almost tender disinclination toward going. It could wait. August was well advanced before she visited the mound.
The day was warm. She was winded after the walk through the woods. She let herself down the side of the quarry delicately, paused for breath, and went up the mound with long, slipping steps. When she got to the top she sat down.
Was there, in the hot air, the faint hint of rottenness? She inhaled doubtfully. Then, as she had done last year, she pressed her ear to the mound.
There was silence. Was he—but of course, he couldn’t be dead. “Hi,” she called softly, her lips against the rock. “Hi. I’ve come back. It’s me.”
The scrabble began far down and seemed to come nearer. But there was too much rock in the way. Brenda sighed. “Poor old thing,” she said. Her tone was rueful. “You want to be born, don’t you? And you can’t get out. It’s too bad.”
The scrabbling continued. Brenda, after a moment, stretched herself out against the rock. The sun was warm, the heat from the stones beat uplullingly against her body. She lay in drowsy contentment for a long time, listening to the noises within the mound.
The sun began to wester. The cool of evening roused her. She sat up.
The air was utterly silent. There were no bird calls anywhere. The only sounds came from within the mound.
Brenda leaned forward quickly, so that her long hair fell over her face. “I love you,” she said softly to the rock. “I’ll always love you. You’re the only one I could ever love.”
She halted. The scrabbling within had risen to a crescendo. She laughed. Then she drew a long wavering sigh. “Be patient,” she said. “Someday I’ll let you out. I promise. We’ll be born together, you and I.”
SHORT IN THE CHEST
The girl in the marine-green uniform turned up her hearing aid a trifle—they were all a little deaf, from the cold-war bombing—and with an earnest frown regarded the huxley that was seated across the desk from her.
“You’re the queerest huxley I ever heard of,” she said flatly. “The others aren’t at all like you.”
The huxley did not seem displeased at this remark. It took off its windowpane glasses, blew on them, polished them on a handkerchief, and retu rned them to its nose. Sonya’s turning up the hearing aid had activated the short in its chest again; it folded its hands protectively over the top buttons of its dove-gray brocaded waistcoat.
“And in what way, my dear young lady, am I different from other huxleys?” it asked.
“Well— you tell me to speak to you frankly, to tell you exactly what is in my mind. I’ve only been to a huxley once before, but it kept talking about giving me the big, overall picture, and about using dighting[1] to transcend myself. It spoke about in-group love, and intergroup harmony, and it said our basic loyalty must be given to Defense, which in the cold-war emergency is the country itself.
“You’re not like that at all, not at all philosophic. I suppose that’s why they’re called huxleys—because they’re philosophic rob—I beg your pardon.”
“Go ahead and say it,” the huxley encouraged. “I’m not shy. I don’t mind being called a robot.”
“I might have known. I guess that’s why you’re so popular. I never saw a huxley with so many people in its waiting room.”
“I
The girl fiddled nervously with the control of her hearing aid. After a moment she turned it down; the almost audible sputtering in the huxley’s chest died away.
“It’s about the pigs,” she said.
“The pigs!” The huxley was jarred out of its mechanical calm. “You know, I thought it would be something about dighting,” it said after a second. It smiled winningly. “It usually is.”
“Well… it’s about that too. But the pigs were what started me worrying. I don’t know whether you’re clear about my rank. I’m Major Sonya Briggs, in charge of the Zone 13 piggery.”
“Oh,” said the huxley.
“Yes… Like the other armed services, we Marines produce all our own food. My piggery is a pretty important unit in the job of keeping up the supply of pork chops. Naturally, I was disturbed when the newborn pigs refused to nurse.
“If you’re a new robot, you won’t have much on your memory coils about pigs. As soon as the pigs are born, we take them away from the sow—we use an aseptic scoop—and put them in an enclosure of their own with a big nursing tank. We have a recording of a sow grunting, and when they hear that they’re supposed to nurse. The sow gets an oestric, and after a few days she’s ready to breed again. The system is supposed to produce a lot more pork than letting the baby pigs stay with the sow in the old-fashioned way. But as I say, lately they’ve been refusing to nurse.
“No matter how much we step up the grunting record, they won’t take the bottle. We’ve had to slaughter several litters rather than let them starve to death. And at that the flesh hasn’t been much good—too mushy and soft. As you can easily see, the situation is getting serious.”
“Um,” the huxley said.
“Naturally, I made full reports. Nobody has known what to do. But when I got my dighting slip a couple of times ago, in the space marked ‘Purpose,’ besides the usual rubber-stamped ‘To reduce interservice tension’ somebody had written in: ‘To find out from Air their solution of the neonatal pig nutrition problem.’
“So I knew my dighting opposite number in Air was not only supposed to reduce intergroup tension, but also I was supposed to find out from him how Air got its newborn pigs to eat.” She looked down, fidgeting with the clasp of her musette bag.
“Go on,” said the huxley with a touch of severity. “I can’t help you unless you give me your full confidence.”
“Is it true that the dighting system was set up by a group of psychologists after they’d made a survey of interservice tension? After they’d found that Marine was feuding with Air, and Air with Infantry, and Infantry with Navy, to such an extent that it was cutting down overall Defense efficiency? They thought that sex relations would be the best of all ways of cutting down hostility and replacing it with friendly feelings, so they started the dighting plan?”
“You know the answers to those questions as well as I do,” the huxley replied frostily. “The tone of your voice when you asked them shows that they are to be answered with ‘Yes.’ You’re stalling, Major Briggs.”
“It’s so unpleasant… What do you want me to tell you?”
“Go on in detail with what happened after you got your blue dighting slip.”
She shot a glance at him, flushed, looked away again, and began talking rapidly. “The slip was for next Tuesday. I hate Air for dighting, but I thought it would be all right. You know how it is—there’s a particular sort of kick in feeling oneself change from a cold sort of loathing into being eager and excited and in love with it. After one’s had one’s Watson, I mean.
“I went to the neutral area Tuesday afternoon. He was in the room when I got there, sitting in a chair with his big feet spread out in front of him, wearing one of those loathsome leather jackets. He stood up politely when he saw me, but I knew he’d just about as soon cut my throat as look at me, since I was Marine. We were both armed, naturally.”
“What did he look like?” the huxley broke in.
“I really didn’t notice. Just that he was Air. Well, anyway, we had a drink together. I’ve heard they put cannabis in the drinks they serve you in the neutral areas, and it might be true. I didn’t feel nearly so hostile to him
