 This search, using a "Zwicky Box", is performed by an artificial intelligence named Minerva, who handles most of the computerized functions of the planetary government, is in love with Ira, and becomes friends with Lazarus.Meanwhile, the latter's rejuvenator named Ishtar and Ira's daughter named Hamadryad, both give birth to female clones of him, their Y-chromosome being replaced by an identical copy of the X chromosome, producing "daughters" named Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee.Lazarus' advice to Ira appears alternately as proverbs and as stories.