“Heredity is one thing,” Ed pointed out. “Environment’s another. One can’t be changed—the other can. And let me tell you, mister, the thing that makes the biggest change in the environment is money. M-O-N-E-Y: money, cash, gelt, moolah, wampum, the old spondulix. Enough money, and, the FPB figures your kid has to have a good start in life—especially with it supervising the early years. Your deal Stew. Hey, Stew! You in mourning for that last pot? You haven’t said a word for the past fifteen minutes. Anything wrong? You didn’t get fired today, did you?”

Raley tried to pull himself together. He picked up the cards. “No,” he said thickly. “I didn’t get fired.”

Marian was waiting with the family jetabout at the landing field. Fortunately, she was too full of gossip to be very observant. She looked oddly at him only once, when he kissed her.

“That was a poor, tired thing,” she said. “You used to do a lot better than that.”

He dug his fingernails into his palms and tried to be whimsical. “That was before I was a poor, tired thing. Had a real hard day at the office. Be sweet and gentle with me, honey, and don’t expect too much.”

She nodded sympathetically and they climbed into the small craft. Lisa, twelve years old and their first child, was in the back seat with Mike, the latest. Lisa kissed her father resoundingly and then held up the baby for a similar ceremony.

He found he had to force himself to kiss the baby.

They shot up into the air. All around them, the jetabouts radiated away from the landing field. Stewart Raley stared at the suburban roofs rushing by below and tried to decide when he was going to tell her. After supper, that would be a good time. No, better wait until the children were all in bed. Then, when he and Marian were alone in the living room—

He felt his stomach go solid and cold, just as it had that afternoon after lunch. Would he be able to bring himself to tell her at all, he wondered?