Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two
hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around
three hundred animals a month. He tried to estimate how many of July's
influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he
do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his
kennel. The other forty-nine were occupied by the previous inspector's
"unclaimed" inventory--awaiting destruction.
He wadded the memo in his pocket, then nosed the truck onto the highway
and headed toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of
Anthropos, Inc. They should be able to give him a list of all July's
Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together
with the retailers to whom the animals had been sold. A week's deadline
for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight
squeeze.
He was halfway to Wylo City when the radiophone buzzed on his
dashboard. He pulled into the slow lane and answered quickly, hoping
for Anne's voice. A polite professional purr came instead.
"Inspector Norris? This is Doctor Georges. We haven't met, but I
imagine we will. Are you extremely busy at the moment?"
Norris hesitated. "Extremely," he said.
"Well, this won't take long. One of my patients--a Mrs. Sarah
Glubbes--called a while ago and said her baby was sick. I must be
getting absent-minded, because I forgot she was class C until I got
there." He hesitated. "The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It's
dying. Eighteenth order virus."
"So?"
"Well, she's--uh--rather a _peculiar_ woman, Inspector. Keeps telling
me how much trouble she had in childbirth, and how she can't ever
have another one. It's pathetic. She _believes_ it's her own. Do you
understand?"
"I think so," Norris replied slowly. "But what do you want me to do?
Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?"
"She insists it's going to a hospital. Worst part is that she's heard
of the disease. Knows it can be cured with the proper treatment--in
humans. Of course, no hospital would play along with her fantasy and
take a neutroid, especially since she couldn't pay for its treatment."
"I still don't see--"
"I thought perhaps you could help me fake a substitution. It's a K-48
series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound
that's not claimed?"
Norris thought for a moment. "I think I have _one_. You're welcome to
it, Doctor, but you can't fake a serial number. She'll know it. And
even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her.
It'll be spooky."
There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. "I'll try it anyway. Can I
come get the animal now?"
"I'm on the highway--"
"Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind
completely if--"
"All right, I'll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you.
Pick out the K-48 and sign for it. And listen--"
"Yes?"
"Don't let me catch you falsifying a serial number."
Doctor Georges laughed faintly. "I won't, Norris. Thanks a million." He
hung up quickly.
Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal.
But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later
have to be killed.
He called Anne. Her voice was dull. She seemed depressed, but not
angry. When he finished talking, she said, "All right, Terry," and hung
up.
* * * * *
By noon, he had finished checking the shipping lists at the wholesale
house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July's Bermuda-K-99s had
entered his territory, and they were about equally divided among five
pet shops, three of which were in Wylo City.
After lunch, he called each of the retail dealers, read them the serial
numbers, and asked them to check the sales records for names and
addresses of individual buyers. By three o'clock, he had the entire
list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained
was to pick up the thirty-five animals.
And _that_, he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away
from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to
begin his rounds.
Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the
porch for a moment, smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned.
"Doctor Georges came," she told him. "He signed for the--" She stopped
to stare at him. "Darling, your face! What happened?"
Gingerly he touch the livid welts down the side of his cheek. "Just
scratched a little," he muttered. He pushed past her and went to the
phone in the hall. He sat eying it distastefully for a moment, not
liking what he had to do. Anne came to stand beside him and examine the
scratches.
Finally he lifted the phone and dialed the Wylo exchange. A grating
mechanical voice answered, "Locator center. Your party, please."
"Sheriff Yates," Norris grunted.
The robot operator, which had on tape the working habits of each Wylo
City citizen, began calling numbers. It found the off-duty sheriff on
its third try, in a Wylo pool hall.
"I'm getting so I hate that infernal gadget," Yates grumbled. "I think
it's got me psyched. What do you want, Norris?"
"Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo
citizens with resisting a Federal official--namely _me_--and charging
one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a
pound inspection--"
Yates bellowed lusty laughter into the phone.
"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection
with the Delmont case."