Hoskins looked toward Miss Fellowes for some sort of support under this onslaught. But she could offer him no help.

"I have to agree, Dr. Hoskins," said Miss Fellowes, feeling like a traitor. "I've felt this way all along, and it's becoming more urgent now. The boy's coming along very nicely, indeed. But the point is close at hand where continuing to live in this kind of social vacuum will be very bad for him. And since there aren't going to be any other children of Timmie's own subspecies available to him-"

Hoskins turned to her as if to say, You're against me too?

There was silence for a moment in the room. Timmie, who seemed increasingly disturbed by the vocifet-ousness of the discussion, clung ever tighter to Miss Fellowes.

At length Hoskins said, "Those are your terms, Mr. Mannheim? Dr. Levien? A playmate for Timmie or you'll bring your hordes of protesters down on my head?"

Mannheim said, "No threats are being made, Dr. Hoskins. But even your own Miss Fellowes sees the need for implementing our recommendation."

"Right. And you think it'll be easy to find people who'll cheerfully let their young children come in here and play with a little Neanderthal? With all those fantastic notions circulating out there about how savage and ferocious and primitive Neanderthal Man must have been?"

"It should be no harder," Mannheim said, "than being able to bring a little Neanderthal child into die twenty-first century in the first place. A good deal easier, I'd like to think."

"I can imagine what our counsel would have to say about that. The cost of liability insurance alone-assuming we can find anyone crazy enough to allow their child inside the Stasis bubble with Timmie-"

"Timmie doesn't seem all that ferocious to me," said Mannheim. "He seems quite gentle, as a matter of fact. Wouldn't you say so, Miss Fellowes?"

"And as Miss Fellowes pointed out earlier," Marianne Levien said with icy sweetness, "we must not regard Timmie as being in any way subhuman, merely as unusual in certain physical aspects."

"So of course you'd be delighted to let your own small child come in and play with him," said Hoskins. "Except you don't happen to have any children, do you, Dr. Levien? No, of course you don't. -What about you, Mannheim? Do you have a little boy you'd like to volunteer for us?"

Mannheim looked stung. Stiffly he said, "That's neither here nor there, Dr. Hoskins. I assure you that if I had been fortunate enough to have children, I wouldn't hesitate to offer to help. -I understand your resentment at what you see as outside interference, doctor. But by transporting Timmie to our era, you've taken the law into your own hands. It's time now to consider the full implications of what you've done. You can't keep the boy in solitary confinement simply because there's a scientific experiment going on here. You can't, Dr. Hoskins."

Hoskins closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

"All right," he said finally. "Enough of this. I concede the point. We'll get a playmate for Timmie. Somewhere. Somehow." His eyes blazed with sudden fury. "Unlike either of you, I do have a child. And if necessary, I'll bring him in to be Timmie's friend. My own son, if I have to. Is that enough of a guarantee for you? Timmie won't be left lonely and miserable any longer. All right? All right?" Hoskins glowered at them. -"Now that that's settled, do you have any further requests to make? Or can we be permitted to continue with our scientific work in peace?"