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and a sheet of paper bearing a printed transcription of the message was deposited on the desk.

Restricted release, announced the voice a moment later. For professional distribution to institutions and organizations in economic, financial, biogenetic, mortic and related fields: The government, following its recent biennial survey of mortic revenue assets, has decided to authorize an increase of two and a half per cent in live parthenogenetic births during the next two years as a preliminary to a statistical revision of the personal mortic tax assessment figure in the light of improving economic conditions. General release will follow in four days.

Another pause—another sheet of printed paper.

General release: Entertainment news from Femina News Agency. State actress Butterfly II will star tonight in a video dramatic feature concerning the love of two adult women for a young albino girl whose parthenogenetic double becomes involved in a criminal attempt to . .

And so it went on, the usual small talk that passed for news, always with the accent on parthenogenesis and, curiously, albinos. Signs of the times, Aubretia thought. After all, in a world where the majority of women were almost mirror images of each other there was a certain irrepressible fascination in albinos—if only because they were different. A phantom image of Aquilegia hovered momentarily in her mind. Aubretia suppressed the inevitable emotional response almost before it had formed. Time enough to think about Aquilegia later in the day—in the long warm evening—but for all her resolution she spared a moment to acknowledge her pleasure and gratitude that she should be on such intimate terms with an albino.

And as for parthenogenesis, either in its auto or hetero forms, there was barely a single news item that did not refer to it in one way or another. It was one of the fundamentals of life—like eating, drinking and cremation, and it seemed