Jake nodded ruefully. It was a habit he couldn’t seem to break; he was always fearful of showing up late, so he usually arrived a little early. Sometimes embarrassingly early. He tried to bolster his self-confidence by remembering Admiral Nelson’s claim that he owed his success in life to always being a quarter of an hour early for everything. Some people were nettled when he showed up early; they expected their guests to be fashionably late. Jake had never learned how to do that.

Commenting absently on the seasonably hot weather, Mrs. Cardwell showed Jake into the living room. “Lev’s in the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll fetch him for you.”

The Cardwells’ home always looked to Jake like something out of a children’s tale: the rooms were small, ceilings low. There was a fireplace in the living room, dark and empty in midsummer. Bookshelves lined the walls. Upholstered old sofa and armchairs that felt more comfortable to Jake than the secondhand furniture in his own apartment.

Leverett Cardwell stepped into the living room with a pair of tall beer-filled glasses in his hands. He was in his shirtsleeves, but his usual jaunty little bow tie was knotted beneath his round chin.

“Sit down, Jake,” he said. “Relax.” Handing one of the glasses to Jake, he asked, “How did things go today?”

By the time Mrs. Cardwell announced dinner, Jake had told Lev about the test run and the tension between Tim Younger and Glynis Colwyn.

Cardwell shook his head. “Personalities. They always get in the way of progress.”

They sat at the undersized dining room table, barely big enough to hold four, as Mrs. Cardwell brought in a platter of roast pork. It sizzled and smelled delicious. Jake suppressed a grin. In all the years he’d had dinner at the Cardwells he couldn’t remember Mrs. Cee cooking anything but roast pork. He wondered if she knew how to cook anything else.

“So they’re making progress with the bigger generator?” Lev prompted, once his wife had served out their portions.

With a fork in his right hand, Jake said, “Forty-eight megawatts this morning.”

“That’s good. How long did the run last?”

“About a minute or so.”

Lev nodded absently. “They’ll have to do some long-duration runs before they can get the utilities interested.”

Jake swallowed a chunk of pork, then said, “If the MHD system really is more efficient than ordinary power generators, that could give Tomlinson an energy plank for his platform. If he runs.”

“Oh, he’ll run, all right,” Lev said. “He’s just being careful about when he announces that he’s running.”

“Politics,” Jake muttered.

With his quizzical little smile, Cardwell said, “Politics is the way things get done, Jake. Remember that. A politician is someone who can get free people to work together. It’s not always a dirty business.”