At length he said, "Well, how soon can you give notice at your present place of employment?"

She gaped at him, flustered.

"You mean you're taking me on? Right here and now?"

Hoskins smiled briefly, and for a moment his broad face had a certain absent-minded charm about it. "Why else would I want you to give notice?"

"Doesn't this have to go to some committee first?"

"Miss Fellowes, I'm the committee. The ultimate committee, the one that gives final approval. And I make quick decisions. I know what sort of person I'm looking for and you seem to be it. -Of course, I could be wrong."

"And if you are?"

"I can reverse myself just as quickly, believe me. This is a project that can't afford any errors. There's a life at stake, a human life, a child's life. For the sake of sheer scientific curiosity, we're going to do what some people surely will say is a monstrous thing to that child. I have no illusions about that. I don't for a moment believe that we're monsters here-no one here does-and I have no qualms or regrets about what we propose to do, and^ I believe that in the long run the child who is the subject of our experiment will only stand to benefit from it. But I'm quite aware that others will disagree radically with drat position. Therefore we want that child to be as well cared for as possible during its stay in our era. If it becomes apparent diat you're not capable of providing that care, you'll be replaced without hesitation, Miss Fellowes. I don't see any delicate way of phrasing that. We aren't sentimental here and we don't like to gamble on anything that's within our power to control, either. So the job is to be considered no more than tentatively yours, at this point. We're asking you to cut yourself loose from your entire present existence with no guarantee that we'll keep you on here past the first week, or possibly even the first day. Do you think you're willing to take the chance?"

"You certainly are blunt, Dr. Hoskins."

"I certainly am. Except when I'm not. Well, Miss Fellowes? What do you say?"

"I don't like to gamble, either," she said.

His face darkened. "Is that a refusal?"

"No, Dr. Hoskins, it's an acceptance. If I doubted for one moment that I was die wrong woman for the job, I wouldn't have come here in the first place. I can do it. I will do it. And you'll have no reason to regret your decision, you can be certain of that. -When do I start?"

"We're bringing the Stasis up to critical level right now. We expect to make the actual scoop two weeks from tonight, on the fifteenth, at half-past seven in the evening sharp. We'll want you here at die moment of arrival, ready to take over at once. You'll have until then to wind down your present outside-world activities. It is clear that you'll be living on these premises full-time, isn't it, Miss Fellowes? And by full-time I mean twenty-four hours a day, at least in the early phases. You did see that in the application specifications, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Then we understand each other perfectly." No, she thought. We don't understand each other at all. But that's not important. If there are problems, we'll work them out somehow. It's the child that's important.

Everything else is secondary. Everything.