, and there was no way to change that indelible record, even had he
wished to do such an insane thing.

Surely, he thought, the real rulers must know of his existence. He had
tried, by his every action, to show that he was a reasoning, intelligent,
and civilized being. Why had they taken no action?

His hypotheses, he realized, were weak because of lack of data. He could
only wait for more information.

That--and continue to work.

VII

INTERLUDE

Mrs. Frobisher touched the control button that depolarized the window in
the breakfast room, letting the morning sun stream in. Then she said, in a
low voice, "Larry, come here."

Larry Frobisher looked up from his morning coffee. "What is it, hon?"

"The Stanton boys. Come look."

Frobisher sighed. "Who are the Stanton boys, and why should I come look?"
But he got up and came over to the window.

"See--over there on the walkway toward the play area," she said.

"I see three girls and a boy pushing a wheeled contraption," Frobisher
said. "Or do you mean that the Stanford boys are dressed up as girls?"

"_Stanton_," she corrected him. "They just moved into the apartment on the
first floor."

"Who? The three girls?"

"No, silly! The two Stanton boys and their mother. One of them is in that
'wheeled contraption'. It's called a therapeutic chair."

"Oh? So the poor kid's been hurt. What's so interesting about that, aside
from morbid curiosity?"

The boy pushing the chair went around a bend in the walkway, out of sight,
and Frobisher went back to his coffee while his wife spoke.

"Their names are Mart and Bart. They're twins."

"I should think," Frobisher said, applying himself to his breakfast, "that
the mother would get a self-powered chair for the boy instead of making
the other boy push it."

"The poor boy can't control the chair, dear. Something wrong with his
nervous system. I understand that he was exposed to some kind of radiation
when he was only two years old. That's why the chair has all the
instruments built into it. Even his heartbeat has to be controlled
electronically."

"Shame." Frobisher speared a bit of sausage. "Kind of rough on both of
'em, I'd guess."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, like.... Well, for instance, why are they going over to the
play area? Play games, right? The one that's well has to push his brother
over there--can't just get out and go; has to take the brother along. Kind
of a burden, see?

"And then, the kid