They glowed in shades of green and yellow with waving plumes and leaves shaped like enormous Japanese fans. They were both luminous and illuminated and they shifted as they moved from transparent to translucent to opaque.

When he stopped the jeep near the orchid cliffs, he heard a small cry from Myra and looked over to see her features in the familiar grimace of pain; riding that way had almost certainly been too much for her, even with Endolin.

Yet she sat up easily enough, though very slowly, and got out of the jeep. He did not offer to help; she had told him years before that she preferred doing things by herself when she could. By the time she was standing she was smiling again. As he came around to her side of the jeep he saw her casually emptying her drink on the ground at her feet, where it made several pools in the obsidian. She set the glass in the jeep.

They walked forward slowly. Both wore gum-rubber soles on their shoes, but the surface could be treacherous. She appeared to have recovered from the pain in the jeep; her walking was as certain as his own. Possibly steadier. “Myra,” he said, “I think you’re getting better.” His voice was flat.

“It would be really something, Edward, not to be just a sick rich girl. To be able to do something besides lie around and take pills and try to get around the pain. It would be great to work.”

“Work?” he said. “At what?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “At anything. I could learn to be a pilot, or a librarian. You know, Edward, I’m not terribly smart. I think I could be very happy doing housework. Having children. Just being busy for the rest of my life, instead of living in my mind all the time.”

“It’s good to see you thinking about it,” he said. But it wasn’t. He hated the whole idea. A sick Myra was bad enough; he did not want this chipper, nearly well one around to clutter up his life.

And the more well she became the harder it would be to kill her and to blame her death on the arthritis.

He looked toward the orchid observation platform. There was another couple standing there, and as they came closer Edward could see that the man was an engineer named Strang—one of the steadier, more reliable people from the plant. The girl was somebody from Accounting.

And it began to shape up for him then. The situation was really good. He had long suspected that the orchid cliffs were the best place for it. And here were the perfect witnesses. It was dark and everyone knew the orchid cliffs were dangerous at night. Myra had been drinking; the autopsy would show that.

It began to click off for him the way things did sometimes. He embellished it. As they approached the other couple enough to be overheard he said, “Myra, it’s really strange of you to want to come out here like this. Maybe we shouldn’t go to the cliffs. We can come back in daylight tomorrow…”