"The third and best volume in the author's "science-in-fiction" tetralogy... absolutely strong and real. Bravo."
	Kirkus Reviews
"The science in this fiction is especially absorbing...a neat combination of sex and science with nice touches of sentiment... highly charged ethical questions are set up alongside the emotional ones." San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Book Review "The writing is authoritative, evocative, but spare."
	Nature

"So you're the mysterious Dr. Dvir." She'd sidled up to him at the end of the coffee break as the group had started to shuffle back into the conference hall. "I understand you're one of the world's authorities on the Queen of Sheba."

Dvir slowly turned his head toward his questioner. "Mister Dvir," he said deliberately, the voice seeming to issue from a formidable depth. "Not Doctor."

She gestured toward the label fastened to his sweater. "Ben-Gurion University," she read. "I thought you were an academic. A Shebaist," she added quickly. "If there is such a specialty."

Dvir broke into laughter, and for a moment sounded a good deal less formidable. "I've been called all kinds of names in my life, but never that. May I borrow it?" He glanced at her name tag. "The REPCON Foundation?"

Melanie Laidlaw laughed self-consciously. "I'm afraid so."

He shrugged his shoulders. "And is it Doctor Laidlaw?"

"I'm afraid so. I'm an ex-academic."

"You're too afraid: first the Foundation, now your title."

Laidlaw started to flush. "It's just a figure of speech."

"Relax," he said, simultaneously steering her by the elbow to one of the empty seats in the back of the hall. "I'm not an academic, just an administrator."

"Of what?" she asked as she sat down.

Dvir waved his hand. "I'm a vice president in charge of all kinds of things. Ben-Gurion is a young university and a small administration is one way of saving money."

"You're in Beersheba, aren't you?"

Dvir nodded.

"That's in the Negev, isn't it?"

Dvir's attention had wandered; he nodded absently.

"Isn't Dimona also in the Negev?" Laidlaw persisted.

Dvir's attention snapped back to his interrogator. "So?"

"Isn't that where you keep your atomic arsenal?"

The man in front of Melanie Laidlaw had turned around. "Shh," he put a finger across his lips. "Don't you see the program has started?" he hissed.

Dvir ignored the interruption. His attention was now focused entirely on Laidlaw. "So?" he asked again.

"I understand you were one of the first directors there," she whispered in his ear.

Dvir turned his head so rapidly that her lips brushed his ear. "First the Queen of Sheba; then Dimona. Who told you this?" She couldn't tell whether he was annoyed or curious.

"Later," she whispered.

Hardback edition (entitled Menachems Same) published (1996) in German translation by Haffmans Verlag, Zurich Swizerland
ISBN 3-251-00311-9
© 1996 by Carl Djerassi

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