Midnight

all of this to you later. Right now I want to see Peyser. I hope you were able to restrain him without doing much damage."
    As Shaddack reached toward the door to push it open, Watkins seized his wrist, staying his hand. Shaddack was shocked. He did not allow himself to be touched.
    "Take your hand off me."
    "How can the body be so suddenly reshaped?"
    "I told you, we'll discuss it later."
    "Now." Watkins's determination was so strong that it carved deep lines in his face. "Now. I'm so scared I can't think straight. I can't function at this level of fear, Shaddack. Look at me. I'm shaking. I feel like I'm going to blow apart. A million pieces. You don't know what happened here tonight, or you'd feel the same way. I've got to know How can our bodies change so suddenly?"
    Shaddack hesitated. "I'm working on that."
    Surprised, Watkins let go of his wrist and said, "You … you mean you don't know?"
    "It's an unexpected effect. I'm beginning to understand it"—which was a lie—"but I've got a lot more work to do." First he had to understand the New People's phenomenal healing powers, which were no doubt an aspect of the same process that allowed them to completely metamorphose into subhuman forms.
    "You subjected us to this without knowing what all it might do to us?"
    "I knew it would be a benefit, a great gift," Shaddack said impatiently, "No scientist can ever predict all the side effects. He has to proceed with the confidence that whatever side effects arise will not outweigh the benefits."
    "But they do outweigh the benefits," Watkins said, as close to anger as a New Man could get. "My God, how could you have done this to us?"
    "I did this for you."
    Watkins stared at him, then pushed open the bedroom door and said, "Have a look."
    Shaddack stepped into the room, where the carpet was damp and some of the walls festooned—with blood. He grimaced at the stink. He found all biological odors unusually repellent, perhaps because they were a reminder that human beings were far less efficient and clean than machines. After stopping at the first corpse which lay facedown near the door—and studying it, he looked across the room at the second body. "Two of them? Two regressives, and you killed both ? Two chances to study the psychology of these degenerates, and you threw away both opportunities?"
    Watkins was unbowed by the criticism. "It was a life-or-death situation here. It couldn't have been handled differently."
    He seemed angry to a degree inconsistent with the personality of a New Man, though perhaps the emotion sustaining his icy demeanor was less rage than fear. Fear was acceptable.
    "Peyser was regressed when we got here," Watkins continued. "We searched the house, confronted him in this room."
    As Watkins described that confrontation in detail, Shaddack was gripped by an apprehension that he tried not to reveal and to which he did not even want to admit. When he spoke he let only anger touch his voice, not fear "You're telling me that your men, both Sholnick and Penniworth, are regressives, that even you are a regressive?"
    "Sholnick was a regressive, yes. In my book Penniworth isn't—not yet anyway—because he successfully resisted the urge. Just as I resisted it." Watkins boldly maintained eye contact, not once glancing away, which further disturbed Shaddack. "What I'm telling you is the same thing I told you in so many words a few hours ago at your place Each of us, every damned one of us, is potentially a regressive. It's not a rare sickness among the New People. It's in all of us. You've not created new and better men any more than Hitler's policies of genetic breeding could've created a master race. You're not God; you're Dr. Moreau."
    "You will not speak to me like this," Shaddack said, wondering who this Moreau was. The name was vaguely familiar, but he could not place it. "When you talk to me, I'd suggest you remember who I am."
    Watkins lowered his voice, perhaps realizing anew that Shaddack could extinguish the New People almost as easily as snuffing out a candle. But he continued to speak forcefully and with too little respect. "You still haven't responded to the worst of this news."
    "And what's that?"
    "Didn't you hear me? I said that Peyser was stuck . He couldn't remake himself."
    "I doubt very much that he was trapped in an altered state. New Men have complete control of their bodies, more control than I ever anticipated. If he could not return to human form, that was strictly a