It was the test that worried Sweeney, precisely because he
knew that he would be helpless to affect the outcome. Either
the Port Authority’s experts had put him together cunningly
enough to pass any test, or
or he would never have the chance to become human.
Rullman nodded Sweeney through another door into a long,
low-ceilinged room furnished with half a dozen laboratory
benches and a good deal of glassware. The air was more active
here; as on the Moon, there were ventilators roiling it. Some-
one came around a towering, twisted fractionating apparatus
in which many small bubbles orbited, and moved toward
them. It was, Sweeney saw, a small glossy-haired girl, with
white hands and dark eyes and delicately precise feet. She was
wearing the typical technie’s white jacket, and a plum-colored
skirt.
“Hello, Dr. Rullman. Can I help?”
“Sure, if you can neglect that percolator a while, Mike. I
want to run an ID typing; we’ve got a new man here. All
right?”
“Oh, I think so. It’ll take a minute to get the sera out.” She
moved away from them to another desk and began to take
out ampoules and shake them before a hooded light. Sweeney
watched her. He had seen female techniques before, but none
so modelled, so unconstrained, or so close as this. He felt
light-headed, and hoped that he would not be asked to speak
for a little while. There was sweat on his palms and a mum-
bling of blood in his inner ear, and he thought perhaps he
might cry.
He had been plunged into the midst of his untested, long-
delayed adolescence, and he liked it no better than anyone