"You know that isn't practical," Barry said impatiently. "We're in the lab half the time, in the breeders' quarters, in the hospital. Those aren't places for a child of ten."

"Then get rid of him," Sara said. She sat back now and crossed her arms over her chest.

Barry looked at Miriam, whose lips were tightly compressed. She met his gaze coldly. He turned to Lawrence.

"Can you think of any other way?" Lawrence asked. "We've tried everything we can think of, and nothing has worked. Those boys were angry enough to kill him this morning. Next time there might be violence. Have you thought what violence would do to this community?"

They were a people without violence in their history. Physical punishment had never been considered, because it was impossible to hurt one without hurting others equally. That didn't apply to Mark, Barry thought suddenly, but he didn't say it. The thought of hurting him, of causing him physical pain, was repugnant. He glanced at his brothers and saw the same confusion on their faces that he was feeling. They couldn't abandon the boy. He did hold clues about how man lived alone; they needed him. His mind refused to probe more deeply than that: they needed to study him. There were so many things about human beings that were incomprehensible to them; Mark might be the link that would enable them to understand.

The fact that the boy was Ben's child, that Ben and his brothers had been as one, had nothing to do with it. He felt no particular bond to the boy. None at all. If anyone could feel such a bond, it should be Miriam, he thought, and looked at her for a sign that she felt something. Her face was stony, her eyes avoided him. Too rigid, he realized, too cold.

And if that were so, he thought coolly, as if thinking about an experiment with insensate material, then it truly was a mistake to keep the boy with them. If that one child had the power to hurt the Miriam sisters as well as the Barry brothers, he was a mistake. It was unthinkable that an outsider could somehow reach in and twist the old hurts so much that they became new hurts, with even more destructive aftermaths.

"We could do it," Bob said suddenly. "There are risks, of course, but we could manage him. In four years," he continued, looking now at Sara, "he'll be sent out with the road crew, and from then on, he won't be a threat to any of us. But we will need him when we begin to reach out to try to understand the cities. He can scout out the paths, survive alone in the woods without danger of mental breakdown through separation. We'll need him."

Sara nodded. "And if we have to have another meeting such as this one, can we agree today that it will be our final meeting?"