Madkro didn't tell Mentor about the R-wing project. He couldn't. It was top-secret.  It was as simple as that. When he formalized the contract, one of the conditions was that the project be kept a complete secret. If he wanted to do it and wanted the money, he had to keep it a secret from all his family and friends, including Lisa. He told her the same thing he told Mentor. His job was to assemble a set of technical-manuals. If it could fix his sorry excuse for a life, sure, he could do it.

  He was brought to Lisa; they took the Windstar out for a night on the town, had champagne, excellent food, and returned to the penthouse. Lisa kissed Madkro and the new diamond ring on her finger several times on the drive home.

  At the complex, Gulok pestered him every now and then to hurry it up because he was slacking.  Gulok simply didn't understand Madkro's style, his way of doing things.  Besides, if he wanted the $20,000, he had to drag it out for at least a month. Of course, he was figuring more like $120,000 for a 6-month thing.

  He did a 4-day week, 8 hours a day, and completed the design spex in 3 weeks.  By the second month, orders were being filled for special parts, and all of the parts were not in until the third month.  Assembly began in the 3rd week of the third month and it was not completed until the second week of the 4th month.  It was put to the test for the first time in June of 1999.

  There were problems with the computer-guidance system and it was a short flight.  Madkro was scolded shortly, he defended himself, and convinced Gulok it was a minor problem. He worked on the com-guidance system for 3 weeks, refitted the R-wing, and put it to a second test.

  This time it flew up over the trees, circled back over the field by the hanger, began to wobble, and crashed to the ground. It was in the shop for a month, and Gulok was not happy. But Madkro insisted that this was a trial and error period, completely natural in the development of an R-wing innovation. Gulok obviously had a sneaky suspicion that Madkro was stalling for more money than necessary, but he was fat and in the end, saw the R-wing as his own special ticket to hordes of profit.

  The R-wing was a great, over-turned pie-plate with a diameter of 16 meters and a central hub of 5 meters wide.  An electromagnetic turbine at the underside of the hub forced 100 separate blades of super plastic-metal around the wings of the vehicle, and forced the main body of the craft upward.

  On Tuesday night, the battery went dead on the portable radio he was using and after the cassette ran down in the middle of a favorite song, he found himself feeling somewhat older, and wiser.  He was fairly certain of a solution to the latest R-wing problem, but he reconsidered the options, decided to pick up his money and valuables, and whisk Lisa off to the South Seas, on a honeymoon vacation. Could the KNP help him out?

  Suddenly, he knew what to do.  Of course, it was simple.  He'd request the leave with orders for an entire over-haul and refitting, to follow the new design-spex. It was a lot of work that the crew of technicians could do, without him, for about 3 months.

  It was getting into late summer, heading for autumn, and he needed the time off.

  Aside from the original fascist action Gulok had used to usher Madkro into the company, and the dog-boss's consistent demands, working for the company had become just another job with fringe benefits.  Of course, it was more money than he'd ever had to play with, at least on his home-planet, and it was perfectly natural for him to play along and treat it as such.  Millionaires such as Gulok expected it, as long as he did what he was contracted for.

  Gulok protested shortly but once, thought about it for a minute, then agreed to let Madkro go, for a 'paid' honeymoon and vacation to the South Seas.

  "Don't worry about the R-wing," he said to Gulok. "When I return in January, I'll complete the final adjustments, and we'll have an R-wing in the air by May."
  "Very well, Madkro. You've gotten us this far," Gulok said, somewhat reluctantly, and added, "What island are you bound for, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "We haven't decided yet," Madkro admitted.  "We have arrangements to make."
  "You might try Lakani", he suggested, "they have expedient service and the rates are quite reasonable."

  "I'll look into it," Madkro lied, and thought to himself as he left, ‘He's got to be kidding! Does he really think I'm that stupid?’

  Driving home, Madkro knew he was going to be followed, to the South Seas, by Gulok's jokers. He'd have to give them the slip somehow.  He never intended to complete the R-wing; it had a computer virus that was triggered to work with the self-destruct on January 1st, 2000. As for the blue-prints, and design-spex, one would have to understand the 'Tuniverseo' and Madkro's personal code to interpret it.

  No, whether they knew it or not, they had nothing without him, except those bits and pieces they already had and what they'd managed to learn from him. Such as the plastic-metal used in conjunction with titanium to form the main body of the craft. That had been new to the teks when he introduced it to them, not something they were likely to forget.

  Madkro's logical reasoning stemmed from the foreknowledge that Gulok planned to steal the R-wing design from him once it was perfected.  Therefore, to avoid this, Madkro had to hold off its completion long enough to make some money, then take it all away before Gulok could get the final 'perfected' design.

  It was conceivable that the other scienteks would learn enough to continue the project, and in the future, perhaps a few years, they might even perfect it.  But they would persist in that direction whether or not Madkro helped.

  In the final analysis, Madkro was merely avoiding some kind of 'exile' from his home, family, and friends by playing along with Gulok in the first place.  After all, the man had forced him into it; he had been 'drafted' against his will by a fat millionaire looking for more power over Aerospace and the resources in it.

  As a Scimonk, Madkro had learned that subcontractors for top-secret projects were all too often conned into doing dirty-work for small-change while the Pentagon brass raked in all the dough. He learned of others that had their ideas stolen by the military, the federal government, the CIA, etc....

  Madkro knew what to expect from guys like Gulok.  He wasn't stupid.  Morbidly, he also realized, there was even a chance that Gulok might try to arrange an accident.  For that reason, he intended to escape Gulok before they settled into their vacation.