Walter M Miller
  Conditionally Human

   HE KNEW there was no use hanging around after breakfast, but he could not bear leaving
like this. He put on his coat in the kitchen, stood uncertainly in the doorway, and twisted his ha
his hands. His wife still sat at the table, fin-gered the handle of an empty cup, stared fixedly out
window at the kennels behind the house, and pointedly ignored his small coughings and scrapin
He watched the set of her jaw for a moment, then cleared his throat.
   "Anne?"
   "
    What?"
   "I can't stand seeing you like this."
   "Then go away."
   "Can't I do anything—?"
   "I told you what to do."
   Her voice was a monotone, full of hurt. He could neither en-dure the hurt nor remove it.
gingerly crossed the room to stand behind her, hoping she'd look up at him and let her face go s
maybe even cry a little. But she kept gazing at the win-dow in accusing silence. He chuck
suddenly and touched her silk-clad shoulder. The shoulder shivered away. Her dark hair quive
as she shuddered, and her arms were suddenly locked tightly about her breasts as if she were co
He pulled his hand back, and his big pliant face went slack. He gulped forlornly.
   "Honeymoon's over, huh?"
   "Ha!"
   He backed a step away, paused again. "Hey, Baby, you knew before you married me,"
reminded her gently.
   "I did not."
   "You knew I was a District Inspector for the F.B.A. You knew I had charge of a pound."
   "I didn't know you killed them!" she snapped, whirling.
   "I don't have to kill many," he offered.
   "
    That's like saying you don 't kill them very dead. "
   "Look, honey, they're only animals."
   "Intelligent animals!"
   "Intelligent as a human imbecile, maybe."
   "A baby is an imbecile. Would you kill a baby?— Of course you would! You do! That's w
they are: babies. I hate you. " He withered, groped desperately for a new approach, tried a sema
tack. "Look, `intelligence' is a word applicable only to humans. It's the name of a human functi
and . . . "
   "And that makes them human!" she finished. "Murderer!"
   "Baby—!"
   "Don't call me baby! Call them baby!"
   He made a miserable noise in his throat, backed a few steps toward the door, and beat down
better judgment to speak again: "Anne, honey, look! Think of the good things about the j
Sure—everything has its ugly angles. But just think: we get this house rent-free; I've got my o
district with no local bosses to hound me; I make my own hours; you'll meet lots of people
stop in at the pound. It's a fine job, honey!"
   Her face was a mask again. She sipped her coffee and seemed to be listening. He blunde
hopefully on.
   "And what can I do about it? I can 't help my aptitudes. Place-ment Division checked them, s
me to Bio-Authority. Period. Okay, so I don 't have to work where they send me. I could ig-nore
aptitudes and pick common labor, but that's all the law allows, and common laborers don't h
families. So I go where they need my aptitudes."
   "You've got aptitudes for killing kids?" she asked sweetly. He groaned, clenched his eyes clos
shook his head fiercely as if to clear it of a sudden ache. His voice went desperately pa-tient. "T
assigned me to the job because I like babies. And because I have a degree in biology and
aptitude for dealing with people. Understand? Destroying unclaimed units is the smallest part o
Honey, before the evolvotron, before anybody ever heard of Anthropos Incorporated, people u
to elect animal catchers. Dogcatchers, they called them. Didn't have mutant dogs, of course.
just think of it that way—I'm a dog-catcher."
   Ice-green eyes turned slowly to meet his gaze. Her face was delicately cut from cold marble. O
corner of her mouth twitched contempt at him. Her head turned casually away again to stare out
window toward the kennels again.
   He backed to the door, plucked nervously at a splinter on the woodwork, watched her hopefu
for a moment.
   "Well, gotta go. Work to do."
   She looked at him again as if he were a specimen. "Do you need to be kissed?"
   He ripped the splinter loose, gulped, "See you tonight," and stumbled toward the front of
house. The honeymoon indeed was done for District Inspector Norris of the Federal Biolog
Authority.
   Anne heard his footsteps on the porch, heard the sudden grumble of the kennel-truck's turbin
choked on a sob and darted for the door, but the truck had backed into the street, lurched sudde
away with angry acceleration toward the highway that lay to the east. She stood blinking into the
morning sunlight, shoulders slumped. Things were wrong with the world, she decided.
   A bell rang somewhere, rang again. She started slightly, shook herself, went to answer
telephone. A carefully enunciated voice that sounded chubby and professional called for Inspec
Norris. She told it disconsolately that he was gone.
   "
    Gone? Oh, you mean to work. Heh heh. Can this be the new Mrs. Norris?" The voice was
hearty and greasy, she thought, muttered affirmatively.
   "Ah, yes. Norris spoke of you, my dear. This is Doctor Georges. I have a very urgent probl
to discuss with your husband. But perhaps I can talk to you. "
   "You can probably get him on the highway. There's a phone in the truck." What sort of urg
problems could doctors discuss with dogcatchers, she wondered.
   "Afraid not, my dear. The inspector doesn't switch on his phone until office hours. I know
well, you see."
   "Can 't you wait?"
   "It 's really an emergency, Mrs. Norris. I need an animal from the pound—a Chimp-K-48
preferably a five year old."
   "I know nothing about my husband's business," she said stiffly. "You'll have to talk to him."
   "Now see here, Mrs. Norris, this is an emergency, and I have to have ...”
   "What would you do if I hadn't answered the phone?" she interrupted.
   "Why I—I would have—"
   "Then do it," she snapped, dropped the phone in its cradle, marched angrily away. The ph
began ringing again. She paused to glance back at it with a twinge of guilt. Emergency, the fat vo
had said. But what sort of emergency would in-volve a chimp K-48, and what would Georges
with the ani-mal? Butchery, she suspected, was somehow implied. She let the phone ring. If No
ever, ever, ever asked her to share his work in any way, she'd leave him, she told herself.

   The truck whirred slowly along the suburban street that wound among nestled groups of pa
plasticoid cottages set approximately two to an acre on the lightly wooded land. With its populat
legally fixed at three hundred million, most of the country had become one gigantic suburb, dot
with com-munity centers and lined with narrow belts of industrial develop-ment. There was no o
country now, nor had there been since the days of his grandparents. There was nowhere that
could feel alone.
   He approached an intersection. A small animal sat on the curb, wrapped in its own bushy
The crown of its oversized head was bald, but its body was covered with blue-gray fur. A p
tongue licked daintily at small forepaws equipped with prehensile thumbs. It eyed the tr
morosely as Norris drew to a halt and smiled down out of the window at it.
   "Hi, kitten," he called. "What's your name?"
   The Cat-Q-5 stared at him indifferently for a moment, uttered a stuttering high-pitched wail, t
cried: "Kitty Rorry."
   "Kitty Rorry. That's a nice name. Where do you live, Rorry?"
   The Cat-Q-5 ignored him.
   "
    Whose child are you, Rorry? Can you tell me that?"
   Rorry regarded him disgustedly. Norris glanced quickly around. There were no houses near
intersection, and he feared that the animal might be lost. It blinked at him, sleepily bored, t
resumed its paw-bath. He repeated the questions.
   "
    Mama kiyi, kiyi Mama," it finally reported.
   "
    That's right, Mama's kitty. But where 's Mama? Do you suppose she ran away?"
   The Cat-Q-5 looked startled. It stuttered for a moment. Its fur crept slowly erect. It glanced b
ways along the street, shot suddenly away at a fast scamper along the sidewalk. Norris followe
in the truck for two blocks, where it darted onto a porch and began wailing through the scre
"Mama no run ray! Mama no run ray!"
   He chuckled and drove on. A couple who failed the genetic requirements, who could have
children of their own, could get quite attached to a Cat-Q-5, but the cats were emotionally sa
than any of the quasi-human chimp-K models called "neu-troids. " The death of a neutroid co
strike a family as hard as the death of a child, while most couples could endure the loss of a ca
or a dog-F. A couple with a genetic "C" rating were permitted to own one neutroid, or
non-humanized models of daily food intake less than four hundred calories each. M
psychologists regarded the neutroids as emotional dynamite, and advised attaching affections
some tail-wagger with a lower love-demand potential.
   Norris suddenly lost his vestigial smile. What about Anne? What outlet would she choose for
maternal needs?—for his own Social Security card was stamped "Genetic-C "—and Anne lo
kids. He had been thinking in terms of the kennel animals, how she might direct her energies tow
helping him take care of them, but now that her hostility was evident . . . well .. . suppose
wanted a pseudoparty and a neutroid of her own? Of this, he disapproved.
   He shuddered slightly, fumbled in his pocket, and brought out a slightly battered invitation c
that had come in yesterday 's mail:

                                        You are cordially invited
                                   to attend the pseudoparturition
                                    and ensuing cocktail hour
                                     to celebrate the arrival of
                                         HONEY BLOSSOM
                                      Blessed event to occur on
                                   Twelveweek's Sixday of 2063
                                           at 19:30 hours
                              Reception Room, Rockabye Hours Clinic
                              R.s.v.p. Mr. & Mrs. John Hanley Slade

   The invitation had come late, the party would be tonight. He had meant to call Slade today
say that he and Anne would probably drop in for cocktails, but would be unable to get there in t
for the delivery. But now that she had reacted so hostilely to the nastier aspects of his job, perh
he had better keep her away from sentimental occasions involving neutroids.
   The battered card reminded him to stop in Sherman III Com-munity Center for his mail.
turned onto the shopping street that paralleled the great highway and drove past several blocks
commercial buildings that served the surrounding suburbs. At the down-ramp he gave the attend
a four-bit bill and sent the truck down to be parked under the street, then went to the mess
office. When he dropped his code-disk in the slot, the feedway under his box number chattered
a yard of paper tape at him. He scanned it slowly from end to end—note from Aunt Maye, bill fr
SynZhamilk Products, letter from Anne's mother. The only thing of importance was the memo fr
the chief, a troublesome tidbit that he had been expecting for days:
   Attention All District Inspectors: Subject: Deviant Neutroid.
   You will immediately begin a systematic and thorough survey of all animals whose se
numbers fall in the Bermuda-K-99 series for birth dates during weeks 26 to 32 of year 2062. T
is in connection with the Delmont Negligency case. Seize all animals in this category, impou
and run applicable sections of nor-malcy tests. Watch for signs of endocrinal deviation a
non-standard response patterns. Delmont has confessed to passing only one non-stand
model, but there may have been others. He disclaims memory of deviant's serial number. T
could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigation when one animal is found. Be thorough.
   If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be dangerous to its owner o
others. Hold all seized K-99s who exhibit the slightest departure from standard in the nor-ma
tests. Forward these to Central Lab. Return standard mod-els to their owners. Accomplish en
survey project within seven days.
   C. Franklin

   "Seven days!" he hissed irritably, wadded the tape in his pocket, stalked out to get the truck.
   His district covered two hundred square miles. With a replacement quota of seventy-f
neutroids a week, the district would have probably picked up about forty K-99s from the Berm
factory influx during the six-week period last year. Could he round them up in a week? Doubt
And there were only eleven empty cages in the kennel. The other forty-nine were oc-cupied by
previous inspector's "unclaimed " inventory—awaiting destruction. The crematorium behind
kennels would have a busy week. Anne would love that.
   He was halfway to Wylo City when the radiophone buzzed on the dashboard. He pulled into
slow lane and answered quickly, hoping for Anne's voice. A polite professional purr came instea
   "Inspector Norris? Doctor Georges."
   Norris made a sour mouth, managed a jovial greeting.
   "Are you extremely busy at the moment? " Georges asked. He paused. Georges usually wante
favor for some wealthy patient, or for some wealthy patient's tail-wagger.
   "Extremely," he grunted.
   "Eh? Oh well, this won't take long. One of my patients—a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes—called a w
ago and said her baby was sick."
   "So?"
   "No baby. I must be getting absent minded, because I forgot she's class C until I got there."
   "I'll guess," Norris muttered. "Turned out to be a neutroid."
   "Of course, of course."
   "Why tell me?"
   "
    It's dying. Eighteenth order virus. Naturally, I can 't get it admitted to a hospital."
   "Ever hear of vets?"
   "You don't understand. She insists it's her baby, believes it's her own. How can I send it t
vet?"
   "That's your worry. Is this an old patient of yours? "
   "Why, yes, I've known Sarah since— "
   "Since you presided at her pseudopart?"
   "How did you know? "
   "
    Just a guess. If you put her through pseudopart, then you deserve all the trouble you get."
   "
    I take it you 're a prohibitionist. "
   "
    Skip it. What did you want from me?"
   "A replacement neutroid. From the kennel."
   "Baloney. You couldn't fool her. If she's blind, she'd still know the difference."
   "I'll have to take the chance. Listen, Norris, it's pathetic. She knows the disease can
cured—in humans—with hospitaliza-tion and expensive treatment that I can't get for a neutroid.
vet could get the drug either. Scarce. It's pathetic."
   "I'm crying all over the steering wheel."
   The doctor hesitated. "Sorry, Norris, I thought you were hu-man."
   "Not to the extent of doing quasi-legal favors that won't be ap-preciated for some rich neur
dame and a doc who practices pseudopart."
   "One correction," Georges said stiffly. "Sarah's not rich. She's a middle-aged widow
couldn't pay for treatment if she could get it. "
   "Oh—"
   "Thanks anyway, Norris. "
   "Hold it," he grunted. "What's the chimp's series?" "It's a K-48, a five-year-old with a three-y
age set." Norris thought for a moment. It was a dirty deal, and it wouldn't work.
   "I think I've got one in the kennel that's fairly close, " he offered doubtfully.
   "Good, good, I'll have Fred go over and—"
   "Wait, now. This one'll be spooky, won't know her, and the serial number will be different. "
   "I know, I know, " Georges sighed. "But it seems worth a try. An attack of V-i8 can cause m
amnesia in humans; that might explain why it won't know her. About the serial number—"
   "Don't try changing it," Norris growled.
   "
    How about obliterating—"
   "Don't, and I'll check on it a couple of weeks from now to make damn sure you didn't. That
felony, Georges."
   "All right, all right, I'll just have to take the chance that she won 't notice it. When can I pic
up?"
    "Call my wife in fifteen minutes. I'll speak to her first. "
    "Uh, yes . . . Mrs. Norris. Uh, very well, thanks, Inspector." Georges hung up quickly.
    Norris lit a cigaret, steeled himself, called Anne. Her voice was dull, depressed, but no lon
angry.
    "All right, Terry," she said tonelessly. "I'll go out to the kennel and get the one in cage thirty-o
and give it to Georges when he comes."
    "Thanks, babe."
    He heard her mutter, "And then I'll go take a bath," just before the circuit clicked off.
    He flipped off the auto-driver, took control of the truck, slipped into the fast lane and dr
furiously toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of Anthropos Incorporated to be
tracing down the suspected Bermuda K-99s in accordance with Franklin's memo. He would have
check through all incom-ing model files for the six week period, go over the present in-vento
then run down the Bermuda serial numbers in a moun-tain of invoices covering a thirty-w
period, find the pet shops and retail dealers that had taken the doubtful models, and finally sur
the retail dealers to trace the models to their present owners. With cooperation from wholesaler
dealers, he might get it down to the retail level by mid-afternoon, but getting the models away fr
their owners would be the nasty part of the job. He was feeling pretty nasty himself, he decid
The spat with Anne, the distasteful thoughts associated with Slade's pseudoparty, the gnaw
remorse about collaborating with Dr. Georges in a doubtful maneuver to pacify one Sarah Glubb
a grim week's work ahead, plus his usual charge of suppressed re-sentment toward C
Franklin—it all added up to a mood that could turn either black or vicious, depending
circumstance.
    If some doting Mama gave him trouble about impounding her darling tail-wagger, he was,
decided, in the right kind of mood to get a warrant and turn the job over to the sheriff.
    The gasping neutroid lay on the examining table under the glaring light. The torso quivered
twitched as muscles con-tracted spasmodically, but the short legs were already limp and paralyz
allowing the chubby man in the white coat to lift them easily by the ankles and retrieve the re
thermometer. The neutroid wheezed and chattered plaintively as the nurse drew the blanket acr
its small body again.
    "A hundred and nine," grunted the chubby man, his voice muffled by the gauze mask. His e
probed the nurse's eyes for a moment. He jerked his head toward the door. "She still out there?"
    The nurse nodded.
    The doctor stared absently at the thermometer stem for a moment, looked up again, sp
quietly. "Get a hypo—necrofine." She turned toward the sterilizer, paused briefly. "Three c.c.
she asked.
    "Twelve," he corrected.
    Their eyes locked with his for several seconds; then she nod-ded and went to the sterilizer.
    "May I leave first?" she asked tonelessly while filling the syr-inge.
    "Certainly."
    "What'll I say to Mrs. Glubbes?" She crossed to the table again and handed him the hypo.
    "Nothing. Use the back way. Go tell Fred to run over to the kennels and pick up the substit
I've called Mrs. Norris. Oh yeah, and tell Fred to stop in here first. I'll have something for him
take out."
    The nurse glanced down at the squirming, whimpering newt, shivered slightly, and left the roo
When the door closed, Georges bent over the table with the hypo. When the door opened ag
Georges looked up to see his son looking in.
   "Take this along," he grunted, and handed Fred the bundle wrapped in newspapers.
   "What'll I do with it?" the youth asked.
   "
    Chuck it in Norris 's incinerator."
   Fred glanced at the empty examining table and nodded indifferently. "Can Miss Laskell co
back now?" he asked in go-ing.
   "Tell her yeah. And hurry with that other neut. "
   "Sure, Pop. See you later. "
   The nurse looked in uncertainly before entering.
   "Get cleaned up," he told her. "And go sit with Mrs. Glubbes."
   "What'll I say?"
   "The `baby ' will recover. She can take it home late this afternoon if she gets some rest first."
   "What're you going to do?—about the substitute."
   "
    Give it a shot to put it to sleep, give her some codeine to feed it. "
   "Why?"
   "So it'll be too groggy for a few days to even notice her, so it'll get addicted and attached to
because she gives it the coedine."
   "The serial number? "
   "I'll put the tattooed foot in a cast. V-18 paralysis—you know."
   "Smart," she muttered, but there was no approval in her voice.
   When she had changed clothes in the anteroom, she unlocked the door to the office, but pau
before passing on into the reception room. The door was ajar, and she gazed through the crack
the woman who sat on the sofa.
   Sarah Glubbes was gray and gaunt and rigid as stone. She sat with her hands clenched in her
her wide empty eyes—dull blue spots on yellowed marble orbs—staring ceilingward while
colorless lips of a knife-slash mouth moved tautly in earnest prayer. The nurse's throat felt ti
She rubbed it for a moment. After all, the thing was only an animal.
   She straightened her shoulders, put on a cheerful smile, and marched on into the reception roo
The yellowed orbs snapped demandingly toward her.
   "Everything's all right, Mrs. Glubbes," she began.

   "Finished," Norris grunted at three o'clock that afternoon.
   "Thirty-six K-99s," murmured the Anthropos file-clerk, gazing over Norris's shoulder at
clip-board with the list of doubtful neuts and the dealers to whom they had been sent. "Lots
owners may be hard to locate."
   "Yeah. Thanks, Andy, and you too, Mabel."
   The girl smiled and handed him a slip of paper. "Here's a list of owners for thirteen of them
called the two local shops for you. Most of them live here close."
   He glanced at the names, felt tension gathering in his stom-ach. It wasn't going to be easy. W
could he say to them?
   Howdy, Ma'am, excuse me, but I've come to take your little boy away to jail ... Oh, yes ma'a
he'll have a place to stay—in a little steel cage with a forkful of straw, and he'll get vitamin-i
mush every day. What's that? His sleepy-time stories and his pink honey-crumbles? So
ma'am, your little boy is only a mutated chimpanzee, you know, and not really human at all.
   "That'll go over great," he grumbled, staring absently at the window.
   "Beg pardon, sir?" answered the clerk.
   "Nothing, Andy, nothing." He thanked them again and strode out into the late afternoon sunli
Still a couple of hours work-ing time left, and plenty of things to do. Checking with the other re
dealers would be the least unpleasant task, but there was no use saving the worst until last.
glanced at the list Mabel had given him, checked it for the nearest address, then squared
shoulders and headed for the kennel truck.
   Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the porch for a mom
smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned.
   "Doctor Georges' boy came," she told him. "He signed for the—"
   She stopped to stare at him, then opened the screen, reached up quickly to brush light finger
over his cheek.
   "Terry! Those welts! What happened—get scratched by a cat-Q?"
   "No, by a human-F," he grumbled, and stepped past her into the hall; Anne followed, eyeing
curiously while he reached for the phone and dialed.
   "Who're you calling?" she asked.
   "Society's Watchdog," he answered as the receiver buzzed in his ear.
   "Your eye, Terry—it's all puffy. Will it turn black?"
   "Maybe."
   "Did the human-F do that too? "
   "
    Uh-uh. Human-M—name of Pete Klusky ...
   The phone croaked at him suddenly. "This is the record-voice of Sheriff Yates. I'll be out fr
five to seven. If it 's urgent, call your constable. "
   He hung up briefly, then irritably dialed the locator service. "Mnemonic register, trail calls, a
official locations," grated a mechanical voice. "Your business, please. "
   "This is T. Norris, Sherman-9-4566-78B, Official rating B, Pri-ority B, code XT-88-U-Bio.
Sheriff Yates for me." "Nature of the call? "
   "Offish biz."
   "
    I shall record the call. "
   He waited. The robot found Yates on the first probability-trial attempt—in the local pool-hall.
   "I'm getting to hate that infernal gadget," Yates snapped. "Acts like it's got me psych
Whattaya want, Norris?"
   "
    Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo citizens with resisting a fed
official—namely me—and charging one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neu-troids fo
pound inspection, and—"
   Yates bellowed lusty laughter in his ear.
   "
    Not funny," he growled. "I've got to get those neutroids. It 's connected with the Delmont case.
   Yates stopped laughing. "Oh? Well . . . I'll take care of it. "
   "Rush order, Sheriff. Can you get the warrants tonight and pick up the animals in the morning
   "Easy on those warrants, boy. Judge Charleman can't be bothered just any time. I can get
newts to you by noon, I guess, provided we don't have to get a helicopter posse to chase down
mothers. "
   "Well, okay—but listen—I want the charges dropped if they cooperate with you. And do
shake the warrants at them unless you have to. Just get those newts, that's all I want."
   "Okay, boy. Give me the dope."
   Norris read him the names and addresses of the three unwill-ing owners, and a precise acco
of what happened in each case. As soon as he hung up, Anne muttered "Sit still," perched on
knees, and began stroking chilly ointment across his burn-ing cheek. He watched her cool e
flicker from his cheek to his own eyes and down again. She was no longer angry, but only gloo
and withdrawn from him. He touched her arm. She seemed not to notice it.
    "Hard day, Terry?"
    "Slightly. I picked up nine newts out of thirteen, anyhow. They're in the truck now. "
    "Good thing you didn't get them all. There are only twelve empty cages."
    "Twelve?—oh, Georges picked one up, didn't he?"
    "And sent a package," she said, eyeing him soberly.
    "
     Package? Where is it?"
    "In the crematorium. The boy took it back there." He swallowed a tight spot in his throat, s
nothing.
    "Oh, and darling—Mrs. Slade called. Why didn't you tell me we're going out tonight?"
    "Going—out?" It sounded a little weak.
    "Well, she said she hadn't heard from you. I couldn't very well say no, so I told her I'd be th
at least."
    "You—?"
    "Oh, I didn't say about you, Terry. I said you'd like to go, but you might have to work. I'll
alone if you don't want to."
    He stared at her with a puzzled frown. "You want to go to the psuedoparty?"
    "Not particularly. But I've never been to one. I'm just curi-ous."
    He nodded slowly, felt grim inside. She finished with the oint-ment, patted his cheek, manage
cheerful smile.
    "Come on, Terry. Let's go unload your nine neutroids." He stared at her dumbly.
    "Let's forget about this morning, Terry."
    He nodded. She averted her face suddenly, and her lip quiv-ered. "I—I know you've got a
that's got to be— " She swal-lowed hard and turned away. "See you out in the kennels, " she cho
gaily, then hurried down the hall toward the door. Nor-ris scratched his chin unhappily as
watched her go.
    After a moment, he dialed the mnemonic register again. "Keep a line on this number," he orde
after identifying himself. "If Yates or Franklin calls, ring continuously until I can get in to answ
Otherwise, just memorize the call."
    "Instructions acknowledged," answered the circuitry.
    He went out to the kennels to help Anne unload the neutroids.
    A sprawling concrete barn housed the cages, and the barn was sectioned into three large roo
one housing the fragile, humanoid chimpanzee-mutants, and another for the lesser breeds such
cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that never matured into sheep. The third ro
contained a small gas chamber, with a conveyor belt leading from it to the crema-torium. He usu
kept the third room locked, but he noticed in passing that it was open. Evidently Anne had fou
the keys in order to let Fred Georges dump his package.
    A Noah's Ark Chorus greeted him as he passed through the animal room, to be replaced by
mindless chatter of the doll-like neutroids as soon as he entered the air conditio
neutroid-section. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bod
thwacked against the wire mesh as they leaped about their compartments with monkey-grace
recognition of their feeder and keeper.
    Their human appearance was broken only by two distinct features: short beaverlike t
decorated with fluffy curls of fur and an erect thatch of scalp hair that grew up into a bri
candle-flame. Otherwise, they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little smi
and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew beyond a predetermined age
which varied for each series. Age-sets were available from one to ten years, human equival
Once a neutroid reached its age-set, it remained at this stage of retarded development until death.
   "They must be getting to know you pretty well," Anne said as she came from behind a section
cages. "A big loud welcome for Pappa, huh?"
   He frowned slightly as he glanced around the gloomy room and sniffed the animal odors. "Th
funny. They don't usually get this excited."
   She grinned. "Big confession: it started when I came in."
   He shot her a quick suspicious glance, then walked slowly along a row of cages, peering ins
He stopped suddenly be-side a three year old K-76 to stare.
   "Apple cores!"
   He turned slowly to face his wife, trying to swallow a sudden spurt of anger.
   "Well?" he demanded.
   Anne reddened. "I felt sorry for them, eating that goo from the mechanical feeders. So I dr
down to Sherman III and bought six dozen cooking apples."
   "That was a mistake."
   She frowned irritably. "We can afford it. "
   "That's not the point. There 's a reason for mechanical feed-ings. "
   "Oh? What is it?"
   He hesitated, knowing she wouldn't like the answer. But she was already stiffening.
   "Let me guess," she said coldly. "If you feed them yourself they get to love you. Right? "
   "Uh, yeah. They even attach some affection to me because they know that right after I come
the feeders get turned on."
   "I see. And if they love you, you might get queasy about run-ning them through Room
production line, eh?"
   "That's about the size of it," he admitted.
   "Okay, Terry, I feed them apples, you run your production line," she announced firmly. "I c
see anything contradictory about that, can you?"
   Her eyes told him that he had damn well better see something contradictory about it, whether
admitted it or not.
   "Planning to get real chummy with them, are you? " he in-quired stiffly.
   "Planning to dispose of any soon?" she countered.
   "
    Honeymoon's off again, eh?"
   She shook her head slowly, came toward him a little. "I hope not, Terry—I hope not."
stopped again. They watched each other doubtfully amid the chatter of the neutroids.
   After a time, he turned and walked to the truck, pulled out the snare-pole and began fishing
the squealing, squeaking doll-things that bounded about like frightened monkeys in the truck's w
mesh cage. They were one-family pets, always frightened of strangers, and these in the tr
remembered him only as the villain who had dragged them away from Mamma into a terrify
world of whirling scenery and roaring traffic.
   They worked for a time without talking; then Anne asked casually: "What's the Delmont ca
Terry?"
   "Huh? What makes you ask?"
   "I heard you mention it on the phone. Anything to do with a black eye and a scratched face?"
   He nodded sourly. "Indirectly. It's a long story. Well—you know about the evolvotron."
   "Only that Anthropos Incorporated uses it to induce muta-tions. "
   "It's sort of a sub-atomic surgical instrument—for doing `plastic surgery' to reproduct
cells—Here! Grab this chimp! Got him by the leg."
   "Oop! Got him. . . . Go ahead, Terry."
   "Using an evolvotron on the gene-structure of an ovum is likeplaying microscopic billiards—w
protons and deuterons and alpha particles for cue-balls. The operator takes the living ovu
mounts it in the device, gets a tremendously magnified image of it with the slow-neutr
shadowscope, compares the image with a gene-map, starts gouging out submolecular tidbits w
single-particle shots. He juggles them around, hammers chunks in where nothing was before, pl
up gaps, makes new gaps. Catch?"
   She looked thoughtful, nodded. "Catch. And the Lord Man made neutroid from the slime of
ape, " she murmured.
   "Heh? Here, catch this critter! Snare's choking him!"
   "Okay—come to Mamma . . . Well, go on--tell me about Delmont."
   "Delmont was a green evolvotron operator. Takes years of training, months of practice. "
   "Practice?"
   "It's an art more than a science. Speed's the thing. You've got to perform the whole operat
from start to finish in a few sec-onds. Ovum dies if you take too long."
   "About Delmont—"
   "Got through training and practice tryouts okay. Good rating, in fact. But he was just one
those people that blow up when rehearsals stop and the act begins. He spoiled over a hundred
the first week. That's to be expected. One success out of ten tries is a good average. But he di
get any successes. "
   "Why didn't they fire him?"
   "Threatened to. Guess he got hysterical. Anyhow, he reported one success the next day. It w
faked. The ovum had a couple of flaws—something wrong in the nervous system 's determina
and in the endocrinal setup. Not a standard neutroid ovum. He passed it on to the incubators to
a credit, knowing it wouldn 't be caught until after birth."
   "It wasn't caught at all?"
   "Heh. He was afraid it might not be caught. So he suppressed the testosterone flow to
incubator so that it would be—later on."
   "Why that?"
   "All the neutroids are potential females, you know. But male hormone is pumped to the foetus
it develops. Keeps female sexuality from developing, results in a neuter. He decided that
inspectors would surely catch a female, and that would be blamed on a malfunction of
incubator, not on him."
   "So?"
   Norris shrugged. "So inspectors are human. So maybe a guy came on the job with a hango
and missed a trick or two. Besides, they all look female. Anyhow, she didn't get caught. "
   "How did they ever find out Delmont did it?"
   "He got caught last month—trying it again. Confessed to doing it once before. No telling h
many times he really did it."
   Norris held up the final kicking, squealing, tassel-haired doll from the back of the kennel-tru
He grinned down at Anne.
   "Now take this little yeep, for instance. Might be a potential she. Might also be a poten
murderer. All these kiddos from the truck came from the machines in the section where Delm
worked last year when he passed that fake. Can't have non-standard models on the loose. C
have sexed models either—then they'd breed, get out of hand. The evolvotron could be shut do
any time it became necessary, and when that generation of mutants died off . . . " He shrugged.
    Anne caught the struggling baby-creature in her arms. It strug-gled and tried to bite, but subsi
a little when she disentangled it from the snare.
    "
     Kkr-r-reeee!" it cooed nervously. "Kree Kkr-r-reeee! "
    "You tell him you're no murderer," she purred to it.
    He watched disapprovingly while she fondled it. One code he had accepted: steer clear
emotional attachments. It was eight months old and looked like a child of two years—a year sh
of its age-set. And it was designed to be as affectionate as a human child.
    "Put it in the cage, Anne," he said quietly.
    She looked up and shook her head.
    "It belongs to somebody else. Suppose it transfers its fixation to you? You'd be robbing
owners. They can't love many peo-ple at once."
    She snorted, but installed the thing in its cage.
    "Anne—" Norris hesitated, knowing that it was a bad time to approach the subject, but think
about Slade 's pseudoparty tonight, and wondering why she had accepted.
    "What, Terry?"
    He leaned on the snare pole and watched her. "Do you want one of them for yourself? I can s
an unclaimed one over to you. Wouldn't cost anything."
    She stared at him evenly for a moment, glanced down at her feet, paced slowly to the window
stand hugging her arms and looking out into the twilight.
    "With a pseudoparty, Terry?"
    He swallowed a lump of anxiety, found his voice. "Whatever you want. "
    "I hear the phone ringing in the house. "
    He waited.
    "It stopped," she said after a moment.
    "Well, babe?"
    "Whatever I want, Terry?" She turned slowly to lean back against a patch of gray light and l
at him.
    He nodded. "Whatever you want."
    "I want your child."
    He stiffened with hurt, stared at her open-mouthed. "I want your child. "
    He thrust his hand slowly in his hip pocket.
    "Oh, don't reach for your social security card. I don't care if it's got `Genetic triple-Z' on
want your child."
    "Uncle Federal says `no, ' babe."
    "To hell with Uncle Federal! They can't send a human through your Room 3! Not yet, anyho
If it's born, the world's stuck with it!"
    "And the parents are forcibly separated, reduced to common-labor status. Remember?"
    She stamped her foot and whirled to the window again. "Damn the whole hellish world!"
snarled.
    Norris sighed heavily. He was sorry she felt that way. She was probably right in feeling that w
but he was still sorry. Right-eous anger, frustrated, was no less searing a psychic acid than
unrighteous sort, nor did a stomach pause to weigh the moral worth of the wrath that drenche
before giving birth to an ulcer.
    "Hey, babe, if we're going to the Slade affair— "
  She nodded grimly and turned to walk with him toward the house. At least it was better hav
her direct her anger at the world rather than at him, he thought.

   The expectant mother played three games of badminton before sundown, then went inside
shower and dress before the guests arrived. Her face was wreathed in a merry smile as she trot
downstairs in a fresh smock, her neck still pink from the hot water, her wake fragrant with f
perfume. There was no apparent need for the smock, nor was there any pregnant cau-tion in
way she threw her arms around John's neck and kicked her heels up behind.
   "Darling!" she chirped. "There'll be plenty of milk. I never believed in bottle-feeding. Isn
wonderful? "
   "Great. The injections are working, I guess."
   She looked around. "It's a lovely resort-hospital. I'm glad you didn't pick Angel's Haven. "
   "So am I," he grunted. "We'll have the reception room all to ourselves tonight."
   "
    What time is it?"
   "Seven ten. Oh, the doe called to say he'd be a few minutes late. He was busy all day with a s
baby."
   She licked her lips and glanced aside uneasily. "Class A cou-ple?"
   "No, doll. Class C—and a widow."
   "Oh." She brightened again, watched his face teasingly. "Will you pace and chain-smoke w
I'm in delivery?"
   He snorted amusement. "Hey, it's not as if you were really . . " He stopped amid a fit
coughing.
   "Not as if I really what?"
   His mouth opened and closed. He stammered helplessly. "Not as if I were really what?"
demanded, eyes begin-ning to brim.
   "
    Listen, darling, I didn't mean . . .”
   A nurse came clicking across the floor. "Mrs. Slade, it's time for your first injection. Doc
Georges just called. Will you come with me please?"
   "Not as if I what, John?" she insisted, ignoring the nurse. "Nothing, doll, nothing—"
   "Mrs. Slade—"
   "All right, nurse, I'm coming." She tossed her husband a hurt glance, walked away dabbing at
eyes.
   "Expectant dames is always cranky," sympathized an attendant who sat on a bench near
"Take it easy. She won't be so touchy after it comes."
   John Hanley Slade shot an irritable glare at the eavesdropper, saw a friendly comedian-f
grinning at him, returned the grin uneasily, and went over to sit down.
   "Your first?"
   John Hanley nodded, stroked nervously at his thin hair. "I see 'em come, I see 'em go. It's alw
the same." "Whattaya mean?" John grunted.
   "Same expressions, same worries, same attitudes, same con-versation, same questions. The
always makes some remark about how it' not really having a baby, and the dame always gets so
Happens every time. "
   "It's all pretty routine for you, eh?" he muttered stiffly.
   The attendant nodded. He watched the expectant father for several seconds, then grunted: "
ahead, ask me." "Ask you what?"
   "If I think all this is silly. They always do."
   John stared at the attendant irritably. "Well—? "
   "Do I think it's silly? No, I don't."
   "Fine. That's settled, then."
   "No, I don't think it's silly, because for a dame ain't satisfied if she plunks down the dough, b
a newt, and lets it go at that. There's something missing between bedroom and baby."
   "That so?"
   John's sarcastic tone was apparently lost on the man. "It's so," he announced. "Physiolog
change—that's what's missing. For a newt to really take the place of a baby, the mother's got to
through the whole build-up. Doc gives her injections, she craves pickles and mangoes. M
injections for morning sickness. More injections, she gets chubby. And finally the shots to br
milk, labor, and false delivery. So then she gets the newt, and everything's right with the world."
   "Mmmph."
   "Ask me something else," the attendant offered.
   John looked around helplessly, spied an elderly woman near the entrance. She had just enter
and stood looking around as if lost or confused. He did not recognize her, but he got up quickly
   "Excuse me, chum. Probably one of my guests."
   "Sure, sure. I gotta get on the job anyhow."
   The woman turned to stare at him as he crossed the floor to meet her. Perhaps one of Ma
friends, he thought. There were at least a dozen people coming that he hadn't met. But
wel-coming smile faded slightly as he approached her. She wore a shabby dress, her hair w
disheveled in a gray tangle, her matchstick legs were without make-up, and there were fierce
lines around her eyelids. She stared at him with wide wild eyes—dull orbs of dirty marble with
blue patches for pupils. And her mouth was a thin slash between gaunt leathery cheeks.
   "Are—are you here for the party?" he asked doubtfully.
   She seemed not to hear him, but continued to stare at or through him. Her mouth made wo
out of a quivering hiss of a voice. "I'm looking for him."
   "Who?"
   "The doctor."
   He decided from her voice that she had laryngitis. "Doctor Georges? He'll be here soon, but h
be busy tonight. Couldn't you consult another physician?"
   The woman fumbled in her bag and brought out a small parcel to display. "I want to give
this," she hissed.
   "I could—"
   "I want to give it to him myself," she interrupted.
   Two guests that he recognized came through the entrance. He glanced toward them nervou
returned their grins, glanced indecisively back at the haggard woman.
   "I'll wait," she croaked, turned her back, and marched to the nearest chair where she perched
a sick crow, eyes glued to the door.
   John Hanley Slade felt suddenly chilly. He shrugged it off and went to greet the Willingha
who were the first arrivals.

    Anne Norris, with her husband in tow, zig-zagged her way through a throng of chattering gue
toward the hostess, who now occupied a wheel-chair near the entrance to the delivery room. T
were a few minutes late, but the party had not yet actually begun.
    "
     Why don't you go join the father 's sweating circle?" Anne called over her shoulder. "The men
all over with John."
   Norris glanced at the group that had gathered under a cloud of cigar smoke over by the porta
bar. John Slade stood at the focus of it and looked persecuted.
   "
    Job's counselors," Terry grunted.
   A hand reached out from a nearby conversation-group and caught his arm. "Norris," coughe
gruff voice.
   He glanced around. "Oh—Chief Franklin. Hello!"
   Anne released his hand and said "See you later," then wound her way out of sight in the mil
herd.
   Franklin separated himself from the small congregation and glanced down coolly at his dist
inspector. He was a tall man, with shoulders hunched up close to his head, long spindly legs, a f
that was exceedingly wide across the cheekbones but nar-row at the jaw. Black eyes gazed fr
under heavy brows, and his unruly black hair was badly cut. His family tree had a few Chero
Indians among its branches, Norris had heard, and they were frequently on the warpath.
   Franklin gulped his drink casually and handed the glass to a passing attendant. "Thought yo
be working tonight, Norris," he said.
   "I got trapped into coming, Chief," he replied amiably. "How're you doing with the Delm
pickup?"
   "Nearly finished with record-tracing. I took a break today and picked up nine of them."
   "Mmmph. I wondered why you plastipainted that right eye. " Franklin rolled back his head
laughed loudly toward the ceiling. "Newt's mamma tossed the crockery at you, did she?"
   "Her husband," he corrected a little stiffly.
   "Well—get them in a hurry, Norris. If the newt's owner knows it's a deviant, he might hear w
after something and hide it somewhere. I want them rounded up quickly. "
   "Expect to find the one?"
   Franklin nodded grimly. "It's somewhere in this part of the country—or was. It narrows down
about six or eight districts. Yours has a good chance of being it. If I had my way, we'd de-st
every Bermuda K-99 that came out during that period. That way, we'd be sure—in case Delm
faked more than one. "
   "Be pretty tough on dames like Mary," Norris reminded him, glancing toward Mrs. Slade.
   "Yeah, yeah, five hundred Rachels blubbering for their chil-dren, and all on my neck. I'd alm
rather let the deviant get away than have to put up with the screaming mommies. "
   "The burdens of office, Chief. Bear up under the brickbats. Herod did. "
   Franklin glowered at him suspiciously, noticed Norris's bland expression, muttered "eh heh he
and glanced around the room.
   "Who's presiding over the whelping tonight?" Norris asked.
   "Local doctor. Georges. You ought to know him."
   Terry's eyebrows went up. He nodded.
   "
    He's already here. Saw him come in the doctor's entrance a few minutes ago. He's proba
getting ready. Well, Norris . . . if you'll excuse me ..."
   Norris wandered toward the bar. He had been to several pseu-doparties before. There w
nothing to it, really. After the guests had gathered, the medics rolled the mother into delivery,
everyone paced restlessly and talked in hushed voices while she reenacted the age-old drama
Birth—in a way that was only mildly uncomfortable and did nothing to aggravate the popula-t
problem. Then, when they rolled her out again—fatigued and emotionally spent—the nurse brou
out a newly purchased neutroid, only a few days out of the incubator, and presented it to
mother. When the oohs and awws were finished, the mother went home with her child to rest,
the father whooped it up with the guests. Norris hoped to get away early. He had things to
before dawn.
   "Who's that hag by the door?" a guest grunted in his ear.
   Norris glanced incuriously at the thin-lipped woman who sat stiffly with her hands in her lap,
gazing at the guests but looking through and beyond them. He shook his head and moved on
shake hands with his host.
   "Glad you came, Norris!" Slade said with a grin, then leaned closer. "Your presence could
embarrassing at a time like this, though."
   "How's that?"
   "
    You should have brought your net and snare-pole, Norris, " said a man at Slade's elbow. "T
when they bring the baby out, go charging across the room yelling "That's it! That's the one
after!' "
   The men laughed heartily. Norris grinned weakly and started away.
   "Hey, Slade," a voice called. "They're coming after Mary." Norris stood aside to let John hu
toward his wife. Most of the crowd stopped milling about to watch Dr. Georges, a nurse, and
attendant coming from a rear door to take charge of Mary.
   "Stop! Stop right there! "
   The voice came from near the front entrance. It was a choked and hoarse gasp of sound,
loud, but somehow penetrating enough to command the room. Norris glanced aside during
sudden lull to see the thin-lipped woman threading her way through the crowd, and the cro
folded back to clear a way. The farther she walked, the quieter the room, and Norris sud-de
realized that somehow the center of the room was almost clear of people so that he could see M
and John and the medics standing near the delivery room door. They had turned to stare at
intruder. Georges ' mouth fell open slightly. He spoke in a low voice, but the room was sudde
silent enough so that Norris could hear.
   "
    Why, Sarah—what 're you doing here? "
   The woman stopped six feet away from him. She pulled out a small parcel and reached it tow
him. "This is for you," she croaked.
   When Georges did not advance to take it, she threw it at his feet. "Open it!" she commanded.
   Norris expected him to snort and tell the attendants to toss the nutty old dame out. Instead,
stooped, very slowly, keeping his eyes on the woman, and picked up the bundle.
   "Unwrap it!" she hissed when he paused.
   His hands fumbled with it, but his eyes never left her face. The package came open. Geor
glanced down. He dropped it quickly to the floor.
   "An amputated— "
   Chubby mouth gaping, he stared at the gaunt woman. "My Primrose had a black cowlick in
tail!"
   The doctor swallowed and continued to stare.
   "Where is my Primrose? "
   The woman had her hand in her purse. The doctor retreated a step.
   "Where is my baby?"
   "Really, Sarah, there was nothing to do but—"
   Her hand brought a heavy automatic out of the purse. It wav-ered and moved uncertainly,
weighty for her scrawny wrist and arm. The room was suddenly a scramble and a babble.
   "You killed my baby!"
   "The first shot ricocheted from the ceiling and shattered a window," said the televis
announcer. "The second shot went into the wall. The third shot struck Doctor Georges in the b
of the head as he ran toward the delivery room door. He died in-stantly. Mrs. Glubbes fled from
room before any of the guests could stop her, and a dragnet is now combing..."
   Norris shuddered and looked away from the television screen that revealed the present state
the reception room where they had been not more than two hours ago. He turned off the
nervously lit a cigaret, and glanced at Anne who sat staring at nothing on the other end of the sof
   "
    How do you feel?" he murmured.
   She looked at him dumbly, shook her head. Norris got up, paced to the magazine rack, thum
idly through its contents, glanced back at her nervously, walked to the window, stood smoking
staring toward the street for a time, moved to the piano, glanced back at her nervously again, tr
to play a few bars of Beethoven's Fifth with one finger, hit a foul note after the open
ta-ta-ta-taaaahh, grunted a curse, banged a crashing discord with his fist, and leaned forward wi
sigh to press his forehead against the music rack and close his eyes.
   "Don't blame yourself, Terry," she said softly.
   "
    If I hadn't let him have that impounded newt, it wouldn 't have happened."
   She thought that over briefly. "And if my maternal grandfather hadn't lied to his wife back
2013, I would never have been born."
   "Why not?"
   "Because if he'd told her the truth, she'd have up and left him, and Mother wouldn 't have b
born. "
   "Oh. Nevertheless— "
   "Nevertheless nothing!" She shook herself out of the blue mood. "You come here, Te
Norris!"
   He came, and there was comfort in holding her. She was prepared to blame the world all ri
but he was in the world, and a part of it, and so was she. And there was no sharing of guilt,
only the whole weight of it on the shoulders of each of them. He thought of the Delmont case,
the way Franklin talked casu-ally of slaughtering five hundred K-99s just to be sure, and how
continued to hate Franklin's guts for no apparent reason. Franklin was not a pleasant fellow, to
sure, but he had done nothing to Norris personally. He wondered if he hated what Fran
represented, but directed the hate at Franklin's person because he, Norris, represented it t
Franklin, however, liked the world as he found it, and was glad to help keep it that way.
   If I think something's wrong with the set-up, but keep on being a part of it, then the wrongnes
not part mine, he thought, it's all mine, because I bought it.
   "It's hard to decide," he murmured.
   "What's that, Terry?"
   "Whether it's all wrong, dead wrong—or whether it's the best that can be done under
circumstances."
   "Whatever are you talking about? "
   He shook himself and yawned. "About going to bed," he grunted.

   They went to bed at midnight. At one o'clock, he became certain she was asleep. He lay
darkness for a time, listening to her even breathing. Then he sat up and eased himself out of b
There was work to be done. He tiptoed quietly out of the bedroom, carrying his shoes and
trousers. He dressed in the kitchen by the glow of a cigaret ember and stole quietly out into
chilly night. A half-moon hung low in a misty sky, and the wind was sharp out of the north.
walked quietly toward the kennels. There were only three empty cages. He needed twenty-seven
accommodate the doubtful K-99s that were to be picked up during the next few days. There w
work to be done.
   He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy chatters greeted the light.
   One at a time he awoke twenty-four of the older creatures and carried them to a la
glass-walled compartment. These were the long-time residents; they knew him well, and they ca
will-ingly, snuggling sleepily against his chest. He whistled tunelessly while he worked, be
carrying them by the tails, two in each hand, to speed the chore.
   'When he had gotten them in the glass chamber, he sealed the door and turned on the gas. T
he switched off the lights, locked up for the night again, and walked back toward the house thro
the crisp grass. The conveyor belt from the cham-ber to the crematorium would finish the
unaided.
   Norris felt suddenly ill. He sank down on the back steps and laid his head on his arms across
knees. His eyes burned, but thought of tears made him sicker. When the low chug of
crematorium's igniter coughed quietly from the kennels, he staggered hurriedly away from the st
to retch.
   She was waiting for him in the bedroom. She sat on the window-seat, her small figure silhoue
against the paleness of the moonlit yard.
   She was staring silently out at the dull red tongue of exhaust gas from the crematorium chim
when he tiptoed down the hall and paused in the doorway. She looked around. Dead sile
between them, then:
   "Out for a walk, eh, Terry?"
   A resumption of the dead silence. He backed quietly away without speaking. He went to
parlor and lay down on the couch.
   After a time, he heard her puttering around in the kitchen, and saw a light. A little later, he ope
his eyes to see her dark shadow over him, surrounded by an aura of negligee. She sat down on
edge of the couch and offered him a glass.
   "Drink it. Make your stomach rest easy."
   "Alcoholic?"
   "Yeah."
   He tasted it: milk, egg yolk, honey, and rum.
   "No arsenic?"
   She shook her head. He drank it quickly, lay back with a grunt, took her hand. They were si
for a time.
   "I—I guess every new wife thinks her husband's flawless—for a while," she murmured absen
"Silly—how it's such a shock to find out the obvious: that he's no different from the other
humans of the tribe. "
   Norris stiffened, rolled his face quickly away from her. After a moment, her hand crept ou
touch his cheek lightly. Her cool fingertips traced a soft line up and along his temple.
   "It's all right, Terry," she whispered.
   He kept his face averted. Her fingers stroked for a moment more, as if she were fee
something new and different in the familiar texture of his hair. Then she arose and padded qui
back to the bedroom.
   Norris lay awake until dawn, knowing that it would never be all right Terry, nor all r
World—never, as long as the prohibit-ing, the creating, the killing, the mockery, the falsification
birth, death, and life continued.
   Dawn inherited the night mist, gathered it into clouds, and made a gloomy gray morning of it.
    Anne was still asleep when he left for work. He backed out the kennel-truck, meaning to get
rest of the Bermuda K-99s as quickly as possible so that he could begin running the normalcy te
and get the whole thing over with. The night's guilt was still with him as he drove away, a sti
dew that refused to depart with morning. Why should he have to kill the things? Why coul
Franklin arrange for a central slaughter house for de-stroying neutroids that had been deserted,
whose owners could not be located, or that found themselves unclaimed for any other reason?
Franklin would purple at the notion. It was only a routine part of the job. Why shouldn 't it
routine? Why were neutroids manufactured anyhow? Obviously, because they were disposable—
important feature which human babies unfortunately lacked. When the market became glutted w
humans, the merchandise could not be dumped in the sea.
    Anthropos' mutant pets fulfilled a basic biological need of Man—of all life, for that matter—
need to have young, or a reasonable facsimile, and care for them. Neutroids kept human
satisfied with the restricted birth rate, and if it were not satis-fied, it would breed itself into fam
epidemic, and possibly ex-tinction. With the population held constant at five billions, the Federat
could insure a decent living-standard for everyone. And as long as birth must be restricted, why
restrict it logi-cally and limit it to genetic desirables?
    Why not? Norris felt no answer, but he was acutely aware of the "genetic C" on his so
security card.
    The world was a better place, wasn't it? Great strides since the last century. Science had m
life easier to live and harder to lose. The populace thoughtlessly responded by pouring forth a flo
of babies and doddering old codgers to clutter the earth and make things tougher again by ea
and not producing; but again science increased the individual's chances to survive and augmen
his motives for doing so—and again the populace responded with fecundity and long white bear
making more trouble for science again. So it had continued until it became obvious that progr
wasn't headed toward "the Good Life" but toward more lives to continue the same old meager
as always. What could be done? Impede science? Unthinkable! Chuck the old codgers into the s
Advance the retirement age to ninety and work them to death? The old codgers still had
suffrage, and plenty of time to go to the polls.
    The unborn, however, were not permitted to vote.
    Man's technology had created little for the individual. Man used his technology to lengthen
life and sweeten it, but something had to be subtracted somewhere. The lives of the unborn w
added unto the years of the aged. A son of Terry Norris might easily live till 100, but he would h
damn little chance of being born to do it.
    Neutroids filled the cradles. Neutroids never ate much, nor grew up to eat more or be on
unemployment roles. Neutroids could be bashed with a shovel and buried in the back yard w
hard times came. Neutroids could satisfy a woman 's longing for something small and lovable,
they never got in the economic way.
    It was no good thinking about it, he decided. It was a Way Of Doing Things, and most peo
accepted it, and if it sometimes yielded heartache and horrors such as had occurred at Sla
pseudoparty, it was still an Accepted Way, and he couldn 't change it, even if he knew what to
about it. He was already adjusted to the world-as-it-was, a world that loved the artificial mutants
children, looked the other way when crematorium flames licked in the night. He had been brou
up in such a world, and it was only when emotion conflicted with the grim necessity of his job
he thought to question the world. And Anne? Eventually, he supposed, she would have
pseudo-party, cuddle a neutroid, forget about romantic notions like having a kid of her own.
    At noon he brought home another dozen K-99s and installed them in the cages. Two reluc
mothers had put up a howl, but he departed without protest and left seizure of the animals to
local authorities. Yates had already delivered the three from yesterday.
    "What, no more scratches, bruises, broken bones?" Anne asked at lunch.
    He smiled mechanically. "If Mamma puts up a squawk, I go. Quietly. "
    "Learned your lesson yesterday? "
    "Mmm! One dame pulled a fast one on me though. I think. Told her what I wanted. She star
moaning, but she let me in. I got her newt, started out with it. She wanted a receipt. So, I took
newt's serial number off the check list, made out the re-ceipt. She took one look and squealed `T
'
  s not Chichi 's num-ber!' and grabbed for her tail-wagger. I looked at its foot-tattoo.
    Sure enough—wrong number. Had to leave it. A K-99 all right, but not even from Berm
Plant."
    "I thought they were all registered."
    "They are, babe. Wires get crossed sometimes. I told her she had the wrong newt, and
started boiling. Got the sales re-ceipt and showed it to me. Number checked with the new
Something's fouled up somewhere."
    "Where'd she get it?"
    "'
     O Reilley's pet shop—over in Sherman II. Right place, wrong serial number."
    "
     Anything to worry about, Terry?"
    "
     Well, I've got to track down that doubtful Bermuda model."
    "Oh."
    "
     And—well--" He frowned out the window at the kennels. "Ever think what 'd happen if somebo
started a black market in neutroids?"
    They finished the meal in silence. Apparently there was going to be no further mention
last-night's mass-disposal, nor any rehash of the nightmare at Slade's party. He was thankful.
    The afternoon's work yielded seven more Bermuda neutroids for the pound. Except for
missing newt that was involved in the confusion of serial numbers, the rest of them would have
be collected by Yates or his deputies, armed with warrants. The groans and the tears of the own
left him in a gloomy mood, but the pickup phase of the operation was nearly finished. T
normalcy tests, however, would consume the rest of the week and leave little time for sleeping
eating. If Delmont's falsi-fication proved extensive, it might be necessary to deliver several of
animals to central lab for dissection and complete analy-sis, thus bringing the murderous wrath
the owners upon his head. He had a hunch about why bio-inspectors were frequently shifted fr
one territory to another.
    On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check with the dealer about the confusion
serial numbers. Sherman II was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty blocks
commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a side-walk escalator toward O'Reill
address. He had spoken to O'Reilley on the phone, but had not yet visited the dealer's shop.
    It lay on a dingy side street that was reminiscent of centuries past, a street of small bars
bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a shop with three gold balls above the entrance,
the place was now an antique store. A light mist was falling when he stepped off the escalator
stood in front of the pet shop. A sign hung out over the sidewalk, announcing:

                                  J. "DOGGY" O'REILLEY
                                      PETS FOR SALE
                              DUMB BLONDES AND GOLDFISH
                              MUTANTS FOR THE CHILDLESS
                                    BUY A BUNDLE OF JOY

   He frowned at the sign for a moment, then wandered through the entrance into a warm
gloomy shop, wrinkling his nose at the strong musk of animal odors. O'Reilley 's was no shin
example of cleanliness.
   Somewhere a puppy was yapping, and a parrot croaked the lyrics of A Chimp To Call My O
—theme song of a soap opera about a lady evolvotron operator, Norris recalled.
   He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a customer. An elderly l
haggled with the wizened man-ager over the price of a half-grown second-hand dog-F. She sho
her last dog's death certificate under his nose and de-manded a guarantee of the dog's alleged
intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible that the dog was more knowl-edgeable t
some humans, but he demurred when asked to swear by his ledger.
   The dog was lamenting, "Don' sell me, Dadda, don' sell me," and punctuating the pleas w
mournful train-whistle howls.
   Norris smiled quietly. The non-human pets were brighter than the neutroids. A K-108 co
speak a dozen words, but a K-99 never got farther than "mamma, " "pappa, " and "cook
An-thropos feared making quasi-humans too intelligent, lest senti-mentalists proclaim them re
human.
   He wandered on toward the rear of the building, pausing briefly by the cash register to insp
O'Reilley's license which hung in a dusty frame on the wall behind the counter: "James Fallon
Reilley . . . authorized dealer in mutant animals ... all non-predatory mammals includ
chimpanzee-K series . . . license expires 15W 3D 2063Y . . ."
   Expiration date approaching, he noticed, but otherwise okay. He headed for a bank of neutr
cages along the opposite wall, but O'Reilley minced across the floor to meet him. The elderly l
was leaving. O'Reilley's face wore a v-shaped smirk on a loose-skinned face, and his bald h
bobbled professionally.
   "And a good afternoon to ye, sir. What'll it be this foine driz-zlin' afternoon? A dwarf kanga
perhaps, or a—" He paused to adjust his spectacles as Norris flashed a badge and presented
card. O 'Reilley's smile waned. "Inspector Norris it is," he mut-tered at the card, then looked
"What'd they do with the last 'un, flay him alive?"
   "My predecessor was transferred to the Montreal area."
   "And I thought that I spoke to him only yesterday!"
   "On the phone? That was me, O 'Reilley. About the rundown on the K-99 sales."
   "I gave it to you properly, did I not?" the oldster demanded.
   "
    You gave it to me. Maybe properly."
   O'Reilley seemed to puff up slightly and glower. "Meaning?"
   "
    There's a mix-up in serial numbers on one of them. May not be your mistake."
   "No mistakes, no mistakes."
   "Okay, we'll see." Norris glanced at his list. "Let's check this number again—K-99-LJZ-35i."
   "It's nearly closing time," the oldster protested. "Come back some other day, Norris."
   "Sorry, this one's rush. It'll only take a minute. Where's your book?"
   The oldster began to quiver angrily. "Are you suggestin', sir, that I falsely—"
   "
    No," he growled, "I'm suggesting that there was a mistake. Maybe my mistake, maybe yo
maybe Anthropos, maybe the owners. I've got to find out, that's all. Let's have the book."
   "What kind of a mistake? I gave you the owner 's name! "
   "
    She has a different newt. "
    "Can I help it if she traded with somebody? "
    "
     She didn't. She bought it here. I saw the receipt. " Norris was beginning to become impati
tried to suppress it.
    "Then'she traded with one of my other customers!" O'Reilley insisted.
    Norris snorted irritably. "You got two customers named Adelia Schultz?—Come on, pop, l
look at the duplicate receipt. Now."
    "Doubt if it's still around," O'Reilley grumbled, refusing to budge.
    Norris suddenly erupted. He turned away angrily and began pacing briskly around the sh
looking under cages, inspecting fixtures, probing into feeding troughs with a pencil, looking i
feed bags, examining a dog-F's wiry coat.
    "Here there! What do you think you 're doing? " the owner de-manded.
    Norris began barking off check-points in a loud voice. "Dirty cat-cage . . . inadequate ventila
. . . food trough not clean . . . no water in the newt cages ..."
    "I water them twice a day!" O'Reilley raged.
    ". . . mouldy rabbit-meal . . . no signs of disinfectant ... What kind of a disease-trap are
running here?"
    He came back to face O'Reilley who stood trembling with rage and cursing him with his eyes.
    "Not to mention that sign outside," Norris added casually. "`Dumb blondes' they outlawed
one the year Kleyton got sent up for using hormones on K-108s, trying to grow himself a har
Well?"
    "Doubt if it's still around," O'Reilley repeated.
    "Look, pop!" Norris snapped. "You're required to keep sales receipts until they're microfilm
There hasn't been a micro-filming for over a year."
    "Get out of my shop!"
    "If I go, you won't have a shop after tomorrow."
    "Are you threatening me?"
    "
     Yeah."
    For a moment, Norris thought the old man would attack him. But O 'Reilley spat a sudden cu
scurried toward the counter, grabbed a fat book from beneath the cash register, then hurried aw
toward the stairs at the rear of the shop.
    "
     Hey, pop! Where you going?"
    "Get me glasses!"
    "You're wearing your glasses!" Norris started after him. "New ones. Can't see through the
O'Reilley bounded up-stairs.
    "Leave the book here and I'll check it!"
    Norris stopped with his foot on the bottom step. O'Reilley slammed the door at the head of
stairs, locked it behind him. Grumbling suspiciously, the inspector went back to the counter to w
    Five minutes passed. The door opened. O 'Reilley came downstairs, looking less angry
decidedly nervous. He slammed the book on the counter, riffled its pages, found a place, mutte
"Here it is, see for yourself," and held it at a difficult angle.
    "Give it here."
    O'Reilley reluctantly released it, began babbling about bu-reaucracy and tin-horn inspectors w
acted like dictators and inspection codes that prescribed and circumscribed and pro-hibited. No
ignored him and stared at the duplicate receipt.
    "
     Adelia Schultz . . . received Chimpanzee-K-99-LJZ-35i on..."
    It was the number on the list from Anthropos. It was the num-ber of the animal he wanted
normalcy tests. But it was not the number of Mrs. Schultz's neutroid, nor was it the number wri
on Mrs. Schultz's copy of this very same invoice.
   O'Reilley was still babbling at him. Norris held the book up to his eye, took aim at the bri
doorway across the surface of the page. O'Reilley stopped babbling.
   "Rub marks," the inspector grunted. "Scrape marks on the paper. "
   O'Reilley's breathing sounded asthmatic. Norris lowered the book.
   "Nice erasure job—for a carbon copy. Do it while you were upstairs? "
   O'Reilley said nothing. Norris took a scrap of paper, folded his handkerchief over the point
his pocketknife blade, used the point to clean out the eraser dust from between the recei
emptied the dust on the paper, folded it and put it in his pocket.
   "Evidence."
   O'Reilley said nothing.
   Norris tore out the erased receipt, pocketed it, put on his hat and started for the door.
   "See you in court, O'Reilley. "
   "
    Wait! "
   He turned. "Okay—I 'm waiting."
   "Let's go sit down first," the deflated oldster muttered weakly.
   "Sure."
   They walked up the flight of stairs and entered a dingy parlor. He glanced around, sniffed at
smell of cabbage boiling and sweaty bedclothing. An orange-haired neutroid lay sleeping on a d
rug in the corner. Norris stared down at it curiously. O'Reilley made a whining sound and slum
into a chair, his breath coming in little whiffs that suggested inward sobbing. Norris gazed at
expressionlessly for a moment, then went to kneel beside the newt.
   "K-99-LJZ-35i, " he read aloud, peering at the sole of the tattooed foot. The newt stirred in
sleep at the sound of a strange voice. When Norris looked at O'Reilley again, the old man w
staring at his feet, his forehead supported by a leathery old hand that shielded his eyes.
   "Lots of good explanations, O'Reilley?"
   "Ye've seen what ye've seen; now do what ye must. I'll say nothing to ye."
   "Look, O'Reilley, the newt is what I'm after. So I found it. I don't know what else I've found,
juggling serial numbers is a serious offense. If you've got a story, you better tell it. Otherwise, yo
be telling it behind bars. I'm willing to listen here and now. You'd better grab the chance."
   O'Reilley sighed, looked at the sleeping newt in the corner. "What'll ye do with her?"
   "
    The newt? Take her in."
   O'Reilley sat in gloomy silence while he thought things over. "We were class-B, me and
missus, " he mumbled suddenly, "allowed a child of our own if we could have 'un. Fancy that,
Ugly old coot like me—class-B."
   "So?"
   "The government said we could have a child, but Nature said we couldn't."
   "Tough."
   "But since we were class B, we weren't entitled to own a newt. See?"
   "Yeah. Where's your wife?"
   "With the saints, let's hope."
   Norris wondered what sort of sob-story this was getting to be. The oldster went on quietly
the while staring at the sleep-ing figure in the corner.
   "Couldn't have a kid, couldn't own a newt either—so we opened the pet shop. It wasn't
havin' yer own, though. Missus always blubbered when I sold a newt she'd got to feeling lik
mother to. Never swiped one, though—not till Peony came along. Last year this Bermuda shipm
come in, and I sold most of 'em pretty quick, but Peony here was puny. People ‘fraid she'd not
long. Couldn't sell her. Kept her around so long that we both loved her. Missus died last y
`Don't let anybody take Peony,' she kept saying afore she passed on. I promised I wouldn't. S
switched 'em around and moved her up here. "
   "That all?"
   O'Reilley hesitated, then nodded.
   "Ever done this before?"
   O'Reilley shook his head.
   There was a long silence while Norris stared at the child-thing. "Your license could be revok
he said absently.
   "I know. "
   He ground his fist thoughtfully in his palm, thought it over some more. If O'Reilley told the tr
he couldn 't live with himself if he reported the old man . . . unless it wasn't the whole truth.
   "I want to take your books home with me tonight."
   "Help yourself. "
   "I'm going to make a complete check, investigate you from stem to stern."
   He watched O'Reilley closely. The oldster was unaffected.                                He    seem
concerned—grief-stricken—only by the thought of losing the neutroid.
   "If plucking a newt out of stock to keep you company was the only thing you did, O'Reille
won 't report you. "
   O'Reilley was not consoled. He continued to gaze hungrily at the little being on the rug.
   "And if the newt turns out not to be a deviant," he added gently, "I'll send it back. We'll have
attach a correction to that invoice, of course, and you 'll just have to take your chances ab
somebody wanting to buy it, but . . . " He paused. O'Reilley was staring at him strangely.
   "And if she is a deviant, Mr. Norris? "
   He started to reply, hesitated.
   "Is she, O'Reilley?"
   The oldster said nothing. His face tightened slowly. His shoul-ders shook slightly, and
squinted eyes were brimming. He choked.
   "I see."
   O'Reilley shook himself, produced a red bandana, dabbed at his eyes, blew his nose lou
regathered his composure. "How do you know she's deviant?"
   O'Reilley gave him a bitter glance, chuckled hoarsely, shuf-fled across the room and sat on
floor beside the sleeping newt. He patted a small bare shoulder.
   "Peony? . . . Peony-girl . . . Wake up, me child, wake up."
   Its fluffy tail twitched for a moment. It sat up, rubbed its eyes, and yawned. There was a l
casualness about its movements that caused Norris to lean closer to stare. Neutroids usually mo
in bounces and jerks and scrambles. This one stretched, arched its back, and smiled—like a
year old with soft brown eyes. It glanced at Norris. The eyes went wider for a moment, the
studiously ignored him.
   "Shall I play bouncey, Daddy?" it piped.
   Norris sucked in a long slow breath and sat frozen.
   "No need to, Peony. " O 'Reilley glanced at the inspector. "Bouncey's a game we play for visito
he explained. "Making believe we're a neutroid."
   The inspector could find nothing to say.
    Peony licked her lips. "Wanna glass of water, Daddy. "
    O'Reilley nodded and hobbled away to the kitchen, leaving the man and the neutroid to stare
each other in silence. She was quite a deviant. Even a fully age-set K-108 could not have spoken
two sentences that he had heard, and Peony was still a long way from age-set, and a K-99 at that
    O'Reilley came back with the water. She drank it greedily, holding the glass herself while
peered up at the old man. "Daddy's eyes all wet," she observed.
    O'Reilley began trembling again. "Never mind, child. You go get your coat."
    "Whyyyy?"
    "You're going for a ride with Mr. Norris."
    She whirled to stare hostilely at the stunned visitor. "I don 't want to!"
    The old man choked out a sob and flung himself down to seize her in his arms and hug
against his chest. He tearfully uttered a spasmodic babble of reassurances that would h
frightened even a human child.
    The deviant neutroid began to cry. Standard neutroids never cried; they whimpered and yeep
Norris felt weak inside. Slowly, the old man lifted his head to peer at the inspector, blinking aw
tears. He began loosening Peony from the embrace. Suddenly he put her down and stood up.
    "Take her quickly," he hissed, and strode away to the kitchen. He slammed the door behind h
The latch clicked.
    Peony scampered to the door and began beating on it with tiny fists. "Daddy . . . Daddy!!! O
'a door! " she wailed.
    Norris licked his lips and swallowed a dry place. Still he did not budge from the sofa, his g
fastened on the child-thing. Disjointed phrases tumbled through his mind . . . what Man h
wrought . . . out of the slime of an ape . . . fat legs and baby fists and a brain to know . . . and
State spoke to Job out of a whirlwind, saying .. .
    "Take her!" came a roaring bellow from the kitchen. "Take her before I lose me wits and kill y
    Norris got unsteadily to his feet and advanced toward the frightened child-thing. He carried
kicking and squealing, out into the early evening. By the time he turned into his own driveway,
had subsided a little, but she was still crying.
    He saw Anne coming down from the porch to meet him. She was staring at the neutroid who
on the front seat beside him, while seven of its siblings chattered from their cages in the rear of
truck. She said nothing, only stared through the window at the small tear-stained face.
    "Home . . . I want to go home! " it whined.
    Norris lifted the newt and handed it to his wife. "Take it inside. Keep your mouth shut abou
I'll be in as soon as I chuck the others in their cages."
    She seemed not to notice his curtness as she cradled the being in her arms and walked away. T
truck lurched on to the kennels.

   He thought the whole thing over while he worked. When he was finished, he went back in
house and stopped in the hall to call Chief Franklin. It was the only thing to do: get it over with
quickly as possible. The operator said, "His office fails to answer. No taped readback. Shall I g
you the locator? "
   Anne came into the hall and stood glaring at him, her arms clenched across her bosom, one f
tapping the floor angrily. Peony stood behind her, no longer crying, and peering at him curiou
around Anne's skirt.
   "Are you doing what I think you 're doing, Terry? "
   He gulped. "Cancel the call," he told the operator. "It'll wait till tomorrow. " He dropped
phone hard and sank down in the straight chair. It was the only thing to do: delay it as long as
could.
   "We'd better have a little talk," she said.
   "Maybe we'd better, " he admitted.
   They went into the living room. Peony's world had evidently been restricted to the pet shop,
she seemed awed by the clean, neat house, no longer frightened, and curious enough about
surroundings to forget to cry for O'Reilley. She sat in the center of the rug, occasionally twitch
her tail as she blinked around at the furniture and the two humans who sat in it.
   "The deviant? "
   "A deviant. "
   "Just what are you going to do?"
   He squirmed. "You know what I'm supposed to do."
   "What you were going to do in the hall?"
   "Franklin's bound to find out anyway. "
   "How? "
   "Do you imagine that Franklin would trust anybody?"
   "So?"
   "So, he's probably already got a list of all serial numbers from the District Anthro
Wholesalers. As a double check on us. And we'd better deliver. "
   "I see. That leaves you in a pinch, doesn 't it?"
   "Not if I do what I'm supposed to."
   "By whose law?"
   He tugged nervously at his collar, stared at the child-thing who was gazing at him fixedly. "H
heh," he said weakly, waggled a finger at it, held out his hands invitingly. The child-thing inc
away nervously.
   "Don't evade, Terry."
   "I wanna go home . . . I want Dadda."
   "I gotta think. Gotta have time to think. "
   "Listen, Terry, you know what calling Franklin would be? It would be M, U, R, D, E, R."
   "She's just a newt."
   "She?"
   "Probably. Have to examine her to make sure."
   "Great. Intelligent, capable of reproduction. Just great. "
   "Well, what they do with her after I'm finished with the nor-malcy tests is none of my affair."
   "It's not? Look at me, Terry . . . No, not with that patiently suffering. . . . Terry!"
   He stopped doing it and sat with his head in his hands, staring at the patterns in the rug, work
his toes anxiously. "Think—gotta think."
   "While you're thinking, I'll feed the child," she said crisply. "Come on, Peony."
   "How'd you know her name?"
   "She told me, naturally."
   "Oh." He sat trying grimly to concentrate, but the house was infused with Anne-ness, an
influenced him. After a while, he got up and went out to the kennels where he could th
ob-jectively. But that was wrong too. The kennels were full of Frank-lin and the system
represented. Finally he went out into the back yard and lay on the cool grass to stare up at
twilight sky. The problem shaped up quite formidably. Either he turned her over to Franklin to
studied and ultimately destroyed, or he didn't. If he didn't, he was guilty of Delmont's crime. Ei
he lost Anne and maybe something of himself, or his job and maybe his freedom.
   A big silence filled the house during dinner. Only Peony spoke, demanding at irregular interv
to be taken home. Each time the child-thing spoke, Anne looked at him, and each time she loo
at him, her eyes said "See?"—until finally he slammed down his fork and marched out to the po
to sulk in the gloom. He heard their voices faintly from the kitchen.
   "You've got a good appetite, Peony."
   "I like Dadda's cooking better."
   "Well, maybe mine'll do for awhile."
   "I wanna go home."
   "I know—but I think your dadda wants you to stay with us for awhile."
   "I don't want to. "
   "Why don't you like it here?"
   "I want Dadda."
   "Well maybe we can call him on the phone, eh?"
   "
    Phone? "
   "After you get some sleep."
   The child-thing whimpered, began to cry. He heard Anne walking with it, murmuring sof
When he had heard as much as he could take, he trotted down the steps and went for a long wal
the night, stalking slowly along cracked sidewalks be-neath overhanging trees, past houses
scattered lights of the suburbs. Suburbs hadn't changed much in a century, only grown m
extensive. Some things underwent drastic revision with the passing years, other things—like walk
sticks and garden hoes and carving knives and telephones and bicycles—stayed pretty much
they were. Why change something that worked well as it was? Why bother the established system
   He eyed the lighted windows through the hedges as he wan-dered past. Fluorescent lights,
much different than those of a century ago. But once they had been campfires, the fires of shiver
hunters in the forest, when man was young and the world was sparsely planted with his seed. N
the world was choked with his riotous growth, glittering with his lights and his flashing signs, ful
the sound of his engines and the roar of his rockets. He had inherited it and filled it—filled it
full, per-haps.
   There was no escaping from the past. The last century had glutted the Earth with its children
grandchildren, had strained the Earth's capacity to feed, and the limit had been reached. It had to
guarded. There was no escape into space, either. Man's rockets had touched two planets, but t
were sorry worlds, and even if he made them better, Earth could beget children—if allowed—fa
than ships could haul them away. The only choice: increase the death rate, or decrease the b
rate—or, as a dismal third possibility—do nothing, and let Nature wield the scythe as she had o
done in India and China. But letting-Nature-do-it was not in the nature of Man, for he could alw
do it better. If his choice robbed his wife of a biological need, then he would build her a disposa
baby to pacify her. He would give it a tail and only half a mind, so that she would not confus
with her own occasional children.
   Peony, however, was a grim mistake. The mistake had to be quickly corrected before any
noticed.
   What was he, Norris, going to do about it, if anything? Defy the world? Outwit the world? T
world was made in the shape of Franklin, and it snickered at him out of the shadows. He turned
walked back home.
   Anne was rocking on the porch with Peony in her arms when he came up the sidewalk. The sm
creature dozed fitfully, mut-tered in its sleep.
   "How old is she, Terry? " Anne asked.
   "About nine months, or about two years, depending on what you mean."
   "Born nine months ago? "
   "Mmmh. But two years by the development scale, human equivalent. Newts would be f
mature at nine or ten, if they didn't stop at an age-set. Fast maturation. "
   "But she's brighter than most two year olds. "
   "Maybe."
   "
    You 've heard her talk. "
   "You can't make degree-comparisons between two species, Anne. Not easily anyh
`Bright'?—signifying I.Q.?—by what yardstick."
   "Bright—signifying on-the-ball—by my yardstick. And if you turn her over to Franklin, I'll le
you."
   "
    Car coming," he grunted tonelessly. "Get in the house. It's slowing down."
   Anne slipped out of her chair and hurried inside. Norris lingered only a moment, then follow
The headlights paused in front of a house down the block, then inched ahead. He watched fr
deep in the hall.
   "Shall I take her out to the kennels right quick?" Anne called tensely.
   "
    Stick where you are, " he muttered, and a moment later re-gretted it. The headlights stopped
front. The beam of a power-ful flashlight played over the porch, found the house-number, win
out. The driver cut the engine. Norris strode to the living room.
   "Play bouncey!" he growled at Peony.
   "Don't want to," she grumbled back.
   "There's a man coming, and you'd better play bouncey if you ever want to see your Da
again!" he hissed.
   Peony yeeped and backed away from him, whimpering. "Terry! What're you talking about? Y
should be ashamed! "
   "
    Shut up. . . . Peony, play bouncey."
   Peony chattered and leaped to the back of the sofa with monkey-like grace.
   "She's frightened! She's acting like a common newt!" "That's bouncey," he grunted. "Th
good."
   The car door slammed. Norris went to put on the porch light and watch the visitor come up
steps—a husky, bald gentleman in a black suit and Roman collar. He blinked and shook his he
Clergyman? The fellow must have the wrong house.
   "
    Good evening."
   "Uh—yeah."
   "I'm Father Mulreany. Norris residence? " The priest had a slight brogue; it stirred a vague hu
in Norris' mind, but failed to clear it.
   "I'm Norris. What 's up? "
   "Uh, well, one of my parishioners—I think you've met him—"
   "Countryman of yours?"
   "Mmm."
   "O'Reilley?"
   "Yes."
   "What'd he do, hang himself?"
   "Nothing that bad. May I come in?"
   "I doubt it. What do you want?"
   "Information."
   "Personal or official?"
   The priest paused, studied Norris's silhouette through the screen. He seemed not taken aback
the inspector's brusque-ness, perhaps accepting it as normal in an era that had little re-gard for
cloth.
   "O'Reilley's in bad shape, Inspector," Mulreany said quietly. "I don't know whether to ca
doctor, a psychiatrist, or a cop." Norris stiffened. "A cop? "
   "
    May I come in?"
   Norris hesitated, feeling a vague hostility, and a less vague suspicion. He opened the screen,
the priest in, led him to the living room. Anne muttered half-politely, excused herself, snatc
Peony, and headed for the rear of the house. The priest's eyes followed the neutroid intently.
   "So O'Reilley did something?"
   "Mmm."
   "
    What's it to you? "
   Mulreany frowned. "In addition to things you wouldn't under-stand—he was my sist
husband. "
   Norris waved him into a chair. "Okay, so—?"
   "He called me tonight. He was loaded. Just a senseless babble, but I knew something was wro
So I went over to the shop." Mulreany stopped to light a cigaret and frown at the floor. He loo
up suddenly. "You see him today?"
   Norris could think of no reason not to admit it. He nodded ir-ritably.
   Mulreany leaned forward curiously. "Was he sober?"
   "Yeah."
   "Sane?"
   "How should I know? "
   "Did he impress you as the sort of man who would suddenly decide to take a joint of pipe an
meat cleaver and mass-slaughter about sixty helpless animals?"
   Norris felt slightly dazed. He sank back, shaking his head and blinking. There was a long silen
Mulreany was watching him carefully.
   "I can't help you," Norris muttered. "I've got nothing to say." "Look, Inspector, forget this,
you?" He touched his collar. Norris shook his head, managed a sour smile. "I can't help you. "
   "All right," Mulreany sighed, starting to his feet. "I'm just try-ing to find out if what he says . .
   "Men talking about Dadda?" came a piping voice from the kitchen.
   Mulreany shot a quick glance toward it. ". . . is true," he finished softly.
   There was a sudden hush. He could hear Anne whispering in the kitchen, saw her steal a gla
through the door. "So it is true," Mulreany murmured.
   Face frozen, Norris came to his feet. "Anne, " he called in a bitter voice. "Bouncey 's off."
   She came in carrying Peony and looking murderous. "Why did you ask him in?" she deman
in a hiss.
   Mulreany stared at the small creature. Anne stared at the priest.
   "It's poison to you, isn't it!" she snapped, then held Peony up toward him. "Here! Look at y
enemy. Offends your humano-centrism, doesn't she?"
   "Not at all," he said rather wistfully.
   "You condemn them."
   He shook his head. "Not them. Only what they 're used for by society." He looked at Norris, a
puzzled. "I'd better leave."
    "Maybe not. Better spill it. What do you want?"
    "I told you. O'Reilley went berserk, made a butcher shop out of his place. When I got there
was babbling about a talking neutroid—'his baby'—said you took it to the pound to destroy
Threatened to kill you. I got a friend to stay with him, came over to see if I could find out what
all about."
    "The newt's a deviant. You've heard of the Delmont case?"
    "
     Rumors. "
    "She's it."
    "I see." Mulreany looked glum, grim, gloomy. "Nothing more I need to know I guess. Well—
    Norris grabbed his arm as he turned. "Sit a spell," he grunted ominously.
    The priest looked puzzled, let himself be guided back to the chair. Norris stood looking down
him.
    "What's the matter with Dadda?" Peony chirped. "I wanna go see Dadda."
    "Well?" Norris growled. "What about her?"
    "I don't understand."
    "
     You people are down on Anthropos, aren't you? "
    Mulreany kept patience with an effort. "To make nitroglyc-erin for curing heart trouble is go
to make it for blowing open safes is bad. The stuff itself is morally neutral. The same goes
mutant animals. As pets, okay; as replacements for humans, no. "
    "Yeah, but you'd just as soon see them dead, eh?"
    Mulreany hesitated. "I admit a personal dislike for them."
    "This one?"
    "
     What about her?"
    "
     Better dead, eh?"
    "You couldn't admit she might be human?"
    "Don't know her that well. Human? How do you mean—bio-logically? Obviously n
Theologically? Why should you care?"
    "I'm interested in your particular attitude, buster."
    Mulreany gazed at him, gathering a glower. "I'm a little doubtful about my status here,"
growled. "I came for infor-mation; the roles got switched somewhere. Okay, Norris, but I'm sick
neo-pagan innocents like you. Now sit down, or show me the door. "
    Norris sat down slowly.
    The priest watched the small neutroid for a moment before speaking. "She's alive, performs
function of living, is evi-dently aware. Life—a kind of functioning. A specific life—an in-var
kind of functioning—with sameness-of-self about it. Invariance of functioning—a principle. S
soul, call it what you like. Whatever's alive has it." He paused to watch Norris doubtfully.
    Norris nodded curtly. "Go on. "
    "Doesn't have to be anything immortal about it. Not unless she were known to be human.
intelligent."
    "You heard her," Anne snapped.
    "I've heard metal boxes speak with great wisdom," Mulreany said sourly. "And if I wer
Hottentot, a vocalizing computer would . . ."
    "Skip the analogies. Go on."
    "What's intelligence? A function of Man, immortal. What 's Man? An intelligent immortal creatu
capable of choice."
    "Quit talking in circles. "
   "That's the point. I can't—not where Peony's concerned. What do you want to know? If I th
she's equal to Man? Give me all the intelligence test results, and all the data you can get—I
couldn't decide."
   "Whattaya need? Mystic writings in the sky?"
   "Precisely."
   "I feel a bush being beat about," Anne said suddenly. "Is this guy going to make things tough
isn't he?"
   Mulreany looked puzzled again.
   "To the point, then," Norris said. "Would you applaud if she gets the gasser? "
   "Hardly."
   "If you had it to decide for yourself— "
   "What? Whether to destroy her or not? " Mulreany snorted ir-ritably. "Not if there was the le
doubt in my mind about her. She's a shadow in the brush. Maybe it's ten to one that the shadow
bear and not a man—but on the one chance, don't shoot, son, don't shoot."
   "You think the authorities have a right to kill her, maybe?" Anne asked.
   "Who, him?" Mulreany jerked his head toward Norris.
   "Well, say him."
   "I'd have to think about it. But I don 't think so. "
   "Why? The government made her. Why can't it un-make her?"
   "Made her? Did it now?"
   "Delmont did," Norris corrected.
   "Did he now? " said Mulreany.
   "Why not? " Anne snorted.
   "I, the State, am Big Fertility," Norris said sourly; then baiting
   Mulreany: "Thou shalt accept no phallus but the evolvotron." Mulreany reddened, slapped
knee, and chortled. The Norrises exchanged puzzled glances.
   "I feel an affinity," Anne murmured suspiciously.
   Norris came slowly to his feet. "If you talk to anybody about Peony, you may be responsible
her death."
   "I don't quite see—"
   "You don't need to."
   Mulreany shrugged.
   "Tell O'Reilley the same."
   Mulreany nodded. "You've got my word."
   "Your which?"
   "Sorry, I forgot. Ancient usage. I won't mention Peony. I'll see that O'Reilley doesn't."
   Norris led him to the door. The priest was obviously suppres-sing large quantities of curios
but contained it well. On the steps, he paused to look back, wearing a curious smirk.
   "It just occurred to me—if the child is `human' in the broad sense, she's rather superior to
and I."
   "Why?"
   "Hasn't picked an apple yet."Norris shrugged slightly.
   "And Inspector—if Delmonte made her—ask yourself: Just what was it that he `made'?"
nodded quickly. "Goodnight. "
   "What do you make of him?" Anne hissed nervously.
   "Backworldsman. Can 't say."
  "Fool, why'd you bring him in?"
  "I'm no good at conspiracies. "
  "Then you will do it?"
  "What?"
  "Hide her, or something."
  He stared at her doubtfully. "The only thing I can hope to do is falsify the test reports and s
her back to O'Reilley as a standard model."
  "That's better than nothing."
  "And then spend the rest of our days waiting for it to be un-covered, " he added grimly.
  "You've got to, Terry."
  Maybe, he thought, maybe.
  If he gave her back to O'Reilley, there was a good chance she'd be discovered when the aud
came to microfilm the rec-ords and check inventory. He certainly couldn 't keep her himself —
with other Bio-agents wandering in and out every few days. She could not be hidden.
  He sat down for a smoke and watched Anne tiptoe to the sofa with the sleeping Peony. It wo
be easy to obey the law, turn her over to Franklin, and tell Anne that he had done something e
with her, something like ...
  He shuddered and chopped the thought off short. She glanced at him curiously.
  "I don't like the way you're looking at me," she muttered. "You imagine things. "
  "Uh-uh. Listen to me, Terry, if you let that baby . . ."
  "I'm sick of your ifs! " he barked. "If I hear another goddam threat of your leaving if, then to
with it, you can leave any time!"
  "
   Terry! "
  She puzzled in his direction for a moment, then slowly wan-dered out, still puzzling. He s
lower in the chair, brooding. Then it hit him. It wasn't Anne that worried him; it was a piece
himself. It was a piece of himself that threatened to go, and if he let Peony be packed off to Cen
Lab, it would go, and thereafter he would not be able to stomach anything, even himself.

   The morning news from the Scriber was carefully folded be-side his plate when he came to
table for breakfast. It was so deliberately folded that he bothered to notice the advertisement in
center of the displayed portion.
   "You lay this out for my benefit? " he asked.
   "Not particularly," she said casually.
   He read it with a suspicious frown:

                                   BIOLOGISTS WANTED
                                             by
                                ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED
                                               for
                                    Evolvotron Operators
                                     Incubator Tenders
                                    Nursery Supervisors
                                    Laboratory Personnel
                                              in
                                   NEW ATLANTA PLANT
                                         Call or write:
                                      Personnel Manager
                               ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED
                                       Atlanta, Georgia
              Note: Secure Labor Department release from present job before applying.

   "What's this supposed to mean to me?" he demanded.
   "Nothing in particular. Why? Does it mean something to you? "
   He brushed the paper aside and decided to ignore the sub-tlety, if any. She picked it up, glan
at it as if she had not seen it before. "New jobs, new places to live," she murmured.
   After breakfast, he went down to police headquarters to sign a statement concerning the mo
in Doctor Georges' mur-der. Sarah Glubbes had been stashed away in a psychopathic wa
according to Chief Miler, and would probably stay awhile.
   "Funny thing, Norris, " the cop said. "What people won 't do over a newt! You know, it
wonder you don't get your head blown off. I don't covet your job."
   "
    Good." He signed the paper and glanced at Miler coolly. "Must take an iron gut, huh, Norris? "
   "
    Sure. Just a matter of adaptation."
   "Guess so." Miler patted his paunch and yawned. "How you coming on this Delmont busine
Picked up any deviants yet? "
   Norris pitched the fountain pen on the desk, splattering ink. "What made you ask that?" he s
stiffly.
   "Nothing made me. I did it myself. Touchy today?"
   "Maybe."
   Miler shrugged. "Something made you jump when I said `deviants.' "
   "Nothing made me. I—"
   "Ya, ya, sure, but—"
   "Save it for a suspect, Fat." He stalked out of the office, leav-ing Miler tapping his pencil
gazing curiously after him. A phone rang somewhere behind him. He hurried on—angry w
himself for jumpiness and for indecisiveness. He had to make a choice, and make it soon. It w
the lack of a choice that left him jumpy, susceptible to a jolt from either side.
   "Norris . . . Hey, Norris . . ."
   Miler's voice. He whirled to see the cop trotting down the steps behind him, his pudgy f
glistening in the morning sun. "Your wife's on the phone, Norris. Says it's urgent. "
   When he got back to the office, he heard the faint, "Hello, hello!" coming from the receiver
the desk, caught it up quickly.
   "
    Anne? What 's wrong? "
   Her voice was low and strained beneath a cheerful overnote. "Nothing's wrong, darling. We h
a visitor. Come right home. Chief Franklin's here."
   It knocked the breath out of him. He felt himself going white. He glanced at Chief Miler, sit
calmly nearby.
   "Can you tell me about it now?" he asked her.
   "
    Not very well. Please hurry home. He wants to talk to you about the K-99s."
   "Have the two of them met? "
   "Yes, they have." She paused, as if waiting for him to speak, then said, "Oh, that! Bounc
honey—remember bouncey?"
   "
    Good, I'll be right home." He hung up and started out.
   "Troubles?" the chief called after him.
  "Just a sick newt, if it's any of your business," he called back.

    Franklin's helicopter was parked in the empty lot next door when Norris drove up in front of
house. The departmental chief heard the truck and came out on the porch to watch his agent w
up the path. His bulky body was loosely draped in gray tweeds, and his hawk face was a d
solemn mask. He greeted Norris with a slow, almost sarcastic nod.
    "I see you don't read your mail. If you'd looked at it, you 'd have known I was coming. I wr
you yesterday. "
    "Sorry, Chief, I didn't have a chance to stop by the message office this morning."
    Franklin grunted. "Then you don't know why I'm here? "
    "No, sir."
    "Let's sit out on the porch," Franklin said, and perched his bony frame on the railing. "We've
to get busy on these Bermuda-K-99s, Norris. How many have you got?"
    "Thirty-four, I think."
    "I counted thirty-five. "
    "
     Maybe you're right. I—I'm not sure. "
    "Found any deviants yet?"
    "Uh—I haven't run any tests yet, sir."
    Franklin's voice went sharp. "Do you need a test to know when a neutroid is talking a b
streak? "
    "What do you mean?"
    "Just this. We've found at least a dozen of Delmont's units that have mental ages that correspo
to their physical age. What's more, they 're functioning females, and they have normal pituitar
Know what that means?"
    "They won't take an age-set then," Norris said. "They'll grow to adulthood."
    "And have children."
    Norris frowned. "How can they have children? There aren't any males."
    "No? Guess what we found in one of Delmont's incubators."
    "Not a—"
    "Yeah. And it's probably not the first. This business about padding his quota is baloney! H
man, he was going to start his own black market! He finally admitted it, after twenty-ho
questioning without a letup. He was going to raise them, Norris. He was stealing them right out
the incubators before an inspec-tor ever saw them. The K-99s—the numbered ones—are just
ones he couldn't get back. Lord knows how many males he's got hidden away someplace!"
    "
     What're you going to do? "
    "Do! What do you think we'll do? Smash the whole scheme, that 's what! Find the deviants
kill them. We 've got enough now for lab work."
    Norris felt sick. He looked away. "I suppose you'll want me to handle the destruction, then."
    Franklin gave him a suspicious glance. "Yes, but why do you ask? You have found one, hav
you?"
    "Yes, sir," he admitted.
    A moan came from the doorway. Norris looked up to see his wife's white face staring at him
horror, just before she turned and fled into the house. Franklin's bony head lifted.
    "I see," he said. "We have a fixation on our deviant. Very well, Norris, I'll take care of it mys
Where is it?"
    "In the house, sir. My wife's bedroom."
    "Get it."
    Norris went glumly in the house. The bedroom door was locked.
    "Honey," he called softly. There was no answer. He knocked gently.
    A key turned in the lock, and his wife stood facing him. Her eyes were weeping ice.
    "Stay back!" she said. He could see Peony behind her, sitting in the center of the floor
looking mystified.
    Then he saw his own service revolver in her trembling hand. "Look, honey—it's me. "
    She shook her head. "No, it's not you. It's a man that wants to kill a little girl. Stay back."
    "You'd shoot, wouldn't you?" he asked softly.
    "Try to come in and find out, " she invited.
    "Let me have Peony."
    She laughed, her eyes bright with hate. "I wonder where Terry went. I guess he died. Or adapt
I guess I'm a widow now. Stay back, Mister, or I'll kill you."
    Norris smiled. "Okay, I'll stay back. But the gun isn't loaded."
    She tried to slam the door; he caught it with his foot. She struck at him with the pistol, but
dragged it out of her hand. He pushed her aside and held her against the wall while she clawed at
arm.
    "Stop it!" he said. "Nothing will happen to Peony, I promise you!" He glanced back at
child-thing, who had begun to cry. Anne subsided a little, staring at him angrily.
    "There's no other way out, honey. Just trust me. She'll be all right."
    Breathing quickly, Anne stood aside and watched him. "Okay, Terry. But if you 're lying—tell
is it murder to kill a man to protect a child?"
    Norris lifted Peony in his arms. Her wailing ceased, but her tail switched nervously.
    "In whose law book?" he asked his wife. "I was wondering the same thing." Norris star
toward the door. "By the way—find my instruments while I'm outside, will you?"
    "The dissecting instruments?" she gasped. "If you intend—"
    "Let's call them surgical instruments, shall we? And get them sterilized. "
    He went on outside, carrying the child. Franklin was waiting for him in the kennel doorway.
    "Was that Mrs. Norris I heard screaming?"
    Norris nodded. "Let's get this over with. I don't stomach it so well." He let his eyes
unhappily on the top of Peony's head.
    Franklin grinned at her and took a bit of candy out of his pocket. She refused it and snugg
closer to Norris.
    "When can I go home?" she piped. "I want Daddy."
    Franklin straightened, watching her with amusement. "You're going home in a few minutes, l
newt. Just a few minutes. "
    They went into the kennels together, and Franklin headed straight for the third room. He seem
to be enjoying the situa-tion. Norris hating him silently, stopped at a workbench and pulled on a p
of gloves. Then he called after Franklin.
    "
     Chief, since you're in there, check the outlet pressure while I turn on the main line, will you? "
    Franklin nodded assent. He stood outside the gas-chamber, watching the dials on the do
Norris could see his back while he twisted the main-line valve.
    "Pressure's up!" Franklin called.
    "Okay. Leave the hatch ajar so it won't lock, and crack the intake valves. Read it again."
    "Got a mask for me?"
    Norris laughed. "If you 're scared, there 's one on the shelf. But just open the hatch, take a read
and close it. There's no danger."
    Franklin frowned at him and cracked the intakes. Norris qui-etly closed the main valve again.
    "
     Drops to zero!" Franklin called.
    "
     Leave it open, then. Smell anything?"
    "No. I'm turning it off, Norris." He twisted the intakes. Simultaneously, Norris opened the m
line.
    "
     Pressure 's up again!"
    Norris dropped his wrench and walked back to the chamber, leaving Peony perched on
workbench.
    "Trouble with the intakes," he said gruffly. "It's happened before. Mind getting your hands d
with me, Chief?"
    Franklin frowned irritably. "Let's hurry this up, Norris. I've got five territories to visit."
    "Okay, but we'd better put on our masks." He climbed a metal ladder to the top of the chamb
leaned over to inspect the intakes. On his way down, he shouldered a light-bulb over the do
shattering it. Franklin cursed and stepped back, brushing glass fragments from his head
shoulders.
    "Good thing the light was off," he snapped.
    Norris handed him the gasmask and put on his own. "The main switch is off," he said.
opened the intakes again. This time the dials fell to normal open-line pressure. "Well, look—
okay," he called through the mask. "You sure it was zero before?"
    "Of course I'm sure!" came the muffled reply.
    "Leave it on for a minute. 'We'll see. I'll go get the newt. Don't let the door close, sir. It'll start
automatics and we can't get it open for half an hour."
    "I know, Norris. Hurry up."
    Norris left him standing just outside the chamber, propping the door open with his foot. A f
wind was coming through the opening. It should reach an explosive mixture quickly with the ha
ajar.
    He stepped into the next room, waited a moment, and jerked the switch. The roar was deafen
as the exposed tungsten fila-ment flared and detonated the escaping anesthetic vapor. Norris w
to cut off the main line. Peony was crying plaintively. He moved to the door and glanced at
smouldering remains of Franklin.
    Feeling no emotion whatever, Norris left the kennels, carrying the sobbing child under one a
His wife stared at him without understanding.
    "Here, hold Peony while I call the police," he said.
    "Police? What's happened?"
    He dialed quickly. "Chief Miler? This is Norris. Get over here quick. My gas cham
exploded—killed Chief Agent Frank-lin. Man, it's awful! Hurry."
    He hung up and went back to the kennels. He selected a normal Bermuda-K-99 and coldly ki
it with a wrench. "You'll serve for a deviant," he said, and left it lying in the middle of the floor.
    Then he went back to the house, mixed a sleeping capsule in a glass of water, and forced Peo
to drink it.
    "So she'll be out when the cops come," he explained to Anne. She stamped her foot. "Will
tell me what's happened?"
    "You heard me on the phone. Franklin accidentally died. That's all you have to know."
    He carried Peony out and locked her in a cage. She was too sleepy to protest, and she w
dozing when the police came.
    Chief Miler strode about the three rooms like a man looking for a burglar at midnight. He nud
the body of the neutroid with his foot. "What's this, Norris?"
    "The deviant we were about to destroy. I finished her with a wrench."
    "I thought you said there weren't any deviants."
    "As far as the public's concerned, there aren't. I couldn't see that it was any of your business
still isn't."
    "I see. It may become my business, though. How'd the blast happen? "
    Norris told him the story up to the point of the detonation. "The light over the door was loo
Kept flickering on and off. Franklin reached up to tighten it. Must have been a little gas in
socket. Soon as he touched it—wham!"
    "Why was the door open with the gas on?"
    "I told you—we were checking the intakes. If you close the door, it starts the automatics. T
you can't get it open till the cycle's finished."
    "Where were you?"
    "I'd gone to cut off the gas again."
    "Okay, stay in the house until we're finished out here." When Norris went back in the house,
wife's white face turned slowly toward him.
    She sat stiffly by the living room window, looking sick. Her voice was quietly frightened.
    "Terry, I'm sorry about everything."
    "Skip it."
    "What did you do?"
    He grinned sourly. "I adapted to an era. Did you find the instruments? "
    She nodded. "What are they for?"
    "To cut off a tail and skin a tattooed foot. Go to the store and buy some brown hair-dye an
pair of boy 's trousers, age two.
    Peony's going to get a crewcut. From now on, she's Mike."
    "We're class-C, Terry! We can't pass her off as our own."
    "We're class-A, honey. I'm going to forge a heredity certificate."
    Anne put her face in her hands and rocked slowly to and fro. "Don't feel bad, baby. It w
Franklin or a little girl. And from now on, it's society or the Norrises."
    "What'll we do?"
    "Go to Atlanta and work for Anthropos. I'll take up where Delmont left off."
    "Terry!"
    "Peony will need a husband. They may find all of Delmont's males. I'll make her one. Then w
see if a pair of chimp-Ks can do better than their makers."
    Wearily, he stretched out on the sofa.
    "
     What about that priest? Suppose he tells about Peony. Suppose he guesses about Franklin
tells the police?"
    "The police," he said, "would then smell a motive. They'd fig-ure it out and I'd be finished. W
wait and see. Let 's don 't talk; I'm tired. We'll just wait for Miler to come in."
    She began rubbing his temples gently, and he smiled.
    "So we wait," she said. "Shall I read to you, Terry?"
    "That would be pleasant," he murmured, closing his eyes.
    She slipped away, but returned quickly. He heard the rustle of dry pages and smelled mu
leather. Then her voice came, speaking old words softly. And he thought of the small child-th
lying peacefully in her cage while angry men stalked about her. A small life with a mind; she ca
into the world as quietly as a thief, a burglar in the crowded house of Man.
   "
    I will send my fear before thee, and I will destroy the peoples before whom thou shalt co
sending hornets to drive out the Hevite and the Canaanite and the Hethite before thou ente
the land. Little by little I will drive them out before thee, till thou be increased, and dost poss
the land. Then shalt thou be to me a new people, and I to thee a God . . ."
   And on the quiet afternoon in May, while he waited for the police to finish puzzling in
kennels, it seemed to Terrell Nor-ris that an end to scheming and pushing and arrogance was
too far ahead. It should be a pretty good world then.
   He hoped Man could fit into it somehow.