He turned and stalked into his office.

Renata jerked her head in the direction of his retreating back and mouthed, "Go."

Claire smiled inwardly and fol owed.

Venturo landed in his chair, his face dark, and leaned back, hands on the arm rest. The door slid shut, sealing them from the rest of the offices. Claire sat.

"Sangori File," Claire began, enunciating clearly to let him tag it in his head. "Principals: Savien Sangori, head of the family, sixty-two years old, grey hair, stocky build, tendency to lick his lips when he is nervous."

"Was this in the file?" he asked.

"This was in the news footage which I watched this morning. It was recorded when he was interviewed last year in connection with insider trading."

He nodded. "Continue."

"Maureen Sangori, wife of Savien, fifty-seven years old, dark hair, lean, Combat implant of at least B level.

Prefers knives. Quick to anger. Likes the color white: white dress, white flowers, white aerial..."

It took her about an hour to recite the Sangori file.

Sangori Finances, the investment concern with net worth of one point two bil ion credits, had grown too large for the common computing solutions. The firm prepared to switch to bionet by launching the new incarnation of the management system that all owed their clients instant access to their portfolio. They were in desperate need of a bionet safety solution and Guardian Inc. was happy to provide them with one.

Venturo listened with his eyes closed without interruptions. There was always a chance that she miscalculated, but most psychers perceived and processed the information similarly. She had presented it the way her own mind analyzed it, except she preferred her cues to be visual.

"End file," she said.

Venturo opened his eyes.

A digital screen chimed. "Sangori appointment in twenty minutes, Red Conference Room."

Ven stood up, went to the door, and paused by Renata's desk. "Take her off routine processing."

"For how long?" Renata asked.

"Until further notice." Ven started down the hal way and turned, walking backward. "Come on."

Claire pointed at herself. "Me?"

"Who else?"

She caught up with him. "Where are we going?"

"To my Sangori appointment. I may need another point of view."

She hid a grin and fol owed him into the elevator.

Chapter Four

Claire strode down the hal way, her heels clicking lightly on the transparent floor, her tablet in her hand. She wore a pale green dress that set off her hair and her new tan. The day was winding down, and the week with it.

The hal way brought her to thirty-three twelve, a wide room nicknamed the Wheel. The Wheel consisted of a round common area from which a dozen office rooms branched in a circle. From above it looked like a flower with a circular middle and elongated petals.

People emerged from the offices at her approach.

Hands held out pseudopapers and data strips. She was a link to Ven and everyone wanted to get their bit in before the Friday rol ed to a close.

"Earnings projections for the next twin-week!"

"What do you want me to do about Vinogradov case?"

Marto asked.

"He will look at it this afternoon," she replied.

"What about Hawk Corp.?" Liana asked.

"Monday." Claire smiled.

"Here's the Bodia summary."

When she made it to the lift, her hands were ful . No matter how well Venturo treated his employees and how ethical he was in keeping his mind to himself, the non-psychers never could get read of a nagging suspicion that he might be scanning their thoughts. She'd been on the receiving end of these suspicions before: people who went out of their way to avoid her, never discourteous but always cautious. It made her isolated. Psychers stuck together, because the rest of the world was rarely welcoming.

Claire turned and watched the sun shine through the solar panels, as the elevator moved upward. In the month she had spent as Venturo's assistant, she managed to become an indispensable link between him and the support staff. They saw her as safe, a buffer between them and Venturo's lethal brain. It was at once so much more than she thought she would achieve and so much less than she was capable off.

The doors whispered open, and she exited the elevator, heading for Venturo's office. It was Friday. The weekend was just around the corner.

Having two days off after the lifetime of weekend consisting of half-days on Sunday seemed like a decadent luxury. The first three weekends she slept, tried take-out from the neighboring restaurants, and watched broadcasts, soaking up information about the Province of Dahlia like a sponge. She'd final y decided she had enough understanding of the customs and planned to venture to the Terraces this weekend.

She saw him through the translucent door at the end of the hal way: he stood by his desk, his wide back to her, talking to a digital screen, the line of his shoulders tense.

Something unpleasant.

Things with Venturo had become progressively complicated. She no longer stared in stunned silence when she saw him, but as they worked together, the facets of his personality became apparent. Venturo had a fierce intel ect and relentless drive to succeed, knitted together by a kind of arrogance evolved from understanding your own power.

Venturo had definite ideas about how things had to be and he held himself to these strict standards. In the month she acted as his personal aide, she had seen him furious over a stupid mistake an employee made, yet when the same employee meekly came to the slaughter, Venturo treated him with tact and flawless politeness. On two occasions, Ven ran around the building, trying to hide from his aunt and an invitation to some family function, until Lienne lost her patience and turned her mind into a glowing beacon of light, mind-scanning the place for him, but in their interactions he would be respectful to her without fail.

It was this control that drew her in. The more she learned about him, the more she was drawn to him. That and the smal , seemingly insignificant things he did for her.

He opened the door for her. She had discovered that the drink machine in the Wheel dispensed tea in thirty different flavors, and after a hard day of work, when Ven would make his evening pilgrimage to get himself a coffee, he would bring her a cup of hot tea. He sought her opinion, and he would ask her seemingly random things. Did she have a chance to go the Botanical Gardens? Has she been to the Terraces?

He must've been something else on the bionet. She would never know. He would never see her on the bionet either.

Lucky for her, her ability to control her emotions was never in question. She was never less than professional in their interactions.

The office door slid open. Claire stepped inside.

Venturo turned. She read fury in his eyes. His mind churned and broiled. "We're about to lose the Sangori account."

What? "To whom?" she asked.

"De Solis Security."

DSS. The Guardian's biggest rival.

Claire reviewed the facts. Bionet safety consisted of two phases: the establishment and the maintenance. The establishment meant instal ation of static security mechanisms and structuring the bionet in the way that would lead an intruder into these defenses The maintenance consisted of responding to active threats. Of the two, the establishment phase was the most costly and the most labor-intensive. Because of the danger involved, the maintenance brought in a larger amount of money but required fewer man-hours.

Venturo had given Sangori a very good deal on the establishment to entice them into employing Guardian, Inc.

He had been planning to recoup his costs on the maintenance fees.

The contract had been signed. They'd been working on the establishment phase for the past three weeks and it was completed this morning. Giving it up would mean DSS would reap all of the benefits of their groundwork.

A clause in the contract gave Sangori legal means to terminate it after the establishment. The clause was standard, but in every meeting Venturo and Savien had, the head of Sangori family had asserted his intention to continue with the maintenance phase. He broke his word.

The anger in Ven's mind told her they had no legal recourse.

"How much do we stand to lose?" she asked.

"Two mil ion credits," he said. "It's not the money."

"I don't understand," she said.

"Savien Sangori doesn't have the expertise to engineer this scheme on his own. He knows money; he doesn't understand bionet. This took a psycher, someone who had looked at the amount of work involved and quoted him exact numbers prior to him ever walking into my building. DDS had conspired with him. They must've offered him monthly maintenance at a lower price if he managed to get the establishment out of me. They set us up."

Now she understood. "It's about pride then."

He faced her. "Yes. More, it's about business. I've been double-crossed. Suckered like a fool. I provide security. Would you want a gul ible fool to protect your data?"

"A psycher's gul ibility has no bearing on the destructive potential of his mind." She almost bit the last word. She shouldn't have said this.

Ven looked at her, his mind focusing on hers. If he looked too closely, she would be outed.

"Forgive me," Claire said. "I've been trying to read some research in my spare time. I may have misunderstood."

He considered it for a long second and let it go.

"You understand perfectly," he said. "But not many other people do."

He pul ed his doublet off the back of his chair.

"Where are you going?"

"To have a conversation with Savien Sangori. I'm going to attempt to explain the facts of life to him."

"Those facts being?" she asked.

"I make a dangerous enemy," he said, "and Sangori is an old provincial family. They had never before betrayed the integrity of their family name to make a credit. I'm curious why they decided to start now."

"What if he refuses to talk to you?"

"I'm not planning on giving him a chance to decline."