Word was Tanzan Mino himself—none other than the CEO of the Daedalus Corporation—had flown in this morning, together with his personal bodyguards and aides. The story was he wanted hands-on control of the first hypersonic test flight, wanted to be calling the shots in Flight Control when Daedalus I made history.
Finally. The Big Man has decided to show his face.
"Yuri Andreevich, just a minute. Slow down."
He recognized the voice immediately and glanced around to see Nikolai Vasilevich Grishkov, the portly Soviet chief mechanic, just emerging from the West Quadrant. His bushy eyebrows hung like a pair of Siberian musk-ox horns above his gleaming dark eyes.
"Have you seen her?" Grishkov was shuffling toward him.
"Seen who?" He examined the mechanic's spotless white coveralls. Jesus! Even the support crews on this project were all sanitized, high-tech.
"The new woman. Kracevia, moi droog. Ochen kracevia. Beautiful beyond words. And she is important. You can tell just by looking."
"Nikolai, there's never been a woman in this facility." He laughed and continued on toward Security. "It's worse than a goddam troop ship. You've finally started hallucinating from lack of pezdyonka."
"Yuri Andreevich, she's here and she's Soviet." The chief mechanic followed him. "Some believe she arrived this morning with the CEO, but nobody knows who she is. One rumor is she's Vera Karanova."
"Who?" The name was vaguely familiar.