“I would not know,” said Ponter.

“Trust me. It happens all the time. And wouldn’t that leave his smell on—well, on her panties, and so forth?”

Bleep.

“Panties,” said Mary. “The, um, inner garments. What you saw in the specimen bag.”

“Yes. What you suggest is possible.”

“We have to be certain,” said Mary. “We have to be absolutely sure.”

“You could ask Qaiser,” Ponter said.

“She won’t tell me.”

“Why not? I thought you were friends.”

“We are. But Qaiser is married—bonded—to another man. And, trust me: that happens all the time, too.”

“Ah,” said Ponter. “Well…”

“I’m not sure that there’s anything we can do,” said Mary.

“There is much we can do, but you have made me promise not to.”

“That’s right. But…”

“We should let him know that he has been found out,” said Ponter. “That his movements are under surveillance.”

“I couldn’t face him.”

“No, of course not. But we could leave a note for him.”

“I’m not sure what good that would do,” said Mary.

Ponter held up his left hand. “It is the whole philosophy behind the Companion implants. If you know you are being observed, or that your actions are being recorded, then you modify your behavior. It has worked well in my world.”

Mary took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I suppose…I suppose it couldn’t hurt. What are you thinking of? Just an anonymous note?”

“Yes,” said Ponter.

“You mean, let him know that he’s being watched constantly from now on? That there’s no way he can get away with it again?” Mary considered this. “I suppose he’d have to be an idiot to rape again after he knows someone is on to him.”

“Indeed,” said Ponter.

“I guess a note could be slipped into his box at York.”

“No,” said Ponter. “It should not be left at York. He took steps to destroy evidence there already, after all. I presume he thought you would not return for an entire year, and so he could safely dispose of the specimens you had retained without anyone being able to work out exactly when they had disappeared. No, this note should be left at his dwelling.”

“His dwelling? You mean his home?”

“Yes,” said Ponter.

“I get it,” said Mary. “Nothing’s more threatening than someone knowing where you live.”

Ponter made a perplexed face, but said, “Do you know where his home is.”

“Not far from here,” said Mary. “He doesn’t have a car—he lives by himself, and can’t really afford one. I’ve given him lifts home a few times during snowstorms. It’s an apartment just off Jane Street—but no, wait. I know what building he lives in, but I have no idea what his apartment number is.”

“His is a multifamily dwelling, like yours?”

“Yes. Well, not nearly as nice as mine.”

“Will there not be a directory near the entrance identifying which unit houses which person?”

“We don’t do that anymore. We have code numbers and buzzboards—the whole idea is to prevent people from doing what we’re talking about: finding out exactly where someone lives.”

Ponter shook his head, astonished. “The lengths you Gliksins go to to avoid having to have Companion implants…”

“Come on,” said Mary. “Let’s drive by his building on the way back to my place. I’ll know it to see it, and at least we can get the street number.”

“Fine,” said Ponter.

Mary found herself tensing up as they drove along Finch, and turned onto the street that contained Ruskin’s apartment building. It wasn’t that she was afraid of running into him, she realized—although that would certainly freak her out. It was simply thinking about a possible, eventual rape trial. Do you know where the man you’re accusing lives, Ms. Vaughan? Have you ever been to his home? Really? And yet you say this was nonconsensual?

Driftwood, the area around Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, was not somewhere a sane person wanted to be for long. It was one of Toronto’s—hell, of North America’s—most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Its proximity to York was an embarrassment to the university, and probably, despite years of lobbying, the reason that the Spadina subway line had never been extended to the campus.

But Driftwood had one advantage: rents were cheap. And for someone trying to make ends meet on a sessional instructor’s piecework fees, someone who couldn’t afford a car, it was the only place within walking distance of the university that was affordable.

Ruskin’s apartment building was a white brick tower with rusting balconies filled with junk, and a third of the windows covered by taped-up newspaper or aluminum foil. The building looked to be about fifteen or sixteen stories tall, and—

“Wait!” said Mary.

“What?”

“He lives on the top floor! I remember now: he used to call it his ‘penthouse in the slums.’” She paused. “Of course, we still don’t know what unit number, but he’s lived here for at least two years. I’m sure his letter carrier knows him—we academics tend to get a lot of journals and things like that in the mail.”

“Yes?” said Ponter, clearly not understanding.

“Well, if we mail a letter to ‘Cornelius Ruskin, Ph.D.’ at this address, and simply say ‘Top Floor’ as part of the address, I’m sure it’ll get to him.”

“Ah,” said Ponter. “Good. Then our business here is finished.”

Personality sculptor Selgan regarded Ponter for a time. “You have a flair for the ironic, I see.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Our business here is finished.’ You told me you committed a crime on the Gliksin world—it is easy enough to guess what it is.”

“Is it? I rather doubt you’ve figured it out.”

Selgan shrugged slightly. “Possibly not. But I have figured out one thing that perhaps has eluded you.”

Ponter sounded irritated. “And what is that?”

“Mare suspected you were going to do something to Ruskin.”

“No, no, she is completely innocent.”

“Is she? A woman of her intelligence—and yet she accepted your flimsy excuse for her to show you where Ruskin dwelled?”

“We had every intention of sending a warning letter! Just as we had discussed. Mare is pure, without sin—that is what her name means! She is named for the mother of her God incarnate, a woman who was conceived immaculately, devoid of original sin. I learned this during my first trip to her world. She would never—”

Selgan held up a hand. “Calm down, Ponter. I didn’t mean to give offense. Please, continue with your narrative…”

“Ponter?” said Hak, through Ponter’s cochlear implants.

Ponter moved his head in a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

“Judging by her breathing patterns, Mare is sleeping deeply. You won’t disturb her if you go now.”

Ponter gently got out of Mary’s bed. The glowing red digits on the night-table clock said 1:14. He walked out of the room, down the small corridor to Mary’s living room. As always, he put on his medical belt, and he checked in one of the pouches to make sure that he had the spare card key Mary had given him; he knew he’d need that to get back into her apartment building.

Ponter then opened Mary’s front door, entered the corridor, headed to the elevator, and rode down to the ground floor—he’d learned that sometimes humans wrote the number one as “1” and sometimes as “L”; it was the latter style that was used on the elevator’s control panel.

Ponter walked through the large lobby, then headed out the set of double doors, exiting into the night.

But how unlike the night of his world it was! There was illumination everywhere: from windows, from electric lights hoisted high on vertical poles, from vehicles going by on the road. It would probably have been easier if it were really dark. Although from a distance he knew he didn’t look that different from a Gliksin—at least, from a Gliksin weightlifter—he would have much preferred to make this journey in total darkness.