He looked at Anna. She had not moved. He answered his own question. He saw a solution with beautiful clarity.

The humans even had a cliche for it: killing two birds with a single stone.

He pressed the button sunk in the floor beside his head.

"Yes, sir?" came McCoy's lilting voice.

"My daughter has suffered an accident. Please come and assist her."

"Anna? Oh, no. She's not-"

"She's alive."

"Is she badly hurt?"

"Why not do as I order and see?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir."

While waiting for McCoy to arrive, Ford lay motionlessly, soaking up the last rays of the quickly disappearing sun. Seeing Anna, he experienced a vague regret. For a human, he had liked her. She hadn't been wholly stupid. But a necessity, he reminded himself, was just that: it was necessary.

McCoy appeared, dashing hastily across the roof. When he saw Anna, he came to a sudden halt and threw one hand across his mouth. He cried out, slightly muffled, "Oh, no!"

"She'll survive," Ford said.

"But what-what happened?" McCoy rushed to the girl's side.

"It doesn't matter. Carry her down to her room. Leave her there." Ford shut his eyes against the sun.

"Did she fall?"

"I told you what to do."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said. Reaching down, he lifted Anna in his arms and, plainly straining, turned back toward the elevator. He swayed as he walked.

"I'll be down shortly," Ford said. "I want you to remain with her. If she starts to wake, call me immediately. Understand?"

"Don't you think-" McCoy's voice reflected the strain under which he moved "-I should call a doctor?"

"No," Ford said. "I don't."

"But-"

"Do as I say, McCoy."

"Yes, sir."

When he was alone, Ford permitted himself the luxury of laughing aloud. It was the simplicity of his inspiration that pleased him most. Not merely two birds but three would fall from a single stone. Alec, Anna, and the new android. And Anna herself would serve a dual capacity---she would not only be a bird, she would also be the stone.

He established a link with Hopkins and quickly communicated a basic mood of joyful success. Then he transmitted a fantasy-a possibility. Alec Richmond at his desk, working. Abruptly, from behind, a figure appeared: Anna. She raised a gun and fired. Richmond fell over, dead. Stepping forward, Anna approached the desk and raised the gun, turning the beam to high. She fired at the desk, turning all of Richmond's careful work to ash.

He let the vision fade. What would happen next? Arrest? Suicide? Madness? He realized he didn't care. After her task was complete, he would set Anna free. As a murderer, she would present no danger to them.

Shortly, he received Hopkins's pleased confirmation, with a note of the need for haste.

So he buzzed McCoy: "How is she?"

"Sleeping, sir. She seems to be all right. I listened to her heart and-"

"I'll be down in a moment, McCoy. Stay there until I arrive."

"Of course, sir."

Ford entered his daughter's room to find her sleeping soundly. McCoy held her hand between both of his.

As soon as he saw Ford, McCoy dropped the hand as though it had suddenly turned hot.

"Get out of here," Ford said.

"But, sir, I-"

"Out."

"Are you sure you won't be needing me, sir?"

"If I do, I can find you."

"If you want, I could wait outside the door until-"

"No. Find something-anything-and make yourself busy."

"Yes, sir," McCoy said, stiffly.

Ford smiled at the note of anger McCoy left in his wake. But then he turned quickly to his daughter, realizing there was no time for delay. He entered her mind with practiced ease and inserted the necessary directives quickly and carefully. Then he moved back out.

He left Anna on the bed and went out to find McCoy, who was waiting just outside the door. Ford told him to have a plane prepared and programmed for the downtown San Francisco terminal. "Anna wants to go home."

"But isn't she unwell?"

"Do as you're told. When the plane is ready, wake her up. Make sure she leaves. I'll be on the roof."

"But-"

Ford did not feel like arguing. It was already dark. He left McCoy in mid-sentence and took the elevator to the sun porch. He didn't need daylight in order to relax. But he couldn't get Anna out of his mind. She had so much wanted to find her father. Then she had. And what was the end result of all her efforts: death and murder---nothing.

Poor Anna.

But then he realized how fortunate she had also been. Alone among the self-proclaimed Superiors, she had been permitted to meet and know her own father. The fact that this knowledge had brought her great suffering was irrelevant beside the simple truth of experience.