"He got caught last month, trying it again. And he confessed to doing it once before. No telling how many times he really did it."
Norris held up the final kicking, squealing, tassel-haired doll from the back of the kennel-truck. He grinned at his wife. "This little fellow, for instance. It might be a potential she. It might also be a potential murderer. All these kiddos are from the machines in the section where Delmont worked."
Anne snorted and caught the baby-creature in her arms. It struggled and tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the snare. "Kkr-r-reee," it cooed nervously. "Kkr-r-reee!"
"You tell him you're no murderer," Anne purred to it.
Norris watched disapprovingly while she fondled it. One thing he had learned: to steer clear of emotional attachments. It was eight months old and looked like a child of two years—a year short of its age-set. And it was designed to be as affectionate as a human child.
"Put it in the cage, Anne," he said quietly.
She looked up and shook her head.
"It belongs to somebody else. If it fixes a libido attachment on you, you're actually robbing its owner. They can't love many people at once."
She snorted, but installed the thing in its cage.
"Anne—" Norris hesitated, hating to approach the subject. "Do you—want one—for yourself? I can sign an unclaimed one over to you to keep in the house. It won't cost us anything."