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said to his computerized communicator, “Get me on the next flight to Sydney . Book it under the name of Maxwell E. Rutherford.”
    “Maxwell E. Rutherford?”Freiberg asked.
    Dan grinned at him. “Never let the authorities know what you’re doing, if you can avoid it. I want to see what’s going on down there before I meet with Jane or anybody else.”
    “Does the ‘E’ stand for Einstein, maybe?” “Could be.”
    Freiberg almost smiled. There’s nothing that Dan or anyone else on Earth can do, he realized. But still he felt an illogical glimmer of hope that Dan was gearing up for battle.

SIX

    DAN WAS ABOUT to leave his office on the way to the launch facility when his desk phone buzzed. The screen spelled out: URGENT.
    Grumbling slightly, he pulled his personal phone from the breast pocket of his coveralls and flipped it open. As he dashed through his outer office, past his lone human secretary and out to the electric cart waiting to whisk him through the tunnel out to the launch site, he told the phone to pick up Yamagata ’s call.
    Nobuhiko Yamagata’s angular, high-cheeked face appeared in the phone’s tiny screen. He looked solemn, very unlike his usual cheerful smiling self.
    “Nobo, what’s wrong?” Dan asked as he clambered aboard the little cart. His single travel bag was already sitting next to the driver, a tong-legged mestizo with raven-black hair, beautiful enough to be a video starlet back on Earth. She had been raised on the Moon because her parents had suffered terribly from allergies in the smog and grime of their native Caracas .
    “My father,” said Nobuhiko gravely. “He is dying.” “What! Sai?”
    With a barely perceptible nod, Nobo said, “The cancer has returned. It is spreading through his body. There is no longer any hope.’
    “Oh for god’s sake,” Dan muttered. All the medical advances that they’ve made, he said to himself, and still cancer cuts us down. It’s been getting worse, seems like. More people die of it every year.
    He asked aloud, “How long..?”
    “My father has decided to end it himself. He “Nobuhiko faltered, swallowed, then went on, “He asks that you assist him.” “Me?”
    Nobo nodded, eyes closed.
    Saito Yamagata had been Dan’s boss, back in those early days on the Moon. Dan had battled for respect from the Japanese, and Sai had rewarded his toughness and drive by protecting him from the chauvinists and sadists who looked on an American as fair game for bullying—and worse. They had become friends, and together built the first of the giant solar power satellites that eventually made Japan independent of Middle Eastern oil. When Dan had gone into business for himself, Sai had backed him with investment capital. Eventually they became more than friends: associates, equals, even business partners on more than one venture.
    Dan had known Nobo from the day of his birth in the orbital infirmary attached to their construction center. Nobo with his father’s power behind him—had rescued Dan from certain death at the hands of Vasily Malik, ten years earlier. Saito’s political connections and economic strength had helped Dan to break the Russian stranglehold on space industries.
    “How soon?” Dan asked the tiny image on the hand-held phone. “Tomorrow, just after sunset,” Nobo replied.
    “Where?”
    “At the family home in Kyoto .” “I’ll be there,” Dan said.
    There was no need to change his flight to Sydney . Maxwell E. Rutherford would ride the high-boost rocket from Alphonsus to the transfer station in low Earth orbit. There Rutherford would clear customs and immigration, and hop aboard the shuttle to Sydney . Once in Australia he would take a commercial hypersonic transport to Tokyo , where a security team from Yamagata Industries would take him to Saito’s estate.
    And then Dan Randolph would help his old friend to die.
    Hell, thought Dan. Sai’s not that much older than I am. He’s too young to die.
    Jane Scanwell