She was aware as she closed her eyes that neither of these suppositions held an atom of truth.

There is hardly an atom of truth in any of them and, while occasionally a long-held folk belief may prove to have some measure of accuracy, it is best to disbelieve them on principle without medical evidence.

Once, just once, before the captain had entered, wardroom rumor whispered of proscribed biotech, of spies vanished, doubtless suicides or painfully dead on Secess' worlds in vain attempts to discover whether the babble about clones and augmentation contained even an atom of truth.