"I didn't mean that. I meant that Contact had the best Minds, the most information. They might be able to come up with some ideas. Any time I've ever been involved with them they've got things done. It's a last resort, mind you."

"Why?"

"Because they're tricky. Devious. They're gamblers, too; and used to winning."

"Hmm," Gurgeh said, and stroked his dark beard. "I wouldn't know how to go about it," he said.

"Nonsense," Chamlis said. "Anyway; I have my own connections there; I'd—"

A door slammed. "Holy shit it's cold out there!" Yay burst into the room, shaking herself. Her arms were clenched across her chest and her thin shorts were stuck to her thighs; her whole body was quivering. Gurgeh got up from the couch.

"Come here to the fire," Chamlis told the girl. Yay stood shivering in front of the window, dripping water. "Don't just stand there," Chamlis told Gurgeh. "Fetch a towel."

Gurgeh looked critically at the machine, then left the room.

By the time he came back, Chamlis had persuaded Yay to kneel in front of the fire; a bowed field over the nape of her neck held her head down to the heat, while another field brushed her hair. Little drops of water fell from her drenched curls to the hearth, hissing on the hot flag stones.

Chamlis took the towel from Gurgeh's hands, and the man watched as the machine moved the towel over the young woman's body. He looked away at one point, shaking his head, and sat down on the couch again, sighing.

"Your feet are filthy," he told the girl.

"Ah, it was a good run though," Yay laughed from beneath the towel.

With much blowing and whistling and "brr-brrs', Yay was dried. She kept the towel wrapped round her and sat, legs drawn up, on the couch. "I'm famished," she announced suddenly. "Mind if I make myself something to-?"

"Let me," Gurgeh said. He went through the corner door, reappearing briefly to drape Yay's hide trous over the same chair she'd left the waistcoat on.