“Contact, you mean, with Darya Lang?” The Cecropian crouched down so that her head was level with Nenda’s. “That human female. Did you not pledge — have we not already agreed—”

“Business, At. Nothing personal. Straight business, just like I promised. If I’m not back in half an hour you can come and get me.”

Atvar H’sial rose to her full height, then slowly subsided to a crouched position. “Half an hour. No more. Enough time for you to locate Professor Lang, and explain that I wish to consult with her. But I do not want you to offer any explanation of my concerns, until I am present. I wish to make my own assessment of her response.”

“Don’t you trust her?”

“Not her. And not you.” The Cecropian’s yellow horns began to close. “Half an hour, Louis Nenda. I will be timing you.”

The research institute was a five-minute walk down the hill, long enough for Louis Nenda to survey the place and wonder how he was going to greet Darya Lang. The last time he had seen her, months before, they had just escaped death at the hands of the Zardalu. He had looked like a hero. Now the conversation was to continue on her home ground, where he looked like a buffoon.

The Institute was laid out on an open plan: graceful white buildings, all clear windows and vine-covered balconies, connected by trellised walkways. Nenda searched in vain for signs on the buildings. All the structures were of roughly equal size. He slid open the door of one wooden building and peered inside. It was clearly the main dining-room, and just as clearly deserted. A squat serving-robot came trundling along bearing an empty porcelain tureen. It ignored his questioning. He went to stand in front of it and asked again, “Darya Lang? Do you know where she is?” It halted and waited, until at last he gave up and went back outside.

A woman, poised and elegant, was strolling toward one of the flowered arbors.

“Hey! You there.” Nenda saw her languid turn, and watched the expression of disbelief as it spread across her face. As he strode toward her, he confirmed his first impression. She was tall, she was slim, she was blond, she was beautiful, she was perfumed; she was a good foot taller than Louis; and she was staring.

A freak by any other name. Louis abandoned any pretence of politeness. He took off his uncomfortable cap and threw it on the ground, allowing his sweaty and uncombed hair to blow in the breeze.

“My name is Louis Nenda. I’m looking for a professor called Darya Lang. She works at the Institute. Do you know where her office is?”

The woman didn’t answer at once. Instead she lifted her hand to her forehead, in a gesture that Louis saw as wholly theatrical. “Nenda. Louis Nenda. Most interesting. Now where have I heard that name before?” She tilted her head down to inspect him, from his clumsy footwear to his dark, greasy hair. “You are Louis Nenda? I am Glenna Omar. I work at the Institute.”

“Yeah?” Louis was quite sure that he had never met the woman before, and he had no interest in playing the name game, especially with somebody who inspected him like he was an escapee from a carnival sideshow. “If you work here, you must know Darya Lang. Where’s her office?”

She pouted, her glistening and bright-red lower lip pushing out at him. Whatever she might think of Louis, she obviously didn’t have much time for anyone who wanted to talk about Darya Lang instead of Glenna Omar. One arm, slender and white and bare, waved at a building in a dismissive gesture.

“Second floor. Will you be staying here?”

“Don’t know. Could be.” As Louis turned and hurried away along the flower-lined path, he knew that the woman was still poised there staring after him. He wished he hadn’t thrown down his cap, but there was no way he was going back to retrieve it while she was around.

The building had a list of names and office numbers posted inside the entrance. Darya Lang, Senior Research Scientist. Room 211.

So. Now came the awkward part. Louis stood thinking for a few seconds. He had read about situations like this, but he had never experienced one. He went back outside. Glenna Omar, thank goodness, had vanished. He stared up the hill, making sure that the hilltop and Atvar H’sial were not visible from his location. Finally he walked across to the path and picked from the flower border a single blossom, of apricot color and delicate perfume.

The second-floor corridor, like the stairway, was clean, carpeted, functional, and indefinably pleasant. What must life be like, day after day of peaceful research in such surroundings? Louis walked, not quite tiptoeing, past the closed doors until he came at last to Room 211. Its door too was closed.

To knock, or not to knock? Louis gently tried the door. It was not locked. He eased the door open and stepped softly inside.

The office was dominated by rows of wall screens and a long desk by the window. In front of the desk sat a single chair, broad, high-backed and with plush black armrests.

The office was occupied. Louis could see the chair moving, rocking a little on its base as though its occupant was relaxing or thinking hard.

Holding the flower out in front of him, Louis moved to stand beside the chair. “Surprise. Here I am again.”

The chair swiveled. Louis found himself looking down at a slightly-built, large-headed man whose hands and feet seemed a bit too big for his body.

He dropped the flower to the carpeted floor. “You!” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Even before his question was answered, Louis could see some irony in the situation. Back in the Mandel system, he had carefully explained to Atvar H’sial that he was not interested in Darya Lang, or she in him. She already had a man, Hans Rebka, the trouble-shooting specialist from the Phemus Circle. He had been with Darya the last time that Louis had seen her. It ought to be no surprise that he was with her now.

But it was. The only good news was that Atvar H’sial would be pleased when she found out.

“What are you doing here?” Louis repeated. “And where is she?”

Rebka, after the initial moment of shock, was scowling. “I hoped I’d seen the last of you.”

“Mutual. Where is she, Rebka? What you doing in her office?”

The scowl was replaced by a different expression. Guilt, if Louis was any judge.

“She’s not here.” Hans Rebka stood up. “But thanks for the flower. It’s nice to know you care.”

“She’s not at the Institute?”

“Not here, not on Sentinel Gate.”

“Then where is she?”

Again, that shifty look on Rebka’s face. Louis wished that Atvar H’sial was present. This was a case for some high-class reading of pheromonal messages.

“I don’t know where she is.”

“You think I’ll swallow that? Come off it, Rebka, you went muff-sniffing after her the minute you first met her. You chased her all over Opal and Serenity and Genizee. Damn it, you were sitting in her own chair when I came in.” Nenda pointed at the name plate on the desk, and had a sudden suspicion. The window overlooked the path. Darya Lang might have seen him. She could have watched his approach to the building, even his picking of the flower. “Did she tell you to get rid of me?”

“She hasn’t mentioned your name once since you and your bug friend left us.” That at least sounded true — Hans Rebka acted too pleased for it to be a lie.

Louis took a step closer. “Well, I’m not leaving this place until I find out where she went. What have you done with her? This is important.”

Rebka took his own step forward. The scowl came back. All the signs for a fight were there, and in spite of Rebka’s tough-guy reputation Louis was looking forward to it.

But then, unpredictably, Hans Rebka’s mood shifted. Instead of raising the testosterone level further, he shook his head and sighed.