She too had sympathy for the infant, but the matter went beyond that. They were well past their inability to have a child. She was. It had struck her hard but she had come to accept it, a decree from God. Artificial measures were not so commonplace fifteen years ago, and even now the idea seemed foreign.

The doorbell rang. Nan took a towel in her hands, wiping them though they weren’t wet as she walked through the front room to the door. As her hand reached the doorknob she felt her breathing grow quite sharp.

“Sorry to bother you, mum,” said a thin young man in a blue jumpsuit. He had a small box in his hand, an instrument of some sort. “Report of gas in the neighborhood.”

“Here?” she said, rubbing her hands together as her breathing relaxed.

“Trying to trace it,” he said. “Have you smelled anything?”

“Afraid not.”

“Well that’s a good thing then,” said the man, already heading next door.

The phone rang as she closed the door.

“I hadn’t realized the time, sweets,” said her husband when she picked up.

“Losh, Frank—where are ya now?”

“At the office. I have some calls to make—would you eat without me?”

“Well of course, if I’m hungry.” She glanced back at the stove.

He was quiet for a moment. Nan thought of saying something about the child, but couldn’t find the words.

“I may be here a bit,” Frank told her. “Some calls to make.”

“Well, be here by eight, would you? We have a guest coming round.”

“Not your brother, I hope—he’ll be asking for cigars.”

“Don’t you go encouraging him to smoke now.”

“Who’s the guest?”

“An American teacher. She’s been on holiday and today she came to the school to see our methods. Head-mistress brought her over. Very nice Yank.”

“You should have invited her for dinner.”

“And that would have been sweet, wouldn’t it, with you standing us up.”

Actually, she had, but the American had said she had another engagement. She had seemed charming, however. A little too enthusiastic—but that was a good fault to have when you were young.

“By eight,” she reminded her husband.

“Count on it, Sweets.”

In the red-lit room at UpLink’s satellite recording center in Glasgow, Glyn Lowry banged the space bar on his keyboard in frustration. For the past three nights, an intruder had been attempting to hack his way into one of the UpLink e-mail servers. The attempt seemed to be the work of an amateur, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t do considerable damage. Nor could it be allowed to continue. UpLink’s security programs easily kept the intruder at bay—but for some reason the powerful sniffers that Lowry launched to track him down had failed miserably.