The Best of Walter M. Miller by Walter M. Miller

Author:Walter M. Miller [Miller, Walter M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi Collection
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1980-05-09T23:00:00+00:00

He thought the whole thing over while he worked. When he was finished, he went back in the house and stopped in the hall to call Chief Franklin. It was the only thing to do: get it over with as quickly as possible.

The operator said, “His office fails to answer. No taped readback. Shall I give you the locator?”

Anne came into the hall and stood glaring at him, her arms clenched across her bosom, one foot tapping the floor angrily. Peony stood behind her, no longer crying, and peering at him curiously around Anne’s skirt. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing, Terry?” He gulped. “Cancel the call,” he told the operator. “It’ll wait till tomorrow.” He dropped the phone hard and sank down in the straight chair. It was the only thing to do: delay it as long as he could.

“We’d better have a little talk,” she said.

“Maybe we’d better,” he admitted.

They went into the living room. Peony’s world had evidently been restricted to the pet shop, and she seemed awed by the clean, neat house, no longer frightened, and curious enough about her surroundings to forget to cry for O’Reilley. She sat in the center of the rug, occasionally twitching her tail as she blinked around at the furniture and the two humans who sat in it.

“The deviant?”

“A deviant.”

“Just what are you going to do?”

He squirmed. “You know what T’m supposed to do.” “What you were going, to do in the hall?”

“Franklin’s bound to find out anyway.”

“How?”

“Do you imagine that Franklin would trust anybody?”

“So?”

“So, he’s probably already got a list of all serial numbers from the District Anthropos Wholesalers. As a double-check on us. And we’d better deliver.”

“I see. That leaves you in a pinch, doesn’t it?”

“Not if I do what I’m supposed to.”

“By whose law?”

He tugged nervously at his collar, stared at the child-thing who gazed at him fixedly. “Heh heh,” he said weakly, waggled a finger at it, held out his hands invitingly. The child-thing inched away nervously.

“Don’t evade, Terry.”

“I wanna go home … I want Dada.”

“I gotta think. Gotta have time to think.”

“Listen, Terry, you know what calling Franklin would be? It would be M, U, R, D, E, R.”

“She’s just a newt.”

“She?”

“Probably. Have to examine her to make sure.”

“Great. Intelligent, capable of reproduction. Just great.”

“Well, what they do with her after I’m finished with the normalcy tests is none of my affair.”

“It’s not? Look at me, Terry… . No, not with that patiently suffering … Terry!”

He stopped doing it and sat with his head in his hands, staring at the patterns in the rug, working his toes anxiously. “Think—gotta think.”

“While you’re thinking, I’ll feed the child,” she said crisply. “Come on, Peony.”

“How’d you know her name?”

“She told me, naturally.”

“Oh.” He sat trying grimly to concentrate, but the house was infused with Anne-ness, and it influenced him. After a while, he got up and went out to the kennels where he. could think objectively. But that was wrong too. The kennels were full of Franklin and the system he represented.

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