ToEph Konigsbergwho talked fast andtalked very well

THE TEMPERATURE of the Refuge varied from 99 degrees Fahrenheit to 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Steam lay perennially in the air, drifting and billowing sluggishly. Geysers of hot water spurted, and the "ground" was a shifting surface of warm slime, compounded from water, dissolved minerals, and fungoid pulp. The remains of lichens and protozoa colored and thickened the scum of moisture that dripped everywhere, over the wet rocks and sponge-like shrubbery, the various utilitarian installations. A careful backdrop had been painted, a long plateau rising from a heavy ocean.

Beyond doubt, the Refuge was modeled after the womb. The semblance couldn't be denied—and nobody had denied it.

Bending down, Louis moodily picked up a pale green fungus growing near his feet and broke it apart. Under its moist organic skin was a mesh of man-made plastic; the fungus was artificial.

"We could be worse off," Frank said, watching him hurl the fungus away. "We might have to pay for all this. It must have cost Fedgov billions of dollars to set up this place."

"Stage scenery," Louis said bitterly. "What for? Why were we born this way?"

Grinning, Frank said: "We're superior mutants, remember? Isn't that what we decided years ago?" He pointed at the world visible beyond the wall of the Refuge. "We're too pure for that."

Outside lay San Francisco, the nocturnal city half-asleep in its blanket of chill fog. Occasional cars crept here and there; pockets of commuters emerged like complicated segmented worms from underground monorail terminals. Infrequent office lights glowed sparsely... Louis turned his back on the sight. It hurt too much to see it, to know that he was in here, trapped, caught within the closed circle of the group. To realize that nothing existed for them but the sitting and staring, the empty years of the Refuge.