She shrugged, her lips compressed. "How can I not do it? Quit in high dudgeon? It wouldn't change a thing. This affair would not be rendered one iota less brutal for my walking out, and it could get a lot worse."

"I don't see how," Leo ground out.

"You don't?" She frowned. "No, I don't suppose you do. You never appreciated what a dangerous legal edge the quaddies are balanced on here. But I did. One wrong move and—oh, damn it all. I knew Apmad needed careful handling. Everything got away from me. Although I suppose this artificial gravity thing would have killed the project whoever was in charge, we are very, very lucky that she didn't order the quaddies exterminated. You have to understand, she had something like four or five pregnancies terminated for genetic defects, back on her home world when she was a young woman. It was the law. She eventually gave up, got divorced, took an off-planet job with GalacTech—came up through the ranks. She has a deep emotional vested interest in her prejudices against genetic tampering, and I knew it. And blew it . . . She still could order the quaddies killed—do you understand that? Any report of trouble, unrest, magnified by her genetic paranoias, and . . ." She squeezed her eyes shut, massaged her forehead with her fingertips.

"She could order it—who says you've got to carry it out? You said you cared about the quaddies. We've got to do something!" said Leo.

"What?" Yei's hands clenched, spread wide. "What, what, what? One or two—even if I could adopt one or two, take them away with me—smuggle them out somehow, who knows?—what then? To live on a planet with me, socially isolated as cripples, freaks, mutants—and sooner or later they would grow to adulthood, and then what? And what about the others? A thousand, Leo!"

"And if Apmad did order them exterminated, what excuse would you find then for doing nothing?"

"Oh, go away," she groaned. "You have no appreciation for the complexities of the situation, none. What do you think one person can do? I used to have a life of my own, once, before this job swallowed it. I've given six years—which is five and three-quarters more than you have—I've given all I can. I'm burned out. When I get away from this hole, I never want to hear of quaddies again. They're not my children. I haven't had time to have children."

She rubbed her eyes angrily, and sniffed, inhaling—tears?—or just bile. Leo didn't know. Leo didn't care.

"They're not anybody's children," Leo growled. "That's the trouble. They're some kind of . . . genetic orphans or something."

"If you're not going to say anything useful, please go away," she repeated. A wave of her hand encompassed the mass of flimsies. "I have work to do."

Leo had not struck a female since he was five years old. He removed himself, shaking.

*      *      *