Brave New Worlds

left to run except the viral microscopy, and that's next week. "
    Ryan smiled. "Well, then, the problem must be viral. "
    "You know damn well the problem isn't viral. "
    Ryan looked at him sharply, his long grey hair tossing in the opposite direction. "What is it then? Sunspots? Aliens from outer space? God's punishment? the Jews? Yellow Peril?"
    Todd didn't answer. Just settled down to double checking the figures. Outside he heard the Sunday parade. Pentecostal. Jesus Will Save You, Brother, When You Go Without Your Sins. How could he concentrate?
    "What's wrong?" Ryan asked.
    "Nothing's wrong," Todd answered. Nothing. Sweet Jesus, you old man, if I could live to thirty-three I'd let them hang my corpse from any cross they wanted. If I could live to thirty.
    Twenty-four. Birthday June 28. They used to celebrate birthdays. Now everyone tried to keep it secret. Not Todd, though. Not well-adjusted Todd. Even had a few friends over, they drank to his health. His hands shook at night now, like palsy, like fear, and his teeth were rotting in his mouth. He looked down at the paper where his hands were following the lines. The numbers blurred. Have to have new glasses again, second time this year. The veins on his hands stuck out blue and evil-looking.
    And Sandy was over the edge today.
    She was only twenty-two; it hit the women first. He had met her just before college, they had married, had nine children in nine years—duty to the race. It must be child-bearing that made the women get it sooner. But the race had to go on.
    Somehow. And now their older children were grown up, having children of their own. Miracles of modern medicine. We don't know why you get old so young, and we can't cure it, but in the meantime we can give you a little more adulthood—accelerated development, six-month gestation, puberty at nine, not a disease left you could catch except the one. But the one was enough. Not as large as a church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
    His chin quivered and tears dropped down wrinkled cheeks onto the page.
    "What is it?" Ryan asked, concerned. Todd shook his head. He didn't need comfort, not from a novice of eighteen, only two years out of college.
    "What is it?" Ryan persisted.
    "It's tears," Todd answered. "A salty fluid produced by a gland near the eye, used for lubrication. Also serves double-duty as a signal to other people that stress cannot be privately coped with. "
    "So don't cope privately. What is it?"
    Todd got up and left the room. He went to his office and called the medical center.
    "Psychiatric," he said to the moronic voice that answered.
    Psychiatric was busy. He called again and got through. Dr. Lassiter was in.
    "Todd," Lassiter said.
    "Val," Todd answered. "Got a problem. "
    "Can it wait? Busy day. "
    "Can't wait. It's Sandy. She started babbling today. "
    "Ah," said Val. "I'm sorry. Is it bad?"
    "She remembers her separation therapy. Like it was yesterday. "
    "That's it then, Todd," Val said. "I'm really sorry. Sandy's a wonderful woman, good researcher, but there's nothing we can do. "
    "Aren't we supposed to be able to see signs before she reaches this stage?"
    "Usually," Val answered, "but not always. Think back, though. I'm sure you'll remember signs. "
    Todd swallowed. "Have you got a space, Val? You knew Sandy back in the old days, back when we were kids in the—"
    "Is this pressure, Todd?" Val asked abruptly. "Appeal to friendship? Don't you know the law?"
    "I know the law, dammit, I'm asking you, one medical researcher to another, is there room?"
    "There's room, Todd," Val answered, "for the treatables. But if she's reverted to separation therapy, then what can I do? It's a matter of weeks. For your own safety you have to turn her over, never know what's going to happen during the final senility, you know. Hallucinations. Sometimes violence. There's still strength in the old bones. "
    "She's committed no crime. "
    "It's also the law," Val reminded him. "Good-bye. "
    Todd hung up the phone. Turn her over? He'd never thought it would come to Sandy so suddenly. He couldn't just turn her over, she'd hate him, she had enough of herself left in herself to know what was going on. They'd been married thirteen years.
    He went back to Ryan in the lab and told him to put the computers on the viral microscopy tomorrow.
    "That's unscientific, to rush it," said Ryan.
    "Damned unscientific," Todd agreed. "Do it. "
    "OK," Ryan answered. "It's Sandy, isn't it?"
    "It's handwriting," Todd