Dranyn took his place at the top end of the rectangular table. The Quistra usually met in the Meeting Chamber, but since the discussion would be about the Earth women: partly his project, the members decided to hold the meeting on his home ground: in the Science Building instead.
 The room became silent, and everybody waited for Galbryn, their Ovitar, to speak. He took his gaze from the computer screen in front of him and faced the gathering.
“This planet is thirty- thousand light years away. That’s the furthest we’ve ever sent our androids. Are you sure you can get them back safely?”
 Dranyn looked confident. “We’ve made thorough checks of their biological composition. It’s certain that freezing them will preserve them for the journey. And they’re all young and healthy.”
“And you’ll be able to bring them round when they get here?”
 “If it’s done slowly they should be all right. We’ve run tests on their specimens, so we’re pretty sure it’s going to be successful. However, it’ll be six months at least before we can introduce them to our society. We’ll have to keep them unconscious during that time, in order to wean them off Earth air and get them used to breathing ours.” Noticing several surprised faces he added, “We’re going to feed them with recordings of our language during that time, though. So it won’t be wasted.”
 “No need for that, surely? We only want to breed with them,” said a member.
“Quite so,” said the Ovitar. “But wouldn’t it be rather cold and clinical of us, if being content to receive only a blank stare from them every time we uttered a pleasantry?” He turned to Dranyn. “But only five women? It’s a pity we can’t carry more.”
 Mantyn, Galbryn’s Vice-Ovitar and friend, leaned forward in his seat. “But one would be enough, if it came to it, surely?”
“It would,” replied Galbryn. “But more would be better. There would be less pressure on us then, to make sure our zynoes fire to optimum level.” The sound of muffled laughter distracted one or two of the more serious-minded among them. “And we’ll need to make sure our zynoes aren’t wilting with age, which will be the case, if you don’t get these women here soon.”
 In the midst of more laughter, Galbryn’s android, Jyn, who never understood real persons’ humour, looked blankly from face to face, shaking his blue tuft of hair from side to side at the same time.
 “I can promise we’ll get them here in six months,” said Dranyn.
 Galbryn swivelled around in his chair and faced a white wall. “What do they look like?”
 Dranyn spoke a command into the computer and two full-length pictures of the women projected onto the wall. The entire room became silent.
 “Do they really look like that?” asked Galbryn.
 “With a few minor variations of body shape, yes.”
 “Shantz, they’re ugly! I thought you said they were the same as our women?”
 “They are,” said the scientist, while glaring at those still laughing. “They’re as our women used to look, before the disaster. More importantly, they’re biologically composed the same as they were.”
 Galbryn thought of the computer library. He’d seen pictures of their women from one thousand years ago there, and knew Dranyn was right: they were the same.
 “Don’t worry,” said Mantyn. “Perhaps only one shot of our zynoes would do the trick. We needn’t bother with them any more after that. Or we could do the business with a little help from technology. That way we needn’t have physical contact with them at all.”
 Galbryn turned to him and said, “And have the Roizers say that the Catils are too lily-livered to perform a basic male function? I don’t think so. Anyway, my friend, the Roizers will probably salute our courage if we connect with these women in the natural way.”
 Dranyn waited for the laughter to die down again. “We’d thought of taking their eggs away, fertilising them, and growing the offspring in the laboratory. That way, there’d be no need for physical contact. But tests proved that the female young will still finish up infertile, unless they have the protection of a human womb from start to finish. And it wouldn’t work to implant them in our women, of course.”
 “But what—” asked another member, “—if you took out a few of the Earth women's eggs, sprinkled them with some of our sperm, then put them, fertilised, back into the Earth women?”
 “That’s what I’m saying. It won’t work on the female embryos, which after all is what we’re after. The sprinkled egg would still have spent its first spark of life outside the protection of the woman, which would have given it long enough to be contaminated by our air.”
 Some of the men still didn’t understand, and spoke among themselves for a while.
 Galbryn turned back to Dranyn. “When can you start the operation?”
 “As soon as you give the word.”
 Galbryn looked down at his folded hands. There’s no reason for further delay, he thought. Most of the Quistra wanted this most ambitious of operations to begin. However, there were others, sceptics who saw nothing but bad in it. He didn’t share their view. To him, it was too exciting a project to abort at this stage. He looked up at the waiting members around the table. “Then you might as well begin right away.”
 The room slowly emptied, but Galbryn and Dranyn stayed behind. Galbryn spoke into the computer and brought the images of the two women up on the small computer screen. Each one had beside her image, columns of data, giving technical specifications of the human genome. Not interested in these, he scrolled down until it came to their more personal information.
 Both women were short, he noted: one being five feet six and the other an inch higher. He checked the details of the other three women and found their heights were much the same. Tynai women were much taller; six foot or thereabouts, averaging one or two inches smaller than Tynai male. “Why are these Earth women so short?”
 Dranyn sat and viewed the images with Galbryn. “Unlike our women, they had sexual maturation to fulfil.” He paused in the midst of his friend’s puzzlement for a moment. “They grew outwards and not upwards, so they’d be the right shape for baby-growing.”
 Galbryn noted their developed breasts and wider hips with distaste. “Why do they cut their hair so short? It makes them look even uglier. I swear by Fymeno I’ll never be able to copulate with one of them!”
 The scientist laughed and slapped his friend’s back. “Sorry to have to say it, but you’re the Ovitar and only thirty-three in age. It’ll be expected of you and there’s nothing you can do about that.”
 Galbryn looked away in thought for a moment. “All this grief because one thousand years ago, the Stennans released a chemical into our atmosphere, rendering Catil women infertile.” He gave Dranyn a disappointed glance. “I’m beginning to wonder whether all the preparation was worth it.”
 “Indeed. But so much is riding on this experiment. Not only in terms of bearing children in the conventional sense, but possibly even being able to transfer these women’s procreative genetic codes into our own women. If we don’t do this, the Roizers will surely beat us to it, one day.”
 “Huh, they don’t have the technology. Nothing to worry about there.”
 Dranyn stretched and got up. “You’re probably right; not yet, at least. But I reckon when they get wind of this project, they’ll try to shore up their lycroms and get them to comb the galaxy for suitable biological matches as we’ve done.” He paused for a moment, while thinking of their own spurzots’ superiority in comparison to the Roizers’ androids. “It’s just as well that Roizer lycroms can’t withstand galaxy hopping like the spurzots can.”
 Galbryn faced the images of the women again and wondered what the Roizers, Catil’s nearest neighbours, would think when word got to them about his people starting a new generation of Catils with women who could reproduce; a race of people who never again would have to rely on a laboratory to produce young again. They would be envious he was sure.
 Or would they? The Roizers, like all Tynai men, had grown used to present day manufactured women. These odd looking ones, therefore, might evoke nothing more than – abhorrence. Abhorrence or not, he knew that he’d soon have to get used to the idea of them. He got up and switched the computer off. “I’ve a feeling that the remedy is going to be worse than the catastrophe.”
 Dranyn opened the door for him. “Why so rueful?” he asked. “You look as though you’re being forced into mating with the Medusa.”
 “Who’s Medusa?”
 “Oh, a snake-haired woman from Earth mythology. Jyn told me about her.”
Galbryn laughed. “Right now, she seems the better of the two options!”
 
* * * *

 Branca turned sideways then faced forwards in front of the mirror again. She wondered whether her rose pink cocktail dress would do for the party. She’d almost decided upon her black one, but its low cut wouldn’t be suitable in front of Hugo’s elderly mother.
Glancing out of the bedroom window, she saw the early winter darkness. If she had the time, she would have wrapped up and gone for a walk, to unwind before dinner. But that wasn’t possible now.
She zipped up the pink dress and turned her attention to her dark brown hair. Glancing in the mirror, she brushed the short strands and arranged six diamante clips over the top of her head. The effect was attractive. The sparkle of the clips seemed to light up the whole of her face, masking the tiredness she felt after such a busy day of teaching.
Her mobile phone ringing waylaid her stepping into a mist of perfume. Stretching and striding, she swiped it off the dresser and got back into the mist, just before it floated too far down to envelope the upper part of her body.
“May I offer Cinderella a lift, so she gets to the ball on time?”
“Mike! Yes I’d love a lift. It’s the least you can do for forgetting to remind me about tonight. Besides, I don’t fancy driving in these heels, my dress is tight and I’m dead beat.”
“My-my, she complains, even though the crystal coach awaits and the frog is due to turn into a handsome prince at midnight in order to pay very special attention to that tight dress.”
She laughed for a moment. “You’re mixing your fairy-tales, and taking up too much time talking, when you could be making better use of it coming here to get me.”
“Message received. Be there in thirty minutes.”
After gathering up her bag and coat, she walked through to the lounge. The anniversary present for the party was in the cupboard. She got it and settled into an armchair. Oscar, her cat, poised himself to jump up, but she discouraged him with a pointed finger and a firm, “No! Not with me in this dress.” He settled himself into a curled ball at her feet instead.
She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Moments later, she jolted out of her snooze with the sound of Oscar’s spitting. Glancing downwards, she saw his arched back. He also paced sideways as cats do when they want to appear more formidable.Now alarmed, she nevertheless scoffed at herself and looked around the room. “You silly old thing!” she said. “There’s nothing here.” She bent to give the cat a reassuring stroke, but he shot to the end of the room, and sat by the door leading off to the kitchen.
“Want to dive out into the night, to escape from an imaginary foe?” She opened the door and, like an indulgent mother, watched him cross the kitchen and disappear through the cat-flap.
At that moment,something encircled her from behind and gripped her waist. Upon hearing the sound of spraying liquid, a horrible recollection came to her of being taken this way three months before, by the same strange creatures. They had taken her into a craft, run tests on her and deposited her back again as if nothing had happened. Consequently, she’d gone to work the next morning shell-shocked but unable to tell anyone lest she be thought quite mad.
Now, before she could even turn around, to look again at the same oval faces and the small dark eyes, she once again drifted away into blackness.