“Your way of thinking is not important in this matter.”

“Oh, really? Whose way of thinking is?”

“No need to trouble you with that. You have a nice job with the Selvem Corporatiori.”

“What about it?” Eric said defensively.

“Big corporations have a dislike of aberrations. I know. I deal with them all the time. Why don’t you go back to Phoenix, Mr. Abbott? Go back to your friends, to your nice job while you still have it.”

A direct threat at last. Perversely, it made Eric feel better. He’d almost come to like this man. Disliking him was much easier.

“You’d ruin my career without explanation just because I’m in love with Lisa Tambor?”

Tarragon nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid that I would have to, Mr. Abbott. Without hesitation.”

“I see.” Eric seemed to consider. “I’m impressed. Impressed because you’re so confident you can do it. It would take important, high-level connections. The company respects my work.”

“I’m sure it does.” Tarragon worked at not sounding patronizing. “But not as much as it respects the opinions I can bring to bear on it.”

“I believe you. I tell you what. I will go home.”

Tarragon didn’t try to hide his relief. “That will be much better for you and everyone else concerned, Mr. Abbott.”

“If,” Eric added, “Lisa Tambor tells me to my face that she never wants to see me again as long as she lives.”

Tarragon’s relief vanished. “For just a minute there I thought you were going to be sensible, Mr. Abbott. It’s not possible for you to see her again.”

“Why isn’t it possible?”

“Because Lisa Tambor’s destiny has already been determined, and it does not include additional meetings with a junior designer from the Southwest. She has her work to perform.”

“I’m not clear on that. What kind of work does she do?”

“Something else you need not concern yourself with. Listen to me, Mr. Abbott, when I say that I am truly sorry to have to keep you in the dark about all this, but it is necessary. Just as it is necessary that you remain ignorant on your way home.”

Eric shook his head. “I never did like being ignorant. It’s important to me to know what’s going on around me.”

“Not in this instance, Mr. Abbott. It’s much better for you not to know.”

“Who plans Lisa’s destiny for her?”

“A judgmental question at best and another answer I cannot supply. I wish I could be more informative.”

But you are being informative. Eric thought coldly. He just might have considered returning home, just might, if not for one thing. Tarragon’s words hinted at a threat hovering not only over himself, but over Lisa as well. He was damned if he was going to abandon her to people like this Tarragon, or the types who had stalked him in Polikartos’s building back in Phoenix.

“We understand something of your confusion and distress, Mr. Abbott. I can tell you that we are prepared to pay your return ticket to Phoenix. We can even explain your absence to your employers in such a way that you will not suffer from it, which is more than you can say if you return by yourself. I’m told you canceled out on a very important business trip to come here. We can fix that for you.”

Power, money, information: these people have access to everything, Eric thought nervously. Who was he dealing with?

“Why do that for me? Because you’re such nice folks?” Tarragon let the sarcasm slide. “As a matter of fact we can be extremely nice folks. All we want is to avoid any difficulties.”

Read “publicity,” Eric told himself. A straight answer at last. Criminals hate publicity. It’s the one weapon they have no defense against. Illegal activities would explain many things—Polikartos’s death, the crude tactics employed against Eric in Phoenix, the ability to bribe executives or programmers at Selvern. He became aware that this man might be ready to have him hustled into a waiting vehicle outside the restaurant, to take him to a quiet place where less polite forms of persuasion might be utilized.

Lisa must be some important mobster’s unwilling mistress, or even worse. He suggested as much to Tarragon.

The amused response was not expected. If Tarragon was lying, he was doing so most effectively.

“Your inferences are hilarious, Mr. Abbott, though given the confused sequence of suppositions under which you’re operating, I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. You have to excuse me.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, too,” said Eric, suddenly angry. It seemed his opponents held all the cards, and he was tired of playing the joker. “I’m not going. I’m not interested in your one-way ticket, your threats, or your implied omnipotence. Go ahead and get me fired if you can. It’s only a job. With my qualifications I can get another anywhere.”

“You think so? Anywhere you apply you’ll find our comments waiting in personnel files.”

“Sorry, I don’t buy that. Pardon my pride, but I don’t think you have that kind of leverage with everyone. I’m too good at what I do, and what I do is mighty valuable. You can’t buy off or intimidate every advanced electronics manufacturer in the world. There are always the socialist democracies, and the off-world independents on Mars and Luna and Titan.

“You know something else? Even if you could, I still wouldn’t go back. I don’t like being pushed around. Tarragon.”

“So the two back in Phoenix found out. There are other ways of pushing, Mr. Abbott.”

“Not me. You’re not pushing me out of Nueva York and you’re not pushing Lisa and me apart.”

“Lisa-and-you now, is it? You really think you’re in love with the woman, don’t you?”

“I don’t have to think about it.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is real love. It’s not my job to decide.” He paused a moment. When he spoke again, his demeanor underwent a radical shift. Instead of demanding and threatening, it was almost as if he was pleading.

“Mr. Abbott, you strike me as a nice young fellow. Lütfen … please, continue with your bright future. There are five billion-odd people on this planet. Two and a half billion are women. Surely among all those you can find someone other than Lisa Tambor to become infatuated with? You are good-looking, intelligent, you make nice money. I should have made such a living at your age. Also, I rather like you.”

“Sure you do."

“No, damn it, I do like you. Your persistence does you credit and you’ve shown ingenuity and courage. I hate to see such attributes thrown away on a pipe dream. It doesn’t matter whether you love Lisa Tambor, or whether she somehow comes to love you. What matters is that it matters to others. People in the position to have their desires carried out. People who won’t be as understanding of you as I’m being right now.

“Do go home, Mr. Abbott. Forget about Lisa Tambor. Hold on to your memories and get on with your life. Before I met my present wife I was deeply in love several times. Each time I was convinced it would kill me to give up the woman I was in love with that day, that week, that month. Life isn’t like that, Mr. Abbott. You have choices. Make the right one now.”

“Don’t lecture me on life, Tarragon.”

“Why not? I’ve seen a great deal more of it than you, Eric Abbott. You could find far less understanding lecturers. Accepting that you may be in love with Tambor, why can you not accept that you can fall out of love with her? A little work on your part, a little pain, and all will be forgotten.” He stared earnestly at the young engineer.

“We could do more than pay your ticket home. There could be respectable financial remuneration for your”—he smiled only slightly—“emotional upset.”

“You can’t push me out, so now you’re trying to buy me out.”

Tarragon leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “You just won’t let me help you, will you, Mr. Abbott? You intend going on with this journey into the unknown even if it means sailing over the edge.”

“Even so,” Eric agreed, nodding slowly.

“I don’t understand you. You are part of a business where common sense and logic are employed to the utmost every working day. Yet in your personal affairs you act inimically to them.”