At first, nothing happened. After a moment, Turner blanched. Good. Because this was two billion dollars worth of baby here, and the bastard’s precious career would be over if it did the best thing for itself, which was to just die right now.

Then the screaming stopped. The baby’s eyes, previously screwed shut, opened wider than they had even at first, wider than any newborn’s should. An expression of impossible calm came into its face.

“Oh, my God,” Turner said. All in wonder, he reached out his shaking hands.

Sarge pulled the baby away. “No. Not you.”

“Okay, I christen this infant Mark Bryan. Mark because it’s the first, Bryan because it’s a name that hasn’t got a thing to do with any of us.” Then Dr. Turner addressed the baby. “All right, Mark, can you hear me?”

The infant was silent and still. His eyes followed Turner’s finger as he wagged it back and forth.

“Can you speak? Do you know who I am, Mark Bryan?”

Something happened that had never before happened on earth, as a newborn infant, in a whispered, barely audible voice, said the first word that any newborn had ever uttered. The baby said, “Father.”

Sarge was thunderstruck. Struck silent. He looked down at the pitiful ruined Madonna, then up at Turner, then at the baby. What kind of monster had Turner created?

“That’s right,” Turner said to Mark Bryan. “That’s very good.” His voice bubbled. Veins pulsed on his temples. “Now I am going to hold up some cards, and you will repeat what you see. Do you understand?”

Sarge could feel the tiny heart beating, could see in the eyes a terrible thing, a mind where there should be no mind. If he had the courage, he would kill this baby right now. But what use? Turner would simply have him brigged and grow another.

“Horse,” the infant whispered as Turner held up the first card. “Duck. Foot. Orange. Airplane.”

Each word was like a blow to Sarge’s soul. This poor creature!

“It’s viable. Very viable.” Turner smiled, his face bright with an almost boyish glee.

Careful tears slipped from the baby’s careful eyes. Slowly, though, they sank closed, for this was, after all, a newborn.

“I am going to transmit the code,” Turner said carefully. “You be very careful with my toy.”

“This is a baby!”

“Oh, no. Don’t go down that road. Because this is not a baby. This only looks like a baby. This is an immature biological device.”

Turner left Sarge with the little thing sleeping in his arms. He rocked back and forth, singing softly, “Low, low, breathe and blow, wind of the western sea,” the same lullaby his father had sung to him.

Finally, the only sounds in the room were the long, racking sobs of Sergeant Walker.