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dipping in where he wanted, like a hummingbird seeking the sweet bulbs. Eventually he worked his way around to Benjamin, lifting eyebrows as he approached, his face in fact running through the entire suite of ironic messages, very Euro, before shooting out a hand and saying, “Kingsley Dart. Liked the talk.”
    Firm handshake. “You seemed to disagree with most of it.”
    A shrug. “Testing the ideas, just testing.”
    He said, a little testily, Benjamin thought. “I had dropped those viewgraphs, the proof, out of the talk. I didn’t think most of the audience would care.”
    Abrupt nods, three very quick, then a long one, as though deliberating. “Probably right. Only people like me and thee care.”
    Ah , Benjamin thought, instant inclusion in the fraternity of people-like-us . “It’s a major point, I should have brought it up.”
    “No, you were right, would’ve blunted your momentum.”
    Why is he being so chummy ? Channing’s glance asked, eyebrows pinched in. He had no idea. Not knowing where to go with this conversation, he said, “My fiancée, Channing Blythe,” and they went through the usual presentations. But Kingsley kept eyeing him with a gaze that lapsed into frowning speculation, as though they were still feeling each other out. And maybe they were. Within minutes they were at it, throwing ideas and clipped phrases back and forth, talking the shorthand of those who spent a lot of time living in theirheads and were glad to meet someone who shared the same interior territory. It was the start of a formal friendship and a real, never acknowledged rivalry, two poles that defined them in the decades that followed.
     
    Twenty years. Could it have been that long?
    And now here he was, the famous Royal Astronomer, first on the scene when something potentially big was breaking. Perfect timing was a gift, and Kingsley had it.
    Forcing a smile onto his stiff face, Benjamin felt a sharp, hot spike of genuine hatred.

4
    Channing planned her invasion of the High Energy Astrophysics Center carefully. First, what were the right clothes to stage a dramatic reappearance at work, after a month away, presumed by all to be no longer a real player?
    When she had worked at NASA Headquarters the dress code had been easy: modified East Coast style, basically a matter of getting her blacks to match. Did a mascara-dark midlength skirt go with a charcoal turtleneck? Close enough and she was okay for either NASA’s labyrinths, the opera, or a smoky dive.
    But amid tropical glare and endless vibrant bougainvillea, her outfits had seemed like dressing as a vampire at an Easter egg hunt. Here, slouchy sweaters and scuffed tennis shoes appeared at “dressy casual” receptions, right next to Italian silk ties, subtle diamond bracelets, and high heels sinking into the sandy sod. She had seen jeans worn with a tiara, “leisure gowns” looking like pajamas, and a tux top with black shorts. Yet finding a studied casual look took her an hour of careful weighing, all to seem as though she had thrown them on fifteen minutes ago without a second thought. On top of that, you never knew how the day would proceed later, whether you were dressing for an evening on a humid, warm patio or inside, in air-conditioning set for the comfort zone of a snow leopard. Maddening .
    She eyed herself carefully in the mirror. Now, thanks toweight loss, she had a great, tight butt: Gluteus to the Maximus ! But her breasts, once ample enough, thank you, were sagging, or as she preferred to think in TV terms, losing their vertical hold.
    Getting over vanity had been the hardest part of adjusting to the cancer. A vain man would check himself out passing a mirror. An absolutely ordinary woman could pick out her reflections in store windows, spoons, bald men’s heads. Channing, as a photogenic astronaut type, had been ever-aware of How She Looked. All women faced the Looks Issue, as she had thought of it as a teenager, whether as a positive element or a