"_Police?_ What's happened?" He dialed quickly. "Chief Miler? This is Norris. Get over here quick. My gas chamber exploded--killed Chief Agent Franklin. Man, it's awful! Hurry." He hung up and went back to the kennels. He selected a normal Bermuda-K-99 and coldly killed it with a wrench. "You'll serve for a deviant," he said, and left it lying in the middle of the floor. Then he went back to the house, mixed a sleeping capsule in a glass of water, and forced Peony to drink it. "So she'll be out when the cops come," he explained to Anne. She stamped her foot. "Will you tell me what's happened?" "You heard me on the phone. Franklin accidentally died. That's all you have to know." He carried Peony out and locked her in a cage. She was too sleepy to protest, and she was dozing when the police came. Chief Miler strode about the three rooms like a man looking for a burglar at midnight. He nudged the body of the neutroid with his foot. "What's this, Norris?" "The deviant we were about to destroy. I finished her with a wrench." "I thought you said there weren't any deviants." "As far as the public's concerned, there aren't. I couldn't see that it was any of your business. It still isn't." "I see. It may become my business, though. How'd the blast happen?" Norris told him the story up to the point of the detonation. "The light over the door was loose. Kept flickering on and off. Franklin reached up to tighten it. Must have been a little gas in the socket. Soon as he touched it--wham!" "Why was the door open with the gas on?" "I told you--we were checking the intakes. If you close the door, it starts the automatics. Then you can't get it open till the cycle's finished." "Where were you?" "I'd gone to cut off the gas again." "Okay, stay in the house until we're finished out here." * * * * * When Norris went back in the house, his wife's white face turned slowly toward him. She sat stiffly by the living room window, looking sick. Her voice was quietly frightened. "Terry, I'm sorry about everything." "Skip it." "What did you do?" He grinned sourly. "I adapted to an era. Did you find the instruments?" She nodded. "What are they for?" "To cut off a tail and skin a tattooed foot. Go to the store and buy some brown hair-dye and a pair of boy's trousers, age two. Peony's going to get a crew-cut. From now on, she's Mike." "We're class-C, Terry! We can't pass her off as our own." "We're class-A, honey. I'm going to forge a heredity certificate." Anne put her face in her hands and rocked slowly to and fro. "Don't feel bad, baby. It was Franklin or a little girl. And from now on, it's society or the Norrises." "What'll we do?" "Go to Atlanta and work for Anthropos. I'll take up where Delmont left off." "_Terry!_" "Peony will need a husband. They may find all of Delmont's males. I'll _make_ her one. Then we'll see if a pair of chimp-Ks can do better than their makers."