Schruille looked up at the watching scanners, spoke aloud:

'Time-time-time...'

Let that chew at their vitals, he thought. Seven

THE place was a pumping station for the sewage reclamation system of Seatac Megalopolis. It lay at the eleven hundred foot level on the spur line that sent by-product irrigation water into Grand Coulee system. A four-storey box of sampling pipes, computer consoles and access cat-walks aglow with force-buoyed lights, it throbbed to the pulse of the giant turbines it controlled.

The Durants had come down through the personnel tubes during the evening rush hour, moving in easy random stages that insured they weren't followed and that they carried no tracer devices. Five inspection tubes had passed them as clean.

Still, they were careful to read the faces and actions of the people who jostled past. Most of the people were dull pages, hurried, intent on their business. Occasionally, they exchanged a mutual reading-glance with another courier, or identified sub-officials with the fear goading them on Optiman errands.

No one noticed a couple in workman brown, their hands clasped, who emerged onto Catwalk Nine of the pumping station.

The Durants paused there to survey their surroundings.

They were tired, elated and more than a little awed at having been summoned into the control core of the Parents Underground. The smell of hydrocarbons filled the air around them. Lizbeth sniffed.

Her silent conversation through their clasped hands carried overtones of tension. Harvey worked to reassure her.

'It's probably our Glisson we're to see,' he said.

'There could be other Cyborgs with the same name,' she said.

'Not likely.'

He urged her out onto the catwalk, past a hover light. They took a left branching past two workmen reading Pilot gauges, their faces in odd shadows created by the lights from below.

Lizbeth felt the lonely exposure of their position, signaled, 'How can we be sure they aren't watching us here?'

'This must be one of our places,' he said. 'You know.'

'How can it be?'

'Route the scanners through editing computers,' he said. 'The Opts see only what we want them to see then.'

'It's dangerous to feel sure of such things,' she said. Then, 'Why have they summoned us?'

'We'll know in a few minutes,' he said.

The walk led through a dust-excluding lock port into a tool bunker, gray walls punctured by outlets for transmission tubes, the inevitable computer controls blinking, ticking, chuckling, whirring. The place smelled of a sweet oil.

As the port clanged shut behind the Durants, a figure came from their left and sat on a padded bench across from them.

The Durants stared silently, recognizing and repelled by the recognition. The figure's outline suggested neither man nor woman. It looked planted there in the seat, and as they watched, it pulled thin cables from pockets in its gray coveralls, plugged the cables into the computer wall.

Harvey brought his attention up to the square, deeply seamed face and the light gray eyes with their stare of blank directness, that coldly measured observation which was a trademark of the Cyborg.

'Glisson,' Harvey said, 'you summoned us?'

'I summoned you,' the Cyborg said. 'It has been many years, Durant. Do you still fear us? I see that you do. You are late.'

'We're unfamiliar with this area,' Harvey said.

'We came carefully,' Lizbeth said.

'Then I taught you well,' Glisson said. 'You were reasonably good pupils.'

Through their clasped hands, Lizbeth signaled 'They're so hard to read, but something's wrong.' She averted her eyes from the Cyborg, chilled by the weighted stare. No matter how she tried to think of them as flesh and blood, her mind could never evade the knowledge that such bodies contained miniaturized computers linked directly to the brain, that the arms were not arms but prosthetic tools and weapons. And the voice - always such a clipped-off unemotional quality.

'You should not fear us, madam,' Glisson said. 'Unless you are not Lizbeth Durant.'

Harvey failed to repress the snap of anger, said, 'Don't talk to her that way! You don't own us.'

'What is the first lesson I taught you after you were recruited?' Glisson asked.

Harvey brought himself under control, forced a rueful smile onto his mouth. To hold our tempers,' he said. Lizbeth's hand. continued to tremble in his.

That lesson you did not learn well,' Glisson said. 'I overlook your fallibility.'

Through their hands, Lizbeth signaled, 'It was prepared for violence against us.'

Harvey acknowledged.

'First,' Glisson said, 'you will report on the genetic operation.' There was a pause while the Cyborg changed its jacked connections to the computer wall. 'Do not be distracted by my work. I distribute tools - thus' - it indicated the bunker - 'this' space which appears on their screens as a space filled with tools, will never be investigated.'

A bench slid from the wall to the Durants' right. 'If you are. fatigued, sit,' Glisson said. The Cyborg indicated its cable linkage to the wall computer. 'I sit only that I may carry on the work of this space while we speak.' The Cyborg smiled, a stiff rictus to signify that the Durants must realize such as Glisson did not feel fatigue.

Harvey urged Lizbeth to the bench. She sat as he signaled, 'Caution. Glisson's maneuvering us. Something's being hidden.'

Glisson turned slightly to face them, said, 'A verbal, factual, complete report. Leave out nothing, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. I have limitless capacity for data.'

They began recounting what they had observed of the genetic operation, taking up from each other on cue without a break as good couriers were taught to do. Harvey experienced the odd feeling during the recital that he and Lizbeth became part of the Cyborg's mechanism. Questions came so mechanically from Glisson's lips. Their answers felt so clinical. He had to keep reminding himself. This is our son we discuss.

Presently, Glisson said. There seems no doubt we've another viable immune to the gas. Your evidence virtually completes the picture. We have other data, you know.'

'I didn't know the surgeon was one of us,' Lizbeth said.

There was a pause while Glisson's eyes went even blanker than usual. The Durants felt they could almost see the esoteric formulae flitting through Glisson's thinking-banks. It was said the Cyborgs composed most of their thoughts only in higher math, translating to common language as it suited them. The surgeon was not one of us,' Glisson said. 'But he soon will be.'

What strategic formula produced those words, Harvey wondered. 'What about the computer tape on the operation?' he asked.

'It's destroyed,' Glisson said. 'Even now, your embryo is being removed to a safe place. You will join him soon.' A mechanical chuckle escaped the Cyborg's lips.

Lizbeth shivered. Harvey felt the tension of her through their hands. He said, Ts our son safe?'

'Safe,' Glisson said. 'Our plans insure that safety.'

'How?' Lizbeth asked.

'You will understand soon,' Glisson said. 'An ancient and reliable way of safe concealment. Be assured: viables are valuable weapons. We do not risk our valuable weapons.'

Lizbeth signaled, 'The cut - ask now.'

Harvey wet his lips with his tongue, said. There are... when a Central surgeon's called in, usually it means the embryo could be cut to Optiman. Did they... is our son...'

Glisson's nostrils flared. The face took on a look of hauteur that said such ignorance insulted a Cyborg. The clipped voice said, 'We would require a complete tape record, including the enzymic data even to guess. The tape is gone. Only the surgeon knows the result of the operation for certain. We have yet to question him.'

Lizbeth said: 'Svengaard or the computer nurse might've said something that- '

'Svengaard is a dolt,' Glisson said. 'The computer nurse is dead.'

'They killed her?' Lizbeth whispered.

'How she died isn't important.' Glisson said. 'She served her purpose.'

With his hand, Harvey signaled, 'The Cyborgs had something to do with her death'

'I saw,' she answered.

Harvey said, 'Are you... will we be allowed to talk to Potter?'

'Potter will be offered full Cyborg status.' Glisson said. Talking will be his decision... afterward.'

'We want to know about our son!' Lizbeth flared.

Harvey signaled frantically, 'Apologize!'

'Madame,' Glisson said, 'let me remind you the so-called Optiman cut is not a state to which we aspire. Remember your vows.'

She squeezed Harvey's hand to silence his signals, said, 'I'm sorry. It was such a shock to learn... the possibility...'

'Your emotional excesses are taken into account as a mitigating circumstance,' Glisson said. 'It is well, therefore, that I warn you of a thing to happen. You will hear things about your son which you must not let excite you.'

'What things?' Lizbeth whispered.

'An outside force of unknown origin sometimes interferes with the anticipated course of a genetic operation,' Glisson said. 'There is reason to believe this happened with your son.'

'What do you mean?' Harvey asked.

'Mean!' Glisson sneered. 'You ask questions to which there are no answers.'

'What does this... thing do?' Lizbeth supplied.

Glisson looked at her. 'It behaves somewhat in the fashion of a charged particle, penetrates the genetic core and alters the structure If this has happened to your son, you may consider it beneficial because it apparently prevents the Optiman cut.'

The Durants digested this. Presently, Harvey said, 'Do you require more of us? May we go now?'

'You will remain here,' Glisson said.

They stared.

'You will wait for further orders,' Glisson said.

'But we'll be missed,' Lizbeth said. 'Our apartment, they'll-'

'We've raised doppelgangers to play your roles long enough for you to escape Seatac,' Glisson said. 'You can never go back. You should've known this.'

Harvey's lips moved, then, 'Escape? What's... why are...'

'There is violence,' Glisson said. 'Even now. The death-wish cult will have their day.' The Cyborg raised its gaze toward the ceiling. 'War... blood... killing. It will be as it was before when the skies flamed and the earth ran molten.'

Harvey cleared his throat. Wars... before. Glisson gave the impression that wars had been recent, perhaps only yesterday. And for this Cyborg that might be true. It was said that Glisson's grandsire had fought in the Optiman-Cyborg war. No one of the Underground Folk knew how many identities Glisson had lived.

'Where'll we go?' Harvey asked. He signaled Lizbeth not to interrupt.

'A place has been prepared,' Glisson said.

The Cyborg arose, unplugged its linkage with the computer panel, said, 'You will wait here. Do not attempt to leave. Your needs will be provided for.'

Glisson left by the lock port and it sealed with a heavy thump.

'They're as bad as the Optimen,' Lizbeth signaled.

'The day will come when we're free of both them and the Opts,' Harvey said.

'It'll never happen,' she said.

'Don't say that!' he ordered.

'If only we knew a friendly surgeon,' she said. 'We could take our son and run.'

'That foolishness! How could we service the vat without machinery for-'

'I've that machinery right inside me,' she said. 'I was... born with it.'

Harvey stared at her, shocked speechless.

'I don't want the Cyborgs or the Opts controlling our son's life,' she said, 'regulating his mind with hypnotic gas, making duplicates of him for their own purposes, pushing him and leading him and- '

'Don't work yourself into a state.'-he said.

'You heard him,' she said. 'Doppelgangers! They can regulate anything - our very being! They can condition us to... to... do anything! For all we know, we've been conditioned to be here right now!'

'Liz, you're being unreasonable.'

'Unreasonable? Look at me! They can take a piece of my skin and grow an identical copy. Me! Identical! How do you know I'm me? How do you know I'm the original me? How do I know?'

He gripped her free arm and for a moment had no words. Presently, he forced himself to relax, shook his head. 'You're you, Liz. You're not flesh grown from a cell. You're...all the things we've shared... and been... and done together. They couldn't duplicate memories... not that with a doppelganger.'

She pressed her cheek against the rough fabric of his jacket, wanting the comfort of it, the tactile sensation that told her body he was here and he was real.

'They'll make doppelgangers of our son,' she said. 'That's what they're planning. You know it.'

'Then we'll have many sons.'

'For what reason? She looked up at him, her lashes damp with unshed tears. 'You heard what Gliswn said. Something from outside adjusted our embryo. What was it?'