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hung low over the roadway.
    Despite the beauty of the woods and of the day, Mark began to feel a growing sense of claustrophobia. Those trees were just too close. He leaned his head toward the half-open window, pulling in a few deep breaths. He felt as if that overhang of branches and foliage was pressing down on him. The trees now butted right up against the curb, their limbs pressing out and down toward him—
    The road abruptly drew out of the woods and widened into bright sunlight. Mark drew a deep breath of relief. Silly, he thought.
    The route twisted up and down and then up again, and there above him was the university complex, a low cluster of dull brick buildings huddled on a rise off the road.
    He pulled into the entrance, a wide, well-paved two-lane pathway rainbowed by a small arch with a bronze plaque on it. The library, he was told by a passing student, was off to the left, at the back of the campus, and after parking in the visitors' lot he made his way along a labyrinthine concrete walkway to the indicated building.
    When he asked inside about the science research collection he was told to his surprise that there was a separate collection in a different building. Retracing his steps to the other side of the campus, he eventually found himself in an impressively large structure labeled the Ferman Science Library.
    There was an oak desk just inside the foyer, with a small   dark-haired girl behind it. Mark's steps echoed hollowly on the marble floor.
    "Excuse me," he said.
    The girl looked up, and a shock went through Mark. She was not exactly pretty, but had a strangely magnetic look to her face. There was an electrical intensity about her. Her hair was black as ink and cut severely short. Her face was fair-complexioned and slim-featured, which made her large, dark eyes stand out even more. Her eyes fixed intensely on Mark for a moment, and then suddenly she smiled.
    "Is there something specific you're looking for?" Her voice was medium-pitched, with a husky edge to it, but extremely businesslike.
    "A little of everything," Mark responded, trying hard not to sound embarrassed.
    She tapped a pencil on her knuckles. "Well, we have a subsection in every general area as well as some specifics like microbiology and astronomy. We also have a periodical room and an audiovisual library with a projection theater." She stood the pencil on its end and looked up at him again.
    "That's great," said Mark. "Is it okay for me to use all this stuff?"
    "Sure. It's pretty dead around here now. The science school's shut down for reorganization."
    "Any chance you could show me the astronomy collection?"
    She got up. "No problem." She was slim, even shorter than Mark had guessed. She couldn't have been more than five feet even. She looked to be in her early twenties and wore the kind of clothes Mark had worn in his college days—blue jeans, sneakers, a blue flannel shirt.
    My God, Mark thought, suddenly realizing that he was aroused.
    He walked with the librarian down a short hallway and into a cluttered but well-lit room, all the while keeping his briefcase over his front. He felt like a complete idiot.
    "Most of our astronomy texts are along that back wall," said the girl, sweeping her hand over a shelf of books. "If you need anything specific you don't see, it might possibly be in the physics library. The periodicals are on the second floor. There's a study table at the back; if that isn't big enough you can use one of the oversize ones on the first floor." She abruptly turned and held out her hand, startling Mark into nearly dropping his briefcase. "My name is Fay. Anything I can do, just ask." She smiled, a brief, electric smile.
    When she left, Mark stood mystified, trying to figure out why the girl had had that effect on him. I'll be damned, he thought. This kind of thing had happened to him a couple of times before, though never this intensely. He couldn't help looking at it analytically—maybe there was even an article