"My God," Herb said, "you can see it!"

The official departed, but returned almost at once, his face grim. "Tate isn't in the men's room."

"Then I don't know where he is."

"They may have processed him. Put him through." The offi- cial hurried off, speaking into a hand-held intercom unit.

I guess Elias got away, Herb Asher thought.

"Come in here," a voice said. It was a woman doctor, in a white smock. Young, wearing glasses, her hair tied back in a bun, she briskly escorted Herb Asher and his wife down a short sterile- looking and sterile-smelling corridor into an examination room. "Lie down, Mrs. Asher," the doctor said, helping Rybys to an examination table.

"Rommey-Asher," Rybys said as she got up painfully onto the table. "Can you give me an I-V anti-emetic? And soon? I mean soon. I mean now."

"In view of your wife's illness," the doctor said to Herb Asher as she seated herself at her desk, "why wasn't her preg- nancy terminated?"

"We've been through all this," he said savagely.

"We may still require her to abort. We do not wish a de- formed infant born; it's against public policy."

Staring at the doctor in fear, Herb said, "But she's six months into her pregnancy!"

"We have it down as five months," the doctor said. "Well within the legal period."

"You can't do it without her consent, Herb said; his fear became wild.

"The decision," the doctor told him, "is no longer yours to make, now that you have returned to Earth. A medical board will study the matter."

It was obvious to Herb Asher that there would be a mandatory abortion. He knew what the board would decide-had decided.

In the corner of the room a piped-in music source gave forth the odious background noise of soupy strings. The same sound, he realized, that he had heard off and on at his dome. But now the music changed, and he realized that a popular number of the Fox's was coming up. As the doctor sat filling out medical forms the Fox's voice could distantly be heard. It gave him comfort.