That was unfair. He felt wronged. “I’m getting what we both want, Sarah. That’s all that’s important.”

Her eyes were closed, she looked pained. “It’s just that I don’t like this side of you. It scares me. I don’t like to think you walk over people.”

“Then delude yourself. I don’t mind.”

“Tom, I guess what scares me is that I love you so much. I feel so vulnerable.”

He wanted to hold her, to somehow reassure her. They sat silently, the space between them making movement seem impossible.

“What if you fail?” she asked in a flat voice.

“Now who’s the betrayer?”

Her hand went to the desk between them. She must want him to hold it, he could see the sparkle of tears in her eyes. “We both have a lot to lose,” she said. “You’re making this thing into a life-or-death crisis.”

“It’s been that all along. I’m just trying to use it to our advantage.”

“That’s what I hate about you! You use everything. Me. Even yourself. Sometimes I see you as so—so dark and frightening. You’re somebody I don’t know, somebody who would do anything—too much—to get what he wanted.”

They had often had versions of this conversation. Originally, Tom had dismissed it as the histrionics of an insecure woman but recently had begun to suspect that it was more deeply felt than that. Sarah’s insecurities did not extend to her career, despite its precariousness. Tom wondered how long they would last as a couple. Would she leave him over such an issue? He reached out and took the hand. He knew that she was waiting, but for what he was not quite certain. Probably she wanted him to protest, to deny the truth of what she had said. It was like Sarah to see a truth and try to enforce a more palatable illusion in its stead.

“It’s the way I am,” Tom said. “I won’t deny it. I want his job. It’s that simple. I’m better qualified. And I’ll get it too. He won’t be able to stop me.” Saying the words offered him a satisfactory illusion of confidence. Actually, what he was conscious of was fear. He might get himself fired or, worse, might end up stripped of all power, condemned to be Hutch’s batboy until the old man died.

“Let’s go someplace and drink. It’s that time.”

“This is you talking? Leaving the lab at seven P.M.? Maybe you have given up.”

“They’re running statistics on the changes in Methuselah’s blood composition. There’s nothing for me to do.”

“You have computer access? I thought that’d be cut off by now.”

“Charlie broke the codes. We’re patched in through his home computer.”