“It’s all about negotiating leverage,” Moses replied.“It’s hard to believe the town wants to put 500 construction men in the unemployment li...e in the middle of the construction season,” I said.“Well, let’s change the game a little bit. Tear up the contract with Q-town and make it a two part contract. Part one is to be the sewage and water pipes from the town to the gun club. That will take in Morton, the Morton water tower, the Crash Motel, and the gun club and get the pipes just a few miles. Williams, Mr. Hennessey, and I stayed on the sidelines. I explained to them what I was looking for, and Hennessey gave me an appraising look."Clever," he said, perhaps a little grudgingly. His comment made me think of Erin and our conversation on the beach. My knee-jerk reaction was to come back with "No, I'm not," but I kept my mouth shut. You can rarely get into too much trouble by saying too little.Both teams set up in the common lineup. I let them play for about fifteen minutes, watching. Instead of speaking aloud, they wanted him to think his statements as output through the implant, then repeat either what they said in translation, or read aloud a printed one that appeared on a screen. When he displayed greater affinity for repeating the audio translation, and they rated him healed enough to accept some input from the second implant, they had him practice talking to either Malcolm or Veronyka while one of them spoke to him in another language. That part wasn’t so easy, not at. That left little else but to withdraw. No man feels vanquished on the field of endeavor with a woman without something of a let down, and I was beginning to feel my day, for all the promise with which it had started out, going right down the drain. Withdrawing with honor and grace is possibly one of man’s most difficult and demanding maneuvers, and none of us ever do so easily… most of us never manage it at all. I leaned on the railing as the silence between us drew out to unbearable lengths,.