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Parsons.
    They were beautiful. Peaceful. And cold.
    “The fish are fine.”
    “Good, good. Well, I’ll let you go. Thank you for the call.”
    “Happy birthday.”
    Parsons hung up and stared at his empty mug for a moment. Then he checked the time—a little early to be going in. He could sit in his office and read in the quiet…
    Or he could do the same in his kitchen. He grabbed the paper and shook it open. More trouble with Cuba, a new steakhouse opening downtown, and the Ladies’ Horticultural Society would be—
    He snapped the paper shut. There was nothing interesting there. Instead, he picked up the notes Dr. Eason had handed him. He’d shoved them into his briefcase right after she’d given them to him, but he’d been swamped all night fixing a report on rocketry for Jensen.
    As he paged through her notes, he realized she’d lied. This wasn’t just about the life support systems; there were notes here on improving every aspect of computing at ASD. Not anything so formal as official suggestions—more like she was thinking aloud.
    If he wasn’t misreading this, she was testing the political climate. She’d find soon enough he didn’t give a damn about the politics; he only wanted the mission to succeed. Oh, he’d use the internal politics to get his way, when needed—he wasn’t stupid—but jockeying his way through the pecking order held no appeal.
    She’d given him these suggestions to see what he might do with them and thereby get a bead on him. Maybe.
    Or perhaps she was as committed to success as he was and didn’t give a damn about the politics either.
    She’d slipped in a journal article on thin-film memory with a note attached to it. He’d never even heard of thin-film memory, but he supposed she kept her eye on everything new in computing.
    Ultra fast, but looks expensive to produce. Keep in mind for future applications?
    Her handwriting was slashing, nearly illegible—as if she were trying to write as quickly as she thought, but couldn’t quite keep up. These sprawling, untidy letters were quite at odds with the polished, attractive face she presented.
    She should probably have her notes typed from now on—no one else was going to be able to read this.  
    It was too bad. He’d miss seeing the evidence she wasn’t quite as controlled, as contained, as she appeared.
    He tucked the article and her annotation back into the file and started from the beginning, methodically working his way through what she’d given him.

C HAPTER T HREE

    May 1961

    The start of this meeting, like so many others Charlie had attended these three months at ASD, was delayed. In this case, it was because Hal Reed was selfish and couldn’t be bothered to be punctual. He thought his time was more valuable than anyone else’s, and he seemed to be engaged in some kind of turf war with Parsons. Charlie’s only consolation was that Hal’s tardiness infuriated the Director of Engineering and Development to near madness, and it was fun to watch.
    Across the conference table, Parsons was scribbling on the carbon copy of a memo. He glanced at the clock, sighed, and wrote some more. Then he repeated the pattern, but this time his pen bit into the memo more deeply. If Hal didn’t appear soon, Parsons was going to reduce the thing to ribbons.
    For all her intentions of making a schematic of him, Parsons didn’t make any more sense than he had the day he’d hired her. The man was so tightly wound he made her look like a giddy schoolgirl. He was dour and a meddler. There wasn’t a project at ASD he wasn’t sticking his fingers into as far as she could tell.
    And he was also a damn fine project manager.
    Because he was an engineer, he had a respect for the process she’d never seen before. He expected perfection, true. When you told him a thing was done, that it would work a certain way and under certain conditions, he expected your word to be a guarantee. But he also wanted you to have the things you needed to