vise you to wear asbestos clothing."

Cowder took the thing and looked at it. "Thanks, Mr. Gabriel," he said
honestly. "Maybe the kids will go on to using something else if
vibroblades don't work, but I think I'd prefer a rocket in the head to
being carved by a vibro."

"To be honest," Mike said, "I think the vibro is just a fad among the
JD's now, anyway. You know--if you're one of the real biggies, you carry
a vibro. A year from now, it might be shock guns, but right now you're
chicken if you carry anything but a vibroblade."

Cowder dropped the shield generator into his coat pocket. "Thanks again,
Mr. Gabriel. We'll do you a favor sometime."

6

The firm of M. R. GABRIEL, POWER DESIGN was not a giant corporation, but
it did pretty well for a one-man show. The outer office was a gantlet
that Mike the Angel had to run when he came in the next morning after
having spent the night at a hotel. There was a mixed and ragged chorus
of "Good morning, Mr. Gabriel" as he passed through. Mike gave the nod
to each of them and was stopped four times for small details before he
finally made his way to his own office.

His secretary was waiting for him. She was short, bony, and plain of
face. She had a figure like an ironing board and the soul of a Ramsden
calculator. Mike the Angel liked her that way; it avoided complications.

"Good morning, Mr. Gabriel," she said. "What the hell happened here?"
She waved at the warped door and the ribbons of electrostatic tape that
still lay in curls on the floor.

Mike told her, and she listened to his recitation without any change of
expression. "I'm very glad you weren't hurt," she said when he had
finished. "What are you going to do about the apartment?"

Mike opened the heavy door and looked at the wreckage inside. Through
the gaping hole of the shattered window, he could see the towering
spires of the two-hundred-year-old Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
"Get Larry Beasley on the phone, Helen. I've forgotten his number, but
you'll find him listed under 'Interior Decorators.' He has the original
plans and designs on file. Tell him to get them out; I want this place
fixed up just like it was."

"But what if someone else...." She gestured toward the broken window and
the cathedral spires beyond.

"When you're through talking to Beasley," Mike went on, "see if you can
get Bishop Brennan on the phone and switch him to my desk."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Within two hours wo