Derwin looked down at the hat on his lap and searched for a way to express what he wanted to say. At last he looked up. "Some people believe the mutants killed only people who were very sick—people who had no chance to live anyway, and probably wanted to die quickly?" His voice rose doubtfully as he finished.
"That's not true." There was no expression in the woman's flat voice. "I read where they killed some that weren't sick at all. And how would they know how sick the others were? Or if they wanted to die?"
"How about your husband?"
"George did suffer quite a bit. But I'm certain he never wanted to die."
"Was there any chance that he might have recovered from his particular illness?"
"The doctors said not, but what right did that boy have to play God and kill him? And how do any of us know that there won't be a new treatment or a new drug discovered, maybe next week or next month, that could have saved George? What justification can you have for a cold-blooded murderer like that?"
Derwin looked down again at his hat and shifted his feet uncomfortably.
The woman said, "George had a pension that supported us. But it stopped when he died. How am I going to live now? Who's going to support my children—or take care of them while I work?" There was still no emotion in the woman's voice, but tears which she disregarded ran down her cheeks.
Derwin stood up. "I don't know," he said. "I was just wondering if what seems wrong to us might not seem right to him," he apologized.