"You know, somehow I have the same—Just a minute." He went over to a workbench. His inframicrometer had an air thermometer attached to make temperature corrections.

"What the devil," he muttered. "It is cooled off. Only 18 degrees in here. It's supposed to be 21."

"Some fluctuation, in temperature as in ozone content and humidity," reminded Alemán. "That is required for optimum health."

"Not this time of day, it shouldn't be varying." Gilchrist was reminded of his cigaret as it nearly burned his fingers. He stubbed it out and took another and inhaled to light it.

"I'm going to raise Jahangir and complain," he said. "This could play merry hell with exact measurements."

Alemán trotted after him as he went to the door. It was manually operated, and the intercoms were at particular points instead of every room. You had to forego a number of Earthside comforts here.

There was a murmuring around him as he hurried down the corridor. Some doors stood open, showing the various chemical and biological sections. The physicists had their own dome, on the other side of the Hill, and even so were apt to curse the stray fields generated here. If they had come this far to get away from solar radiations, it was only reasonable, as anyone but a chemist could see, that—

The screen stood at the end of the hall, next to the tunnel stairs. Gilchrist checked himself and stood with a swift wild pulse in his throat. Catherine Bardas was using it.

He had often thought that the modern fashion of outbreeding yielded humans more handsome than any pure racial type could be. When a girl was half Greek and half Amerind, and a gifted biosynthesizer on top of it, a man like him could only stare.

Mohammed Jahangir's brown, bearded face registered more annoyance than admiration as he spoke out of the screen. "Yes. Dr. Bardas," he said with strained courtesy. "I know. My office is being swamped with complaints."

"Well, what's the trouble?" asked the girl. Her voice was low and gentle, even at this moment.

"I'm not sure," said the engineer. "The domes' temperature is dropping, that's all. We haven't located the trouble yet, but it can't be serious."

"All I'm asking," said Catherine Bardas patiently, "is how much longer this will go on and how 

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