Mordan forebore to answer this. He went on, making conversation. "The same applies to any technique which makes life easier at the expense of hardiness. Ever hear of a bottle-baby, Felix? No, you would not have-it's an obsolete term. But it has to do with why the barbarians nearly died out after the Second Genetic War. They weren't all killed, you know-there are always survivors, no matter how fierce the war. But they were mostly bottle-babies, and the infant-generation thinned out to almost nothing. Not enough bottles and not enough cows. Their mothers could not feed them."
Hamilton raised a hand irritably. Mordan's serene detachment-for such he assumed it to be-from the events at hand annoyed him.
"The deuce with that stuff. Got another cigaret?"
"You have one in your hand," Mordan pointed out.
"Eh? So I have!" Quite unconsciously he snuffed it out, and took another one from his own pouch. Mordan smiled and said nothing.
"What time is it?"
"Fifteen-forty."
"Is that all? It must be later."
"Wouldn't you be less jumpy if you were inside?"
"Phyllis won't let me. You know how she is, Claude-a whim of steel." He smiled, but there was no gayety in it.
"You are both rather dynamic and positive."
"Oh, we get along. She lets me have my own way, and later I find out I've done just what she wanted me to do."
Mordan had no difficulty in repressing his smile. He was beginning to wonder at the delay himself. He told himself that his interest was detached, impersonal, scientific. But he had to go on telling himself.
The door dilated; an attendant showed herself. "You may come in now," she announced with brisk cheeriness.
Mordan was closer to the door; he started to go in first. Hamilton made a long arm, grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hey! What goes on here? Who's the father in this deal, anyhow?" He pushed himself into the lead. "You wait your turn."
She looked a little pale. "Hello, Felix."
"Hello, Phil." He bent over her. "You all right?"
"Of course I'm all right-this is what I'm for." She looked at him. "And get that silly smirk off your face. After all, you didn't invent fatherhood."
"You're sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine. But I must look a fright."
"You look beautiful."
A voice at his ear said, "Don't you want to see your son?"
"Eh? Oh-sure!" He turned and looked. Mordan straightened up and stood out of the way. The attendant held the baby up, half inviting him to hold it, but he kept his arms down and looked it over gingerly. It seemed to have the usual number of arms and legs, he thought, but that bright orange color-well, he didn't know. Maybe it was normal.
"Don't you approve of him?" Phyllis asked sharply.
"Huh? Sure, sure. It's a beautiful baby. He looks like you."
"Babies," said Phyllis, "don't look like anyone, except other babies."
"Why, Master Hamilton," put in the attendant, "how you are sweating! Don't you feel well?" Transferring the baby with casual efficiency to her left arm, she picked up a pad and wiped his forehead. "Take it easy. Seventy years in this one location and we've never lost a father."
Hamilton started to tell her that the gag was ancient when the establishment was new, but he restrained himself. He felt a little inhibited, a rare thing for him. "We'll take the child out for a while," the attendant went on. "Don't stay too long."
Mordan excused himself cheerily and left.
"Felix," she said thoughtfully, "I've been thinking about something."
"So?"
"We've got to move."
"Why? I thought you liked our place."
"I do. But I want a place in the country."
He looked suddenly apprehensive. "Now, darling, you know I'm not the bucolic type."
"You don't have to move if you don't want to. But Theobald and I are going to. I want him to be able to get himself dirty and have a dog and things like that."
"But why be so drastic? All development centers run to the air, sunshine, and the good 'earth motif.'
"I don't want him spending all his time in development centers. They're necessary, but they're no substitute for family life."
"I was raised in development centers."
"Take a look at yourself in the mirror."
The child grew in no particularly spectacular fashion. He crawled at a reasonable age, tried to stand, burned his fingers a few times, tried to swallow the usual quota of unswallowable objects.
Mordan seemed satisfied. So did Phyllis. Felix had no criteria.
At nine months Theobald attempted a few words, then shut up for a long time. At fourteen months he began speaking in sentences, short and of his own structure, but sentences. The subjects of his conversation, or, rather, his statements, were consistently egocentric. Normal again-no one expects an infant to write essays on the beauties of altruism.
"That," remarked Hamilton to Mordan one day, hooking a thumb toward where Theobald sat naked in the grass, trying to remove the ears from an unco-operative and slightly indignant puppy, "is your superchild, is he not?"
"Mm, yes."
"When does he start doing his miracles?"
"He won't do miracles. He is not unique in any one respect; he is simply the best we can conceive in every respect. He is uniformly normal, in the best sense of the word-optimum, rather."
"Hmm. Well, I'm glad he doesn't have tentacles growing out of his ears, or a bulging forehead, or something like that. Come here, son."
Theobald ignored him. He could be deaf when he chose; he seemed to find it particularly difficult to hear the word "No." Hamilton got up, went over and picked him up. He had no useful purpose in mind; he just wanted to cuddle the child for a while for his own amusement. Theobald resisted being separated from the pup for a moment, then accepted the change. He could soak up a great deal of petting-when it suited him. If it really did not suit him he could be extremely unco-operative.
Even to the extent of biting. He and his father had put in a difficult and instructive half hour in his fifteenth month settling the matter, beyond cautioning Felix to be careful not to damage the brat Phyllis had let them have it out. Theobald did not bite anymore, but Felix had a permanent, small, ragged scar on his left thumb.
Hamilton was almost inordinately fond of the child, although he was belligerently off-hand in his manner. It hurt him that the child did not really seem to care anything about him and would as readily accept petting and endearments from "Uncle Claude"-or a total stranger-if he happened to be in the mood to accept anything of the sort.
On Mordan's advice and by Phyllis's decision (Felix was not offered a vote in the matter-she was quite capable of reminding him that she, and not he, was a psycho-pediatrician) Theobald was not taught to read any earlier than the usual age of thirty months, although experimental testing showed that he could comprehend the basic idea of abstracted symbols a little earlier than that. She used the standard extensionalized technique of getting a child to comprehend symbolic grouping-by-abstracted-characteristics while emphasizing individual differences. Theobald was rather bored with the matter and appeared to make no progress-at all for the first three weeks. Then he seemed suddenly to get the idea that there might be something in it for him-apparently by recognising his own name on a stat which Felix had transmitted from his office, for shortly thereafter he took the lead in his own instruction and displayed the concentrated interest he was capable of.
Nine weeks after the instruction began it was finished. Reading was an acquired art: further instruction would merely have gotten in his way. Phyllis let him be and restricted her efforts in the matter to seeing to it that only such reading matter was left in his reach as she wished him to attempt. Otherwise he would have read anything he could lay hands on; as it was she had to steal scrolls from him when she wanted him to exercise or eat.