Norris caught his breath. No K-99 should be able to make a speech that long, even when it reached the developmental limit. He glanced at O'Reilley. The old man nodded slowly, then went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She drank greedily and eyed her foster-parent.
"Daddy crying."
O'Reilley glowered at her and blew his nose solemnly. "Don't be silly, child. Now get your coat on and go with Mister Norris. He's taking you for a ride in his truck. Won't that be fine?"
"I don't want to. I wanna stay here."
"Peeony!On with you!"
She brought her coat and stared at Norris with childish contempt. "Can Daddy go, too?"
"Be on your way!" growled O'Reilley. "I got things to do."
"We're coming back?"
"Of course you're coming back!Gitnow—or shall I get my spanking switch?"
Peony strolled out the door ahead of Norris.
"Oh, inspector, would you be punching the night latch for me as you leave the shop? I think I'll be closing for the day."
Norris paused at the head of the stairs, looking back at the old man. But O'Reilley closed himself inside and the lock clicked. The agent sighed and glanced down at the small being beside him.
"Want me to carry you, Peony?"
She sniffed disdainfully. She hopped upon the banister and slid down ahead of him. Her motor-responses were typically neutroid—something like a monkey, something like a squirrel. But there was no question about it; she was one of Delmont's deviants. He wondered what they would do with her in central lab. He could remember no instance of an intelligent mutant getting into the market.
Somehow he could not consign her to a cage in the back of the truck. He drove home while she sat beside him on the front seat. She watched the scenery and remained aloof, occasionally looking around to ask, "Can we go back now?"
Norris could not bring himself to answer.
When he got home, he led her into the house and stopped in the hall to call Chief Franklin. The operator said, "His office doesn't answer, sir. Shall I give you the robot locator?"
Norris hesitated. His wife came into the hall. She stooped to grin at Peony, and Peony said, "Do you live here, too?" Anne gasped and sat on the floor to stare.
Norris said, "Cancel the call. It'll wait till tomorrow." He dropped the phone quickly.
"What series is it?" Anne asked excitedly. "I never saw one that could talk."
"Itis ashe," he said. "And she's a series unto herself. Some of Delmont's work."
Peony was looking from one to the other of them with a baffled face. "Can we go back now?"
Norris shook his head. "You're going to spend the night with us, Peony," he said softly. "Your daddy wants you to."
His wife was watching him thoughtfully. Norris looked aside and plucked nervously at a corner of the telephone book. Suddenly she caught Peony's hand and led her toward the kitchen.
"Come on, baby, let's go find a cookie or something."
Norris started out the front door, but in a moment Anne was back. She caught at his collar and tugged. "Not so fast!"
He turned to frown. Her face accused him at a six-inch range.
"Just what do you think you're going to do with that child?"
He was silent for a long time. "You know what I'msupposedto do."
Her unchanging stare told him that she wouldn't accept any evasions. "I heard you trying to get your boss on the phone."
"I canceled it, didn't I?"
"Until tomorrow."
He worked his hands nervously. "I don't know, honey—I just don't know."
"They'd kill her at central lab, wouldn't they?"
"Well, they'd need her as evidence in Delmont's trial."
"They'd kill her, wouldn't they?"
"When it was over—it's hard to say. The law says deviants must be destroyed, but—"
"Well?"
He paused miserably. "We've got a few days to think about it, honey. I don't have to make my report for a week."
He sidled out the door. Looking back, he saw the hard determination in her eyes as she watched him. He knew somehow that he was going to lose either his job or his wife. Maybe both. He shuffled moodily out to the kennels to care for his charges.
A great silence filled the house during the evening. Supper was a gloomy meal. Only Peony spoke; she sat propped on two cushions at the table, using her silver with remarkable skill.
Norris wondered about her intelligence. Her chronological age was ten months; her physical age was about two years; but her mental age seemed to compare favorably with at least a three year old.
Once he reached across the table to touch her forehead. She eyed him curiously for a moment and continued eating. Her temperature was warmer than human, but not too warm for the normally high neutroid metabolism—somewhere around 101°. The rapid rate of maturation made I.Q. determination impossible.
"You've got a good appetite, Peony," Anne remarked.
"I like Daddy's cooking better," she said with innocent bluntness. "When can I go home?"
Anne looked at Norris and waited for an answer. He managed a smile at the flame-haired cherub. "Tell you what we'll do. I'll call your daddy on the phone and let you say hello. Would you like that?"
She giggled, then nodded. "Uh-huh! When can we do it?"
"Later."
Anne tapped her fork thoughtfully against the edge of her plate. "I think we better have a nice long talk tonight, Terry," she said.
"Is there anything to talk about?" He pushed the plate away. "I'm not hungry."
He left the table and went to sit in darkness by the parlor window, while his wife did the dishes and Peony played with a handful of walnuts on the kitchen floor.
He watched the scattered lights of the suburbs and tried to think of nothing. The lights were peaceful, glimmering through the trees.
Once there had been no lights, only the flickering campfires of hunters shivering in the forest, when the world was young and sparsely planted with the seed of Man. Now the world was infected with his lights, and with the sound of his engines and the roar of his rockets. He had inherited the Earth and had filled it—too full.
There was no escape. His rockets had touched two of the planets, but even the new worlds offered no sanctuary for the unborn. Man could have babies—if allowed—faster than he could build ships to haul them away. He could only choose between a higher death rate and a lower birth rate.
And unborn children were not eligible to vote when Man made his choice.
His choice had robbed his wife of a biological need, and so he made a disposable baby with which to pacify her. He gave it a tail and only half a mind, so that it could not be confused with his own occasional children.
But Peony had only the tail. Still she was not born of the seed of Man. Strange seed, out of the jungle, warped toward the human pole, but still not human.
Norris heard a car approaching in the street. Its headlights swung along the curb, and it slowed to a halt in front of the house. A tall, slender man in a dark suit climbed out and stood for a moment, staring toward the house. He was only a shadow in the faint street light. Norris could not place him. Suddenly the man snapped on a flashlight and played it over the porch. Norris caught his breath and darted toward the kitchen. Anne stared at him questioningly, while Peony peered up from her play.
He stooped beside her. "Listen, child!" he said quickly. "Do you know what a neutroid is?"
She nodded slowly. "They play in cages. They don't talk."
"Can you pretend you're a neutroid?"
"I can play neutroid. I play neutroid with Daddy sometimes, when people come to see him. He gives me candy when I play it. When can I go home?"
"Not now. There's a man coming to see us. Can you play neutroid for me? We'll give you lots of candy. Just don't talk. Pretend you're asleep."
"Now?"
"Now." He heard the door chimes ringing.
"Who is it?" Anne asked.
"I don't know. He may have the wrong house. Take Peony in the bedroom. I'll answer it."
His wife caught the child-thing up in her arms and hurried away. The chimes sounded again. Norris stalked down the hall and switched on the porch-light. The visitor was an elderly man, erect in his black suit and radiating dignity. As he smiled and nodded, Norris noticed his collar. A clergyman. Must have the wrong place, Norris thought.
"Are you Inspector Norris?"
The agent nodded, not daring to talk.
"I'm Father Paulson. I'm calling on behalf of a James O'Reilley. I think you know him. May I come in?"
Grudgingly, Norris swung open the door. "If you can stand the smell of paganism, come on in."
The priest chuckled politely. Norris led him to the parlor and turned on the light. He waved toward a chair.
"What's this all about? Does O'Reilley want something?"
Paulson smiled at the inspector's brusque tone and settled himself in the chair. "O'Reilley is a sick man," he said.
The inspector frowned. "He didn't look it to me."
"Sick of heart, Inspector. He came to me for advice. I couldn't give him any. He told me the story—about this Peony. I came to have a look at her, if I may."
Norris said nothing for a moment. O'Reilley had better keep his mouth shut, he thought, especially around clergymen. Most of them took a dim view of the whole mutant business.
"I didn't think you'd associate with O'Reilley," he said. "I thought you people excommunicated everybody that owns a neutroid. O'Reilley owns a whole shopful."
"That's true. But who knows? He might get rid of his shop. May I see this neutroid?"
"Why?"
"O'Reilley said it could talk. Is that true or is O'Reilley suffering delusions? That's what I came to find out."
"Neutroids don't talk."
The priest stared at him for a time, then nodded slowly, as if approving something. "You can rest assured," he said quietly, "that I'll say nothing of this visit, that I'll speak to no one about this creature."
Norris looked up to see his wife watching them from the doorway.
"Get Peony," he said.
"It's true then?" Paulson asked.
"I'll let you see for yourself."
Anne brought the small child-thing into the room and set her on the floor. Peony saw the visitor, chattered with fright, and bounded upon the back of the sofa to sit and scold. She was playing her game well, Norris thought.
The priest watched her with quiet interest. "Hello, little one."
Peony babbled gibberish. Paulson kept his eyes on her every movement. Suddenly he said, "I just saw your daddy, Peony. He wanted me to talk to you."
Her babbling ceased. The spell of the game was ended. Her eyes went sober. Then she looked at Norris and pouted. "I don't want any candy. I wanna go home."
Norris let out a deep breath. "I didn't say she couldn't talk," he pointed out sullenly.
"I didn't say you did," said Paulson. "You invited me to see for myself."
Anne confronted the clergyman. "What do you want?" she demanded. "The child's death? Did you come to assure yourself that she'd be turned over to the lab? I know your kind! You'd do anything to get rid of neutroids!"
"I came only to assure myself that O'Reilley's sane," Paulson told her.
"I don't believe you," she snapped.
He stared at her in wounded surprise; then he chuckled. "People used to trust the cloth. Ah, well. Listen, my child, you have us wrong. We say it's evil to create the creatures. We sayalsothat it's evil to destroy them after they're made. Not murder, exactly, but—mockery of life, perhaps. It's the entire institution that's evil. Do you understand? As for this small creature of O'Reilley's—well, I hardly know what to make of her, but I certainly wouldn't wish her—uh—d-e-a-d."
Peony was listening solemnly to the conversation. Somehow Norris sensed a disinterested friend, if not an ally, in the priest. He looked at his wife. Her eyes were still suspicious.
"Tell me, Father," Norris asked, "if you were in my position, what would you do?"
Paulson fumbled with a button of his coat and stared at the floor while he pondered. "I wouldn't be in your position, young man. But if I were, I think I'd withhold her from my superiors. I'd also quit my job and go away."
It wasn't what Norris wanted to hear. But his wife's expression suddenly changed; she looked at the priest with a new interest. "And give Peony back to O'Reilley," she added.
"I shouldn't be giving you advice," he said unhappily. "I'm duty-bound to ask O'Reilley to give up his business and have nothing further to do with neutroids."
"But Peony'shuman," Anne argued. "She'sdifferent."
"I fail to agree."
"What!" Anne confronted him again. "What makesyouhuman?"
"A soul, my child."
Anne put her hands on her hips and leaned forward to glare down at him like something unwholesome. "Can you put a voltmeter between your ears and measure it?"
The priest looked helplessly at Norris.
"No!" she said. "And you can't do it to Peony either!"
"Perhaps I had better go," Paulson said to his host.
Norris sighed. "Maybe you better, Padre. You found out what you wanted to know."
Anne stalked angrily out of the room, her dark hair swishing like a battle-pennant with each step. When the priest was gone, Norris picked up the child and held her in his lap. She was shivering with fright, as if she understood what had been said. Love them in the parlor, he thought, and kill them in the kennels.
"Can I go home? Doesn't Daddy want me any more?"
"Sure he does, baby. You just be good and everything'll be all right."
Norris felt a bad taste in his mouth as he laid her sleeping body on the sofa half an hour later. Everything was all wrong and it promised to remain that way. He couldn't give her back to O'Reilley, because she would be caught again when the auditor came to microfilm the records. And he certainly couldn't keep her himself—not with other Bio-agents wandering in and out every few days. She could not be concealed in a world where there were no longer any sparsely populated regions. There was nothing to do but obey the law and turn her over to Franklin's lab.
He closed his eyes and shuddered. If he did that, he could do anything—stomach anything—adapt to any vicious demands society made of him. If he sent the child away to die, he would know that he had attained an "objective" outlook. And what more could he want from life than adaptation and objectivity?
Well—his wife, for one thing.
He left the child on the sofa, turned out the light, and wandered into the bedroom. Anne was in bed, reading. She did not look up when she said, "Terry, if you let that baby be destroyed, I'll...."
"Don't say it," he cut in. "Any time you feel like leaving, you just leave. But don't threaten me with it."
She watched him silently for a moment. Then she handed him the newspaper she had been reading. It was folded around an advertisement.
BIOLOGISTS WANTEDbyANTHROPOS INCORPORATEDforEvolvotron OperatorsIncubator TendersNursery SupervisorsLaboratory PersonnelinNEW ATLANTA PLANTCall or write: Personnel Mgr.ANTHROPOS INC.Atlanta, Ga.Note: Secure Work Departmentrelease from present jobbefore applying.
He looked at Anne curiously. "So?"
She shrugged. "So there's a job, if you want to quit this one."
"What's this got to do with Peony, if anything?"
"We could take her with us."
"Not a chance," he said. "Do you suppose a talking neutroid would be any safer there?"
She demanded angrily, "Why should they want to destroy her?"
Norris sat on the edge of the bed and thought about it. "No particularindividualwants to, honey. It's the law."
"Butwhy?"
"Generally, because deviants are unknown quantities. They can be dangerous."
"That child—dangerous?"
"Dangerous to a concept, a vague belief that Man is something special, a closed tribe. And in a practical sense, she's dangerous because she's not a neuter. The Federation insists that all mutants be neuter and infertile, so it can control the mutant population. If mutants started reproducing, that could be a real threat in a world whose economy is so delicately balanced."
"Well, you're not going to let them have her, do you hear me?"
"I hear you," he grumbled.
On the following day, he went down to police headquarters to sign a statement concerning the motive in Doctor Georges' murder. As a result, Mrs. Glubbes was put away in the psycho-ward.
"It's funny, Norris," said Chief Miler, "what people'll do over a neutroid. Like Mrs. Glubbes thinking that newt was her own. I sure don't envy you your job. It's a wonder you don't get your head blown off. You must have an iron stomach."
Norris signed the paper and looked up briefly. "Sure, Chief. Just a matter of adaptation."
"Guess so." Miler patted his paunch and yawned. "How you coming on this Delmont business? Picked up any deviants yet?"
Norris laid down the pen abruptly. "No! Of course not! What made you think I had?"
Miler stopped in the middle of his yawn and stared at Norris curiously. "Touchy, aren't you?" he asked thoughtfully. "When I get that kind of answer from a prisoner, I right away start thinking—"
"Save it for your interrogation room," Norris growled. He stalked quickly out of the office while Chief Miler tapped his pencil absently and stared after him.
He was angry with himself for his indecision. He had to make a choice and make it soon. He was climbing in his car when a voice called after him from the building. He looked back to see Chief Miler trotting down the steps, his pudgy face glistening in the morning sun.
"Hey, Norris! Your missus is on the phone. Says it's urgent."
Norris went back grudgingly. A premonition of trouble gripped him.
"Phone's right there," the chief said, pointing with a stubby thumb.
The receiver lay on the desk, and he could hear it saying, "Hello—hello—" before he picked it up.
"Anne? What's the matter?"
Her voice was low and strained, trying to be cheerful. "Nothing's the matter, darling. We have a visitor. Come right home, will you? Chief Franklin's here."
It knocked the breath out of him. He felt himself going white. He glanced at Chief Miler, calmly sitting 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 listening to him speak, then said, "Oh,that! The game, honey—remember thegame?"
"Good," he grunted. "I'll be right there." He hung up and started out.
"Troubles?" the chief called after him.
"Just a sick newt," he said, "if it's any of your business."
Chief Franklin's helicopter was parked in the empty lot next door when Norris drove up in front of the house. The official heard the truck and came out on the porch to watch his agent walk up the path. His lanky, emaciated body was loosely draped in gray tweeds, and his thin hawk face was a dark and solemn mask. He was a middle-aged man, his skin seamed with wrinkles, but his hair was still abnormally black. 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 wrote 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 got 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 blue streak?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just this. We've found at least a dozen of Delmont's units that have mental ages that correspond to their physical age. What's more, they're functioning females, and they have normal pituitaries. 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! Hell, man, he was going to start his own black market! He finally admitted it, after twenty-hours' questioning without a letup. He was going to raise them, Norris. He was stealing them right out of the incubators before an inspector ever saw them. The K-99s—the numbered ones—are just the 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 youthinkwe'll do? Smash the whole scheme, that's what! Find the deviants and 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? Youhavefound one, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir," he admitted.
A moan came from the doorway. Norris looked up to see his wife's white face staring at him in 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 myself. 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 and looking mystified.
Then he saw his own service revolver in her trembling hand.
"Look, honey—it'sme."
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 adapted. 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 he dragged it out of her hand. He pushed her aside and held her against the wall while she clawed at his arm.
"Stop it!" he said. "Nothing will happen to Peony, I promise you!" He glanced back at the 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 me, 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 started 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 rest 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 snuggled 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, little newt. Just a few minutes."
They went into the kennels together, and Franklin headed straight for the third room. He seemed to be enjoying the situation. Norris hating him silently, stopped at a workbench and pulled on a pair 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 door. 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 reading, and close it. There's no danger."
Franklin frowned at him and cracked the intakes. Norris quietly 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 main line.
"Pressure's up again!"
Norris dropped his wrench and walked back to the chamber, leaving Peony perched on the workbench.
"Trouble with the intakes," he said gruffly. "It's happened before. Mind getting your hands dirty 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 chamber, leaned over to inspect the intakes. On his way down, he shouldered a light-bulb over the door, shattering it. Franklin cursed and stepped back, brushing glass fragments from his head and shoulders.
"Good thing the light was off," he snapped.
Norris handed him the gas-mask and put on his own. "The main switch is off," he said. He opened the intakes again. This time the dials fell to normal open-line pressure. "Well, look—it's 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 the 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 faint wind was coming through the opening. It should reach an explosive mixture quickly with the hatch ajar.
He stepped into the next room, waited a moment, and jerked the switch. The roar was deafening as the exposed tungsten filament flared and detonated the escaping anesthetic vapor. Norris went to cut off the main line. Peony was crying plaintively. He moved to the door and glanced at the smouldering remains of Franklin.
Feeling no emotion whatever, Norris left the kennels, carrying the sobbing child under one arm. 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 chamber exploded—killed Chief Agent Franklin. Man, it's awful! Hurry."
He hung up and went back to the kennels. He selected a normal Bermuda-K-99 and coldly killed 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 Peony to drink it.
"So she'll be out when the cops come," he explained to Anne.
She stamped her foot. "Will you 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 was dozing when the police came.
Chief Miler strode about the three rooms like a man looking for a burglar at midnight. He nudged 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. It 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 loose. Kept flickering on and off. Franklin reached up to tighten it. Must have been a little gas in the 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. Then 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, his 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 and a pair of boy's trousers, age two. Peony's going to get a crew-cut. 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 was 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'llmakeher one. Then we'll 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 and tells the police?"
"The police," he said, "would then smell a motive. They'd figure it out and I'd be finished. We'll 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 musty leather. Then her voice came, speaking old words softly. And he thought of the small child-thing lying peacefully in her cage while angry men stalked about her. A small life with a mind; she came 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 come, sending hornets to drive out the Hevite and the Canaanite and the Hethite before thou enterest the land. Little by little I will drive them out before thee, till thou be increased, and dost possess 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 the kennels, it seemed to Terrell Norris that an end to scheming and pushing and arrogance was not too far ahead. It should be a pretty good world then.
He hoped Man could fit into it somehow.