Dr. Curry looked quite startled. "Oh." And muttered, not quite under his breath, "I wondered why you were second on the list."

"Who was first on the list?" asked Claire.

"Silver, but that engineering instructor has her on some kind of assignment. Friend of yours, right? You'll be able to tell her it doesn't hurt."

"I don't care—I don't give a damn if it hurts, I want to know what it is." Her eyes narrowed, as the connections clicked at last, then widened in outrage. "The sterilizations," she breathed. "You're starting the sterilizations!"

"How did you—you weren't supposed—I mean, whatever makes you think that?" gulped Curry.

She dodged for the doorway. He was closer and quicker, and sealed it in front of her nose. She caromed off the closing panel.

"Now, Claire, calm down!" panted Curry, zigzagging after her. "You'll only hurt yourself, totally unnecessarily. I can put you under a general anesthetic, but it's better for you to use a local, and just lie still. You do have to lie still. I have to do this, one way or another—"

"Why do you have to do this?" cried Claire. "Did Dr. Minchenko have to do this—or is that why he isn't here? Who's making you, and how, that you have to?"

"If Minchenko was here, I wouldn't have to," snapped Curry, infuriated. "He ducked out and left me holding the bag. Now come over here and position yourself under the steri-shield, and let me set up the scanners, or I'll have to get—get quite firm with you." He inhaled deeply, psyching himself up.

"Have to," Claire taunted, "have to, have to! It's amazing, some of the things downsiders think they have to do. But they're almost never the same things they think quaddies have to do. Why is that, do you suppose?"

His breath woofed out, and his lips tightened in anger. He plucked a hypodermic off his tray of instruments.

He laid it out in advance, Claire thought. He's rehearsed this, in his mind—he made his mind up before I ever got here. . . .

He launched himself over to where she hovered, and grabbed her left upper arm, stabbing the needle towards it in a swift silver arc. She grabbed his right wrist, slowing it to a straining standstill; so they were locked for a moment, muscles trembling, tumbling slowly in the air.

Then she brought up her lower arms to join her uppers. Curry gasped in surprise, and for breath, as she parted his arms wide, overpowering even his young male torso. He kicked, his knees thumping her, but with nothing to push against he couldn't drive them with enough force to really hurt.

She grinned in wild exhilaration, brought his arms in, out again at will. I'm stronger! I'm stronger! I'm stronger than him and I never even knew it. . . .