back, astonished at the sharpness of his disappointment. There had been something about the girl—something more than the beauty of her face or the curving suppleness of her body—that had made him want to know her. Or had he imagined a reflection in her eyes of his own discontent, his own yearning?

The street was lined with the Organization's bewildering variety of shops, service outlets, offices, vending cafes, entertainment centers. Crowded arcades tunneled under one of the great cylindrical work centers. Nearby a series of escalators trundled down to the tube station on the next level. Hendley heard the rumble of a departing train.

She could have gone anywhere. Even if she had entered one of the nearby shops or office buildings, even if he had known which one, he would have had little chance of finding her. He could recall no emblem on her coverall that would suggest where she worked or what she did.

He stopped at the foot of the ramp where the girl had disappeared. It was hopeless. An accidental collision of two specks in an interminable dust storm of people, almost instantly blown apart. What were the odds against another....

She was standing in the arched entry of a building, staring at him. As he pushed his way toward her she started to turn, averting her gaze, taking one step as if about to leave. The motion was arrested, and she seemed to be suspended there, poised on the verge of flight. She didn't move until he spoke.

"I was afraid I'd lost you."

"Were you?"

"Why did you try to get away?"

"I don't know what you mean. I work here."

Hendley glanced at the sign over the doors: Agricultural Research Center. Above them, above the barren crust of the earth, another eyeless concrete cylinder thrust upward toward the sky like a raised fist.

Agricultural Research Center

"You're working today?" he asked.

She was studying him now. "Yes."

It was strange, he thought, how much was already understood between them, how much had no need to be said.

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