Barcelona is an elegant city. Situated as it is on the coast of the Mediterranean, the warmth of its summer sun is cooled by breezes off the sea. Once, before the sea was killed by pollution and effluent, you could sit outside at a restaurant table overlooking the harbor, and a waiter would bring you grilled langostino and shrimp cooked with saffron and a carafe of the local wine. The restaurant, the sun, the wine are still there. But inflation has quadrupled the bill. And the fish had better not be local.

North of the city stretch the bright beaches of the Costa Brava, dotted with the ruins of medieval castles and littered with high-rise hotels and tourists from England and Germany.

Eric had never been abroad before, and he loved it. He rented a car and drove. It was something he enjoyed, and it helped him think. Winding along the coast road, clambering over ancient ruins, or exploring narrow streets and open-air markets, he felt light-years away from everything he had ever known. It cleared his head. People smiled and nodded as he tried his halting Spanish, and sometimes they even understood him.

For the first time in years, he exercised every morning, feeling somehow, suddenly, a need to be fit. He ate well, enjoying the pervasive flavor of olive oil, enjoying the tender squid and the tough escalopes, enjoying it all.

He felt detached, floating; alone but not lonely. It was good, and his soul soaked up the solitude as his body soaked up the sun and the food. He experienced again that same sense of unreality he had felt during the last few weeks of hospital work. Occasionally he wondered what the hell he was doing here, and why he had allowed his life to be turned around. But he recognized that after the many years of study and work, he loved this dramatic change, the freedom, the excitement, the hint of danger. Of course he was highly intrigued by the idea of what he might find at Talmidge’s hospital, but he was honest enough with himself to recognize that he also craved the idea of change for its own sake. Playing such a dramatic role in the unfolding events had its appeal, too. I’m Clark Kent, he thought, about to step into a phone booth. I wonder who’ll step out?

After five days, he headed back to town, parking but not relinquishing his car. He sat at a table at a bar along Las Ramblas, where all the world went between seven and ten in the evening for a drink or two before dinner. He ordered a copita, a small sherry, and drank it and watched the people around him. He felt centered. He was ready to think about Talmidge.

He’d bought a Spanish road map, and now he opened and refolded it so that he could concentrate on the area between Barcelona and the Pyrenees. It shaded from green at the coast to purple up in the high mountains. The tiny town of San Lorenzo de Calvera lay in a brown section some seventy miles northwest of Barcelona, in the lower mountains south of Andorra. It appeared to be set partway up a raised mesa some six thousand feet high.

He unfolded Harris’s information sheet and checked the directions against the map. The Reproduction Institute was several miles north of the town, along a small snake of a road. Talmidge, Eric decided, would not be overly troubled by neighbors.

Tomorrow, he thought. He put away the maps and ordered another sherry. Decision time. What story would he tell Talmidge? This problem had nibbled at him intermittently during the past week. Now he examined his options.

Talmidge must get staff from somewhere. I could hang around wherever he picks up his people, and see if he picks me. If I knew where that was. Which I don’t.

I could tell him I’d read about his work, heard about him from a patient, and I’m fascinated by him and want to sit at his feet and . . . Sure.

I could say I was doing some hiking in the mountains and got lost and by the way I could use a summer job and since the villagers said the doctor in the castle on the hill was making monsters again . . . Very funny.

He finished his drink and reached into his pocket for some bills. Then, shouldering his carryall, he stood up and joined the throng strolling back and forth beneath the venerable trees. It was on the fourth circuit that it came to him. The perfect cover story. It was logical. It was simple. It was persuasive. It would stand up to investigation. It hit the right note. It was, in all its essentials, elegant.

It was the truth.

Harris directed me to an old article about Talmidge’s work when a situation with a patient made him suspect what might be going on at the laboratory outside Barcelona. True.

Harris was appalled at what he took to be my moral turpitude when I expressed enthusiasm for what Talmidge might be doing. He put pressure on the board to withdraw its offer of a job next year. I have nothing to go back for, and I’m mad as hell. True as far as everyone knows, save Harris and me.

I have decided to volunteer to work for Talmidge, thereby learning for myself the truth about the fascinating possibilities I suspect Talmidge has turned into realities. True, and no one need know that Harris is paying the freight.

Eric turned the story around in his mind, viewing it from various angles. If it seemed a little too pat, a little too easy, the loss of his job was real enough and could be checked. And perhaps both professionally and psychologically, Talmidge had sufficient need of a worshipful young American surgeon to ignore Eric’s overly fortuitous arrival.

OK. He’d go with it.

He returned to his room at the small hotel on the Avenida del Mar and packed his things. Then he returned to the streets in search of dinner. It was still only about half-past eight, but he found a small friendly place prepared to honor his strange request for a meal at that early hour. He had the restaurant nearly to himself as he feasted, and he struck up a conversation with one of the waiters. The mountains were very beautiful, the man told him, but rugged. He hoped Rose had a car of strength. He should bring some food and some petrol, in case he got stuck somewhere. No, he knew of no hospital up in the hills. Did the señor desire any dessert? He could recommend the flan.

Afterward, Eric walked a little, and took a café negro and a brandy at a bar near the wharf, and thought about women. That wasn’t very productive, so he headed back to the hotel.

Undressing, he glanced at himself in the mirrored door of the tall wooden wardrobe and decided his time off had done him a lot of good. The workouts had made his body harder, his stomach flatter despite all that good Spanish food. The face that looked back at him was no longer tense and tired, and the dark circles under his eyes were gone. He appeared calm and confident and ready for anything. Just shows how wrong appearances can be, he thought wryly.

Vivienne buttoned herself into the candy-striper pinafore with nervous hands. It had been some time since she’d managed to get over to Park Hill Hospital, and today she had an ulterior motive. Today she was going to lay to rest the worries engendered by Daniel’s letter to Elizabeth.

The caterer and the florist were busy at work on the dinner she was giving for Charles and some of his New York business associates that evening in aid of the Ingersoll Bank acquisition he’d been finessing. He’d expect her to spend the day hovering over them, but they’d given far more parties than she had; they’d be fine. And with no bookings for the next few days, it was the perfect opportunity to do a little investigating and set her mind at ease.

She’d decided that the best place to find the reassurance she needed was right here at Park Hill. After all, did what she had imagined from those few sketchy paragraphs really have any basis in fact? Most likely she had misunderstood what she’d read. Or dramatized some simple scientific process that any schooled medical person would recognize as standard procedure. And the secrecy the Institute insisted on was no doubt due to professional jealousy.

Of course, she couldn’t go right up to a Park Hill doctor and ask about it; she’d sound like a jerk. No, she’d have to find a way to slip it into a conversation, bring it up casually. She smiled at herself in the small changing-room mirror. Piece of cake.

She was still smiling when she stepped off the elevator at Cardiac Care and headed for the nurses’ station. When Bianca looked up from her charts, Vivienne grinned and waved gaily, but there was no answering smile.

Instead, Bianca came around in front of the desk and put a hand on her shoulder.

“What’s happened?” Vivienne asked, her smile fading.

“I’m sorry, Viv,” Bianca said gently. “It’s . . . Mr. Kaplan died last week.” She paused. “Er, Kathy thought we should call you at home, but I said you’d soon be in again, and I wanted to tell you in person.”

Vivienne felt tears sting her eyes. Bianca patted her awkwardly. “It’s hard,” she said. “We all liked him.”

“I’ll be okay,” Vivienne said at last. “Just give me something to do.”

As she filed the charts and papers Bianca and Kathy stacked up for her, Vivienne kept picturing Mr. Kaplan propped up in his bed, surrounded by flowers.

At the end of their shift, Bianca and Kathy took Vivienne down to the staff cafeteria for some coffee. Dr. Mitchell greeted them as they carried their trays from the self-service counter, and waved them over to his table.

“How’re you doing?” he asked Vivienne kindly.

“Okay,” she said softly. “It’s just . . .”

“Life isn’t fair,” he said with a quiet smile. “I know.”

“All he needed was a heart,” she said. “I mean, the rest of him wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“No, the rest of him wasn’t too bad.”

She swallowed her coffee in silence. Then a thought struck her, and she wondered guiltily whether she could turn this into the opening she needed. She took a deep breath and plunged.

“Speaking of hearts, I heard about something interesting the other day,” she said, trying to sound casual. “From a very, uh, rich friend of mine. It’s a special sort of, uh, coverage. For organs.”

“Medical coverage, you mean?” asked Kathy.

“Not exactly. Well, I’m not sure. They take a sample of your blood, and then they can use it to replace one of your organs. Like Mr. Kaplan’s heart. I mean, if you need it,” she finished lamely.

Dr. Mitchell looked at her, puzzled. “You mean you can order an organ?”

“Yes, something like that.”

The doctor stared at her sternly. “Let me tell you a story,” he said. “The man who told it to me swears it’s true. Seems some guy at a convention meets this beautiful woman who invites him to spend the night with her. Somewhere around midnight, his friends get a phone call from him. He sounds kind of strange. They ask him if he’s OK, and he manages to tell them where he is, in some hotel room. They get to the room, and he’s lying on the floor, covered in blood, all alone. Seems two other people were waiting in the hotel room when the woman got him up there. They drugged him and removed one of his kidneys.”

“Jesus!” Bianca breathed.

“There’s big money in supplying black-market organs for transplant,” Mitchell said gravely. “And it probably happens more often than we realize. In this case the guy was lucky. He lived although I can’t imagine how. That’s why I’m not sure I believe the story.”

He studied Vivienne as he sipped his tea. “Maybe your friend’s ‘coverage’ is a setup for receiving stolen organs. The blood sample would help them match the donor.”

“I, uh, don’t think so,” Vivienne said slowly. “They told my friend that they’d use the sample to make a sort of genetic blueprint.”

“Well, that would fit.”

“I’m not explaining this right.” Vivienne paused. The others were staring at her with open curiosity. “They told my friend that they would culture the cells, make them alive.”

“All cells are alive.”

“Yes, but this, er, process would make them . . . biologically organized.”

“You mean, make them into kidneys and things?” We really should improve the way we teach the basic sciences, Mitchell thought.

“Not exactly. It’s more like . . . something with parts you can use. Is that possible?”

Now Mitchell was smiling. The gullibility of the undereducated was really very amusing. “Quite impossible, I assure you.”

“But Charles says . . .”

“I think Charles is trying to scare you.” Mitchell chuckled. “Don’t you let him! It’s completely outside the realm of modern medicine.”

He looked at her kindly. Poor kid, she really does look frightened.

“Of course, it could be some kind of scam,” he added. “You say he’s rich . . .?”

But Vivienne just shook her head.

“Well, if you do find out that somebody’s using your friend’s cells to make spare parts or something, let me and the ethics committee know!”

He picked up his empty tray and started for the door, then stopped and looked back at her. A nice kid, he thought, not dumb, but probably flunked high-school biology and never took another science course in her life. No wonder she believes in ghost stories.

With a warning finger on his lips for the two nurses, he leaned down behind her. “Booga booga!” he whispered hoarsely. Vivienne jumped, the nurses yelped with good-natured laughter, and Mitchell chuckled all the way to the tray racks.

Vivienne laughed self-deprecatingly, but her mind was icy. If only Mitchell had said that doctors did it every day. If only he’d told her where at Park Hill she could go and see exactly what she’d described. But no, he’d laughed and dismissed the idea, and instead of reassuring her, it worried her.

She was quite sure the process implied in Daniel’s letter was real. And if it wasn’t a common, accepted process, if an experienced doctor like Mitchell didn’t believe it was even possible, then suddenly it seemed to her that anything was possible.

Back home, Vivienne slumped against the pillows of her beloved wicker chair as the predinner activity swirled around her. So it wasn’t her imagination: something unusual was going on at the institute. Still, she couldn’t really be certain what it was; she could only speculate.

She ran her fingers through her hair; I should shower, she thought. I should do something with myself. But she remained seated. They’re my cells, she thought. I want to know what’s going on. If Charles won’t tell me, I’ll find out on my own.

The buzz of the intercom broke through her reverie, and she glanced at her watch. Jeez! Was it really seven-thirty already? She jumped up and ran for her bedroom and the shower, calling to someone, anyone, to let Charles in.

Charles went straight to the kitchen to deposit the carton of champagne he’d brought. He nodded approvingly to the fashionable caterer clucking over his staff and headed into the living room. A noted party designer was obsessing over the flower arrangements for the highly polished dining table, and an assistant was setting out crystal and silver and candles in stylish profusion. Everything looked just right. But where was Vivienne?

He strode into the bedroom as Vivienne rushed out of the adjoining bathroom, hair wrapped in a towel.

He looked at her in dismay. “You know what time it is?” he demanded impatiently. “How long before you’re ready?”

“Hours,” Vivienne replied tartly.

“I’ve told you how important this dinner is,” he said hotly. “Ingersoll’s an old family firm, very conservative. Personal relationships mean a lot to these guys, I’ve been working on them for months.”

“Why don’t you take them to La Grenouille? They do a great dinner!”

Oops, Charles thought, backing off. “Sorry,” he told her, “I’m a little edgy too. This deal means a lot to me.” He paused. “You look tired.”

“I’m just a little edgy,” she told him. “And . . . I’m sorry too.” She gave him a little apologetic kiss and sat down at the mirrored vanity table to blow-dry her hair.

After a while, Charles spoke again. “The place looks terrific,” he said placatingly.

Vivienne gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she said. “I wanted everything to be perfect.” She pinned up her hair and added a black silk rose. Then she began to work on her face.

“Can I fix you something to drink?” Charles asked. “A glass of champagne?” When she didn’t respond, he patted her back vaguely and wandered off to the kitchen again, soon returning with a bottle and two crystal flutes. He set the glasses on the edge of the vanity table and filled them.

Vivienne rose and went to the large walk-in closet. She pulled an elegantly simple black-and-white silk dress from under its protective plastic cover and slipped it on. Charles came up behind her and kissed her neck, then handed her a glass of champagne. She accepted it silently and nibbled at the rim. She stood there half-dressed, deep in thought.

“I’ll do that,” Charles said, and carefully closed the long rear zipper of her dress, wondering if it was cut just a trifle too low for the Ingersoll Bank crowd. “What’s wrong, Viv?”

But Vivienne just shook her head.

“Still worrying about Angela?” he asked her. “I thought everything was going okay.”

“It is,” she said. “The margins were clear, so they got it all. She even started work again this week, did I tell you? I mean, she’s nervous about how the chemo will affect her, but . . . no, she’s doing fine.”

“Then what is it? Have a fight with a photographer? Caterer burn the soup? What?”

Vivienne gestured absently and shrugged. It wasn’t just the genetic blueprint itself that was making her edgy; the whole idea of the blueprint seemed to encourage her growing doubts about her relationship with Charles. She downed all her champagne and held out the glass to him.

Oh, great, Charles thought. Just what I need right now. But he refilled it.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m just. . . a little preoccupied. I’ll snap out of it, I promise.” And she gave him a ghost of a smile.

By the time the guests began arriving, Vivienne was enjoying an alcoholic lift. And she brightened further as the evening progressed: a seasoned performer, playing to an audience had become second nature to her. Despite her slight air of distraction, she was reasonably attentive to her guests, and contrary to Charles’s fears, the Ingersoll men seemed to appreciate the provocative way her dress moved as she walked.

The food, served on china she’d recently acquired under Charles’s guidance, was delicious, the service smooth. As the caterer’s assistants removed plates that had until recently contained rounds of warm goat cheese on a froth of greens, and presented platters of roast duck prior to carving, Charles was positively beaming.

Soon after the duck had been served, Vivienne excused herself to talk to the caterer. For a while, her absence went unremarked, but as the assistants began clearing the remains of the duck, and she still hadn’t returned, conversation lagged, and several guests glanced uneasily at her empty chair. Charles, making a joke about her getting lost in the kitchen she never used, went in search of her.

He found her at the sink in the butler’s pantry, sipping a tumblerful of wine and looking off into the middle distance; around her the kitchen staff ebbed and flowed.

“What the hell . . . ?”

She seemed startled to see him as if she’d forgotten she’d left eleven guests in the middle of dinner. Charles’s anger gave way to concern, and he put his arm around her and held her close to him.

“What’s going on?” he said softly.

“Nothing,” she said vaguely. “It’s just . . . something’s been bothering me lately, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Not really. I mean, yes, you can, but you probably won’t want to.”

Charles looked puzzled. “Why on earth not?”

“Well, it’s . . . it’s that thing about the cells. You said they were alive, and it’s been . . . haunting me. I can’t get the idea out of my mind.”

Charles pulled back in annoyance. “Cells?” he said. “You mean that genetic-blueprint thing? We went over all that, Viv. I thought you were thrilled with the idea. You even wanted one for Angela.”

“Yes, I know, but . . . Charles, if it has a heart and a liver and everything . . .”

“What makes you think it has ‘a heart and a liver and everything’?” Charles interrupted, a suspicious scowl darkening his face. He thought of Elizabeth’s papers and the unlocked study. Christ!

“No reason, really,” Vivienne said quickly. “It’s just that I keep wondering what it looks like.”

“Looks like? I have no idea . . .”

“And if it’s alive, where do they keep it?”

“In the lab. Look, Viv . . .”

“Charles, I don’t understand. Is it like a real person? Can it move? Does it talk?”

Vivienne’s raised voice and nervous mannerisms had attracted attention; Charles saw curiosity on several faces as the kitchen staff moved around nearby.

“For God’s sake, lower your voice!” he hissed. “Of course it’s not a real person. It can’t live outside the lab.”

“How do you know? Have you ever been to the lab?”

“No, of course not. Why would I want to see the lab?”

“Then you don’t really know. Maybe it’s like a . . . a zombie or something!”

Vivienne’s hands shook, and wine leapt from the glass she held and stained her skirt. Gently Charles took the glass from her and set it in the sink. Then he held her hands tightly until the shaking stopped.

“Is that what’s upsetting you? Zombies? Monsters?” He smiled at her foolishness. “People do this every day, Viv, and it doesn’t bother any of them.” He paused. “I think it’s just this coming on top of the Angela thing that’s made your imagination go crazy.”

Vivienne shrugged.

“Let’s go back to our guests now,” Charles told her. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“I knew you wouldn’t want to talk about it,” she told him accusingly. “I should never have mentioned it.” But she stayed rooted by the sink.

“Vivienne, ten people are sitting in your dining room right now wondering if you’ve put your head in the oven or something. We will not talk about this now. We will go out and be charming.” The “or else” was implied.

But she looked down at the stains on her dress and said nothing.

Charles’s patience was wearing thin. “I’ve been trying to get close to Ingersoll for nearly a year,” he said. “Those people out there can make or break this deal for me. And apparently, so can you!” He banged the heel of his hand on the edge of the sink in frustration. “Christ, if I’d known you were going to be so bloody stupid about this, I’d never have told you!”

Vivienne’s head came up, and she looked at him sharply.

“You wouldn’t have told me,” she repeated. “But you’d have gone ahead and done it anyway? The way you lied to me about what you said was a blood test?”

“You’re being silly.”

“Really? It’s my cells we’re talking about here, remember. My blueprint. My zombie!”

“Stop it, Vivienne!” He raised his hand as if to strike her, but perhaps aware of their surroundings, he stopped himself and touched her cheek instead. “Of course I’d have done it anyway,” he said gently. “I love you. I’d have done it, I did do it, because I love you. So that if you ever needed it, it would be there for you.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Vivienne softly. “At first. Then I thought about it some more. I don’t think you did it for me. I think you did it for you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I see how you look at me. How you look at other people looking at me. I’m a possession to you. And you like your possessions to be perfect.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Isn’t it? You use people, Charles. You use me. Maybe you really do think you love me, but I’m also useful to you. I’m useful because I’m perfect!”

“Not so perfect!” Charles retorted.

“But you’re working on me, aren’t you, Charles? How I dress, how I eat . . .”

“Vivienne, don’t do this. I love you . . .”

“Ah, but would you love me if I weren’t so . . . teachable? And if my face weren’t on the front of those glossy magazines everybody reads? I’m not so sure, Charles.” Her voice rose, clear and shrill. “I’ve been thinking about us a lot lately. And I wonder . . . if anything happened to me and I wasn’t beautiful anymore, could you still love me? I wonder if you could love anyone who didn’t measure up to your idea of perfection . . . your mother’s idea of perfection!”

People were openly staring now, and Charles was sure their voices could be heard in the dining room.

“You’re being irrational, Viv,” he said. But was she? He had a sudden, terrible thought that she might be right. Was he that damaged? Then he thought, No, of course not! How could she believe such things? “You’re irrational,” he repeated angrily.

“Am I? Well, what happens when I get old and wrinkled? You may be able to replace an ear or a liver, but there’s nothing you can do about old and wrinkled. Will you throw me out? Or do you have some other little trick up your sleeve?”

Charles’s face had gone white, and his mouth was tight and hard. His eyes were filled with fury and hurt. He knew he shouldn’t speak, but he was beyond caring.

“No new trick,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice. “Just the same one. And you wait until you’re forty before you tell me you don’t want to look twenty-two again. No, you’re a model. Make that thirty.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it, Vivienne. Think hard.”

Charles turned on his heel and strode past the kitchen staff, who quickly turned away. Vivienne remained at the sink. Think hard.

At the door to the dining room, Charles composed his face, his manner. Then he entered, smiling and gracious. “A little trouble with the caterer,” he said smoothly. “You know these temperamental artistic types.”

The male guests, all hardheaded business people, smiled condescendingly at the thought of those artistic types. The females just smiled; they knew who paid their bills.

Think hard.

“It’s all given Viv a terrible headache, and she’s gone to lie down for a while.” She’s another of those artistic types, his smile said. “Jason, more wine? Yes?”

Think hard.

Vivienne thought hard. Then she threw up in the sink.