“No, there are not things, if you mean races or colors or religions or anything like that. I am shocked to hear you, a geneticist, even suggest an idea like that. Deeply shocked. Though, unhappily, I’m not surprised.”

  “I don’t care about her. It’s him, Gust, what he did to me.”

  “He did nothing at all. My God, woman, you want equality

  and equal pay and freedom from childbearing—and you have all these things. So you can’t very well complain if you throw a man out of your bed, and he goes to someone else.”

  “What do you mean?” she gasped, shocked.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to talk like this. I became angry. You’re an adult; you’ll have to make your own decisions about your marriage.”

  “No. You can’t leave it like that. You said something, and you’re going to tell me exactly what you meant.”

  Livermore was still angry. He dropped into a chair and ordered his thoughts before he spoke again.

  “I’m an old-fashioned M.D., so perhaps I had better talk from a doctor’s point of view. You’re a young woman in good health in the prime of your life. If you came to me for marriage counseling I would tell you that your marriage appears to be in trouble and you are probably the cause, the original cause, that is. Though it has gone far enough now so that you both have a good deal to be responsible for. It appears that in your involvement in your work, your major interests outside your marriage, you have lost your sexuality. You have no time for it. And I am not talking about sex now but all the things that make a woman feminine. The way you dress, apply makeup, carry yourself, think about yourself. Your work has come to occupy the central portion of your life, and your husband has to take second best. You must realize that some of the freedom women gained deprived the men of certain things. A married man now has no children or a mother for his children. He has no one who is primarily interested in him and his needs. I don’t insist that all marriages must exist on a master-and-slave relationship, but there should be a deal more give and take in a marriage than yours appears to offer. Just ask yourself—what does your husband get out of this marriage other than sexual frustration? If it’s just a sometime companion, he would be far better off with a male roommate, an engineer he could talk shop with.”

  The silence lengthened, and Livermore finally coughed and cleared his throat and stood. “If I have interfered unreasonably, I’m sorry.” He went out and saw Blalock stamping determinedly down the hall. After scowling at the man’s receding back for a moment he entered the laboratory to check the bottle installations.

  The FBI man let himself into Catherine Ruffin’s office without knocking. She looked up at him, her face cold, then back at her work.

  “I’m busy now, and I don’t wish to talk to you.”

  “I’ve come to you for some help.”

  “Me?” Her laugh had no humor in it. “You accused me of breaking those bottles, so how can you ask for aid?”

  “You are the only one who can supply the information I need. If you are as innocent as you insist, you should be pleased to help.”

  It was an argument that appealed to her ordered mind. She had no good reason—other than the fact that she disliked him—for refusing the man. And he was the agent officially sent here to investigate the sabotage.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “Help me to uncover a motive for the crimes.”

  “I have no suspicions, no information that you don’t have.”

  “Yes, you do. You have access to all the records and to the computer—and you know how to program it. I want you to get all the data you can on the contents of those bottles. I have been looking at the records of losses, and there seems to be a pattern, but not one that is necessarily obvious. The fact that certain bottles were broken, three out of five, or that all the bottles in a certain rank on a certain day had their contents destroyed. There must be a key to this information in the records.”

  “This will not be a small job.”

  “I can get you all the authorization you need.”

  “Then I will do it. I can make the comparisons and checks and program the computer to look for relevant information. But I cannot promise you that there will be the answer you seek. The destruction could be random, and if it is, this will be of no help.”

  “I have my own reasons for thinking that it is not random. Do this and call me as soon as you have the results.”

  It took two days of concentrated effort. Catherine Ruffin was very satisfied with the job that she had done. Not with the results themselves; she could see no clues to any form of organization in any of the figures. But the federal agent might. She put in a call to him, then went through the results again until he arrived.

  “I can see nothing indicative,” she said, passing over the computer readouts.

  “That’s for me to decide. Can you explain these to me?”

  “This is a list of the destroyed or damaged bottles.” She handed him the top sheet. “Code number in the first column, then identification by name.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Surname of the donors, an easy way to remember and identify certain strains. Here, for instance, Wilson-Smith; sperm Wilson, ovum Smith. The remaining columns are details about the selections, which traits were selected and information of that kind. Instead of the index numbers, I have used the names of the strains for identification in the processing. These are the remaining sheets which are the results of various attempts to extract meaningful relationships. I could find none. The names themselves convey more.”

  He looked up from the figures. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing at all. A foolish habit of my own. I am by birth a Boer, and I grew up on one of the white reservations in South Africa after the revolution. Until we emigrated here, when I was eleven, I spoke only Afrikaans. So I have an emotional tie to the people—the ethnic group, you would call it—in which I was born. It was a small group, and it is very rare to meet a Boer in this country. So I look at lists of names, an old habit, to see if I recognize any Boers among them. I have met a few people that way in my lifetime. For some talk about the old days behind barbed wire. That is what I meant.”

  “How does that apply to these lists?”

  “There are no Boers among them.”

  Blalock shrugged and turned his attention back to the paper. Catherine Ruffin, born Katerina Bekink, held the list of names before her and pursed her lips over it.

  “No Afrikaaners at all. All of them Anglo-Irish names, if anything.”

  Blalock looked up sharply. “Please repeat that,” he said.

  She was correct. He went through the list of names twice and found only sternly Anglo-Saxon or Irish surnames. It appeared to make no sense, nor did the fact, uncovered by Catherine Ruffin with the name relationship as a clue, that there were no Negroes either.

  “It makes no sense, no sense at all,” Blalock said, shaking the papers angrily. “What possible reason could there be for this kind of deliberate action?”

  “Perhaps you ask the wrong question. Instead of asking why certain names appear to be eliminated, perhaps you should ask why others do not appear on the list. Afrikaaners, for instance.”

  “Are there Afrikaans names on any of the bottle lists?”

  “Of course. Italian names, German names, that kind of thing.”

  “Yes, let us ask that question,” Blalock said, bending over the lists again.

  It was the right question to ask.

  The emergency meeting of the Genetic Guidance Council was called for 2300 hours. As always, Livermore was late. An extra chair had been placed at the foot of the big marble table, and Blalock was sitting there with the computer printouts arranged neatly before him. Catherine Ruffin switched on the recorder and called the meeting to order when Livermore arrived. Sturtevant coughed, then grubbed out his vegetable cigarette and immediately lit another one.

  “Those burning compost heaps will kill you yet,” Livermore said.

  Catherine Ruffin interrupted the traditional disagreement before it could get under way.

  “This meeting has been called at the request of Mr. Blalock, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who is here investigating the bottle failures and apparent sabotage. He is now ready to make a report.”

  “About time,” Livermore said. “Find out yet who is the saboteur?”

  “Yes,” Blalock said tonelessly. “You are, Dr. Livermore.”

  “Well, well, big talk from little man. But you’ll have to come up with some evidence before you wring a confession out of me.”

  “I think I can do that. Since the sabotage began and even before it was recognized as sabotage, one out of every ten bottles was a failure. This percentage is known as a tithe, which is indicative of a certain attitude or state of mind. It is also ten times the average failure ratio at other laboratories, which is normally about one percent. As further evidence the bottles sabotaged all had Irish or English surnamed donors.”

  Livermore sniffed loudly. “Pretty flimsy evidence. And what does it have to do with me?”

  “I have here a number of transcripts of meetings of this council where you have gone on record against what you call discrimination in selection. You seem to have set yourself up as a protector of minorities, claiming at different times that Negroes, Jews, Italians, Indians, and other groups have been discriminated against. The records reveal that no bottles bearing names of donors belonging to any of these groups have ever been lost by apparent accident or deliberate sabotage. The connection with you seems obvious, as well as the fact that you are one of the few people with access to the bottles as well as the specific knowledge that would enable you to commit the sabotage.”

  “Sounds more like circumstantial evidence, not facts, to me. Are you planning to bring these figures out in a public hearing or trial or whatever you call it?”

  “I am.”

  “Then your figures will also show the unconscious and conscious discrimination that is being practiced by the genetic-selection techniques now being used. Because it will reveal just how many of these minority groups are not being represented in the selection.”

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “Well I do. With these facts in mind I then admit to all the acts you have accused me of. I did it all.”

  A shocked silence followed his words. Catherine Ruffin shook her head, trying to understand.

  “Why? I don’t understand why you did it,” she said.

  “You still don’t know, Catherine? I thought you were more intelligent than that. I did everything within my power to change the errant policies of this board and all the other boards throughout the country. I got exactly nowhere. With natural childbirth almost completely a thing of the past, the future citizens of this country will all come from the gene pool represented by the stored sperm and ova. With the selection techniques existing now, minority after minority will be eliminated. With their elimination countless genes that we simply cannot lose will be lost forever. Perhaps a world of fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blond, and muscular Anglo-Saxon Protestants is your idea of an ideal society. It is not mine—nor is it very attractive to the tinted-skin people with the funny foreign ways, odd names, and strangely shaped noses. They deserve to survive just as much as we do—and to survive right here in their country. Which is the United States of America. So don’t tell me about Italian and Israeli gene pools in their native lands. The only real Americans here with an original claim to that name are the American Indians, and they are being dropped out of the gene pool as well. A crime is being committed. I was aware of it and could convince no one else of its existence. Until I chose this highly dramatic way of pointing out the situation. During my coming trial these facts will be publicized, and after that the policy will have to be re-examined and changed.”

  “You foolish old man,” Catherine Ruffin said, but the warmth in her voice belied the harshness of her words. “You’ve ruined yourself. You will be fined, you may go to jail, at the least you will be relieved of your position, forced into retirement. You will never work again.”

  “Catherine my dear, I did what I had to do. Retirement at my age holds no fears. In fact I have been considering it and rather looking forward to it. Leave genetics and practice medicine as a hobby with my old fossils. I doubt the courts will be too hard on me. Compulsory retirement, I imagine, no more. Well worth it to get the facts out before the public.”

  “In that you have failed,” Blalock said coldly, putting the papers together and dropping them into his case. “There will be no public trial, simply a dismissal, better for all concerned that way. Since you have admitted guilt, your superiors can make a decision in camera as to what to do.”

  “That’s not fair!” Sturtevant said. “He only did these things to publicize what was happening. You can’t take that away from him. It’s not fair. …”

  “Fair has nothing to do with it, Mr. Sturtevant. The genetic program will continue unchanged.”

  Blalock seemed almost ready to smile at the thought. Livermore looked at him with distaste.

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Don’t rock the boat. Get rid of disloyal employees—and at the same time rid this country of dissident minorities.”

  “You said it, Doctor, I didn’t. And since you have admitted guilt, there is nothing you can do about it.”

  Livermore rose slowly and started from the room, turning before he reached the door.

  “Quite the contrary, Blalock, because I shall insist upon a full public hearing. You have accused me of a crime before my associates, and I wish my name cleared, since I am innocent of all charges.”

  “It won’t wash.” Blalock was smiling now. “Your statement of guilt is on tape, recorded in the minutes of this meeting.”

  “I don’t think it is. I did one final bit of sabotage earlier today. On that recorder. The tape is blank.”

  “That will do you no good. There are witnesses to your words.”

  “Are there? My two associates on the council are two committed human beings, no matter what our differences. If what I have said is true I think they will want the facts to come out. Am I right, Catherine?”

  “I never heard you admit guilt, Dr. Livermore.”

  “Nor I,” Sturtevant said. “I shall insist on a full departmental hearing to clear your name.”

  “See you in court, Blalock,” Livermore said, and went out.

  “I thought you would be at work. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Gust said to Leatha, who was sitting, looking out of the window of their living room. “I just came back to pack a bag, take my things out.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry what happened the other night, I just …”

  “We’ll talk about that some other time.”

  There was almost an embarrassed silence then, and he noticed her clothes for the first time. She was wearing a dress he had never seen before, a colorful print, sheer and low-cut. And her hair was different somehow, and her lipstick, more than she usually wore, he thought. She looked very nice, and he wondered if he should tell her that.

  “Why don’t we go out to that restaurant in Old Town,” Leatha said. “I think that might be fun.”

  “It will be fun, I know it will,” he answered suddenly, unreasonably, happier than he had ever been before.

  Georgette Booker looked up at the clock and saw that it was almost time to quit. Good. Dave was taking her out again tonight, which meant that he would propose again. He was so sweet. She might even marry him, but not now. Life was too relaxed, too much fun, and she enjoyed people. Marriage was always there when you wanted it, but right now she just didn’t want it. She smiled. She was quite happy.

  Sharm smiled and ate another piece of the ring-shaped roll. “Top-pit,” he said. “Really good. What is it called?” “A bagel,” his wife said. “You’re supposed to eat them with smoked salmon and white cheese. I found it in this old cult-food book. I think they’re nice.”

  “I think they’re a lot better than nice. We’re going to bake a whole lot of them, and I’m going to sell them in New Town because they got bread tastes like wet paper there. People will love them. They have to love them. Because you and I are going to move to New Town. They are going to love these

  bagels or something else we are going to sell them. Because you and I, we are going to live in that new place.”

  “You tell them, Sharm.”

  “I’m telling them. Old Sharm is going to get his cut of that good life, too.”

  THE SECRET OF STONEHENGE

  Low clouds rushed by overhead in the dusk and there was a spattering of sleet in the air. When Dr. Lanning opened the cab door of the truck the wind pounced on him. Fresh from the Arctic, hurtling unimpeded across Salisbury Plain. He buried his chin in his collar and climbed down; Barker followed him out and tapped on the door of the office nearby. There was no answer.

  “Not so good,” Lanning said, opening the rear door of the truck and gently sliding the bulky wooden box down to the ground. “We don’t leave our national monuments unguarded in the States.”

  “Really,” Barker said, turning and striding to the gate in the wire fence. “Then I presume those initials carved in the base of the Washington Monument are neolithic graffiti. As you see I brought the key.”

  He unlocked the gate and threw it open with a squeal of unoiled hinges, then went to help Lanning with the case.

  In the evening, under a lowering sky, that is the only way to see Stonehenge. Without the ice cream wrappers and clambering children. The Plain settles flat upon the earth, pressed outward to a distant horizon, and only the gray pillars of the sarsen stones have the strength to push up skyward.

  Lanning led the way, bending into the wind, up the broad path of the Avenue.

  “They’re always bigger than you expect them to be,” he said, and Barker did not answer him, perhaps because it was true. They stopped next to the Altar Stone and lowered the case. “We’ll know soon enough,” Lanning said, throwing open the latches.