Harry Turtledove: A Different Flesh

I don't know." Rather to his relief, she did not meet his eyes.

But she did go on even so: "I suppose it's just that seem to keep emphasizing the ways sims are different from people, and less than people, not the ways we're the same."

"Melody, they are different from us," he said, as gentle as he could.

Her mouth went wide and thin, a sure dam sign. All the same, he continued, "No matter how much you want justice for sims, that doesn't mean you'll ever see one elected censor, or even see one learn to read.

I've known people, not you," he added hastily, "who sometimes seem to Forget that."

"I don't think you answered me. Everything you sounds as though it ought to put you on the other side. Now she did look at him, in the same way she might at a roach on her salad plate

"Oh, for heaven's sake," he said in some exasperation "Doesn't my being here count for anything? Look, as far as I can see, we have a responsibility to sims, just because aren't as smart as we are and can't stand against us wit] people on their side. That's always been true, I suppose it's especially true now that we have machines to drudge us instead of sims. We don't need to exploit them al and we shouldn't.

All rights Do I pass? Can we go to sleep.

She seemed taken aback at his vehemence, and needed as moment to col ect herself and nod. "All right," she said as he and turned out the light.

"Good." He lay down beside her. His outbursts startled him a little, too. He thought about what he'd said. He believed all of it. That was not the problem.

The problem, he eventually realized, was that he not given Melody al his reasons. One of them was the hope of being just where he was now, in bed with her.

Would he have worked for Sims' justice without hope? He looked inside himself and decided he would appeased his conscience and let him slide toward sleep. More time on the road was coming tomorrow.

Doris dumped the morning's pile of mail on Dr. Howard’s desk, then went back to her own station outside. Howard went quickly through the stack, dividing it he had to deal with now, things that could wait, and things that could go straight into the trash. The wastebasket gave a resounding metal ic clunk as he got rid of the stack.

An insta-picture of a sim fel out of an envelope as he opened it.

Swearing, the doctor pulled out the that accompanied the photo. The lead line shouted, MATT IS STILL FREE, Howard jabbed the intercom button with his thumb. Doris came on, he growled, "Fetch me Coleman. I just got another one."

"Yes, Dr. Howard."

While he waited for the security chief to get there, he read through the sheet. It was much like the others that had to the DRC, and the copies that had gone to televietlets and papers all across the Federated Commonwealth. Whoever had Matt knew how to keep reminding the country about it.

Some of the phrases were ones he had seen before “no longer a victim of experimentation,"

"freed from certain death in the laboratory." Howard's lips quirked sourly. That last was an out-and-out lie. He knew it, and he expected that the people who had stolen knew it too. He hoped they did.

The intercom buzzed. Coleman came in without waiting to go through the formalities; he and Howard had been seeing a lot of each other lately.

Coleman was in his forties with red hair going white at the temples.

His movments were quick and jerky, as if he had abundant energy seeking some kind, any kind, of outlet.

He fairly snatched the picture and sheet out of Howard's hands then made a grab for the envelope still sitting on the is desk. "Posted in Philadelphia," he noted, adding Iater, "Different printer from the one for the text.

“Probably came to somebody who sent it on to us. Makes it hard to trace."

“Impossible' would seem a better word," Howard said he hoped to get a rise out of the security officer, he was disappointed. All Coleman did was nod. "Nothing we do with it," he said gloomily. "I'll pass it on to Terminus greencoats, but no reason to think they'll anymore on it than on any of the others."

"Meanwhile, of course, all the commentators and reFers in the country go right on giving it to us," Howard growled.

"Nothing I can do about that," Coleman said. "Long as these folks care to, they'll feed the newsies whatever they want. "

"Oh, get the hell out of here," the doctor shouted at him. Unruffled, Coleman took the photo, the sheet of paper, the envelope and left. The door closed softly behind him Howard stared down at his hands, ashamed of his an outburst. Matt had been gone more than a month now, .

no one was having any luck tracking him down. No even knew what part of the commonwealth he was in. The FCA’s just too big, had too many people, and sims, to make finding ones who did not want to be found easy.

The doctor was also aware that Coleman had not been quite right.

Howard knew to the hundredth of a cubic millilitre how much HIVI the thieves had stolen. He knew almost the day how long that HIVI would hold off the AIDS in Matt.

He also knew what would happen when the HIVI s gone. For Matt's sake, he hoped the people who had him do too.

The coughing from the next room went on and on and:, Ken Dixon looked at Melody, who was looking at the door. Worry had drawn her mouth down, put two deep lit between her eyes and other, fainter ones on her forehead She looked, he thought, the way she would when she was forty. It was not the kind of thought he usually had. The endless cough, though, left him with mortality on his mind. "The antibiotic isn't helping much," he said.

In fact, it wasn't helping at all. He and Melody both knew that, although she had not yet admitted it out loud.

Then she did, saying, "No," in a low voice.

it's probably not a bacterial pneumonia, then," he said.

Probably 'it's the one caused by protozoans. " Yes," Melody said, as low as before.

"Which means Matt's immune system is going south or he never would have come down with it," Dixon said He wished Melody would make things easier by staying with the chain of logic, but after her two one-word statements she went back to moodily staring at the bedroom. He would have to say it himself, then: "Which means the AIDS virus is loose in him again." Yes," Melody said, whispered, really. As quietly as silk spoken, she began to cry; Dixon did not realize it until he saw tear tracks glistening on her cheeks.

"Oh, Ken," she said, and then sobbed out loud for the first time, "we tried so hard " I know. Oh, how I know." His voice was heavy. He wouId have lightened it, but could not. He was tasting It now, for the first time in his life. The young think answers come easily, as if by right, that the world shapes itself at the bidding of their will. one by one, generation by generation, they learn how smal a part of truth that is, the world shapes them far more than they it. Then Melody said, "What are we going to do?" he knew he had to answer. Knowing hurt worse than staying quiet would have. He said, "We're going to give Matt back to the DRC." “What?" She stared at him.

That's the only place he can get more HIVI, and if he doesn’t get it he won't go on too long. If this round of pemmonia doesn't finish him, the next one will, or some other infection he won't be able to fight off and we can't help him. Come on, Melody, is it so or not ," she said grimly. AIDS was not a quick or easy way to die, too many thousands of deaths had left everyone knowing that. "But they'll only go on using him as a lab specimen

"A live one," Dixon broke in, "at least for a while, and with the HIVI he feels al right, for as long as it’s effective."

"However long that is." Melody was still fighting it!

"Longer than he has with us." She flinched. "The cause…”

"If you think that cause is worth more than what happens to one sim in particular, how are you any different from Dr. Howard?"