“I’m on the highway—”
“Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind completely if—”
“All right, I’ll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you. Pick out the K-48 and sign for it. And listen—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let me catch you falsifying a serial number.”
Doctor Georges laughed faintly. “I won’t, Norris. Thanks a million.” He hung up quickly.
Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal. But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later have to be killed.
He called Anne. Her voice was dull. She seemed depressed, but not angry. When he finished talking, she said, “All right, Terry,” and hung up.
*
By noon, he had finished checking the shipping lists at the wholesale house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July’s Bermuda-K-99s had entered his territory, and they were about equally divided among five pet shops, three of which were in Wylo City.
After lunch, he called each of the retail dealers, read them the serial numbers, and asked them to check the sales records for names and addresses of individual buyers. By three o’clock, he had the entire list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained was to pick up the thirty-five animals.
And that, he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to begin his rounds.
Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the porch for a moment, smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned.
“Doctor Georges came,” she told him. “He signed for the—” She stopped to stare at him. “Darling, your face! What happened?”
Gingerly he touch the livid welts down the side of his cheek. “Just scratched a little,” he muttered. He pushed past her and went to the phone in the hall. He sat eying it distastefully for a moment, not liking what he had to do. Anne came to stand beside him and examine the scratches.
Finally he lifted the phone and dialed the Wylo exchange. A grating mechanical voice answered, “Locator center. Your party, please.”
“Sheriff Yates,” Norris grunted.
The robot operator, which had on tape the working habits of each Wylo City citizen, began calling numbers. It found the off-duty sheriff on its third try, in a Wylo pool hall.
“I’m getting so I hate that infernal gadget,” Yates grumbled. “I think it’s got me psyched. What do you want, Norris?”
“Cooperation. I’m mailing you three letters charging three Wylo citizens with resisting a Federal official—namely me—and charging one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a pound inspection—”
Yates bellowed lusty laughter into the phone.
“It’s not funny. I’ve got to get those neutroids. It’s in connection with the Delmont case.”
Yates stopped laughing. “Oh. Well, I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s a rush-order, Sheriff. Can you get the warrants tonight and pick up the animals in the morning?”
“Easy on those warrants, boy. Judge Charleman can’t be disturbed just any time. I can get the newts to you by noon, I guess, provided we don’t have to get a helicopter posse to chase down the mothers.”
“That’ll be all right. And listen, Yates—fix it so the charges will be dropped if they cooperate. Don’t shake those warrants around unless they just won’t listen to reason. But get those neutroids.”
“Okay, boy. Gotcha.”
Norris gave him the names and addresses of the three unwilling mothers. As soon as he hung up, Anne touched his shoulders and said, “Sit still.” She began smoothing a chilly ointment over his burning cheek.
“Hard day?” she asked.
“Not too hard. Those were just three out of fifteen. I got the other twelve. They’re in the truck.”
“That’s good,” she said. “You’ve got only twelve empty cages.”
He neglected to tell her that he had stopped at twelve for just this reason. “Guess I better get them unloaded,” he said, standing up.
“Can I help you?”
He stared at her for a moment, saying nothing. She smiled a little and looked aside. “Terry, I’m sorry—about this morning. I—I know you’ve got a job that has to be—” Her lip quivered slightly.
Norris grinned, caught her shoulders, and pulled her close.
“Honeymoon’s on again, huh?” she whispered against his neck.
“Come on,” he grunted. “Let’s unload some neutroids, before I forget all about work.”
*
They went out to the kennels together. The cages were inside a sprawling concrete barn, which was divided into three large rooms—one for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that never matured into sheep. The third room contained a small gas chamber with a conveyor belt leading from it to a crematory-incinerator.
Norris kept the third locked lest his wife see its furnishings.
The doll-like neutroids began their mindless chatter as soon as their keepers entered the building. Dozens of blazing blond heads began dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh as they leaped about their compartments with monkey grace.
Their human appearance was broken by only two distinct features: short beaverlike tails decorated with fluffy curls of fur, and an erect thatch of scalp-hair that grew up into a bright candleflame. Otherwise, they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little smiles, and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew beyond a predetermined age-set which varied for each series. Age-sets were available from one to ten years human equivalent. Once a neutroid reached its age-set, it remained at the set’s child-development level until death.
“They must be getting to know you pretty well,” Anne said, glancing around at the cages.
Norris was wearing a slight frown as he inspected the room. “They’ve never gotten this excited before.”
He walked along a row of cages, then stopped by a K-76 to stare.
“Apple cores!” He turned to face his wife. “How did apples get in there?”
She reddened. “I felt sorry for them, eating that goo from the mechanical feeder. I drove down to Sherman III and bought six dozen cooking apples.”
“That was a mistake.”
She frowned irritably. “We can afford it.”
“That’s not the point. There’s a reason for the mechanical feeders.” He paused, wondering how he could tell her the truth. He blundered on: “They get to love whoever feeds them.”
“I can’t see—”
“How would you feel about disposing of something that loved you?”
Anne folded her arms and stared at him. “Planning to dispose of any soon?” she asked acidly.
“Honeymoon’s off again, eh?”
She turned away. “I’m sorry, Terry. I’ll try not to mention it again.”
He began unloading the truck, pulling the frightened and squirming doll-things forth one at a time with a snare-pole. They were one-man pets, always frightened