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On Clark's left, two men argued and others put in a word when they could. In the corner by the lift, the flowers had inspired a mock funeral. Clumps of people sat and stood talking, hallucinating, singing along with the music or staring out the windows at the stars.

Paula Maxwell bobbed up beside him, silver bracelets jangling. Small and plump with curly black hair and dark eyes in a face that was round as a cookie, Paula looked like the synthesis of all that was not Eyimalian, though she was born there and lived in Eyimalia House. She floated like a half-inebriated bubble in her white dress among her leaner dark-clad friends. How can she fit in so well here, Clark wondered.

"Ready to resonate?" she asked in Eyimalian. "You look lume in that outfit. Isn't it great? Everybody's come. Have you had anything yet? I'm half gone already."

Without waiting for him to phrase an Eyimalian response, she grabbed Clark's hand and began introducing him to women as the man who was learning Eyimalian. Long hands touched him in approval and from time to time there drifted down a simple question he could answer. Laughter rang between Eyimalian faces overhead.

"There's Sevit." Paula went after him, still pulling Clark in her wake.

Hearing Sevit's name, a ferret-eyed man stopped her. "Mr. Sevit Uchide? Is that Mr. Sevit Uchide? Him there?" The man sniffed the air in Sevit's direction, accidentally backing into a woman who pushed him away. "If you don't mind, I am trying to reach Mr. Sevit Uchide," he hissed.

Paula stepped around him. Sevit had disappeared into the kitchen, but now the woman who had been bumped into cried out, "Sevit! Come speak to this idiot, please!" Sevit poked his head into the front room and issued gamely forth, only to be stopped by the men arguing in the corner, who called on him to settle the question.

Clark could not hear what the argument was about, but someone evidently scored a point. The listeners applauded and a bony woman asked Paula sourly, "What does the daughter of Marlow Maxwell say to that?"

"I don't say a word to any Viyato," Paula snapped. She pressed toward Sevit, but the Viyato blocked her way, shouting insults. Clark stepped between them and hurried Paula toward the lift. A member of the mock funeral handed each woman a flower.

"My room was full of people the last time I was in there. Let's see what they're up to," Paula said mildly. In the lift she asked, "Why do party pills make some people so aggressive?"

"Reactions vary," Clark said.

They found Paula's room empty. Only a candle on the floor and some depressions in the counterpane were left of whoever had been there.

"Well, they've escaped," she said. "Have a seat. They'll be back." She examined the flower she had been given, a northspring from the Arboretum.

"Like home tonight," Clark said, to get her started again.

"A little. Ambassadorial parties are..."

"More formal?"

"No...people go right off to gossip. Later they come back to hear the important people talk, but that was after I had to go to bed. I used to go around to all the little groups and give people things to eat. I got to hear all the shady deals."

"You must have heard a lot."

She drew up a knee to lean her head against it. "I haven't gone to an embassy party in eleven years. Since I was fourteen. He wouldn't let me, and later I refused."

"Your father was afraid you'd overhear things?"

She shook her head. "He said he would be ashamed to be seen in public with me. I had an Eyimalian dress..." She was looking out the window.

Clark prompted her again. "Like that one?"

"No, this isn't Eyimalian," she corrected, smiling. Clark was shocked to see tears in her eyes. She went on casually, "I had an Eyimalian party dress. Cut down, you know. I thought it was pretty lume. My father said I looked like a whore." Bits of wax fell onto her bed as she turned to the window again. "You should have seen us making the wine for tonight," she giggled. "Big handfuls of euphs. Well, you're pretty quiet. How's work? Solved the Ecclesiam mystery yet?"

"Still investigating. They don't care about any of the interesting stuff, unfortunately. They just want to know...they want me to feed it to a bunch of animals for about six months and see what happens."

"They?"

"Whoever tells Arletty what to do. The outfit he got his grant from. The Allied Planets. Some idiot or other. It doesn't make sense."

"Why not? They have to know about side effects and all, don't they?"

"It's not that kind of drug. It's an antibiotic. You're not supposed to take it for months and months. They don't do that, even out in the vac. Must be something shady going on." He looked to see whether she would smile, but she only shrugged.

"Maybe some organized crime mogul feeds it to the prisoners in brothels to prevent infection," she suggested.

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DEEPER MYSTERY..................... CONTINUE.....................

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