“I have to tell you I’m fifty and untrained in sales. I suffered a business loss—”

  “Oh? What kind? If you were rolled—”

  “I bought into Mars, Inc. Limited, I mean. Mars, Limited. Ten lots in Elysium Acres. Cash.”

  She whistled. “They say one’s born every minute, but your kind comes only once a week. You lost—”

  “—the shirt off my back,” Fisk finished, trying to smile.

  “At least,” she said, eying him again. “When can you report?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You want a job, don’t you?”

  “Oh.” Fisk had been so well braced against turndown that he was hardly prepared. “As soon as I get dressed. Uh—”

  “We’ll call it a business expense,” she said. “Have a suit on us, Mr. Centers.” And the operative light flashed on the suiter.

  “But I don’t even know your business,” he protested feebly as he hastened to the unit.

  “Mr. Johns will explain all that at the office.” She paused. “You can work with nonwhites?”

  “I pride myself on my inflexible nonbigotry?”

  “But you understand that a certain discretion may be necessary.”

  “I can keep my mouth shut.” He was familiar enough with middle-class values to realize that this constituted a pretty compelling agreement. He could take the job or reject it, but he could not talk about it elsewhere.

  She smiled again, this time with genuine warmth. “Mr. Centers, I think you’ll do very well with our organization.”

  FISK was met at the office by a hard-looking young man. “I’m Chic Johns, procurement. You’ll be on sales, of course. Know anything about the adoption racket?”

  “Nothing. I—”

  “Good. We’ll tell you all you need to know. We sell babies.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  Johns appraised him synically. “Right. You look like a businessman and you talk like one. We like that. Just remember—we don’t gab about business matters to third parties. You take the client’s order and deliver the body and collect the cash. We do the rest. All in strict privacy. Right?”

  “But I understood it was against the law to assign a monetary value to—”

  “It’s like this, Centers. The state agencies charge for costs, always inflated, which is really the same thing as selling for a profit. Thousand dollars minimum for a live body. They make their bundle, never you fear. But they’re choosy as hell. No black on white or yellow on black—know what I mean? If the client balks they find him ‘unqualified’ and he’s on the blacklist and can die childless for all they care—he’s out. Lots of good potential parents get hung up that way. So it’s up to us private concerns to fill the vacuum. We don’t ask questions—we don’t have restrictions. Client tells us what he wants and we get it for a price—just like any other business.”

  Fisk found this hard to assimilate. “But these are human beings. Surely you wouldn’t place an innocent baby with unfit parents.”

  Johns shrugged. “I wouldn’t. But my end is procurement, not placement. You’re the one who decides on parental qualifications. But remember, we don’t have the staff to do a damn security check on every family that wants a child. And who’s to say who’s fit or unfit? Some pretty rough people are mighty good to their kids—and some pillars of society, the kind the state agencies like, are raising speed demons, not to mention the real addicts. Our record is at least as good as the state’s when you consider the family, not the class—and we deliver much faster. So we just charge enough to discourage anybody who’s in it for laughs. Would you pay three, four grand for a piddling black baby if you didn’t mean to take care of it?”

  “No, of course not. But—”

  “So okay. Here’s the procedure book. Take it home, study it today. Tomorrow’s your first ass.”

  “Ass?”

  “Assignment. Tomorrow maybe you’ll place a poor black baby in a rich white home, Centers. Twenty per cent commission on the gross. Maybe eight hundred dollars for a day’s work. Like the notion?”

  “I’ll, er, try my best,” Fisk said uncertainly.

  It was a job.

  THE book was far more sophisticated in language than Chic Johns had been, providing elegant explanations and justifications for private adoption procedures. But the man’s callous summary seemed essentially correct. State regulations were so complex and picayune and state agency staffs so overworked that many worthy prospective parents were unfairly denied adoptive children. Many innocent babies were forced to grow up in impersonal institutions, where they soon became so backward as to be unadoptable. Even a bad family appeared, on balance, to be a superior environment for a child than a good state orphanage. A child needed parents.

  But Fisk, doubly wary after his bilking by Mars, Ltd.—accomplished via its plausible sales pitch—checked carefully for pitfalls. This manual could be biased, deliberately distorting the state agency picture in order to justify the need for an intrusion by private enterprise.

  He phoned the library information service and verified that state institutions were run according to strict and basically fair precepts, so that orphans were not actually deprived—but adoption into families was still preferable. He learned that no adoption was legal unless court-approved, so that if this seeming detail were omitted a child could be taken away at any time from even the most loving and competent parents. The main complaint lodged against blackmarket outfits was their frequent failure to nail down adoptions in court.

  The procedure book Chic Johns had given him was supposed to contain all he needed to know about placing a child for adoption. Yet it made no reference to the court requirement.

  Fisk reviewed the library material carefully. Theoretically it was impossible for a baby to be adopted without court sanction—i.e., via black market. But now that he had a notion which lines to read between, he saw that there were avenues. The problem was not the placement, for many more people wanted children than the supply could accommodate. The problem was the acquisition. A few babies might be born unrecorded—but the overwhelming majority arrived in hospitals or with sanctioned medical supervision and all of these were duly recorded. Once recorded, they were in the computerized system—the state knew the approximate whereabouts of every recorded human being. But some officials were susceptible to corruption and supervisory agencies were chronically overworked, so there was a practical loophole for a continuing siphoning of babies theoretically destined for legitimate placement. If no one complained and no one checked to make certain a given baby had arrived, the computer’s entry was in fact fictitious—sometimes.

  But it would be premature to assume that he had landed in such a black-market enterprise, Fisk told himself. He had gotten in trouble before by jumping to conclusions—and he needed the job. The court would make its own investigation at the time of the adoption—and if anything were wrong the transaction would be avoided. It was the ethical responsibility of the placement agent—himself—to make arrangements for such legal blessing.

  A small unease nagged at him subliminally, but the thought of an eight-hundred-dollar confmission for one day’s work forced aside his final doubts. His best course was to try to do the job honestly before judging it. He could always quit once he had verified the facts, if that was the way it went.

  II

  THE woman was back on duty in the morning. “All set, Mr. Centers?” she inquired over mounded paperwork.

  “Ready to try,” he said. “I’ll need to know a lot more, but I should be able to work it out as I go along.”

  “Good. Here’s your first lead. Find out what they want and report back here. Don’t talk business over the phone—we never do that. Remember, make no promises. Just say you’ll try.”

  That simple! Fisk took the card she proffered and read it: Michael Ormand, with an address in one of the newer apartment complexes.

  But why no business over the phone? An order was a fairly straightforward thing.

  Ormand was a genial muscular man of about thirty, with a scalped-looking crewcut. Under it Fisk detected the inset metal contacts of a spaceman. He tried not to stare. He knew about the brain-to-machine synapses used by interplanetary crewmen, but had never seen the implants at close quarters before.

  “Mars shuttle?” Fisk inquired, feeling a twinge. It was foolish for him to resent everything connected with Mars, but the wound still pained.

  “Venus,” Ormand answered. “But I’m through with all that. No more shuttling. Going to retire now I’ve made my pile. Want a family.”

  “That’s what I’m here to discuss,” Fisk said with what he hoped was the proper note of professional encouragement. This was easy enough, so far. “May I ask what you plan to do now?”

  “It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell you. I’ll grow mugwumps.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mugwumps. Venusian pseudoplants. Very pretty, use no water or sunlight, smell like a lemon. They’re in big demand here on Earth, but I’m not doing it for the money. Made my pile already, as I said. Challenge, you know. Never been cultivated before.”

  Fisk made a mental note to look up mugwumps—he had not heard the word in this connection before. “I see. What kind of child were you thinking of adopting? You understand we are a private, fee-charging agency. We do our best, but we can’t make promises—except that we don’t collect until we deliver.”

  “Sure. No red tape—that’s what I like. I figure a little girl, nine or ten. Healthy, you know?”

  “Nine or ten months,” Fisk repeated, writing it down.

  “Months? Years! What would I want with a squalling baby?”

  “Oh,” Fisk said, nonplused. “Sorry. I thought—uh—how long have you been married?”

  “Married? Spacemen don’t marry. What would I want with a gold-digging wife?”

  Fisk choked. “Mr. Ormand, If you want to adopt—”

  “That’s why I want to adopt. A nice, sweet little girl. Catch her before she gets bitchy, train her right, you know? Older women are unmanageable.”

  “But—”

  “You’re single, aren’t you? You know what women are like.”

  “But you can’t adopt when you’re single.”

  Ormand glanced at him in surprise. “I can’t?”

  “Of course not. Only married couples can—”

  The man smiled. “Oh, that’s the agency pitch. Sure. That’s why I called you. To cut that bilge. Look, you don’t need to beat up the price on me. I told you I’m loaded. Don’t worry about it. Find me what I want and I’ll pay. Within reason. I know what the range is for this sort of thing. And I’ll give you a little bonus on the side for prompt service. Fair enough?”

  Fisk was afraid of what would come out if he opened his mouth, so he kept it closed. Somehow he made his exit in good order.

  “TEN-YEAR-OLD girl? Sure, we can get,” Johns said at the office. “That kind’s a glut on the market. And he won’t quibble on color or price. Good show, Centers—I can see you’ve got the knack.”

  This was not the response Fisk had anticipated. He had supposed the sale doomed. “But he’s single.”

  “So?”

  “What about the law?”

  Johns made a face as though he had heard a bad word. “What about it? Didn’t you read the book? Singles can adopt—if they have the means to make a good home. And this guy does. He’ll bite for five grand, wait and see. Grand for you, grand for me—and grand for business.”

  Fisk felt vaguely nauseated, but he didn’t want to imperil his income by raising uninformed objections. A thousand dollars could go a long way in reconstituting his life style. “Do you have a ten-year-old girl? Uh, in stock?”

  “You think I keep that kind packed in desk drawers? I’ll find one,” Johns said confidently. “Just a matter of making the connection—and a little quiet negotiation. Two days, maybe. Don’t you worry about that. My end of the business, procurement. Just you go out on your next ass and see if you can land another order to match the first.”

  Fisk retained strong personal reservations about this business, but he went. As it happened, the leads fizzled. Some people merely wanted information. Others backed off when it came to the point of actually ordering a baby. One lady seemed to be more interested in finding a husband and Fisk barely escaped intact. Ormand was right—some older women did get predatory. Meanwhile, however much he might look the part, he was not a high-pressure salesman.

  On the third day Johns barged into the office, hauling along a screaming tantrum of a spitfire. “Got her!” he exclaimed breathlessly, shoving the creature into the center of the room and leaning against the door. Blood dripped from a scratch on his cheek and his suit was torn in a couple of places, but he was smiling. “What a job!”

  Abruptly the commotion ceased. A young girl of indeterminate color and culture stood there.

  “Hi,” she said to Fisk, nodding her short black tangle of hair pertly. “You the sucker?”

  Fisk turned to Johns, dismayed. “Surely this isn’t—”

  “Surely this is! Take her to your client and get the money. Real bargain for him. See those classic facial lines? That animal vigor? That instant self-control? You know the price.”

  Fisk found the moral ramifications too fast to contemplate on the spot, so he shelved them in favor of details. “He—he wants a—a nice sweet little girl.”

  “I’m nice and sweet,” the girl snarled. “When I want to be.”

  “Would you want to be sweet for a man who’ll shell out five grand for you?” Johns asked her with a half-smile.

  “Five grand?” she exclaimed, delighted. “Am I worth all that?”

  “If you behave. At least until the deal’s complete. After that, who cares? You’re in.”

  “Yeah, who cares?” she echoed, with momentary mischief. Despite their manner of entry, Johns and the girl appeared to have a certain mutual appreciation of each other’s motives.

  Fisk had been concerned for the welfare of the child, but now he suspected that the client was the sucker she had implied. Should he proceed with this transaction?

  What would he eat if he didn’t? He had made no other sales (placed no other children, he corrected himself), so his commission was zero. The office petty cash wouldn’t carry him long. Sheer need was bruising his scruples.

  “Okay, Centers—now take her away,” Johns commanded briskly. “Clean her up and feed her first, so she doesn’t snatch. Here are a couple of tokens. Play it cool. But don’t turn her over until you get his payment.”

  FISK took her away, with a stop at a refresher booth to get her cleaned and dressed for presentation. He wished he could do the same for himself—his home foamer had quit the day before and this was his fourth day in a one-day suit. Only extreme care kept him from looking seedy.

  Of course he could always sell one of his Mars lots. But those were worth only one per cent what he had paid, and he couldn’t bring himself to convert that paper loss to cash. Marsland might eventually improve.

  “What’s your name?” he asked belatedly as she foamed.

  “Yola. Hey, I’ve never been in a public booth before. Neat!” Her voice emerged from a speaker beside the entrance. There was no vision screen, of course.

  “How did Johns get you?” Fisk couldn’t bring himself to use the term “procure” in this connection.

  “The usual. I was doing time in solitary ’cause I—aw, never, mind. The cage was glad to unload me—and not for any five grand, either.”

  “The orphanage sold you?”

  “They don’t call it that. Order came through the Juvenile Parole Agency, which is a legit division of Youth Services. But somewhere along the way I got shunted—and here I am.”

  “You mean you were abducted from your lawful guardian?”

  “You don’t know much, do you? It was just in the paperwork. Same thing, I guess. The usual, I said.”

  “But how could you be transferred from a state institution to a—to here?”

  “If I knew I’d know enough not to talk about it,” she said uncomfortably. Then she changed the subject. “Is it a nice family?”

  “It’s a single man. Spacer.”

  She didn’t respond right away and Fisk hardly needed to inquire why. Children in institutions learned early about life, and the spacers were notorious for their planetfall orgies. The situation was developing into something a far cry from the philanthropic service Fisk had hopefully anticipated.

  “Well, let’s go,” she said, emerging. Fisk had feared she had punched some outrageous replacement outfit, but she was tastefully dressed for her age: eleven. She was small, looked undernourished and not black-skinned, though she obviously derived from mixed ancestry. She looked tanned on the body and the faintly Negroid cast about her features was not obvious at a casual glance. No doubt neither pure black nor pure white had wanted her as a baby, as neither considered brown beautiful. So she was here.

  “So whatcha gaping at?” she demanded.

  He guided her to the fooder and inserted the second token. “Punch what you want—and make sure you have enough to fill up,” he advised, hoping she would order so much that he would get to abate his sudden hunger on the surplus. He had been scrimping on meals.

  She looked at him sidelong, punched a supersoda and a miniature dog biscuit.

  “For you,” she said, proffering the latter.

  Fisk was too hungry to be properly furious. He chewed on the biscuit while she slurped the giant confection noisily. An unlimited one-sitting fooder order gone to waste!

  But his conscience hung on. “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Yola? A single man—”

  “A single—loaded—man. Think I’m dumb? Better’n solitary, for sure. I’ll get to see shows, sleep late, eat anything I want—”

  “Then why were you fighting so hard when Johns brought you in?”

  “I don’t like being told what to do.”

  “Do you always throw a tantrum when—”