ng the first row of wires in the plug and
started in on the second. So old Liverlips thought she wasted time,
did he? Well, she'd show him. She'd get out her sixteen plugs tonight.

"Junior kept me up all night last night," Lois said. "He's cutting a
tooth."

"Yeah," Coralie said, "It's pretty rough at that age. I remember right
after Mike was born...."

Don't they ever think of anything but their kids? Alice thought. She
stopped listening to them. She heard Pete's voice again, husky and
sending little chills all through her, and his face came between her
and the plug and the white green wire she was soldering. His face,
with those blue eyes that went right through a girl and that little
scar that quirked up the corner of his mouth....

"Oh, oh," Alice said suddenly. "I've got solder on the outside of the
pin." She looked around for the alcohol.

Riuku probed. Her thoughts were easy enough to read, but just try to
translate them into anything useful.... He probed deeper. The plugs
she was soldering. He could get a good picture of them, of the wires,
of the harness lacing that Coralie was doing. But it meant nothing.
They could be making anything. Radios, monitor units, sound equipment.

Only they weren't. They were making a weapon, and this bit of
electronic equipment was part of that weapon. What part? What did the
731 plug do?

Alice Hendricks didn't know. Alice Hendricks didn't care.

The first break. Ten minutes away from work. Alice was walking back
along the aisle that separated Assembly from the men's Machine Shop. A
chance, perhaps. She was looking at the machines, or rather past them,
at the men.

"Hello, Tommy. How's the love life?" He's not bad at all. Real cute.
Though not like Pete, oh no.

The machines. Riuku prodded at her thoughts, wishing he could
influence them, wishing that just for a moment he could see, hear,
feel, _think_ as she would never think.

The machines were--machines. That big funny one where Ned works, and
Tommy's spot welder, and over in the corner where the superintendent
is--he's a snappy dresser, tie and everything.

The corner. Restricted area. Can't go over. High voltage or
something....

Her thoughts slid away from the restricted area. Should she go out for
lunch or eat off the sandwich machine? And Riuku curled inside her
mind and cursed her with his rapidly growing Earthwoman's vocabulary.

At the end of the shift he had learned nothing. Nothing about the
weapo