Mary was mortified. “Ponter, stop!”

Hobbes exploded. “Give that back!” He tried to grab the bag from Ponter, but Ponter easily fended him off, and took another massive inhalation.

“Jesus, what are you?” shouted Hobbes. “Some kind of pervert?”

Ponter pulled the bag away from his nose and, without a word, offered it to Hobbes, who snatched it from his hand. “Get the hell out of here,” Hobbes snapped. Two more cops had appeared at the entrance to the interrogation room, presumably coming in response to the shouts.

“My apologies,” said Ponter.

“Just get the hell out!” said Hobbes, and then, to Mary: “We’ll look after our own evidence, lady. Now beat it!”

Mary stormed out of the police station, seething. But she didn’t say a word until she and Ponter were back in her car, sitting in the parking lot.

Mary turned to him. “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

“I am sorry,” said Ponter.

“I’ll never get to analyze those specimens now,” said Mary. “Christ, I’m sure the only reason he didn’t charge you was because he’d have to report his own stupidity in letting you get near the evidence.”

“Again, I apologize,” said Ponter.

“What in God’s name were you thinking?”

Ponter was silent.

“Well? Well?”

“I know,” he said simply, “who committed Qaiser’s rape, and presumably yours as well.”

Mary, absolutely stunned, sagged back against the driver’s seat. “Who?”

“Your co-worker—I cannot say his full name properly. It is something like ‘Cor-nuh-luh-us.’”

“Cornelius? Cornelius Ruskin? No, that’s crazy.”

“Why? Does anything in his physical appearance contradict your recollections of that night?”

Mary was still huffing and puffing from shouting. But all the anger was gone from her voice, replaced with astonishment. “Well, no. I mean, sure, Cornelius has blue eyes—but lots of people do. And Cornelius doesn’t smoke.”

“Yes, he does,” said Ponter.

“I’ve never seen him.”

“The odor was on him when we met.”

“He might have been in one of the campus pubs and picked it up there.”

“No. It was on his breath, although he’d apparently tried to mask it with some chemical.”

Mary frowned. She knew a few secret smokers. “I didn’t smell anything.”

Ponter said nothing.

“Besides,” said Mary, “Cornelius wouldn’t hurt me or Qaiser. I mean, we were coworkers, and—”

Mary fell silent. Ponter finally prodded her. “Yes?”

“Well, I thought of us as coworkers. But he—he was just a sessional instructor. He had a Ph.D.—from Oxford, for God’s sake. But all he could get was sessional teaching assignments—not a full-time appointment, and certainly not tenure. But Qaiser and I…”

“Yes?” Ponter said again.

“Well, I’m a woman, but Qaiser really won the lottery when it came to tenure-track appointments in the sciences. She’s a woman and a visible minority. They say rape isn’t a sexual crime; it’s a crime of violence, of power. And Cornelius clearly felt he had none.”

“He also had access to the specimens refrigerator,” said Ponter, “and, as a geneticist himself, he surely suspected what a female geneticist might do under such circumstances. He would know to look for, and destroy, any evidence.”

“My God,” thought Mary. “But—no. No. It’s all circumstantial.”

“It was all circumstantial,” said Ponter, “until I got to examine the physical evidence of Qaiser’s rape—safely stored at the police station, where Ruskin could not get at it. I smelled him when we first met in the corridor outside your lab, and his smell, his scent, is on those specimens.”

“Are you sure?” asked Mary. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“I never forget a smell,” said Ponter.

“My God,” said Mary. “What should we do?”

“We could tell Enforcer Hobbes.”

“Yes, but—”

“What?”

“Well, this isn’t your world,” said Mary. “You can’t just demand that someone produce an alibi. There’s nothing in what you’ve said that would enable the police to require a DNA specimen from Ruskin.” He was no longer “Cornelius.”

“But I could testify about his scent…”

Mary shook her head. “There’s no precedent for accepting such claims, even as a lead. And even if Hobbes bought your assertion, he couldn’t even call Ruskin in for questioning based on it.”

“This world…” said Ponter, shaking his head in disgust.

“You are absolutely certain?” said Mary. “There isn’t a shadow of a doubt in your mind?”

“A shadow of—? Ah, I understand. Yes, I am absolutely certain.”

“Not just beyond a reasonable doubt?” asked Mary. “But beyond all doubt?”

“I have no doubt whatsoever.”

“None?”

“I know your noses are small, but my capability is not remarkable. All members of my species, and many other species, can do it.”

Mary thought about this. Dogs certainly could distinguish people by scent. There really was no reason to think Ponter was mistaken. “What can we do?” she asked.

Ponter was quiet for a long time. Finally, softly, he said, “You told me the reason you did not report the rape was because you feared your treatment at the hands of your judicial system.”

“So?” snapped Mary.

“I do not mean to aggravate,” said Ponter. “I just wanted to make sure I understood you correctly. What would happen to you or to your friend Qaiser if there were a public investigation?”

“Well, even if the DNA evidence were admissible—and it might not be—Ruskin’s attorney would try to prove that Qaiser and I had consented.”

“You should not have to go through that,” said Ponter. “No one should.”

“But if we don’t do something, Ruskin will strike again.”

“No,” said Ponter. “He will not.”

“Ponter, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Please drive me to the university.”

“Ponter, no. No, I won’t.”

“If you will not, I will walk there.”

“You don’t even know where it is.”

“Hak does.”

“Ponter, this is crazy. You can’t just kill him!”

Ponter touched his shoulder, over the bullet wound. “People in this world kill other people all the time.”

“No, Ponter. I won’t let you.”

“I must prevent him from raping again,” said Ponter.

“But—”

“And although you may be able to stop me today, or tomorrow, you will not be able to intercede forever. At some point, I will be able to elude you, return to the campus, and eliminate this problem.” He fixed his golden eyes on her. “The only question is whether that will happen before he rapes again. Do you really wish to delay me?”

Mary closed her eyes for a moment and listened as hard as she ever had in her life for God’s voice, listened to see whether He was going to intervene. But there was nothing.

“I can’t let you do this, Ponter. I can’t let you kill somebody in cold blood. Not even him.”

“He must be stopped.”

“Promise me,” said Mary. “Promise me you won’t.”

“Why do you care so much? He does not deserve to live.”

Mary took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ponter, I know you think I’m being silly when I talk about an afterlife. But if you kill him, your soul will be punished. And if I let you kill him, my soul will be punished, too. Ruskin already gave me a taste of hell. I don’t want to spend eternity there.”

Ponter frowned. “I want to do this for you.”

“Not this. Not killing.”

“All right,” said Ponter at last. “All right. I will not kill him.”

“Do you promise? Do you swear?”

“I promise,” said Ponter. And then, after a moment, “Gristle.”

Mary nodded; that was the only kind of swearing Ponter knew how to do. But then she shook her head. “There’s a possibility you’re not considering,” she said at last.

“And that is?” said Ponter.

“That Qaiser and Cornelius had consensual sex before she was raped by someone else. It would hardly be the first time a man and a woman who worked together had been getting it on in the office.”