"But it's getting better," Leah fluttered. "Our main fleet units are beginning to appear."
"We'll get them," Joe muttered. "It'll take a while. But by God we'll wipe them out. Every last one of them. If it takes a thousand years. We'll follow every last ship down -- we'll get them all." His voice rose in frenzy. "Beetles! Goddamn insects! When I think of them, trying to hurt my kid, with their filthy black claws --"
"If you were younger, you'd be in the line," Leah said. "It's not your fault you're too old. The heart strain's too great. You did your job. They can't let an older person take chances. It's not your fault."
Joe clenched his fists. "I feel so -- futile. If there was only something I could do."
"The fleet will take care of them," Leah said soothingly. "You said so yourself. They'll hunt every one of them down. Destroy them all. There's nothing to worry about."
Joe sagged miserably. "It's no use. Let's cut it out. Let's stop kidding ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
"Face it! We're not going to win, not this time. We went too far. Our time's come."
There was silence.
Tony sat up a little. "When did you know?"
"I've known a long time."
"I found out today. I didn't understand, at first. This is -- stolen ground. I was born here, but it's stolen ground."
"Yes. It's stolen. It doesn't belong to us."
"We're here because we're stronger. But now we're not stronger. We're being beaten."
"They know Terrans can be licked. Like anybody else." Joe Rossi's face was gray and flabby. "We took their planets away from them. Now they're taking them back. It'll be a while, of course. We'll retreat slowly. It'll be another five centuries going back. There're a lot of systems between here and Sol."
Tony shook his head, still uncomprehending. "Even Llyre and B'prith. All of them. Waiting for their time to come. For us to lose and go away again. Where we came from."
Joe Rossi paced back and forth. "Yeah, we'll be retreating from now on. Giving ground, instead of taking it. It'll be like this today -- losing fights, draws. Stalemates and worse."
He raised his feverish eyes toward the ceiling of the little metal housing unit, face wild with passion and misery.
"But, by God, we'll give them a run for their money. All the way back! Every inch!"
Null-O
Lemuel clung to the wall of his dark bedroom, tense, listening. A faint breeze stirred the lace curtains. Yellow street-light filtered over the bed, the dresser, the books and toys and clothes.
In the next room, two voices were murmuring together. "Jean, we've got to do something," the man's voice said.
A strangled gasp. "Ralph, please don't hurt him. You must control yourself. I won't let you hurt him."
"I'm not going to hurt him." There was brute anguish in the man's whisper. "Why does he do these things? Why doesn't he play baseball and tag like normal boys? Why does he have to burn down stores and torture helpless animals? Why?"
"He's different, Ralph. We must try to understand."
"Maybe we better take him to the doctor," his father said. "Maybe he's got some kind of glandular disease."
"You mean old Doc Grady? But you said he couldn't find --"
"Not Doc Grady. He quit after Lemuel destroyed his X-ray equipment and smashed all the furniture in his office. No, this is bigger than that." A tense pause. "Jean, I'm taking him up to the Hill."
"Oh, Ralph! Please --"
"I mean it." Grim determination, the harsh growl of a trapped animal. "Those psychologists may be able to do something. Maybe they can help him. Maybe not."
"But they might not let us have him back. And oh, Ralph, he's all we've got!"
"Sure," Ralph muttered hoarsely. "I know he is. But I've made up my mind. That day he slashed his teacher with a knife and leaped out the window. That day I made up my mind. Lemuel is going up to the Hill."
The day was warm and bright. Between the swaying trees the huge white hospital sparkled, all concrete and steel and plastic. Ralph Jorgenson peered about uncertainly, hat twisted between his fingers, subdued by the immensity of the place.
Lemuel listened intently. Straining his big, mobile ears, he could hear many voices, a shifting sea of voices that surged around him. The voices came from all the rooms and offices, on all the levels. They excited him.
Dr. James North came toward them, holding out his hand. He was tall and handsome, perhaps thirty, with brown hair and black horn-rimmed glasses. His stride was firm, his grip, when he shook hands with Lemuel, brief and confident. "Come in here," he boomed. Ralph moved toward the office, but Dr. North shook his head. "Not you. The boy. Lemuel and I are going to have a talk alone."
Excited, Lemuel followed Dr. North into his office. North quickly secured the door with triple magnetic locks. "You can call me James," he said, smiling warmly at the boy. "And I'll call you Lem, right?"
"Sure," Lemuel said guardedly. He felt no hostility emanating from the man, but he had learned to keep his guard up. He had to be careful, even with this friendly, good-looking doctor, a man of obvious intellectual ability.
North lit a cigarette and studied the boy. "When you tied up and dissected those old derelicts," he said thoughtfully, "you were scientifically curious, weren't you? You wanted to know -- facts, not opinions. You wanted to find out for yourself how human beings were constructed."
Lemuel's excitement grew. "But no one understood."
"No." North shook his head. "No, they wouldn't. Do you know why?"
"I think so."
North paced back and forth. "I'll give you a few tests. To find out things. You don't mind, do you? We'll both learn more about you. I've been studying you, Lem. I've examined the police records and the newspaper files." Abruptly, he opened the drawer of his desk and got out the Minnesota Multiphasic, the Rorschach blots, the Bender Gestalt, the Rhine deck of ESP cards, an ouija board, a pair of dice, a magic writing tablet, a wax doll with fingernail parings and bits of hair, and a small piece of lead to be turned into gold.
"What do you want me to do?" Lemuel asked.
"I'm going to ask you a few questions, and give you a few objects to play with. I'll watch your reactions, note down a few things. How's that sound?"
Lemuel hesitated. He needed a friend so badly -- but he was afraid.
Dr. North put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You can trust me. I'm not like those kids that beat you up, that morning."
Lemuel glanced up gratefully. "You know about that? I discovered the rules of their game were purely arbitrary. Therefore I naturally oriented myself to the basic reality of the situation, and when I came up at bat I hit the pitcher and the catcher over the head. Later I discovered that all human ethics and morals are exactly the same sort of --" He broke off, suddenly afraid. "Maybe I --"
Dr. North sat down behind his desk and began shuffling the Rhine ESP deck. "Don't worry, Lem," he said softly. "Everything will be all right. I understand."
After the tests, the two of them sat in silence. It was six o'clock, and the sun was beginning to set outside. At last Dr. North spoke.
"Incredible. I can scarcely believe it, myself. You're utterly logical. You've completely cast off all thalamic emotion. Your mind is totally free of moral and cultural bias. You're a perfect paranoid, without any empathic ability whatever. You're utterly incapable of feeling sorrow or pity or compassion, or any of the normal human emotions."