Looking straight ahead, Gust went swiftly along the street-like corridor. Ignoring the steam rooms and bathing rooms, tropical gardens and sandy beaches that opened off to either side. And the people. The next bank of elevators was a welcome sight, and this time he very clearly enunciated “fif-tee” as the door closed.

  When he reached the end of the unfinished corridor, the work shift was just going off duty. The flooring terminated here, and ahead was just the rough gray of raw cement still showing the mold marks where it had been cast in place; floodlights stood high on wiry legs.

  “Been having trouble with the squatter, Mr. Crabb,” the shift boss complained. These men had grown up in a world of smoothly operating machines and were hurt when they occasionally proved fallible.

  “I’ll take a look at it. Anything in the hopper?”

  “Half full. Should I empty it out?”

  “No, leave it. I’ll try a run before I call maintenance.”

  As the motors on the machines were turned off one by one, an echoing silence fell on the immense and cavernlike area. The men went away, their footsteps loud, calling to each other, until Gust was alone. He climbed the ladder to the top of the hulking squatter and unlocked the computer controls. When he typed a quick condition query the readout revealed nothing wrong. These semi-intelligent machines could analyze most of their own troubles and deliver warnings, but there were still occasional failures beyond their capacity to handle or even recognize. Gust closed the computer and pressed the power button.

  There was a far-off rumble and the great bulk of the machine shuddered as it came to life. Most of the indicator lights blinked on red, turning swiftly to green as the motors came to speed. When the operation-ready light also turned green, he squinted at the right-hand television screen, which showed the floor level buried under the squatter. The newly laid flooring ended abruptly where the machine had stopped. He backed it a few feet so the sensors could come into operation, then started it forward again at the crawling pace of working speed.

  As soon as the edge was reached the laying began again. The machine guided itself and controlled the mix and pouring. About all the operator had to do was turn the entire apparatus on and off. Gust watched the hypnotically smooth flow of new floor appear and could see nothing wrong. It was pleasant here, doing a simple yet important job like this.

  A warning buzzer sounded and a light began flashing red on the controls. He blinked and had a quick glimpse of something black on the screen before it moved swiftly out of sight. He stopped the forward motion and put the squatter into reverse again, backing the huge mass a good ten feet before killing all the power and climbing back down. The newly laid plastic flooring was still hot under his feet and he trod gingerly almost up to the forward edge. There was a cavity in the flooring here, like a bowl or a bubble a foot wide. As though the machine had burped while spewing out its flow. Perhaps it had. The technicians would set it right. He spoke a note to call them in his pocket phone, killed all except the standby lights, then went back to the elevators. Calling out his floor number very carefully.

  Dr. Livermore and Leatha were bent over a worktable in the lab, heads lowered as though at a wake. As perhaps they were. Gust came in quietly, listening, not wanting to interrupt.

  “There were some of the most promising new strains here,” Leatha said. “The Reilly-Stone in particular. I don’t know how much computer time was used in the preliminary selection, but the technicians must have put in a hundred hours on this fertilized ovum alone.”

  “Isn’t that a little unusual?” Livermore asked.

  “I imagine so, but it was the first application of the Ber-shock multiple-division cross-trait selection, and you know how those things go.”

  “I do indeed. It will be easier the next time. Send the records back, noting the failures. Get them started on replacements. Hello, Gust, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “No bother. We are finished in any case. Had some bottle failures today.”

  “So I heard. Do you know why?”

  “If I knew everything, I would be God, wouldn’t I?”

  Leatha looked at the old man, shocked. “But Doctor, we do know why the embryos were killed. The valve failed on the input—”

  “But why did the valve fail? There are reasons beyond reasons in everything.”

  “We’re going to Old Town, Doctor,” Gust said, uncomfortable with this kind of abstract conversation and eager to change the subject.

  “Don’t let me stop you. Don’t bring back any infections, hear?”

  Livermore turned to leave, but the door opened before he reached it. A man stood there, looking at them without speaking. He entered, and the silence and the severe set of his features struck them silent as well. When the door had closed behind him he called their names in a deep voice, looking at each of them in turn as he spoke.

  “Dr. Livermore, Leatha Crabb, Gust Crabb. I am here to see you. My name is Blalock.”

  It was clear that Livermore did not enjoy being addressed in this manner. “Call my secretary for an appointment. I’m busy now.” He started to leave, but Blalock raised his hand, at the same time taking a thin wallet from his pocket.

  “I would like to see you now, Doctor. This is my identification.”

  Livermore could not have left without pushing the man aside. He stopped and blinked at the golden badge.

  “FBI. What on earth are you after here?”

  “A killer.” A stunned silence followed. “I can tell you now, though I would appreciate your not telling anyone else, that one of the technicians working here is an agent from the bureau. He makes regular reports to Washington about conditions on the project.”

  “Meddling and spying!” Livermore was angry.

  “Not at all. The government has a large investment here and believes in protecting it—and in guarding the taxpayers’ money. You have had a number of bottle failures here in the first weeks after implanting.”

  “Accidents, just accidents,” Leatha said, then flushed and was silent when Blalock turned his cold, unsmiling gaze on her.

  “Are they? We don’t think so. There are four other New Towns in the United States, all of them with projects working along the same lines as yours. They have had bottle failures as well, but not in the numbers you have here.”

  “A few more in one place or another means nothing,” Livermore said. “The law of averages covers minor differences.”

  “I’m sure it does. Minor differences, Doctor. But the rate of failure here is ten times higher than that of the other laboratories. For every bottle failure they have, you have ten. For their ten, you have a hundred. I am not here by accident. Since you are in charge of this project, I would like a letter from you giving me permission to go anywhere on the premises and to speak with anyone.”

  “My secretary will have gone by now. In the morning—”

  “I have the letter here, typed on your stationery. It just needs your signature.”

  Livermore’s anger was more forced than real. “I won’t have this. Stealing my office supplies. I won’t have it.”

  “Don’t be rude, Doctor. Your stationery is printed by the Government Printing Office. They supplied it to me to make my job easier. Don’t you make it harder.”

  There was a coldness in that you that stopped Livermore and sent him fumbling with his pen to sign the letter. Gust and Leatha looked on, not knowing what to do. Blalock folded the letter and put it back into his pocket.

  “I’ll want to talk to you all later,” he said, and left. Livermore waited until he was gone, then went out as well, without a word.

  “What an awful man,” Leatha said.

  “It doesn’t matter how awful he is if what he said was right. Bottle sabotage—can that be?”

  “Easily enough done.”

  “But why should it be done?” Gust asked. “That’s the real question. It’s so meaningless, so wanton. There’s simply no reason.”

  “That’s Blalock’s worry, what he’s getting paid for. Right now I’ve had a long day, and I’m hungry and more concerned with my dinner. You go ahead to the apartment and defrost something. I won’t be a minute finishing up these tests.”

  He was angry. “The first blush is off our marriage, isn’t it? You’ve completely forgotten that I asked you out to dinner in Old Town.”

  “It’s not that …” Leatha said, then stopped, because it really was. Gust wasn’t completely right; the work was so distracting, and then this Blalock person. She tidied up quickly without finishing the tests and took off her smock. Her dress was dark gray and no less severe. It was thin, too, designed for wear in the constant temperature of New Town.

  “If it’s cold outside, I should get a coat.”

  “Of course it’s cold out. It’s still March. I checked out a car earlier and put your heavy coat in it. Mine as well.”

  They went in silence to the elevator and down to the parking level. The bubble-dome car was at the ready ramp; the top swung up when he turned the handle. They put on their coats before they climbed in, and Gust turned on the heat as he started the car. The battery-powered electric engine hummed

  strongly as they headed for the exit, the doors opened automatically for them as the car approached. There was a brief wait in the lock while the inner door closed before the outer one opened; then they emerged on the sloping ramp that led up to Old Town.

  It had been a long time since their last visit outside the New Town walls, and the difference was striking. The streets were patched and had an unkempt appearance, with dead grass and weeds protruding from the cracks. There were pieces of paper caught against the curbs, and when they passed an empty lot a cloud of dust swirled around them. Leatha sank deeper into her seat and shivered even though the heater was going full on. The buildings had a weathered and even a decayed look about them, the wooden buildings most of all, and the limbs of the gray trees were bare as skeletons in the fading daylight. Gust tried to read the street signs and lost his way once, but finally found a garish spotlit sign that read sharm’s. Either they were early or business wasn’t booming, because they could park right in front of the door. Leatha didn’t wait but ran the few feet through the chill wind while Gust locked up the car. Inside, Sharm himself was waiting to greet them.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he said with bored professional exuberance. A tall, wide Negro, very black, wearing a brilliant kaftan and red fez. “I’ve got just the table for you, right at the ringside.”

  “That will be nice,” Gust said.

  Sharm’s hospitality was easily understood; there was only one other couple in the restaurant. A heavy smell of cooking hung in the air, some of it not too fresh, and the tablecloth was a cartography of ancient stains only partially removed.

  “Like a drink?” Sharm asked.

  “I guess so. Any suggestions?”

  “Bet your life. Bloody Mary with tequila, the house special. I’ll fetch a jug.”

  They must have been premixed, because he was back a moment later with the tray and two menus tucked under his arm. He poured their drinks and then one for himself and pulled up a chair to join them. The atmosphere of Sharm’s was nothing if not relaxed.

  “Salud,” he said, and they drank. Leatha puckered her lips and put her glass down quickly, but Gust liked the sharp bite of the drink.

  “Great. Never tasted one before. How about the menu— any house specials there?”

  “Everything’s special. My wife is great at any kind of cult-food. Black-eyed peas and corn dodgers, kosher hot dogs and Boston baked beans, we got them all. Just take your pick. Music’s starting now, and Aikane will be in to dance in about a half an hour. Drink up, folks, these are on the house.”

  “Very kind,” Gust said, sipping his.

  “Not at all. I want to pump your brain, Mr. Crabb, and I pay in advance. I saw you on 3V last week talking about New Town. Pretty fancy if I say so myself. What’s the chances of opening a restaurant in your place?” He drained his glass and poured himself another one, topping up their glasses at the same time.

  “That’s not easy to say.”

  “What’s easy? Living on the dole and maybe blowing your brains out from boredom, that’s easy. Me, I got bigger plans. Everyone likes cultfood. Eldsters, reminds them of the old days; kids think it’s real pit-blasting. But people here in Old Town don’t eat out much, not that much loose pesos around. Got to go to where the change is. New Town. What’re the odds?”

  “I can find out. But you have to realize, Mr. Sharm …”

  “Just plain Sharm. A first name.”

  “You have to realize that the eldsters have special diets, special sanitary regulations on their food.”

  “This beanery isn’t bug-finky. We got plenty of sanitary examinations.”

  “That’s not what I meant, I’m sorry, don’t misunderstand me. It’s special diets really, to go with the medication. Really special if you understand, practically worked out and cooked in the labs.”

  A loud drumming interrupted him as a sad-looking American Indian did a quick Indian war beat on the bass drum. He switched on the audio with his toe, then worked rhythm on the traps as the recording played an Israeli folk song. It was all very unimpressive—but loud.

  “What about the younger people then?” Sharm shouted to be heard. “Like you folks. You come this far to eat cultfood, why not have it closer to home?”

  “There’s not enough of us, not yet. Just technicians and construction teams. No more than ten percent of the children who will occupy the city have even been born yet, so I don’t know if you even have a big enough group to draw from. Later, perhaps.”

  “Yeah, later. Big deal. Wait twenty years.” Sharm sank down, wrapped in gloom, moving only to empty the jug into his glass. He rose reluctantly when another customer entered, ending the embarrassing interlude.

  They both ordered mixed plates of all the specialties and a bottle of wine, since Leatha was not that enthusiastic about the Bloody Marys. While they ate, a slightly dark-skinned girl, of possibly Hawaiian descent, emerged from the rear and did an indifferent hula. Gust looked on with some pleasure, since she wore only a low-slung grass skirt with many tufts missing and was enough overweight to produce a great deal of jiggling that added a certain something to the dance.

  “Vulgar,” Leatha said, wiping her eyes with her napkin after taking too much horseradish on her gefilte fish.

  “I don’t think so.” He put his hand on her leg under the table, and she pushed it away without changing expression.

  “Don’t do that in public.”

  “Or in private either! Damn it, Lea, what’s happening to

  our marriage? We both work, A-OK, that’s fine, but what about our life together? What about our raising a newborn?”

  “We’ve talked about this before… .”

  “You’ve said no before, that’s what has, happened. Look, Lea honey, I’m not trying to push you back to the Middle Ages with one in the hand, one on the hip, and one in the belly. Women have been relieved at last of all the trouble and danger of childbirth, but by God they are still women. Not men with different builds. A lot of couples don’t want kids, fine, and I agree that creche-raised babies have all the advantages. But other couples are raising babies, and women can even nurse them after the right injections.”

  “You don’t think I’d do that?”

  “I’m not asking you to do that—as you so sweetly put it—though it’s nowhere near as shocking as your tone of voice indicates. I would just like you to consider raising a child, a son. He would be with us evenings and weekends. It would be fun.”

  “Not exactly my idea of fun.”

  The answer that was on his lips was sharp, bitter, and nasty and would have surely started an even worse fight, but before he could speak she grabbed him by the arm.

  “Gust, there in the corner at that back table—isn’t that the horrible person who was at the lab?”

  “Blalock? Yes, it looks like him. Though it’s hard to tell in this over-romantic light. What difference does it make?”

  “Don’t you realize that if he is here, he followed us and is watching us? He thinks we may have been responsible for the bottle failures.”

  “You’re imagining too much. Maybe he just likes cultfood. He looks the type who might even live on it.”

  Yet why was he at the restaurant? If he was there to worry them, he succeeded. Leatha pushed her plate away and Gust had little appetite as well. He called for the check and, depressed in spirits, they shrugged into their coats and went outinto the cold night, past the silent and accusing eyes of Sharm, who knew he was not going to live the new life in New Town no matter how much he wanted to.

  Many years before, Catherine Ruffin had developed a simple plan to enable her to get her work done, a plan that was not part of her work routine. She had discovered, early in her career, that she had an orderly mind and a highly retentive memory that were great assets in her work. But she had to study facts slowly and deliberately without interruptions, something that was impossible during the routine of a busy office day. Staying after work was not the answer; the phone still rang, and she was often too fatigued to make the most of the opportunity. Nor was it always possible to bring work back to her apartment. Since she had always been an early riser, she found that her colleagues were all slugabeds and would rather do anything than come to work five minutes early. She went to her office now at seven every morning and had the solid core of her work done before anyone else appeared. It was a practical and satisfactory solution to the problem and one that appealed to her. However, she was so used to being alone at these early hours that she looked upon anyone else’s presence as an interruption and an annoyance. She found the note on her desk when she came in; it certainly had not been there when she left the previous evening. It was typed and quite clear:

  Please see me now in bottlelab. Urgent. R. Livermore.

  She was annoyed at the tone and the interruption and, perhaps, the idea that someone had actually come to work before her. Been here all night, more likely; the scientific staff tended to do that unless specifically forbidden. Still it looked urgent, so she had better comply. There would be time for