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"But they do outweigh the benefits," Watkins said, as close to anger as a New Man could get "My God, how could you have done this to us?"

"I did this for you"

Watkins stared at him, then pushed open the bedroom door and said, "Have a look"

Shaddack stepped into the room, where the carpet was dariical odors unusually repellent, perhaps because they were a res were far less efficient and clean thanat the first corpse which lay facedown near the door--and studying it, he looked across the rooressives, and you killed both? Two chances to study the psychology of these degenerates, and you threay both opportunities?"

Watkins was unbowed by the criticism "It was a life-or-death situation here It couldn’t have been handled differently"

He seeree inconsistent with the personality of a New Man, though perhaps the ee than fear Fear was acceptable

"Peyser was regressed e got here," Watkins continued "We searched the house, confronted him in this room"

As Watkins described that confrontation in detail, Shaddack was gripped by an apprehension that he tried not to reveal and to which he did not even want to ader touch his voice, not fear "You’re telling ressives, that even you are a regressive?"

"Sholnick was a regressive, yes In my book Penniworth isn’t--not yet anyway--because he successfully resisted the urge Just as I resisted it" Watkins boldlyahich further disturbed Shaddack "What I’ I told you in so o at your place Each of us, every daressive It’s not a rare sickness a the New People It’s in all of us You’ve not created new and bettercould’ve created a master race You’re not God; you’re Dr Moreau"

"You will not speak towho this Moreau was The nauely familiar, but he could not place it "When you talk to est you reme anew that Shaddack could extinguish the New People al out a candle But he continued to speak forcefully and with too little respect "You still haven’t responded to the worst of this news"

"And what’s that?"

"Didn’t you hear me? I said that Peyser was stuck He couldn’t remake himself"

"I doubt very much that he was trapped in an altered state New Men have complete control of their bodies, more control than I ever anticipated If he could not return to huical block He didn’t really want to return"

For a moment Watkins stared at him, then shook his head and said, "You aren’t really that dense, are you? It’s the sa rong with the microsphere network inside hiical Either way, the effect was the same, the result was the saenerate form"

"You will not speak to me like this," Shaddack repeated firmly, as if repetition of the co

For all their physiological superiority and potential for ly people, and to the degree they were people, they were that much less effective ram a command once The computer retained it and acted upon it always Shaddack wondered if he would ever be able to perfect the New People to the point at which future generations functioned as se IBM PC

Dae and haunted, Watkins was an intiap between them, Shaddack was afraid and wanted to retreat, but he held his ground and continued to meet Watkins’s eyes the way he would have defiantly erous German shepherd if he had been cornered by one

"Look at Sholnick," Watkins said, indicating the corpse at their feet He used the toe of his shoe to turn the dead un pellets and soaked in blood, Sholnick’s bizarreeyes were perhaps theabout him yelloith black irises, not the round irises of the huated ovals as in the eyes of a snake

Outside, thunder rolled across the night, a louder peal than the one Shaddack had heard when he’d been crossing Peyser’s front lawn

Watkins said, "The way you explained it to o willful devolution"

"That’s right"

"You said the whole history of huenes, that we still have in us traces of what the species once was, and that the regressives soenetic material and devolve into creatures somewhere farther back on the evolutionary ladder"

"What’s your point?"

"That explanation made some sort of crazy sense e trapped Cooood look at hi in between"

"It doesn’t make crazy sense; it makes perfect sense"

"But, Jesus, look at Sholnick Look at hiunned hioddamned creature that’s part man, part … hell, I don’t know, part lizard or snake You telling enes froo?"

Shaddack thrust both hands in his coat pockets, lest they betray his apprehension with a nervous gesture or tre crawled onto the land--a fish with rudis--and the fish evolved into the early reptiles, and along the way enetic material of those very early reptiles--and I believe we do--then at least we have racial e of evolution encoded in us in some other e don’t really understand"

"You’re jivingive a damn Come here, come with me, take a closer look at Peyser He was a friend of yours fro look at what he hen he died"

Peyser was flat on his back, naked, right leg straight in front of hi out at his side, the other across his chest, which had been shattered by a couple of shotgun blasts The body and the face--with its inhunizable as Mike Peyser--were those of a shockingly horrific freak, a dog-ed in either a carnival sideshow or an old horror movie The skin was coarse The patchy coat of hair iry The hands looked powerful, the claws sharp

Because his fascination exceeded his disgust and fear, Shaddack pulled up his topcoat to keep the he the bloody corpse, and stooped beside Peyser’s body for a closer look

Watkins hunkered down on the other side of the cadaver