They've made themselves the only free individuals in our world,' Igan said. 'But individuals don't evolve. Populations evolve, not individuals. We have no population.'

'But the Folk-'

'Yes, the Folk! Who among us are allowed to mate?' Igan shook his head. 'You're a gene surgeon, man! Haven't you identified the pattern yet?'

'Pattern? What pattern? What do you mean?' Svengaard pushed himself up in the chair, cursed his bindings. His arms and legs felt numb.

The Optimen hold to one cardinal rule of mating,' Igan said. 'Return to the standard average. They allow a random interchange with the standard average organism to suppress development of unique individuals. Such few unique individuals as occur are not allowed to breed.'

Svengaard shook his head. 'I don't believe you,' he said. But he could feel the beginnings of doubt. His own case - no matter which mate he chose, the breeding permit was denied. He'd examined the genetic matchings himself, had seen configurations he would've sworn were viable - but the Optimen said no.

'You do believe me,' Igan said.

'But look at the long lives they give us,' Svengaard said. 'I can expect almost two hundred years.'

'Medicine does that, not the Optimen,' Igan said. 'Delicate careful refinement of the enzymic prescription's the key. That plus a proscribed life in which emotional upset is held to a minimum. Selected exercises and a diet chosen for your specific needs. It could be done for almost anyone.'

'Indefinite life?' Svengaard whispered.

'No! But long life, much longer than we get now. I'm going on four hundred years, myself - as are several of my contemporaries. Almost four hundred lovely years,' he said, remembering Calapine's vicious phrase... and Nourse's chuckle.

'Four hundred - you?' Svengaard asked.

'I agree it's nothing compared to their many 'thousands,' Igan said. 'But almost anyone could have these years, except they don't permit it.'

'Why?' Svengaard asked.

'This way they can offer the bonus years to the selected few,' Igan said, 'a reward for service. Without this rule they have no coin to buy us. You knew this! You've been trying to sell yourself to them for this coin all your life.'

Svengaard looked down at his bound hands. Is that my life? he wondered. Fettered hands? Who will buy my fettered hands?

'And you should hear Nourse chuckle at my pitiful four hundred years,' Igan said.

'Nourse?'

'Yes! Nourse of the Tuyere, Nourse the Cynic, Nourse of the more than forty thousand years! Why do you think Nourse is a Cynic?' Igan demanded. 'There s older Optimen, much older. Most of those aren't Cynics.'

'I don't understand,' Svengaard said. He stared at Igan, feeling weak, battered, unable to counter the force of these words and arguments.

'I forget you're not of Central,' Igan said. They classify themselves by the tiny bit of emotion they're permitted. They're Actionists, Emotionals, Cynics, Hedonists and Effetes. They pass through cynicism on their way to hedonism. The Tuyere already's well occupied in pursuit of personal pleasure. There's a pattern here, too, and none of it's good.'

Igan studied Svengaard, weighing the effect of his words. Here was a creature barely above the Polk. He was medieval man. To him. Central and the Optimen were the 'primum mobile' in control of all celestial systems. Beyond Central lay only the empyrean home of the Creator... and for the Svengaards of the world there was little distinction between Optiman and Creator. Both were higher than the moon and totally without fault.

'Where can we run?' Svengaard asked. There's no place to hide. They control the enzymic prescriptions. The minute one of us walks into a pharmacy for a renewal, that's the end.'

'We have our sources,' Igan said.

'But why would you want me?' Svengaard asked. He kept his eyes on his bindings.

'Because you're a unique individual,' Igan said. 'Because Potter wants you. Because you know of the Durant embryo.'

The Durant embryo, Svengaard thought. What's the significance of the Durant embryo? It all comes back to that embryo.

He looked up, met Igan's eyes.

'You find it difficult to see the Optimen in my description of them,' Igan said.

'Yes.'

They're a plague on the face of the earth,' Igan said. They're the earth's disease!'

Svengaard recoiled from the bitterness of Igan's voice.

'Saul has erased his thousands and David his ten thousands,' Igan said. 'But the Optimen erase the future.'

A blocky hulk of a man squeezed past the narrow space beside the table, planted himself with his back to Svengaard. ~ 'Well?' he asked. The voice carried a disturbing tone of urgency, just in that one word. Svengaard tried to see the face, but couldn't move far enough to the side. There was just that wide belted back in a gray jacket.

'I don't know,' Igan said.

'We can spare no more time,' the newcomer said. Totter has completed his work.'

The result?' Igan asked.

He says successful. He used enzymic injection for quick recovery. The mother will be ready to move soon.' A thick hand moved over the shoulder to point a thumb at Svengaard. 'What do we do with him?'

'Bring him,' Igan said. 'What's Central doing?'

'Ordered arrest and confinement of every surgeon.'

'So soon? Did they get Dr Hand?'

'Yes, but he took the black door.'

'Stopped his heart,' Igan said. 'The only thing. We can't let them question one of us. How many does that leave us?'

'Seven.'

'Including Svengaard?'

'Eight then.'

'Well keep Svengaard restrained for the time being,' Igan said.

They're beginning to pull their special people out of Seatac,' the big man said.

Svengaard could see only half of Igan's face past the newcomer, but that half showed a deep frown of concentration. The one visible eye looked at Svengaard, disregarded him.

'It's obvious,' Igan said.

'Yes - they're going to destroy the megalopolis.'

'Not destroy, sterilize.'

'You've heard Allgood speak of the Folk?'

'Many times. Vermin in their warrens. Hell step on the entire region without a qualm. Is everything ready to move?'

'Ready enough.'

The driver?'

'Programed for the desired response.'

'Give Svengaard a shot to keep him quiet, then. We won't have time for him once we're on the road.'

Svengaard stiffened.

The bulky back turned. Svengaard looked up into a pair of glistening eyes, gray, measuring, devoid of emotion. One of the thick hands lifted, carrying a springshot ampoule. The hand touched his neck and there was a jolt.

Svengaard stared up at that faceless face while the fuzzy clouds closed around his mind. His throat felt thick, tongue useless. He willed himself to protest, but no sound came. Awareness became a tightening globe centered on a tiny patch of ceiling with slotted openings. The scene condensed, smaller and smaller - a frantic circle like an eye with slotted pupils.

He sank into a cushioned well of darkness. Thirteen

LIZBETH lay on a bench with Harvey seated beside her, steadying her. There were five people here in a cubed space no bigger than a large packing box. The box had been fitted into the center of a normal load on an overland transporter van. A single glowtube in the comer above her head illuminated the interior with a sickly yellow light. She could see Doctors Igan and Boumour on a rough bench opposite her, their feet stretched across the bound, gagged and unconscious figure of Svengaard on the floor.

It was already night outside, Harvey had said. That must mean they'd come a goodly distance, she thought. She felt vaguely nauseated and her abdomen ached around the stitches. The thought of carrying her son within her carried a strange reassurance. There was a sense of fulfillment in it. Potter had said she could likely do without her regular enzymes while she carried the embryo. He'd obviously been thinking the embryo would be removed into a vat when they reached a safe place. But she knew she'd resist that. She wanted to carry her son full term. No woman had done that for thousands of years, but she wanted it.

'We're picking up speed,' Igan said. 'We must be out of the tubes onto the skyway.'

'Will there be checkpoints?' Boumour asked.

'Bound to be.'

Harvey sensed the accuracy of Igan's assessment. Speed? Yes - their bodies were compensating for heavier pressure on the turns. Air was coming in a bit faster through the scoop ventilator under Lizbeth's bench. There was a new hardness to the ground-effect suspension, less bounce. The turbines echoed loudly in the narrow box and he could smell unburned hydrocarbons.

Checkpoints? Security would use every means to see that no one escaped Seatac. He wondered then what was about to happen to the megalopolis. The surgeons had spoken of poison gas in the ventilators, sonics. Central had many weapons, they said. Harvey put out an arm to hold Lizbeth as they rounded a sharp comer.

He didn't know how he felt about Lizbeth carrying their son within her. It was odd. Not obscene or disgusting... just odd. An instinctive response had come to focus within him and he looked around for dangers from which he could protect her. But there was only this box filled with the smell of stale sweat and oil.

'What's the cargo around us?' Boumour asked.

'Odds and ends,' Igan said. 'Machinery parts, some old art works, inconsequential things. We took anything we could pirate to make a seemingly normal load.'

Inconsequentials, Harvey thought. He found himself fascinated by this revelation. Inconsequentials. They carried parts to things that might never be built.

Lizbeth's hand groped out, found his. 'Harvey?'

He bent over her. 'Yes, dear?'

'I feel.. so... funny.'

Harvey cast a despairing look at the doctors.

'She'll be all right,' Igan said.

'Harvey, I'm afraid,' she said. 'We're not going to get through.'

'That's no way to talk,' Igan said.

She looked up, found the gene surgeon studying her across the narrow space of the box. His eyes were a pair of glittering instruments in a slim, supercilious face. Is he a Cyborg, too? she wondered. The cold way the eyes stared at her broke through her control. 'I don't care about myself!' she hissed. 'But what about my son?'

'Best calm yourself, Madame,' Igan said.

'I can't,' she said. 'We're not going to make it!'

That's no way to act,' Igan said. 'Our driver is the finest Cyborg available.'

'He'll never get us past them,'' she moaned.

'You'd best be quiet,' Igan said.

Harvey at last had an object from which to protect his wife. 'Don't talk to her that way!' he barked.

Igan spoke in a long-suffering tone. 'Not you, too, Durant. Keep your voice down. You know as well as I do they'll have listening stations along the skyway. We shouldn't be speaking now unless it's absolutely necessary.'

'Nothing can get past them tonight,' Lizbeth whispered.

'Our driver is little more than a shell of flesh around a reflex computer,' Igan said. 'He's programed for just this task. He'll get us through if anyone can.'

'If anyone can,' she whispered. She began to sob - wracking, convulsive movements that shook her whole body.

'See what you've done!' Harvey said.

Igan sighed, brought up a hand containing a capsule, extended the capsule to Harvey. 'Give her this.'

'What's that?' Harvey demanded.

'Just a sedative.'

'I don't want a sedative,' she sobbed.

'It's for your own good, my dear,' Igan said. 'Really, this could dislodge the embryo. You should remain calm and quiet this soon after the operation.'

'She doesn't want it,' Harvey said. His eyes glared with anger.

'She has to take it,' Igan said.

'Not if she doesn't want it.'

Igan forced his voice into a reasonable tone. 'Durant, I'm only trying to save our lives. You're angry now and you- '