"In the past few months I have regretfully come to the same conclusion," Edward conceded reluctantly.
"What's more, I know he faked his para-profile on his marriage agency registration last year so that he could be matched with me. Or maybe he bribed my counselor. I'm still not sure which. Either way, his only goal was to get himself into the right circles here at Northville so that he could use his charisma-talent to land a good post. And darned if his plan didn't work."
"Your father and I have had a few suspicions along that line," Anna admitted. "Unfortunately, there is no way to prove that."
"I know." Orchid grinned. "Which is why I was left contemplating such a primitive sort of revenge as pushing him into a pond. But I never got the chance, thanks to Rafe. He interrupted things before I could finish. And now he's claiming that the final result wasn't even real revenge, just an accident."
"Deliberately pushing Luce into a pond would have been childish and immature," Rafe pointed out.
"But fun," Orchid said.
Anna shook her head. "So much for all those years of meta-zen-syn training." She looked at Rafe. "So you're going to stick to your story? Preston really did fall into that pond by accident?"
"Sort of," Rafe said.
Orchid pounced. "Ah-hah. I knew there was more to it than that. What, exactly, happened at the reflecting pool this afternoon?"
"If you must know, Professor Luce took a swing at me. He lost his balance when he missed. That's how he fell into the pool."
The other three gaped at him.
Orchid recovered first. "Preston tried to hit you?"
"Fortunately, one of the benefits of being a strat-talent is that I have fairly quick reflexes," Rafe murmured. "I was able to step aside."
"But why on St. Helens would Luce take a swing at you?" Edward stared at him, still astonished. "I've never noticed any violent tendencies in him. Besides, he never even met you until today."
"He was probably pissed-off because I told him that when I took control of Stonebraker Shipping I planned to review the portion of his grant funding that was derived from Stonebraker's corporate contribution to the North Institute."
Orchid stared. "You did what?"
"I strongly hinted that I had the power to see to it that any projects that listed him as primary analyst would be handed off to someone else on the institute staff."
A stunned silence descended. Rafe watched with amusement as the full impact of what he had just said hit the other three.
"My God," Orchid whispered. "You threatened to cut off a huge chunk of his grant money."
"I didn't exactly threaten," Rafe said carefully. "I pretty much promised I'd do it. I also warned him that as Stonebraker's C.E.O. I'll have a certain amount of influence with some of the other corporate heads who contribute to the institute."
"So much for being primitive." Edward's face screwed up into a strange expression. "What a perfect meta-zen-syn revenge."
"Thank you," Rafe said. "I like to think I'm not entirely a victim of my throwback genes."
The look on Edward's face got odder. And then he exploded with laughter.
Anna's eyes sparkled with humor. She clapped a hand over her mouth and dissolved into muffled giggles.
Orchid was the only one who did not look wholeheartedly amused. There was a distinctly wary gleam in her gaze. "I assume that just because you're cutting Preston's funding, you won't withdraw corporate financial support from the institute altogether?"
"No, I'll probably increase it. My grandfather has always been too tight when it came to funding basic research. My own view is that Stonebraker needs to spend more, not less in that area. Long term, the institute projects are extremely valuable to us and every other company on the planet."
Orchid grinned. "An excellent corporate philosophy. Very forward thinking. Guess that's why they'll be giving you the big office in a couple of months."
"I don't think it's my corporate philosophy that's going to get me that big office," Rafe said. "I think it has more to do with the fact that I won't let them give it to anyone else."
Orchid sighed. "There is that aspect of the situation."
Rafe looked at Edward. "I do have one question concerning Dr. Preston Luce."
Edward got his laughter under control. "What's that?"
"I understand that it was his connection to Orchid that got him into the right circles here at Northville. And I realize that he does have some charisma-talent. But I still can't see your personnel department hiring him without doing a basic background check."
"Oh, Luce had excellent references," Edward said. "He came to the institute with glowing recommendations from his former employer."
"True." Anna grimaced. "They were so good, that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he wrote some of them himself."
Rafe looked at Orchid. "You said that he used you to get himself here."
Orchid shuddered. "Don't remind me."
"How did he meet you?"
Orchid blinked in surprise. "I explained that. We met through my marriage agency, Affinity Associates."
"No, I mean how did he find you? How did he know where you were registered? Hell, how did he even know that you were from Northville and that he could use you? He must have learned a lot about you before he even went to Affinity Associates to register."
"I see what you mean." Orchid shrugged. "He probably came across my file during the time he worked at ParaSyn. He was on the staff there for a while after I left."
"Well, shit"
Edward gave him a faint frown of disapproval. "I beg your pardon?"
Rafe sat up swiftly. "It always comes back to ParaSyn, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Anna asked.
"Here's my insider stock trading tip of the day," Rafe said. "Sell your ParaSyn shares first thing in the morning."
"Why?" Edward demanded, baffled.
"Because something tells me there's a problem there."
Edward frowned. "How do you know that?"
"I just know it."
Orchid did not press him for details until the next morning when they got into the Icer for the drive back to New Seattle.
"All right, time to explain the 'well, shit,' last night, Stonebraker," she said as she buckled her seatbelt.
"Sorry." Rafe eased the car out of the driveway. "Guess that wasn't a very meta-zen-syn thing to say, was it?"
"No, but we'll leave that aside for the moment." Orchid slid the passenger window down and leaned out to wave farewell to her parents.
She did not know what to make of the expressions on their faces as they stood watching the Acer pull out of the drive. A cross between acceptance and wistful concern, she decided. A very parental look.
It was almost as if they knew something about her future that she herself did not. Whatever it was, it worried them, but they had come to terms with it. She'd seen that look in their eyes on other occasions. The day she left Northville to find an apartment in New Seattle, for instance. She knew now that they had known then that she would never make her home in Northville.
Being the offspring of obsessive meta-zen-syn types could be trying, she reflected, not for the first time.
She finished waving and slid the window back into place. It sealed itself with a soft hiss.
"Why did you say it?" she asked as Rafe drove through the artfully arranged landscape of carefully situated homes and austere rock- and reflecting-pool gardens.
She realized she liked to watch him drive. He did it with the same fluid ease and controlled power that characterized all of his movements. It was probably some extremely primitive aspect of her own nature that caused her to savor such a simple and elemental aspect of a man.
"I said it because it suddenly struck me that everywhere I turn ParaSyn keeps popping up in our conversations."
"It pops up a lot because of me. If you hadn't hired me to focus for you on this case, you wouldn't have come across any references to ParaSyn."