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the truck disappeared up the road, he snapped on the juice to the property defenses. He always looked forward to seeing Caitlin, but he was glad she was gone. For a moment there, she had looked so much like Johanna.
    In a heavy rain, the copter swooped down the approach to Minerva/Portland, skimming over a vast and uniform lattice of Company buildings, a land-devouring sprawl that—combined with the other corporate holdings of EoSap and TidalSphere—stretched from Portland to Eugene. Helice Maki gazed out the rain-splashed canopy at the squat office buildings glued together with parking lots and roads.
    Banking, the copter provided a view of the Columbia River slinking through the city, and in the distance, Mount Hood’s white cone. These were the only things that hadn’t changed about Portland, covered as it was with Company warrens stretching from here to the horizon. Dense canyons of office buildings might be smarter use of the land, but the masses preferred ample parking for their custom transport rigs. Helice shook her head. As the ultramodern world spun toward its sapient destiny, some things remained impervious to good planning and higher math.
    In the cool cabin, her business suit sent a surge of warmth to maintain her comfort zone, but her hands were clammy from nerves. This was her first board meeting at Minerva, the Earth’s fourth-richest Company. Slipping into fifth position, as Stefan Polich had admitted over drinks. Helice thought the events on the Appian II would change all that, but only if managed wisely, a task CEO Stefan Polich might fumble.
    Approaching for landing, the copter sped toward the roof pad of a cavernous building housing at least eight thousand workers. As the craft settled on the roof, security crew sprinted across the pad to open the hatch, then stood back as Helice hopped out, ignoring helping hands. A short distance off, Stefan Polich stood, so lean he looked like he might disappear if he stood sideways.
    He hurried forward, waving at the pilot, calling him by name. Helice winced. It was the wrong name. Stefan was starting to lose his edge.
    “Helice, how was the ride on the beanstalk?” He held an umbrella for her, ushering her into the building. Stefan handed the dripping umbrella to a staffer.
    “It was fun.” The space elevator was fun and had given her some time to prepare herself to meet the company on new terms—equal terms, as Minerva’s latest partner. And to begin to put her stamp on things—starting with the proper handling of Titus Quinn.
    Dismissing the security staff, Stefan led the way in his blue jogging suit and sneakers, making Helice feel overdressed. The black fabric of her suit sparkled now and then with little computing tasks. She stranded the data from her suit into the company data tide, that omnipresent stream of data cached in data structures embedded in the walls and carried by light beams through the work environment.
    Amid his long strides, Stefan glanced at her. “He said no.”
    “I know he said no. Titus will change his mind.” It was essential. They needed his experience with the adjoining region, as it had been dubbed. Minerva’s great hope was that the adjoining region, if it existed beyond the quantum level and if they could penetrate it—mighty ifs, no doubt—that it might be a path, plunging through the universe in a warped course, giving access to the stars. An access that might not rip apart a stellar transport like a barn in a tornado.
    Stefan said, “He likes to be called Quinn, now.”
    “I heard.” Why did people insist on telling her things she already knew?
    Stefan kept up a good pace, in his habit of using the Company’s long corridors to stay in shape. “He ran Lamar off the property.”
    “I know that,” Helice said. “Even the threat about the brother . . . what was his name?”
    “Bob.”
    “Even that made no difference. But we’ll let him stew a few days. He’ll come around.” When he did, when he agreed to