Part 2

"There," Channing told his wife in a furious whisper which made Stephanie shriek. "Now tell me."

"Dr. Lang said I couldn't have a baby for two more years. You know that. When I heard about the babies Qui Dor Enterprises were--"

"So now it's enterprises," Channing shouted. Stephanie drowned him out.

"She's pretty, isn't she?"

Stephanie's small, snub-nosed face was pink with fury. The mouth opened wide and hollered.

"I don't care if she's going to grow up and be Miss Universe. By the way, does--does she actually grow up?"

"What's the matter with you, Bryan Channing? Of course she grows up. She's real."

"As real as that food cabinet. How much did she cost?"

"I won't tell you while you're mad like that."

"Don't you see how fantastic this is?" Channing pleaded, "We can't go around with a fake baby."

"Fake? How dare you!"

"Yes, fake. How would you go about entering her in school when she's four years old, for instance?"

"We'll worry about that in four years, but don't you call Stephanie fake. Anyway, Qui Dor is selling so many babies, provisions will have have to be made."

"That's what the salesman told you. The Viennese."

"Yes. But if you had to clean up the mess she makes, you wouldn't call her fake."

"She goes," Channing said, pointing theatrically at the door, then regretting it. How did he ever get to be a diplomat, anyway?

Ellen ignored him. "You know, dear, I think she looks like you. I was able to select my own features and weight and everything. At birth she weighed six pounds. She's two weeks old now and already gained a pound."

"At birth? Two weeks?"

"Well, you know what I mean. She would have, if she--"

"Oh, then you admit it?" said Channing in triumph. "She isn't real."

"Well, she wasn't born like--like other babies. But she's real. You may hold her if you want."

"I don't want."

"Just to convince you."

"Let's not go through that again."

"You're shouting. You're making Stephanie cry. What's the matter with you, Bryan?"

"Nothing's the matter with me. My wife is going crazy. Here I'm supposed to put a stop to this sort of thing on a worldwide level, and my own wife betrays me."

"That Viennese had a good point, you know. I don't entirely agree with him, but he said a lot of women like babies and want children, but would rather not go through nine months of pregnancy and giving birth and all. Qui Dor Enterprises provide the baby."

"It's not real."

"Don't call Stephanie an it, I said. She is perfectly real. She is as real as you. You can touch her, feel her, smell her--try changing her diaper sometime, Bryan." Stephanie shrieked.

"You sure can hear her," Channing admitted. He explored the little bundle experimentally with a forefinger and was gratified when she did not howl.

"See, you like her."

"I do not like her. She doesn't exist." Channing backed away.

"For a twenty-first century man with a college education, sometimes you can be the stubbornest--"

"She's not even a mess of chemicals!" stormed Channing. "It wouldn't be so bad if they made her in a test-tube or something. She just--is. You don't even know how they do it. You can't even call her an artificial baby."

"I'll say you can't," Ellen told him, picking Stephanie up and engulfing her with protective arms. "She's a real one."

"She goes," Channing. "It goes, do you hear me?"

"Stop shouting."

"Well, it does."

"Is that so?" Now Ellen was shouting. "You better get that idea out of your head, Bryan. You can't boss me like that. Stephanie stays or ... or I don't."

"You're acting like a child."

"Am I? I'm not joking. Why don't we talk about it later, after I fix you dinner?"

"We'll talk about it now."

"I have nothing to say."

"I don't want to see her here tomorrow night."

"You're impossible. You're getting to be an ... ogre."

"In the office too," Channing said. "But I won't stand for it at home, understand?"

"Don't make a scene in front of the child."

"I'm not making a scene. She's no child."

"We'll talk about it later."

"Then talk to Stephanie," said Channing. "I'm going out."

"Goodbye. Don't slam the door."

They were behaving irrationally, Channing realized as he went for a spin in the copter, clearing the suburban traffic lanes and heading west toward the city. He was as much to blame as Ellen, but he couldn't let this thing get the better of him at home. If only he could explain to the Targoffian Ambassador that his business enterprises were playing hob with the socio-economic set-up on Earth not to mention Channing's own marital life. The thing that hurt almost as much as Channing's own troubles was the Denebian Ambassador. He could picture the saurian face gloating.

* * * * *

"Good morning, chief. You have an appointment with Qui Dor at the Targoffian Embassy, eleven hundred hours."

"Morning, Julie. Anything else?"

"You look tired."

He couldn't tell her he'd been sleeping in a hotel. A man gets used to suburban quiet. "One of those nights," he said.

"I'm afraid it's going to be one of those mornings, too, if you don't mind me saying so. Mrs. Delacourt is here."

"From Health and Public Welfare? Oh, no."

"Definitely yes. In your office, chief. And mad. Nick called and wants to see Qui Dor with you."

"Tell him nothing doing. Tell him I'll see him later. Sometimes I think it's all some kind of conspiracy between Nick and Qui Dor."

"You know Nick is only doing his job, chief. As an explorer with portfolio, he finds new planets and begins arranging diplomatic relations with them."

"With all the planets in the galaxy, why did he have to stumble on Targoff?"

"Ask Nick."

"Don't mind me, Julie. Just letting off steam." Channing pushed through the door marked UNDER SECRETARY FOR EXTRA-SOLAR AFFAIRS. Mrs. Delacourt paced back and forth like a fat lion which had learned to walk on its hind legs and grown soft in the process, but was still dangerous.

"State's out," she said, bristling. "I had to see someone."

"What's it about this time?" Channing demanded wearily. If he kept this up, he would be out of a job in record time. Of all the Cabinet portfolios, Health and P. W. was the one you had to bend over backwards to please. The Secretary was usually a bridge-partner and friend of the First Lady. Her assistant might have been the wife of a five-star general or at least a Congressman. Delacourt--anyway the name wasn't familiar. "I'm sorry," said Channing. "Bad night. Can I help you?"

"I doubt it, Mr. Channing. As you know, litigation moves swiftly these days. Are you aware of the case of Myers versus Myers?"

"No, m'am." Before you knew it, it might be Channing versus Channing.

"You should be. When Sylvanus Myers died, he left an estate valued at three million dollars. He cut the widow off with almost nothing and left the bulk of his wealth to his--uh, child."

"I'm afraid I don't see the connection."

"This child was purchased from Qui Dor. Child, indeed. Mrs. Sylvanus' attorneys brought suit, maintaining that since the Sylvanus child did not exist, he could not legally inherit the estate. Do you follow, Mr. Channing?"

And, after Channing lit his pipe and nodded: "They weighed the Myers baby. They examined him. They pointed out he had a set of unique fingerprints, like a person. They showed his retinal pattern was both distinct and unique, as well as his electro-encephalogram. Child psychologists tested him and found him normal in every way. He perspires and passes his water and--forgive me, Mr. Channing--defecates." Mrs. Delacourt took the whole thing as a personal insult, as if, in finding that the Myers child functioned normally, the doctors had somehow deflated not only the entire human race but Mrs. Delacourt as well.

Half listening and half wondering if he had presented the same ridiculous picture to Ellen the night before, Channing said, "Go on, Mrs. Delacourt."

"The Myers child had been born, created or made to exist in the State of New Jersey. The Myers child therefore was adjudged a citizen after his attorneys had invoked the Fourteenth Amendment. Do you understand what that means, Mr. Channing?"

"I guess it means the Myers child will get his inheritance."

"It means much more than that. It set a precedent. Qui Dor creations have equal rights before the law, Mr. Channing. They can sue, they can vote, they can hold office, they can--"

"I can't see the harm in that."

"It encourages more of them. If you leave a fortune and want it spent a certain way, the Qui Dor Enterprises will create precisely the individual you want as an heir. It encourages crime, Mr. Channing. The Qui Dor Enterprises can create an individual for you to commit a crime. He'll do the job, you'll return him, he'll cease to exist--"

"And you'd be guilty as an accessory."

* * * * *

Mrs. Delacourt shook her head. "No, you wouldn't. I have looked into the legality of the matter. That would be like admitting there were such things as pre-natal influence. The Qui Dor creation, whether child or full grown, is a citizen with all a citizen's rights, and since we don't recognize the possibility of pre-natal influence, we don't recognize the real criminal in such a case as an accessory."

"It's not the same thing."

"In the eyes of the law, I fear it is."

"But if you return a--a citizen to Qui Dor and the citizen ceases to exist because he's no longer needed for the job--it does work that way, doesn't it, Mrs. Delacourt?"

"Yes."

"Then you'd be guilty of murder, taking the life away from the Qui Dor creation, I mean. It's complicated."

"No, it isn't. It's simple. You'd be guilty of nothing. _Esse es percipi_, Mr. Channing. No one's been murdered. There's no corpse. No one exists."

"I give up," said Channing. "Mrs. Delacourt, I can sympathize with you. For personal reasons, I can understand your problem. But right now there isn't a thing I can do about it. However, I'm going to see Qui Dor this morning and possibly something can be arranged to your mutual satisfaction."

Mrs. Delacourt had hardly heard him. "Yet _esse_ should be more than _percipi_," she was mumbling. "There should be more to existing than merely being perceived, don't you think? It would all be so--so empty, so meaningless that way. They can make any legal decision they wish: I am more than something which is seen or touched or ... or tasted. Not merely myself, Mr. Channing. The people. All the people. You. Are you only the various qualities of sense, an image in my mind, an idea? Are you?"

"I don't know," Channing admitted.

"If you are, if we all are, it's a sinister plot against the people. Civilization is ruined. Qui Dor's creations shall surely take over. Why, before you know it, women will stop having babies. No pain, no nuisance, no chance of congenital illness."

"I know exactly what you mean," Channing declared ruefully. "I've got to see Qui Dor, though, Mrs. Delacourt."

"Call me and let me know. Oh, do call me and tell me you've sent him packing."

"Remember Deneb, m'am. I'll do my best."

A few moments later, a furious Nicholson telio'd Channing and informed him that the New York State Junior League was lobbying Congress to pass a law nullifying diplomatic relations with Targoff. That was the root of the evil, they said. The planet itself. We want nothing to do with them. We don't want our children associating with images. Channing swore in silent desperation. You couldn't argue with the Junior League. Qui Dor Enterprises was lowering the standard of living more and more every day, not maliciously, certainly, but lowering it nevertheless. Divorce, malnutrition, illness, crime, decreased birth rate, domestic squabbles....

Which immediately suggested a hopeful but abortive attempt at reconciliation with Ellen. Yes, she was busy. Of course she had kept Stephanie. What was the matter with him, anyway? He could hear the girl wailing, couldn't he? She was so helpless. She had to be cared for. Where was his sense of responsibility? Well, yes, she still loved him, but not if he were going to maintain his pig-headed attitude toward their daughter. What? Yes their daughter. He heard her. Click and fadeout of the picture of his wife, bunting in one hand and a squealing infant with obvious quiddity but questionable essence in the other.

Three quarters of an hour later he stormed into Qui Dor's office on the top floor of an old office building which had been converted into the Targoffian Embassy in the days before anyone anticipated anything but a casual interchange of cultural trivia between the Targoffians and Earthmen. He cooled his heels in the reception room, fighting back an impulse to ask the too-pretty, too-courteous, too-efficient receptionist if she were real. By the time he was admitted to Qui Dor's sanctum sanctorum he presented, at least on the surface, the unruffled appearance of a diplomat on a routine state call.

* * * * *

"Bryan Channing, is it not? You see, I have learned your language with no great difficulty."

In Channing's job, you had to forget human standards. The office was large, with a high-vaulted ceiling where the insulating space beneath the building's roof had been exposed. There were two or three comfortable chairs which would fit Channing. There was a big sign beyond Qui Dor's massive desk, blocking the window and the view of other skyscrapers. It said QUI DOR ENTERPRISES--WE SELL ANYTHING. It faced into the room, and with it as a back-drop, Qui Dor looked like anything but an interstellar ambassador.

Qui Dor was a dozen feet tall and neither reptilian nor mammalian. He defied classification in any terrestrial system, but with the feathery covering, hard, protruding, pointed lips and round, small, jet-black eyes, looked most nearly bird-like. The thin legs added to the illusion; the three sets of thin arms dispelled it.

"I haven't seen you since that day I showed you around the city after Nicholson introduced us," Channing began, settling himself comfortably in a chair and wishing he didn't have to stare at the sign behind Qui Dor's feathery back.

"You were a most gracious host, Mr. Channing. But now I suspect your visit is of an entirely different nature."

"Well, yes. Yes, it is."

"I see that you are in danger of falling from Scylla into Charybdis, as it is said in your literature. You needn't mince words with me. You understand, I have my informants." The black eyes twinkled merrily, the crest atop the long, narrow head stirred.

_I'll bet they're from Deneb_, Channing wanted to say. This was a pretty pickle, with the Denebians sitting somewhere out of sight and chuckling over the whole thing. Why couldn't Nick have been even more myopic--near-sighted enough to miss Targoff entirely?

"There is no limit to what I can give your people," said Qui Dor. "Next week we are opening a line of jewelry, as you may know. It is cheaper than what you can get in your mines."

South Africa, here comes disaster. "Artificial jewels?" demanded Channing.

"No, not artificial."

"Natural?"

"No."

"Real?"

"Decidedly. What is real, Mr. Channing?"

"Well--but suppose you tell me. You're the man who's livened interest in the British Empiricists after they'd been all but forgotten except by students of philosophy."

"What are you, Mr. Channing? That is, what makes you real?"

"Umm, let me see. The chemicals. Yes, the chemicals of which my body is composed. And a soul, whatever that is. If there is such a thing."

"But are you really chemicals? That is, are the chemicals real?"

"I don't follow you."

"Like everything else, these chemicals have qualities. In solids, they have size, shape, weight, bulk. Similar properties in liquid and gas. On a secondary scale, they have color, taste, odor. On a tertiary one, they can do things. They react. They behave as expected from a study of the primary and secondary qualities. Now do you follow me?"

"I think so."

"I'm sorry to begin our discussion this way. I feel I know what your problem is, but I'm starting at the beginning. Do you mind?"

"Not at all." Mrs. Delacourt would be very unhappy.

"Who is Mrs. Delacourt?"

"Eh?" Channing cried. "I didn't say anything."

"Your thoughts have such qualities too, Mr. Channing."

"You mean you can read my mind?"

"I can perceive it, as you can perceive color. To continue: we of Targoff maintain that no thing in itself is real. Things only have existence as their various qualities are perceived. When you leave this room, as far as I am concerned, you do not exist."

"A man named Hume went a step further than that," Channing told Qui Dor with a smile. "After disposing of the world in such summary fashion, he also disposed of you and me and everyone. The mind which perceived these qualities, he said, was nothing more than a collection--he used the word collocation, I think--of the qualities. So you have non-existent external things on the one hand and a non-existent mind on the other. The second nothing somehow gets images of the first nothing, and that's the sum total of the world."

"Interesting," said Qui Dor, ruffling his crest with a three-fingered hand, "but hardly practical. You see, Mr. Channing, our theories work. We can create your collocations of qualities to order. We can even give a man immortality."

"How can you do that?"

"Why, by recreating his qualities down to the last atomic detail when he dies."

"You wouldn't," said Channing.

"Not here, not yet. Someday, perhaps."

"I don't want to be blunt, but you're playing hob with the whole structure of our society."

* * * * *

Three sets of arms spread out before Channing in a very human gesture. "We call it progress, don't you see?"

"But that's interfering with the internal affairs of another planet."

"Is it? We're not foisting anything on you. What we sell is exactly as claimed. There is no compulsory--"

"But how many people can resist?"

"How many _should_, Mr. Channing?"

"How do we know what you're creating is real, or permanent? I'll tell you this, sir: you're in trouble if it's all an illusion."

"My dear Mr. Channing, I'm surprised at you. Your culture has created or accepted--or that strange combination of both which is the religious zeal--a First Principle, a Prime Mover, a deity culturally endowed with the ability to create. Your culture then supposes this deity did his creating once, long ago, and now is content to rest through all eternity. I say the first half of it is anthropomorphic wish-fulfillment. I say the second is a lack of cultural imagination."

"Are you calling yourself a deity?" Channing shuddered at the possibility. Along with Health and P. W. and Ellen, every church on Earth might soon be clamoring for his scalp.

"Yes and no. Why create--or accept--the godhood if you have the power yourself? No wish-fulfillment was involved. And we never stopped creating."

"Are you trying to tell me that you ... that you can actually, well, create things out of air?"

"Out of nothing, Mr. Channing. For we create nothing. We merely establish your Mr. Hume's collocation of qualities around any desired pattern. We do not admit the existence of the external world, so we are not bothered about creating parts of it. You understand?"

"How do you do it?"

"We do it."

"Where will you stop?"

Qui Dor made the shrugging gesture again. "I see that the problem is a domestic one for you as well. Here." He reached into a drawer of his desk and produced a diamond-studded tiara.

Channing touched it gingerly, as if the many-faceted gems might burn his fingers. "Was this there a minute ago?" he asked.

"It was there when I opened the drawer and looked for it. It is there now, when you are touching it. But put it back in the drawer, Mr. Channing."

Channing did so. Qui Dor shut the drawer.

"Now where is it?" the Targoffian Ambassador demanded.

"In the drawer."

"Indeed? How do you know?"

"Well, I--suppose I don't know."

"Open the drawer, if you please."

Channing did, and found the tiara. "See?"

"Yes, but what about when the drawer was shut? I admit, it's a difficult concept to grasp at once. You see, we of Targoff are not interested whether the tiara exists when someone is not actively perceiving it or not. It exists when existence becomes a necessary quality for it. It's a Monday, Wednesday, Friday concept, Mr. Channing. Your mind can grasp it only at times, and perhaps even then flittingly. Like the ontological proof for the existence of your God: by definition. He is an infinitely perfect Being. Since existence is one of the qualities of infinite perfection, He exists. Do I make myself clear?"

"No-o."

"Here. Take the tiara to your wife. My compliments. Things will work out for you, Mr. Channing."

"I came here to work out some compromise with you," Channing said, pocketing the tiara, then feeling foolish and placing it back on the desk, then deciding that would be quite undiplomatic and pocketing it again while Qui Dor's round eyes fairly sparkled. "Instead, I find myself being lectured on the philosophy behind the trouble. That doesn't help."

"You're confused, Mr. Channing. When I said things will work out for you, I meant it. More I cannot tell you, except to say the matter is entirely up to you. I should have said things can work out for you. I'm sorry if this sounds cryptic, but I can tell you no more. Incidentally, I'm sure your wife will like the tiara."

It did sound cryptic. Channing did not know if Qui Dor was sorry. Channing was sorry.

Maybe he'd be better off giving the tiara to Mrs. Delacourt.

* * * * *

When Channing could make only a negative report to Mrs. Delacourt, the wheels began their spinning. Health and P. W. tendered a frosty ultimatum which he was forced to ignore because he lacked policy-making authority. Someone bent the First Lady's ear, who in turn bent the President's. When State himself returned from India with a redder face but no answers, he received a verbal whipping and almost achesonian condemnation in the press. Clearly, he needed a scapegoat.

While State was being chastized by the President, the scapegoat was home in Center Moriches, determined to rescue something from the sinking ship of life. He'd effect a reconciliation with Ellen and they could debate the ultimate disposition of little Stephanie at some later date.

A savory aroma assailed his nostrils from the kitchen. He found Ellen there, scurrying from pot to pot, a determined look on her face, a stray lock of chestnut hair loose over one eye.

"Chicken cacciatore," he said, breathing deeply. "Hey now, we haven't had that at home in a long time."

"Too long," said Ellen, stirring the delicious contents of a large pot. "A girl can make mistakes, dear. Smell good?"

"Wonderful."

"I knew you'd listen to reason. I just knew it."

"Well, I'm a reasonable guy." What was she talking about? he wondered.

"That's why I married you. Taste?"

"No. I'll wait till it's on the table."

"Stephanie's gained another pound."

"That's--uh, fine."

"I must say, you don't seem as enthused about her as you did before."

"Before?"

"This morning."

He had been in his office all morning, taking the afternoon off to come home. "What did I say?" Funny, he did not remember calling her.

"You know what you said."

"Honest, I don't."

"Say, are you planning to renege or something?"

"Ellen, something's screwy. I don't remember calling you this morning."

"That's because you didn't, dear."

"But you said I said--"

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No."

"You were here all morning. You weren't gone more than an hour when you came back."

"I--came back?"

"Of course."

"I did not."

"Are you trying to stand there and tell me we didn't have a long talk this morning in Stephanie's room? Are you trying to stand there and tell me we didn't decide to keep Stephanie and maybe even get her a little brother in a year or so?"

"What's got into you? I never said anything of the kind."