Yrtl felt queasy as he rode the loop home – and not just due to his test-tube lunch. Recent events had been so disturbing he was almost grateful for the tedium of the journey back from the Atomworks to his tiny apartment near Center Station.

He thought about Dona and, unusually, felt actual guilt rather than just fiscal anxiety, over his lust for another woman. Dona had found him when he’d been at his lowest ebb; if it wasn’t for her, he’d still be living in a crate, and tapping effluent pipes to survive. He’d never understood what she’d seen in him.

His thoughts flicked back to Glenda – what was wrong with him? Perhaps he’d gone sex-mad, like on late 21st century Earth when pornography became so ubiquitous people burnt out the sex-centres of their brains: they spent so long looking at it, they actually forgot how to do it. World population crashed as a result. Global apocalypse, mused Yrtl, bought about not by war, or germs, but my man’s misdirected libido…

The car juddered into Center Station.