FORTY DAYS AND NIGHTS [Novelette], Robert Chilson

Tedi Sorenson stepped in front of the icon, tossed back her wave of silvery hair. Her image in the visiplate was serious, the pouting mouth and small frown between her eyes giving her an appearance of childish intentness compounded by her tiny figure. She sighed, ran a hand over her bare body. She was not beginning to sag, but she felt that she was. Though alcoxidants minimize intoxication and eliminate hangovers, she felt dragged-in.

"Tedi? Have you seen this?"

Turning away from the icon, Tedi padded into the apartment's common room. Michel Ferron, her current, gave her an abstracted look and handed her a shirt-pocket-size libriscope. The logo in its visiplate was that of This World Is Your World, SAVE's organ.

"Israelis Interdict Sinai!"

Dismayed, she read in snatches: "Evacuation of half a million ... Average half-life of one year ... No prospect of decontamination in the next decade ... Total destruction of local ecology ... Reversion to desert? ... Irrigation system to be maintained by remote control, according to informed sources ..."

"That'll be a bone of contention for the next half-century," she said, sick.

"Is that all you can think of? There're thousands of square miles seeded with radioactives and all you can think about is an out-of-date conflict."

Tedi looked at him fondly. He slumped in his chair with a worried-collie look accented by his drooping moustache and the ropes of long brown hair that framed his face. Privately she thought the current style did not suit him. But his kicked-puppy look touched her.

She crossed to him and cradled his head against her. "It's not as bad as SAVE makes it look, hon. With Chinese help, the Islamate will have it decontaminated in four or five years, no doubt. Israel is merely buying time. China is already committed to help, you know. This will earn them more support than guns. And it's not as if the Israelis started it. Who first used mininukes?"

Impatiently he pulled away. "Damn it, that's not it. What counts is impact on the ecology. A clean miniature fusion bomb actually has less effect than a much smaller chemical bomb."

"But it kills more people."

He shook his head, ran a hand over the short hair in the back. "Only in the short run - in the end, ecological collapse will take ten times as many. Despite the Green Revolution, there are more starving people in the world than in 1950. Besides - if these people want to kill each other, comes the time, let them die. It's their way of life; why should we get involved? It gains us nothing but hatred. What business is it of ours?"

"It isn't, much," she said patiently, sighing. "But it's vital to Europe, and Europe is important to us. Oil is more valuable than ever since we stopped burning it."

"Don't we know it," he said bitterly. "The same old answer - money. Imperialism is dead, but the advanced nations suck the blood out of the emerging nations faster than ever."

There was no point in arguing with him. Troubled, Tedi went to get dressed. With her tiny figure and platinum-blonde hair, the modern "incandescent" fabrics were not for her, except in white or silver. Today she didn't wish to be so conspicuous. Something conservative ...

She thought a lot of Michel, but she was beginning to doubt she loved him. At least, he only aroused the genuinely tender feelings when he looked particularly lost and alone. Hardly a compliment. Did she really respect him enough to love him?

Tedi donned tight black pants with vertical white stripes, almost as much white as black. The blouse was white with black, beginning to be a bit tight. Got to attend fewer of those damn diplomatic-public-relations parties ...

In any case, there was no changing his opinions. He was first-generation commune, and frequently looked lost. There'd be no going home for him - the advance of progress had wiped out the communes.

A bright yellow sash to add a bit of color, silver shoes ...

Breakfast was sober. "Have you seen this?" Michel asked. He was not sullen, merely somber.

Another of SAVE's scareheads. Weather control, a vastly complex subject.

"Hon, I haven't time to read my own pro journals. What is it?"

"Proposal to use f-rockets for weathercon."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Jesus! Don't you know that the exhaust of a fusion rocket is twenty percent radiohydrogen? And that's when it's in perfect tune!"

Tedi sighed. "Michel, Michel ... do you know how much energy there is in a pound of matter? So a few pounds of mild, short-lived radioisotopes may be blown into the air. So what? We've been on top of the radiolution problem since we learned to burn most charged-particle isotopes in alphabetagens, and started dumping what we couldn't use into the sun. We have slack enough for a little exposure."

Michel was more sorry than angry. "I'll bet you don't know just how many million square kilometers have been interdicted since the Chinese intervened in Vietnam and how much of it reached the sea. Or how many tens of millions of people have died from that and related causes." Savagely, "If I were a woman, I'd have myself sterilized."

Tedi shrugged, irritated now. "So do it anyway."

"I would," grimly, "if it would make any difference."

The Times was in its way both more restrained than This World and more dismaying. Half a million Israelis had been evacuated from the Sinai in accord with the Third World talks - at gunpoint, that is. That was no great hardship to them, given the nation's state of industrialization. But it meant an indefinite time before Palestine refugees could be settled there ... the Arabs had no such intentions, and if they had, Egypt wouldn't have permitted it.

Worst of all was that the mood of the Israelis was grimmer than it had been in a decade. They and their Palestinian allies were perfectly capable of blasting the Isla-mate back fifty years - even, it was hinted, of destroying the purification and pumping stations that irrigated The Empty Quarter and filled Lake Nasser west of the Nile. It would be suicidal - the Arabs too were armed, though only with minis. So far the Chinese hadn't dared provide them with area weapons.

The rashers of synthetic bacon had lost their savor. Tedi stirred her coffee, distaste puckering her full lips. It seemed only yesterday, it seemed an age ago, she had enjoyed breakfast, a time when she felt fully alive, with all the day before her. With a sudden poignant pang of self-pity, it occurred to her that she was getting old.

New tension among the lunar nations, she read. That was nothing new. Now a Soviet bioengineerYevgeny Sorokoff, old Yev whom she hadn't seen in years - had reportedly designed a vacuum-living plant that excreted various gases. Tass proposed the terraformation of the Moon. The U.S. had protested against lunar tampering until as much was learned about its primitive state as possible. Europe protested the terraformation at all, wanting to build up a vacuum-based industry.

She'd last seen Yev at the International Biological Symposium - God, had it been three years? So that's what he was up to. A good idea ... for a moment Tedi's mind was drawn into the problem of genetic design for a vacuum-living plant, then with a start she checked the time.

"Do you have to go?" Michel asked, staring at her tragically as she rose.

Now he woke up. "I have to fly in, and if I don't leave early I'll be late."

He followed her vaguely. "On the commune we always had time for each other. But you always have to rush, rush, rush."

She definitely did not have time to hold his hand, late or not. It was ridiculous - he was almost twice as heavy as she and towered over her hundred and fifty-two centimeters.

Besides, it would only lead to another argument ... he wanted to have a baby, illogically enough. Said he didn't feel like sex was accomplishing anything.

"You should have been raised on the commune," Michel said, irritated, guessing her thoughts. "Or just on an old-fashioned farm, someplace where you could appreciate Nature's Way. Or what nature was like before we raped it. You can't look from anywhere to anywhere now without seeing somebody's, damn house."

Poor Michel, she thought with a sudden pang. On the commune, sex roles were more clearly defined, and a person's work gave him reason to feel at night that he had accomplished something that day. But here, it was Tedi who supported them - advanced education was not available on the commune, even if it had not been abhorred. It must give him a feeling of emasculation. She checked her hair again, slipped into her jacket, picked up her purse.

"Tedi?"

There was an appeal in his voice she couldn't ignore.

"Have you ever thought..." he looked at her anxiously, began again. "Your career ... I mean, there's no reason you have to work for the Department, is there? Why don't you ... well, find a job with one of the big corporations - better yet, one of the smaller companies. You could earn more, and surely you could accomplish more. It's not like you'd be giving up your career. And we'd have more time for each other."

That was certainly true. She had considered it herself, well aware that it was the Department's insatiable demands on her time that made most of their troubles.

Tedi went to him, melted. "I'll think about it," she promised, her voice muffled in the hair of his chest. "I'll think it over carefully. We can't go on like this." Then honesty compelled her to answer, "But..."

She felt his arms tighten, heard his teeth meet.

The same old problem! How could they talk to each other?

The relentless pressure of time separated them. He gave her a long tender kiss and let her go, wordless. She settled herself as the airboat's jets wailed and fell off to a hollow whistle.

Leave the Department! Ah, but would that settle their problems? Was it her career that took her away from him, or her work? Her work she wouldn't give up for any man, and she had told him so. (They had told her she'd never be able to live with such a man; they had told him he could never live with such a woman.) He had been very understanding. God, how they'd understood each other! Neither had imposed on the other, or interfered with the other's life ... Each listened to the other.

With a poignant stab she yearned for their early days together: tripping out in Yellowstone, sailing to Bermuda, the week they had saved so long for at Spaceland - love in free fall! - how long had it been since they'd really made love? Even the hours they had spent in the garden he had insisted on ... she had found it fun to try out newly-synthesized plants herself.

Was their essential mistake her acceptance of the job with the Department, or moving into a city apartment? Perhaps Michel would have been happier in an exurb ...

But, no. The exurbs were too crowded, each house on its twenty or forty acres, all the people more or less alike, very little open ground anywhere, and too many people on what there was. The apartment was not that restrictive to a man of his temperament; the walls were within his mind.

Tedi sighed. At first he had been quite apolitical. A quiet man, but not without opinion - arguing used to be fun. He was always there, deftly turning out superb little paintings in any style (all alike to her), composing haunting little tunes and songs (but a party where one person after another got up and gave out his composition was incredibly dull and incredibly long), writing gem-like short stories (with the collapse of the publishing industry, books were passed on free, each making a copy of a friend's record; Michel's had never received critical notice), sometimes taking a minor role in an audiovisual (movies too were passed on free; Michel had never been noticed).

Was it the demonstrable usefulness of her life as opposed to his own inability to make a mark at anything that pushed him into radicality? Was it his memories of the halcyon commune that caused him to join the conservative SAVE? Or was it all merely neglect?

All of which did not help her answer the basic problem: how could she choose between the Department and Michel? She'd said she wouldn't give up her work for any man. God knew, there was a desperately urgent job to be done, and she was one of the few both able and willing to do it. The world needed her talents - both in bioengineering and in government.

But this is Michel, Michel!

Washington loomed before her and the robopilot beeped in alarm. Tedi brought the airboat in along the Skyway, peeled off to follow the wide ribbon of the roof of the Slideway to a hangar tower. Down, she winced when she found what the day's parking would cost. But Black Star was blockading the Skyway stations in protest against the city's continuing employment desert.

The Slideway at least was free, and it took her directly to the Federal office building. Late. There wasn't time to check in at the office before the Advisory Council met.

"Hi, Tedi. You look like you've been plucked up by the roots."

It was Learoyd, Presidential Adviser on the Economy, a silvery-maned relic of Kennedy days.

"Hi, Leary. It's how I feel. Swimming seems to agree with you."

"If the Potomac was good to John Adams, it should be good to me."

The Presidential Advisers were too large to be a coherent group. They met by detail. Hamilton, one of the few of them who had any power - he represented National Black Star - called them to order as the late-comers filtered in. The Economy was represented, as was Ecology, Urban Affairs, and Agriculture. Cone represented Black Affairs, theoretically a rival to the radical Hamilton; but they got on well.

"We'll have to make this short, or give Tedi the floor," said Hamilton. "She has to attend the Security Council this morning. Tedi, can rats be totally exterminated?"

"Almost certainly." Tedi looked around the table.

"Can we have some details?" Lindstrom, Agriculture.

"Basically, it's a matter of tailoring a disease that arouses no immunological reaction in rats. One, say, that gobbles up a given vitamin. Better, one that secretes a hormone - any hormone. But it would have to be rat-specific. Otherwise it might take all rodents with the rats, maybe even affect all mammals."

"Well - if it wipes out mice, who cares?"

"All rodents - not just mice. That includes beavers, which are vitally important all over the north and mideast, to say nothing of the Canadian states. Besides - Mike, fill them in on mice."

Mike, Ecology, cleared her throat. "Extermination of mice would play hell with the ecology. Probably end in the termination of half a dozen other species. Coyotes, even wildcats, and owls all eat mice - lots of them. And Lindy will admit, if you twist his arm, that mice are no problem in agriculture."

Lindstrom admitted it.

"Would extermination of rats have such an effect on the ecology?"

"We don't think so. They're not as important as mice, not as common even on a kilo per kilo basis."

Urban Affairs - an underling Tedi didn't know - said, "Then there are no objections to extermination per se?"

Hamilton frowned at the Latin, looked back to Tedi. "You're sure it can be done without affecting any other animal?"

Tedi nodded, said, "We'll have to keep a close watch on it. But we have specific bacteriophage planned; we can halt it any time. Of course, we've never attempted to eliminate a vertebrate, but when we exterminated insects we had no problems - and twice we've had to halt."

"Any objections from any department?"

Mike said, "I'd like a little more detail on the extermination."

Tedi passed her a record card. "We've chosen two weak points, and two bacteria. The effect is synergistic, giving us tighter control. Both are rat-specific; the synergistic effect makes the probability that any other species will be affected vanishingly small."

No department represented had any objections, not even Bio Field Services, Tedi's rival. But someone pointed out that Health wasn't represented. They would be forwarded a circular copy of the recommendations.

"Learoyd," said Hamilton, "you prepare a rider on the economic benefits. Cone, I want your help in drawing up a rider on the benefits on city living; we'll want someone from Urban Affairs, too."

Tedi said, "Will you need me?" Hamilton said, "No. But prepare a summary of the methods you intend to use, in words suited to the understanding of Congress. And we'd better have a complete report as a supplement."

"O.K., I'll have them both done by tonight - I hope. I'll send the complete report to Mike for analysis and checking. You and Field Services had better go over it together," she added.

Rush, rush, rush, she thought, feeling tired already. It was mostly worry over Michel. There was barely time to run down to her office and get started before she would have to leave for the Security Council hearing. But what was she to do? She couldn't just throw him out into the cold cruel world to drown.

"Hello, Fiona," she said breathlessly to the strapping black girl who was talking to the computer. "Listen, is Black Star blockading the locals, or will I have to fly downtown?"

The big girl shut off the mike and smiled down at her. "You're O.K., Tedi. Some of the local stations have been blocked, but the computers are routing around them. Those are mostly the ones used by government workers."

Tedi sat down, nodding in relief. "We've got work," she said to the staff. She filled them in briefly on what was wanted, cut short the cheering, and assigned Fiona to do the summary.

"But I don't know a thing about bioengineering."

"Neither do I," said Tedi pixily. The black girl was strong-minded, intelligent - more than capable of running the staff. Tedi would be away most of the day. "You won't have to bone up on it, the boys and girls will fill you in. You write the summary, and the report itself will be written from it. Draw lots or something, people; each take one section and start giving Fiona the goods. You all know what we're doing. A copy goes not only to Ecology, but to Biological Field Services, so be careful."

They went at it with a will, and the computer programmer, Fiona, quickly welded them into a team. This was the Department of Bioengineering's first big project under Tedi's aegis; all were anxious to show what they could do.

Tedi had only a few minutes to get them started, and left with a warm feeling. A great gang! Here was her place ...

The nearest local Skyway station was a dome on a store roof, served by a special elevator. Tedi punched her destination on the board and waited; presently a six-passenger car swung into the dome.

She slid into her seat, ignoring the three other passengers, each in his own transpex cubicle. The car slid forward silently and there came the push of acceleration. It climbed up the rail until it was doing a hundred kilometers at the seventh-floor level. Rock Creek Park flowed by to the right. The car swung aside, quite a bit out of her way, to pick up another passenger. Then it zagged and dropped one off, built back up to speed in a flat seven and a half seconds.

It looked hot outside already, though the polarized windshield muted the glare. Presently the domes and glass slabs of downtown climbed up around the rail. The sprawling capital was not adapted to building up into an arcological unit, though much low-cost housing had been. The city was still pleasant to look at.

They stopped finally, not as near her destination as Tedi would have liked. An elevator took her down to Slideway level - the Ways ran through many of the larger buildings. Black Star was out in force, patrolling the Slideways with auto-guns and riot-control spray. They had no intention of letting the blockade get out of hand, Tedi thought, relieved. It was just the sort of thing Michel might get involved in.

When she descended the acceleration strips at her destination, she was barely on time. Then came a twenty-minute wait while the members of this segment of the National Security Council straggled in. Tedi didn't recognize any of them but they had all heard of her. Her tiny figure and platinum-blonde hair were a favorite of capital photographers and reporters, though her department was not all that important.

The Chairman fixed her with a severe look, and Tedi braced herself. The National Security Council had a powerful conservative bias. The Chairman was a fat, pursy type who had been in government nearly twice Tedi's life. His prejudices were fossilized relics of the Sixties and Seventies of the last century.

"Now then," he huffed. "To begin, Ms. Sorensen - do you know, of your own knowledge, whether this country has made any plans for biological warfare?"

"No, I don't know of my own knowledge any of the government's war plans - if it has any."

He looked nonplussed, then severe. "Come, you know what we mean. Is any biological warfare research being conducted?"

"Certainly. The universal diagnosticon is a product of biowarfare research. We're also working on phage to exterminate disease organisms; hopefully the time will come when all disease can be eliminated. Perhaps sooner than we think."

After a silence, another member of the panel, equally old but not so arteriosclerotic, spoke with a faint smile of the fatherly sort she was used to. "Wouldn't that have disadvantages? In the event of a bio attack, the population's immunity would be nonexistent."

"True. But we wouldn't be depending on immunity, but on phage. The diagnosticon, you know, can check for more than a thousand diseases in thirty seconds on a one-cubic-centimeter blood sample."

"But those must be known diseases."

"In event of plague, natural or artificial, the invading organism would be present in massive quantities. So would its toxins. We can synthesize phage forms, virus or bacterial, to order in less than twenty-four hours on a crash basis - and the average is more like ten."

"Then you are doing biowar research?"

"Certainly."

The fatherly one asked, quickly, "Defensive research, you mean? Are you doing any offensive research?"

Tedi took her time about answering. What he wanted, transparently, was an admission, however qualified - for the publicity. "Depends on what you mean by research. You know, or should, that biosynthesis is no longer a classical science, any more than bridge building is. We feed our requirements into a computer and it tells us what we need to achieve the effect we desire. It isn't necessary to actually test more than about three percent of our conclusions, and to date this has never involved the actual synthesis of an inimical germ. But since we want to be able to defend ourselves against any conceivable kind of bio attack, we must conceive of every possible kind of attack and work out the actual parameters of the organisms it would take, to find their weak points. We have records of several thousand inimicals and their countervails, ready to synthesize."

"Then you admit that the U.S. does have biowarfare diseases ready to synthesize?" the Chairman pounced on her. The other older member closed his eyes in sympathy.

Tedi could already see the headlines, but she took it on the chin. "Of course. As a precautionary measure. We also have, if my memory serves, quite an arsenal both of clean nukes and radioheads - none of which we've used since 1945. That's nearly the record - of the nuclear nations, only Japan has never used nukes. And many have used biowarfare - but not us."

Tedi glanced over the younger members of the panel. They were nodding, unimpressed by the Chairman's theatrics. The whole meeting was a political maneuver, they were only going through the motions to appease him. America's decline to second-rate status, followed by the Soviet Union's, had produced a cooler breed of voter, represented by such men and women as these.

The fatherly one said, "Has any of this ever been tested in practice?" knowing what her answer would be.

"Not in my time," she said. "At least, that I know of. But just after the diagnosticon was developed it was rushed to Southeast Asia and it and antibiotics helped to wipe out a plague supposedly promoted by Hanoi, centering in Burma and Thailand. It could have been natural but for the pattern of the outbreaks. And a few years later improved techniques were employed on Taiwan, so successfully that it was kept a secret for five years. Parts of it are still secret, but we think virophage synthesis was used there for the first time. The Japanese developed it before we did, you know. Both plagues were attribute d to China, but never proven."

One of the younger members supported her, too. "What about bio attacks on agriculture, or the like? Tactical warfare?"

"Frankly, that's one of the department's greatest headaches. There are as many points of attack on livestock as there are on human beings, and nearly as many on a plant. And the number of vital or important plants and animals is large - enormous if you count synthetic bio processors used in sewage and garbage disposal. We've prevented billions of dollars' worth of diseases in agriculture and industry. Good practice for the real thing."

"What real likelihood is there that China might attack us with bio agents?"

"I'd say none, or very little," Tedi admitted. "Progress has been fast in this area, and frankly, knocking down a plague is not particularly difficult. Growth of communications and transportation means we don't crowd together the way we did, home purifiers for roof-trapped rainwater make wide-scale infection difficult, and so on."

"We'd like to have complete reports on the actions of your department, Ms. Sorensen," said the Chairman, frowning at her petulantly. "We'd prefer to make our own evaluation of your activities. My colleagues will see to it."

Tedi nodded but sighed. The portly Chairman gathered together his dignity and stalked out, leaving her feeling very small and tired. More publicity, an explanation to Michel - or would he simply be sympathetically understanding, or, damn him, silently accusative? - a scarehead from SAVE ...

"Tedi? I mean, Ms. Sorensen?"

She opened her eyes with a start. The rest of the panel was still there.

"We were wondering ... that is, the possibility was brought up of designing, say, plants that could devour and concentrate radioisotopes in some way ..."

Galvanized, Tedi sat up and looked at the fatherly type. "We understand that the Soviets have done work on decontamination organisms. Our budget doesn't allow for it, but we have our own computer, and just in our spare time, some of us have looked into it. Of course, we haven't worked out gene-prints for the actual designs. Our best idea is a decon oyster that picks up strontium and stores it in its shell. We're still talking about ways of picking up actual radioisotopes - I mean, carbon-14 instead of carbon-12. One of my best boys is on the track of a hardy grass that will pick up any kind of radio-element and store it in outsized, sterile seed pods."

"I see. Fascinating. And legitimate research, defensive rather than offensive ... Of course, the Council has no powers, but your department really should have a budget for decontamination research." He smiled ruefully. "We were thinking of the Sinai. Unofficially and just among ourselves."

Tedi smiled faintly. "All bets are off in interdiction - no doubt they'll have molded their pellets of ceramics or glass. Personally, I'm not at all sure it would be wise to get the Israelis mad at us, not the mood they're in - remember what happened to the Washington Monument."

"Perhaps not. Well, Ms. Sorensen, I suppose we should get down to business. The Chairman wants a list of all your current projects, and perhaps we'd better examine your organization chart ..."

Tedi sighed and dug down into her purse.

When she escaped she was late for her meeting with the Secretary of State. She paused long enough to call the office, dealt with some Department business, turned down several requests for speeches. Last of all, the record of a call from Michel Ferron.

"Put it on." Damn him, she'd told him not to call her at the office. Did she have to revoke his com clearance?

"Hello, Tedi? You said you were going to be at the General Oceanics PR flounder, didn't you? Do you have to be there? I mean, you could cut it without anybody noticing, you could say it was Department business or something ..."

Coming abruptly out of her rush-dazed, irritated trance with a start, she concentrated on his expression. It was almost normal. There was the faintest sweaty appearance about the hairline and the upper lip. The tone was normal, almost casual, as if what he asked was perfectly natural - but it was just a little over-controlled.

"... almost any excuse will do. It's not that important, is it? And we'll have more time together this evening ..."

She heard the record out with stony patience, learning, as she expected, nothing, and started punching numbers the instant the visiplate went blank. She was fuming, but under it her knees were quaking with fear for him. Why did the damn dear little fool get mixed up in these things?

"Security? Theodora Sorensen, Department of Bioengineering. Have you laid on defenses for the General Oceanics and Unlimited Systems press conference this afternoon?"

Lengthy pause while the Security Coordination Center checked its files. "Countermeasures are up to New York Police Department; a number of them will be on duty," said the desk man. "We have a few agents on stand-by, but we aren't looking for trouble. On the seafarm it's up to the Coast Guard. Did you have a tip?"

"Y-yes - but my name will have to be kept out of it."

He looked sympathetic. "It would be anyway - but I can see what you mean, Tedi - I mean, Ms. Sorensen."

Tedi gave him a weak smile. "It's SAVE, I'm afraid. Or at least some of their hangers-on."

He sucked on his lower lip. "That's bad; an organization will flip for a riot every time, for publicity." Then he looked skeptical. "You're sure it's SAVE? Frankly, I'm a supporter myself, and we have no objection to bioengineering, even synthesis."

"But seafarming?"

"Well, I don't go that far myself - but you have a point. I'll alert New York. You'll be there? Want a bodyguard?"

Tedi turned him down but thanked him. Immediately she called the apartment, but he was gone. Probably already in New York. She had to sit down. Oh Michel! Why? She could never, never tell him that she had tipped off the Establishment. Toadying, he would call it. She felt sick and very much alone.

Then her small temper rallied her. Damn him, he should have had more intelligence than to get mixed up with a bunch of conservative nongs like that - people were starving and only the sea-farms could provide food for them. To hell with the fish!

Migod, the Secretary of State!

She jumped up and dived out the door. As it was opened the soundproof corn-booth went transparent, but not soon enough to keep her from bouncing off a big truck-driver type. She put one hand on the mall's rubbery floor, felt a great hand wrapped around her elbow.

"Sorry, kid. You O.K.?"

Tedi flashed him a smile, bounced to her feet a little shakily, and hurried over to the escalator ramp to the Slideways. Seated, she slumped down and closed her eyes. What could she say to, Michel? Damn it, they were trying to save the world! Did they think they were helping? It was SAVE and groups like it who opposed the only workable birth control system ever proposed - a pair of synthetic diseases, one in the male genital tract and one in the female. Benign diseases, except that they would attack sperm. The combination would mean that to have a baby, a couple would both have to be cured of the disease, and then exercise caution not to get it again. It should be easy to spread though not an epidemic disease, and readily controlled.

Opposition to the idea was loud and came from every side. SAVE's objection was that it imposed a penalty on underdeveloped nations - an elaborate medical program would be needed to maintain the birth rate, costing from ten to twenty-five percent of the average small nation's annual military expenditures. A heavy burden, a grinding, ruinous burden. Genocide! Whole nations wiped out for lack of medical aid! The ultimate in biowarfare!

"George here, Miss. Anything I can do for you?"

She opened her eyes with a start. A pleasant, youngish, conservatively-dressed black man with the flamingly radical Black Star on his jacket pocket stood before her on the high-speed lane. "George" - in Washington - was the Black Star man you asked for whenever you needed any kind of help. He or Georgia could be found at almost any public establishment, especially pool rooms and bars. In St. Louis he was Louie; in Chicago, Monday; and he was The Man anywhere.

Tedi thanked him, shook her head. Behind him, her street name swept toward her.

Descending the acceleration strips expertly, she found her knees still weak. When she entered St. Clair's she was instantly rushed to a reserved table where, to her relief, she saw a tall man speaking to the headwaiter. He had not yet seated himself. The headwaiter's eyes lit when he saw her, and she smiled back. The tall man turned and bowed, revealing graying hair around a thinning spot. No, a thickening spot; he'd had a hair-restoring treatment.

It was the Undersecretary of State. She squeezed his hand, said, "Hi, Mr. Harris. Decided to take a little of the load off the Chief and earn some of your pay?"

He chuckled, said, "Delighted to meet you, Ms. Sorensen. No, as it happens we've put a heavier load on Mr. Two Eagles. He's flying to Antarctica in my place; the situation is rather grave at the moment. But be seated."

The waiters had vanished. Tedi punched for a moonlight cocktail and with a sigh for an alcoxidant pill. A moment's examination of the menu board and they punched their selections.

"Did the Secretary have time to brief you on what he wanted to know?" Tedi asked. "I understand he was briefed on biowarfare research not long ago."

"That was part of it. The National Security Council is dominated by conservatives, as I suppose you know, and they seem to be gunning for your department."

"I know. I'm just from a meeting with them. You'll be reading about it tonight."

"That's too bad. The country's not so stable, God knows; there's no room for demagoguery."

She nodded, thinking unhappily of Michel.

"Mr. Two Eagles wanted to know about rat extermination."

Their orders were delivered by hand, deftly, and again they were alone.

"It's up to Congress now," she said. "The Advisers passed it unanimously this morning. The recommendations are still being drawn up."

"Wonderful! Prex himself will push it; everybody hates rats. Another thing - this came up at the last minute - that Russian's vacuum-living plant. What do we have in that line?"

"Nothing. I don't believe any corporation has attempted anything so difficult and doubtful. We in the Department have done a little doodling, just for fun, but it would take a month to calculate designs. Synthesis could be done within five or six weeks, I think. Of course it'd take a year and more to learn if it would be stable. Apparently they've already gone that far." Mr. Harris was silently encouraging. Tedi expanded. "Yev's plants are deliberately inefficient; they reduce rock and extract gases, which they waste to the outside. Our thoughts were of efficient plants, designed to produce edible fruit or tubers, encased in armor. You'd crack them with a chisel when you got them inside, and the shells would be metalliferous."

"Ingenious! Er, I trust it won't hurt to mention this, but we believe that Tass' mention of terra-formation of the Moon was a bluff. His plants would be ideal for inflating domes. It would speed colonization - not only would their extractors be sun-powered, but grown on the spot, self-repairing, self-reproducing - well, you're the bioengineer; you see the potential."

"Ultimately giving them a stranglehold on the Moon, which they would employ to try to cut us off from the asteroids," mused Tedi. Granted the Moon as a space base, the cost of Soviet space transport would be markedly lower than the West's (China still had no space-power to mention, Number One superpower though it was). They could dump asteroid metals on Earth, causing much trouble in a society that was just digging itself out of a depression caused by sea-farming.

Tedi smiled. "I suppose we could design a lunar animal that would tear down their domes to get at the plants." Mr. Harris laughed. "Here's a better idea," she said thoughtfully. "Plants that will live in the asteroids. Our kind would be more valuable there than Yev's."

"That sounds good. You might propose your designs to some of the space corporations. Oh, yes, another thing: I understand it's theoretically quite possible to synthesize men?"

Tedi nodded, glancing sideways. That was a delicate subject for two government employees to be discussing, in public. "Of course, nothing that complex has ever been synthesized - no vertebrates that we know of. The few attempts to synthesize things like lobsters have - not failed, but been disturbing. Practice doesn't follow theory so far. The uncertainty principle, for one thing. But in ten years, or maybe twenty, we could advance the state of the art until it's as exact as it now is with microbes and simple plants."

"Then in twenty years it will be possible to design and synthesize men to order? Men capable even of living in deep space?"

"Only if such a research program is carried out. No one dares; the people are genuinely frightened of androids. Certainly no government department could investigate the subject."

"Yet, there's the possibility. Suppose the Soviets develop them? We can't sit back and watch them occupy all space, or even just the Moon. We're really afraid of a war there, small beside the six on Earth, but expensive."

"Well, we'll have plenty of warning, I think; they won't be able to produce anything in less than ten years, and it takes time to build up a population of men and women."

"That's a relief." Harris chewed and swallowed, said, "But it brings up a related problem Mr. Two Eagles was particularly interested in - the possibility that the Soviets or someone might develop a superman or supergenius android - even a man who could be generated by orthosomatics. Is it very likely?"

Tedi shook her head decisively. "It isn't even possible, not at the present state of the art. What is a genius? What makes him different from a moron? Both have exactly the same brains. The difference is in the mind, the software that prescribes how the brain's hardware is to be used. That is hard to reach via gene manipulation, though not - we think - impossible."

"Hm-m-m. And a superman?"

"Super in what way?"

"I suppose a superman would be like a man, only better in every way," said Harris slowly.

"Well, intelligence is a gamble. But to be stronger, he must be bigger, unless you design muscles unlike any known. Even supermuscles would have to be supplied with lots of fuel and air, via the bloodstream. That means a super-elaborate circulatory system and some remarkable lungs, plus room for same, plus a digestive system capable of supplying large quantities of energy - a liver to store it until needed - and so on. One part could be made super, but only at the expense of another - robbing Peter to pay Paul. A man could be designed to breathe water, for instance, but he wouldn't be efficient in air. A convertible lung/gill wouldn't be very efficient in either air or water. Do you see?"

"Yes. But how about vision, hearing, the senses?"

"Those are brain functions - the better the brain, the better the senses. Animals see only what interests them, and then only if it moves, usually. They haven't the brain to evaluate so much data. That's why insects can see behind them while men can't. There's not much improvement possible for human beings, though we could adapt a man to special conditions, such as low light-level. As for super, unheard-of mental powers, X-ray vision, and the like - you describe 'em, we'll design 'em. We can't make anything unless we know how."

"Well, that is good news," said Harris, stirring his coffee. "We have problems enough with more innocuous synthetic life forms."

"Yes." Tedi sighed and thought somberly of Michel and SAVE. "Oh. Just for my own curiosity - hasn't there been some discussion of recreating extinct life forms such as passenger pigeons?"

Tedi nodded and began to collect her things. "Yes. Bio Field Services proposed it and are looking into it, though it'll be up to us to design them, if and when. We'd have to have fur or feathers to get the gene-print from - mummified flesh is better yet. And something is inevitably lost, so there'll be some uncertainty as to whether it's the actual thing - not only indistinguishable from but freely interbreedable with the original. We can never be sure, but we can come pretty close."

"It sounds worthwhile. It might get you some support from conservative outfits like the Sierra Club."

Back on the pedestrian mall, Tedi felt that the only thing she wanted was to lie down and let the world recede. But she plodded resolutely to the com-booths and called the office again. Work was piling up, but not at too oppressive a rate.

Tedi had to try three Skyway stations before she found one not blockaded, and began to be apprehensive that she would be late for her meeting with Black Star. Starting as she did from uptown, she drew a twenty-four-passenger car with a consequently longer manifest. At length it dropped her off in the projects, where arcological city units alternated with older sections, badly run down.

She descended in an elevator in a largish shop, ignored the aisles of goods. On the street - there were no overwalks here - she swung out with a brisk stride after a pause to get her bearings. No traffic was allowed in this street - mall, it would be. It was old-fashioned, hot, paved with concrete, even had fireplugs. Some had been converted to not-very-attractive fountains in which played nude black children. The center of the mall was set with drooping willows, dull in the heat. But everything was scrupulously clean.

Her spruce, petite frame and platinum-blonde hair attracted numerous glances. She was nervously glad so few of them were male, then puzzled, then remembered the blockade. A post office sported the deep purple flag with the Black Star. Women nodded to her and some spoke. Children ran after her, shouting that her hair was a wig, or bleached. Tedi smiled but ignored them.

At the first corner she saw her first Black Star warrior on patrol on his own turf, and was disappointed. He was a fat, blowsy sort with an unshaven jaw and receding hairline. His black synthasilk suit was sweatsoaked and he smelled of cheap wine. But he was past fifty, and that must mean he had fought in the street battles. He surprised her by nodding and touching his brow.

"Can I help you, Ma'am?"

Tedi glowed at him. She had never been called "Ma'am" in her life, and found she liked it. She explained briefly.

"Yeah, you're headin' right. Anybody bothered you?"

They hadn't.

"This is a residential district; not many whites find their way down here ... not that they're really unwelcome, except at night. Up on the drag, now - drop in sometime when you've got the time. We got more fun and better food per square yard than anyplace downtown - "

"Ay!"

A whiskery bandit in a yellow uniform waved at them from over the hedge that blocked off the street from the mall. "Miss Tedi Sorensen?"

A taxi-driver. Tedi had never been called "Miss" before, either; she liked it even better than "Ma'am." "Black Star sent me. You went out the wrong door or you'd've found me. Hop in."

The nuclear-electric car was air-conditioned. Tedi took a deep breath and relaxed. "Must get to you, when you're not used to it," said the driver. There was no armorsheet between them, a comment on the policing the area received. "When we get the 'crete covered with grass it won't be so bad. Some we're gonna roof with sunpower." We, not they.

The Black Star building, when they reached it, was a featureless cube, rebuilt in purple prefab panels. The only break in the wall was the imposing entrance draped with black flags. The cab driver seemed unimpressed by the proximity of Black Star's awesome power, gave her a cheery good-bye and watched her walk in.

Tedi repressed an internal quiver as she strode through the entrance into a small armored room. The facade of the building, and this room, was covered with carefully-preserved bullet-nicks and shell-scars.

The Revolution had not been so much against the government as against the absentee ownership and administration of black ghettos, especially schools, and against organized crime. That was eliminated first, by the simple process of beating up and shooting its pushers, pimps, and numbers runners. Black Star took over the numbers itself, in lieu of taxation.

But the attempt to eliminate crime brought out all who profited by it, beginning with the police. It was these battles that were remembered - at one time no blue-clad man could live more than an hour or so in any ghetto - but it was the unpublicized war on the street agents and the landlords that won the day for Black Star. Now it was a government within a government in every major city and in the nation generally; and this was the home of National Black Star.

The Revolution was pretty well over by the time Tedi was born; she had taken it for granted. Not that she failed to give Black Star due credit; it had largely eliminated poverty as it had been known, along with its concomitant, welfare. And the Cosa Nostra had been seriously crippled. Thus, when Black Star asked for a meeting, she had treated it like any request from a nationwide organization, though this was more powerful than most.

But now, as she entered a larger reception room full of Black Star warriors - the cold goods, chiseled ice statues with an eagle alertness - it began to come home to her. One of them nodded to her and led her through the massive fortress to a huge hall, dimly-lit, done in purples, violets, and sky-blues, with the Black Star behind the podium - a four-pointed black star in the shape of an X in a circle.

It was the National Black Star Congress Hall.

She was left alone for a nervous time, then her guide returned with a wide smile and showed her into a roomy conference room just behind the podium. The National Black Star Chamber met here - supreme ruling group of ten percent of the country's population.

Fiona greeted her.

The idea that the big black girl could be high up in Black Star was startling at first - then obvious. She had a strong personality, strong as Tedi's and more used to responsibility, yet was trained only as a programmer.

Tedi recognized the faces of most of the group, though only one or two names were familiar; she did not follow black news much. She was relieved to see that most were young, though not so young as she. Smiling brightly at them all, she seated herself along the straight side of the half-circular table.

"We might as well come right to the point, Miss Sorensen. Fiona tells us you're all right, and she also says you can be trusted. To start with - Fiona says your biowar research is defensive. Right?" A young woman with a cool voice.

"Yes." Tedi nodded, but quickly added, "But we have to design and analyze dangerous diseases in order to know how to defeat them. We have several thousand deadly plague designs in our memory crystals right now."

The Star Chamber relaxed and Fiona gave her a broad smile. Tedi had only been thinking of the Security Council's publicity, due to break any hour. She swallowed and felt her knees unhinge, beneath the table. But she had passed the test for honesty ...

"Do you want a copy of the report we're preparing for the National Security Council?" she asked. "I can send it to you under the flower."

"No, we don't give a damn about biowarfare as long as someone else is taking care of it," said the oldest man present, T. Ervin Sloane. "Our major concerns are internal."

The Woman with the cool voice nodded. "To get right into it, there's a rumor going around that you - or someone - has developed a pill that can turn a black into a white. We hear that there are plans for spiking foods with it. We have a report that it's been tested on interracial marriages. Anything to it? You have anything to do with it?"

"More important," said another, leaning toward her, "could you make a pill that'd reverse the process?"

Tedi had been gasping. She shook her head and then, to her dismay, found herself laughing uproariously. When she finally choked off her tinkling laughter into little-girl giggles, she saw them all looking at her alertly, expressionlessly, coldly. Even Fiona was angry.

But it had been too much; the awesome Black Star Chamber solemnly discussing pseudoscientific fantasy.

"It is flatly and totally impossible," she said formally, biting back a traitorous smile that kept crinkling her lips. "My guess is you've intercepted the broadcast daydreams of the last of the crumbling soggy crackers."

The cool-voiced woman smiled and they all relaxed. One of the men - Ahmed, she realized - said, "You're sure? It couldn't be something like orthosomatics?"

Tedi shook her head decisively. Orthosomatics, designed to eliminate inherited diseases, was based on the fact that humans are generally similar but have individual characteristics. Normal humans have one nose, ten toes, blood that clots, adequate insulin, and so on, regardless of race or family strain. But the shape of nose, skull, et cetera, is an individual characteristic. The injection was DNA in the gene-print of the general human pattern, with no identifying characteristics; where the individual gene was lacking, it would supply the defect. Any attempt to alter an already-present gene would have no effect.

And, of course, the injections worked only during conception. Sloane nodded as she explained; they all seemed to be familiar with the facts. They'd wanted confirmation, though. "Very good," he said. "But how about pills to break down the complexion?"

"Numerous complexion and haircolor-altering pills are known. They have certain limits, though," Tedi said, relaxing and stretching her legs. "Usually they have to be taken continuously, and not many systems can tolerate that. There are also pills that will straighten or curl hair. With them and surgery a man could be made into a crude copy of a member of the other race, at least temporarily, but it would be expensive. And any children would be unaffected, though some of the pills would affect them temporarily too - and some, in fact most, cause birth defects. You understand?"

"Yes," said the cool-voiced woman in satisfaction. "Then you'd say it's impossible for blacks to be turned into whites."

She did, clearly and firmly. "But," she added, her honesty coming to the fore again, "that's not to say that something couldn't be devised, say a powerful form of orthosomatic conditioning. You'll have to keep up with the bioengineering profession. Have some black engineers keep you informed of any progress that might lead to such a discovery. Even that would work only on the next generation, of course."

"Our principal concern is that it isn't done without the victim's knowledge, though we dislike the thought of anyone running out on us," said Sloane, and the others nodded grimly.

"Fiona tells us that the Advisers passed recommendations on rat-extermination," said the cool-voiced woman."

"I think that's all we need then, Miss Sorensen," and Tedi stood up if anything a little reluctantly. They thanked her formally and she indicated her willingness to serve them at any time.

Fiona accompanied her. The whiskery bandit in the cab smiled up at them and Tedi slid inside with a surge of admiration for the miracle Black Star had wrought. This old coot was as exuberant about tomorrow as a five-year-old. Pity Michel couldn't be turned into a black. She sighed again at thought of him as the dull pain in her chest returned.

"I don't suppose it would be wise to let the boys and girls in the office know you were called down by the Chamber to testify about me and the Department," she said to Fiona, to cover the pain. "They might get a little tense in your presence if they knew you were so high up in Black Star. You'd miss the banter."

"That's right. I was never near here, though I was on Black Star business. No one will question me about that."

At the station the cab driver waved and shouted, "Take care of the little lady!" and Tedi smiled and waved back. She had been called a lady before, though not often. She liked it better than she ever had before.

Fiona did take care of her. First she produced a black card and showed it to the Skyway robot monitor. It accepted it and their Unident cards and routed them direct to the transcontinental station. When the little car swung in on its rail, it was promptly surrounded by blacks, many in Black Star uniforms.

When Tedi climbed out someone called, "Hey, what's that white doin' - " taking several angry steps forward. A rumble arose from the crowd. But Fiona showed the black card to the captain, and several of the warriors had recognized Tedi; they were expecting her.

Two of the protesters were sprayed in the face while the captain bellowed, "Black card! Black card, damn it!" They backed off rubbing their faces, began to pant heavily, and hurriedly sat down. A lieutenant cradling an autogun escorted them from the blockaded local and city-suburban levels to the interurban and transcontinental levels.

Tedi stepped into the car for New York with a sigh of relief, waved a farewell to Fiona and the lieutenant, and waited nervously for the train to start. At length it did. Tedi stared unseeingly out at the gleaming white plastic Replica Washington Monument. The railcar train built up speed, flowed smoothly out of the city, assaulted a slope, topped out at six hundred feet, and began to accelerate in earnest, sixteen kilometers per hour per second, not easing off until it was near the speed of sound.

A flight of butterflies went through Tedi's stomach, followed by severe twinges of fright. Michel, oh Michel! She was on her way to the press conference, and presumably Michel and his friends were even now laying plans that might get them arrested, perhaps beaten -

She'd be smiling and speaking for the icons - down there, Michel would be shouting obscenities and waving signs denouncing all who sided with the despoilers of the ocean ... including her...

If anything happened to him, to any of them, public opinion would blame her and all who smiled for the icons. Michel's friends would denounce her to him, would urge him to leave her. Michel would have to defend her actions, her words, to them - the Security Council publicity flap returned suddenly, made her wince.

In the end, nothing she could say would matter. They knew who she worked for - and they had rejected all reasoned arguments. She could quit the government, could even join SAVE, speak out at public meetings, join demonstrations, make speeches, forfeit her reputation for the cause - damn it, didn't they understand the concept of professionalism? A pro doesn't trade on her rep, but on her ability to deliver.

She could do all that and it wouldn't matter. Michel and SAVE didn't know what the world's problems were.

Besides - she didn't want to save the world. She just wanted to save Michel.

Damn it, he had no business getting involved in such things. He wasn't cut out to understand technological society. He was a primitive, moving to the ebb and flow of the tides, the seasons, sunrise and sunset ... in the heart of the most sophisticated society ever known.

And she?

No, she thought, I can't quit and join him in his way of life. She was not that kind of primitive. Besides, the world needed her; it had many problems she would have to help solve before she could join him in his restful way of life - if she ever could.

But leave him? With a pang she thought again of their early days together, of the little songs and poems he used to compose for her.

Deceleration caught her and with a start she realized she had not even seen Baltimore and Philadelphia. They were coming into New York now. Butterflies went through her stomach again, leaving her knees weak. Worse than stage fright, which she'd never had.

From station to station, the trip from Washington had taken thirty minutes. A too-short journey on the intraurban rails brought her to the Universal Biosystems building. Thank God, thank God, there were no demonstrators in sight; she had feared to confront Michel ... Tedi paused one last moment to steady herself before ringing.

The office suite was designed to overwhelm the unwary visitor; the rugs were biomorphic grass (no doubt they turned on the ultra- violet after hours), the hangings on the walls were synthetic or biomorphic mosses, and so on. The occupants also seemed to be products of bioengineering, fully in keeping with the background: brightly-gleaming insecty men with hard glittery carapaces and loud voices, and soft, moist, gray creatures who hugged the shadows, voiceless but powerful and sometimes, poisonous.

Tedi shook hands all around, murmuring polite responses and ignoring the ogling eyes. In the next room, she found to her relief a number of lowly bioengineers. She knew some of them and all had heard of her. She had been invited for the publicity - her name was well-known, primarily because of her form - but she had developed the phytoplankton the flap was about to introduce to the unsuspecting public, in her pre-Department days.

Well, publicity for the Department was also part of her job.

An explosion of men and loud voices caused her to cringe - but it was only the press.

"Hi, Tedi!"

"Smile for the icons, Tedi."

"Sit down over here and stretch out - let's have a view of the legs."

"O.K., now let's have a view of you shaking hands with Dr. Whozis over here - the one that developed this bug."

"I want one of her being thanked by the Chairman of the Board of General Oceanics."

Tedi went through her paces with a rather glassy smile, relieved only when Dr. Wells winked at her.

"How about it, Tedi? Is this a revolutionary breakthrough?"

"All breakthroughs are revolutionary." These were sci reporters; some she had seen before, though no names came to mind. Their sudden eruption was rather like a plunge into cold water; when the shock was over she found herself in her own element and swimming strongly, fears for Michel and fears of SAVE forced to the back of her mind.

She gave a short, concise account of the new phytoplankton, what it could and could not do - it was a high protein producer and also produced enzymes that gave it the flavor of beef. Other varieties could be devised by biomorphic mutation - controlled mutation, much simpler than actual synthesis - that would have any meat flavor desired. It would cut the cost of synthetic meat by such and such a percentage - the actual figures had to be supplied by Dr. Wells. Her contribution had been to take advantage of a loophole in the nitrogen-fixing sequence to increase protein production.

Universal Biosystems' PR men took it from there, building on this small core of fact a castle of fantasy they hoped the reporters would also carry, a lot of fluff about how the banner of progress in Universal Biosystems' hands was carried forward to a happier and cheaper future for all, et cetera.

The reporters took desultory notes. Then the tour of the seafarm where General Oceanics was putting Universal Biosystems' new phytoplankton into production and to see what wonderful new techniques General Oceanics had devised, et cetera, was announced. About half the reporters accompanied the corporation officers to the elevators.

On the roof were a group of palatial airboats - busses converted to flying offices, boomerang-shaped flying wings. Tedi looked around anxiously, her fears returning. On several nearby roofs were small knots of demonstrators waving signs; their voices carried faintly. The executives ignored them.

So few, she thought, scanning them for an impossible glimpse of Michel.

Tedi's stomach had disappeared; the backs of her hands prickled in panic. She nearly backed out of the excursion, and the sight of a lazily-circling NYPD patrol boat did not reassure her. But then they were all surging aboard the airboats, sweeping her along with them.

The seafarm was an expanse of kilometer-square tanks sixty feet deep, like giant plastic wading pools floating in the sea, full of water which was full of plankton. Sun-powered pumps constantly brought up mineral-rich water from the untouched depths. Ships swam up to and away from the automated loading docks; the domes of processing plants gleamed dully, sunpower panels drinking most of the light.

"What the hell?" Dr. Wells, beside her, leaned forward to peer out. Tedi looked, heart pounding painfully. Airboats circled the sea-farm, private boats in bright colors, small, more nearly rectangular than the big busses. Their tail fins flashed in various bright colors against the dull background of the farm, flashed and flickered as they caught the harsh light, circling.

They landed on the floating stage. White Coast Guard Airboats circled, trying to hold the intruders back, but they scattered and began to land here, there, and everywhere on the farm's horizontal surfaces. Only the landing stage was kept clear of them.

Consternation was visible on high financial faces. No one had expected a demonstration way out here. Sensible people arranged these things in advance, lest they get out of hand.

"They said they'd only be on the roofs and around the building!" shouted a General Oceanics officer indignantly.

"Wait a minute - that isn't SAVE!"

One banner read, "Kick the Snakes Out of the Garden." Another said, "In God's Image."

"Orthohumans," said Tedi. A monstrous, icy calm had come over her. These were those who objected on religious grounds to biosynthesis in general and any future synthesis of androids in particular. "SAVE has sent for reinforcements," she said bitterly. But did they have to choose the most senseless radicals in the world?

Orthohumans were a collection of groups, each an odd lot of splinter parties. They scrambled around domes in little bunches led by one or two figures, along floatwalks, teetered along the floats that supported the edges of the nearby tanks. They shouted and gesticulated and waved their banners too wildly for them to be read. SAVE tried to keep them in hand, but the scattered landing had disrupted its organization. Someone produced a hailer and shouted, "Save our seas! End oil spills now!" It sounded weak over the ominous rumble of the orthohumans.

"Does this farm produce oil?" someone asked nervously.

The office float wasn't easily accessible from where most of the demonstrators had landed; they were cut off by the geography of the farm. Frustrated, they stood a hundred yards off across an open channel of seawater and screamed threats. The corporation officials began to relax, though not the reporters.

"Maybe we'd better leave," said one of the latter.

"Nonsense," said one of the PR men, seeing the follow-up story disappearing. "They'll soon get tired and go home. We'll wait them out, here in the employee lounge. There's a bar."

Frustration increased as their audience began to drift away. The orthohumans turned their attention to the seafarm around them. "Tear the place down! Wreck the whole damn farm! Smash those sunpower panels!" SAVE bleated and wrung its hands; only one or two attempted more than words. Tedi saw one SAVE supporter in a yellow shirt go down under furious fists.

She stood appalled. The demonstrators were oblivious to possible harm to themselves. They were so few and by its nature the seafarm had to be so huge that the amount of damage they could do to it was negligible; but it could easily kill them all. That wasn't seawater in most of the tanks - not after some modern plankton got through with it. And all kinds of dangerous chemicals were stored in the floating, half-submerged bottles, some of them pressure bottles.

The General Oceanics officials saw it differently; the Chairman of the Board purpled and ran for the airboat com to call the Coast Guard.

Tedi stood on the float, the sun beating down at her and glancing at her from the water and the bright surfaces all around her. She squinted against the glare, head pounding. The heat, so oppressive when first she stepped out of the airboat, was no longer noticeable. Splashes became audible, hoarse screams of rage and of terror; she saw sunpower panels crack reluctantly under fists and feet, wires torn loose, dangling; valves opened, fluids spurting. Each running figure at first was Michel; each figure that shouted hoarsely or shook its fist at her was Michel; each figure that fell or was knocked off into the tanks was Michel. Every figure that screamed was Michel.

She watched him die, and then watched him die again.

SAVE had killed him, with its reasonable but wrong premises, its shifty logic, its demands for the impossible, its appeal to his finer instincts - with its appeal to his emotions and denial of his reason.

She had killed him, with her insistence on reason and logic, her demand for the possible - with her appeal to his reason and denial of his emotions.

Tedi was trembling with hatred of SAVE and of self when her arm was taken. "Come on, Tedi, hurry!" She stumbled blindly to the airboat. The flight back passed in a daze. She heard vaguely that the Coast Guard was picking them up as fast as it could. They were undermanned even after requisitioning all the company men nearby. There were hints of violence, vague, indefinite, ugly ...

When the airboat wings settled down on the Universal Biosystems building, Tedi felt a pulse of savage hatred go through her at the sight of the demonstrators on adjacent roofs. SAVE! Damn it and all its members!

It had killed Michel.

The press was waiting for them - an alliance between the conservative SAVE and the radically violent orthohuman groups was news.

"Did you recognize ...?"

"How many were there? Any hurt?"

"How many arrested? What damage... ."

"You, sir, what do you know about this . . ?"

"Have you anything to add? Any comment?"

A reporter had approached Tedi, extending an icon. She stood in the raw heat of the city, with waves of air from the passing airboats washing around her, air carrying the odor of ozone and nitrates from electrojets. The glare here was nearly as bad as on the seafarm, and her head already ached, her -eyes throbbed. Inside, she was dead, except for the hatred.

"Yes, I have something to say." She felt her lip curl back from her teeth. "I've got a lot to say." Her eyes were burning as well as throbbing. "This is the sort of thing we expect from those who think with their bellies instead of with their brains. Nobody should be the least surprised. It would be just like SAVE to call for help from the most fanatic and violent group in the world! Up with manpower, down with reason! Save our fish - let the fish-eaters starve! That's how they solve the population problem: famine suits them fine - they don't intend to starve! And that's the only answer they have! Sure, they talk a lot of flunt about birth-control, and a lot more flunk about the inalienable right to have children. But there's only one real solution: sterilant bacteria!"

Reporters were gaping, but faithfully recording her tirade. Others threaded their way through the crowd toward her, their icons gleaming.

"The world can no longer afford half-solutions to real problems," Tedi said, hurrying now as she felt her voice beginning to go. "Nor can we wait for voluntary methods. Any truly concerned group, if it had brains, could see that. But, no! Sterilant bacteria spells genocide to them and they're more afraid of that - that there'll be no more people like them - than they are of war or famine. That's where the nutcracker pinches! Anything but the loss of their vitality! Naturally SAVE resorts to violence, arouses and encourages the most vicious and violent rabble in the world, a rabble that wants no part of civilization! SAVE would drown the world to save it! They ..."

Tears overflowed her eyes but she continued as long as she had voice. When she choked into silence there was a hush around her. She fought down sobs for a moment, felt pressure on her arm, then there was cool dimness around her and most of the pressure in her head and eyes was gone.

*"Uh ... Ms. Sorensen ... I, uh, are you sure you want your words broadcast? Perhaps, if you were to tell them you were overwrought ..."

Tedi's eyes focused dimly on a soft gray shape, trembling with fear of bad publicity. An arc of fury went through her, leaving bitterness. "I said exactly what I meant, and I mean exactly what I said!" she snapped, pushing past. She groped her way blindly into the elevator and was irritated when it waited until a crowd of men and women also got in; she wanted only to be alone. They stared silently.

She stayed stubbornly in the car when most of the rest of them got out, but her name was called. "Ms. Sorensen? A call for you. Will you take it here or down in the lobby?"

"Lobby," she managed to say, thickly, and again the elevator descended. A flash of wild hope went through her, died, but left a trace of life behind it.

One of the com-booths in the lobby had a glowing light; chimes came from it. Tedi ran, heart throbbing. Her hands trembled as she fumbled open the door and punched accept. "Tedi Sorenson here," she said breathlessly.

It wasn't Michel. For a moment the disappointment was so sharp she saw nothing, then when she saw again she did not recognize him.

"Ms. Sorensen? Security Coordination Center. I knew you'd be at the Universal Biosystems building, so I thought I'd call ... You're all right?"

"Oh, y-yes. How about Michel?"

"Michel? Michel who?"

She stared at him, unable to understand how he could have forgotten a thing so important. "Michel Ferron! The man I told you about - the one who warned me not to go!" she said impatiently. "My husband!"

"Oh ..." He looked at her compassionately. "I didn't know." He glanced away. "The reports are still coming in, but we do have a preliminary list of injured and arrested; none dead, yet."

"Oh, thank God!" Tedi's tears flowed freely.

"No Ferron on the list of wounded ... Ah, here he is: he's with a group of demonstrators picked up by the Coast Guard and the Navy and flown to their detention center at Portland, Maine." He thought a moment, looked back at her. "This is National Security business, not Navy or Coast Guard. It carries the usual coding - my guess is that they'll be transferred to the Keene, New Hampshire detention center immediately. Nothing serious will be done to them, I should say - a year's probation. It'll be a day or two before their status is determined, though."

"Then I should go to Keene? Would they let me see him?"

"Yes. As for letting you see him ... I think they would. Being who you are. It's worth the chance."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" Tedi sat down and closed the booth's door and cried for five minutes. Then she tried to repair the damage, her mind beginning to function again. National Security would protect them; if they were tried in New York City it would be bad. The city was quite radical about people who'd destroy jobs, especially jobs that produced food, due to the presence of one of the strongest Black Star organizations in the world.

And she should be able to get him out even sooner.

Should she?

He'd hate her for it, she realized with a sudden poignant sorrow. Facing the future, facing Michel mentally, she knew that he was gone, forever gone. She had lost him. He had changed ... and she had changed. Her memories of the morning with Michel were deep under many feet of water. It wasn't anger or any other emotion that told her their days were done; it was knowledge.

That brought the strongest tide of sorrow she had ever felt, too deep for tears. She sat and felt it rise up over her, higher and higher, until it seemed her heart would burst from the pressure; a tiny whimper was forced out of her. Then it began to recede, and at length it had fallen until she could take a breath. Then a few tears fell.

Heavily, she stood up, fumbled open the booth, walked slowly and painfully toward the door.

The Skyway did not run to Keene. She left it in Troy, New York and rented an airboat, numbly astonished that her mind continued to function even to this extent. And still the day wasn't over. Events had swept her inexorably forward, to New York, on to the seafarm, back to the icons, and still the day was not done, it swept her on, to the meeting, the meeting with Michel ...

The verdant landscape flowed by below, late-afternoon shadows lying across it. Spring was not complete here in New England; the green below was as tender and evocative as one of Michel's poems.

Fall would be a more appropriate time for this trip ...

Below her was peace ... Tedi sighed. Abruptly, it was too much to bear. The sight of a timeless village in an achingly lovely valley triggered her decision. Her thoughts were not too clear as she circled the village, searched in vain for a landing field, and finally brought the boat down in a dusty street. She looked out at three-century-old buildings and thought, shocked, What am I doing here?

Beside the ancient houses were airboats, a few cars and trucks. She was down in the shade of a massive, ancient oak beside a stone wall, the stones almost invisible under a riot of flowering vines.

Enjoy it while you're here, anyway, she decided, opening the door to breathe the mingled odors of shade and flowers and earth and new-cut grass. A hard-wound spring inside her quivered and began to lose its tension.

"Hello, my dear. Are you lost? Who are you looking for?"

A tiny woman, hardly taller than Tedi though plumply rounded, stood at the gate in the wall. She was the classic, beaming, wrinkled-apple grandma, complete with apron. Tedi couldn't help staring, but she answered politely that she was just feeling a little airsick, and the valley looked so peaceful ...

The little woman -beamed more broadly. "I know how it is; the motion brings it on. I remember the first time I rode in an airboat; I was expecting my third at the time and I wouldn't set foot in one for three years after. Why don't you come in and have a drink of cold water, dear?"

"Thank you. I would like a drink." She looked at the yard, wistfully. "But I'd like to look over the yard even more."

"Be my guest! It's my pride and joy. I have little else to do nowadays, so I put a lot of effort into it. I dearly love a pleasant yard."

Pleasant was the only word for it. Actually there were too many flowers and the yard was cramped, with numerous bushes and flower beds and the overhanging trees that made a cave of shade. But though no landscape gardener would have given it more than a passing grade, it was quite the most peaceful spot she had ever seen.

The water was out of a well with an iron pump that must have been a century old. It squeaked. The house was white clapboard, its gable roof plated with sunpower panels, air-conditioned, a nuclear-electric car parked beside it. The water had a freshness she relished.

The woman left to work up her bread. Tedi wandered over the yard, inhaling coolness and peace. Dignity, freedom, self-respect, all were practiced here. Ironic that so much of the progress of the last two centuries was directed toward recovering this. It had been here all the time.

This was what SAVE and Michel were fighting for - they were not merely fleeing the future.

Had she been wrong all this time? Had all their endless progress brought them happiness? Was it really progress? Was it fair to rout out so many people like this woman, as so many had been routed out, in the name of progress? Michel himself had been routed out so ...

Oh Michel! For the first time she began to realize what he had missed all his adult life. No wonder he was so unhappy. But it was still here! Or wherever they chose to make it. Was it too late? She started toward the boat, determined to go to him and tell him ...

And stopped, staring. Before her stood a bush with bright blue leaves and stems, drooping under the weight of big, deep-green blooms having the convoluted beauty of roses. The shades of blue on the leaves faded into each other as delicately as the green of normal plants, but the overall tinge was a deep, joyous sky blue.

It was a common biomorphic mutant, but Tedi stared at it. To find one here, of all places!

Then movement on one sky-blue leaf caught her eye. A crab-shaped spider crouched in wait, the color of the leaf. It was the kind that normally lay in wait in flowers of its own color.

The very insects were making the adaptation Michel had not made.