Forget about the Contraption, forget about the smart guys, and their smart little world—their little dung-heaps of stupidity and moral cannibalism you've had the colossal luck to escape....
Can't do it? That's right—the kids, of course....
Sure, but old Mother Nature takes care of that, doesn't she? When your kids are lying dead on some foreign battlefield you can have more.... That's why life's cheap, old man.... Nature doesn't care—she'll keep supplying and supplying as long as there are fools enough to flood the market. And you have your woman, if it's kids you want....
It's a clean slate.... Pick up the chalk—
But you couldn't name them Mike and Terry, dammit, you couldn't!
The 'copter's landing-gear touched.
Its blades were still slowing as the two uniformed men appeared beside it, opened the small door. Doug climbed out, and the two stood at attention, each right palm open and raised. He understood. The universal gesture for peace—a salute. An odd gesture to replace the mock-shielding of the eyes against the glitter of a nobleman's shiny battle armor!
He returned it, and they fell in at his side to escort him across the landing roof to an opening entrance, cloaks swirling gently behind them in the bright morning sunlight.
He entered the chamber still flanked by the orderlies. There were nine men and a woman about the circumference of the long, elliptical conference table, and they stood as though brought erect by a common puppet-string as he came through the wide door.