When the doctors began to study her, and dug out the old files they had compiled when she was trapped after that similar accident years before, they were startled by Pina’s “subadult” condition. They were able to trace the mechanism of her sterility. An impaired hypothalamic hormone secretion led to an inadequate gonadotrophic secretion, which in turn blocked ovulation . . . And so on. I didn’t really understand any of this, and I didn’t know any medics I could trust to decode it for me. I don’t suppose it mattered anyhow, for though the doctors could figure out how the sterility occurred, they couldn’t figure out why. And Pina, evidently, wouldn’t talk.

They kept her in hospital for two months. Strangely, by the end of that time, there were some changes in the condition of her body. It seemed that her glands were starting to secrete the complex chain of hormones that would have been necessary to trigger ovulation: it was as if she was entering puberty at last, at the much-delayed age of twenty-five. Perhaps if all the drones could be removed from the hive, they too would “recover.”

But before this process was complete Pina disappeared from the hospital. She was checked out by “relatives,” just as Lucia had been. I didn’t hear of her again.

I did hear of Giuliano Andreoli, as it happened, having searched for his name on the Internet. Lucia’s first lover was arrested for attempted rape, but committed suicide in his cell before the case could be brought to trial. I could imagine what Peter would have made of that: to the Order, Giuliano was just a sperm machine, used once and then discarded, pushed out into the glaring light of the outside world and an empty future. What he had known in the hive, that brief overwhelming moment of love and lust, must have come to seem like a dream.

As for Lucia herself, she is now living with Daniel and his family, in their bright, airy home in the hills outside Rome. Daniel’s parents turned out to be decent, humane folk. And usefully enough, like many expats they don’t entirely trust the competence of the Italian authorities, and were happy to get Lucia medical treatment privately and discreetly.

Lucia has had her third baby—a boy, in fact, lusty and healthy. It turned out to be a simple procedure to snip out her spermatheca, as Peter had called it, the little sac on her womb that would have continued to bleed Giuliano’s seed into her for the rest of her life. Daniel’s family now talk of putting her through school.