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"Please believe me; it's true. You don't remember it because the memory has been erased from your mind. I warned you, long ago. There are ways and means—hypnotic techniques . . ."

Aubretia stroked her lips thoughtfully. "Nothing you say makes sense," she murmured. "When did I know you, and where?"

"In Lon, about nine months ago. When you were Press Policy Officer in the Department of the Written Word."

"No." Aubretia shook her head slowly. "I never knew an albino. On the other hand, your name has a faintly familiar sound. Aquilegia." She repeated the name two or three times, as if trying to pinpoint the phantom recollection that hovered in the deep shadows of her brain.

"You used to call me Quilly."

No reaction.

"Why did you come here?" Aubretia asked.

Aquilegia sighed and leaned back in her chair. "It's a long story, and I could do with a drink."

"Ambrosia?"

"Fine, thanks. I'll take it neat, Aubry."

Aubretia produced a bottle of blue gin and two glasses. They drank in silence for a few minutes, studying each other covertly: Aubretia, clean and elegant and surrounded by an intangible ara of exquisite perfume, and Aquilegia, shabby and pale and wearied, bearing the marks of strain and deprivation.

"I have a confession to make," Aquilegia said presently. "I'm not who I said I am. I'm not Aquilegia. But neither you nor anyone else could tell the difference."

"Then who are you?"

"It doesn't matter. I want you to think of me as Aquilegia. She and I are alike in every smallest detail, physically and mentally. You see, she was my parthenogenetic twin."