Molly felt she could understand only half of what Sondra was saying to her. Again she looked about the lounge; in here the chairs were comfortable and there were tables at convenient intervals. Women were in clusters of threes and fours, chatting, now and then glancing at her. Some of them smiled, one winked. There were thirty women in the room, she thought in disbelief. Thirty breeders!

"Am I pregnant?" she asked suddenly, and pressed her hands against her stomach.

"I don't think so. If you are, it's still awfully early, but I doubt it. They tried every month since you've been here and it didn't take before. I doubt it took the last time either."

Molly sagged against her chair and closed her eyes hard. That's what they had done to her on the table. She felt tears form and roll down her cheeks and was not able to stop them. Then Sondra's arm was about her shoulders, and she held her tightly.

"It hits all of us like that, Molly. It's the separation, the being alone for the first time. You don't get used to it, but you learn to live with it and it doesn't hurt so much after a while."

Molly shook her head, unable as yet to speak. No, she thought distinctly, it was not the separation, it was the humiliation of being treated like an object, of being drugged and then used, forced to cooperate in that procedure unquestioningly.

"We have to go back now," Sondra said. "You won't have to do anything for another day or two, long enough to collect your thoughts, get used to everything all over again."

"Sondra, wait. You said Mark is all right? Where is he?"

"He's in school with the others. They won't hurt him or anything. They're very good to all the children. You remember that, don't you?"

Molly nodded. "Did they clone him?"

Sondra shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think so." She grimaced then and pressed her hand to her stomach. She looked very old and tired, and except for her bulging stomach, too thin.

"How many times have you been pregnant?" Molly asked. "How long have you been here?"

"Seven, counting now," Sondra said without hesitation. "I was brought here twenty years ago."

Molly stared at her then and shook her head. But she had been nine or ten when they mourned Sondra. "How long have I been here?" she whispered finally.

"Molly, not too fast. Try to relax this first day."

"How long?"

"A year and a half. Now come on."

All afternoon she sat quietly, and the memories became slightly less blurred, but she could not account for a year and a half. It was gone from her life as if a fold had been made and the two ends now touching excluded whatever had happened in the section that made up the loop, a year and a half.