The boy had a scrawny look, like many strays, but, on the other hand, he wore gla.s.ses. Tow-headed, in jeans and T-shirt, he stared up in fright at Ferris, making no move to get out his identification.

'You got a D card or not?' Ferris said.

'W-w-w-what's a "D card"?'

In his official voice, Ferris explained to the boy his rights under the law.

'Your parent, either one, or legal guardian, fills out form 36-W, which is a formal statement of desirability. That they or him or her regard you as desirable. You don't have one? Legally, that makes you a stray, even if you have parents who want to keep you; they are subject to a fine of $500.'

'Oh,' the boy said. 'Well, I lost it.'

'Then a copy would be on file. They microdot all those doc.u.ments and records. I'll take you in-'

'To the County Facility?' Pipe-cleaner legs wobbled in fear.

'They have thirty days to claim you by filling out the 36-W form. If they haven't done it by then-'

'My mom and dad never agree. Right now I'm staying with my dad.'

'He didn't give you a D card to identify yourself with.' Mounted transversely across the cab of the truck was a shotgun. There was always the possibility that trouble might break out when he picked up a stray. Reflexively, Ferris glanced up at it. It was there, all right, a pump shotgun. He had used it only five times in his law-enforcement career. It could blow a man into molecules. 'I have to take you in,' he said, opening the truck door and bringing out his keys. 'There's another kid back there; you can keep each other company.'

'No,' the boy said. 'I won't go.' Blinking, he confronted Ferris, stubborn and rigid as stone.

'Oh, you probably heard a lot of stories about the County Facility. It's only the warpies, the creepies, that get put to sleep; any nice normal-looking kid'll be adopted - we'll cut your hair and fix you up so you look professionally groomed. We want to find you a home. That's the whole idea. It's just a few, those who are - you know - ailing mentally or physically that no one wants. Some well-to-do individual will snap you up in a minute; you'll see. Then you won't be running around out here alone with no parents to guide you. You'll have new parents, and listen - they'll be paying heavy bread for you; h.e.l.l, they'll register you. Do you see? It's more a temporary lodging place where we're taking you right now, to make you available to prospective new parents.'

'But if n.o.body adopts me in a month-'

'h.e.l.l, you could fall off a cliff here at Big Sur and kill yourself. Don't worry. The desk at the Facility will contact your blood parents, and most likely they'll come forth with the Desirability Form (15A) sometime today even. And meanwhile you'll get a nice ride and meet a lot of new kids. And how often-'

'No,' the boy said.

'This is to inform you,' Ferris said, in a different tone, 'that I am a County Official.' He opened his truck door, jumped down, showed his gleaming metal badge to the boy. 'I am Peace Officer Ferris and I now order you to enter by the rear of the truck.'

A tall man approached them, walking with wariness; he, like the boy, wore jeans and a T-shirt, but no gla.s.ses.

'You the boy's father?' Ferris said.

The man, hoa.r.s.ely, said, 'Are you taking him to the pound?'

'We consider it a child protection shelter,' Ferris said. 'The use of the term "pound" is a radical hippie slur, and distorts - deliberately - the overall picture of what we do.'

Gesturing toward the truck, the man said, 'You've got kids locked in there in those cages, have you?'

'I'd like to see your ID,' Ferris said. 'And I'd like to know if you've ever been arrested before.'

'Arrested and found innocent? Or arrested and found guilty?'

'Answer my question, sir,' Ferris said, showing his black flatpack that he used with adults to identify him as a County Peace Officer. 'Who are you? Come on, let's see your ID.'

The man said, 'Ed Gantro is my name and I have a record. When I was eighteen, I stole four crates of Coca-Cola from a parked truck.'

'You were apprehended at the scene?'

'No,' the man said. 'When I took the empties back to cash in on the refunds. That's when they seized me. I served six months.'

'Have you a Desirability Card for your boy here?' Ferris asked.

'We couldn't afford the $90 it cost.'

'Well, now it'll cost you five hundred. You should have gotten it in the first place. My suggestion is that you consult an attorney.' Ferris moved toward the boy, declaring officially, 'I'd like you to join the other juveniles in the rear section of the vehicle.' To the man he said, 'Tell him to do as instructed.'

The man hesitated and then said, 'Tim, get in the G.o.d-d.a.m.n truck. And we'll get a lawyer; we'll get the D card for you. It's futile to make trouble - technically you're a stray.'

' "A stray".' the boy said, regarding his father.

Ferris said, 'Exactly right. You have thirty days, you know, to raise the-'

'Do you also take cats?' the boy said. 'Are there any cats in there? I really like cats; they're all right.'

'I handle only PP cases,' Ferris said. 'Such as yourself.' With a key he unlocked the back of the truck. 'Try not to relieve yourself while you're in the truck; it's hard as h.e.l.l to get the odor and stains out.'

The boy did not seem to understand the word; he gazed from Ferris to his father in perplexity.

'Just don't go to the bathroom while you're in the truck,' his father explained. 'They want to keep it sanitary, because that cuts down their maintenance costs.' His voice was savage and grim.

'With stray dogs or cats,' Ferris said, 'they just shoot them on sight, or put out poison bait.'

'Oh, yeah, I know that Warfarin,' the boy's father said. 'The animal eats it over a period of a week, and then he bleeds to death internally.'

'With no pain,' Ferris pointed out.

'Isn't that better than sucking the air from their lungs?' Ed Gantro said. 'Suffocating them on a ma.s.s basis?'

'Well, with animals the county authorities-'

'I mean the children. Like Tim.' His father stood beside him, and they both looked into the rear of the truck. Two dark shapes could be dimly discerned, crouching as far back as possible, in the starkest form of despair.

'Fleischhacker!' the boy Tim said. 'Didn't you have a D card?'

'Because of energy and fuel shortages,' Ferris was saying, 'population must be radically cut. Or in ten years there'll be no food for anyone. This is one phase of-'

'I had a D card,' Earl Fleischhacker said, 'but my folks took it away from me. They didn't want me any more; so they took it back, and then they called for the abortion truck.' His voice croaked; obviously he had been secretly crying.

'And what's the difference between a five-month-old fetus and what we have here?' Ferris was saying. 'In both cases what you have is an unwanted child. They simply liberalized the laws.'

Tim's father, staring at him, said, 'Do you agree with these laws?'

'Well, it's really all up to Washington and what they decide will solve our needs in these days of crises,' Ferris said. 'I only enforce their edicts. If this law changed - h.e.l.l. I'd be trucking empty milk cartons for recycling or something and be just as happy.'

' Just Just as happy? You enjoy your work?' as happy? You enjoy your work?'

Ferris said, mechanically, 'It gives me the opportunity to move around a lot and to meet people.'

Tim's father Ed Gantro said, 'You are insane. This postpartum abortion scheme and the abortion laws before it where the unborn child had no legal rights - it was removed like a tumor. Look what it's come to. If an unborn child can be killed without due process, why not a born one? What I see in common in both cases is their helplessness; the organism that is killed has no chance, no ability, to protect itself. You know what? I want you to take me in, too. In back of the truck with the three children.'

'But the President and Congress have declared that when you're past twelve you have a soul,' Ferris said. 'I can't take you. It wouldn't be right.'

'I have no soul,' Tim's father said. 'I got to be twelve and nothing happened. Take me along, too. Unless you can find my soul.'

'Jeez,' Ferris said.

'Unless you can show me my soul,' Tim's father said, 'unless you can specifically locate it, then I insist you take me in as no different from these kids.'

Ferris said, 'I'll have to use the radio to get in touch with the County Facility, see what they say.'

'You do that,' Tim's father said, and laboriously clambered up into the rear of the truck, helping Tim along with him. With the other two boys they waited while Peace Officer Ferris, with all his official identification as to who he was, talked on his radio.

'I have here a Caucasian male, approximately thirty, who insists that he be transported to the County Facility with his infant son,' Ferris was saying into his mike. 'He claims to have no soul, which he maintains puts him in the cla.s.s of subtwelve-year-olds. I don't have with me or know any test to detect the presence of a soul, at least any I can give out here in the boondocks that'll later on satisfy a court. I mean, he probably can do algebra and higher math; he seems to possess an intelligent mind. But-'

'Affirmative as to bringing him in,' his superior's voice on the two-way radio came back to him. 'We'll deal with him here.'

'We're going to deal with you downtown,' Ferris said to Tim's father, who, with the three smaller figures, was crouched down in the dark recesses of the rear of the truck. Ferris slammed the door, locked it - an extra precaution, since the boys were already netted by electronic bands - and then started up the truck.

Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water Jack fell down And broke his crown Somebody's sure going to get their crown broke, Ferris thought as he drove along the winding road, and it isn't going to be me.

'I can't do algebra,' he heard Tim's father saying to the three boys. 'So I can't have a soul.'

The Fleischhacker boy said, snidely, 'I can, but I'm only nine. So what good does it do me?'

'That's what I'm going to use as my plea at the Facility,' Tim's father continued. 'Even long division was hard for me. I don't have a soul. I belong with you three little guys.'

Ferris, in a loud voice, called back, 'I don't want you soiling the truck, you understand? It costs us-'

'Don't tell me,' Tim's father said, 'because I wouldn't understand. It would be too complex, the proration and accrual and fiscal terms like that.'

I've got a weirdo back there, Ferris thought, and was glad he had the pump shotgun mounted within easy reach. 'You know the world is running out of everything,' Ferris called back to them, 'energy and apple juice and fuel and bread; we've got to keep the population down, and the embolisms from the Pill make it impossible-'

'None of us knows those big words,' Tim's father broke in.

Angrily, and feeling baffled, Ferris said, 'Zero population growth; that's the answer to the energy and food crisis. It's like - s.h.i.t, it's like when they introduced the rabbit in Australia, and it had no natural enemies, and so it multiplied until, like people-'

'I do understand multiplication,' Tim's father said. 'And adding and subtraction. But that's all.'

Four crazy rabbits flopping across the road, Ferris thought. People pollute the natural environment, he thought. What must this part of the country have been like before man? Well, he thought, with the postpartum abortions taking place in every county in the US of A we may see that day; we may stand and look once again upon a virgin land.

We, he thought. I guess there won't be any we. I mean, he thought, giant sentient computers will sweep out the landscape with their slotted video receptors and find it pleasing.

The thought cheered him up.

'Let's have an abortion!' Cynthia declared excitedly as she entered the house with an armload of synthogroceries. 'Wouldn't that be neat? Doesn't that turn you on?'

Her husband Ian Best said dryly, 'But first you have to get pregnant. So make an appointment with Dr Guido - that should cost me only fifty or sixty dollars - and have your IUD removed.'

'I think it's slipping down anyhow. Maybe, if-' Her pert dark s.h.a.g-haired head tossed in glee. 'It probably hasn't worked properly since last year. So I could be pregnant now.'

Ian said caustically, 'You could put an ad in the Free Press Free Press; " Man wanted to fish out IUD with coathanger".'

'But you see,' Cynthia said, following him as he made his way to the master closet to hang up his status-tie and cla.s.s-coat, 'it's the in thing now, to have an abortion. Look, what do we have? A kid. We have Walter. Every time someone comes over to visit and sees him, I know they're wondering, "Where did you screw up?" It's embarra.s.sing.' She added, 'And the kind of abortions they give now, for women in early stages - it only costs one hundred dollars ... the price of ten gallons of gas! And you can talk about it with practically everybody who drops by for hours.'

Ian turned to face her and said in a level voice, 'Do you get to keep the embryo? Bring it home in a bottle or sprayed with special luminous paint so it glows in the dark like a night light?'

'In any color you want!'

'The embryo embryo?'

'No, the bottle. And the color of the fluid. It's in a preservative solution, so really it's a lifetime acquisition. It even has a written guarantee, I think.'

Ian folded his arms to keep himself calm: alpha state condition. 'Do you know that there are people who would want to have a child? Even an ordinary dumb one? That go to the County Facility week after week looking for a little newborn baby? These ideas - there's been this world panic about overpopulation. Nine trillion humans stacked like kindling in every block of every city. Okay, if that were going on-' He gestured. 'But what we have now is not enough enough children. Or don't you watch TV or read the children. Or don't you watch TV or read the Times Times?'

'It's a drag,' Cynthia said. 'For instance, today Walter came into the house freaked out because the abortion truck cruised by. It's a drag taking care of him. You You have it easy; you're at work. But have it easy; you're at work. But me me-'

'You know what I'd like to do to the Gestapo abortion wagon? Have two ex-drinking buddies of mine armed with BARs, one on each side of the road. And when the wagon pa.s.ses by-'

'It's a ventilated air-conditioned truck, not a wagon.'

He glared at her and then went to the bar in the kitchen to fix himself a drink. Scotch will do, he decided. Scotch and milk, a good before-'dinner' drink.

As he mixed his drink, his son Walter came in. He had, on his face, an unnatural pallor.

'The 'bort truck went by today, didn't it?' Ian said.

'I thought maybe-'

'No way. Even if your mother and I saw a lawyer and had a legal doc.u.ment drawn up, an un-D Form, you're too old. So relax.'

'I know intellectually,' Walter said, 'but-'

' "Do not seek to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee," 'Ian quoted (inaccurately). 'Listen, Walt, let me lay something on you.' He took a big, long drink of Scotch and milk. 'The name of all this is, kill me kill me. Kill them when they're the size of a fingernail, or a baseball, or later on, if you haven't done it already, suck the air out of the lungs of a ten-year-old boy and let him die. It's a certain kind of woman advocating this all. They used to call them "castrating females". Maybe that was once the right term, except that these women, these hard cold women, didn't just want to - well, they want to do in the whole whole boy or man, make all of them dead, not just the part that makes him a man. Do you see?' boy or man, make all of them dead, not just the part that makes him a man. Do you see?'

'No,' Walter said, but in a dim sense, very frightening, he did.

After another hit of his drink, Ian said, 'And we've got one living right here, Walter. Here in our very house.'

'What do we have living here?'

'What the Swiss psychiatrists call a kindermorder kindermorder,' Ian said, deliberately choosing a term he knew his boy wouldn't understand. 'You know what,' he said, 'you and I could get onto an Amtrak coach and head north and just keep on going until we reached Vancouver, British Columbia, and we could take a ferry to Vancouver Island and never be seen by anybody down here again.'

'But what about Mom?'