Thursday, the fourth day of her placement, Sam walked into Bay Three to find it cold and deserted. Jason's jacket lay draped over the back of a chair, but there was no indication whether that was from last night or this morning. Sam waited for ten minutes, then headed for the office and alternative instructions.

"Jason's off doing his real job," the boss told her. At Sam's bemused expression, he expanded. "He's an ISO chauffeur. This is just a sideline. Knowing our luck, they'll need him through Saturday again, and I'm down two drivers already - anyway, get yourself down to Bay One and give Ed a hand setting Car Three up for testing this afternoon."

Sam was in Bay One before she'd really considered what she was doing, and by then it was too late to back out. Ed, she'd found out, was the guy prone to stripping her off with his eyes, and would have been the last person she'd have chosen to work with.

"Ed?" she called, not seeing him anywhere.

"I thought you were helping Jason." He emerged from behind the hood. "Back on coffee making duty? Mine's black, two sugars."

"Jason's not here today. I've been sent to help you."

"Oh, fantastic." He rolled his eyes. "We need this car race tuned by this afternoon, and the help they send me is you?"

Sam tried not to flinch. "I can make coffee, if that'll help most."

"Can you do anything else?"

Sam looked around frantically, and saw the row of containers lined up in front of the car. "Jason's showed me how to check fluid levels and top things up."

"Well, that's something, I suppose." It was grudging, but better than nothing. Much better than anything she'd had from him before. It seemed Jason was right about the overalls, even where Ed was concerned. Ed returned to whatever super-sensitive adjustments he was doing under the car, and Sam began to work methodically through the ridiculous numbers of separate fluids which needed checking, topping up and, in some cases, completely changing.

She finished, and straightened up to find him watching her critically. "You took your time with that."

"I wanted to get it right. I'm new to this."

"Not a criticism." He dropped the hood and clicked it shut. "Lunch? We have the track at one-thirty. I could use a runner."

And you want me? Sam didn't say, but she was surprised and flattered, and intrigued to find out what would go on.

Largely, it was terribly dull. There was a deal of discussion about who was driving which car between Jeff, who seemed to be relatively experienced, and Luis, who'd been brought in to replace Jason at very short notice. There was a vast array of computer screens, and what Sam would have called every conceivable tool just a few days ago, but now she knew to be only a small subset of what they had back at the unit. If they found they were short of something, they'd radio back and someone would find it and drive it the quarter mile over to the back entrance to the pit lane. She would be the one standing at the door to run it through the corridors to their base. Chances were she wouldn't be needed, but track time was limited and not to be wasted. Or so she'd had drilled into her over lunch.

Sam stood in the corner, well out of the way, and watched the screens in astonishment. There was a truly amazing range of technology in here, none of which she knew anything about, and the sort of organised mayhem which can only work in a team where everyone knows precisely what to do. The first car had roared out some minutes earlier, and Luis in the second car was tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel, waiting for his turn.

Shortly, car one pulled up, and Ed shouted down to Luis to get out there and show what he could do with the car. "Can't believe he's the best they could come up with. Nervous as hell - did you see how twitchy he was? Heaven help us if we don't get one of the regulars back by Saturday."

"Give him a chance." Carl suggested. "They all have to start somewhere. Didn't you tell me Jason couldn't even drive when ISO first assigned him out here?"

"If that kid Luis turns into another Jason, I'll eat my torque wrench." Ed stalked across to the first car, now with hood up and engineering crew attaching a web of cables to the electronic components. "Well? Is it working right or not? You won't have this luxury come Saturday!"

Sam leant against the wall and sighed. There was so much going on here, and she couldn't help with any of it. Everyone except her was frantically busy, could have used help if only she'd been competent to give it. It was frustrating.

Car two pulled in, car one roared out again, and Ed took Luis on one side for the sort of quiet talk which looked as if it would have been more suited to full volume. Certainly Luis was doing a lot of apologetic nodding and not much else.

She jumped a mile as a klaxon sounded just over her head, and the radio operator called the car in. "Time's up. Get back here fast. We don't want to be fined again."

"We get fined if we're not off the track within two minutes of the siren," Carl's quiet voice said in her ear. "The next team's waiting to use it."

"So how many teams are based here?" Sam hadn't given much thought to other users of the track.

"Oh, fifteen, I think. You'll see them all come Saturday, and there's normally a few visiting teams as well. Gets real busy."

"Saturday?" Sam repeated stupidly.

"Saturday. Race day." He stared at her as if she'd sprouted wings and flown into the nearest tree. "You weren't planning to miss it, surely?"

"Of course not," Sam heard herself say, while part of her screamed get real! Why do you care? Saturday's go shopping with your girlfriends day! Whatever are you going to tell them? What are you going to tell Mom and Steve? What's the matter with you?