“If he’s going to be on Earth for a while, I have to know what he’s doing here. I thought I might put King Bester on my payroll, but I’m not sure he stays bought. We need someone we can trust. Could you contact the Godiva Bird and put her onto Brachis?”

“That will cost a fortune. Do you have any idea how much Godiva charges?”

“Budget isn’t the problem. Go ahead and do it. My staff insist that women are one of Luther’s weaknesses.’

“Pity they’re not one of yours.” Tatty straightened and moved away from Mondrian. “Esro, you sit mere and try to enjoy your brandy. I’ll arrange for Godiva, and I’ll fix an appointment with the Fropper. If only you could relax, even for one night — you’re so driven.”

“We’re all driven, Princess — every last one of us.” Mondrian glanced across at the tiny glass spheres, each filled with purple liquid, that sat within easy reach. There was a row of* them in every room in the apartment. “Maybe some day I will learn to relax — and maybe someday you’ll learn to stop being a Paradox addict.”

Tatty had been moving towards the door, heading for the communications unit in the next room. Now she paused. “I wish I could stop, Essy.”

“Paradox killed Rattafee, Princess.”

“Do you think I’m not aware of that, more than you are? I know it. As well as I know that your work is going to kill you — unless you find something else to get you there quicker.” She sighed. “Just try to relax, Esro. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Not to live here,” said King Bester. “No one in their right mind would live on the surface.”

A “surface” apartment of Delmarva was defined, by real estate agent convention, as anything less than one kilometer underground. The final outer layer, where roof met open sky, was reserved for automated agriculture and land management. Humans, keep out! Anyone with a perverse urge to sample the “natural” surface life could gratify it easily enough with a trip to central Africa or to South America. The surface reservations there, complete with their protected wild species, still stretched for thousands of square miles.

But the surface of Delmarva Town was a fine place for agriculture. And it was a truly perfect place for an illegal Needler lab — for anyone who could stand the idea of exposure to open sky.

Luther Brachis and King Bester hid their discomfort from each other as they left the final ascent tube and walked up a ringing steel staircase out onto the cultivated soil of the city. Brachis hated those unpredictable breezes. To him they still carried their message of lock failure and hard vacuum. And King Bester, comfortable in the cramped warrens of the city, trembled under the star-filled sky with its cold brilliance.

Walking closer together than either realized, they hurried across three fields of dark-green mutated sedges. Bester knew their destination exactly. After only a few minutes under bare sky he was ducking thankfully into a roofed enclosure. The two men descended a short flight of steps to an open door and a darkened room. Standing at the threshold was a tall, stooped man with a domed bald head, jutting red nose, and long straggling beard.

“The Margrave of Fujitsu.” King Bester was at his most formal. “Commander Luther Brachis.”

The Margrave stared at them gloomily and nodded. He closed the door and triple-locked it, then turned and pressed a light switch. At the other side of the room sat a bulbous plant, five feet high and about two feet across. When the light went on the leaves of the swollen upper part began to open. In less than thirty seconds a single vast flower was revealed. Its central part resembled a human face, with pink cheeks, curved red mouth, and blind blue eyes. After a few moments, the mouth opened. A thin, beautiful tone came forth, a crystalline, pure soprano singing a wordless lament. The song continued and broadened, from a simple theme through to a complex coloratura embroidery. “One of my most successful creations, I think.” The Margrave spoke in excellent standard Solar. “I call this Sorudan — the spirit of song. Stimulated to sing by light, of course, but the real trick is that the melody never repeats unless I so desire. I will be most sorry if I am ever forced to sell Sorudan.” He lowered the level of light in the room. The voice slowly faded, while the melody passed through sublime downward ripples of semitones to a plagal cadence. The sightless eyes closed. Moments later the petals began to curve in around the silent face.

The Margrave led the way in silence into the next room. Luther Brachis followed, slowly. Even if the display of Sorudan had been laid on just for his benefit, it was no less impressive. The ugly artist had created a work of astonishing beauty.

The walls of the next room were lined with cages and holographic images. Brachis saw to his satisfaction that the range of this Needler lab’s output was diverse, and seemingly unlimited in its range. Aquaforms, peering out from their tanks of green-tinged water, sat next to the blinking raptor shapes of gryphons, while just beyond that a holograph of a skeletally-thin kangaroo stood next to — and loomed over — a giraffe. Farther along, under intense arc lights, an inch-long bear ambled along the flat pad of a water-lily. Above it, and above everything, mobile plants quivered and snaked along the ceiling, following moving sources of overhead light.

The Margrave waved a casual arm across the display. “Just to give you an idea. The King tells me that you’re not interested in a simple art product, which most of these are. So why don’t you outline your requirement? Then I’ll tell you if I think it can be done, and give you a cost estimate.”

“I don’t have a complete description. Not yet. But I’ll be willing to pay you very well. And he’ll have to go.” Brachis nodded to Bester. “What I have to say is for your ears only.”

King Bester looked startled. He began to object, then shrugged. “All right by me. I get paid either way.”

He went sulkily through to the next room and watched while Luther Brachis carefully closed the door. After a few seconds Bester went across and put his ear to it. He could hear nothing. He waited impatiently for fifteen minutes, even standing on a chair to see if anything was visible over the top of the door. It wasn’t. By the time the door opened again and the two men came out, he was hopping in inquisitive frustration.

“I’ll send the full specifications just as soon as I have them,” said Brachis.

The Margrave nodded and opened the outer door. “And after that I’ll need about three weeks. At the end of that time I’ll tell you how close I can come to what you want. And you will, of course, need to appoint a suitable intermediary. I dare not meet with just anyone.”

“Understood. I will make those arrangements.” The heavy door closed. All light vanished, and Brachis and Bester stood together in a moonless and overcast Earth night.

“Why Needlers?” said Brachis, as they climbed to the top of the stairs and waited for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. “I looked over the Margrave’s whole lab, and I didn’t see one needle.”

“They don’t prick. Not any more.” Bester was peering around, in every direction. “That’s how it was done when method started, ages back. Way Margrave tells it, in early days, they were all biologists, playing around with female animals and producing offspring. No poppas.”

“Parthenogenesis, you mean. Lots of organisms propagate that way.”

“Yeah. Partho-that. Knew it was fancy long word. Biologists heated eggs, and put eggs in acid, and gave ’em electric shocks or poked ’em with needles. Sometimes egg developed, more often not. Then they got fancier and started new game. If you use hollow needle, real fine one, you can inject stuff into middle of cell. That way you get new DNA into nucleus.”