Grill tried to interest the boy. "If you come to lunch now I'll let you televise your mother in Chicago afterward."

"Time limit, two minutes, ten seconds, no more no less," was Roby's acid reply.

"I gather you don't approve of things, boy."

"I'll run away some day, wait and see!"

"Tut, lad. We'll always bring you back, you know."

"I didn't ask to be brought here in the first place." Roby bit his lip, staring at his new red rubber ball. He thought he had seen it kind of, sort of, well—move. Funny. He held the ball in his hand. The ball shivered.

Grill patted his shoulder. "Your mother is neurotic. Bad environment. You're better off here on the island. You have a high I.Q. and it is an honor for you to be here with the other little boy geniuses. You're unstable and unhappy and we're trying to change that. Eventually you'll be the exact antithesis of your mother."

"I love mother!"

"You like her," corrected Grill, quietly.

"I like mother," replied Roby, disquieted. The red ball twitched in his hand, without his touching it. He looked at it with wonder.

"You'll only make it harder for yourself if you love her," said Grill.

"You're god-damn silly," said Roby.

Grill stiffened. "Don't swear. Besides, you don't really mean god and you don't mean damn. There's very little of either in the world. Semantics Book Seven, page 418, Labels and Referents."

"Now, I remember," shouted Roby, looking around. "There was a Sandman here just now and he said—"

"Come along," said Mr. Grill. "Lunch time."

Commissary food emerged from robot-servers on extension springs. Roby accepted the ovoid plate and milk-globe silently. Where he had hidden it, the red rubber ball pulsed and beat like a heart under his belt. A gong rang. He gulped food swiftly. The tumble for the tube began. They were blown like feathers across the island to Sociology and then, later in the afternoon, back again for games. Hours passed.

Roby 

 Prev. P 5/9 next