But what then were the dangers? Nothing that I could think of.

I was being paranoid. I went back out. I gave McAndrew a farewell hug, while Ernesto Kugel looked on approvingly. But as I was doing it I whispered in Mac’s ear, “I’m going to look at the food production center with Van Lyle. If I’m not back in twelve hours, you come after me.”

McAndrew is not good at this sort of thing. “What?” he said loudly.

“You heard.” I did not raise my voice. “See you soon — I hope.”

Earth is an amazing place. It’s a spent force, a used-up relic, a crusted dinosaur that the rest of the System looks back on and shakes its head.

But it doesn’t know that — or at least it won’t admit it.

The Malvinas’ food production facility was astonishing. On the seabed, powered by abundant fusion energy and with nothing but the raw elements as working material, the production center was making foodstuffs as good as any I’d tasted through the whole system. No wonder that Earth, with a ten thousand year supply of primordial methane promised by Ernesto Kugel, wanted to renege on supply contracts. It had little interest in what it saw as extortion from the Outer System.

Earth looked like — dare I say it? — the planet of the future.

Maybe it was that, the total unreality of the experience, that made me lower my guard. Lyle and I were walking through a chamber where vat after vat of synthesized milk and beef extract stood in ferment.

“We’ll visit the organic recycling center next,” he said. “But first, smell this.” We paused in front of an open container, much smaller than the others. “It is Roquefort cheese. Synthesized, but you’d never know it. Lean over, stick your head in, and take a good sniff. Then I’ll give you a taste.”

I leaned over the tub. And I passed out cold, without ever knowing that I had gone.

When I came to I was in a wheelchair, bound but not yet gagged. Lyle was standing at my side.

“Ah, there you are, Jeanie,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Back with us at last. Are you ready for action?”

My head reeled, and a cloying smell was still in my nostrils. How long had I been out? I didn’t know, but it felt like an age. McAndrew might arrive at any moment. I had to think, and I had to survive until that happened.

“I don’t know what you’re up to,” I said, “but I know it won’t work. They’ll come after me.”

“Will they now?” Lyle cocked his head politely. “Don’t take this wrong, Jeanie, but I think you are mistaken. Though I have to say that I am looking forward to the appearance of Professor McAndrew. The show wouldn’t be the same without him. I also think it would be better for the time being if your mouth were taped, just in case.” And a minute later, “I must say it was a surprise to me that you came here at all.”

That, I think, is just where we came in. And a couple of minutes later it was Mac’s arrival in a second wheelchair, pushed by Anna Griss herself, that sent me to a final misery.

“Mac,” I whispered, after he had been rolled up alongside me. I was already full of an awful suspicion. “Where are the others?”

“Others?” He frowned at me, high forehead wrinkling. “Others? I came by myself.”

McAndrew had done what I asked him to do — literally. He had come after me. Alone.

Well, at least there were few illusions left. And when Anna Griss came forward to stand in front of us, there were none. She was, as ever, elegantly dressed, carefully made up, and totally self-confident. She stared at us for a few seconds without speaking. At me, I would suggest, with a total cold hatred; at McAndrew, as at a wayward child who despite the best of advice has gone terribly and incorrigibly wrong.

“It took a while, didn’t it?” she said. “How long has it been since the Oort cloud? But it finally worked out all right. I knew it would.”

“You won’t get away with this, you know,” I said. “People know where McAndrew is. They know where I am.”

“I’m sure they do,” said Anna Griss. “But accidents happen, don’t they? A tour of the recycling facility, an unfortunate entry into a clearly forbidden area…”

“You’re a monster.”

“Thank you. But I don’t think I need to listen to that sort of thing. And I don’t need to watch it.” She turned to Lyle. “Put the gag back on the mouthy one. She talks too much. Then finish both of them. Before you do that, I need one more word with you. I’ll be outside.”

Typical Anna. She wouldn’t watch, she wouldn’t listen; so if there ever were an investigation, for any reason, she could proclaim her innocence. Hear no evil, see no evil.

She left. But Van Lyle was still there, and he was more than enough. He walked forward, sticky tape in his hand, and stood in front of me.

“It will be nice to hear you scream, Jeanie,” he said quietly. “I won’t be able to give you all that you deserve, the thing I’d really like to give you. We don’t have time for that. But I can’t wait to hear you grovel. I want to hear you beg, Jeanie.”

“Maybe you will.” I made my voice quiver. “And maybe you won’t.” He was moving closer. “But if you tape my mouth, you’ll never hear anything from me. Ever. So go ahead.”

He hesitated. “You’ll beg all right,” he said, “and you’ll grovel. Trust me, Jeanie. You’ll plead, and you’ll beg, and you’ll scream. Just you wait.”

He left the room. But he had not taped my mouth.

Mac’s wheelchair stood right next to mine. “Don’t move,” I said, and I leaned as far over to the left as I could. I could get my mouth down to the cords that bound his right hand — just.

Undoing knots in thick cord may sound easy. It isn’t, especially when you can’t see what you’re doing, you’re in a desperate hurry, and you have to work only with your mouth. The lips are very sensitive organs, but we are visual animals. I felt with my tongue and lips, tugged and twisted with my teeth, and was convinced that I was getting nowhere.

I forced myself to remain calm, to be patient, to pull gently instead of tearing and biting. McAndrew did not move, even when my teeth were catching more of his flesh than the cords.

It took forever before I felt the first loosening, a knot responding to my quivering mouth. But then it came faster. The second knot seemed easy. At last Mac’s right hand was free.

“Right,” he grunted. “I’ll have us out in a minute.” He reached across to his other hand, with the loose bonds still on his right wrist. As he worked on his left hand, I craned my head around to watch for the return of Van Lyle.

“Getting it,” Mac said at last. But his legs were still tied when I saw the door opening.

“No more,” I whispered. The two of us sat frozen as Van Lyle walked again in front of us. Mac had left the cords around both wrists, and his forearms rested on the arms of the wheelchair. It looked as though he was securely tied, hand and foot. As for me, I was still taped like a trussed chicken, arms and legs.

“So, Jeanie,” Lyle said. “You don’t know if you’ll ask for mercy, eh? Well, I ought to tell you that Dr. Griss left the final steps in my hands. How you go is completely up to me — and to you. Quick and easy, or slow and hard. Do you think you can persuade me to be nice to you? Let’s find out.”

He moved behind me and pushed my wheelchair forward. Then he came past me, to the panel that controlled the great double doors.

“Take a look at this, Jeanie.”

The doors slid open. Pungent fumes rose from the pit that was revealed before me, searing my throat. I saw a great pond of dark liquid, just beyond the doors and a few feet down.

“Ten seconds in there,” Lyle said conversationally, “and you’d be choking. Half a minute, and your skin would start to peel off. But we don’t have to rush everything like that. You can be dipped in and out like a bit of beef fondue, a toe or a foot or a hand at a time, as often and as slow as I choose to do it. Would you like to beg now, Jeanie? Or would you like to take your trial dip this very minute? Or maybe you would like me to be really merciful, and knock you unconscious first?”