“Listen to me, Art. Don’t do this. We’ve got a fine ship there. And a fine manufacturing process. All we have to do is fine-tune a few items, and we can keep right on course, keep on doing what we’re doing, all the way to Mars. Nothing needs fixing, Art. I really believe that.”

“I know you do,” Cane said. His voice was harder, colder. “The trouble is, JK, there aren’t many people left who agree with you.”

Lee flew home, and told Jennine what had happened. He felt a stab of anger, of resentment. “I suppose you’re glad. I suppose you think this is good news.”

Her tired, slack face showed no irritation. “Oh, JK.” She came across to him and held him.

After a while, he felt some of the tension leaking out of him, and he lifted his arms to encircle her.

The next day he went in to the plant. He drove his black T-bird into its usual parking slot, as if nothing had happened.

At her desk, Bella was in tears. He just squeezed her shoulder; he didn’t trust himself to say anything.

Inside the office they were waiting for him, lined up in front of his old gunmetal desk: Morgan, Xu, Lye, Rowen. Their faces were long, and not a damn one of them could meet his eye.

A smell of sweet-sickly cologne, of stale tobacco, wafted around Lee’s office.

There — standing behind Lee’s gunmetal desk — was Gene Tyson.

Lee went straight to Tyson and shook his hand. “Congratulations, Gene. Art is showing a lot of faith in you. You’ve got a hell of a job, but you’ve got the best people in the industry here, and I know you’re going to pull it off.”

Tyson gripped his hand. “I’ve got one big act to follow.” He sounded sincere, his big fleshy face solemn. “I’m going to need your support during the handover, obviously. JK—” He glanced around the office. “You don’t need to move out of here. It’s not necessary. I mean—”

“No.” Lee released Tyson’s hand; his own fingers felt moist from the perspiration of Tyson’s soft flesh. “No, that’s okay, Gene. Just give me a day to get out.”

“Of course.”

Then, graciously enough, Tyson left the office.

When Tyson had gone the room felt empty, purposeless.

“Damn it, JK,” Bob Rowen said suddenly, and his big round moon of a face, under its grizzle gray crew cut, looked alarmingly as if it might crumple up into tears. “I didn’t want it this way. You know that. The MEM is your ship.”

Lee took his shoulders and shook him gently. “Well, now you’ve got the ball coming out of the sky at you, boy,” he said softly. “And there isn’t a pair of hands anywhere in the industry I’d rather see under it.”