Anything You Can Do ...

by Randall Garrett

  _THIRD INTERLUDE_

  Mrs. Frobisher touched the control button that depolarized the window inthe breakfast room, letting the morning sun stream in through the nowtransparent sheet of glass. Her attention was caught by something acrossthe street, and she said, in a low voice, "Larry, come here."

  Larry Frobisher looked up from his morning coffee. "What is it, hon?"

  "The Stanton boys. Come look."

  Frobisher sighed. "Who are the Stanton boys, and why should I comelook?" But he got up and came over to the window.

  "See--over there on the walkway toward the play area," his wife said.

  "I see a boy pushing a wheeled contraption and three girls playing witha skip rope," Frobisher said. "Or do you mean that the Stanford boys aredressed up as girls?"

  "_Stanton_," she corrected him. "They just moved into the apartment onthe first floor."

  "Who? The three girls?"

  "No, silly! The two Stanton boys and their mother. One of them is inthat 'wheeled contraption'. It's called a therapeutic chair."

  "Oh? So the poor kid's been hurt. What's so interesting about that,aside from morbid curiosity?"

  The boy pushing the chair went around a bend in the walkway, out ofsight, and Frobisher went back to his coffee while his wife spoke.

  "Their names are Mart and Bart," she said. "They're twins."

  "I should think," Frobisher said, applying himself to his breakfast,"that the mother would get a self-powered chair for the boy instead ofmaking the other boy push it."

  "The poor boy can't control the chair, dear," said Mrs. Frobisher, stilllooking out the window after the vanished twins. "There's somethingwrong with his nervous system. I understand that he was exposed to somekind of radiation when he was only two years old. That's why the chairhas to have all those funny instruments built into it. Even hisheartbeat has to be controlled electronically."

  "Shame," said Frobisher, spearing a bit of sausage. "Kind of rough onboth of 'em, I'd guess."

  "How do you mean, dear?"

  "Well, I mean, like ... well, for instance, why are they going over tothe play area? Play games, right? So the one that's well has got to pushhis brother over there. Can't just get out and go; has to take thebrother along, too. Kind of a burden, see?"

  Mrs. Frobisher turned away from the window. "Why, Larry! I'm surprisedat you. Really! Don't you think the boy _should_ take care of hisbrother?"

  "Oh, now, honey, I didn't mean that. It's hard on _both_ of 'em. The kidin the chair has to sit there and watch his brother play baseball orjai alai or whatever, while he can't do anything himself. Like I say,kind of rough on both of 'em."

  "Well, yes, I suppose it must be. Want some more coffee?"

  "Thanks, honey. And another slice of toast, hunh?"