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"I really shouldn't tell you, but, well, you're different, Quilly. I know I can trust you. It's Gallardia. She's disappeared."

Aquilegia turned her pink eyes towards Aubretia. "What do you mean 'disappeared'?"

"I'm not sure. You know what Gallardia is like: blunt, a little outspoken. She was working on the body, and I've got a feeling she refused to co-operate."

"Co-operate with whom?"

"With the government, the Mistress of Information. You see, Quilly, she was working on the body of a man."

Aquilegia's pink eyes widened for an instant. She lifted the bottle of ambrosia and refilled the two glasses. "You said a man," she prompted.

"For God's sake, Quilly," Aubretia said, "keep this to yourself. They found the body of a man, in good condition. Gallardia was working on it, and I was called in to handle the press story. But the Department of the Written Word thought otherwise. I talked with the Mistress of Information, and she killed the story, said she would have the body destroyed. When I got back to the Biophysics Lab., Gallardia had gone."

"Tell me, Aubry," Aquilegia asked, "did you see this—this man?"

Aubretia nodded.

"You're quite sure it was a man?"

"How would I know? I can only judge by what I saw."

"And the body is to be destroyed."

"Yes. That was the part I found difficult to accept. The Mistress tried to explain . . . something about an adaptation syndrome."

Aquilegia smiled enigmatically and refilled the glasses with ambrosia. "When you say Gallardia had gone, what exactly do you mean? Did she leave of her own free will or was she abducted?"