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
“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?
“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.
“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. “
He hung up briefly, then irritably dialed the locator service. “
“This is T. Norris, Sherman-9-4566-78B, Official rating B, Priority B, code XT-88-U-Bio. Get Sheriff Yates for me.”
“
“Offish biz.”
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
