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plane?”
    “He wanted to know what I wanted to eat, of all things. That man!”
    Two aides from New Babylon entered and greeted Carpathia with embraces. One motioned for Earl and Rayford to join him in a corner of the hangar as far from the Condor 216 as they could get. Rayford had purposely avoided staring at the monstrous aircraft. Though it sat facing the door that would open to the runway and was more than 150 feet from where they stood, still the Condor seemed to dominate the hangar. Rayford had known from a glance that here was a plane that had been in development for years, not just months. It was clearly the biggest passenger plane he had ever seen, and it was painted such a brilliant white that it seemed to disappear against the light walls in the dimly lit hangar. He could only imagine how difficult it would be to spot in the sky.
    Carpathia’s aide, dressed just like Carpathia in a natty black suit, white shirt, and bloodred tie with a gold stickpin, leaned in close to Rayford and Earl and spoke earnestly.
    “Potentate Carpathia would like to be airborne as soon as possible. Can you give us an estimated time of departure?”
    “I’ve never even seen this plane,” Rayford said, “and I have no idea-”
    “Rayford,” Earl interrupted, “I’m telling you, you can fly this plane within half an hour. I know you; I know planes. So trust me.”
    “Well, that’s interesting, Earl, but I won’t make any promises until I’ve been put through the paces.”
    The Carpathia wanna-be turned to Halliday. “Are you available to fly this plane, at least until Steele here feels he’s-”
    “No sir, I am not!” Halliday said. “Just let me have Steele for thirty minutes and then let me get back to Chicago.”
----
    Donny Moore proved more of a talker than Buck appreciated, but he decided feigning interest was a small price for the man’s expertise. “So, you’re a phone systems guy, but you sell computers-”
    “On the side, right, yes sir. Just about double my income that way. Got a trunk full of catalogs, you know.”
    “I’d like to see those,” Buck said.
    Donny grinned. “I thought you might.” He opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack, apparently one of each of the manufacturers he represented. He spread six out before Buck on the coffee table.
    “Whoa,” Buck said, “I can see already there are going to be too many choices. Why don’t you just let me tell you what I’m looking for, and you tell me if you can deliver?”
    “I can tell you right now I can deliver,” Donny said. “Last week I sold a guy thirty sub-notebooks with more power than any desktop anywhere, and-”
    “Excuse me a moment, Donny,” Buck said. “Did you hear that printer quit?”
    “I sure did. It just stopped now. It’s either out of paper, out of ink, or done with whatever it was doing. I sold that machine to Bruce, you know. Top of the line. Prints regular paper, continuous feed-whatever you need.”
    “Let me just check on it,” Buck said. He rose and peeked into the inner office. The screen on Bruce’s laptop had already suspended itself. No warning lights on the printer told of shortages of ink or paper. Buck pushed a button on the laptop and the screen came alive. It indicated the print job was finally over. Buck guessed there were about a hundred pages left from the five-thousand-page box Loretta had run through the printer. What a treasure, Buck thought.
    “When’s Bruce gonna be back here?” Buck heard Donny ask from the other room.
----
    Rayford and Earl boarded the Condor alone. Earl held a finger to his lips and Rayford assumed he was looking for bugs. He checked the intercom system thoroughly before speaking. “You never know,” he said.
    “Tell me about it,” Rayford said.
    “You tell me about it, Rayford!”
    “Earl, I’m much more in the dark than you are. I didn’t even know you were involved in this project. I had no idea you were working for Carpathia. You knew I was, so why