Anthropos’ mutant pets fulfilled a basic biological need of Man—of all life, for that matter—the need to have young, or a reasonable facsimile, and care for them. Neutroids kept humanity satisfied with the restricted birth rate, and if it were not satisfied, it would breed itself into famine, epidemic, and possibly extinction. With the population held constant at five billions, the Federation could insure a decent living-standard for everyone. And as long as birth must be restricted, why not restrict it logically and limit it to genetic desirables?
Why not? Norris felt no answer, but he was acutely aware of the “genetic C” on his social security card.
The world was a better place, wasn’t it? Great strides since the last century. Science had made life easier to live and harder to lose. The populace thoughtlessly responded by pouring forth a flood of babies and doddering old codgers to clutter the earth and make things tougher again by eating and not producing; but again science increased the individual’s chances to survive and augmented his motives for doing so—and again the populace responded with fecundity and long white beards, making more trouble for science again. So it had continued until it became obvious that progress wasn’t headed toward “the Good Life” but toward more lives to continue the same old meager life as always. What could be done? Impede science? Unthinkable! Chuck the old codgers into the sea? Advance the retirement age to ninety and work them to death? The old codgers still had the suffrage, and plenty of time to go to the polls.
The unborn, however, were not permitted to vote.
Man’s technology had created little for the individual. Man used his technology to lengthen his life and sweeten it, but something had to be subtracted somewhere. The lives of the unborn were added unto the years of the aged. A son of Terry Norris might easily live till 100, but he would have damn little chance of being born to do it.
Neutroids filled the cradles. Neutroids never ate much, nor grew up to eat more or be on the unemployment roles. Neutroids could be bashed with a shovel and buried in the back yard when hard times came. Neutroids could satisfy a woman’s longing for something small and lovable, but they never got in the economic way.
It was no good thinking about it, he decided. It was a Way Of Doing Things, and most people accepted it, and if it sometimes yielded heartache and horrors such as had occurred at Slade’s pseudoparty, it was still an Accepted Way, and he couldn’t change it, even if he knew what to do about it. He was already adjusted to the world-as-it-was, a world that loved the artificial mutants as children, looked the other way when crematorium flames licked in the night. He had been brought up in such a world, and it was only when emotion conflicted with the grim necessity of his job that he thought to question the world. And Anne? Eventually, he supposed, she would have her pseudo-party, cuddle a neutroid, forget about romantic notions like having a kid of her own.
At noon he brought home another dozen K-99s and installed them in the cages. Two reluctant mothers had put up a howl, but he departed without protest and left seizure of the animals to the local authorities. Yates had already delivered the three from yesterday.
“What, no more scratches, bruises, broken bones?” Anne asked at lunch.
He smiled mechanically. “If Mamma puts up a squawk, I go. Quietly.”
“Learned your lesson yesterday?”
“Mmm! One dame pulled a fast one on me though. I think. Told her what I wanted. She started moaning, but she let me in. I got her newt, started out with it. She wanted a receipt. So, I took the newt’s serial number off the check list, made out the receipt. She took one look and squealed ‘That’s not Chichi’s number!’ and grabbed for her tail-wagger. I looked at its foot-tattoo.
Sure enough—wrong number. Had to leave it. A K-99 all right, but not even from Bermuda Plant.”
“I thought they were all registered.”
“They are, babe. Wires get crossed sometimes. I told her she had the wrong newt, and she started boiling. Got the sales receipt and showed it to me. Number checked with the newt’s. Something’s fouled up somewhere.”
“Where’d she get it?”
“O’Reilley’s pet shop—over in Sherman II. Right place, wrong serial number.”
“Anything to worry about, Terry?”
“Well, I’ve got to track down that doubtful Bermuda model.”
“Oh.”
“And—well—” He frowned out the window at the kennels. “Ever think what’d happen if somebody started a black market in neutroids?”
They finished the meal in silence. Apparently there was going to be no further mention of last-night’s mass-disposal, nor any rehash of the nightmare at Slade’s party. He was thankful.
The afternoon’s work yielded seven more Bermuda neutroids for the pound. Except for the missing newt that was involved in the confusion of serial numbers, the rest of them would have to be collected by Yates or his deputies, armed with warrants. The groans and the tears of the owners left him in a gloomy mood, but the pickup phase of the operation was nearly finished. The normalcy tests, however, would consume the rest of the week and leave little time for sleeping and eating. If Delmont’s falsification proved extensive, it might be necessary to deliver several of the animals to central lab for dissection and complete analysis, thus bringing the murderous wrath of the owners upon his head. He had a hunch about why bio-inspectors were frequently shifted from one territory to another.
On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check with the dealer about the confusion of serial numbers. Sherman II was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty blocks of commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a side-walk escalator toward O’Reilley’s address. He had spoken to O’Reilley on the phone, but had not yet visited the dealer’s shop.
It lay on a dingy side street that was reminiscent of centuries past, a street of small bars and bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a shop with three gold balls above the entrance, but the place was now an antique store. A light mist was falling when he stepped off the escalator and stood in front of the pet shop. A sign hung out over the sidewalk, announcing:
He frowned at the sign for a moment, then wandered through the entrance into a warm and gloomy shop, wrinkling his nose at the strong musk of animal odors. O’Reilley’s was no shining example of cleanliness.
Somewhere a puppy was yapping, and a parrot croaked the lyrics of A Chimp To Call My Own—theme song of a soap opera about a lady evolvotron operator, Norris recalled.
He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a customer. An elderly lady haggled with the wizened manager over the price of a half-grown second-hand dog-F. She shook her last dog’s death certificate under his nose and demanded a guarantee of the dog’s alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible that the dog was more knowledgeable than some humans, but he demurred when asked to swear by his ledger.
The dog was lamenting, “Don’ sell me, Dadda, don’ sell me,” and punctuating the pleas with mournful train-whistle howls.