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be damned if' I'll have him out here, catering to his delicate creative constitution, and I told him so. I have
too much to do. He might try finishing another book just once."
"He's had problems, Mike."
"Most of them are self-imposed. You'd think no one else had any worries. He ought to settle down
somewhere and get to work instead of leading that gypsy existence." Mike sighed. "How's everything
with you?"
"All right." There was no point in discussing Hidey with him or with the others for that matter. She had not
even told them about it while it lasted.
"Maybe you should pull up your roots, Kira, get out of that house."
"I don't mind it. My work is here, I don't have the time to move around. I should think you'd understand
that."
"I guess you're right. But I couldn't stand it myself, staying there. I'd better get off now. I've still got some
reading to do."
"Mike," she said impulsively, "try to be a little more sympathetic to Jim. He doesn't need to have
somebody picking on him."
"That's exactly what he does need. He gets enough sympathy from everyone else. I'll try to call you again
when I get a chance."
"Good night." She pressed a button and disconnected. She continued to sit by the phone, staring into the
darkened living room. She felt a stab of guilt.There I was, asking Mike to be more sympathetic to Jim
. It was Mike who needed some understanding now.
Soon Al would come downstairs and they would make plans to do some viewing through his
telescope if the sky was clear. Paul was calling them to dinner.
At last she got up and walked through the empty house, then up the stairs.
"Drop your weapons, everybody," Bert Ramsey shouted from the laboratory door. "We're having a party
in the lounge down the hall. The anti-moratorium bill just passed the House."
Kira, in the middle of making some notes for a report, heard the others in the lab give a few quiet cheers.
Chairs and stools squeaked across the floor as people began to file out of the lab and down the hall.
She got up slowly and turned toward the door. "Coming?" Bert asked.
"I'll be down in a minute," she said slowly.
"You must be even happier than the rest of us, you probably feel vindicated." The short, slightly
overweight man leaned against the door. "This may mean more funds, more lab assistants. I bet Hidey'll
have us pretty busy applying for grants."
"It doesn't mean we'll get any. There may not be that much money, and most of it's already tied up. The
medical people will get more."
"Maybe, maybe not." Bert straightened up. "I'll see you in the lounge."
Kira sighed as Bert disappeared. The passing of the bill was a mixed blessing for her. As a scientist, she
welcomed it, but she was sure that even now some reporter was looking for her. She and her brothers
would get some more unwanted publicity, more stupid questions, and she was not ready for that. They
had avoided it for so long now. And when the press realized that she was herself a biologist…she
shuddered. She could tell them she had nothing to say but then they would voice their suspicions about
what she, a clone, might be up to. No, she would have to rehearse a few harmless and innocuous
statements for them:We are still considering possible projects. Of course, anything we do would
have to be approved by the university administration, and whatever it is will, we hope, be of value
to everyone .
The President could veto the bill, but this was unlikely. Kira did not follow politics closely, but she was
sure that the President would still sign the bill. The world was well on the way to being a more peaceful,
quiet, middle-class place, but there were a lot of younger people who thought it was time to be more
adventurous and a lot of old people, lives lengthened by anti-aging shots, who could remember more
exciting, if more dangerous, times. And the middle-aged, who might be expected to wish that things
would remain quiet, were starting to look at their older relatives and wish that they might themselves be
able to stay around longer and enjoy more of the things they were at last able to have. People were
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