Marian dried her eyes with determined waves of the dashboard breezespout. “Our problem’s enough for me, Stewart. I’m not interested in anybody else right now. What can we do?”

He leaned back and grimaced. “The best I could think of—I called my lawyer. Cleve said he’d be down this evening after dinner to go over the whole matter with us. If there’s an out, Cleve will find it. He’s handled a lot of FPB appeals.”

She inclined her head in recognition of this effort. “That’s a beginning. How much time do we have?”

“Well, I have to file a Notice of Superfluity form tomorrow morning. We have two weeks to decide which—which child.”

Marian nodded again. They sat there, letting the automatic pilot throb the jetabout to its destination. After a while, Stewart Raley reached across the seat and took his wife’s hand. Her fingers curled about his fingers spasmodically.

“I know which child,” said a voice from behind them.

They both turned around sharply. “Lisa!” Marian gasped. “I forgot you were here! You’ve been listening!”

Lisa’s round cheeks were glistening with wetness. “I’ve been listening,” she admitted. “And I know which child it has to be. Me. I’m the oldest. I’m the one who should be put up for adoption. Not Penny or Susie or Mike, but me.”

“Now you shush up, Lisa Raley. Your father and I will decide what to do. It’s more than possible that nothing will happen. Nothing at all.”

“I’m the oldest, so I should be put up for adoption. That’s what my teacher says is supposed to happen. My teacher says that the young children are afaffected more than older children. And my teacher says that it’s a very good thing, because you’re sure to be adopted by a very rich family and you get more toys and better schools and and all sorts of things. My teacher says that maybe you’re a little s-sad at first, but you have so many good things happening to you, that—that you get to be very ha-happy. And anyway, my teacher says, that’s the way it has to be, ’cause that’s the law.”