I'm dumb but persistent. Still, enough is enough. The fourth time I found myself looking up at the bottom of a snowbank on the beginner's slope, a seven-year-old made one of those slick sideways stops that everyone else mastered so easily two feet from my face. She frowned at me and asked, with a condescension I'd have punched her father's nose for, "Do you need any help, Mister?"
         That cemented my decision to call it a morning. "Go away, kid. I'm practicing falling."
         My exasperation must have showed. A woman hustled over and started shepherding her toward a lift. Just before she was out of earshot, the kid said, "He's getting good at it, Mommy."
         The mother laughed and told her to hush. I twisted my feet out of the skis and tried to roll onto my stomach. When that didn't work, I tried to back uphill out of the drift using only my elbows and heels. That worked. It also turned the waist of my jacket into a scoop and packed my back with snow. I'm dumb. I persisted.
         Once I had my ego closer to heaven, I shouldered my skis and began the long trudge to the parking lot. I might have stopped at the lodge for a hot drink, but that snow was melting and running down inside my pants. A part of me more important than my ego was getting wet and cold, so I gave the clubhouse a pass and tossed the skis in the back of my Bronco before digging the last of the caked ice out of my shirt and pants.
         Breckenridge, Colorado, spread over the white floor of the valley below me. Tiny houses, apartments and condos, one or two low malls and strip centers, all in black and gray, smudged the snowscape and the dark green of the pine forest that climbed the 14- to 17,000 foot peaks cradling the alpine village. Only the whisper of the wind and the laughter on the crowded slopes above disturbed the silence.
         It would have made a nice picture for a Christmas card, even taken this late in March. It seemed a shame that the only socially acceptable excuse for coming up here nine months of the year was to slide down a mountain on sticks.
         I shook out my ski jacket and began the drive toward the condo I owned on the other side of the valley. As I pulled out of the lot, I noticed two figures in the expensive kind of ski outfits that fit like swimsuits hurrying from the clubhouse. One red and one blue. Females, from the shape of them. They weren't carrying skis. They stopped running just before I turned a corner and they disappeared behind me.
         The Valley Forge Saloon is on the main drag. I had to pass it on my way home, and since my stomach was sending signals and the water in my pants had come up to body temperature, I decided to stop for a burger and a beer.
         The Forge is my kind of place. The wooden planks that make up the floor are scarred by years of heavy boots, and the paneling on the walls is real wood. Raw pine, knots and all. It gets its name from all the iron hanging from the walls and ceiling. Hammers, tongs, twisted gadgets nobody has made or used for eighty years. Every one of them is a certifiable antique, if anyone bothers to certify that kind of stuff, but the thing I like most about the place is the clientele. Guys with beards, wearing denim and drinking whiskey or beer, who snort at space age fabrics, and a bartender, Jack, who never mixed a Margarita in his life.
         I took a table in the corner because my pants were still wet and, sure as God made those little green things, someone would have asked what scared me. The waitress had just disappeared with my order when the door opened and two figures pushed in. They stood by the door, stamping snow off their boots and looking around. They wore pants and jackets made of space-age fabrics, one red and one blue. The crowd at the bar snorted and went back to its whiskey and beer. I waited.
         The red suit led the way to my table. It pulled off a ski cap with a tassel and a Norwegian design and said, "Sam? Sam Barrows?"
         Her face clicked. I stood quickly and held out my hand. Smiled. "Mrs. Chase! It's good to see you!"
         "Please, Sam. It's Nora." Her answering smile looked forced. She nodded at the woman in the blue suit. "Do you remember Wendy?"
         "Of course." I remembered her, but I'd never have recognized her. She'd been eighteen when I saw her last. I remembered her mostly as a slender, slightly awkward girl who blushed easily and stared at the floor when I spoke to her. "You've grown up, Wendy."
         She nodded and gave me a brief smile when she touched my hand, but there wasn't much pleasure in the smile or warmth in the touch. If anything, she seemed frightened. And determined. It was an odd combination.
         She'd grown in the last six years. She had an inch or two on her mother's five foot four, and of course she was a brunette. She got that from Ron or maybe from her natural mother. I'd never met the woman and so couldn't say, but Wendy didn't have the perky good looks that belied Nora's forty-odd years. Her face was beautiful, with an assurance it lacked as a girl, but it looked haunted in a strange way. I wondered what the years had done to her and what they were doing so far from Boulder. I asked, "Can you join me?"
         Wendy gave a curt little nod and sat. I asked, "What brings you two into the hills? Is Ron okay?"
         Nora apparently decided to carry the conversational ball. Maybe she thought the bad news should come from her. "He's . . . did you know about his heart attacks? He had two last year and another one last month."
         "No!" I felt sick. Ron Chase had given me my first job after college, working as a systems administrator for the software company he'd just started. I'd known him well and his wife socially for two years before I decided to try my own wings as a computer security consultant. "God, I'm sorry to hear that. Why didn't you call?"
         "I tried a few times, but your line was either busy or a computer answered it." She shrugged. "Then things came up. You know how it is."
         "Of course." I felt I had to explain. "Nobody calls the number in the book to talk. It's always on business, so I leave the computer on even when I'm not on the net. It answers and downloads my mail and. . . ." I trailed off, then tried to cover my confusion. "There were two women in the parking lot at the lodge."
         "That was us." Nora said. "We tried your condo, but--"
         "Your neighbor said you went skiing," Wendy put in. "She seemed very friendly."
         "Vicki's a nice girl." I shook my head and took a breath. "Is he going to be okay?"
         "The doctors say he'll be fine if he'll quite working for a couple months. They want to put a pacemaker in when he gets stronger, but you know Ron. He can't leave the business alone."
         I nodded. He'd always been a workaholic. "Is there anything I can do?"
         Wendy took over then. She bit her lip. "Are you still in the same line of work, Sam? Dad told me you did some things for him two or three years ago."
         "A hacker found a hole in his firewall and--" The look on Nora's face told me I wasn't communicating, so I cut off the explanation and finished, "Anyway, the answer is yes. Do you have another problem?"
         "A different kind of problem."
         The waitress brought over my hamburger and beer. She looked at Nora and Wendy, but they shook their heads and she went away. I looked at the food and wasn't hungry anymore. I pushed it away. "Tell me."
         Wendy jerked her head. "I can't. Not here." She'd folded her hands on the table in front of her and stared at them. Her fingers were white. I noticed for the first time that she was wearing a wedding ring. She added, "Please?"
         I didn't understand. The closest customer, thirty feet away, was arguing the merits of Stihl Chainsaws with his neighbor. I said, "Nobody's listening."
         She just said please again.
         Nora looked at her and nodded, then tried to explain. "This is, well, private. Could we go somewhere else? After you finish eating, of course."
         "Let's go now." I dropped a ten on the table and led them out.
         They followed me the two miles to my condo in a new Volvo. I watched them in the rear view mirror. They didn't seem to be talking to each other, and when I parked, they just sat in the car side by side.
         I walked over and opened Nora's door. "Aren't you coming in?"
         She shook her head. "Wendy will tell you about it."
         "Oh?" I looked at the daughter. She said, "Please, Nora?"
         "No." Nora shook her head again. "I can't do it."
         I said, "I thought this was company business?"
         "Wendy works for Chase Systems now. She's our new director of advertising."
         Neither of them moved. I said, "Maybe I should talk to Ron about it?"
         "He couldn't take it. You'd kill him." Nora's voice was ragged with suppressed emotion. "Wendy will tell it."
         "But. . . ?"
         "No. She's right." Wendy sighed and opened her door. "I'll do it."
         Nora asked her, "Did you bring it?"
         "Of course." She squared her shoulders and started for the building.
         "I'll wait here, Sam," Nora said.
         "It's warmer inside. You could wait in another room, if that's--"
         "I don't want to be inside."
         "Okay." I closed her door and followed Wendy.
         My apartment is large -- two bedrooms, living room, a kitchen-dining room combo, and bath -- but it's furnished with don't-give-a-damn mix-and-match from the cheapest stores in Denver. All except the second bedroom, where I spend most of my time. That is high tech. The biggest Mac available, an Intergraph server with two gigs of mirrored hard drives, a Pentium Pro with 32 Megs of RAM, high-speed modem, laser printer and all the other toys a 33-year-old boy could want.
         Wendy glanced through each of the open doors and then took a seat in the dining room.
         "You want anything to drink?"
         She shook her head.
         "Then give me a second to change my pants. I'll be right with you." It took longer than a second, but when I returned she hadn't moved. I sat across the table from her and waited. After an awkward pause, I cleared my throat. "It's been a long time."
         She nodded and clutched the purse in front of her.
         "You've grown. I almost didn't recognize you."
         "I knew you right away." She spoke without looking at me. "You haven't changed much."
         "Older and fatter."
         She smiled at that, but her heart wasn't in it. "You look great. Do you still climb mountains?"
         "It's better than sliding down them," I told her. "What is it, Wendy? What's the matter?"
         "This is hard."
         "Then you should get it over with."
         Her head moved up and down a fraction of an inch. She took a deep breath. "Nora said Ron was going to pull through. He . . . I call him Ron. I got in the habit at work. It was more like we were co-workers, like equals, and he liked it after he got used to it, and--"
         "Wendy?"
         "--and it was almost like that father-daughter stuff was over only it isn't, not ever, not really, and--"
         "Wendy!"
         She looked at me.
         "Just tell it. Isn't he going to pull through?"
         "He will if he's careful." Her hands folded over her purse. She played with her wedding ring. "It's close, though. Sam. Can I call you Sam?"
         I nodded.
         "The doctors said a shock could finish him. He's at home, resting. He rarely comes to the office." She hesitated. "Nora gets his mail off his computer when he's napping. She's just trying to help. She isn't being nosy or . . . anyway, last week he had an email from someone she didn't recognize. She read it. There was a file attached. A picture."
         It wasn't easy to watch her talk. Her head moved with abrupt little jerks, like she'd forgotten how to control it, and she wouldn't look at me.
         "She looked at the picture and then she deleted it. She deleted the email too. After a while she called me. She said I had to come right away." She paused to lick her lips, as though the cold winter air outside had dried them, before continuing. "I thought something happened to Daddy. The door was locked when I got there and I used my key, not knowing what I'd find inside, but she was waiting for me in the hall and when I stepped inside she slapped my face."
         Wendy was still playing with the ring, twisting it around and around on her finger as she spoke. Her other ring, the thick gold band with amethysts her father gave her in high school, flashed in the light while she played with her wedding band. Her voice quavered. "Then she took me into his office and closed the door and slapped me again. Then she told me what happened. What Da--Ron got in the mail."
         "What?"
         "It had been deleted, so she couldn't show me and I couldn't prove it wasn't me, but I told her it wasn't me. I promised her until she believed me. She couldn't tell Da--him about it, of course. Not in his condition. So we just didn't do anything, but she made sure she always logged on for him and got his mail, and I checked his mail at the office."
         "What was it, Wendy?"
         "And then yesterday another one came. She didn't delete it. She called me home and left me alone to look at it. I printed it out. Then I deleted it." She opened her purse. Her hand trembled so that she fumbled with the catch. She put a manila envelope on the table between us, drew a sheet of paper from it, and pushed it over the table.
         I scanned it quickly. It was a print-out of an anonymous email message.

         SUBJECT: WHAT'S GOING AROUND
         DATE: 17 Mar 1996 21:48:16 GMT
         FROM: an6955532107@anon.dstern.de (asp)
         Ron,
         You will enjoy this.
         We all did.

         The return address was the most striking thing about it. The sender had used a peculiar pseudonym, or handle as they're called on the net. Asp. That seemed appropriate. An asp is a poisonous snake.
         I set it aside and waited quietly. Wendy was visibly nervous. The tremor in her hands was worse and her face was a deep red. She slid a second sheet from the envelope but kept it face down on the table. She said, "This is hard."
         I'd begun to suspect what was coming. "Do you want to leave while I look at it?"
         "No." She paused, then changed her mind. She pushed away from the table and walked into the living room. I gave her a few seconds to get away before reaching.
         It was a picture. I'd guessed that and tried to steel myself, to swallow the hollow feeling in my chest before turning it over.
         It was worse than some of the things you see and a lot better than others. It might have been scanned from a four-by-six print. It covered the width of the page and half its height.
         The woman in the picture sat on a black and white couch with an unusual zebra stripe. Her left foot was on the couch, cocked at an angle so that her knee was about breast high. Her right leg was on the floor. She leaned to her right and forward, supporting herself on her outstretched arm. She was naked, of course. Her left hand cupped the man's testicles and aimed his penis at her lips. Her tongue extended almost to the tip of it, but neither her hand nor the penis hid Wendy's face.
         I dropped it on the table and took a deep breath, then walked into the kitchen and opened two beers. Wendy was at the living room window, staring out at the parking lot. I handed her one of the bottles. She took it stiffly. Her eyes never left the car in the lot, the small round face of her mother behind the wheel, looking up at my window.
         I didn't know what to say. She told the window, "It's not me. I didn't do that."
         "Okay."
         Back to the picture. I looked from it to the back of the young woman in my living room. It wasn't easy to judge, but they seemed about the same height and bodily proportions. The face in the picture was younger than Wendy's now. The breasts in the picture looked fuller, but the ski jacket Wendy wore would hold hers in a bit. And the bra, if she was wearing one. Both sets of hips looked the same width. Their hair was done differently. The hair on their heads, anyway. The girl in the picture didn't have any below her neck and the one at my window was dressed.
         The man was visible only from his shoulder down. He stood in profile, with his hips slightly forward, pushing himself at the waiting tongue. His left hand was behind the girl's head. His right hand made a fist just behind his hip, as though he wanted to keep it out of the way and didn't quite know what to do with it.
         It was a young man's body, thin, with very little chest hair. The hair on his legs was dark but not thick. The only thing distinctive about the body was a tattoo on the right bicep. It looked like a skinny dragon snaking down his arm. A winged snake. An asp?
         There was something not right about the picture. At first I couldn't put my finger on it, but when I carried it nearer the light, the pattern of shadows jumped out at me. The shot had been taken with some sort of flash attachment to supplement the natural light in the room and the man's legs and hips cast a shadow over the girl's shoulder and the arm she supported herself with, but his penis, even nearest her face, where it projected a little over her chin, cast no shadow. Once I started looking for flaws, I saw others.
         As I examined the picture, I'd felt the beginnings of arousal. It went away when I remembered what I was looking at. Someone had turned my friend's daughter into an unwilling object, had hated her enough to make a thing out of her.
         Wendy turned and caught me comparing her with the picture. She shuddered. "Well?"
         "It isn't you."
         "I . . . you can tell?" She wavered as though she were faint. I grabbed for her, but she pulled away like she didn't want to be touched. She drew a deep breath. "How can you tell? Will you show Nora?"
         "If you'll tell me something."
         "Anything. What?"
         "Who's the man, Wendy? Who is the asp?"