“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 you think we’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? You have found 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’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 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 gasmask 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 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 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’ll make her 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.
1952
THE DARFSTELLER
“Judas, Judas” was playing at the Universal on Fifth Street, and the cast was entirely human. Ryan Thornier had been saving up for, it for several weeks, and now he could afford the price of a matinee ticket. It had been a race for time between his piggy bank and the wallets of several “public-spirited” angels who kept the show alive, and the piggy bank had won. He could see the show before the wallets went flat and the show folded, as any such show was bound to do after a few limping weeks. A glow of anticipation suffused him. After watching the wretched mockery of dramaturgical art every day at the New Empire Theater where he worked as janitor, the chance to see real theater again would be like a breath of clean air.
He came to work an hour early on Wednesday morning and sped through his usual chores on overdrive. He finished his work before one o’clock, had a shower back-stage, changed to street clothes, and went nervously up-stairs to ask Imperio D’Uccia for the rest of the day off.
D’Uccia sat enthroned at a rickety desk before a wall plastered with photographs of lightly clad female stars of the old days. He heard the janitor’s petition with a faint, almost oriental smile of apparent sympathy, then drew himself up to his full height of sixty-five inches, leaned on the desk with chubby hands to study Thornier with beady eyes.
“Off? So you wanna da day off? Mmmph—” He shook his head as if mystified by such an incomprehensible request.
The gangling janitor shifted his feet uneasily. “Yes, sir. I’ve finished up, and Jigger’ll come over to stand by in case you need anything special.” He paused. D’Uccia was studying his nails, frowning gravely. “I haven’t asked for a day off in two years, Mr. D’Uccia,” he added, “and I was sure you wouldn’t mind after all the overtime I’ve—”
“Jigger,” D’Uccia grunted. “Whoosa t’is Jigger?”
“Works at the Paramount. It’s closed for repairs, and he doesn’t mind—”
The theater manager grunted abruptly and waved his hands. “I don’ pay no Jigger, I pay you. Whassa this all about? You swip the floor, you putsa things away, you all finish now, ah? You wanna day off. Thatsa whass wrong with the world, too mucha time loaf. Letsa machines work. More time to mek trouble.” The theater manager came out from behind his desk and waddled to the door. He thrust his fat neck outside and looked up and down the corridor, then waddled back to confront Thornier with a short fat finger aimed at the employee’s long and majestic nose.
“Whensa lass time you waxa the upstairs floor, hah?”
Thornier’s jaw sagged forlornly. “Why, I—”
“Don’ta tell me no lie. Looka that hall. Sheeza feelth. Look! I want you to look.” He caught Thornier’s arm, tugged him to the doorway, pointed excitedly at the worn and ancient oak flooring. “Sheeza feelth ground in! See? When you wax, hah?”
A great shudder seemed to pass through the thin elderly man. He sighed resignedly and turned to look down at D’Uccia with weary gray eyes.
“Do I get the afternoon off, or don’t I?” he asked hopelessly, knowing the answer in advance.
But D’Uccia was not content with a mere refusal. He began to pace. He was obviously deeply moved. He defended the system of free enterprise and the cherished traditions of the theater. He spoke eloquently of the g
olden virtues of industriousness and dedication to duty.
He bounced about like a furious Pekingese yapping happily at a scarecrow. Thornier’s neck reddened, his mouth went tight.
“Can I go now?”
“When you waxa da floor? Palisha da seats, fixa da lights? When you clean op the dressing room, hah?” He stared up at Thornier for a moment, then turned on his heel and charged to the window. He thrust his thumb into the black dirt of the window box, where several prize lilies were already beginning to bloom. “Ha!” he snorted. “Dry, like I thought! You think the bulbs a don’t need a drink, hah?”
“But I watered them this morning. The sun—”
“Hah! You letsa little fiori wilt and die, hah? And you wanna the day off?”
It was hopeless. When D’Uccia drew his defensive mantle of calculated deafness or stupidity about himself, he became impenetrable to any request or honest explanation. Thornier sucked in a slow breath between his teeth, stared angrily at his employer for a moment, and seemed briefly ready to unleash an angry blast. Thinking better of it, he bit his lip, turned, and stalked wordlessly out of the office. D’Uccia followed him trimphantly to the door. “Don’ you go sneak off, now!” he called ominously, and stood smiling down the corridor until the janitor vanished at the head of the stairs. Then he sighed and went back to get his hat and coat. He was just preparing to leave when Thornier came back upstairs with a load of buckets, mops, and swabs.
The janitor stopped when he noticed the hat and coat, and his seamed face went curiously blank. “Going home, Mr. D’Uccia?” he asked icily.
“Yeh! I’ma works too hard, the doctor say. I’ma need the sunshine. More frash air. I’ma go relax on the beach a while.”
Thornier leaned on the mop handle and smiled nastily. “Sure,” he said. “Letsa machines do da work.”
The comment was lost on D’Uccia. He waved airily, strode off toward the stairway, and called an airy “A rivederci!” over his shoulder.
“A rivederci, padrone,” Thornier muttered softly, his pale eyes glittering from their crow’s-feet wrappings. For a moment his face seemed to change—and once again he was Chaubrec’s Adolfo, at the exit of the Comman-Jant, Act II, scene iv, from “A Canticle for the Marsman.”
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