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precisely what I mean, either. What I mean is-" He paused and moistened his lips. "The Bruce Mannheim sort of thing is what I mean. Heated debate over the methods by which certain children are handled in public institutions. Do you follow what I'm saying, Miss Fellowes?"
    "I've been dealing mainly with weak or handicapped children, Dr. Hoskins. What I attempt to do is keep them alive and help them build up their strength. There isn't much to have a debate over in matters like that, is there?"
    "So you've never had any kind of professional encounters with so-called child advocates of the Bruce Mannheim sort?"
    "Never. I've read a little about Mr. Mannheim in the papers, I guess. But I haven't ever had any contact with him or anyone like him. I wouldn't know him if I bumped into him in the street. And I don't have any particular opinions about his ideas, pro or con."
    Hoskins looked relieved.
    He said, "I don't mean to imply that I'm opposed to Bruce Mannheim or the positions he represents, you understand. But it would be a serious complicating factor here if our work became the subject of hostile publicity."
    "Of course. That would be the last thing I'd want also." "
    "All right, then. We can move along. My other question has to do with the nature of the commitment to your work that we'll be demanding of you here. -Miss Fellowes, do you think you can love a difficult, strange, perhaps unruly and even highly disagreeable child?"
    "Love? Not merely care for?"
    "Love. To stand in loco parentis. To be its mother, more or less, Miss Fellowes. And rather more than less. This will be the most lonely child in the history of the world. It won't just need a nurse, it'll need a mother. Are you prepared to take on such a burden? Are you willing to take on such a burden?"
    He was staring at her again, as though trying to stare through her. Once again she met the intensity of his gaze with unwavering strength.
    "You say he'll be difficult and strange and- What was the word? -highly disagreeable. In what way, disagreeable?"
    "We're talking about a prehistoric child. You know that. He-or she, we don't know which yet-may very well be savage in a way that goes beyond the most savage tribe on Earth today. This child's behavior may be more like that of an animal than a child. A ferocious animal, perhaps. That's what I mean by difficult, Miss Fellowes."
    "I haven't only worked with premature infants, Dr. Hoskins. I've had experience with emotionally disturbed children. I've dealt with some pretty tough little customers."
    "Not this tough, perhaps."
    "We'll see, won't we?"
    "Savage, very likely, and miserable and lonely, and furious. A stranger and afraid, in a world it never made. Ripped from everything that was familiar to it and put down in circumstances of almost complete isolation-a true Displaced Person. Do you know that term, 'Displaced Person,' Miss Fellowes? It goes back to the middle of the last century, to the time of the Second World War, when uprooted people were wandering all over the face of Europe, and-"
    "The world is at peace now, Dr. Hoskins."
    "Of course it is. But this child won't feel much peace. It'll be suffering from the total disruption of its life, a genuine Displaced Person of the most poignant kind. A very small one, at that."
    "How small?"
    "At present we can bring no more than forty kilograms of mass out of the past with each scoop. That includes not only the living subject but the surrounding inanimate insulation zone. So we're talking about a little child, a very little child."
    "An infant, is that it?"
    "We can't be sure. We hope to get a child of six or seven years. But it might be considerably younger."
    "You don't know? You're just going to make a blind grab?"
    Hoskins looked displeased. "Let's talk about love, Miss Fellowes. Loving this child. I guarantee you that it won't be easy. You really do love children, don't you? I don't mean in any trivial sense. And I'm not talking now about proper performance of