Anne put her hands on her hips and leaned forward to glare down at him like something unwholesome. "Can you put a voltmeter between your ears and measure it?" The priest looked helplessly at Norris. "_No!_" she said. "And you can't do it to Peony either!" "Perhaps I had better go," Paulson said to his host. Norris sighed. "Maybe you better, Padre. You found out what you wanted to know." Anne stalked angrily out of the room, her dark hair swishing like a battle-pennant with each step. When the priest was gone, Norris picked up the child and held her in his lap. She was shivering with fright, as if she understood what had been said. Love them in the parlor, he thought, and kill them in the kennels. "Can I go home? Doesn't Daddy want me any more?" "Sure he does, baby. You just be good and everything'll be all right." * * * * * Norris felt a bad taste in his mouth as he laid her sleeping body on the sofa half an hour later. Everything was all wrong and it promised to remain that way. He couldn't give her back to O'Reilley, because she would be caught again when the auditor came to microfilm the records. And he certainly couldn't keep her himself--not with other Bio-agents wandering in and out every few days. She could not be concealed in a world where there were no longer any sparsely populated regions. There was nothing to do but obey the law and turn her over to Franklin's lab. He closed his eyes and shuddered. If he did that, he could do anything--stomach anything--adapt to any vicious demands society made of him. If he sent the child away to die, he would know that he had attained an "objective" outlook. And what more could he want from life than adaptation and objectivity? Well--his wife, for one thing. He left the child on the sofa, turned out the light, and wandered into the bedroom. Anne was in bed, reading. She did not look up when she said, "Terry, if you let that baby be destroyed, I'll...." "Don't say it," he cut in. "Any time you feel like leaving, you just leave. But don't threaten me with it." She watched him silently for a moment. Then she handed him the newspaper she had been reading. It was folded around an advertisement. BIOLOGISTS WANTED by ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED for Evolvotron Operators Incubator Tenders Nursery Supervisors Laboratory Personnel _in_ NEW ATLANTA PLANT _Call or write: Personnel Mgr._ ANTHROPOS INC. _Atlanta, Ga._ _Note: Secure Work Department release from present job before applying._ He looked at Anne curiously. "So?"