The shunting engine wheezed and clanked, backing off from the carriages. Somewhere down the platform a conductor blew his whistle and waved a green flag, signaling that the train was ready for boarding. Miriam stepped forward, grabbed a door handle, and pulled herself into one of the small, smoke-smelling sleeper compartments in the ladies' first-class carriage. Alone, I hope, she told herself. Let me be alone…? She pulled the door shut behind her and, grunting quietly, heaved the heavy bag onto the overhead luggage net. With any luck it would stay there undisturbed until Dunedin-near to Joliet, in the United States, there being no such city as Chicago in this timeline. All she had to do was ferry it to a certain suburban address and exchange it for an identical bag, then return to New London. But Dunedin was over a thousand miles from New London. One good thing you could say about the New British railways was that the overnight express service rattled along at seventy miles an hour. But if the train was full she might end up with company, and being kept awake by genteel snoring was not Miriam's idea of fun.

Clank. The carriage bounced, almost throwing her out of her seat. A shrill whistle from the platform, and a distant asthmatic chuffing, followed by a jerk as the newly coupled locomotive began to pull. Miriam relaxed enough to unbutton her cape. It's going to be all right, she decided. No snoring!

The corridor door opened: "Carnets, please, ma'am." The inspector tugged his hat as he scratched her name off on a chalkboard. "Ah, very good. Bed make-up will be at eight bells, ma'am, and the dining car opens from seven. If you have any requests for breakfast, the cook will be glad to accommodate you." Miriam smiled faintly as he backed out through the door. First class definitely had some advantages.

Once he'd gone she pulled the slatted wooden shutters across the corridor window, and shot the bolt on the door. Alone! It was positively liberating, after weeks spent in the hothouse atmosphere of the Niejwein aristocracy. Her cape went up on the overhead rack first, then she bent down to unbutton her ankle boots. First-class sleeper compartments had carpet and kerosene heaters, not that she'd be needing the latter on this hot, dusty journey. Once the rows of gray, hunchbacked workers apartments petered out into open countryside, she pulled her PDA out of her belt-purse. With four hours to go until dinner-and fifteen or sixteen until the train pulled into Dunedin station-she'd have plenty of time for note taking and reading.

Precisely half an hour later, the machine emitted a strangled squawking noise and switched itself off.

"Bother." Miriam squeezed the power button without success, then stuck the stylus in the reset hole. Beep. The machine switched on again. Miriam breathed a sigh of relief, then tried to open the file she'd been working on. It wasn't there. A couple minutes of feverish poking proved that the machine had reset itself to factory condition, erasing not only the work she'd already done but all the other files she'd been meaning to read and edit. Miriam stared at it in dismay. "Fifteen hours?" she complained to the empty seat opposite: she hadn't even brought a newspaper. For a moment she was so angry she actually considered throwing the machine out the window. "Fucking computers." She glanced over her shoulder guiltily, but she was alone. Alone with nothing but the parched New Britain countryside rolling past, a faint smoke trail off to one side hinting at the arid wind that seemed to be plaguing the seaboard this summer.

If Miriam had one overwhelming personality flaw it was that she couldn't abide inactivity. After ten minutes of tapping her right toe on the floor she found herself nodding along, trying to make up a syncopated backbeat that followed the rhythm of the wheels as they clattered over the track joints. Not even a book, she thought. For a while she thought about leaving her compartment in search of the conductor, but it would look odd, wouldn't it? Single woman traveling alone, no reading matter: that was the sort of funny-peculiar thing that the Homeland Security Directorate might be interested in. The idea of writing on her PDA had lost all its residual charm, in the absence of any guarantee that the faulty device wouldn't consign long hours of work to an electronic limbo. But not doing anything went right against the grain. Worse, it was an invitation to daydream. And when she caught herself daydreaming these days, it tended to be about people she knew. Roland loomed heartbreakingly large in her thoughts. I'll go out of my mind if I don't do something, she realized. And almost without her willing it, her eyes turned upward to gaze at the carpetbag. It can't do any harm to look. Can it?

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL

From:

Director's office,

Gerstein Center for Reproductive Medicine,

Stony Brook

To:

Angbard Lofstrom,

Director,

Applied Genomics Corporation

Here's a summary of the figures for this FY. A detailed breakdown follows this synopsis; I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Operations continued as scheduled this quarter. I can report that our projected figures are on course to make the Q2 targets in all areas. Demand for ART procedures including IVF, IUI, ICSI, and tubal reversal is up 2% over the same quarter last year, with an aggregate total of 672 clients treated in the Q1 period. Last year's Q2 figures indicate a viable outcome in 598 cases with a total of 661 neonates being delivered.

With reference to AGC subsidized operations, a total of 131 patients were admitted to the program during Q1. A preliminary estimate is that the total cost of subsidized treatment for these individuals during this quarter will incur operation expenses of approximately $397K (detailed breakdown to follow with general quarterly accounts). Confidence-based extrapolation from last year's Q2 crop is that this will result in roughly 125 +/-17 neonates coming to term in next year's Q1 period. Of last year's Q2 crop, PGD and chorionic villus sampling leads me to expect an 87% yield of viable W* heterozygotes.

We were extremely startled when routine screening revealed that one of our patients was a W* heterozygous carrier. As this patient was not an applicant for the AGC program, no follow-on issues arise in this case, although I have taken the liberty of redacting their contact details from all patient-monitoring systems accessible to FDA supervision-copy available on your request. However, I must urgently request policy guidance in dealing with future W*hz clients not referred to the program through your office.

Other than that, it's all business as usual at GCRM! Hope you're having a profitable and successful quarter, and feel free to contact me if you require further supplementary information or a face-to-face inspection of our facility.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Andrew Darling, D.O.

Director of Obstetrics