What should he do? How does he answer the deckers' proposal? Say yes? Then everything goes to shit. Say no? If he turns the deckers away, if they know how vulnerable he really is, they go to somebody else, someone without Gordon's reservations, and they'll make a deal in about two minutes. They'll provide detailed data on their runs against Fuchi mainframes to prove their worth. And then nothing on the Fuchi grid or in the Special Administration datastores will ever be secure again.