“Yes.” Cauvell was suddenly glad that he had never gone completely modem. Less than a fifth of the population did their own grocery shopping in person anymore. The banks of robot clerks that took the orders by phone had more-or-less depersonalized food purchasing. Cauvell, however, had always liked to see the steak before he bought it Perhaps it was his picky appetite.
mrs. cauvell’s father was a college professor, t said gratingly. the college instructors of the sixties
and seventies were often quite liberal and as anxious as their students to experiment. mrs. cauvell, did your father take lsd-25?
They had prepared themselves, long ago, for the possibility of questions like these. And they had agreed that a little bit of the truth would be better than a complete lie. “I believe he tried it twice with bad experiences both times,” Laurie said.
Cauvell was proud of her firm, unshaken answers.
he was not a regular user?
“No.”
“How can you be so certain, my dear?” Jameson asked kindly.
Cauvell realized that Jameson was anything but stupid, anything but meek. He was T’s straight man, but some of his own lines hit the mark close to center.
“My mother told me,” Laurie said. “My father died when I was seven. My mother spent the rest of her life telling me about everything he did. I heard all the stories a thousand times. I couldn’t forget them. He took LSD twice and had bad trips both times.”
which party do you belong to? t asked.
“The party in power for the last thirteen years. The Constitutional Tolerant Party.” Cauvell tried to force pride into his voice while he forced his gorge down.
and why did you join the party?
“Because we feared the Communist countries and realized the subversive trends within our own society must stop.”
and you have seen nor heard nothing of the hallucino-child?
“Nothing.”
was this interview recorded with your knowledge, mr. and mrs. cauvell?
They said it was.
The android’s voice clicked off, its throat humming for a moment before going tomb silent. Inspector Jameson got to his feet. “Sorry to inconvenience you. It has been, a pleas-sure. Thank you for cooperating.”
“Only too happy,” Frank said.
“Hope you find the mutant,” Laurie said.
They watched through the porthole as the inspector and the android stepped into the police car and pulled onto the highway, growing smaller, smaller, and disappearing in the distance.
From the looks of the sky, it was going to snow again.
Somewhere a mutated boy hid, shivering.
Some unbearable moment, his nerves split; he ran.
He ran right into the arms of the android. The eyes of the metal man were jewels, even as the tears on his own cheeks frosted into diamonds. He backed away, but there were others behind him. There was no place to go.
He unleashed the psychic forces at them, watched them go up in flames, watched their faces melt, watched their insides smoke.
But there were more of them. And they would not wait. Nozzles opened on their hips. Fire sprayed; flames engulfed him, swallowed, digested him.
All the while the snow fell . . . little white bullets . . .
“They got some poor devil,” Laurie said, handing him the paper.
He looked at it, grimaced. HALLUCINO-CHILD FIGHTS IT OUT WITH POLICE. Not “fights it out with robots,” for that was too crude. That would make the entire thing seem promutant. Cauvell wagered a live cop had not come within a hundred yards of the boy.
“It’s my fault,” Laurie said.
“That’s absurd! How could it possibly be your fault?”
“We were too open. We left a trail or clues, at least, that made them search.”
“And it was an emergency,” he argued. “You’d have blasted the both of us to kingdom come if you had tried to hold back that force any longer.”
“Just the same, they might not have flushed the boy out if we—”
“Forget it. What’s for supper?”
“Spaghetti.”
The next night it was pork chops. The next night, meat loaf. The night after that, he woke up to her heavy breathing.
“Laurie?”
Her eyes were open. “Yes?”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He got out of bed, began to dress.