about your son?" Austin asked.

"I'm thinking of him," Harry Collins answered. "Of him, and of all the
others. Maybe he does not need me. Maybe none of them need me. Maybe
it's all an illusion. But if the time ever comes, I'll be ready. And
meanwhile, I can hope."

"The time has come," Austin said, gently.

And then he was standing, miraculously enough, outside his cell and
before the door to Harry's cell, and the door was opening. And once
again Harry stared into the wide eyes he remembered so well--the same
wide eyes, set in the face of a fullgrown man. A fullgrown man, three
feet tall. He stood up, shakily, as the man held out his hand and
said, "Hello, Father."

"But I don't understand--"

"I've waited a long time for this moment. I had to talk to you, find
out how you really felt, so that I'd be sure. Now you're ready to join
us."

"What's happening? What do you want with me?"

"We'll talk later." Harry's son smiled. "Right now, I'm taking you
home."

9. Eric Donovan--2031

Eric was glad to get to the office and shut the door. Lately he'd had
this feeling whenever he went out, this feeling that people were
staring at him. It wasn't just his imagination: they did stare. Every
younger person over a yard high got stared at nowadays, as if they
were freaks. And it wasn't just the staring that got him down, either.

Sometimes they muttered and mumbled, and sometimes they called names.
Eric didn't mind stuff like "dirty Naturalist." That he could
understand--once upon a time, way back, everybody who was against the
Leff Law was called a Naturalist. And before that it had still another
meaning, or so he'd been told. Today, of course, it just meant anyone
who was over five feet tall.

No, he could take the ordinary name-calling, all right. But sometimes
they said other things. They used words nobody ever uses unless they
really hate you, want to kill you. And that was at the bottom of it,
Eric knew. They did hate him, they _did_ want to kill him.

Was he a coward? Perhaps. But it wasn't just Eric's imagination. You
never saw anything about such things on the telescreens, but
Naturalists were being killed every day. The older people were still
in the majority, but the youngsters were coming up fast. And there
were so many _more_ of them. Besides, they were more active, and this
created the illusion that there were Yardsticks everywhere.

Eric sat down behind his desk, grinning. _Yardsticks._ When he