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deck. Only when it stood on its tail, its teeth snapping at the strip of meat Wellard held in his fist, was she aware of its full size. It was about five metres long and jet black, with the hydrodynamics of a shark and a mouth perhaps a metre wide. The teeth snapped shut on the meat and the monster backflipped gracefully into the sea. It circled and prepared to launch itself again. Wellard was laughing like a maniac, leaning out over the ocean with another length of meat.
    "Soon!" he cried, as the shark-thing rose, hung in suspension at the zenith of its climb, snapped and backflipped. "Soon, you will have your way. Be patient!"
    The meat consumed, Wellard turned and made his way unsteadily back into the studio. Abbie ducked out of sight.
    She jumped as the chime sounded and Wellard's voice paged her. "Are you awake? Would you care to join me on the patio?"
    She found the speaker and, controlling the tremor in her voice, answered that she would be down right away.
    ~
    "It's been light for a good two hours!" Wellard greeted her. "I've been up since dawn. I always do my best work before breakfast." He waved for her to be seated. He had started his meal already. The table was piled with fruit, bread and cheese. Wellard drank from an oversized goblet; he was more than a little tipsy.
    "You've been working today?" She thought it wise not to mention the episode with the sea monster.
    He winked at her enigmatically. "Just putting the finishing touches to a little project."
    As they ate, Wellard expounded on the history of Nea Kikládhes, its discovery and subsequent exploration by the telenauts, and how it became the haunt of the galaxy's richest artists.
    Abbie listened politely, sipping fruit juice and taking small bites of honeyed bread. Wellard had changed from the sombre, embittered artist of last night; he was animated now, almost excited. She wondered how much this transformation was due to the wine, how much to a residual elation from his encounter with the shark-thing.
    She became aware that he had been staring at her for a time in silence. She looked up and saw that his gaze was fixed on her forehead just below the hairline.
    "I didn't see that last night," he said.
    "Oh." She raised a hand to the tattoo.
    He smiled tipsily. "I'm sorry – I don't keep up with the latest Augmented shorthand." His tone was sarcastic. "But doesn't that denote a second body?"
    Abbie nodded, watching him.
    "I must admit... to a Primitivist, the thought of having a second body – I mean, not content with your first... I find it rather amusing... and pathetic."
    "To many an Augmented out there in the real world," she said, "your reactionary attitude would be considered pathetic. Bodychange is established practice, Mr Wellard. This," she gestured from head to foot, "is a somatic simulation."
    He was staring. "You're a computer?"
    "I'm wholly biological, I assure you."
    He shook his head. "Who were you before... before the change?"
    "The same person I am now, of course. All that is different is the body and the name."
    "But why did you change?" He seemed to find it hard to believe that anyone should want to discard the body with which they were born. "Were you diseased?"
    She shook her head. "I... I found myself in an intolerable situation. I had to get away without being traced."
    He seemed to have sobered a little. He cleared his throat. "I find it hard to imagine how someone so... so Augmented can possibly appreciate my art, as you claim to."
    "I am still human," she replied. "Your work speaks to me."
    They ate in silence for a while.
    Abbie changed the subject. "Do you intend to enter the Contest?"
    Wellard snorted. "As if they'd look twice at anything I submitted! And anyway, the Omegas have a bias for dramatic presentations, plays and tragedies of old."
    "I was told that immortality is the reward for the winners."
    He laughed. "What hell! Do you really think I desire all eternity in which to contemplate and regret the deeds of my past?" He