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us. We reject chaos, randomness, senselessness as somehow unnatural, repulsive, disgusting. And when anarchy rears its head and pandemonium ensues, we accuse something else of causing our discomfiture. We won't accept that it's our skewed view of reality.
    An egg-shaped magnacar pulled to a stop in front of him. A perfect shape in an imperfect world, the ovoid vehicle without corner or edge caught on nothing, sliding smoothly across rough surfaces on a cushion of magnetic repulsion. Its upper surface smooth, sans a single seam, it slipped through the air at any angle, resistant to nothing, attracting no attention, passing any and all detractors with its unreasoning lack of defiance, slipping past with anonymity.
    The hatch opened, the top half springing back on its levered hinge.
    Maris stepped in, sat and said, “Precinct.”
    The hatched closed and the magnacar whisked him away with a whine.
    His coke alerted him to an incoming neuracom. “Lieutenant Anita Balodis,” said the serotonic voice, her avatar appearing on his corn.
    What's the bitch want now? he wondered. “Peterson here.” Who else would it be?
    “Nanochine alarms at the Plavinas Brehume Incubation Facility. Get your lazy anus over there!”
    “Do I look equipped to battle a jerking nano?”
    Her face hardened. “Cross your tees, bunglebutt! That's where they took the Muceniek ovum.”
    “And the Ozolin sperm,” Maris said. “On my way, Lieutenant.” The neura-channel closed. “Plavinas Incubation,” Peterson told the magnacar.
    The innocent elfin features of the Ohume sperm collector Liene Ozolin intruded. An eidolon of beauty, geno-modded to preserve her collections, femo-oriented, Ozlin had led a tortured life. Doomed from conception. They'd altered her anatomical design, but they hadn't altered her preferences.
    And how can they create preservative vesicles in mouth and vagina, Maris wondered, but they can't engineer a functioning reproductive organ?
    Maris pulled up the police file on the facility. Plavinas Incubation was one of two such Ihume production plants on Tartus IX, the planet having only a few hundred thousand Brehumes. Ovum and sperm deliveries to the facility occurred daily under heavy guard, armed Ohumes bred for bulk and speed riding along, bristling with weapon. One or two breeding humans per month were conceived, a number too paltry for propagation. The remainder whelped at the facility turned out to be infertile.
    Some Brehumes opted to reproduce naturally, with no better result. The collection waiver process was so onerous and payments for egg and seed so generous that most Brehumes opted to sell. Horror holos of pregnancy gone awry were regular evening immersie fare, the neuranet rife with lurid confesso-dumps and tabloi-vids.
    The magnacar took him to a shuttle transfer station. Peterson couldn't remember the last time he'd left the gritty city. The Plavinas Brehume Incubation Facility perched on a ridge a hundred miles out, at seven thousand feet. Nose-bleed territory.
    He popped out of the magnacar onto a station crowded with news personnel and bureaucrats. It was easy to spot the difference. Reporters and holographers pushed their faces and devices at people in top coats and blanked-out faceshields. Peterson was the only person without a microphone, holocam, or faceshield.
    Pup-reporter Filip Dukur with the Telsai Daily News stuck a microphone in his face. “Nanochine outbreak at Plavinas Incubation. Part of your murder investigation, Detective?”
    “Find another line of work, kid.”
    The young Omale spun his head toward his camera so fast that he dried himself behind the ears. “And there you have it, the…Hey, you didn't tell me anything!”
    The magnatube pulled in, the screech of brakes drowning out the platform noise.
    Peterson popped on to the shuttle amidst the crush.
    They were all headed to Plavinas, apparently.
    He recognized Girdenis from Gonadis, Tylenis from Testicular, Amantas from Amorous, Vizgirda