

"You see," Doug said slowly, as the tractor trundled along the bleak landscape, "we didn't have any problems with sabotage or attempted assassination until—well, until you came into Moonbase."

That jolted her. "You thought I was a hit man?"

"No, I didn't. But the possibility was there. And I hated it."

"You never -I mean, we were sleeping together! How could you think…"

"I had to consider it," he said, his voice sounding miserable. "I never really thought you were the one who tampered with my suit, but I had to consider the possibility. And the possibility that I wasn't thinking straight because I love you."

"You love me?"

"I had to get my throat slit to finally figure it out. My last conscious thought after Bam cut me was that I was glad it wasn't you."

Edith blinked several times inside her helmet. "Douglas Stavenger, that's got to be the least romantic announcement a man's ever made to a woman!"

For several moments she heard nothing but her own breathing, magnified inside the helmet. Then Doug burst into laughter.

"You're right, Edith," he said, laughing. "That was about as romantic as reading an inventory list. I'm sorry."

She felt a smile tugging at her lips. "Nothing to be sorry about, I guess."

"I do love you, Edith. I really do."

"And I love you, too," she said, surprising herself.

His laughter only increased. "We picked a great time to bare our souls, sealed up in these suits."

She began to giggle. "Yep, guess so."

Doug reached for her gloved hand and pressed it to the visor of his helmet. "That's the best I can do right now. But we ought to be coming up on a tempo pretty soon."

"Tempo?"

"One of the old temporary shelters. We keep them stocked with emergency supplies. We can go inside and get out of these damned suits for a while."

"Uh-huh. And what about Gordette?"

She heard his sharp intake of breath. "Gordette," Doug said, all the laughter gone. "I had almost forgotten about him."

"Doug, if we're going to have to surrender anyway to the Peacekeepers or Yamagata or whoever, why are we chasing after Gordette?"

It took several moments before he answered, "Because I don't want to surrender to them, Edith. Deep inside me I'm still hoping for a miracle."

"What kind of a miracle?"

"I wish I knew."

DAY FORTY-THREE

Grand Cayman Island had been a haven for tax-weary investors for more than a century, the Switzerland of the Caribbean, a home away from home for money that was to be hidden, laundered, or otherwise kept out of the sight of the tax collectors of the world.