"Oh boy," he said, after the comparison was done. Then he called out to Rod Acuna.

"You're shitting me," Acuna said to Archie, a few minutes later.

"It's all there," Archie said. "She's mostly human, but there's whole sequences of her DNA which are from your sheep genome."

"She didn't look like a sheep," Acuna said.

"Looks like most of the sheep DNA is in areas of the code that are switched off in humans," Archie said. "It's called 'junk DNA.' It wouldn't affect the way she looked or how her body worked. Functionally she's totally human. But according to this DNA, she's about eighteen percent sheep."

"Fucking scientists," Acuna said. "Ruin a perfectly good-looking woman like that." He flipped open his communicator and made a call.

"The hell you say," Secretary of state Heffer said, to Ben Javna, over the communicator.

"No joke, sir," Javna said. "Our sheep is a pet shop owner from Virginia."

"That's it?" Heffer said. "You don't have any other sheep? Real ones?"

"That's all we got," Javna said. "All the real Android's Dream sheep are dead from sabotage. Whoever's killing them off is moving fast."

Heffer rubbed his temples. "Well, crap, Ben. This is all we need."

"Where are you, sir?" Javna asked

Heffer looked out the window of the delta, which was just starting the downslope of its parabola. "Hell if I know," he said. "Most of the Pacific Ocean looks like any other part. We'll be landing in LA in about forty-five minutes and then I've got to make an appearance at the State Department building. The director there is retiring. I get back into DC around midnight your time."

"What do you want to do?" Javna asked.

"What are our options?" Heffer asked.

"None that I can think of right off the top of my head," Javna said. "DNA aside, this is a human being and a U.S. and UNE citizen. We can't hand her over to the Nidu for a ceremony without her consent."

"Can't we just give them a quart of her blood or something?" Heffer asked. "I don't think a quart of blood is an unreasonable request to make."

"I'm pretty sure they need a whole sheep," Javna said. "That's the impression I got when I called over to the Nidu embassy to ask about details. I was also given the impression that they're getting antsy about it. We're coming up to the deadline real soon."

"You didn't tell them about her," Heffer said.

"No," Javna said. "I figured you might want to be advised first."

"Arrrgh," Heffer said, saying the word "arrgh" rather than grunting it. "Well, this development is pretty much par for the course, isn't it."

"Sorry sir," Javna said. Javna had been following the transcripts and reports coming back from his boss's trip to Japan and Thailand. To say the trip had taken a bad turn would be to imply that there had been the possibility of taking the right turn somewhere along the way. Heffer had been hoping to get emigration concessions from the two countries to allow more colonists from third-world countries to jump to the front of the colonization line. But Asian countries were chronically touchy about their colonization status and quotas. Both Japan and Thailand, in their diplomatically polite way, had told Heffer to stick it. The trip had not been one of his shining moments.

"Look," Heffer said. "At the very least we can have her come in and talk to us. We might be able to find some way to compromise with the Nidu if we can get her to agree to help out. And if nothing else, we can show the Nidu we're making the effort. We need that. Do you think your guy can get her to cooperate?"

"He's got a date with her in an hour or so," Javna said. "He can ask her then."

"A date?" Heffer said. "Christ, Ben."

"He was sort of steamrolled into it," Javna said. "And anyway, the woman doesn't know that she's part sheep. He's got to break it to her."

"Not the usual first date conversation, is it," Heffer said.

"I've had first dates that would have been improved by it," Javna said.

"Well, as have we all," Heffer said. "But that doesn't make his job any easier."

"No, sir," Javna said.

"Are we worried about her?" Heffer asked. "We've got a lot of dead sheep."

"We're pretty sure whoever's knocking off the sheep aren't aware she's out there," Javna said. "If they did, I think she'd probably be dead by now."

"Ben, he needs to bring her in," Heffer said. "For her own safety, if nothing else."

"It's not going to be easy," Javna said. "At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it's a lot to lay on someone in one night that she's part sheep, her life's in danger, and she's needed by the government for the purposes of interplanetary peace."

"We don't have any options, Ben," Heffer said. "You said it yourself."

"All right," Javna said. "I'll get him to get her to come in."

"Can he do it?" Heffer asked.

Javna laughed. "Sir, this guy breaks bad news to people for a living," he said. "Trust me, we've got the best man for the job."

"I need to tell you something," Creek said to Robin as they walked through Arlington Mall.

"It's not about the sweats, is it?" Robin said, glancing down at her togs and then back at Creek. "I know they're kind of ratty, but they're really comfortable. And being a pet shop owner doesn't exactly leave you rolling in the dough."

"I hadn't noticed your sweats," Creek said. He was wearing a jacket, t-shirt, and jeans.

"I don't know how to take that," Robin said. "Does that mean you're not noticing me? If so, this date's not going like I hoped."

Creek grinned. "I've noticed you. Honest."

"Good answer," Robin said. "What do you do, Harry?"

"I work for the State Department," Creek said. "I'm a Xeno-sapient Facilitator."

Robin rolled that around in her head. "You help nonhuman intelligences? That sounds like you're either a god or a gigolo. Which could be really interesting or disgusting."

"It's neither," Creek said. "I go to the various alien embassies and give the people in them bad news."

Robin scrunched up her face. "Rough gig," she said.

"It takes a certain perspective," Creek agreed.

"So do you have any bad news for me?" Robin asked.

"Well," Creek began.

"Look! Here we are," Robin said, and pointed to the 35-foot high transparent cube in the Arlington Mall atrium. Creek peered inside the cube and saw four people in it, literally bouncing off the walls.

"What is that?" Creek asked.

"That's WallBall," Robin said. "It's why we're here."

"WallBall?" Creek said. "I played that in third grade. You threw a tennis ball against a wall and when it came back you caught it. If you dropped it, you had to make it to the wall before someone threw it. That's wall ball."

"Well, two things," Robin said. "First, that game's called 'suicide,' not 'wall ball,' and anyone who thinks otherwise is freakish and wrong. Second, you notice the banner over there has "Wall-Ball' with that little 'tm' thingy, so I'm sure that any time kids playing suicide-but-calling-it-wall-ball will soon be served with cease-and-desist orders."

"Seems a little harsh," Creek said.

"You know kids," Robin said. "If you don't keep 'em down early, they get all uppity. Come on, the line's short. Let's get in there."

Robin explained the game while they waited. The game was played similarly to basketball in that you had to get the ball through a hoop in order to score. The catch was that the hoop was 28 feet up on the wall of the cube, high enough to make any ground-based shot at the hoop dubious at best. So the players literally climbed the walls of the playing field to get at the hoop, through the use of specially equipped sneakers with kinetic movement enhancers in the soles. As Robin was mentioning this, Creek was watching one of the players hurl himself at a wall, squarely plant a shoe, and then push off, hurling himself up an adjoining wall. When he hit that he launched himself again, landed next to the hoop, and stuffed the ball down its gullet before doing a flip in the air and falling, back first, toward the flooring surface below. The surface gave under the speed of the impact and then bounced him back up; he put himself in standing position and landed on his feet.