She answered him mind to mind: “. . I am sorry to see you troubled . . . Mary Sperling is gone except in that she is part of us . . .”
“Oh, come off it, Mary! Don’t give me that stuff! Don’t you know me?”
“. . . of course I know you, Lazarus . . . it is you who do not know me . . . do not trouble your soul or grieve your heart with the sight of this body in front of you . . . I am not one of your kind . . . I am native to this planet.
“Mary,” he insisted, “you’ve got to undo this. You’ve got to come out of there!”
She shook her head, an oddly human gesture, for the face no longer held any trace of human expression; it was a mask of otherness. “. . . that is impossible . . .Mary Sperling is gone . . . the one who speaks with you is inextricably myself and not of your kind.” The creature who had been Mary Sperling turned and walked away.
“Mary!” he cried. His heart leapt across the span of centuries to the night his mother had died. He covered his face with his hands and wept the unconsolable grief of a child,
Chapter S
LAZAIWS found both King and Barstow waiting for him when he returned. King looked at his face. “I could have told you,” he said soberly, “but you wouldn’t wait.”
“Forget it,” Lazatus said harshly. “What now?”
“Lazarus, there is something else you have to see before we discuss anything,” Zaccur Barstow answered.
“Okay. What?”
“Just come and, see.” They led him to a compartment in the ship’s boat which was used as a headquarters. Contrary to Families’ custom it was locked; King let them in. There was a woman inside, who, when she saw the three, quietly withdrew, locking the door again as she went out.
“Take a look at that,” directed Barstow.
It was a living creature in an incubator-a child, but no such child as had ever been seen before. Lazarus stared at it, then said angrily, “What the devil is it?”
“See for yourself. Pick it up. You won’t hurt it.”
Lazarus did so, gingerly at first, then without shrinking from the contact as his curiosity increased. What it was, he could not say. It was not human; it was just as certainly not offspring of the Little People. Did this planet, like the last, contain some previously unsuspected race? It was manlike, yet certainly not a man child. It lacked even the button nose of a baby, nor were there evident external ears. There were organs in the usual locations of each but flush with the skull and protected with many ridges. Its hands had too many fingers and there was an extra large one near each wrist which ended in a cluster of pink worms.
There was something odd about the torso of the infant which Lazarus could not define. But two other gross facts were evident: the legs ended not in human feet but in horny, toeless pediments-hoofs. And the creature was hermaphroditic-not in deformity but in healthy development, an androgyne.
“What is it?” he repeated, his mind filled with lively suspicion.
“That,” said Zaccur, “is Marion Schmidt, born three weeks ago.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“It means that the Little People are just as clever in manipulating us as they are in manipulating plants.”
“What? But they agreed to leave us alone!”
“Don’t blame them too quickly. We let ourselves in for it. The origihal idea was simply a few improvements.”
“Improvements!’ That thing’s an obscenity.”
“Yes and no. My stomach turns whenever I have to took at it . . . but actually-well, it’s sort of a superman. Its body architecture has been redesigned for greater efficiency, our useless simian hangovers have been left out, and its organs have been rearranged in a more sensible fashion. You can’t say it’s not human, for it is . . – an improved model. Take that extra appendage at the wrist. That’s another hand, a miniature one . . – backed up by a microscopic eye. You can see how useful that would be, once you get used to the idea.” Barstow stared at it. “But it looks horrid, to me~’