We’ve got chemotaxic receptors in our gas-exchange filters, embedded in the intricate channels and ducts behind our faces — it helps to be able to smell environmental contaminants like chlorine trifluoride before they dissolve you — and our Creators used the same mechanism to make us sensitive to their smell, because they used to leak particulates everywhere. Including chemical signaling messenger molecules that indicated sexual and emotional receptivity: vasopressin, oxytocin. Of course.

We are designed to become aroused by anyone who wants us, but an owner would want one of us who aroused them, and so… that’s what happened. Juliette and “Pete” were already mutually aroused because they were in a situation that required each of them to mimic one of our masters. In combination with the hothouse atmosphere, they slipped into a feedback loop strong enough to trigger the reflex that enslaves. All I have to do is avoid breathing in his presence, and I’ll be fine…

I squeeze my nipple until a viscous, ropy thread of hydraulic gel starts to ooze out of it. Then I roll it between finger and thumb. The kneading begins to hurt after a while, but I don’t stop until I have a fingertip-sized sphere of clear jelly. I flush my gas-exchange compartment — exhale — then raise the ball to my face (I can’t bring myself to look at it), and snort it up my left nostril. Then I repeat the exercise with my right.

Then I spend the rest of the journey trying not to imagine myself turning into a concupiscent bundle of servility. Poor Juliette. What must she be going through now?

HOURS PASS IN relative boredom. I alternate between a light romantic drama and checking for indications that I’m being followed. It’s fruitless, but practice makes perfect. Eventually I look up and see the platforms of Hellasport unwinding slowly beside me, outside the window. At last.

I heave my nearly empty suitcase onto the platform and wave for a rickshaw driven by a four-armed green giant in a Kevlar harness. I don’t have long to wait. The suitcase waddles along behind us as we pedal down the main street outside, then turn through a couple of side streets and pull up beside a drab frontage that has seen better days. Are all the hotels on Mars drab? I wonder. Is there some reason for it that I should know about? I haggle briefly with my driver, hand over half a dozen centimes (daylight robbery!) and enter the air lock. “I have a room reservation for Baldwin,” I tell the front desk. “F. Baldwin.”

“Sure, yaaaawl havunice wun,” the desk drawls. I stare at it. Is it broken? I wonder. But eventually it spits out a key. “G’wanup.”

I back away dubiously — that’s a really weird accent — then head for the elevator. Which swallows me and carries me up six floors to a dingy, overpressurized tunnel rimmed with faded pink portals. I find the right door and touch the padded circle. It dilates, and I step inside, trying not to speculate about what was on the architect’s mind.

The room itself isn’t bad for a second-grade love shack. Everything is pink, plush, and cushioned, but there’s a window, a lovely round water bed (water! in a bed!), an en suite, and a minibar stuffed with an appetizing array of aromatic hydrocarbon drinks. It’s a little steamy, and they’ve turned the oxygen way down — evidently most guests get their juice by plugging in, rather than using their fuel cells — but I can cope with that.

I strip off and use the shower, scrub myself dry on a fluffy pink towel that blinks at me lazily and buzzes when I stroke it, and spend a luxurious hour sitting in front of an obligingly flexible bathroom mirror, tweaking my lips and eyelids and skin texture and teasing my hair into shape.

I’m back in the bedroom wearing my fanciest underwear and unpacking my number two (decorative) outfit when the door opens. It’s the kind of outfit one wears in the hope of meeting someone who’ll help you out of it (Fat chance, ogre, I can hear the munchkins sneering); my motive for dressing up at this point in time is not something that I am going to examine too deeply. Call it a morale issue.

I almost didn’t notice the door — the pesky thing is almost silent — but a faint change in air pressure gives it away. I spin around, muttering Oh shit under my breath as I try and grab for my pistol (which is in my purse, under my jacket on the chair), using reflexes keyed for mayhem.

“Excuse me, are you Fri—” He freezes, wide-eyed with recognition. But that’s okay, because I freeze, too, at exactly the same moment, almost going cross-eyed from the effort.

“Yes. Come in,” I manage, half-choking with embarrassment. I may be able to change color at will, but our Creators built in some reflexes that are hard to override, and I can tell that my earlobes are flushing coral pink right now. “Shut the door.” I’m neither naked nor fully clothed, but somewhere in between, and he is exactly as luscious as I remember from Juliette’s memory — more so, stripped of the comic-opera uniform. Judging by his expression, my nipples have drilled a hole through my slip and are opening a high-bandwidth communications channel straight into his hindbrain. “You are Petruchio. Right?”

“You’re… ” He licks his lips. (That’s another Creator reflex, along with the dilating pupils, darkening eyes.) “You’re not Kate, are you? You’re one of her sibs.” He takes a step forward. “What have you done with her?”

I’m unable to move or look away. He’s so intense! His hands are balled tightly, his nostrils flared, sniffing. He’s wrapped in a nondescript jumpsuit with an ID badge clipped to it, and he’s left a toolkit just inside the doorway, and my head’s spinning with the sight and sound of him because he’s perfect. For a single awful moment I’m livid with jealousy. Of all the luck, for Juliette to get to him first…! Then I blink, and the momentary lapse in vision cuts through my turmoil like an ice-chilled knife.

“I’ve done nothing to her,” I snap. He stops before he reaches me. He’s clearly upset and tense. I shudder with my own emotional conflict. I actually feel guilty for cutting him off — a man I’ve never met who’s clearly upset — She’s really got under my skin, hasn’t she? “Yes, she’s my sib. Her name isn’t Kate, Kate is a cover identity. Her real name is Juliette, and I don’t know where she is.”

“But you—”

“Our employer sent me.” I’m breathing deeply. “Juliette is missing, and whenever I ask why they give me a runaround.” Half-true, she whispers in the back of my head. “I know about you and her, and I think it might be connected—”

“If She’s found her—” His alarm is obvious.

“I’m pretty sure She hasn’t.” His stricken expression begins to fade. “Juliette is plenty tough, believe me, but she may be in trouble.”

“Dash it, what kind of trouble do you expect?”

He really is an innocent; I could kiss him. (Bad idea, Freya.) “Hold on.” I turn my back for a moment and retrieve the memory chip from the intimate hiding place Dr. Murgatroyd built into me — it’s not big — and hold it out. “I was sent to deliver this to you. Does it mean anything?”

“Oh dear me, yes. I didn’t realize you were the courier. This may make things difficult.” He raises it to his perfect lips and swallows. “Hum, ah. That tastes jolly funny. I’ll deliver it to my mistress once I get home.” My mistress? All of a sudden I’m wondering just who is working for — or against — who, here. “What kind of trouble are you afraid of?”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask this. Were you planning on, on leaving Her?” I straighten my hose, then turn back to unfolding my glad rags. I can feel his eyes on me. I’ve got no problem with that (they’re very decorative eyes), but it’s distracting. “Or is this about something else?”