Elizabeth smiled confidently. “He’s got the power under him and the know-­how on top. This isn’t half as bad as it sometimes gets. He’ll be here, with whatever you asked for.”

“You people are terrific,” Peter Hubbard applauded genuinely. Elizabeth noted that he included her among the Yarkie group. Well, he was right.

What the two scientists had already done with the long-­unused room reflected their own special teamwork. Every kind of glass apparatus was set out neatly on the scrubbed tables. Liquids of different colors were boiling everywhere, sending curlicues of steam over the retorts and jars that rested on tripods above Bunsen burners. Tubing of glass and rubber twisted and turned in intricate patterns. From titration apparatus, which Elizabeth recognized from her sophomore lab work, colorless drops were falling slowly into a receptacle of liquid turning darker purple.

On shelves along one wall, empty flasks and cages awaited the specimens the scientists hoped the men would bring in.

Elizabeth returned Hubbard’s praise. “You and Wanda have done a fantastic set-­up here.”

“We’ve got the reagents ready,” the biologist commented. “We’ll be able to analyze the poisons, for one thing.” He gestured at some of the boiling flasks. “And Wanda is trying to determine the pheromonic possibilities . . .” Hubbard left his stool and approached Elizabeth. “We ought to have a talk, you and I.”

Elizabeth looked away evasively. “About what?”

He smiled. “Something’s wrong with our pheromones.”

His manner disturbed the woman, and she moved to leave. “I don’t want to interfere with your work.”

He said promptly, “I’m talking about the freeze you’ve been giving me, Elizabeth.”

“Freeze?”

“Aside from your travelogue about Yarkie last night, you’ve conspicuously managed to avoid a direct word.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be unfriendly.” But the coldness of her voice belied the sentiment. Elizabeth felt stiff and uncomfortable. The warmth in Peter Hubbard’s voice was confusing in a situation already too confused. She wished Wanda Lindstrom would come back into the lab. To keep the conversation impersonal, Elizabeth pointed to the roach specimen the biologists had taken from the rabbit and placed in a covered jar. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

The misbegotten bug was scuttling about, unpausing. Its antennae were straight up, like two trolley poles reaching for an invisible power line. The roach kept trying to climb up the side of the container. Sliding back, it sometimes landed on its back. Then its feet and antennae and mandibles went into a frenzy; its body arched in spasms of instinctual determination until, somehow, without any real purchase on the slippery glass, it regained its normal position. Shivers ran up the woman’s spine. That damned thing will climb out of there yet! she thought with goose pimples.

“No,” Peter Hubbard smiled grimly, watching her. “It won’t manage. Don’t worry.”