"Whereas ours, at the present rate of progress, will be down to about eighty-five. Better medicine-more congenital deficiencies preserved and passed on. It'll make things a lot easier for future dictators." At the thought of this cosmic joke he laughed aloud. Then, after a silence, "What about the ethical and religious aspects of AI?" he asked.

"In the early days," said Vijaya, "there were a good many conscientious objectors. But now the advantages of AI have been so clearly demonstrated, most married couples feel that it's more moral to take a shot at having a child of superior quality than to run the risk of slavishly reproducing whatever quirks and defects may happen to run in the husband's family. Meanwhile the theologians have got busy. AI has been justified in terms of reincarnation and the theory of karma. Pious fathers now feel happy at the thought that they're giving their wife's children a chance of creating a better destiny for themselves and their posterity."

"A better destiny?"

"Because they carry the germ plasm of a better stock. And the stock is better because it's the manifestation of a better karma. We have a central bank of superior stocks. Superior stocks of every variety of physique and temperament. In your kind of environment, most people's heredity never gets a fair chance. In ours, it does. And incidentally we have excellent genealogical and anthropometric records going back as far as the eighteen-seventies. So you see we're not working entirely in the dark. For example, we know that Gobind Singh's maternal grandmother was a gifted medium and lived to ninety-six."

"So you see," said Shanta, "we may even have a centenarian clairvoyant in the family." The baby belched again. She laughed. "The oracle has spoken-as usual, very enigmatically." Turning to Vijaya, "If you want lunch to be ready on time," she added, "you'd better go and do something about it. Rama's going to keep me busy for at least another ten minutes."

Vijaya rose, laid one hand on his wife's shoulder and with the other gently rubbed the baby's brown back.

Shanta bent down and passed her cheek across the top of the child's downy head. "It's father," she whispered. "Good father, good, good. ..."

Vijaya administered a final pat, then straightened himself up. "You were wondering," he said to Will, "how it is that we get on so well with the local fauna. I'll show you." He raised his hand. "Polly. Polly." Cautiously, the big bird stepped from his shoulder to the extended forefinger. "Polly's a good bird," he chanted. "Polly's a very good bird." He lowered his hand to the point where a contact was made between the bird's body and the child's, then moved it slowly, feathers against brown skin, back and forth, back and forth. "Polly's a good bird," he repeated, "a good bird."

The parrot uttered a succession of low chuckles, then leaned forward from its perch on Vijaya's finger and very gently nibbled at the child's tiny ear.

"Such a good bird," Shanta whispered, taking up the refrain. "Such good bird."

"Dr. Andrew picked up the idea," said Vijaya, "while he was serving as a naturalist on the Melampus. From a tribe in northern New Guinea. Neolithic people; but like you Christians and us Buddhists, they believed in love. And unlike us and you, they'd invented some very practical ways of making their belief come true. This technique was one of their happiest discoveries. Stroke the baby while you're feeding him; it doubles his pleasure. Then, while he's sucking and being caressed, introduce him to the ani mal or person you want him to love. Rub his body against theirs; let there be a warm physical contact between child and love object. At the same time repeat some word like 'good.' At first he'll understand only your tone of voice. Later on, when he learns to speak, he'll get the full meaning. Food plus caress plus contact plus 'good' equals love. And love equals pleasure, love equals satisfaction."

"Pure Pavlov."

"But Pavlov purely for a good purpose. Pavlov for friendliness and trust and compassion. Whereas you prefer to use Pavlov for brainwashing, Pavlov for selling cigarettes and vodka and patriotism. Pavlov for the benefit of dictators, generals and tycoons."

Refusing any longer to be left out in the cold, the yellow mongrel had joined the group and was impartially licking every piece of sentient matter within its reach-Shanta's arm, Vijaya's hand, the parrot's feet, the baby's backside. Shanta drew the dog closer and rubbed the child against its furry flank.

"And this is a good good dog," she said. "Dog Toby, good good dog Toby."

Will laughed. "Oughtn't I to get into the act?"

"I was going to suggest it," Shanta answered, "only I was afraid you'd think it was beneath your dignity."

"You can take my place," said Vijaya. "I must go and see about our lunch."

Still carrying the parrot, he walked out through the door that led into the kitchen. Will pulled up his chair and, leaning for ward, began to stroke the child's tiny body.

"This is another man," Shanta whispered. "A good man, baby, kgood, man."

"How I wish it were true!" he said with a rueful little laugh. "Here and now it is true." And bending down again over the child, "He's a good man," she repeated. "A good good man."

He looked at her blissful, secretly smiling face, he felt the smoothness and warmth of the child's tiny body against his fingertips. Good, good, good . . . He too might have known this goodness-but only if his life had been completely different from what in fact, in senseless and disgusting fact, it was. So never take yes for an answer, even when, as now, yes is self-evident. He looked again with eyes deliberately attuned to another wavelength of value, and saw the caricature of a Memling altarpiece. "Madonna with Child, Dog, Pavlov and Casual Acquaintance." And suddenly he could almost understand, from the inside, why Mr. Bahu so hated these people. Why he was so bent-in the name, as usual and needless to say, of God-on their destruction. "Good," Shanta was still murmuring to her baby, "good, good, good."

Too good-that was their crime. It simply wasn't permissible. And yet how precious it was! And how passionately he wished that he might have had a part in it! "Pure sentimentality!" he said to himself; and then aloud, "Good, good, good," he echoed ironically. "But what happens when the child grows a little bigger and discovers that a lot of things and people are thoroughly bad, bad, bad?"

"Friendliness evokes friendliness," she answered. "From the friendly-yes. But not from the greedy, not from the power lovers, not from the frustrated and embittered. For them, friendliness is just weakness, just an invitation to exploit, to bully, to take vengeance with impunity."

"But one has to run the risk, one has to make a beginning. And luckily no one's immortal. The people who've been conditioned to swindling and bullying and bitterness will all be dead in a few years. Dead, and replaced by men and women brought up in the new way. It happened with us; it can happen with you."

"It can happen," he agreed. "But in the context of H-bombs and nationalism and fifty million more people every single year, it almost certainly won't."

"You can't tell till you try."

"And we shan't try as long as the world is in its present state. And, of course, it will remain in its present state until we do try. Try and, what's more, succeed at least as well as you've succeeded. Which brings me back to my original question. What happens when good, good, good discovers that, even in Pala, there's a lot of bad, bad, bad? Don't the children get some pretty unpleasant shocks?"

"We try to inoculate them against those shocks."

"How? By making things unpleasant for them while they're still young?"

"Not unpleasant. Let's say real. We teach them love and confidence, but we expose them to reality, reality in all its aspects. And then give them responsibilities. They're made to understand that Pala isn't Eden or the Land of Cockaigne. It's a nice place all right. But it will remain nice only if everybody works and behaves decently. And meanwhile the facts of life are the facts of life. Even here."