“That depends on how flexible you can be. It may be years if you insist on the move being done all at once. If you can move a bit now, a bit later, then I can match you up with other work orders. Somebody who needs to move a grand piano to the other side, so to speak.”

“That would be fine.”

He stared at the diagram for a full minute without speaking. “Hum. There is an overall problem. Your Enter-tainment areas are spread out over all levels.”

“That’s true.” Full-gravity weight lifting to zero-gee sex.

“But Education is almost all on Level Two. I assume that is an optimum gravity for learning.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any extremely concentrated masses? Things you would need a heavy ’bot to move?”

“We do have two grand pianos, a Baldwin and a Steinway.”

“From Earth?” He smiled for the first time. “We brought the oddest things.”

“They won’t be moved, though. They’re in the two concert halls. Smith and I share two upright pianos that are in his classrooms, and a harpsichord that I have in a Level Two practice room.”

“A harp—?”

“It’s an old-fashioned kind of piano.”

He shook his head, still amused. “I thought that we could duplicate any waveform with an electronic keyboard.”

“I suppose. Musicians are funny, though.” I was suddenly transported back to a couple of weeks before Launch, when I stood behind Chul’ Hermosa for an hour of Scarlatti magic, his long brown fingers hammering the ancient ivory keys with exquisitely measured passion. I could feel the bass notes in my teeth.

Would a waveform, whatever it was, do that? Would it duplicate the soft fingerpad sound when he barely stroked a high note? Not to mention the smell of wax and the hypnotic swirl of inlaid gold and mother-of-pearl. The connections with centuries past.

“Are you all right, Dr. O’Hara?”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

His expression did not radiate confidence in my thinking ability. “This is what I want you and Mr. Smith to do. Give me a list of everything both of you are in charge of—exactly where it is and approximately how much it weighs. We’ll do a first-order analysis and decide whether it would be better to relocate your things or his. Or move both of you to a third location.”

“That shouldn’t be hard. The computer must know where just about everything is.”

“The computer knows where things are supposed to be. I have to know where they actually are. You have GP auxiliaries?”

That was Personnel jargon for laborers. “Four of them, plus a medium ‘bot. I could get a heavy one from Silke Kleber with a little notice.” As soon as I said her name, I knew I shouldn’t have. Implying personal relationships with both his supervisors.

He just nodded, though. “You might prefer to requisition it through me. Same robot, one less layer of bureaucracy.