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of those are likely to get tangled up with family matters,
particularly when you’re talking about a very big, very rich, and
very complicated family like the Nakada clan.
    If anyone was going to try to kill
Grandfather Nakada, a member of his own family would have both the
best reasons and the best chances. And any time anyone’s that rich,
that powerful, that famous, and that old, he’s likely to be a
target.
    But old Yoshio thought he was surprising me,
so I just said, “What makes you think so?”
    He frowned.
    “Before I tell you any more,” he said, “I
must first know whether you will work for me to investigate this,
to find the assassin.”
    I wished he hadn’t said that, because this
was all very interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly shocking, and
I’d wanted to hear more before I turned him down.
    But I wasn’t going to get the chance.
    “I’m sorry, Mis’ Nakada,” I said, “but I
don’t think so.”
    He stared at me silently for a moment, and
then blinked, just once, and in a low, hard voice demanded, “Why
not?”
    Good tone he used there. Gave an impression
of hidden strength, and it wasn’t a voice you’d expect from an old
man. He had to be getting on toward two hundred, but you’d never
have known it from the voice.
    “Because,” I said, “it’s too damn dangerous.
I’d be out of my depth. You need a major security firm if you want
to be protected from assassins. I’m an investigator, I’m not a
bodyguard.”
    “Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “I’m not looking for a
bodyguard. I have security people, plenty of them. I even
still trust some of them. But none of them is as likely to track
down the person—or people—behind the assassination attempt as you
are. Their software has almost certainly been corrupted. All the software in my entire corporation may be infected. Yours is
not. And I know that none of my major competitors, nor any of my
family, has bought your services; I cannot be sure whether anyone
else has been bought.”
    I sighed. “That’s fine for why you want me ,” I said, “since you can’t trust anyone local and
there aren’t many private investigators stupid enough to move into
unfamiliar territory the way I did. But there’s nothing there about
why I would want you —why I’d want this job, I
mean.”
    “I will pay well, of course,” he said, waving
a hand in dismissal. “I paid you 492,500 credits for the work you
did on Epimetheus, and my life is worth far more to me than my
great-granddaughter’s reputation. Would two million credits, in
addition to expenses, be enough to convince you?”
    That was tempting. Two million bucks is a lot
of juice, especially on Prometheus. I thought about it for a
moment.
    “In advance?” I said. “And no limit on
expenses?”
    He blinked again, slowly and deliberately.
“Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “be realistic about this. The money is not
important to me. But if I pay everything up front, you will have no
incentive to complete the job. And if I place no limit on your
expenses, that would make it even worse.”
    “What did you have in mind, then?” I asked. I
might as well hear his offer, I thought.
    “One million credits in advance, to be held
in escrow by a bank not affiliated with Nakada Enterprises. A
corporate expense account equivalent to that of a junior member of
the Board of Directors. Upon completion of the job to my satisfaction—no one else’s—an additional million credits. And I
believe I have some additional incentives to offer.”
    “Go on,” I said.
    “If I die, under any circumstances that could
conceivably be suspicious, before the payment of your full fee,
then your expense account will be terminated immediately, and
audited. The second million will be forfeit, and the first million
will be distributed by the escrow trustee between yourself and my
heirs in whatever fashion the trustee deems reasonable after
reading your final report.”
    I nodded, and got ready to turn the