As a way to deal with the exigencies of zero-gee life, and a surrender to a receding hairline, he had taken to wearing a short vacubuzz. This was the easiest thing to do with hair in space. The vacubuzzer was a machine that combined the functions of an electric trimmer and an industrial shop vac. Haircuts were self-serve and consumed about thirty seconds if you were unusually fastidious. Earplugs were recommended. In his halcyon days Sal had sported a luxuriant head of long, wavy black hair and a widow’s peak that had brought out his Italian heritage, but with a vacubuzz he looked almost purely Chinese. He spoke seven languages, and he came closer than any living human to having the entire Cloud Ark Constitution—or CAC, as he called it—in his brain. If Markus had anything to say about it—which he did—then Sal would very soon combine in one person the functions of attorney general, head prosecutor, justice of the peace, and chief justice of the supreme court.