Dark Benediction

He shuddered and chopped the thought off short. She glanced at him curiously.

“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” she muttered. “You imagine things.”

“Uh-uh. Listen to me, Terry, if you let that baby…”

“I’m sick of your ifs!” he barked. “If I hear another goddam threat of your leaving if, then to hell with it, you can leave any time!”

“Terry!”

She puzzled in his direction for a moment, then slowly wandered out, still puzzling. He sank lower in the chair, brooding. Then it hit him. It wasn’t Anne that worried him; it was a piece of himself. It was a piece of himself that threatened to go, and if he let Peony be packed off to Central Lab, it would go, and thereafter he would not be able to stomach anything, even himself.

The morning news from the Scriber was carefully folded be-side his plate when he came to the table for breakfast. It was so deliberately folded that he bothered to notice the advertisement in the center of the displayed portion.

“You lay this out for my benefit?” he asked.

“Not particularly,” she said casually.

He read it with a suspicious frown:

BIOLOGISTS WANTED

by

ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED

for

Evolvotron Operators

Incubator Tenders

Nursery Supervisors

Laboratory Personnel

in

NEW ATLANTA PLANT

Call or write:

Personnel Manager

ANTHROPOS INCORPORATED

Atlanta, Georgia

Note: Secure Labor Department release from present job before applying.

“What’s this supposed to mean to me?” he demanded.

“Nothing in particular. Why? Does it mean something to you?”

He brushed the paper aside and decided to ignore the subtlety, if any. She picked it up, glanced at it as if she had not seen it before. “New jobs, new places to live,” she murmured.

After breakfast, he went down to police headquarters to sign a statement concerning the motive in Doctor Georges’ murder. Sarah Glubbes had been stashed away in a psychopathic ward, according to Chief Miler, and would probably stay awhile.

“Funny thing, Norris,” the cop said. “What people won’t do over a newt! You know, it’s a wonder you don’t get your head blown off. I don’t covet your job.”

“Good.” He signed the paper and glanced at Miler coolly. “Must take an iron gut, huh, Norris?”

“Sure. Just a matter of adaptation.”

“Guess so.” Miler patted his paunch and yawned. “How you coming on this Delmont business? Picked up any deviants yet?”

Norris pitched the fountain pen on the desk, splattering ink. “What made you ask that?” he said stiffly.

“Nothing made me. I did it myself. Touchy today?”

“Maybe.”

Miler shrugged. “Something made you jump when I said ‘deviants.’”

“Nothing made me. I—”

“Ya, ya, sure, but—”

“Save it for a suspect, Fat.” He stalked out of the office, leaving Miler tapping his pencil and gazing curiously after him. A phone rang somewhere behind him. He hurried on—angry with himself for jumpiness and for indecisiveness. He had to make a choice, and make it soon. It was the lack of a choice that left him jumpy, susceptible to a jolt from either side.

“Norris… Hey, Norris…”

Miler’s voice. He whirled to see the cop trotting down the steps behind him, his pudgy face glistening in the morning sun. “Your wife’s on the phone, Norris. Says it’s urgent.”

When he got back to the office, he heard the faint, “Hello, hello!” coming from the receiver on the desk, caught it up quickly.

“Anne? What’s wrong?”

Her voice was low and strained beneath a cheerful overnote. “Nothing’s wrong, darling. We have a visitor. Come right home. Chief Franklin’s here.”

It knocked the breath out of him. He felt himself going white. He glanced at Chief Miler, sitting calmly nearby.

“Can you tell me about it now?” he asked her.

“Not very well. Please hurry home. He wants to talk to you about the K-99s.”

“Have the two of them met?”

“Yes, they have.” She paused, as if waiting for him to speak, then said, “Oh, that! Bouncey, honey—remember bouncey?”

“Good, I’ll be right home.” He hung up and started out.

“Troubles?” the chief called after him.

“Just a sick newt, if it’s any of your business,” he called back.

Franklin’s helicopter was parked in the empty lot next door when Norris drove up in front of the house. The departmental chief heard the truck and came out on the porch to watch his agent walk up the path. His bulky body was loosely draped in gray tweeds, and his hawk face was a dark solemn mask. He greeted Norris with a slow, almost sarcastic nod.

“I see you don’t read your mail. If you’d looked at it, you’d have known I was coming. I wrote you yesterday.”

“Sorry, Chief, I didn’t have a chance to stop by the message office this morning.”

Franklin grunted. “Then you don’t know why I’m here?”

“No, sir.”