He was seven, then. Seven, no longer an infant. She shook her head. In the afternoon one of the doctors strolled through the room, stopping to speak to several of the women. He approached Molly and she said, "Good afternoon, Doctor," just as the others had done.

"How are you feeling, Molly?"

"Well, thank you."

He moved on.

Molly looked at the floor again. She felt as if she had watched the small interlude from a great distance, unable to alter a nuance of it. Conditioning, she thought. That was what Sondra had meant. How else had they conditioned her? To spread her legs obligingly when they approached with their instruments, with the carefully hoarded sperm? She forced her fingers open again and flexed them. They were sore from gripping so hard.

Suddenly she looked up, but the doctor had gone. Who was he? For a moment she felt dizzy, then the room steadied again. She had called him Doctor, hadn't even questioned the lack of a name. Had it been Barry? Bruce? Another part of her conditioning, she thought bitterly. The breeders were the lost, they no longer had the right to know one of the clones from another. The Doctor. The Nurse. She bowed her head once more.

The routine was easy after a few days. They were given soporifics at bedtime and stimulants at breakfast, all disguised in the thin yellow tea that Molly wouldn't drink. Some of the women wept at night, others succumbed rapidly to the drugged tea and slept heavily. There was a lot of sexual activity; they had their mats, just as everyone else. Through the day they worked in the various departments of the clothing section. They had free time in the late afternoon, books to read, games in the lounge, guitars and violins available to them.

"It really isn't bad," Sondra said a few days after Molly's awakening. "They take good care of us, the very best. If you prick your finger, they come running and watch over you like a baby. It's not bad."

Molly didn't respond. Sondra was tall and heavy, in her sixth month; her eyes varied from brightly alert to dull and unseeing. They watched Sondra, Molly thought, and at the least sign of depression or emotional upset they changed the dosage and kept her operating on an even level.

"They don't keep most of the new ones under as long as they did you," Sondra said another time. "I guess that's because most of us were only fourteen or fifteen when we came here, and you were older."

Molly nodded. They had been children, easy to condition into breeding machines who thought it really wasn't that bad a life. Except at night, when many of them wept for their sisters.

"Why do they want so many babies?" Molly asked. "We thought they were reducing the human babies, not increasing the number."