Norris lit a cigaret, steeled himself, called Anne. Her voice was dull, depressed, but no longer angry.
“All right, Terry,” she said tonelessly. “I’ll go out to the kennel and get the one in cage thirty-one, 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 drove furiously toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of Anthropos Incorporated to begin tracing down the suspected Bermuda K-99s in accordance with Franklin’s memo. He would have to check through all incoming model files for the six week period, go over the present inventory, then run down the Bermuda serial numbers in a mountain of invoices covering a thirty-week period, find the pet shops and retail dealers that had taken the doubtful models, and finally survey the retail dealers to trace the models to their present owners. With cooperation from wholesaler and dealers, he might get it down to the retail level by mid-afternoon, but getting the models away from their owners would be the nasty part of the job. He was feeling pretty nasty himself, he decided. The spat with Anne, the distasteful thoughts associated with Slade’s pseudoparty, the gnawing remorse about collaborating with Dr. Georges in a doubtful maneuver to pacify one Sarah Glubbes, a grim week’s work ahead, plus his usual charge of suppressed resentment toward Chief Franklin—it all added up to a mood that could turn either black or vicious, depending on circumstance.
If some doting Mama gave him trouble about impounding her darling tail-wagger, he was, he 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 and twitched as muscles contracted spasmodically, but the short legs were already limp and paralyzed, allowing the chubby man in the white coat to lift them easily by the ankles and retrieve the rectal thermometer. The neutroid wheezed and chattered plaintively as the nurse drew the blanket across its small body again.
“A hundred and nine,” grunted the chubby man, his voice muffled by the gauze mask. His eyes 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, spoke quietly. “Get a hypo—necrofine.”
She turned toward the sterilizer, paused briefly. “Three c.c.s?” she asked.
“Twelve,” he corrected.
Their eyes locked with his for several seconds; then she nodded and went to the sterilizer.
“May I leave first?” she asked tonelessly while filling the syringe.
“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 substitute. I’ve called Mrs. Norris. Oh yeah, and tell Fred to stop in here first. I’ll have something for him to take out.”
The nurse glanced down at the squirming, whimpering newt, shivered slightly, and left the room. When the door closed, Georges bent over the table with the hypo. When the door opened again, 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 come back now?” he asked in going.
“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 her 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 paused before passing on into the reception room. The door was ajar, and she gazed through the crack at 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 lap, her wide empty eyes—dull blue spots on yellowed marble orbs—staring ceilingward while the colorless lips of a knife-slash mouth moved tautly in earnest prayer. The nurse’s throat felt tight. 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 room. 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 the clip-board with the list of doubtful neuts and the dealers to whom they had been sent. “Lots of 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. I called the two local shops for you. Most of them live here close.”
He glanced at the names, felt tension gathering in his stomach. It wasn’t going to be easy. What 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’am, he’ll have a place to stay—in a little steel cage with a forkful of straw, and he’ll get vitaminized mush every day. What’s that? His sleepy-time stories and his pink honey-crumbles? Sorry, 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 sunlight. Still a couple of hours working time left, and plenty of things to do. Checking with the other retail dealers would be the least unpleasant task, but there was no use saving the worst until last. He glanced at the list Mabel had given him, checked it for the nearest address, then squared his 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 moment, 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 fingertips 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 him 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 from five to seven. If it’s urgent, call your constable.”
He hung up briefly, then i
rritably dialed the locator service. “Mnemonic register, trail calls, and official locations,” grated a mechanical voice. “Your business, please.”
“This is T. Norris, Sherman-9-4566-78B, Official rating B, Priority B, code XT-88-U-Bio. Get 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 psyched. Whattaya 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, 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 the newts to you by noon, I guess, provided we don’t have to get a helicopter posse to chase down the mothers.”
“Well, okay—but listen—I want the charges dropped if they cooperate with you. And don’t 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 unwilling owners, and a precise account of what happened in each case. As soon as he hung up, Anne muttered “Sit still,” perched on his knees, and began stroking chilly ointment across his burning cheek. He watched her cool eyes flicker from his cheek to his own eyes and down again. She was no longer angry, but only gloomy 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, said 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 there, 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 go 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 curious.”
He nodded slowly, felt grim inside. She finished with the ointment, patted his cheek, managed a 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 quivered. “I—I know you’ve got a job that’s got to be—” She swallowed hard and turned away. “See you out in the kennels,” she choked gaily, then hurried down the hall toward the door. Norris scratched his chin unhappily as he watched her go.
After a moment, he dialed the mnemonic register again. “Keep a line on this number,” he ordered after identifying himself. “If Yates or Franklin calls, ring continuously until I can get in to answer. 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 rooms, one housing the fragile, humanoid chimpanzee-mutants, and another for the lesser breeds such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that never matured into sheep. The third room contained a small gas chamber, with a conveyor belt leading from it to the crematorium. He usually kept the third room locked, but he noticed in passing that it was open. Evidently Anne had found 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 the mindless chatter of the doll-like neutroids as soon as he entered the air conditioned neutroidsection. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh as they leaped about their compartments with monkey-grace, in recognition of their feeder and keeper.
Their human appearance was broken only by two distinct features: short beaverlike tails decorated with fluffy curls of fur and an erect thatch of scalp hair that grew up into a bright candle-flame. Otherwise, they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little smiles, and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew beyond a predetermined age-set which varied for each series. Age-sets were available from one to ten years, human equivalent. 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 of cages. “A big loud welcome for Pappa, huh?”
He frowned slightly as he glanced around the gloomy room and sniffed the animal odors. “That’s 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 inside. He stopped suddenly beside 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 drove 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 feedings.”
“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 in, the feeders get turned on.”
“I see. And if they love you, you might get queasy about running them through Room 3’s 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 can’t see anything contradictory about that, can you?”
Her eyes told him that he had damn well better see something contradictory about it, whether he admitted it or not.
“Planning to get real chummy with them, are you?” he inquired 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.” She 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 for the squealing, squeaking doll-things that bounded about like frightened monkeys in the truck’s wire mesh cage. They were one-family pets, always frightened of strangers, and these in the truck r
emembered him only as the villain who had dragged them away from Mamma into a terrifying world of whirling scenery and roaring traffic.
They worked for a time without talking; then Anne asked casually: “What’s the Delmont case, 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 mutations.”
“It’s sort of a sub-atomic surgical instrument—for doing ‘plastic surgery’ to reproductive 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—with protons and deuterons and alpha particles for cue-balls. The operator takes the living ovum, mounts it in the device, gets a tremendously magnified image of it with the slow-neutrino shadowscope, compares the image with a gene-map, starts gouging out submolecular tidbits with single-particle shots. He juggles them around, hammers chunks in where nothing was before, plugs up gaps, makes new gaps. Catch?”
She looked thoughtful, nodded. “Catch. And the Lord Man made neutroid from the slime of an 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 operation from start to finish in a few seconds. 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 of those people that blow up when rehearsals stop and the act begins. He spoiled over a hundred ova the first week. That’s to be expected. One success out of ten tries is a good average. But he didn’t get any successes.”
“Why didn’t they fire him?”
“Threatened to. Guess he got hysterical. Anyhow, he reported one success the next day. It was faked. The ovum had a couple of flaws—something wrong in the nervous system’s determinants, and in the endocrinal setup. Not a standard neutroid ovum. He passed it on to the incubators to get a credit, knowing it wouldn’t be caught until after birth.”
Dark Benediction Page 25
