As Glynis hurried across the test cell toward the control booth, Younger shot a sly grin at Rogers. Once she entered the booth his expression grew stern and he said to her, “Hey, I told you we’d run at one o’clock.”

Looking upset, she said, “It’s only a quarter past one.”

Younger shrugged. “The checkout went smooth, so we fired her up.”

“I wanted to see the run!”

Another shrug. “Then you should have been here on time.”

Glynis frowned at him. She was dressed in a pair of deep blue slacks, with a white short-sleeved pullover that reached to her hips. Jake noticed she had a necklace of turquoise around her throat, and a turquoise bracelet on one wrist. Her long dark hair look disheveled, windblown.

“We’ll probably run it again, around three, four o’clock,” Younger said.

She looked from his face to Rogers and back again. “I’ve got to be back at Professor Sinclair’s office at three thirty.”

“Too bad,” said Younger.

“Damn! I nearly broke my butt getting here. My blasted car’s having ignition troubles again and I had to get it checked out this morning before I left.”

Younger said nothing; he simply turned away from her and started fiddling with some of the knobs on the control board. Rogers looked embarrassed.

Clearly unhappy, Glynis said, “I might as well go back, then.”

Rogers made an apologetic, “It’s a shame you had to come all the way out here and miss the run.”

“Yes,” she replied, eying Younger. “Isn’t it?”

Jake could feel the high-voltage tension between Younger and Colwyn. Rogers seemed to be in the middle of it.

Colwyn glared at Younger’s back, then turned and headed out toward the door.

Once she’d left, Jake half whispered to Rogers, “What was that all about?”

With an uneasy smile, the physicist replied, “Tim thinks she’s a spy.”

“A spy?”

“From Sinclair.”

“But this is Sinclair’s program, isn’t it?”

“It’s my program,” Younger snapped, looking up from the control board. “I run this fucking show. It’s my responsibility. When something goes wrong I get the blame. Okay. But I won’t have his fucking snoops sticking their tits into my work!”

Jake involuntarily backed away from Younger’s blazing anger.

The engineer muttered darkly, “She sleeps her way into the fucking program and now she’s coming up here snooping around.”

Rogers gripped Younger’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Tim. After all, Sinclair is the head of this program.”

“So he gets to bed her, big fucking deal,” Younger grumbled. “He wants me to produce test results so he can write papers about them and get his name in the journals. Well, if that’s what he’s after, he’d damned well better leave me alone so I can get the fucking results he wants.”