safety. Everybody gets what they want … more or less.”
“You’re getting to be a devious manipulator.”
He put on a haughty expression. “No, I am utilizing my twenty years of experience as a capable administrator to make a fair, efficient, and productive decision.”
Marjorie laughed.
He reached out and clasped her to him. “But I can be a devious manipulator when I—”
The phone buzzed.
“Drat!” Archer snapped.
“Let it go,” Marjorie said, still in his arms.
But he turned enough to see the data bar on the bottom of the phone screen: Rodney Devlin was calling.
“Red?” Archer muttered. “What’s he want at this time of night?”
Marjorie pulled back slightly and murmured, “There’s only one way to find out.”
KITCHEN
“Sorry to drag you down here at this time o’ night,” Rodney Devlin said.
Looking at the man, Archer realized that the old Red Devil was aging. Gray streaks in his hair. His luxuriant mustache was turning thin and gray, too. Time for rejuvenation therapy, Archer thought. Maybe he doesn’t realize it yet. Or doesn’t want to admit it to himself.
“I imagine it’s something important, Red,” Archer said.
Devlin was standing behind a long table, a row of ovens behind him. Archer thought of the table as Red’s version of a desk, a piece of furniture that established his status. A wooden block on Red’s left held an array of knives. A heavy cleaver lay on the tabletop at his left.
The kitchen was eerily quiet. Archer rarely saw the galley when it wasn’t filled with people, buzzing and reverberating with a hundred conversations, plates and silverware clattering, squat little serving robots trundling everywhere. Now it was dark and quiet, everything at a standstill, a few pools of light scattered through the shadows like lonely islands in a wide, engulfing sea.
“It’s important, all right,” Devlin said. His usual lighthearted toothy grin was gone: He looked deadly serious.
“You’ve decided to leave the station?” Archer guessed.
Devlin’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Leave? Why would I leave?”
Archer shrugged. “Why not? You must have tucked away a considerable nest egg after all these years. Don’t you want to go back Earthside and retire in ease?”
Devlin’s lean face twisted into a scowl. “Earthside? Back to that zoo?”
“It’s home, isn’t it?”
“Do you think of it as
That stopped Archer. He hadn’t been back to Earth for nearly ten years, he realized, and that was just for a brief scientific conference. Both his children lived in Selene; when he and Marjorie visited them they never even thought about hopping across to Earth.
“This is home,” Devlin said, tapping a fingertip on the stainless steel–topped table. “Crikey, the last I saw of Melbourne, the city was half underwater from the bloody greenhouse flooding.”
“But…”
“Grant, I don’t remember much of what they pushed down my throat in school, but I remember one line from some long poem they made me read: ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.’ This ain’t hell, o’course. But Earth ain’t heaven, either.”
He’s right, Archer admitted to himself. This is home. Puzzled, he asked, “Then just what do you want to see me about?”
“You don’t approve of me, do you? Never did.”
Archer hesitated before replying, “If you mean the extracurricular things you do—”
Devlin laughed. “Extracurricular. Westfall calls it illegal.”
“Mrs. Westfall?”
“She said she could chuck me in jail if she took a notion to.”
“Katherine Westfall threatened you?”
All traces of a smile gone from his face, Devlin replied, “Why d’you think I asked you t’meet me here in the kitchen after midnight? Instead of in your office durin’ regular hours?”
Archer immediately understood. “So she won’t know that we’ve talked together.”
Devlin gave him a sly grin. “Right. That lady’s got spies all over this station. She knows just about everything that goes on around here.”
Archer realized that he had suspected something like that, but apparently Westfall’s tentacles were more deeply entwined in the station’s operations than he had thought.
“And she’s putting pressure on you?” he asked.
Devlin said, “She’s squeezin’ me, Grant. Squeezin’ me hard.”
“What does she want?”
“Nanomachines.”
Archer felt as if an electric shock jolted through him. “What on Earth does she want nanomachines for? What type of nanos?”
With a shrug, Devlin said, “Gobblers, I think you call ’em.”
“Good Lord!”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. They’re dangerous, ain’t they?”
“They could be. Extremely dangerous.”
Very calmly, Devlin said, “If I don’t give ’er what she wants she’ll yank me outta here and send me back Earthside to face a judge and jury.”
“I won’t permit it,” Archer said. “I’ll protect you, Red.”
His knowing smirk returned. “Protect me? How? I’m guilty. You know that, Grant. I’m a smuggler. A drug dealer. A sex procurer.”
“VR sims,” Archer said, weakly.
“She could pile up enough evidence to land me in jail for lots o’ years.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Devlin said flatly. “She’s got me by the short hairs.”
“Then … what do you want to do?”
“That’s my business, Grant. You don’t want t’know and I don’t aim to tell you. I’ve got it figured out, but I don’t want you gettin’ in my way.”
Archer felt his brows knitting in perplexity. “I don’t understand, Red.”
“I’ll do what I’ve got to do,” Devlin said. “I’m tellin’ you now, man to man, that I won’t do anything to put this station in danger. This is my home, y’know. I’m not goin’ to let gobblers loose and turn the whole place into a gray goo.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Like I said, you don’t want t’know. I just want you to rest easy that I don’t aim to hurt this station or anybody in it.”
Archer couldn’t think of anything to say. Devlin’s been on station
Looking at Devlin’s taut, rebellious expression, Archer asked himself, Can I stop him? Short of locking him up and tipping off Westfall that I know she’s trying to use him, can I prevent the Red Devil from doing what he thinks he has to do?
