disgustedly.
“That’s right, Mama’s kitty. But where is Mama? Do you suppose she ran away?”
The cat-Q-5 looked startled. It stuttered for a moment, and its fur crept slowly erect. It glanced around hurriedly, then shot off down the street at a fast scamper. He followed it in the truck until it darted onto a porch and began wailing through the screen, “Mama no run ray! Mama no run ray!”
Norris grinned and drove on. A class-C couple, allowed no children of their own, could get quite attached to a cat-Q-5. The felines were emotionally safer than the quasi-human chimp-K series called “neutroids.” When a pet neutroid died, a family was broken with grief; but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid.
His grin faded as he wondered which Anne would choose. The Norrises were class-C—defective heredity.
*
He found himself in Sherman III Community Center—eight blocks of commercial buildings, serving the surrounding suburbs. He stopped at the message office to pick up his mail. There was a memo from Chief Franklin. He tore it open nervously and read it in the truck. It was something he had been expecting for several days.
Attention All District Inspectors: Subject: Deviant Neutroid.
You will immediately begin a systematic and thorough survey of all animals whose serial numbers fall in the Bermuda-K-99 series for birth dates during July 2234. This is in connection with the Delmont Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular deviation. Delmont has confessed to passing only one non-standard unit, but there may be others. He disclaims memory of deviant’s serial number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when one animal is found. Be thorough.
If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show the slightest abnormality in the normalcy tests. Forward to central lab. Return standard units to their owners. Accomplish entire survey project within seven days.
C. Franklin
Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around three hundred animals a month. He tried to estimate how many of July’s influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his kennel. The other forty-nine were occupied by the previous inspector’s “unclaimed” inventory—awaiting destruction.
He wadded the memo in his pocket, then nosed the truck onto the highway and headed toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of Anthropos, Inc. They should be able to give him a list of all July’s Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together with the retailers to whom the animals had been sold. A week’s deadline for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight squeeze.
He was halfway to Wylo City when the radiophone buzzed on his dashboard. He pulled into the slow lane and answered quickly, hoping for Anne’s voice. A polite professional purr came instead.
“Inspector Norris? This is Doctor Georges. We haven’t met, but I imagine we will. Are you extremely busy at the moment?”
Norris hesitated. “Extremely,” he said.
“Well, this won’t take long. One of my patients—a Mrs. Sarah Glubbes—called a while ago and said her baby was sick. I must be getting absent-minded, because I forgot she was class C until I got there.” He hesitated. “The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It’s dying. Eighteenth order virus.”
“So?”
“Well, she’s—uh—rather a peculiar woman, Inspector. Keeps telling me how much trouble she had in childbirth, and how she can’t ever have another one. It’s pathetic. She believes it’s her own. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” Norris replied slowly. “But what do you want me to do? Can’t you send the neutroid to a vet?”
“She insists it’s going to a hospital. Worst part is that she’s heard of the disease. Knows it can be cured with the proper treatment—in humans. Of course, no hospital would play along with her fantasy and take a neutroid, especially since she couldn’t pay for its treatment.”
“I still don’t see—”
“I thought perhaps you could help me fake a substitution. It’s a K-48 series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound that’s not claimed?”
Norris thought for a moment. “I think I have one. You’re welcome to it, Doctor, but you can’t fake a serial number. She’ll know it. And even though they look exactly alike, the new one won’t recognize her. It’ll be spooky.”
There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. “I’ll try it anyway. Can I come get the animal now?”
“I’m on the highway—”
“Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind completely if—”
“All right, I’ll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you. Pick out the K-48 and sign for it. And listen—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let me catch you falsifying a serial number.”
Doctor Georges laughed faintly. “I won’t, Norris. Thanks a million.” He hung up quickly.
Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal. But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later have to be killed.
He called Anne. Her voice was dull. She seemed depressed, but not angry. When he finished talking, she said, “All right, Terry,” and hung up.
*
By noon, he had finished checking the shipping lists at the wholesale house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July’s Bermuda-K-99s had entered his territory, and they were about equally divided among five pet shops, three of which were in Wylo City.
After lunch, he called each of the retail dealers, read them the serial numbers, and asked them to check the sales records for names and addresses of individual buyers. By three o’clock, he had the entire list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained was to pick up the thirty-five animals.
And that, he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to begin his rounds.
Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the porch for a moment, smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned.
“Doctor Georges came,” she told him. “He signed for the—” She stopped to stare at him. “Darling, your face! What happened?”
Gingerly he touch the livid welts down the side of his cheek. “Just scratched a little,” he muttered. He pushed past her and went to the phone in the hall. He sat eying it distastefully for a moment, not liking what he had to do. Anne came to stand beside him and examine the scratches.
Finally
