* * *Skip Schaefer settled back in his chair in the dining room of the Hale Lono and waited for his order of lobster. His second martini rested on the linen tablecloth in front of him, its olive slowly revolving in the icy liquid like a lone biological specimen. He shivered slightly as the last chill of Hideo Kamada's office finally left his bones.
The chill came partly from the arctic air of that bloodless room and—he allowed himself to admit—partly from Kamada himself.
He'd spent a lot of time thinking about his partner lately. Hideo was a strange one. Like upstairs just now. The problem with the rocket was eating at him, bad. He'd lost some sleep over it, too, but he felt that everything would work out okay. The next rocket would work fine.
The thing about Hideo was that
