Hoskins said, "I'm sorry things got so testy."
"There was a lot of shouting, yes. More than the boy really needed. Don't you think that discussion could have taken place someplace else?"
"I'm sorry," Hoskins said again. "I flew off the handle, I guess. -That man is going to drive me crazy."
"Actually, he didn't seem as awful as I had expected. I think he's genuinely got Timmie's welfare at heart."
"No doubt he does. But to come butting in here uninvited, telling us what to do-"
"The boy does need a playmate."
Hoskins gave her a despondent look, as though he thought the debate was going to get started all over again. But he managed to master himself in time.
"Yes," he said quietly. "So he does. I won't argue with you about that. But where are we going to get one? The problems are enormous."
"You weren't serious about bringing your own son in here if ail else failed, then?"
Hoskins seemed startled. Perhaps she might be pushing him too far. But she hadn't asked him to come back here a second time today.
"Serious? -Yes, yes, of course I was serious. If we can't find anybody else. Do you think I'm afraid my boy would come to some harm at Timmie's hands? But my wife would have some objections, I suspect. She'd see risks. A lot of people on the outside seem to think Timmie's some kind of wild ape-boy. A savage creature that lived in caves and ate raw meat."
"What if we had an interview with him go out on the subetheric?" Miss Fellowes suggested. She was surprised to hear herself proposing more media incursions on Timmie's privacy; but if it would help overcome popular prejudices about the boy, it would be worth the strain on him. "Now that he speaks English-if people knew that he does-"
"I don't think that would be likely to improve things, Miss Fellowes."
"Why not?"
"His English really isn't very good, you know."
She was indignant at once. "What do you mean? He's got an amazing vocabulary, considering the point that he started from. And learning more words every day."
Hoskins' eyes seemed very weary. "You're the only one who can understand him. To the rest of us the things he says might just as well be Neanderthal words. They're practically unintelligible."
"You aren't listening carefully to him, then."
"No," Hoskins said without much vigor. "Perhaps not."
He shrugged and looked away and seemed to sink into some sort of reverie. Miss Fellowes picked up her book again and opened it to the page she had been on, without looking down at it, hoping that he would take the hint. But Hoskins sat where he was.
"-If only that miserable woman hadn't become involved in this thing!" he burst out suddenly, after a time.
"Marianne Levien?"
"That robot, yes."
"Surely she isn't!"
"No, not really," Hoskins said, with a tired little smile. "She just seems like one to me. Here we have a boy out of the past in the next room, and a woman who seems like something out of the future comes around to make trouble for me. I wish I'd never met her in the first place. Mannheim by himself isn't so bad-just one of those fuzzy-brained socially conscious guys, full of all sorts of lofty ideals, who goes running around all over the place determined to make the world a better place according to his own lights; that sort of thing. Your basic high-minded do-gooder. But Levien-that chrome-plated bitch-excuse my language, Miss Fellowes-"
"But that's exactly what she is."
"Yes. Yes, she is, isn't she?"
Miss Fellowes nodded. "I have trouble believing that a woman like that was once actually being considered for the job of looking after Timmie."
"One of the first to apply. Eager for the job. Hungry for it, as a matter of fact."
"She seems so-unsuitable."
"Her credentials were terrific. It was her personality that turned me off. She was very surprised not to be hired. -Well, somehow she's gotten herself entangled with Mannheim's crowd now, more's the pity. Probably deliberately, by way of paying me back for not giving her the job. Her way of getting revenge. Hell hath no fury, and so forth. She'll stir him up and stir him up and stir him up-she'll fill his head with her silly jargon, as though he doesn't have enough goofy psychobabble of his own stirring around in there-she'll keep him coming after me, fire him up to persecute me steadily-"
His voice was starting to rise.
Firmly Miss Fellowes said, "I don't think you can call it persecution when someone suggests that Timmie is a very lonely child and that something needs to be done about it."
"Something will be done about it."
"But why do you think she's being vengeful, when it seems to me she's simply pointing out-"
"Because she is vengeful!" Hoskins said, more loudly than before. "Because she wanted to come in here and take charge of this project when it was just getting under way, but she didn't get the opportunity, and now she intends to bring it all down around our ears. She'll have no mercy. Mannheim's a pushover compared with her. He can be manipulated, if you know the right buttons to push. He'll settle for constant statements of good intentions, polite reassurances that I'm going to follow his party line. But she'll be demanding on-site inspections every other Tuesday, now that she's calling the tune for him, and she'll want results. Changes. Things that'll keep us in turmoil all the time. She'll want Timmie to have psychotherapy next, or orthodontia, or plastic surgery to give him a nice cheerful Homo sapiens face-she'll meddle and meddle and meddle, one damned intrusion after another, making use of Mannheim's publicity machine to smear us, to make us look like evil mad scientists coldbloodedly tormenting an innocent child-" He turned away and stared at Timmie's closed bedroom door. Morosely Hoskins said, "Mannheim's helpless in the power of a woman like that. She's probably sleeping with him, too. She must own him by now. He doesn't stand a chance against her."
Miss Fellowes' eyes widened. "What a thing to say!"
"Which?"
"That she and he-that she would use her- You have no proof of that. The whole suggestion's out ofline, Dr. Hoskins. Absolutely out ofline."
"Is it?" Hoskins' anger seemed to dissolve in an instant. He looked toward her and grinned shamefacedly. "-Yes, I suppose it is. You're right. I don't know anything about who Mannheim may be sleeping with, if anybody, and I don't care. Or Levien. I just want them to get out of our hair so we can do our research, Miss Fellowes. You know that. You also know that I've taken every step possible to make Timmie happy here. But I'm so tired, now-so damned tired-"
Impulsively Miss Fellowes went to him and seized his hands in hers. They were cold. She held them for a moment, wishing she could pump life and energy into them.
"When was the last time you had a vacation, Dr. Hoskins?"
"A vacation?" He chuckled hollowly. "I don't diink I know what the word means."
"Maybe that's the problem."
"I can't. I simply can't. I turn my back for a minute, Miss Fellowes, and anything will happen here. A dozen different Adamewskis trying to steal scientific specimens out of Stasis. People running strange new experiments without authorization, doing God knows what at God knows what cost. Equipment that we can't afford purchased to set up projects that don't have a chance of working. We've got a lot of wild characters around this place, and I'm the only policeman. Until we've finished this phase of our work I don't dare take time off."
"A long weekend, at least? You need some rest."
"I know that. God, do I know that! -Thank you for caring so much, Miss Fellowes. Thank you for everything. In this whole madhouse of a research institute you've been one of the few pillars of sanity and dependability."
"And will you try to get a little rest?"
"I'll try, yes."
"Starting now?" she asked. "It's getting toward six o'clock. Your wife's expecting you at home. Your litde boy."