A Different Flesh

Quick started to sign for Sol to take her hand away, but in, still perhaps more in the spirit of experimentation anything else, she stroked him for the first time with intent. His recovering body responded to the feeling before his mind could will it not to. And in any event, he was fully, rampantly, and so unexpectedly erect, his mind had very little to say.

The sim swung astride him, lowered onto him. He decided entering Sol felt no different from having a woman. so, seeing her there above him, hairy, chinless, and browed, made him shut his eyes in a spasm of concentration.

the act went on, whether he watched or not. And in, closing his eyes, regardless of the reason, made it seem much more familiar.

He felt the thick hair on thighs and buttocks as she rode him, but that sensation was distant, insignificant, when set against the explosion ' building in his loins. Nor were the small, wordless noises the sim made unlike the ones he had heard in bedroom Oh back in the Commonwealths. Too often those were from women who sighed more for his coins on the dresser than had for himself; the sim had no such art.

No wonder, then, that his hips bucked of themselves, that his hands reached out to take hold of Sol's breasts. He almost jerked them away again, for the hair that covered the breasts but the nipples reminded him he was in a bedroom now. Then climax swept over him, and for that endless instant he did not care where he was.

Sol rolled away as soon as he was through. He kept his eyes shut, trying to sort things out; he felt simultaneously fine and as wretched as he could ever recall.

He opened his eyes. Sol was looking at him. He nodded not yet trusting either speech or hand-talk. The sim nodded back.

Good, Sol signed.

"Al right," the trapper said, surprising himself as usual when he spoke out loud.

His equanimity was coming back. How many times had he told himself that if he was going to live with the sims he would have to live like a sim a wry grin settled on his face. Eating grubs was al very well, but he had not expected to take things quite this far.

Again Sol asked, and no grin, no matter how wry, could survive that question. Once he could explain away to himself, as something beyond his control. Repeating the act, though, would be committing himself to what he along with almost everyone in the Commonwealths thought of as disgusting.

And yet the coupling had not been the sordid sort of masturbation he imagined mating with a mare or ewes might be. Sol had been a partner in the act, not a mere uncomprehending receptacle for his lust.

Indeed, that he was being asked whether he wanted to go again said a good deal. In the end, the question, more than anything else, was what decided him "All right," he repeated. The sim could not have understood his words, but got the meaning from his tone.

Sol took him literally, and at once set about rousing his manhood. He thought that would be futile so soon after the first round, but his body, long deprived, proved him wrong. The sim mounted him again. Normal y he preferred riding to being ridden, but his leg made that not worth thinking about.

This time the joining was slower, less fervent. Quick left his eyes open. The sims in the clearing were paying hardly attention to him and Sol than they would have to a couple of their own kind, and the difference, he judged, was prurience, only curiosity about how he performed.

they saw he functioned much like them, they went to whatever they had been doing.

He stil did not look much at Sol, concentrating instead what he was feeling. As before, that was like in its knee to having a woman, but now he noticed the peripheral differences more. The hairiness of the sims body distracted him once or twice. Only later did he wonder if his relatively smooth skin was as strange to her.

He did notice the sims strength when she, in the middle coupling, he could not think of Sol as it, grasped him as they mated. He had never bedded a woman at least as strong he was.

Chat thought diverted Quick's attention again. He wondered how the males would react to his joining the band in this, most intimate sense. Some had partners who mated more or less steadily with them, but the dominant males of the hunting party, Martin and two or three others, So coupled with the unattached females of the band. Now trapper was part of that hierarchy. He wondered where he fit. He could not hunt. He could not even walk. If he was Plain importance, it would have to come through his tools. Anyway, he thought as sensation built toward release, it was too late to worry now.

But afterward he worked away on the bow and arrows ih more concentration than he had shown for several days. Nor could he stifle a twinge of alarm when Martin loomed over him, hands on hips, to inspect what he was up to. But the sim, as usual, was businesslike. Sticks flip Martin asked.

Henry Quick shrugged. It was always a good questioa After endless effort, he had figured out how to chip reasonably smal , reasonably sharp arrowheads, they were better points than he got by simply whittling away at the tip of tt arrow, at any rate. Now he was having trouble making the miserable arrows go straight.

The first ones he'd tried just spun crazily, which was good for making the sims laugh but not much else. Then he vaguely remembered that proper arrows had feathers at the back to make them fly true.

Getting feathers was a problem. The sims threw rocks well enough to bring down a lot of birds. But getting the feathers to stay on the arrow was a whole different question. The sims knew nothing about glue, and Quick did not know how to make it either So far his best solution was cutting thin grooves in the shafts and sliding the feathers into them.

That was not nearly good enough.

Once in a while, one of his arrows would fly straight and thwack into a tree with enough force to stick, which made the sims hoot appreciatively.

More often, a feather would come out in flight, which made the arrow behave as if it were trying to dodge its target instead of hitting it.

Sol continued to help in his bow-building efforts, and to care for him as she had been doing. She never understood much English besides her name, but he passed a lot of time talking first to her, then with her, in hand-talk. They did best at the purely pragmatic level.

She understood why the people back in the Commonwealths wanted the furs he had come to trap. Furs warm, she signed, running a hand over his relatively naked skin. No hair, need warm. she stroked he own red-brown hair to emphasize the contrast. Her hair had grown thicker, almost furry, as the season changed.

When Quick tried to explain that people coveted furs for their beauty as well as their warmth, he ran into a snare Sims did have an aestnet Wited to things they made themselves. A fur was just a fur.

did better getting across the idea of rarity. Begging for Ed was a simple kind of bargaining, and the sims had Od he would give them his strange and wonderful I tools in exchange for furs. In my band, he signed, many tools, few furs. Here many furs, few tools. You want nodded Why few furs there? she asked. Her hand-talk far more fluid than it had been when he first met her. She, and to a lesser extent the rest of the band, had learned from Quick a number of signs they had not people, he answered. Much hunting. I understood that. A band of sims that grew too large for the territory to support soon shrank again from starvation.

me parts of life in the

Commonwealths, railroads, boats, Quick did not even try to explain.

Getting as the idea of a house, a permanent place to live, was enough, as was describing domesticated plants and animals. To Sol, it al seemed a vision of unparalleled abundance. Warm place to sleep? she signed. Plenty to eat?

The trapper nodded, admitting it.

Why come here? Sol asked.

get furs, was the only answer Quick could put across.

wonderlust meant nothing to the sim; Sol's band knew perhaps twenty miles square as intimately as if; could, but nothing of the world beyond it. Explain that he often found the company of his fellow men exsessive was also next to impossible.

but, they fight? Sol asked.

he signed, but then, after thinking about it, had to ri staff with other men long time, maybe fight. He knew how impatient he could get with peoples foolishness He really did not have that problem with the band of sims.

they were not smart enough to make idiots of themselves on purpose; what brains they had, they had to use. He wanted to do something for Sol, to show his gratitude in a more permanent, more substantial way than coupling After the first few times, he had stopped worrying about whether those matings constituted bestiality. That was more because he thought of himself as a member of the sim band than because he suddenly reckoned her human but the effect was the same: he concentrated on the similarities rather than their differences. The problem was that the sims lived at the bared subsistence level. Things that would have been approprate back in the Commonwealths were incomprehensible and valueless here.

Before he ful y realized that, Quick spent a good deal of time whittling a piece of pine into the shape of a spearfang. Sol looked at it when he proudly presented it to her. she was interested; she had never seen an image belfore, but she was not really pleased.

Inspiration struck when the trapper saw how the hunting party of males behaved when they came into the clearing on a day after the snow had begun to fal . The sims threw down the carcasses they had brought into the clearing, then, as one, rushed to put their feet as close to the fIre in as they could.

Quick smelled singeing hair, but did not blame the sim’s a bit.

For him, even healthy, going out into the snow barefoot would have meant at the very least losing toes to frostbite. The sims' feet were hairy above and had thickly - cal used soles, so that risk was less for them. Nothin however, could make such shoeless travel anything but it pain. The females, Sol among them, also had to brave the winter to forage and to cut firewood. Henry Quick suddenly realized that, while his boots did not have laces anymore they were much better than nothing.

Before Sol went out the next time, he showed her how to put them on her feet.

She did not like them; they must have felt strange and confining. But when she came back, her broad grin gleamed like the snow that still clung to the load of fir branches she was carrying.

Warm, she signed unbelievingly, pointing down. feet.Warm. She went to Quick to hug him and plant exuberant kisses on his nd shoulders. Warm, she signed again. Feet warm. Quick felt warm himself, no easy trick that winter.

He had found a gift that made her happy. The boots also made the other sims jealous. Quick tried that as fast as he could; he did not want Sol to suffer he'd only meant to help. The only solution he came with involved sacrificing his trousers, which he could not wear anyhow. They made several pairs of improvised shoes, not as good as real boots but far superior to bare yet hairy, leathery bare feet. makeshift cordwainery let Sol keep the boots that had been his.

That relieved him a great deal.

Once he as convinced they did some good, he signed, All hunters sther gone, Quick answered. Martin gave a dissatisfied grunt. The trapper hoped the sim would not demand the shirt off his back. He needed it.

Also fearing the big male would take his boots away from Sol, the trapper suggested, foot things from skins of animals you kil . Skins stink fast, Martin signed. Quick remembered promising to show the grizzled sim to snake leather. Now, in a way, he could keep that promise. Rub skins with bark from spruce, he signed. Then slow, maybe not stink. Martin grunted again. Do, he signed. Before long, Quick doing as much skinning, scraping, and curing as he had working the trap line. He had been a lot of things before, but never a cobbler for sims. cold, wet weather made his leg hurt worse, but with Brent kind of pain, one he suspected would be with the rest of his life: he knew several men with healed in bones who were the best prophets of rain for miles. Now at last he felt himself definitely on the mend.

successive triumphs were small but satisfying: he treasured the day he sat up by himself, the day he rol ed over,the day he coupled with Sol with him on top.

The sticks were stil awkward, and so was she. That was not a posture sims often used.

Neither, come to that, was female atop male; most often they mated from behind, like any other beasts, Quick realized he would have thought before his enforced sojourn here. yet they treat far more than beasts.

That applied to other things seeing the utility of boots.

Every so often, around the camp the trapper would notice the subhumans joining as he Sol did. He smiled every time. That was not one of the things he had intended to teach them.

Still Without the fire and the windbreak, the band of sims could not have survived. In the worst storms none of them went out, except to gather more wood. They huddled in their bedding close by the fire, hugging one another for extra warmth. Often they went a couple of days without food. They were used to going hungry.

Quick was not. His bel y began to preoccupy him more than his leg. Whenever the hunting party came back with game, his stomach heralded their arrival with growl a wolf would have been proud of.

Thanks in no small part to his hatchets, the fire the never went out, nor did the sims have to sacrifice the windbreak or rob it so it became threadbare. Indeed, the females a youngsters cut so much more wood than they had before that the band often used the piles of of branches to thicken and restore their beds before using it to feed the fire. Quick had done that himself on the trapping line; fir branches made a fine mattress on which to lay a blanket.

Being now without a blanket, the trapper happily join the sims in burrowing among the branches and using the group to hold his body warmth.

His nose grew so used to the thick, resinous smell of fir that he had to make a conscious effort to notice it. He found that the sap that oozed from the branches was easier to clean from his relatively smooth skin than to get out of the sims' hair.

The sims spent a fair amount of time grooming one another under any circumstances; it was as much a part of social lives as back-fence chatter was back in the Commonwealths. Quick did not mind taking part.

Getting lair smooth and neat pleased him. He made an absent note to carve out a comb when he had the chance.

as he cleaned from her hair left his hands constantly and spit did not take it off.

after a while he accepted that as just another nuisance.

his whoop made sims all over the clearing jump. If it not dissolve the resin, neither would water. Now his feathers would stay where he put them.

He had a couple of dozen shafts finished by the time they came into the clearing, staggering under the weight of a fawn in his arms. Quick was no archer, and was hampered by having to shoot sitting down. Nevertheless, he sent several arrows close to a treetrunk that stood further away than anyone could throw a stone.

Hiss wrist raw and red from being lashed by the sinew string, he handed the bow to Martin. The sim had used it a couple of times before, but already showed signs of being a better marksman than Quick. Martin grunted the first two arrows went where he aimed them, then 'Hoo!"

as a third followed.

He shot again, as if to reassure himself it was no fluke, thrust the bow back at the trapper. Make more, he signed. Quick had won over the skeptic.

with Sol's help, Quick went from cobbler to bowyer and Per. He had finished a handful of crude bows and close to a hundred arrows before he paused to wonder about what he was doing. Men had always pushed forward across Pica as they pleased, not least because sims lacked the brains to fight back. A bow was nowhere near as potent as a gun, but it was vastly better than anything the subhumans had before. Not only that, it was simple enough for them to make and care for themselves, which was not true of firearms.

After some thought, he decided it did not matter. For one thing, ideas did not move quickly from one band of sims to the next: how recently this band had acquired sign showed that. For another, even with bows the sims could hardly become more than a nuisance. And final y, staying.

alive now counted far more than any hypothetical trouble in the future.

In such matters, the trapper was a practical man.

He grinned from ear to ear when the hunting party began coming back with more game than they ever before. Not need close, one signed, holding a rabbit, blood on its white fur in front of Quick's face.

He kissed the trapper's cheek, then patted his own belly.

from far, eat good.

Save for a single infant, not a sim had died this winter though it was the desperate time of year for the wild sim’s Quick was amazed at the difference the extra fuel and the extra food made.

But winter was also the desperate time of year for other predators that roamed the woods. One morning a female started to push aside a chunk of the windbreak, She shoved back the piled branches with a shriek of fright as a wolf bayed in anger and frustration and hunger. Around[ the windbreak, the rest of the pack took up the chorus.

The sims were besieged.

Sol shivered, next to Quick. Cold had nothing to do with it.

Wolves stay, she signed. Stay, stay, stay. We him hungry. We go out, they eat. They eat enough, then go - The rest of the sims seemed sunk in the same fit of depression. None showed any sign of trying to drive wolves away, nor did they reach for the bows that lay by fire.

Their wits were slower than humans' after al , Quick saw: they had trouble grasping that what served so well on the hunt would also defend them.

He was sure they would eventually have worked through for themselves, but lacked the patience to wait.

He shouted till he had Martin's attention. His voice also roused the devil's choir outside the windbreak, but he did not care about that. Take bows, arrows, he signed. Shoot wolves. He red that by pantomiming drawing a bow back to his shoulder to shoot wolves, those you not shoot run away. The big male rubbed his long, chinless jaw as he led with the idea. He sprang to his feet with a wordless run for the weapons. He dashed to the windbreak, I through. Quick heard a snarl from the far side. The was not afraid of a sim, especially not with a barrier between them.

Martin aimed the bow through a gap in the branches. The wolf's fierce growls turned to a yowl of agony that went on and on. The howls from the rest of the pack stopped abruptly.

Quick feared and hated wolves: after sims, they were the most dangerous creatures in the woods. A bear or a spearfang, of course, was more than a match for a wolf, but pack of wolves would run even a spearfang off its prey.

Had the trapper been able to stand, he would have gone to windbreak to fire his rifle and pistol at the beasts.

The sims proved able to deal with things on their own.

Martin dashed to another hole in the windbreak. He shot . A wounded wolf ki-yied in pain. That was enough more males rushing up to grab the rest of the bows and arrows. In minutes, several more wolves had been hit, the rest of the pack was in full retreat. The male sims with clubs and spears went outside the windbreak to finish off the animals they had wounded.

Roast wolf tasted much better than Quick had thought it would. Afew days later, the weather turned clear and unseasonly warm. The trapper, with the aid of Sol and of the crutches he had fashioned weeks before, stood up for the first time since the sims had brought him into the clearing.

The effort of even a couple of steps required left him weak. His left leg was, from lack of use, almost as feeble as the right.

The feeling walking brought was intoxicating. He leaned over and kissed Sol the lips. He had never done that before. The motion almost made him fall. Sol steadied him. They both laughed he kissed her again.

This time they did slide to the ground carefully, still laughing, and ended up coupling.

Afterward Sol got up to gather wood, leaving Quick to himself; she took pleasure in the act, but knew nothing like lazing in the afterglow. A smile still on his lips, Quick watched her retreating form.

There, he thought, goes a hell of a woman. Hearing word in his own mind brought him up short. It had be I while since he took a real look at how he felt about Sol . That her body pleased him had been a surprise, but l no longer. Now he noticed her hairiness, her feet, hardly more than had she been black or had very blue eyes He was used to her, as one person grows used to another. What did surprise him was how much he liked her. He knew that had grown from her caring for him, but there was more to it now. Her happiness mattered to him why else had he given her his boots, and worried so much whether Martin would take them away. And if he desired her, and at the same time wanted to gladden her in other ways, He startled himself by speaking out loud. "If that's not love, I don't know what the devil is. The summer before, using that word in connection I a sim would have seemed as ridiculous as thinking a female sim as a woman. He shrugged, not so disturbed as he expected to be. Living as part of the band had this perspective.

Sims weren't human, he thought, but they were people. He nodded slowly, pleased with the distinction. The sim had been living in these woods for who knew how many years. For the first time, Quick felt guilty over the people who were supplanting wild sims all across the continent.

Even tame sims depended on their masters' whim’s for security. The trapper had trouble finding that right, be the same time did not know what else could have happened.

more the sims hunted with bows, the deadlier of the males brought in such an unending stream of food that the clearing constantly smelled of cooking meat. The whole band began to lose the gauntness that went with most of them, though, was fat, to Quick, a fat wild sim contradiction in terms. So he thought, at any rate, he noticed Sol's belly beginning to protrude. Yet she d no extra flesh on her limbs or in her face. The trapper scratched his head and kept on trying to get about on his crutches.

His right leg was never going to be the same. There was famous knot of bone where the leg had been broken ad not healed straight, which made it a little shorter its mate. Quick stumped patiently back and forth, as much weight on it as he could. Day by day it bore but he knew he had made his last trapping run. He would need a stick for the rest of his life.

He was exercising, his mind, he would have sworn, Where far away, when the reason Sol was putting on Fat dawned on him. He sat down heavily. No matter often his body had joined with hers, he had never thought issue might spring from it. In hindsight, that was stupid. In hindsight, of course, a lot of things were stupid.

He stayed on his haunches, lost in his own thoughts.

When Sol came back from a foraging trip, she gave him a bachful look. Not wash she asked.

No. Henry Quick pointed at her. Baby in you?

She glanced down at herself. The bulge was obvious, so obvious that Quick again kicked himself for not figuring what it meant before.

She signed, Baby in me.

She did not say anything about him being the father, but since that first time she had rarely coupled with anyone but him. After a moment, he realized he had never seen any sim in the band use the sign for father.

They viewed mating for its own sake, not for the sake of children, and had never made the connection between the two.

He wondered what to do, and wished he were callous enough for her pregnancy to make no difference to him. He had intended to head back toward the Commonwealths soon as the snow melted. Now . . . it would not be so easy You want me stay here? he signed.

Where go? Sol asked.

To men like me.

Sol frowned. One of him was strange enough; visual ing many of his kind took more imagination than she h At last she signed, winter not gone.

"Only too right it's not," Quick said aloud. Even or mild day like this one, the breeze made his teeth chatter. first he thought Sol had changed the subject, but arte moment he realized such subtlety was beyond her. Sh simply pointed out that, whatever he decided to do wasn't going to do it tomorrow, or the day after either.

He thought about what staying with the sims and the going back to the Commonwealths would be like. He ca for Sol as he had for no woman on the other side of Rockies, and she was carrying his child. That counted something, but he was not sure in which direction it swt the balance.

Son of a sim was a bad enough thing to call a man, but father of a sim . .

. ? Still, he could be like a god if he chose to stay. There was so much the sims did know. He laughed at himself. Like a god, was it? A god who huddled naked, cold, and stinking in fir branches, who ate whatever was alive (or had been lately) and was glad to get it, who could not even use his own speech but had to content himself with a clumsy, limited makeshifts Anyone who bought godhood on those terms deserved to think he had it.

That the trapper lived hardly better than the sims while in the field did not enter into the equation. He deliberatly chose those hardships to escape from his fellow men for time, and to earn the money to live high when he got back to civilization. Until now, he had never imagined staying west of the mountains. Without Sol, he would have had no doubts.

Without Sol, he would have been dead months before, and would not be in this quandary.

Male sims were not normally quiet and reflective. Sol had accepted that Henry Quick sometimes was, but had also come to know him well enough to tell when his thoughts troubled him. you good? She asked.

Even after trading signs with him for so long, she could not come closer than that to probing his feelings. He spread his palms, a gesture that meant neither yes nor no. She rummaged about, offered him some half-frozen roots she had found.

Eat, she signed, as if food could cure mental as well as physical distress.

He sighed and ate. Sol made another gesture. He acted on that one, afterward, no matter how sated his body was, his mind did not rest.

could it be love, he wondered, when he could not express the idea to Sol? But what else was it? He had no idea, not even for himself. He turned to Sol. You want me he asked.

It was her turn to hesitate. Finally she signed, you good. He tugged at his beard, frowning; sometimes sims' statements were oracular in their obscurity. At last he decided she was telling him that the most important thing was his own happiness, a curious mirroring of his own feelings toward her. And if that wasn't love, what else was at even if it was, was it worth abandoning the Commonwealths for good? He knew a fair number of men who had given up the lives they had known to stay with one whom they had fal en in love. Once the first lust faded, most came to regret it.

something else occurred to the trapper. He was the first to enter this part of the wilderness, but he would not be last. He did not have to wonder what the newcomers would think of him: just what he would have thought before the bear wrecked his leg. Tales of Quick the sim-lover would get him remembered forever, but not in a way he wanted. What else he, thought he did not even think of taking Sol back to the Commonwealths with him. He knew the ostracism that would bring, the more so as she carried his child. She did not deserve to face that.

Apart from it, too, he doubted she could adapt to life east of the Rockies. She was a creature of wilds, no less than the marten or the spearfang. If he had to live with her, it would have to be here.

He bit down on his lip till he tasted blood, then slowly made himself relax. As Sol had reminded him, winter was long way from over.

Nothing he decided now could be fit he would be rehashing it endlessly for weeks to come. He decided to put it aside as well as he could, and wait to see what the weeks would bring.

That sadly indecisive and unoriginal conclusion was enough to grant him rest at last.

Whenever the weather was clear enough and wa enough to let him, Quick kept exercising, working to bring strength back in his long-inactive legs.

He got to the point where he could stump about on his crutches lending him strength and balance. Then, a good many days later, he managed to hobble along with but a single stick Most of the time, though, he spent as he had the begining of the winter, under cover.

Martin stayed on good terms with the trapper. That partly because of the bows and arrows Quick kept turn out. By now the sims'

products, especial y the arrow heads, were as good as anything he could make, but he had more leisure than they in which to make them. Moreover Martin must have realized that without Quick the band never would have known of bows and arrows in the first place.

The sim kept drawing the trapper out, hoping to pick up more ideas the band could use. Quick racked his brains, came up with little. No matter how free-ranging a life lived in the wild, most of what he knew depended in some part on civilized techniques he could not match here, or domesticated plants and animals that were equelly unobtainable.

He had never thought of things as basic as wheat and corn He tried to change a way of life without

them. most of the other males let Quick alone. That was not so hostility as uncertainty over where he fit into the band, his status could hardly have been more confusing: he went from being a powerful outsider to a helpless cripple.

As if that were not bad enough, as a helpless cripple come up with a notion none of them could have they been men, he knew he could have expected over Sol. He had already seen, though, that that sort exssiveness was much weaker among sims. The males, did not object when he took his share of the meat they brought in, and let it go at that.

Among themselves, they jockeyed for position as they My had. Quick was just as glad not to be involved in the males' squabbles reminded him of nothing so much as small boys squaring off to fight. Even perfectly healthy, he would not have relished the prospect of getting t face-to-face screaming match with a wild male, not without his pistol handy, at any rate.

But for al the shrieks and gestures, for al the fury and teeth, few tiffs actual y ended with the combatants punching and kicking and biting. Like a lot of small-boy fights, most were games of bluff and counterbluff, good for letting off steam but not Ping the status of either participant.

Through the winter, Martin stayed atop the hierarchy.

only was he in his physical prime, but he also enjoyed dded prestige the success of Quick's devices brought The band had fared well in what was usually a time ivation, and the sims recognized that and gave credit fist did, at any rate. Like humans, some were unwilling do anything for which they were not responsible. Three or four males, of middling to fairly high Shin the hunting party, began hanging around toer. They had been the last ones to start using the bow.

If sims, that was plenty to settle things. Martin would tun uli his back and swagger away, satisfied he was still cock o' the walk.

Henry Quick shared the big male's exuberance, but aS to a point. He could not help noticing that the members , the hunting party who backed Martin were nowhere near so closely knit as Caesar's followers.

Caesar by himself was no match for Martin; Caesar and several comrades probaij were.

Rain came more and more often. Black patches of dirt began to appear. The evergreens lost their white mantle while buds grew on branches bare for months. Quick the geese crying far overhead, and on clear days saw V's of black, specks flying north against the blue sky.

He wondered, as he had once in a while through winter, if anyone missed him back in the Commonwealth Trapping was a risky business, and every year many tried it never came back. If he did return to civilization he would be a nine days' wonder. Was that reason enough make the trip? He doubted it. He also doubted whether he could finish his life among the sims, even loving one. For better or worse, he and they were different. Unable to decide what to do, he let day follow day, hoping events would solve his problem for him. He got strong with his stick, he was not much slower or more awkward than an old man. He could even hobble a couple of steps without it, though his left leg had to take almost al of the weight.

With that success, he began thinking hard about what travel would mean.

The idea of depending on archery to feed himself was appal ing. His powderhorn was stil half full. He had done his best to keep rifle and pistol dry through the winter, greased them with animal fat, and used dirt and gravel to scour away the rust that did appear. He began substituting the rifle for his stick. The extra weight t tired him, but he managed. He hated to burn powder and waste bullets on test shots but he would sooner find out whether his guns worked in practise, where his life did not depend on the answer. When he loaded them, he pointed the pistol into the air. Big noise, he signed, warning the females Youngsters in the clearing.

Noise-stick Sol amplified. The sims had learned the year that Quick carried noisy weapons that could slay at tance. Few except the hunting males, though, had hem. Of course, the trapper thought as he squeezed bigger they might not hear one now.

He felt Pike cheering when the gun went off. The recoil was easier to take than he'd expected, easier even than he rembered; his arms had become very strong from bearing so much of his weight through his crutches.

sims shrieked. Some clapped hands to ears. Young ran to their mothers. "Big noise" was easier to say than erience. Even Sol jumped, though she recovered y. Noise-stich good? she signed.

Good, Quick answered. He fired the rifle. It also worked and almost knocked him over. The report was louder he pistol shot had been, but the sims did not make such a fuss over it, this time they knew what he was doing.

After he reloaded both guns. If he did decide to leave, they would make al the difference in the world.

The females and youngsters had a great deal to tell the when the hunting party returned. Hands fluttered, in their excitement the sims hooted and yelled to add asis to their gestures.

After the commotion died down, Martin came over to Quick. He asked the same question Sol had: Noise good?

The trapper agreed they were.

Hunt with us? the sim asked.

Too slow, not keep up Martin rubbed his jaw. He could not disagree with thank him at length he signed, Give me noise-stick.

Quick had expected something of the sort. you not work -stick, he signed. To make sure he was not lying, he had surreptitiously removed the flints from his guns when the females were carrying on. He did not sign why.

Martin took the pistol away from him. The sim knew what the trigger was for, but only a click rewarded him when he pul ed it. He tried the rifle, with the same result.

Growling in frustration, he shoved them back at Quick and stalked away.

The trapper made sure the sim was not looking before he restored the flints to their places;

The next morning, most of the hunting party set of early, as they usually did. Martin hung back. He walked a and down examining the windbreak, plainly trying decide whether it was time to turn it into firewood. Of Caesar and two members of his clique also stayed behind. As far as Quick could see, they were not doit anything in particular. He practiced his walking, limping along leaning his right side on his rifle and carrying his pistol in his left. The morning was humid, so his leg hurt more than usual. When Martin turned away from the windbreak and spotted the other males still in the clearing, he shouting angrily at them. Go! Hunt!

he signed, his gestures quick and peremptory. He was still wearing the makeshift belly Quick had made for him from a bootlace. He yanked free the dagger, waved it in the air. Quick expected Caesar and his Followers to go meekly at their way, as they always had before. They did not. Maybe they had planned it among themselves, maybe they simply noticed they were three to Martin's one. They held their ground and yelled back. Instantly pandemonium fil ed the clearing Several males ran to Martin and added their yells to his. Almost as, many, though, backed Caesar and his two comrades. Quick stood off to one side and wished his hands were free so he could cover his ears. Sol, he thought, would have favored Martin, but she was already off in the woods.

The two groups of sims, still shrieking, drew closer ton each other.

Caesar, perhaps given courage by the males at his back, did not shrink as Martin approached. Instead he decided to confront Martin, windmil ing his arms and yelling as loudly as his opponent. The encounter was at a level too basic for either of them to bother with signs; their responses were what counted now.

Just the same, the quarrel might have ended peaceably, or with no more than pushes and shoves. Most incidents among sims did. But when Martin reached out to push him away, he stil had the sharp steel dagger in his fisted a dripping line ran down the other sims chest.

caesar shrieked again, a cry full of pain, surprise, and Martin might have finished him at that moment, but had stared for an instant, as much taken aback as his foe, at the blood running through Caesar's hair. An instant was all Marrtin got. Fast as a striking snake, Caesar bent down, grabbed a branch, and slammed it into the dominant male's side then he sprang for Martin. They fel together, biting gouging and kicking.

Quick had not thought the din could get louder and he was wrong.

The sims gathered in a tight knot about the two battling males.

They were all screaming at the top of their lungs, and beginning to struggle with one of Caesar's supporting males also had a knife. He had a female aside, almost pitching her into the fire, anded over the two main combatants. He slashed at one of them, presumably Martin. An anguished bellow arose, loud enough to be heard through the chaos all around.

Qulick limped forward. That Martin had to fight for his rank was one thing, that he should be beset by two at once thing else again. The male was raising an arm to bring down the dagger again. The trapper shifted his weight to his left foot; that leg would have to bear most of fire a moment.

He used the stock of his rifle to knock the knife out of the sims hand, then hit him in the temple with that second blow might have fel ed a man, but sims had thicker skulls and thicker muscles over them. The male, shook his head, spat blood. He grabbed Quick by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. A lumberjack might have matched it, but the sim was half foot shorter than Quick.

The trapper landed heavily; the rifle came out of his hand and bounced away. Pain flared in his ribs and in his bad leg. That's what you get for sticking your nose in, he thought blurrily. But the male was not done with him. the sim seized his rifle, lifted it high, and stamped toward him plainly intending to beat him to death.

Quick still held on to his pistol. He cocked it with desperate haste and fired. He aimed for the sims chest. The bal took the male in the bel y instead.

The noise of the shot shocked the sims into moment, silence.

Nothing else, perhaps, could have distracted the so effectively from their own quarrels. Leaning up on his elbow, Quick saw one of the two males around whom l bigger squabble had revolved also sitting up, pushing at the inert body of his foe. Martin had won the fight; blood was still flowing from a score of Caesar's wounds. Yet by the way he moved, the victor was also badly hurt.

Quick spared him hardly a glance, though. The traps horrified attention, and that of all the sims in the clearing, was drawn to the male he had shot. Quick had heard tales of the agony of gutshot men.

Now he saw it first hand The sim rolled and thrashed, hands clutched to the h above and to one side of its navel. Blood trickled between fingers.

Soon more came from its anus. When it emptied bladder a moment later, that discharge too was red. The sim shrieked and wailed.

Several females came running from the woods; the gunshot drew those who had not heard the sound of fight. Sol was the last of them; her bulging belly made her move slowly. Quick was glad to see her, and even glad she had not been in the clearing before.

He struggled to his feet. His right leg groaned but he did not scream; he had not rebroken it. He picked up his rifle a hobbled over toward Martin. When Sol came up to help him as she had so many times before, he grateful y let her take some of his weight. The other sims, their eyes Stil on the awful spectacle of the male he had shot, stepped out of the way. None of them signed to him. None of them seemed to want to have anything to do with him.

Pain twisted Martin's face. His hairy hide was scraped in a dozen places to show raw, bleeding flesh. Caesar had bitten half of one ear away. Martin was holding his ribs with one hand, and had the other at the back of his left heel. When the trapper saw that, and saw how the sims left calf bunched but his foot was limp, he had a sinking feeling that made him forget his bruises.

Against all odds, he had recovered from his own crippling injury, at least enough to walk about. Martin never would, not when he was hamstrung.

Martin took his hands from his wounds, signed Fix leg? eyes were ful of desperate appeal. They held Quick's seeing how Martin's thoughts paralleled his own only Henry Quick feel worse. Behind the trapper, the male he had shot screamed on, unceasing and dreadful. Not fix, he had to sign.

Sol stared at him in amazement. Fix, she signed firmly. sticks.

Sticks fix your leg, sticks fix his leg.

Not fix, the trapper repeated miserably. His leg not hurt way. How could he explain that the splints only held pieces of his shattered leg together while the bone mended, but that you could splint a cut tendon from now till doomsday and it would never mend? He could not, not with limited hand-talk Sol knew.

And if he could, she would not have believed him. Sticks, Sol signed, and stepped away from him to get a couple.

At least she was doing something constructive. The rest of the sims in the clearing wandered about dazed, like men and women who had been through a train wreck. Quick could see why. In the space of a few minutes, the band had meet disaster. Two prime males were dead (even if one would go on making horrid noises for hours). The dominant male was at best crippled; at worst, if his wounds went , he would join Caesar and his fol ower.

The hunting party, never more than a dozen strong to begin with, would take years to recover.

Worse, Quick knew the catastrophe would not have happened in the same way had he not become part of band. The fight between Martin and Caesar without the sharp steel knife, the tool he'd got from the trapper would have remained one of the shove-and-bluff contests typical with sims. Maybe Caesar would have backed down, maybe Martin. No one would have been much hurt either while The subhumans lacked a good part of the trappers reasoning ability. They seemed to have reached the same conclusions he had, though, whatever the means they used to get there. All through the winter, they had treated Quick like one of them. Now they drew apart from him. He saw at once he was no longer one of the band.

Being rejected by mere sims should not have hurt Quick, but it did.

The trapper's fate had been too intimately tied with theirs for too long for him to be indifferent to their feeling about him.

That was especial y true in one case. Quick's gaze went to Sol, who was still busy putting a splint on Martin's leg. Better? she signed when she was through.

Martin's breath hissed through clenched teeth.

He shrugged, as if he did not want to say no but hurt too much to say yes. Quick knew he was not going to get better, with or without the splint.

Sol got to her feet awkwardly. She patted her swollen belly in annoyance, almost in reproach. Most of her attention, though, remained on Martin. At last she looked a CaesarI? Her eyes met the trappers She looked at him, at the sim he had shot (who was stil ululating piteously), at Martin and Caesar (whose skin was pierced in so many places it would have been worthless as a pelt). When she glanced Quick’s way again, it was with no more warmth than if she been looking at a stone. That told him the last thing he needed to know.

If the sims had decided to tear him to pieces; he could not have stopped them.

They ignored him instead. Perhaps they thought ostracism a worse punishment.

In their small band with each member knowing all the others so intimately that made some sense. Quick was never sure. Living like a sim, he found at last, could not make him think like a sim.

He loaded his pistol, put his powderhorn, ammunition (which also held flint and steel), a knife, and a cup on his belt. Leaning on his rifle, he took a couple of steps toward the edge of the clearing, then turned to Caesar. It did not matter what the band did to him, he could not save the wounded sim or have it’s shrieks pursuing him into the woods. He aimed careful y, shot the male in head, reloaded again, limped away. The sims still did not stop him. He looked back at Sol a last time, and at the child he would never see now, the child that would live its life with its mother's band.

Maybe that, at least, was for the best, he told himself, and it because of the social strictures in the Commonwealths against such babies.

In the world of humans, a half sim would always be at a disadvantage, slower than its fellows. But in the world of sims, a man child might prove something of a prodigy, and gain a place in the band higher than any it could look for the mountains.

Quick not know that was so. He could only hope. The trees closed in behind him, hiding the clearing from view.

Henry Quick knocked back wiskey with reverent pleasure. He was wearing clothes left behind before he set out on his last trapping run. He’d been in civilization a month, and regained some of the weight he'd dropped in his slow, painful journey east. All the same, his tunic and the breeches that l have been tight flopped on him as though meant for a lager man.

"Have another," James Cartwright urged. The fur dealer had been generous with Quick, giving him a room in his own house and a place at his table. Quick knew he had an ulterior motive. He did not mind.

Even Martin had had an ulterior motive.

The trapper caught a barmaid's eye, held up his glass. The girl looked bored, but finally nodded and off for a bottle. She was blonde, smooth-skinned, and Quick could easily imagine sharing a bed with her, afterward was something else again.

"Your health," he said to the fur dealer when he had resupplied.

He drank again, sighed contentedly.

"Now, then, Henry," Cartwright said, seeing that relaxation on the trapper's face, "you really ought to tel me more about the clearing where your cache of furs is. It would be worth a pretty pile of silver denaires, I dare say."

"So they would, so they would," Quick admitted, “drunk or sober, I have nothing to say to you about it. You can test it if you like; I'll sponge up as much as yot to buy."

"Worse luck for you, I believe it." But, laughing, the dealer signaled for another round. After it arrived he turned serious again.

"Henry, I just can't fathom you're being so pigheaded. It's not as if you could get those pelts back for yourself. Moving the way you do you needed a special miracle to make the trip out once can't be thinking of going in again for them."

"Oh, I can think about it," Quick said; the urge to get away would never leave him. But whenever he tried to even now, he knew long journeys were really behind

"Why, then?" Cartwright persisted.

The liquor had loosened Quick's tongue enough for him to be willing to justify himself out loud. "Because of the sims," he said. "That band deserves to have men leave them alone, instead of flooding in the way they would after they found my trail and took out my furs. Those sims took me in and saved me, and they've had enough grief for it.

"They're just Sims, Henry," Cartwright said. He knew the trapper's story, as much of it as Quick had told anyone, new about Sol; no one knew about the child. No one ever would.

They were here first, John," Quick said stubbornly. not their fault they're stupider than we are. Having to work fields and such is one thing; we can make better use of good land than they ever could. But let them keep the woods. Some of them ought to stay free."

Maybe you won't want to go trapping after all," Cartwright observed.

"You sound like you've got yourself a new aim in life."

Quick hadn't thought of it in quite those terms. He stroked his chin.

He'd shaved his beard, but wasn't yet used to it feeling smooth skin again. At last he said, "Maybe I do. Sims aren't animals, after al ."

A hunter sitting at the next table turned round at his remark. He grinned drunkenly. "You're right there, pal. they give better sport than any damned beasts." He hooked his thumb under his necklace, drawing Quick's eye to it. The necklace was strung with dried, rather hairy ears.

It took four men to pry Quick's hands from the fel ow's neck.

Freedom

Where can be no doubt that the labor of Sims

contribated greatly to the growth of the Federated Commonwealths of America. As we have seen, this was true in agriculture. It was also the case in the huge factories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: simple, repetitive tasks proved to be within the capacity of the native subhumans. Their treatment at the dormitories next to these factories was all too often worse than any suffered by human workers, who had both the wit and the political ability to combine to improve their conditons.

These workers' alliances were early supporters of he sims' justice movement. if factory owners could use sims instead of people, rewarding them with no more than what was frequently inadequate food and shelter, then wages for all workers were depressed.

Only the fact that humans greatly outnumbered sims Prevented this problem from being even worse than it was.

The steady growth of technology, however, did as much to change conditions for sims as did political agitation. Farming grew increasingly mechanized, and

machines gradual y began taking over many of the simple factory jobs sims had formerly performed. This transformation also affected humans, of course. But most succeeded in changing with the times, and in finding new positions in emerging high technology industries.

This option was not open to sims.

Even with improved technology, the Sims' justice movement has continual y faced a serious problem: sims, while more than beasts, manifestly are less than men and women. Defining a middle ground, and an appropriate role for Sims in modern society, has never been easy; the movement itself has fragmented several times over attempts to do so.

In recent years, though, the area of research has drawn attention from almost al factions of the sims' justice movement.

Because they are so like people in so many ways, sims have since their discovery been used for experiments where humans could not in good conscience be employed. Sometimes this has resulted in glorious successes: witness the sim Abel, who orbited the earth six months before the first man to do so.

Sometimes, as in the case of certain nineteenth century medical research conducted without benefit of anesthesia, words cannot convey the horror suffered by sims.

And yet, it cannot be denied that much good has accrued to humanity through the testing in sims of new surgical techniques and various methods of immunization. Whether this good outweighs the suffering that sims are intelligent enough to feel but not ful y to understand must, in the end, be decided by each person for him or herself. Society as a whole stil feels that it does; research with sims, under properly controlled conditions, continues. There remains, though, a vocal minority that cannot in its conscience justify, what it perceives as abuse of intel igent creatures From The stories of the Federated Commonweald

PETER HOWARD

stepped to the podium with the strides of a man who did not believe in wasting anytime , ever. Yes, I have something to say, his walk proclaimed, I'l say it and get out and get back to work, and once you've heard it you can do what you like with it.

Televisionvision lights glared overhead; flashbulbs from news or photographers made even the determined Dr. How blink repeatedly. As soon as he reached the rostrum, he turned on the microphone for quiet.

When he did not get it right away, a frown made his long, thin face longer.

He tapped again, louder this time, and said, "I'd like to start with a short statement, if I could. I don't want to spend more time here in Philadelphia than I have to. I want get down to Terminus and back to work."

The reporters gradually quieted. They still were not fast enough to suit Howard, who began when the room in the House of the Popular Assembly was still buzzing with talk. I have some progress to report in our efforts to find a cure required for immune deficiency syndrome, more commonly an as AIDS."

That got him silence, but only a moment's worth. Then buzz became a roar. A whole new fusil ade of flashbulbs went off. Howard held up his hand, as much to protect his eyes as to ask to be al owed to go on.

finally, he could. "I do not yet have a cure," he said.

Setting off hysteria was the last thing he wanted to When reporters who had leaped to their feet sat down. Good, Howard thought: having ridden an emotional roller coaster in two sentences, maybe they would quite down now and listen.

He,said, "As you know, the HIV virus that causes AiDS attacks the body's immune system, specifically the white blood cells cal ed T-lymphocytes.

Without these cells to hit off infection, the body becomes vulnerable to opportunity diseases it would otherwise repel.

Eventually, one of them proves fatal to the patient.

At the Terminus Disease Research Center, we have created a drug we are cal ing an HIV inhibitor, or HIVI for short. In the laboratory, HIVI seems to help prevent the virus from gaining a foothold in the bodys l-cel s, strengthens the effectiveness of the antibodies the immure system produces to fight AIDS. Let me show you what we have achieved."

He gestured in the direction from which he had come, his hands shaping words almost everyone in the chamber fol owed as easily as speech: Out here. Now. A sturdy male sim emerged to join him at the podium.

"This is Matzo Howard said.

More flashbulbs popped. Matt lowered his head so they his heavy brow-ridges protected his eyes from the bursts of intolerable light.

"How do you feel, Matt?" Howard asked He signed the words as he spoke them, to make sure the sim would understand. I Feel good, Matt answered with his hands; like almost al sims, he found sign-talk much easier than true speech. "Matt feels good now," Howard said.

"Sadly, six month ago he was much less well." The doctor waved a hand and lights dimmed; a large screen dropped into place behind him and Matt. Howard waved again. At the far end of thin hal , a slide projector came on. The hall grew truly quiet at last. Into that silenced Howard said, "This was Matt six months ago." The sim on the slide was sadly different from the one who stood before the reporters in the flesh. The Federated Commonwealths, the world, had seen too many cases of AIDS for them to mistake this one. The image of the emaciated sim, his once , thick hair falling out in clumps all over his body, was vivid and a dreadful il ustration of why in Africa AIDS, was simply called "the slims." Howard went on, "Two days after that picture was taken Matt began receiving HIVI. Today, his T-cells are nearly normal, as are his immune responses. He does not know he still has AIDS."

Feel good, Matt signed again. The reporters could not stand it anymore.

"Why isn't it a cure, then?" one of them shouted.

"Because as I was about to say," Howard added pointy

"the AIDS virus is stil in Matt's bloodstream. He can still transmit it to others, other sims in his case, I suppose, in theory to humans as well, through sexual relations. if he stops receiving HIVI injections, the symptoms of course, will return. Now", he emphasized the word, "I will respond to questions." the frantically waving hands reminded him of stormtossed treetops. He chose one at random. "Yes, you in the row, with the blue ruffled tunic." how many sims have died of AIDS in the course of your experiments?" the man asked. Howard pursed his lips. He had expected questions of that sort. With the demonstrators marching outside the of the Popular Assembly, he would have been an idiot. But he had hoped not to have to deal with them so He should have listened to his colleagues down in Terminus, and planted a few people to ask the questions he wanted asked. He had always been headstrong, though. He thought could deal with anything. Now he'd have to. The program, to date, has seen the expiration of twenty sims," he answered steadily. His luck was not all bad. The reporter simply followed asking, "Wouldn't it have been better to use shimpanses than sims in your research?"

her than sims and men, shimpanses are the only resident in which the AIDS virus will grow,"

Howard akknowledged. "But there are several objections to their use in AIDS research. Most obvious, of course, is the fact that most of them must be caught wild in Africa and then shipped to the FCA.

That makes the supply uncertain and wsive, al the more so because of the growing instability in the African states as the AIDS epidemic debilitates in. Sims, being native to America, are easily available.

Were are also other reasons for preferring them to shimpanses.

Biologically, sims are much closer to humans shimpanses are: as we al know, mixed births between sims and humans are perfectly possible."

The reporters muttered in distaste. Everyone knew that but it was something seldom mentioned outside of dirty jokes.

Howard suspected there would be shocked gasps in living rooms al across the Federated Commonwealth talking about sex between people and sims was not standard television fare.

"Also, of course," the doctor finished, "sims have advantage of being able to report symptoms to us, somthing of which shimpanses are incapable." He pointed to another reporter. "Yes?"

"Isn't that part of the problem, Dr. Howard?" the she asked.

"How do you feel about deliberately subjecting twenty-eight intel igent creatures to the grim, lingering death AIDS brings?"

"I had hoped some of you might perhaps be interested in the success, or at least the partial success, of HIVI, rather than in the failures that preceded it," Howard said "I am, Dr.Howard," the reporter said,

"but that's not l question I asked."

Howard scowled out at the audience, but saw several nodding along with the reporter. If some of these people had their way, he thought with sudden hot anger that he did his best to conceal, he'd be lucky to be able to work shimpanses, let alone sims.

He chose his words with care; he had not come to Philadelphia to antagonize the press. "I always regret the death of any, ah, creatures in the laboratory but, particularly in the case of what is, as you say, a grim diseases as AIDS, I feel justified in doing whatever I must to people's lives."

"But sims, " the reporter persisted.

Howard cut him off. ", are not people. The law never regarded them as such. They are different from animals, true, but they are also very different from us.

sims in my research project were purchased with an appriation from the Senate for that express purpose. Everything I have done has been in accordance with all applicable regulations. And that is all I have to say on that; He looked toward another reporter.

"Yes?"

What is it that makes HIVI more effective against AIDS than er drugs?"

Howard nodded to her and smiled his thanks. At last, a sensable question.

"We're stil not entirely sure, Mistress, ah.. " Reynolds. " Mistress Reynolds, but we believe that the chief achievment has to do with the way HIVI interacts with the cel s outer membranes and strengthens them, making them more resistant to penetration by the AIDS virus. HIVI developed from, "

Round and round, round and round, Ken Dixon was sick of carrying his picket sign. He also did not like half the greencoats that were gathering in front of the Hall of Popular Assembly. He could not read their faces, not the mirrored visors on their helmets. But their body language said they were going to break up the demonstration soon.

Kil ing sims is murder he chanted. He'd been cal ing for a couple of hours now, since before Dr. Howard's conference convened. His throat felt sore and scratchy.

A man walking on the part of the sidewalk the demonstration wasn't using caught his eye. "Not under the law, it's not” he said. He looked prosperous and well-fed, nothing like a sim who'd been given AIDS on purpose.

Probably a lawyer himself, Dixon thought scornful y; Philly was lousy with them. While the chant went on Old the young man, he broke it to say, "The law is g e probable lawyer fell into step beside him.

"Why?" he "Sims aren't people. If using them will help us rid Ives of this terrible disease, why shouldn't we?" Dixon frowned. At the planning meeting for this protest, He'd worried out loud that people would say just what this this jumped up fellow was saying, that the threat of AIDS would let them justify the horror of the Terminus labs.

He'd been talked down then, and now gave back the reasoning the rest of the steering committee had used against him; "Howard's AIDS research is just a fragment of what were talking about here. If you al ow it, you set a precedent fame al owing all the other cruelty that sims have suffered since people first came to America: everything from working them to death on farms and in mines to hunting them and kil ing them for sport." He screwed up his face to show what he thought of that kind of sport. "Sims were here," the plump man shrugged. "We use them to do the work we didn't care to do for ourselves. stil do. why not?" The man's question grated on Dixon all over again, he thought before he answered; the fellow was not a fooll "In the old days we needed them, I admit. I'm not saying what we did then was right, far from it, but it understandable. It isn't anymore, not with machines to do sim-work, and do it better, Easter, and cheaper than sims

"You'd send them al to the preserves, then?" "That would be the ideal solution," Dixon said, seriously. Most of the people marching with him would given the plump man a yes at once. Three big track’s of land, together they were as large as a fair-sized commonwealth state, one in the Rockies, one on the plains, and one in the northwest woods, gave wild sims and their way of life a last stronghold in the FCA.

Trouble was, even a smal band of wild sims needed a large territory on which to forage. There wasn't enough land to accommodate the subhumans who now lived in civilized country, even assuming they wanted to trade modern lives for ones like those of their ancestors. "And in this not-so-ideal world?" the plump man asked All his raised eyebrow telling Dixon he knew all the objections that had popped into the demonstrator's mind. "As much freedom as they can handle," Dixon said. He jerked his chin at the Hall of the Popular Assembly. "at least freedom from being made into lab animals because they're too much like us."

That eyebrow, damn it, climbed higher. "'As much freedom as they can handle,' " the plump man echoed. "I –can’t imagine a more dangerous gift, for either the sims or the people who give it to them." His eyes followed Dixon's stubborn chin to the portico of the Hal . Someone was handing the greencoat chief a rolled-up piece of paper. The fellow resumed, "I would say, for example, that our esttemed constabulary has just been granted al the freedom they can handle."

“Yes," Dixon said unhappily. He knew a writ when he the. Somebody on the committee had fouled up; the side was supposed to keep the greencoats off people's backs until the protest broke up by itself.

He turned to say that to the man who'd been walking him. The fellow wasn't there anymore. Dixon spotted him walking purposefully down the street in the direction he’d been going before he fell in with the demonstration. In the plump man's perspective, that made good sense. He was tempted to disappear himself.

The greencoat chief put a hailer to his mouth. The static belched from it as he turned it on made everybody look ray who hadn't already.

One of his assistants ceremonously unrolled the writ.

'h-oh, trouble," Melody Porter said from in front of them. They'd been in a lot of the same classes at the Philadelphia Collegium since they were both freshmen four years now, he thought, bemused. They'd been to lots of demonstrations together, too. Melody was even more Strongly committed to justice for sims than he was. She came by it honestly; she was the great-great-grandaughter of Henry Quick, the trapper who'd really founded the sim justice movement.

Kiln an altogether different vein, Dixon thought marching with her was one of the things that made protests while.

After a few more seconds of fumbling, the boss greencoat got the hailer working. His aide handed him the paper. "Pro bono publico," he intoned, his amplified voice filling the square with formality. Dixon wonderes how many horrors had been perpetrated "for the publi "Pro bono publico," the greencoat repeated for the sake of the record and for the benefit of everyone this side a complete nerve-dead deafness. Then he got down to business:

"A court has declared this rally a danger to public order.

Those who do not disperse in the next five minute will be liable to arrest."

His blunt demand jerked the protesters out of thei chant. People shouted back at the greencoat: "We're peaceable! Why aren't you?"

"Can't stand to hear the truth, eh. And a cry that started a new chant:

"Justice for sims, and for people tool" Even so, Dixon noticed that the marcher’s picket signs, which had been steady, began to jerk as if pelted by hailstones.

People were having second thought Few were leaving, though.

The officer with the hailer knew his job. He kept the pressure on, loudly announcing each minute as it went by. The greencoats shook themselves out into a skirmish lin "Time's up," the chief announced.

The line moveed forward. Dixon took off his spectacles and stuck them In the hip pocket of his breeches.

Sometimes these affairs stayed polite, sometimes they didn't. The world turned blurry A greencoat emerged out of the blur. He was carrying a club. His voice conversational, matter-of-fact, he ask Dixon, "You going to take off, kid?"

Before he answered, he heard Melody loudly say "No"to what had to be the same question. That kil ed the few shreds of hesitation he had left. "No," he said, trying to I sound as firm as Melody had.

The greencoat only shrugged. "I arrest you, then, constituting a danger to public order." Formal langu done, he went on, "Come along quietly?"

"Sure."

"Al right, then. put down your sign, you won't get extra trash-strewing charge on account of it." Dixon did.

He fit his spectacles back on. The greencoat waited till he was done, then gave him a light shove. "Over that way, me boyo." He sounded more bored than anything else Dixon thought, a little resentfully. Justice for sims was too important to be handled as part of someone's routine.

Even with his spectacles, Dixon did not see what went wrong. Maybe a protester whacked a greencoat with a picket n. Maybe a greencoat thought one was going to, and swung first. Maybe a greencoat swung first for the hell of it.

However it happened, it happened fast. What had been a peaceful process turned ugly all at once. Demonstrators swung greencoats, and pushed them away when they tried to arrest them. Like the genie in the legend, once violence was of the bottle, it did not want to go back in.

She greencoat who was urging Ken Dixon along sudl y pushed him in the back, hard. He went down to his knees. His careful y replaced spectacles flew off his nose. He heard a crunch as a greencoat running toward the wing fight smashed them with his boot.

Melody screamed as she got the same treatment he just got. "Leave her alone!" he shouted. He tried to get to his feet to go help her.

A club exploded against the side of his head. He went down. He tried to get up again, but his legs didn't want to what he told them.

He had made it to al fours when a greencoat landed on him, knocking him down again.

"You're not going anywhere!" the greencoat bawled in his ear. It was his greencoat; he recognized the voice. He was irrationally pleased he was able to recognize anything.

The greencoat yanked his arms out from under him. His face in hit the pavement. The greencoat jerked his arms behind his back clapped manacles on his wrists. He had thought the roaring pain in his head left him immune to hurts. The bite of the manacles' metal teeth convinced otherwise in a hurry.

come on, you stinking sim-lover!" the gleencoat muted. He hauled Dixon to his feet, frog-marching him toward a constabulary motorcoach. Two more greencoats were waiting at the steps. They grabbed him, flung him inside.

He almost fel over somebody inside the motorcoach moment later, somebody almost fell over him Crawling with his hands locked behind him was almost lmpossible. Because he had to, he managed to lurch his way up or one of the motorcoach's hard, comfortless seats.

"Are you all right, Ken?" He hadn't even seen Melody the seat in front of him. Concern in her voice, she went on

"You're bleeding."

"I suppose so," he said vaguely; he felt something warm' and wet trickling down his cheek and jaw. He leaned head against the bar-reinforced glass of the window. Then he looked at Melody again.

Above one ear, blood matted her short, sandy hair. "So are you."

"I know." Despite the blow she'd taken, she stil had wits about her, and she was furious. "The bastard groped me, too when he was wrestling with me to get the manacle on. I Clawed him pretty good, I think, before he managed to."

"Good for you." Dixon leaned against the window again; talking and thinking hurt. Someone sat down beside him. He hardly noticed. He was watching the greens finish off the demonstration.

Protesters outnumbered constables, but the contest was never in doubt.

The demonstratars hesitated before they fought, and when they did it by ones and twos. The greencoats did not hesitate at al , and worked together. A few demonstrators managed to get away most were seized and hauled off to the motorcoaches.

"Maybe it's for the best," Melody said. "This way our side of the message is sure to reach the television tonight, along with Dr.

Howard's rationalizations."

"Maybe," was al Dixon could manage. After a while the greencoats slammed the motorcoach's doors shut. its engine roared to life. It rattled through the streets of Philadelpha toward the lockup.

The two sims separated. Matt lay back on the bed it was the one called Jane, Dr. Howard saw when she turned her face toward the monitor camera—she stayed on hands and knees beside him.

After a surprisingly short time, Matt's vigor returned. He got behind her and fel to it.

Don't they ever quite" a technician asked, pointing at creen. A whole bank of monitors let the investigators at Disease Research Center watch the sims they studied out disturbing them.

What else do they have to do?" Howard asked. "They not likely to sit around reading books, you know."

The technician laughed, but persisted. "This is the third time they've been at it today, and it's only", he glanced at locket watch, "a little past two."

Seward shrugged. "Weren't you ever a randy eighteenold? That's what Matt is, or the equivalent. Sims age a faster than we do, so he's probably about at his peak at fourteen. And up until not so long ago he was deathly ill, so I dare say he's making up for lost time too."

Ok, maybe," the technician said. Howard walked we row of television screens to check on some of the sims at the DRC. The technician muttered under his breath, "No way I could have gone that hard, even when I eighteen, especial y if my girl was that ugly."

Seward knew he was not supposed to hear, but turned anyway. "Jane looks as good to Matt as the lead in as in Love does to you."

That's his problem," the technician retorted. Howard he had a picture of that particular blonde taped above jsk.

Il"I'm glad he has his urge back,'

“the effectiveness of the HIVI in returning him to health."

Fnost," the technician reminded him. "What I'm glad is that Jane already carries the AIDS virus too, because no matter how good Matt feels, he's still got the virus in his blood and he can still spread it, right?"

Yes," Howard said reluctantly. "That's the main draw back to HIVI at the moment: it can let carriers transmit AIDS, giving it to people who will pass it on in turn."

"In some ways, you know, that strikes me as worse than no cure at al ," the technician said. Howard wished the man would shut up and let him get away. He was putting his finger on just the problem that most worried the doctor. Luckily, it had not occurred to any of the reporters in Philadelphia, or a triumphant conference might have turned embarrassing in a blurr who he was, though, Howard could not sir or shove the comment aside. He paused to pick his words with care. "It depends. As far as checking the epidemic goes, I suppose you're right.

But if my blood test had just come, back positive, I'd scream bloody murder if somebody said I couldn't have HIVI."

"I can't argue with you there," the technician admitted and the doctor took advantage of the moment of agree A fresh batch of calc printouts was on his desk: ana of the effectiveness of a variant of HIVI at restoring immune system and protecting T-cells. The variant was good as the basic drug. Howard made a note to a begin writing up the new datum to somebody so it could get it in print. Negative information was information too some other lab would not have to waste time checking the new subtype.

It wouldn't be the sort of publication a news confrences accompanied, though.

Howard put his head in his hands. He wished he'd never called the bloody conference in the first place. That riot, exactly the word for it: dozens of people had been hurt what turned into a riot outside the Hall of the Popular Assembly. Censor Bryan had cal ed for an investigation into the way the constabulary handled it, and Censor ken had promptly vetoed the cal . It was the worst falling out the two chief executives had had in their term.

Howard did not care about that; politics meant nothing to him. He cared very much about what hurt people, that he known the protest outside would cause so many of fights, he never would have gone to Philadelphia. He sat up straight. No, that wasn't true. AIDS hurt more people than riots ever would. The only way to fight it was with research. Research took denaires, lots of them, and the only way to latch on to them was by shouting every piece of press, even one as ambiguous as HIVI, to the housetops the intercom buzzed.

He jumped, and was glad no one was with him to see it. "Mr. Tanaka is here to see you, sir," secretary said.

'Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Doris. Send him in." Howard ran fingers through his thick brown hair. Joseph Tanaka had no official standing, but he had been friends of Censor Jennings since they were at middle school ether. "Jennings's eyes," the papers called him these days.

Doris opened the door for Tanaka. Howard rose to shake hand.

He had a strong grip, and looked a few years younger in person than in photos, he was, of course exactly the censor's age. His sturdy, middle-aged features somehow went well with the conservative velvet jacket and maroon ruffled shirt he wore. 'Good of you to take time from your busy schedule, Dr. Howard." Tanaka's voice was deep, almost gravelly, his manner straightforward."

'A pleasure." Howard waved to a chair. "Won't you sit " sanaka did not. "I was hoping you'd show me around In."

Certainly." Straightforward indeed, Howard thought.

'Follow me, then." He gave Tanaka a quick tour of the laboratories, ending with the bank of screens that , monitored the infected sims. The technician, fortunately had sense enough to keep his mouth shut. When they were back in Howard's office, Tanaka did at Iast take a seat. "Most interesting," he said, steepling his fingers,

"especially the sims' quarters. I must say, you treat sims well."

'Certainly we do," Howard said. "For one example, they eat the same food as our staff buys at the cafeteria we passed through. "

Tanaka gave a wry chuckle. "From what I know of cafeterias, that's not necessarily a recommendation. Still, l, see your point. You do well by the sims, as I said already." . He turned serious again. "Of course, you've also given , them AIDS."

"Mr. Tanaka," Howard said stiffly,"this research program operates under laws passed by the Popular Assembly with funds appropriated by the Senate.

Neither censor saw fit to affix his veto to the laws of the appropriation.

as you know, I am conforming to them in every particular."

"I do not doubt that for a moment, Dr. Howard, What I've come to see is the result of that conforming. After al , though they are not human beings, sims do have their own smal er measure of intelligence, and they did not consent to be experimented on."

Appalled, Howard burst out, "A sim cannot give informed consent!

That's a fundamental principle of lawns, "Not quite what I meant,"

Tanaka said. "I doubt the sim is eager to die, though, of a disease they almost certanly would not have contracted in the normal course of their lives. Many people not usually supportive of the sim justice movement, " He paused to let Howard make some uncomplimentary remark, but the doctor stayed quiet. Shrugg I Tanaka went on, ", still have qualms at their being finfected with AIDS." Howard had dealt with officials for years, and had no trouble translating what they said into what they ment. Tanaka was talking about votes. The doctor took a moment to make sure his reply informed without antagonising "They also have qualms, Mr.

Tanaka, about being ill themselves and two or three million of them have been those, somewhere around a third, maybe more, as it goes by, will actually develop AIDS. And just about al those will die, very unpleasantly. The people who still have symptoms are just as able to pass it on through sex as ones who do, more able because the ones without.

Sims give me my best chance of fighting it, in people. How can I do anything but use them?"

What would you do if there were no sims?" Tanaka asked after thinking a few seconds himself.

the best l could," Howard answered. "Muddle along shimpanses and a lot of in vitro work, I suppose. It wouldn't be the same. I think you've seen that here. A lot people would die while I, and a lot of other reseachers using sims, don't forget, struggled to translate answers we eventually got into clinical terms. We don't that problem with sims.

Their biochemistry is almost identical to ours."

Tanaka nodded and rose, showing the meeting was done.

He stuck out his hand. "Thank you very much, Dr. You've been most interesting."

Have l? I'm glad. What will you tell Censor Jennings, Tanaka blinked.

"You're very forthright."

'I'm concerned about my program, sir."

Reluctantly, Dr. Howard, I have to say you needn't be. I think the Censor will be happy when I tell him that, you've made your points well. you also might have given me another answer to my question just now, in which case I would have said something different to Censor Jennings."

Honestly puzzled, Howard asked, "What might I have said”

“When I asked what you'd do without sims, you might have suggested going on with human defectives."

The doctor felt his face freeze. "Good day, Mr. Tanaka.

Doris I am certain, will show you out." He sat down.

“I understand your reaction, Dr. Howard. As I said, you I the test nicely. The idea revolts me quite as much as you, I assure you. But I had to know."

“Good day," Howard repeated, unmollified. Nodding, he left. Howard was so filled with Fury that he did not whether he had hurt the DRC

political y. He did not think he had Tanaka plainly felt as he did.

He was also, he realized, furious at himself, and took a long while to figure out why. When he did, he wished he hadn't. If there were no sims, who could say what he might do to take a crack at AIDS. And who could say whether he would be able to look at himself in a mirror afterwards? He was not grateful to Tanaka for showing him a part of himself he would sooner have left unseen.

He got very little work done the rest of the day.

The air waggon pulled slowly to a stop outside Terminus. When it was not moving anymore, a steward opened the door. Ken Dixon got his shoulder bag out from under his seat, worked his way up the aisle.

"Thanks for breaking thee trail for me," Melody Porter said from behind him.

"My pleasure," he said, adding "Oaf " a moment later al another passenger stuck an accidental elbow in his bel y. He turned his head back toward Melody. "You'll forgive me it I omit the gallant bow."

"This once," she said graciously. He snorted.

"Have a pleasant stay in Terminus," the steward said as Dixon walked by, and then again to Melody. They walked out of the air waggon's cooled air and into the furious muggy heat of a Terminus August afternoon

"What's the matter?"

Melody asked when Dixon suddenly stopped halfway down the descent ladder. In less polite voices, passengers behind them asked the same thing.

"Sorry. My spectacles just steamed up." Dixon took them off his nose, peered at them in nearsighted wonder, and stuck them in his hip pocket.

Holding tightly to the rail, hat went carefully down the rest of the ladder. Once down on the ground, he was relieved to discover that the fog dissipated as his spectacles reached the same sweltering temperature as their surroundings. He put theg back on. When they went inside the cooled station building he let out a blissful sigh.

Melody echoed him, adding, "Philadelphia summer is bad, but this, "

walking left him covered with a sweaty film. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Through the station building's broad sweep of plate glass, he and Melody watched a human boss supervise the gang of sims that was loading baggage from the air waggon onto carts. He shook his head. "The seventeenth century, alive and well in the twentieth," he said scornfully.

"Wel ," someone with an amused voice said at his elbow, "you sound like the chap I'm looking for. Look like him too," the young man added.

He looked the way the Philadelphia committee said he would: a tal man with a good many blacks in his ancestry who wore a thick mustache.

"You're Patrick?" Dixon asked, as he had been told to do.

"Sorry, no. Stephen's the name," the fel ow said. They nodded at each other. Amateurs' games, Dixon thought, but good enough, he hoped, for the moment. Later, later was another matter. He put it aside.

"Here comes the luggage." Melody had been watching the sims tossing bags onto the conveyor belt.

They walked over to it. Stephen nudged Dixon. "Is she real y the one who's his great-granddaughter?" he whispered, not wanting her to hear.

"Great-great, yeah."

"Whoa." The respect in Stephen's voice and eyes was just this side of awe.

Dixon's lingering doubts cleared up. No infiltrator could be that impressed over her ancestry

He and Melody had boarded the air waggon early; their bags, naturally, were among the last ones out, having been put aboared beneath everyone else's. "So much for efficiency," Melody sighed when she had hers. Dixon's finally appeared couple of minutes after that.

"Come on," Stephen said. He led them to an omnibus with PEACHTREE

STREET on the destination placard. It roared off, a little more than half full, about ten minutes later. It was, Dixon discovered thankful y, cooled.

Stephen rose from his seat at a stop on Peachtree Street, in the midst of a neighborhood with many more apartment blocks than private houses. Dixon thought himself ready for the blast of heat that would greet him when he got off the omnibus, and was almost right.

"The collegium is over there," Stephen said, pointing west- Dixon could see a couple of tal buildings over the tops of the apartments. "In this neighborhood, no one will , pay any attention to you; everybody will figure you're just a couple of new students here for the start of fal term."

"Good," Melody said briskly. She turned around, trying to orient herself. "Where's the DRC from here? That way?"

Stephen gave her a respectful glance. "Yes, northwest of here, maybe three or four miles."

she said again. "We'll be staying with you, I gather, until we get down to business?"

"That's right. People float in and out of my cube all the time; the landlord's used to it. As long as he gets paid on the first of every month and nobody screams too loud, he doesn't care. Half the cubes in his block are like that."

Stephen started walking down the street. "Come on. It's this , way."

Following, Dixon asked, "How alert are they likely to be at the DRC?"

"Not very, I hope. Since the word came down from Philadelphia that this was going to happen, Terminus hasn't heard much from us about justice for sims. We've been quiet, just letting everybody relax and think we've forgotten what we're for."

"Outstanding," Dixon said. "If they were alert, either this wouldn't work at al or a lot of people might end up hurt on account of us, which wouldn't do the cause any good."

"Not Stephen agreed. "But we have made the two connections we'll need most: one in the calc department, the other in food services."

"The calc department I can see, but why food services." Stephen told him why. He grinned. Melody laughed out loud.

Stephen turned off the street, lead them into an apartrnent block and up three flights of stairs. By the time they got to the fourth floor, Dixon was sweating for reasons that had nothing to do with Terminus's climate. "My arms'll be as long as a shimpanse's if I have to carry these bags one more flight," he complained.

"You don't. We're here." Stephen had his key out and opened the door to his cube. "Here, this will help." He turned on the cooler.

Nodding gratefully, Dixon set down his bags and shut the door behind him and Melody.

The cube was not big; the luggage Dixon had dropped nd the two bedrolls on the floor effectively swallowed the living room. A table covered with what looked like floor Plans was shoved into one corner.

Melody made a beeline for that. Dixon was content just to stand and rest for a minute.

Stephen handed him a glass of iced coffee. He gulped it down fast enough to make his sinuses hurt. "Thanks," he said, squeezing his eyes shut to try to make the pain go away.

"No problem." Stephens eyes traveled to the bedrolls. He lowered his voice a little. "I don't know what kind of arangement the two of you have, but I'm not here all the time. " Dixon looked at Melody, who was engrossed in architectural drawings. "I don't quite know either,"

he said, also quietly. "I was sort of hoping this trip would let me find out.

"Like that, eh Al right. Like I said, I'll be gone a lot. I expect you'll have the chance to learn."

"Chance to learn what?" Melody looked up from the floor plans, beckoned.

"Come over here, the two of you. Stephen, just how much support can we count on from your people here? If we can put folks in a couple of places at the same time, we may actually bring this off. If I read this right, we can get in and out here pretty fast."

They bent over the plans together.

The night guard's footsteps echoed down the quiet hal way.

Except for him, it was empty. He was sleepy and bored. He turned a corner. Gray light from the bank of monitors lit the corridor ahead.

The night technician was leaning back in his swivel chair, reading a paperback. He looked bored he too.

"Hello, Edward," the guard said. "Slow here tonight."

"Isn't it, though, Lloyd?" The technician put the bookdown on his thigh, open, so he could keep his place. "Place is like a morgue when the computers go haywire everybody packs it in and goes home early."

Lloyd nodded, not quite happily. "Getting so no one can think anymore without the damn gadgets to help 'em." He glanced at the screens.

"That's something sims don't have to worry about."

"Just swive and sleep and eat," Edward agreed. "It could be worse."

Then, because he was a fair-minded man, he added, "A lot of times it is, especially when the new drugs go thumbs-down."

"AIDS." Like everyone else at the DRC, the guard made it a swear word.

"How's he doing?"

Having been-free of symptoms for eight months now on HIVI, Matt was a being to conjure with in these halls.

Everyone worried over him. The technician perfectly understood Lloyd's concern. "He's fine, just worn out from the females again."

"Good." Lloyd yawned til the hinge of his jaw cracked like a knuckle.

His eyes shifted from the monitors to a coffeepot on a hot plate. "I need another cup of that."

"I'l join you." Edward got up and poured for both of them.

"Thanks." The guard sipped. He made a face. "Give me some sugar, will you? It's bitter tonight tastes like it's been sitting in the pot for a week." "It is viler than usual, isn't it." The technician added cream and sugar to his own brew.

Lloyd finished, tossed his cup at a trash can under the coffeepot.

He missed, muttered to himself, and bent to pick up the cup. Then he ambled down the hal .

He yawned again, even wider than before. He glared back ward the technician's station. The coffee hadn't done him uch good, had its He put a hand on the wall of the corridor. For some reason, he did not feel very steady on his feet. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself sliding to the tile floor. He opened his mouth to call for help. Only a snore came out.

In front of the monitors, the technician lol ed in his chair, his head thrown back bonelessly. The paperback lay under the swivel chair's wheels, where it had fallen. Its cover was bent.

Terminus night was as hot as Terminus day, with the added pleasure of mosquitoes. Crouched on the wide lawn outside the DRC complex, Dixon was trying to keep his swearing to whispers as he slapped at bugs.

"When do we go?" he asked the fourth time, like a smal child impatient to set out One of the lighted windows in the big building went dark for a moment, then lit again. "Now," Melody said at last "Good luck to all of us." people rose and ran forward, their feet scuffling softly on the grass. Automatic doors hissed open, leading into a passage that bent sharply. Out of sight from outside was a guard station. A guard slept in the chair; a cup of coffee d spil ed on the desk in front of him.

The fluorescent lights overhead made Stephen's teeth gleam whitely as he grinned. "Food services," he said. Also grinning, Dixon nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

"We split here," Melody declared, refusing to be distracted even for a moment. "Stephen, your group goes that way, toward elevator B.

Bring back as much HIVI and syringes and needles as you can get your hands on."

Right." He and two other young men dashed away."

"Out of here in fifteen minutes, or you get left behind," Melody called after them. Then she turned to Dixon and the young woman with him, whom they knew only as Deli "Now we head up ourselves and get Matt."

The elevators right across from the guard station went to the sim ward. Dixon thumbed the UP button. A door whooshed open. The three raiders, no, liberators, Dixon thought, crowded in.

He hit 4 a moment before Melody got it on the of panel. The door closed. Acceleration pressed against the soles of his shoes.

The door opened again. "How convenient," Melody said as they tumbled out; the bank of monitor screens was in the same position on floor as the guard station on ground floor. The man in the chair in front of them was solidly out as the guard down below.

"Good, the screens have room numbers on them. The the one thing I wasn't sure of," Dixon said. "Is that Matt "Let's see," Melody said, coming up beside him following his pointing finger. "Yes, that's him.

Room I42 is it? Let's go."

NO ENTRY WITHOUT AUTHORIZED ACCOMPANIST : read a large sign above closed double doors. Dixon tried them. They were locked. "Figured as much,"

he said.

He stepped aside. "Al yours, Dee."

She didn't speak; she never said much, as far as Dixon could tell.

she was a locksmith by trade, though, and carried a set of picks on her belt. Her motions were quick and sure. In less than a minute, she had the doors open "Come on," she said.

They went quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping sims but Matt. "I42.B," Melody said, stoped Dee took a step toward the door, but Melody was therer trying it. Melody raised a hand in triumph, like a cricket player after a century.

Matt woke to the sound of the opening door. His mouth fell open in surprise when he saw three strange humans coming in. Who? he signed.

What?

"Henry Quick was my great-great-grandfather," said a voice hardly above a whisper. Her fingers echoed the words. depressed or interested.

Dixon shook his head in wonder; he had lost track of how many times he had seen that reaction when Melody said

who she was. Somehow all sims everywhere knew that Henry Quick had been the first man to worked to give them justice.

That? Matt signed again. Why you here? , "To make you free," Dixon said. As Melody had, as the did who communicated with sims, he repeated his in words with sign-talk. "Come with us. Do you want to spend the rest of your life cooped up in here?"

Matt shrugged. Food good. Females here. Feel good now.

Not sick.

Nixon scowled. That wasn't the answer he was looking Melody asked quietly, "Do you want to be sick again?

you probably will, if you stay here. Do you remember what is like when you were sick?" the question was not quite theoretical; like very young children, sims often let the past recede quickly. But Dixon thought that what Matt had undergone was not something he would easily forget. The sims nostrils flared in alarm his brow-ridges, his eyes went wide. No! he signed vermhemently shook his head. He climbed off the bed. i with you.

Good," Dee said. she turned and started down the hal . Ly and Matt followed. Dixon came with them later, after leaving a souvenir on the bed to give Dr. Howard something to think about .

They hurried out through the double doors. Dee locked it again. This time, riding the elevator made Dixon feel light.

It!" Matt said again when they were in the lobby. He lot the unconscious guard there, signed, Not to be at's what he thought," Dixon said. Matt looked at I confusion. "Never mind. Come on." dadled out of the DRC and ran toward one of the horselesses parked on the roadway close to the edge. It was not, strictly speaking, a legal place to park, but traffic regulations were not likely to be enforced in the wee small hours. One of the horselesses sped off. As it passed under a street lamp, Dixon saw it was crowded with people.

Triumph-flared in him. "They must have got the HIVI! And Welt got Matt!" The driver of the remaining horseless threw open the door across from him. In, Melody signed to Matt. She, Dixon, and Dee came piling after the sim. No sooner had Dee slammed the door than the driver roared away from the Dixon started to say something to the sim, but before he could, Melody leaned over and kissed him for a long time.

When she finally let Dixon go, by some miracle he remembered what he had been about to tell Matt: "free! You're free at last!" , That got him kissed again, which was, he though dizzily, a long way from bad. I "

'Free,' " Dr. Peter Howard read. It was the last word of the pamphlet on Matt's bed, printed twice as big and black as any of the others. In Howard's mouth, it sounded obscene Normal y among the most self-controlled of men, he savagely crumpled the pamphlet and flung it to the floor. The security officer who picked it up gave him a reproachful look.

"There might have been useful evidence there, doctor."

"Oh, shut up," Howard snarled. "Where the hell were you people when this sim was stolen? Asleep on the job, that's where "The guards were drugged, Dr. Howard," the securitying man corrected stiffly.

"Our investigation into that part the affair is just beginning."

"Wonderful." Howard turned away. Slowly, clumsily, he made his way down the hal . Getting out of the way of other people seemed more trouble than it was worth. It's as if I were one of the walking wounded, he thought then realized, a moment later, I am.

He used the flat broad expanse of walnut as a fortress wall to hold the outside world outside. In a bigger sense, he had used the whole DRC the same way. Well, the outside world had Unfaded with a vengeance.

And with such stupidity, he thought, filled with rage that was al the more consuming for having no outlet. He had only skimmed the pamphlet the thieves left behind to explain their handiwork, but he had seen and heard the phrases there often enough over the years.

His fists clenched till nails bit into flesh. At the pain, he opened them again; no matter how furious he was, he stayed careful about his hands. But it was not, was not, was not his fault that sims were as they were. In earlier days, he knew, people had thought other races of people to be inferior breeds. Sims did that much, at least, to stop man's inhumanity to man, by showing what an inferior breed was like. A security man stuck his head into the office, breaking Howard's chain of thought. "Outside greencoats are here to l see you, sir," he said.

"Send them in," Howard sighed. Normal y, Terminus's regular constabulary stayed away from the DRC. Normally, Howard thought, he would not get to use that word again any time soon.

No sooner had the greencoat, actually, the fellow was in ordinary clothes, blue breeches and a yellow tunic, come in than the phone chimed.

"Excuse me," Howard said, thinking, everything happens at once. The greencoat nodded.

Howard picked up the phone. An excited voice said in his ear, "This is Butler, at the Terminus Constitution.

I’ve had a report that a sim with AIDS has been taken out of the Disease Research Center, Hello? Is that you, Dr. Howard? Are you there?"

“l'm here," Howard said. No point in breaking the conection. Like the greencoat in his office, this Butler was only the first of many.

Matt was confused. Dealing with people often left him feeling that way, but he had lived in his old home in the tower for a long time, and mostly knew what to expect.

With these new people, he had no idea what was coming next.

Shaking his head, he got out of bed, the third new, strange, not quite comfortable bed he'd had in as many nights, and used the toilet.

He had to strain to make the urine go through his penis, which was stiff with a morning erection. Stiffer than usual, even; he missed the females with whom he'd been living.

He flushed the toilet, sat down on it to comb his red brown hair.

That was another reason he missed the females: there was a big patch on his back that he could not reach. In the towers, sims by twos and threes would speed a lot of time combing each other all over. It was something to do.

He sniffed, and felt his broad nostrils expand with pleasure.

Breakfast was cooking, sausages today, from the smell. He liked sausages.

He went out to the kitchen. The man and woman who had taken him from the tower were there, along with the strange man and woman whose house this was. They we al drinking coffee. They looked up as he came in.

Good morning, he signed.

"Good morning," the people replied, with mouths a hands. "Help yourself," added the woman who lived here. Emily was her name, Matt remembered.

He nodded his thanks. Along with the sausages were sweet rolls and slices of apple. He fil ed his plate, took a glass of water (he did not care for coffee).

Behind him, Emily's mate Isaac whistled and said,' "Certainly nothing wrong with his appetite now."

"We've noticed that," replied Ken, one of the ones who had taken him away. "Hope it won't put you to too much trouble. "

"Don't worry," Isaac said.

Matt sat down at the table and started to eat. Were proud to help keep him out of the DRC, folks, and taking him was a grand gesture. But do you know what you'll do with him in the end?"

"We were thinking of getting him to one of the preserves and setting him loose there," Ken said, "but, " His voice wailed away.

"With the AIDS virus still in him, we can't do that, " Melody finished for him. "Not without spreading AIDS among the wild sims."

People often talked around sims as if they could not understand spoken words because they could not say them. Watt put down his fork so he could sign, Feel good.

"We know you do, Matt," Melody said gently, touching his hand for a moment with her small hairless one. "But no matter how good you feel, you aren't well. The sickness is inside you."

She and Ken had said that before. It made no sense to Matt. If he did not feel sick, how could he be sick? Feel good, he repeated.

He watched the humans roll their eyes and shrug. He shrugged too.

"There's another problem," Ken added. "He'll feel well only as long as we have HIVI for him." He looked down at his hands. "Maybe we should have thought a little longer about that, for his sake."

We did the best we could," Melody said. "He's out now. they can't do any more experimenting on him. He's free, for as long as we can keep him that way."

Matt had heard almost identical talk every day since he left the towers. It was about him, he knew, but it did not fil to connect to him.

Then Isaac said something new: "I don't think we can keep him free. We can keep him away from the doctors, sure, but only he can make himself free."

Dixon scowled; Melody rose abruptly from the table. I'II be taking off soon, I think." Even Matt, who did not use speech himself, could hear the anger in her voice.

He ate another sausage. Free was one of the many words they used that gave him trouble. Ideas like bread or cat or green or jump or sideways were easy enough to deal with. He could even count, though sometimes he had trouble remembering which number went with how many things or whether he had attached a number to each of the things in the group he happened to be counting.

But he could not eat free or see it or do it. The closest he could come to it in his own mind was do whatever I want. Right now he was ful and felt well. He wouldn't have minded coupling, but Ken and Melody had taken him away to from his females and he found human women ugly. Still, he was reasonably content. Did that make him free?

He didn't know.

"Come on, Matt," Melody said. "We have to get moving. We've imposed on these good people quite enough, thats obvious." She walked out of the kitchen.

"Don't take it that way, Melody," Emily said. "Isaac just, "

"Never mind," Ken said, before anyone else could talk. "You put us up for the night, and we're grateful. We all share wanting to make things better for sims, and that's enough, isn't it?"

Nobody said anything. Matt wondered what the answer to the question was. In the towers, people had wanted answers to questions all the time, and were upset when they didn't get them. But Ken and Melody and Isaac and Emily were just leaving this one lying around.

Matt shook his head at the vagaries of people.

Melody came back wearing rubber gloves and Carrying razor and a syringe.

"Give me your arm, Matt," she said Not need, he protested. Feel good.

He had said the same thing back in the towers, and the same success with it: none. "Give me your arm,' Melody repeated. "You want to keep feeling good, don't you?"

He nodded resignedly and held out his right arm. The hair on its underside had been shaved a few days before he left the tower, but it was growing in again. The razor scraped it away, leaving a long, narrow stretch of pinkish skin exposed. Now Melody could see exactly where to put the needle.

Matt's lips skinned back from his teeth in a grimace of pain. The people in the towers were much better at using syringe. They hardly hurt him at all. Finally, the ordeal ras done. Melody left the syringe on the table. "Boil it or put it in a glass ful of bleach before you throw it away," she said to Emily and Isaac. "Make sure you get rid of that virus."

Not sick, nothing wrong, Matt signed, adding a moment latter, But arm hurts.

"We're glad you feel all right," Melody said, smiling in a way.that made her seem more appealing to Matt than she had before, "but the virus is still in your blood. We don't want to take any risk of its spreading."

Matt sighed. The people in the tower had talked that way to, but it made no sense to him. Blood is blood, he signed.

"Never mind," Ken said again. "Let's get going."

Matt accompanied him and Melody out to the horseless out front of Emily's and Isaac's house. Isaac stayed behind.

Emily waved from the porch. The morning sun glinted off a gold front tooth.

Ken started the horseless. He and Melody shared the front seat; Matt had the back to himself. "Springfield?" Ken asked as he pulled out into traffic.

"Springfield," Melody agreed. "I've got the town map here.

We won't need that for a few hours," he said. "All I need worry about now is finding my way to via LXVI eastbound."

Matt listened to the two people with half an ear at best. he watched houses, trees, open spaces go by. That wasn't very interesting, either.

He'd done too much of it already, the last few days. After a while, one house, one tree, one open space looked like another. If anything could be more boring for him than traveling in a horseless, he had no idea ,.. what it was.

His eyes tried to glaze, but even that was denied him; it was too early in the day for him to fall asleep. He played With his fingers for a bit. That soon palled. He started to stroke himself, then stopped. For some reason, he knew people did not like anyone doing that out in the open.

He started to sing instead. His song had no words; tongue and lips could not shape them. But the hoots a grunts he let out in their place had rhythm of a sort, rhythm he made plainer by pounding on his thighs withe palm of his hands. His head bobbed happily. As far he was concerned it was a fine song.

He was the only one who thought so. Before very long Ken burst out,

"Wil you please stop that infernal racket Matt subsided; he was used to obeying people. But he was not pleased about it this time. He held up his hands so they could see them in the mirror. Like my song, he signed grumpily.

"Is that what you call it?" Ken said. "I don't."

Matt held up his hands again. Not free to sing? he asked Not freed Ken almost drove off the road. "Watch where you going," Melody exclaimed. "What's the matter with you! Ken told her what the matter was; she laughed and laughed She turned round in her seat so she could sign with Matt as well as speak to him. "sing all you like."

He opened his mouth to begin again, then paused. Why laugh he asked.

"Because, because, " Melody stopped, finally, "Because we do want to help sims be free, but it surprised us to have a sim, you, use the word to us."

Matt made an uncertain noise deep in his throat. It didn't seem very funny to him. He gave up and started sing again. Ken made a noise remarkably similar to his, but he didn't say anything.

They got to Springfield before noon; Ken drove around while, trying to find the next safe house. "Fancier part town than I expected," he observed. The house was biger than the ones where they had stayed before and the yard had a fence around it, but Matt, who was used to the immence size of the towers, remained ummpressed. If a day in a horseless was the way to freedom, he was beginning to doubt that he wanted any part of it.

His boredom fell away as he walked through the front. A female sim of about his own age was on her hands knees in front of the house, weeding in a flower bed. wa!" he said enthusiastically.

She female looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. , "Hoo!" she said back. Her backside twitched a little.

Uh-oh," Ken and Melody said at the same time. Matt paid little attention to them. Something else was on his mind.

A plump, middle-aged man came out on the front porch he house.

"Hello, my friends," he said. "I'm glad to see you. I'm Saul. Rhoda is on the phone, but she'll be out in a moment, I'm sure."

Glad to see you, Saul." Ken nodded toward the female . "And who is this?"

"Lucy?" Saul frowned. Then he looked from her to Matt.

Matt saw that Saul was not looking at his face. He looked down at himself.

His enthusiasm was quite visible. "Oh," Saul said.

"I see"

Yes," Ken said. He did not sound happy.

Wel ," Saul said, and let that hang for a while before ming as if with happy inspiration, "let's go inside and uncle After that we can see what comes up." He looked last again, and broke into a laugh that sounded any thing but cheerful.

The prospect of food was almost enough to divert Matt I Lucy.

He went with Ken and Melody to join Saul with only a brief sideways glance at the female sim.

Lucy put down the trowel she had been using and started to follow everyone else in. Matt felt a smile spread over his Food, a female, maybe this was what Ken and Melody ment by freedom. He had had this much back in the tower, outside, at least, no one did hurtful things to him, save the injection each morning. He'd had that before too, with much else, none of it pleasant. Getting away from those prodings, pokings, and stickmgs made even long stretches of riding in a horseless seem not too bad.

But then he heard Saul say, "Lucy, why don't you stay outside and finish what you're doing? Rhoda will bring something soon, I'm sure."

Matt let out an indignant grunt and sent a look to Ken and Melody. He was surprised and dismayed when they agreed with Saul.

"Come on, Matt," Ken said. "Lunch first. We'l worry about everything else later."

Sulkily, Lucy went back to work. Before she did, thou she gave Matt a glance full of promise from beneath brow-ridges. He let himself be steered into the house, but all he noticed about lunch was that there was a lot of it ended up not being hungry anymore, but with no idea what he'd eaten.

After a while, Lucy did come in, to use the toilet. Before she could get into the same room as Matt, Rhoda found something for her to do out in the back yard. Again Ken and Melody failed to interfere.

Matt glowered at them. This did not strike him as anything like freedom.

Finally he had waited as long as he could. He got up and started toward the back of the house. "The toilet is through that door," Ken said sharply.

Matt snorted. Not want toilet, he signed. Want, H. forearm pumped graphically.

"No!" All the people in the room spoke together.

The flat refusal brought Matt up short, and also madehim angry.

Yes, he signed, nodding so vigorously that his long, chinless jaw thumped against his chest. Want couple. Not couple since leave tower. Want to. You couple, Yes? He pointed at Saul and Rhoda.

Rhoda was even rounder than her husband. She turned pink at the question, but answered, "Yes, of course we do. Saul nodded.

Matt turned to Ken and Melody. You, you couple, yes?

They both turned pink, and looked away from each othf for a moment.

"Yes, we do," Ken admitted at last. He still did not look at Melody until she reached out and took him hand in hers Matt signed. I couple too. He headed for the back door again.

"No!" everyone said again.

Now he stared at them in disbelief. Not free to couple? he signed.

Not free? That had worked just this morning; he was sure it would again.

But it failed. "No, Matt," Melody told him. "I'm sorry, but youre not free to couple."

Not free? Matt signed, wondering if he had heard carectly. Why not free?

When his hands had finished signing, they curled themselves into fists. He saw Melody, and everyone else, look alarmed at that. sims were stronger than people.

Their fear did not stop them from arguing with him, though. Ken said,

"You can't couple with Lucy because you have the AIDS virus in you. If you couple with her, you'll give her the same sickness you have."

Not sick, Matt protested. Feel fine. Feel fine long time now.

you give medicine, hurt arm, so l feel fine, yes?

"You feel fine, yes," Melody said, "but what makes you sick is stil in you, and can go out when you couple. And we’ve no medicine for Lucy.

I'm sorry, Matt." She spread her hands in a gesture sims and people shared.

Matt only shook his head in reply. What she said made no sense to him. If he felt well, how could he have anything inside him that made him sick? And when he mated, the onIy thing that came out of him was jism.

Jism was just jism. How could it make a female sick?

A Besides, In tower, he signed, couple with many females.

they not sick now. Why this female here get sick, if they not now? He grinned, pleased at his own cleverness it was bigger mental effort than he usually made.

The people seemed to understand that too. Ken rolled his eyes, something else that was not part of sign-talk but that ,matt understood, and said to no one in particular, "Just at we need, a sim who cites precedent on us."

that Matt did not follow. He did not waste time on it in any case, for Melody was saying to him, "The female sims the tower had the AIDS virus in them like you. They already il the same way you are."

They not ill. They feel fine, Matt signed. Feel good. His hips moved involuntarily as

he remembered how good the females back at the tower had felt. He wanted that feeling again. But as Melody still would not let him go.

"Matt," she persisted "those females in the tower were getting medicine too, just like you, weren't they." Yes, and they feel fine, Matt answered.

"This is getting us nowhere," Saul broke in. "If youre thinking of letting him couple with Lucy, you two, Rhoda and I will have to ask you to leave."

"We never would have come here if we'd known you had a female sim," Ken said. They glared at each other. Hoping he was forgotten, Matt started toward the back of the housed again.

"Wait!" Melody said. Resentful y, he turned back. He was tired of her trying to tell him things that obviously weren't so. What she said, though, did not look to have anything to do with his lust for Lucy: "You remember that I'm Henry Quick's great-great-granddaughter, don't you, Matt?" He nodded. That was one reason, and a big one, why Hal gone along when she and Ken and Dee came bursting into his room in the tower. No one connected with Henry Quick a could mean harm to a sim. He was sure of that.

"Then please believe me, in Henry Quick's name, when I tel you that you shouldn't couple with Lucy, or with other female sim out here," Melody said earnestly. "Please, Matt."

He looked away from her. He did not think She Was lying. He wished he did. Not understand, he signed.

She sighed. "I know, Matt. Will you do as I ask anyhow Yes, he signed, giving up with more than a twinged regret, this Lucy was quite a desirable female. Handjobs al right he asked.

"Is that sarcasm

Saul asked “Hush," Melody said. "Of course not." she turned back to Matt. "Yes, of course using your hand is all right.... You Wil go into another room first."

Matt went, thinking grumpily that people from outside the towers, even if they were related to Henry Quick, explained about every little thing. Then he thought of Lucy again, and the heat of that thought drove from his mind any worries about people.

That evening, Dixon sat up on the guest-room bed he shared with Melody. "Poor miserable bastard," he said as he peeled off the rubber he was wearing. "I wonder if I if should have offered him one of these."

"That never occurred to me." Melody sat languor afterward was not her style. She looked again. “Do you think he could have used one."

Dixon had been half joking, or more than half he gave it some serious thought, and regretfully shook his head. "I doubt it. I massacred a fair number of them learning how, and

I suspect he wouldn't care if he tore one putting it on. Sims aren't careful over details like that."

"No, they aren't," Melody admitted, adding, "A lot of people aren't, either."

"I suppose not, " Dixon said. "But if a man didn't like a rubber, he probably wouldn't take it off halfway through and go on without it.

I'm afraid Matt might. That's the other reason I didn't think I ought to try to give him one."

"I'II tell you why I like rubbers." Melody waited for Dixon to let out a questioning grunt. Then she said, "Because with them, you have to go clean up."

"Harumph" in almost high dudgeon, he did just that.

When he carne back to the bed, Melody was wearing a tshirt and a serious expression. "Ken, why did you get into the sim justice movement in the first place?" -"What brought that on?" he asked, blinking, as he sat down beside her.

I don't know." Rather to his relief, she did not meet his eyes.

But she did go on even so: "I suppose it's just that seem to keep emphasizing the ways sims are different from people, and less than people, not the ways we're the same."

"Melody, they are different from us," he said, as gentle as he could.

Her mouth went wide and thin, a sure dam sign. All the same, he continued, "No matter how much you want justice for sims, that doesn't mean you'll ever see one elected censor, or even see one learn to read.

I've known people, not you," he added hastily, "who sometimes seem to Forget that."

"I don't think you answered me. Everything you sounds as though it ought to put you on the other side. Now she did look at him, in the same way she might at a roach on her salad plate

"Oh, for heaven's sake," he said in some exasperation "Doesn't my being here count for anything? Look, as far as I can see, we have a responsibility to sims, just because aren't as smart as we are and can't stand against us wit] people on their side. That's always been true, I suppose it's especially true now that we have machines to drudge us instead of sims. We don't need to exploit them al and we shouldn't.

All rights Do I pass? Can we go to sleep.

She seemed taken aback at his vehemence, and needed as moment to col ect herself and nod. "All right," she said as he and turned out the light.

"Good." He lay down beside her. His outbursts startled him a little, too. He thought about what he'd said. He believed all of it. That was not the problem.

The problem, he eventually realized, was that he not given Melody al his reasons. One of them was the hope of being just where he was now, in bed with her.

Would he have worked for Sims' justice without hope? He looked inside himself and decided he would appeased his conscience and let him slide toward sleep. More time on the road was coming tomorrow.

Doris dumped the morning's pile of mail on Dr. Howard’s desk, then went back to her own station outside. Howard went quickly through the stack, dividing it he had to deal with now, things that could wait, and things that could go straight into the trash. The wastebasket gave a resounding metal ic clunk as he got rid of the stack.

An insta-picture of a sim fel out of an envelope as he opened it.

Swearing, the doctor pulled out the that accompanied the photo. The lead line shouted, MATT IS STILL FREE, Howard jabbed the intercom button with his thumb. Doris came on, he growled, "Fetch me Coleman. I just got another one."

"Yes, Dr. Howard."

While he waited for the security chief to get there, he read through the sheet. It was much like the others that had to the DRC, and the copies that had gone to televietlets and papers all across the Federated Commonwealth. Whoever had Matt knew how to keep reminding the country about it.

Some of the phrases were ones he had seen before “no longer a victim of experimentation,"

"freed from certain death in the laboratory." Howard's lips quirked sourly. That last was an out-and-out lie. He knew it, and he expected that the people who had stolen knew it too. He hoped they did.

The intercom buzzed. Coleman came in without waiting to go through the formalities; he and Howard had been seeing a lot of each other lately.

Coleman was in his forties with red hair going white at the temples.

His movments were quick and jerky, as if he had abundant energy seeking some kind, any kind, of outlet.

He fairly snatched the picture and sheet out of Howard's hands then made a grab for the envelope still sitting on the is desk. "Posted in Philadelphia," he noted, adding Iater, "Different printer from the one for the text.

“Probably came to somebody who sent it on to us. Makes it hard to trace."

“Impossible' would seem a better word," Howard said he hoped to get a rise out of the security officer, he was disappointed. All Coleman did was nod. "Nothing we do with it," he said gloomily. "I'll pass it on to Terminus greencoats, but no reason to think they'll anymore on it than on any of the others."

"Meanwhile, of course, all the commentators and reFers in the country go right on giving it to us," Howard growled.

"Nothing I can do about that," Coleman said. "Long as these folks care to, they'll feed the newsies whatever they want. "

"Oh, get the hell out of here," the doctor shouted at him. Unruffled, Coleman took the photo, the sheet of paper, the envelope and left. The door closed softly behind him Howard stared down at his hands, ashamed of his an outburst. Matt had been gone more than a month now, .

no one was having any luck tracking him down. No even knew what part of the commonwealth he was in. The FCA’s just too big, had too many people, and sims, to make finding ones who did not want to be found easy.

The doctor was also aware that Coleman had not been quite right.

Howard knew to the hundredth of a cubic millilitre how much HIVI the thieves had stolen. He knew almost the day how long that HIVI would hold off the AIDS in Matt.

He also knew what would happen when the HIVI s gone. For Matt's sake, he hoped the people who had him do too.

The coughing from the next room went on and on and:, Ken Dixon looked at Melody, who was looking at the door. Worry had drawn her mouth down, put two deep lit between her eyes and other, fainter ones on her forehead She looked, he thought, the way she would when she was forty. It was not the kind of thought he usually had. The endless cough, though, left him with mortality on his mind. "The antibiotic isn't helping much," he said.

In fact, it wasn't helping at all. He and Melody both knew that, although she had not yet admitted it out loud.

Then she did, saying, "No," in a low voice.

it's probably not a bacterial pneumonia, then," he said.

Probably 'it's the one caused by protozoans. " Yes," Melody said, as low as before.

"Which means Matt's immune system is going south or he never would have come down with it," Dixon said He wished Melody would make things easier by staying with the chain of logic, but after her two one-word statements she went back to moodily staring at the bedroom. He would have to say it himself, then: "Which means the AIDS virus is loose in him again." Yes," Melody said, whispered, really. As quietly as silk spoken, she began to cry; Dixon did not realize it until he saw tear tracks glistening on her cheeks.

"Oh, Ken," she said, and then sobbed out loud for the first time, "we tried so hard " I know. Oh, how I know." His voice was heavy. He wouId have lightened it, but could not. He was tasting It now, for the first time in his life. The young think answers come easily, as if by right, that the world shapes itself at the bidding of their will. one by one, generation by generation, they learn how smal a part of truth that is, the world shapes them far more than they it. Then Melody said, "What are we going to do?" he knew he had to answer. Knowing hurt worse than staying quiet would have. He said, "We're going to give Matt back to the DRC." “What?" She stared at him.

That's the only place he can get more HIVI, and if he doesn’t get it he won't go on too long. If this round of pemmonia doesn't finish him, the next one will, or some other infection he won't be able to fight off and we can't help him. Come on, Melody, is it so or not ," she said grimly. AIDS was not a quick or easy way to die, too many thousands of deaths had left everyone knowing that. "But they'll only go on using him as a lab specimen

"A live one," Dixon broke in, "at least for a while, and with the HIVI he feels al right, for as long as it’s effective."

"However long that is." Melody was still fighting it!

"Longer than he has with us." She flinched. "The cause…”

"If you think that cause is worth more than what happens to one sim in particular, how are you any different from Dr. Howard?"

"That's a low blow, Ken." But she did not give him a direct reply. For some time, she did not give him anything at al . she finally said, "Let's see what Matt has to say about it. If he wants to go back, oh, shit." It was not I concession, but Dixon knew it was as much as he would get. They went to the closed door. Melody, usually impetuous, stayed behind Dixon, as if to say this was not her place. He opened the door. They both frowned at the sickroom smel that met them.

Matt lay on his back on the bed. He lifted his head a couple of inches when they came in, then let it fal back the pil ow, as though the effort of holding it up was top much For him. For the moment, though, he was breathing well.

He had lost weight, but had no appetite; a bowl of food, almost full, stood untouched on the nightstand. His eyes ' were the only live things in his thin face. He looked, Dab thought, like a camp survivor from the Russo-Prussian War. Dixon knew the comparison was a cliche. Nontheless, it fit all too well. Once inside the bedroom, Melody took the lead; Dixon’s idea might have been her own, once she was with Matt

"You've stopped coughing," she said quietly. "Are you feeling any better?" so Tired, the sim signed. So tired. His arms flopped down. On the mattress as soon as he was done using them. Then one of them came up again. Medicine? he signed Medicine that helps?

"I'm sorry, Matt. We have none, and don't know where to get any.” Melody said. Dixon winced at Matts shrug of resignation. Melody went on, "They do have that kind of medicine at the towers, Matt, if you want to go back." she held her voice steady.

home? Matt signed, which only made Dixon feel worse, he had not thought he could. The sims somber face brightened. Medicine back home?

He tried to sit up, eventual y succeeded, though it set off another spasm of coughing, this one fortunately brief. Females too, yes? he I with a sidelong look at Dixon and Melody. Tired of hand. That set Melody laughing so hard she had trouble stoping. Finally, at Dixon's quizzical look, she explained, read in my great-great-grandfather's diary that the only reason he ever came home from a trapping run was that he got tiered of his hand."

" Dixon laughed too, a little, before turning serious Pin, "Matt seems to have made his choice." That brought her up short; after a moment, she gave a reluctant nod. Then went on, "Now we have to figure out how to give him back without giving ourselves away to the greencoats...."

The intercom buzzed. "Yes, Doris?" Dr. Howard said.

“It’s for you, sir," his secretary said. "Won't give a name, won't speak to anyone but you. He says it's about Matt” ”Put him on," Howard said wearily. He'd had enough crank cal s since Matt was taken to last him a lifetime, but there was always the off chance.... He picked up the phone. "Yes?

This is Dr. Peter Howard. Go ahead."

The man on the other end of the line sounded young and cautious, but what he said made Howard sit straighter in his chair “ How do I know your not a fake”

"If I were a fake, would I have any way of knowing last three pamphlets you got were red, green, and White order?"

The doctor said, exitment rising in his voice. "I don't believe you would.

This is about Matt, you say? Where is he is he well? Is he alive?"

The stolen HIVI should have been used up some time ago. After it was gone, anything might have happened.

"No, he's not very well, but he is alive," the caller "As a matter of fact, he's sitting on a bench on the corner Peachtree and Sherman, waiting for somebody to come pick him up. We're giving him back to you." If that was true, Relief left Howard limp. "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're anything but welcome," the young man bitterly. "You made him sick, but you're the only one who can slow down the AIDS in him now, so we don't have any choice but to give him back. I wish we did."

"People will be better because of what we've done to him," Howard said.

"Wil Matt. He didn't get a choice."

"You had him some little while yourself. Did you let him make all his own choices?" The silence at the other end of the connection answered that for Howard. "You can't with a sim, can you?" the doctor said. "Believe me, I know that."'

"Go to hell," the young man said. "I'm breaking this call off now. You're probably tracking this call." The connecting went blank.

"Thank you for giving him back, anyhow," Howard to the dead line.

Then he gathered himself and rang Coleman. He was not surprised to find that the so chief had already given orders for picking up Matt, going after the caller.

Howard found himself hoping the young man got away. That did surprise him.

"It's no good, Ken," Melody said. They were sitting Slide side at the edge of the hotel bed, but he had know before she spoke that they would not be making love tonight. The way she'd sat stiffly, not looking at him, in the passenger seat of the horseless as he drove away from the DRC had been plenty to tell him that. Now she went on "After today, in fact, we'd probably be better travel separately."

“Why?" he said. Down deep he knew why, though admitting it to himself by continuing, "You agreed we had to take Matt back."

I know I did. It was the only thing we could do, and I did. I don't see how I'l ever do anything but hate it, and being with you just keeps reminding me of it. Sorry."

“The rewards of being right," he said.

it earned him a glare. "Call it whatever you like. But stay together, and I think I'll end up hating you too. I'd rather break clean now."

'However you like," he said tonelessly. He suspected she would end up hating him anyway, convincing herself that everything that had gone wrong was his fault. It was too late for him to do anything about that.

He and Melody slept with their backs to each other. The space of mattress between them might as well have I chasm.

The IV that slowly dripped into Matt's arm after a while gave him a familiar pain. He slept again on a familiar bed in a familiar room.

His breakfast came on a familiar tray at a familiar time. After so much strangeness, all that was reassuring.

aside from the temporary nuisance of the IV, he felt better. The towers had the medicines to cure the sicknesses he had come down with on his travels, and the special medicine to help keep him from falling sick so easily again.

He had females once more, when he felt well enough for them That was good, after doing so long without. When couplings were done, they would ask him in sign-talk about his adventures on the outside. He answered as best he could. They were curious, and it helped pass the time.

in horseless, like on television, he would sign, and to himself. That never failed to draw awed murmurs of excited "Hoo"s from whatever female he was with. better than here. Here everything the same al the time, l torn ' He shrugged and yawned, baring his large yellow teeth.

After while, going in homeless same al the time too, he answered, full of the ennui of the experienced traveler. Is One afternoon, the female cal ed Jane asked, why take you from here?

People want to help make sims free, he signed People want to make me free.

"Hoo," Jane said softly. You go outside tower, you free Matt thought that over. No matter how often Ken and Melody had used the word, he stil could not quite get what they meant by it. Not sure, he signed. Then, slowly shook his head. No, not free. People outside like people here.

Say they let sims do what sims want, but real y only let us do what sims want when they want that too. "Ah," Jane said, and nodded. She understood that perfectly. After a while, they coupled again. Then a nurse came to take Matt away. More needles? he signed. The nurse nodded. He sighed and went with her.

The afternoon moved on to twilight.