at all like her mother.
'Now, see here, chicken, what is it you've come for?'
Conrad asked when her crying stopped.
Mary had to stare hard at the floor to be able to say it.
'I want to live with you.'
Clara was twisting and untwisting a handkerchief. 'But,
child, we have already had our first baby appointed to us.
He'll be with us next shift, and after that I have to bear a
baby for someone else to keep. We wouldn't be allowed to
take care of you.'
'I thought maybe I was your real child.' Mary said it help-
lessly, knowing in advance what the answer would be.
'Darling,' Clara soothed, 'children don't live with their nat-
ural parents. It's neither practical nor civilized. I have had a
child conceived and born on my shift, and this baby is my
exchange, so you see that you are much too old to be my
conception. Whoever your natural parents may be, it is just
something on record with the Medicorps Genetic Division and
isn't important.'
'But you're a special case,' Mary pressed. 'I thought be-
cause it was a special arrangement that you were my real
pareats.' She looked up and she saw that Clara had turned
white.
And now Conrad Manz was agitated, too. 'What do you
mean, we're a special case?' He was staring hard at her.
'Because...' And now for the first time Mary realized
how special this case was, how sensitive they would be
about it.
He grasped her by the shoulders and turned her so she
faced his unblinking eyes. 'I said, what do you mean, we're
a special case? Clara, what in thirty heads does this kid
mean?'
His grip hurt her and she began to cry again. She broke
away. 'You're the hypoalters of my appointed father and
mother. I thought maybe when it was like that, I might be
your real child. . . and you might want me. I don't want to
be where I am. I want somebody. . .'
Clara was calm now, her sudden fear gone. 'But, darling,
if you're unhappy where you are, only the Medicorps can re-
appoint you. Besides, maybe your appointed parents are just
having some personal problems right now. Maybe if you tried
to understand them, you would see that they really love
you.'
Conrad's face showed that he did not understand. He spoke
with a stiff, quiet voice and without taking his eyes from
Mary. 'What are you doing here? My own hyperalter's kid
in my house, throwing it up to me that I'm married to his
wife's hypoalter!'
They did not feel the earth move, as she fearfully did.
They sat there, staring at her, as though they might sit for-
