Little Tib said, “No.”
“It is the capital of this nation—the seat of government. Here, you may feel my face.”
Little Tib reached upward; but Indra’s face was smooth, cool wood, like the flute. “You don’t have a face,” he said.
“That is because I am wearing the mask of Indra. Once, in a village not too far from here, there were a great many women who wanted to do something nice for the whole world. So they offered their bodies for certain experiments. Do you know what an experiment is?”
“No,” said Little Tib.
“Biologists took parts of these women’s bodies—parts that would later become boys and girls. And they reached down inside the tiniest places in those parts and made improvements.”
“What kind of improvements?” Little Tib asked.
“Things that would make the girls and boys smarter and stronger and healthier—that kind of improvement. Now these good women were mostly teachers in a college, and the wives of college teachers.”
“I understand,” Little Tib said. Outside, the people were singing.
“However, when those girls and boys were born, the biologists decided that they needed more children to study—children who had not been improved, so that they could compare them to the ones who had.”
“There must have been a lot of those,” Little Tib ventured.
“The biologists offered money to people who would bring their children in to be studied, and a great many people did—farm and ranch and factory people, some of them from neighboring towns.” Indra paused. Little Tib thought he smelled like cologne, but like oil and iron too. Just when Little Tib thought the story was finished, Indra began to speak again.
“Everything went smoothly until the boys and girls were six years old. Then at the center—the experiments were made at the medical center, in Houston—strange things started to happen. Dangerous things. Things that no one could explain.” As though he expected Little Tib to ask what these inexplicable things were, Indra waited, but Little Tib said nothing.
At last Indra continued. “People and animals—sometimes even monsters—were seen in the corridors and therapy rooms who had never entered the complex and were never observed to leave it. Experimental animals were freed—apparently without their cages having been opened. Furniture was rearranged, and on several different occasions large quantities of food that could not be accounted for were found in the common rooms.
“When it became apparent that these events were not isolated occurrences, but part of a recurring pattern, they were coded and fed to a computer together with all the other events of the medical center schedule. It was immediately apparent that they coincided with the periodic examinations given the genetically improved children.”
“I am not one of those,” Little Tib said.
“The children were examined carefully. Thousands of man-hours were spent in checking them for paranormal abilities; none were uncovered. It was decided that only half the group should be brought in each time. I’m sure you understand the principle behind that—if paranormal activity had occurred when one half was present, but not when the other half was, we would have isolated the disturbing individual to some extent. It didn’t work. The phenomena occurred when each half group was present.”
“I understand.”
The door of the bus opened, letting in fresh night air. Nitty’s voice said, “You two ready? Going to have to come on pretty soon now.”
“We’re ready,” Indra told him. The door closed again, and Indra said, “Our agency felt certain that the fact that the phenomena took place whenever either half of the group was present indicated that several individuals were involved. Which meant the problem was more critical than we supposed. Then one of the biologists who had been involved originally—by that time we had taken charge of the project, you understand—pointed out in the course of a casual conversation with one of our people that the genetic improvements they had made could occur spontaneously. I want you to listen carefully now. This is important.”
“I’m listening,” Little Tib told him dutifully.
“A certain group of us were very concerned about this. We—Are you familiar with the central data-processing unit that provides identification and administers social benefits to the unemployed?”
“You look in it and it’s supposed to tell who you are,” Little Tib said.
“Yes. It already included a system for the detection of fugitives. We added a new routine that we hoped would be sensitive to potential paranormalities. The biologists indicated that a paranormal individual might possess certain retinal peculiarities, since such people notoriously see phenomena, like Kirlian auras, that are invisible to normal sight. The central data bank was given the capability of detecting such abnormalities through its remote terminals.”
“It would look into his eyes and know what he was,” Little Tib said. And after a moment, “You should have done that with the boys and girls.”
“We did,” Indra told him. “No abnormalities were detected, and the phenomena persisted.” His voice grew deeper and more solemn than ever. “We reported this to the president. He was extremely concerned, feeling that under the present unsettled economic conditions, the appearance of such an individual might trigger domestic disorder. It was decided to terminate the experiment.”
“Just forget about it?” Little Tib asked.
“The experimental material would be sacrificed to prevent the continuance and possible further development of the phenomena.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The brains and spinal cords of the boys and girls involved would be turned over to the biologists for examination.”
