He stepped up to the tank and lifted the lid. The cries became loud. He clapped his free hand to his ankle, feeling for the blade concealed there. He brought it up, plunged it into the tank, and slashed away the straps.
"Hey!" the matron cried sharply.
He dropped the knife and grabbed the floundering infant, lifting it out. He hugged it to his shirtfront with both arms and barged ahead. By the time the supervisor got there, Hitch was out of the nursery, leaving a trail of oil droplets from the empty tank.
As soon as he was out of sight he balanced the baby awkwardly in one arm and reached up to touch the stud in his skull.
It was risky. He had no guarantee there would be an open space at this location on Earth-Prime. But he was committed.
Five seconds passed. Then he was wrenched into his own world by the unseen operator. Safely!
There was no welcoming party. The operator had merely aligned interworld coordinates and opened the veil by remote control. Hitch would have to make his own way back to headquarters, where he would present his devastating report. Armies would mass at his behest, but he felt no exhilaration. Those tanks...
He held the baby more carefully, looking for a place to put it down so that he could remove the remaining strap-fragments and wrap it protectively. He knew almost nothing about what to do for it, except to keep it warm. But the baby, blessedly, was already asleep again, trusting in him as it had before though there was blood on its cheek. The mutilated tongue...
He was in a barn. Not really surprisingly; the alternate framework tended to run parallel in detail, so that a structure could occupy the same location in a dozen Earths. There were many more barns in #772 than in EP, but it still didn't stretch coincidence to have a perfect match. The one he trekked through now was an Earth-Prime barn, though, an old-fashioned red one. It had the same layout as the other, but it contained horses or sheep or—cows.
He walked down the passage, cradling the sleeping baby—his baby!—and looking into the stalls. He passed the milkroom and entered the empty stable, noting how it had changed for animal accommodation. He couldn't resist entering the special wing again.
The first stall contained an ill cow who munched on alfalfa hay. The second was occupied by a lively heifer who paused to look soulfully at him with large soft eyes and licked its teeth with a speech-mute tongue. Had she just been bred? The third—
Then it struck him. He had been shocked that man could so ruthlessly exploit man, there on #772. It was not even slavery on the other world, but such thorough subjugation of the less fortunate members of society that no reprieve was even thinkable for the—cows. When man was rendered truly into animal, revolt was literally inconceivable for the domesticants.
Yet what of the animals of this world, Earth-Prime? Man had, perhaps, the right to be inhumane to man—but how could he justify the subjugation of a species not his own? Had the free-roving bovines of ten thousand years ago come voluntarily to man's barns, or had they been genocidally compelled? What irredeemable crime had been perpetrated against them?
If Earth-Prime attempted to pass judgment on this counter-Earth system, what precedent would it be setting? For no one knew what the limits of the alternate-universe framework were. It was probable that somewhere within it were worlds more advanced, more powerful than EP. Worlds with the might to blast away all mammalian life including man himself from the Earth, leaving the birds and snakes and frogs to dominate instead. Had it been such intervention that set back #772?
Worlds that could very well judge EP as EP judged counter-Earth #772. Worlds that might consider any domestication of any species to be an intolerable crime against nature...
Iolanthe would take care of the baby; he was sure of that. She was that sort of person. Prompt remedial surgery should mitigate the injury to the tongue. But the rest of it—a world full of similar misery—
He knew that in saving this one baby he had accomplished virtually nothing. His act might even give warning to #772 and thus precipitate far more cruelty than before. But that futility was only part of his growing horror.
Could he be sure in his own mind that Earth-Prime had the right of it? Between it and #772 was a difference only in the actual species of mammal occupying the barn. The other world was, if anything, kinder to its stock than was EP.
No—he was being foolishly anthropomorphic! It was folly to attempt to attribute human feelings or rights to cows. They had no larger potential, while the human domesticants of #772 did. Yet—
Yet—
Yet what sort of a report could he afford to make?
UP SCHIST CRICK
I have read that scatology is a more reliable guide to the real freedom of a society than is erotic material. That is, more people are willing to tolerate sex than filth. Of course, more yet are happy to tolerate extreme violence, which I think is a sad commentary. I feel that there should be complete freedom of expression, but that controversial types of things should be identified, so that readers or viewers don't have to be hit in the face with it before discovering its nature. Therefore be advised: there is a scatological element to this story.
William Zether slowed to forty, alarmed by the condition of the highway. He had driven a long way on superhighways, and this was a comedown. He had thought the surface was aging asphalt, but now decided on oiled gravel. Low-grade gravel, watered oil. Great long cracks cleft both lanes, their patterns resembling lightning frozen in mid-jag and ironed flat.
He slowed again to negotiate a chasm the width of his tire. It petered out near the edge of the opposite lane, becoming a delta of tributary crevices. By skidding his lefts into the dusty ditch he was able to span the narrowest offshoot with his rights. He continued at twenty.
Exactly how far into the wilderness was this sweet village of Violet? The road map intimated ten miles, but he was sure he had gone fifteen since filling his tank at the last cluster of houses signifying a township. The motley Schist Mountains had encroached ever closer in the interim, the terrain had degenerated into waves of desert heat, and the road...
He crunched the brakes. The wheels skewed, dust ascended, the vehicle rocked and heaved sickly, and he came to a tumultuous halt in the midst of the car-sized sand trap he had sought to avoid.
As the choking swirl subsided, he attempted to nudge forward; but as he had feared, the wheels merely churned themselves into functional oblivion. He should have allowed the car to bull through on inertia.
Zether turned off the motor and pondered his situation. He would have to dig his way out by hand, and naturally he had no shovel and was wearing his best suit.
The car's air-conditioning had cut off with the motor, and already he could feel the perspiration gathering. He pushed open the door, untangled seat belt and shoulder harness, and climbed out—and was struck by the blast furnace that passed for a July noon hereabouts. His thirty-flve-dollar shoes sank out of sight in the desiccated quicksand that engulfed the vehicle up to the hubs.
"I," he remarked to the burning welkin, "have had it. In spades. And I wish I had a spade; or at least a derrick."
But William Zether was not a man to rail at circumstance. Perceiving that the wheels were hopelessly mired, and mindful of the fifteen miles behind, he slung his jacket over his back, wedged the felt brim of his hat over his sweltering forehead, and waded onward in the transitory comfort of shirtsleeves. Somewhere ahead there had to be civilization.