Free Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

not able to be rid of it. A long time later W1 entered and said to no one in particular, "He's resting. He'll sleep until tomorrow afternoon. Go on home now."
           Lucy stood up. "Let me stay with him. In case he needs something, or there's a change."
           "He won't be left alone," Wl said. He turned toward the door, paused and glanced back, and said to Vernon, "I'm sorry about your brother." Then he left.
           Lucy stood undecided until Vernon took her arm. "I'll see you home," he said, and she nodded. David watched them leave together. He turned off the light in the waiting room and walked slowly down the hall, not planning anything, not thinking about going home, or anywhere else. He found himself outside the office that W-l used, and he knocked softly. W-1 opened the door. He looked tired, David thought, and wasn't sure that his surprise was warranted. Of course, he should be tired. Three operations. He looked like a young, tired Walt, too keyed up to go to sleep immediately, too fatigued to walk off the tension.
           "Can I come in?" David asked hesitantly. Wl nodded and moved aside, and David entered. He never had been inside this office.
           "Clarence will not live," Wl said suddenly, and his voice, behind David, because he had not yet moved from the door, was so like Walt's that David felt a thrill of something that might have been fear or more likely, he told himself, just surprise again. "I did what I could," Wl said. He walked around his desk and sat down.
           W-l sat quietly, with none of the nervous mannerisms that Walt exhibited, none of the finger tapping that was as much a part of Walt's conversation as his words. No pulling his ears or rubbing his nose. A Walt with something missing, a dead area. Now, with fatigue drawing his face, W-1 sat unmoving, waiting patiently for David to begin, much the same way an adult might wait for a hesitant child to initiate a conversation.
           "How did your people know about the accident?" David asked. "No one else knew."
           W-l shrugged. A time-consumer question, he seemed to imply. "We just knew."
           "What are you doing in the lab now?" David asked, and heard a strained note in his voice. Somehow he had been made to feel like an interloper; his question sounded like idle chatter.
           "Perfecting the methods," W-l said. "The usual thing." And something else, David thought, but he didn't press it. "The equipment should be in excellent shape for years," he said. "And the methods, while probably not the best conceivable, are efficient enough. Why tamper now, when the experiment seems to be proving itself?" For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of surprise cross Wl's face, but it was gone too swiftly and once more the smooth mask revealed nothing.
           "Remember when one of your women killed one of us a long time ago, David? Hilda murdered the child of her likeness. We all shared that death, and we realized that each of you is alone. We're not like you, David. I think you know it, but now you must accept it." He stood up. "And we won't go back to what you are.''
           David stood up also, and his legs felt curiously weak. "What exactly do you mean?"
           "Sexual reproduction isn't the only answer. Just because the higher organisms evolved to it doesn't mean it's the best. Each time a species has died out, there has been another higher one to replace it."
           "Cloning is one of the worst ways for a higher species," David said slowly. "It stifles diversity, you know that." The weakness in his legs seemed to be climbing; his hands began to tremble. He gripped the edge of the desk.
           "That's assuming diversity is beneficial. Perhaps it isn't," Wl said. "You pay a high price for individuality."
           "There is still the decline and extinction," David said. "Have you got around that?" He wanted to end this