Dark Benediction

“Just a guess. If you put her through pseudopart, then you deserve all the trouble you get.”

“I take it you’re a prohibitionist.”

“Skip it. What did you want from me?”

“A replacement neutroid. From the kennel.”

“Baloney. You couldn’t fool her. If she’s blind, she’d still know the difference.”

“I’ll have to take the chance. Listen, Norris, it’s pathetic. She knows the disease can be cured—in humans—with hospitalization and expensive treatment that I can’t get for a neutroid. No vet could get the drug either. Scarce. It’s pathetic.”

“I’m crying all over the steering wheel.”

The doctor hesitated. “Sorry, Norris, I thought you were human.”

“Not to the extent of doing quasi-legal favors that won’t be appreciated for some rich neurotic dame and a doc who practices pseudopart.”

“One correction,” Georges said stiffly. “Sarah’s not rich. She’s a middle-aged widow and couldn’t pay for treatment if she could get it.”

“Oh—”

“Thanks anyway, Norris.”

“Hold it,” he grunted. “What’s the chimp’s series?”

“It’s a K-48, a five-year-old with a three-year age set.” Norris thought for a moment. It was a dirty deal, and it wouldn’t work.

“I think I’ve got one in the kennel that’s fairly close,” he offered doubtfully.

“Good, good, I’ll have Fred go over and—”

“Wait, now. This one’ll be spooky, won’t know her, and the serial number will be different.”

“I know, I know,” Georges sighed. “But it seems worth a try. An attack of V-i8 can cause mild amnesia in humans; that might explain why it won’t know her. About the serial number—”

“Don’t try changing it,” Norris growled.

“How about obliterating—”

“Don’t, and I’ll check on it a couple of weeks from now to make damn sure you didn’t. That’s a felony, Georges.”

“All right, all right, I’ll just have to take the chance that she won’t notice it. When can I pick it up?”

“Call my wife in fifteen minutes. I’ll speak to her first.”

“Uh, yes… Mrs. Norris. Uh, very well, thanks, Inspector.” Georges hung up quickly.

Norris lit a cigaret, steeled himself, called Anne. Her voice was dull, depressed, but no longer angry.

“All right, Terry,” she said tonelessly. “I’ll go out to the kennel and get the one in cage thirty-one, and give it to Georges when he comes.”

“Thanks, babe.”

He heard her mutter, “And then I’ll go take a bath,” just before the circuit clicked off.

He flipped off the auto-driver, took control of the truck, slipped into the fast lane and drove furiously toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of Anthropos Incorporated to begin tracing down the suspected Bermuda K-99s in accordance with Franklin’s memo. He would have to check through all incoming model files for the six week period, go over the present inventory, then run down the Bermuda serial numbers in a mountain of invoices covering a thirty-week period, find the pet shops and retail dealers that had taken the doubtful models, and finally survey the retail dealers to trace the models to their present owners. With cooperation from wholesaler and dealers, he might get it down to the retail level by mid-afternoon, but getting the models away from their owners would be the nasty part of the job. He was feeling pretty nasty himself, he decided. The spat with Anne, the distasteful thoughts associated with Slade’s pseudoparty, the gnawing remorse about collaborating with Dr. Georges in a doubtful maneuver to pacify one Sarah Glubbes, a grim week’s work ahead, plus his usual charge of suppressed resentment toward Chief Franklin—it all added up to a mood that could turn either black or vicious, depending on circumstance.

If some doting Mama gave him trouble about impounding her darling tail-wagger, he was, he decided, in the right kind of mood to get a warrant and turn the job over to the sheriff.

The gasping neutroid lay on the examining table under the glaring light. The torso quivered and twitched as muscles contracted spasmodically, but the short legs were already limp and paralyzed, allowing the chubby man in the white coat to lift them easily by the ankles and retrieve the rectal thermometer. The neutroid wheezed and chattered plaintively as the nurse drew the blanket across its small body again.

“A hundred and nine,” grunted the chubby man, his voice muffled by the gauze mask. His eyes probed the nurse’s eyes for a moment. He jerked his head toward the door. “She still out there?”

The nurse nodded.

The doctor stared absently at the thermometer stem for a moment, looked up again, spoke quietly. “Get a hypo—necrofine.” She turned toward the sterilizer, paused briefly. “Three c.c.s?” she asked.

“Twelve,” he corrected.

Their eyes locked with his for several seconds; then she nodded and went to the sterilizer.

“May I leave first?” she asked tonelessly while filling the syringe.

“Certainly.”

“What’ll I say to Mrs. Glubbes?” She crossed to the table again and handed him the hypo.