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 say _also_ that 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's _human_," Anne argued. "She's _different_."
"I fail to agree."
"What!" Anne confronted him again. "What makes _you_ human?"
"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 WANTED
by
ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED
for
Evolvotron Operators
Incubator Tenders
Nursery Supervisors
Laboratory Personnel
_in_
NEW ATLANTA PLANT
_Call or write: Personnel Mgr._
ANTHROPOS INC.
_Atlanta, Ga._
_Note: Secure Work Department
release from present job
before applying._