No one came.

Nenda went in, walking through the livingroom and following a smell that appealed to him a lot more than the scent of the flowers outside. He’d had no breakfast.

The kitchen of the house was clean, compact, and automated. Rebka wasn’t there; but someone else was.

Wrong house! Louis was all ready to mutter an apology and retreat when he recognized the occupant of the kitchen. It was the tall, decorative woman he had seen when he first arrived at the Institute. She was wearing a white robe, open at the top almost to her waist, and split at the bottom to show more leg than Louis had ever seen before on a woman who claimed to be dressed.

“Sorry,” he said. “My mistake. I’m looking for Hans Rebka. I thought this was where he’s staying.”

“It is. But he already left.”

She had obviously recognized him, though he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name. He glared around him, as though it might be written on one of the walls. “Do you know where he is?”

“I might. And I’m Glenna Omar, since you’ve obviously forgotten. You look like you want to leave, too. You’re all the same. I hate men who are all kiss and run. I hope you’re not like that. Here, help yourself.”

She waved to the table in front of her, which bore a big plate of steaming rolls and a pot of what smelled like hot tea.

It was the price of information. Louis gave up. He sat down opposite Glenna. Atvar H’sial would never believe this if she found out, but at least he’d get breakfast out of it.

Glenna leaned back and sighed. “There, that’s better. Now we can get to know each other. Although I already know you, sort of. When you said you were ‘Louis Nenda,’ yesterday, I couldn’t think where I’d heard your name before.”

Louis said nothing. For one thing, his mouth was crammed full of hot roll. For another, in his experience nothing good was likely to come from people who knew your name.

“And then I remembered.” Glenna leaned forward to show even more cleavage. “I work here at the Institute as an information system specialist, and I’d seen your name listed as one of the people who were with Professor Lang on one of her trips. She talked about you, too. Do you find her attractive?”

“Eh?” For Louis, with half his mind on food and the other half on Glenna’s chest, the sudden change of subject was too much.

“Darya Lang. I said, do you find her attractive?”

Atvar H’sial must have found a way to get Glenna to ask the Cecropian’s own questions. It was a trap. Louis shook his head.

“Nah. Not at all.”

“Good. But you know, I think she really likes men from other planets.” Glenna leaned forward farther. The view was impressive, and almost unobstructed. “Of course, it’s easy to see why. There’s a sort of mystery about you off-worlders; you don’t have a dull stay-at-home job like me, making you into a boring person… like me.”

She arched her brows, inviting dissent. Louis had her pegged now, and the knowledge helped to clear his brain. She was a collector. He had met the type before. The trick was to get the information he needed, without his head (or other important parts) finishing as trophies on the wall behind her bed.

He looked with deep and bogus sincerity into her eyes. “I guess that Darya really liked Hans Rebka. He’s seen a hundred different planets.”

“Probably.” Glenna smiled, the cat that got the cream. “But did he like her? Not all that much, if you ask me — and I have proof. It takes more than one person to make a relationship. There has to be mutual attraction. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Oh, absolutely. You bet. So Hans dumped her, did he? Good — I mean, good for him. I bet she was mad.”

“Livid. Said she was leaving him, and leaving Sentinel Gate, and she stormed out. But she likes off-planet men, I can tell that. You know, you’re an attractive man, too. I can’t help wondering, did Darya ever make a pass at you?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. But some imagined there was something like that goin’ on.”

“And I’ll bet they were right.” Glenna turned her face away so that she could give Louis a coy sideways glance. “You’re that sort of man, I just know it. You have that certain look in your eye.”

Right. And I’m about a foot shorter than you, and a foot wider, and I’m all scarred and hairy, and I’m swaddled in clothes so tight that I can’t get out of them inside half an hour even when I want to. What sort of mismatch from hell does it take to put you off your stride? Louis tried a demure smile, which looked more like a hideous strangler’s grin. “You shouldn’t tempt a man like that, ma’am, not in the middle of the morning. It’s not fair. You know, I’ve got work to do.”

“So do I. Call me Glenna. What are you doing this evening?”

“Nothing much. But I had the impression that you and Hans Rebka…”

“Please!” A slim hand waved away the possibility. “We’re just friends.”

You mean he’s already hanging there in the collection. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Anyway, he’s getting ready to go somewhere, out of system.” Glenna pouted. She touched Louis’s arm, then slid her hand down toward his. “Maybe this evening, then, you and me?”

“Maybe this evening.” Nenda took her hand and swore a solemn vow to be off-planet by sunset. “But now I have to talk to Hans Rebka. Where is he?”

“He’s up at the engineering lab, fooling around with some stupid computer that got itself short-circuited during a dinner with Professor Merada.” Now that she had what she wanted, Glenna was perfectly willing to be gracious. “I can point out the way to you from the front door; it’s just up the hill.”

Louis was already moving. There wasn’t all that much time left until evening. The lab couldn’t be more than five minutes away — less if he ran.

At the door, just when he thought he was free, Glenna took hold of his hand again and turned him to face her. Her blue eyes were wide and the pupils were dilated. “I’ve just remembered one more thing about Darya Lang’s report on you. She said that you’ve been augmented.” Glenna shivered, and bit her lower lip. “That sounds absolutely fascinating. I’ve been wondering anyway what you have hidden under all those clothes. You’ve got to promise to show me.”

Louis didn’t recall running, but he made it to the engineering lab in two minutes. He entered, and found himself in the middle of what appeared to be a gruesome murder.

The body of E. Crimson Tally sat in a metal chair. Fiber tape around his arms and legs and torso held him tight. His skull had been cleaved horizontally just above the ears, so that the cranium was sheared off and had been turned, to dangle in front of his face by a flap of skin on the forehead.

Hans Rebka stood behind the chair. He held an object like an ice pick, but with a much thinner spike, and he was thrusting it deep into the gray ovoid of E.C. Tally’s naked brain.

Nenda moved forward to stand next to Rebka. “What happened? He blow a gasket?”

Rebka went on probing, and didn’t look up. “Sort of. He got into a closed loop at a dinner two days ago. I called the people on Miranda, and there’s a general logic fix on the way. Meanwhile, they told me how to do a cold start.”

“Why the tape?”

“Protection. Miranda says there may be transients while he’s booting. We don’t want him walking through the walls.”

Rebka had found the point he wanted, and gave a final poke. The body in the chair jerked. Rebka grasped the dangling top of the skull, turned it over, and fitted it into position. The bone lines clicked to form a neat seal, hidden by skin and hair.

“Going to take about thirty seconds of internal set-up before we see anything happen.” Rebka straightened to his full height and stared at Nenda. “What do you want? I told you everything I know last time we met.”