“David, forgive me. I was startled . . .”

They were promiscuous, indeed it was practically required of them to be free in their loving. No one could anticipate how many of them eventually would be fertile, what the percentage of boys to girls would be. Walt was able to test the males, but since the tests for female fertility required rabbits which they did not have, he said the best test for fertility was pregnancy. The children lived together, and promiscuity was the norm. But only with one another. They all shunned the elders. David had felt his eyes burning as the girl spoke, still moving away from him.

He had turned and left abruptly and had not spoken to her again in the intervening years. Sometimes he thought he saw her watching him warily, and each time he glared at her and hurried away.

C-l had been like his own child. He had watched her develop, watched her learn to walk, talk, feed herself. His child, his and Celia’s. C-2 had been much the same. A twin, somewhat smaller, identical nevertheless. But C-3 had been different. No, he corrected: his perceptions of her had been different. When he looked at her he saw Celia, and he ached.

He had grown chilled on the ridge, and he realized that the sun had set long ago and the lanterns had been lighted below. The scene looked pretty, like a sentimental card titled “Rural Life.” The large farmhouse with glowing windows, the blackness of the barn; closer, the hospital and staff building with the cheerful yellow lights in the windows. Stiffly he descended into the valley again. He had missed dinner, but he was not hungry.

“David!” One of the youngest boys, a Five, called to him. David didn’t know whom he had been cloned from. There were people he hadn’t known when they were that young. He stopped and the boy ran to him, then past him, calling as he went, “Dr. Walt wants you.”

Walt was in his room at the hospital. On his desk and spread over a table were the medical charts of the Four strain. “I’ve finished,” Walt said. “You’ll have to double-check, of course.”

David scanned the final lines quickly, H-4 and D-4. “Have you told the two boys yet?”

“I told them all. They understand.” Walt rubbed his eyes. “They have no secrets from each other,” he said. “They understand about the girls’ ovulation periods, about the necessity of keeping records. If any of those girls can conceive, they’ll do it.” His voice was almost bitter when he looked up at David. “They’re taking it over completely from now on.”

“What do you mean?”

“W-one made a copy of my records for his files. He’ll follow it through.”

David nodded. The elders were being excluded again. The time was coming when the elders wouldn’t be needed for anything — extra mouths to feed, nothing else. He sat down and for a long time he and Walt sat in companionable silence.

In class the following day nothing appeared to be different. No pair bonding, David thought cynically. They accepted being mated as casually as the cattle did. If there was any jealousy of the two fertile males, it was well hidden. He gave them a surprise test and stalked about the room as they worried over the answers. They would all pass, he knew; not only pass, but do exceptionally well. They had motivation. They were learning in their teens what he hadn’t grasped in his twenties. There were no educational frills, no distractions. Work in the classroom, in the fields, in the kitchens, in the laboratories. They worked interchangeably, incessantly — the first really classless society. He pulled his thoughts back when he realized that they were finishing already. He had allowed an hour, and they were finishing in forty minutes; slightly longer for the Fives, who, after all, were two years younger than the Fours.

The two oldest Ds headed for the laboratory after class, and David followed them. They were talking earnestly until he drew near. He remained in the laboratory for fifteen minutes of silent work, then left. Outside the door he paused and once more could hear the murmur of quiet voices. Angrily he tramped down the hallway.

In Walt’s office he raged, “Damn it, they’re up to something! I can smell it.”

Walt regarded him with a detached thoughtfulness. David felt helpless before him. There was nothing he could point to, nothing he could attach significance to, but there was a feeling, an instinct, that would not be quieted.

“All right,” David said, almost in desperation. “Look at how they took the test results. Why aren’t the boys jealous? Why aren’t the girls making passes at the two available studs?”

Walt shook his head.

“I don’t even know what they’re doing in the lab anymore,” David said. “And Harry has been relegated to caretaker for the livestock.” He paced the room in frustration. “They’re taking over.”

“We knew they would one day,” Walt reminded him gently.

“But there are only seventeen Fives. Eighteen Fours. Out of the lot they might get six or seven fertile ones. With a decreased life expectancy. With an increased chance of abnormality. Don’t they know that?”

“David, relax. They know all that. They’re living it. Believe me, they know.” Walt stood up and put his arm about David’s shoulders. “We‘ve done it, David. We made it happen. Even if there are only three fertile girls now, they could have up to thirty babies, David. And the next generation will have more who will be fertile. We have done it, David. Let them carry it now if they want to.”

By the end of summer two of the Four-strain girls were pregnant. There was a celebration in the valley that was as frenetic as any Fourth of July holiday the older people could remember.

The apples were turning red on the trees when Walt became too ill to leave his room. Two more girls were pregnant; one of them was a Five. Every day David spent hours with Walt, no longer wanting to work at all in the laboratory, feeling an outsider in the classrooms, where the Ones were gradually taking over the teaching duties.

“You might have to deliver those babies come spring,” Walt said, grinning. “Might start a class in delivery procedures. Walt-three is ready, I guess.”

“We’ll manage,” David said. “Don’t worry about it. I expect you’ll be there.”

“Maybe. Maybe.” Walt closed his eyes for a moment, and without opening them said, “You were right about them, David. They’re up to something.”

David leaned forward and unconsciously lowered his voice. “What do you know?”

Walt looked at him and shook his head slightly. “About as much as you did when you first came to me in early summer. No more than that. David, find out what they’re doing in the lab. And find out what they think about the pregnant girls. Those two things. Soon.” Turning away from David, he added, “Harry tells me they have devised a new immersion suspension system that doesn’t require the artificial placentas. They’re adding them as fast as they can.” He sighed. “Harry has cracked, David. Senile or crazy. W-one can’t do anything for him.”

David stood up, but hesitated. “Walt, I think it’s time you told me. What’s wrong with you?”

“Get out of here, damn it,” Walt said, but the timbre of his voice was gone, the force that should have propelled David from the room was not there. For a moment Walt looked helpless and vulnerable, but deliberately he closed his eyes, and this time his voice was a growl. “Get out. I’m tired. I need rest.”

David walked along the river for a long time. He hadn’t been in the lab for weeks, months perhaps. No one needed him in the lab any longer. He felt in the way there. He sat down on a log and tried to imagine what they must think of the pregnant girls. They would revere them. The bearers of life, so few among so many. Was Walt afraid a matriarchy of some sort would develop? It could. They had discussed that years ago, and then dismissed it as one of the things they could not control. A new religion might come about, but even if the elders knew it was happening, what could they do about it? What should they do about it? He threw twigs into the smooth water, which moved without a ripple, all of a piece on that calm, cold night, and he knew that he didn’t care.