She stared at the small metal nameplate on the dewar’s endcap. SUSAN LANE. That’s all it said. There was a barcode next to her name, all Sis’s vital information in computer-readable form. Not much to show for a human lifetime, even if it was only seventeen years.

Her wristwatch buzzed annoyingly. Brushing at the tears in her eyes, she saw that the watch was telling her she had one hour to get cleaned up and dressed and down to Humphries’s place.

With Amanda.

Mandy wore virginal white, a sleeveless mandarin-collared dress with a mid-thigh skirt that clung lovingly to her curves. She’d done her hair up in the latest piledhigh fashion: some stylist’s idea of neoclassical. Pancho had put on her best pantsuit, pearl gray with electric blue trim, almost the same shade of blue as Elly. Next to Amanda, though, she felt like a walking corpse. She’d phoned Humphries several times to tell him she was bringing Amanda, and gotten the answering machine each time. It wasn’t until she’d been on her way to the catacombs that Humphries had returned her calls, angrily demanding to know who this Amanda Cunningham was and why Pancho wanted to bring her to their meeting.

It was tough holding a reasonable conversation through the wrist-phone, but Pancho finally got across the information that Amanda was going to be her copilot on the mission and she’d thought he might be interested in recruiting her to help Pancho’s espionage work.

In the wristphone’s tiny screen it was almost impossible to judge the expression on Humphries’s face, but his tone was clear enough.

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “Bring her along if you think she might be able to help us. No sweat.”

Pancho smiled sweetly and thanked him and clicked the phone off. No sweat, huh? she thought, laughing inwardly. He’ll change his mind once he gets a look at Mandy. He’ll sweat plenty.

Pancho spent the time on the electric stairways to Selene’s lowest level telling Mandy everything she knew about Humphries. Everything except the fact that he’d hired her to spy on Dan Randolph.

“He’s actually a billionaire?” Amanda’s big blue eyes went wider than ever when Pancho described Humphries’s underground palace.

“Humphries Biotech,” Pancho replied. “The Humphries Trust, lord knows what else. You can look him up in the financial nets.”

“And you’re dating him!”

Frowning slightly at her incredulousness, Pancho replied, “I told you, it’s strictly business. He’s… eh, he’s tryin’ to hire me away from Astro.”

“Really?” A suspicious, supercilious tone dripped from the one word.

Pancho grinned at her. “More or less.”

Once they stepped through the airlock-type door and into Humphries’s underground garden, Amanda gasped with awe. “It’s heavenly!”

“Pretty neat,” Pancho agreed.

Humphries was standing at the open door to the house, waiting for them, eying Amanda as they came up the walk.

“Martin Humphries,” Pancho said, as close to a formal introduction as she knew, “I would like you to meet—”

“Ms. Amanda Cunningham,” Humphries said, all smiles. “I looked up your dossier when I got Pancho’s message that you were joining us this evening.” Pancho nodded, impressed. Humphries can tap into Astro’s personnel files. He must have Dan’s offices honeycombed with snoops.

Humphries took Amanda’s extended hand and bent over it, his lips barely touching her satiny white skin. Amanda looked as if she wanted to faint. “Come in, ladies,” Humphries said, tucking Amanda’s arm under his own. “Come in and welcome.”

To Pancho’s surprise, Humphries didn’t come on to Amanda. Not obviously, at least. A human butler served aperitifs in the library-cum-bar and Humphries showed off his collection of first editions.

“Pretty rare, some of them,” he boasted mildly. “I keep them here because of the climate control system. Back home in Connecticut it would cost a considerable sum to keep the old family home at a constant temperature and humidity. Here in Selene it comes automatically.”

“Or we breathe vacuum,” Pancho commented. Amanda gave her a knowing look. The butler showed them to the dining room, where the women sat on either side of Humphries. A pair of squat, flat-topped robots trundled back and forth from the kitchen carrying plates and glasses. Pancho watched intently as the robots’ padded claws gripped the chinaware and crystal. They didn’t drop a thing, although while clearing the salad plates one of them missed Pancho’s dish by a fraction of a millimeter and almost knocked it off the table. Before anyone could react, though, it recovered, grasped the plate firmly and tucked it into its recessed storage section.

“That’s a pretty good optical recognition system they’ve got,” Pancho said.

“I don’t believe it’s optical,” Amanda countered. To Humphries she asked, “Is it?”

“Very sharp, Amanda,” he said, impressed. “Very sharp. The dishes have monomolecular beacons sprayed on their bottoms. The robots sense the microwave signals.”

Pancho lifted up her water tumbler and squinted at its bottom.

“The chip’s too small to see with the naked eye,” Humphries said.

“What powers ’em?”

“The heat from the food or drink. They have trouble with iced drinks… and your salad.”

Pancho thought it over for half a second. “Dishes pick up residual heat when we handle them, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Pancho smiled as the other robot placed a steaming plate of frogs’ legs before her.

Don’t want Humphries to think Mandy’s the only smart one here, she told herself. All through dinner Humphries was charming, solicitous, all smiles. He paid almost as much attention to Pancho as he did to Amanda, up to the point where he encouraged Mandy to tell them about her early life. She began to talk, hesitantly at first, about growing up in London, winning a scholarship to the International Space University.

“It wasn’t easy,” Amanda said, with almost childlike candor. “All the men seemed to think I was better suited to be a photographer’s model than an astronaut.” Humphries made a sympathetic murmur. Pancho nodded, understanding all over again that Mandy’s good looks had been as much of a problem for her as an advantage.

“But I made it,” she finished happily, “and here we all are.”

“Good for you,” said Humphries, patting her hand. “I think you’ve done wonderfully well.”

As dessert was being served — fresh fruit from the botanical garden outside with soymilk ice cream — Amanda asked where the lavatory was. Once she had left the room Pancho leaned closer to Humphries and asked in a lowered voice, “Well, whattaya think?”

He frowned with annoyance. “About what?”

“About Mandy.” She almost added, lunkhead, but stopped herself just in time. “She’s wonderful,” Humphries said, beaming. “Beautiful but brainy, too. You don’t see that very often.”

Pancho thought, Women don’t let you see their brains very often, not if they can get by on their looks.

Aloud, she asked, “So d’you think she’d be any good cozyin’ up to Dan Randolph?”

“No!” he snapped.

“No?” Pancho was astonished. “Why not?”

“I don’t want her anywhere near Randolph. He’ll seduce her in a hot second.”

Pancho stared at the man. I thought that was the whole idea, she said to herself.

Get Mandy into Randolph’s bed. I thought that’s what he’d want.

“She’s much too fine a woman to be used that way,” Humphries added. Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Pancho realized. He’s fallen for her! This guy who picks up women like paperclips and dumps ’em when he feels like it, he doesn’t just have the hots for Mandy. He’s fallen in love with her. Just like that!