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"I'll have everything you'll need sent over first thing tomorrow. Though I warn you, Miss Fellowes, that what we know about Neanderthals now is next to nothing, compared with what we're going to find out from Tim-mie as this project unfolds."
"All in due course." She gri
"Obviously."
"Well, you'll have to be patient about it, I'm afraid. I won't let you wear the boy out. We've subjected him to too much intrusion today, and that isn't going to happen again."
Mclntyre looked uncomfortable. He managed a rigid little smile and headed for the door.
"And when you pick out the books for me, doctor-"
"Yes?" Mclntyre said.
"I particularly would like to have one that discusses Neanderthals in terms of their relationship to humans. To modern humans, I mean to say. How they differed from us, how they're similar. The evolutionary scheme as we understand it. That's the information I want most of all." She looked at him fiercely. -"They are humans, aren't they, Dr. Mclntyre? A little different from us, but not all that much. Isn't that so?"
"That's essentially so, yes. But of course-"
"No," she said. "No 'but of courses.' We're not dealing with some sort of ape, here, that much I already know. Timmie's not any kind of missing link. He's a little boy, a little human boy. -Just get me some books, Dr. Mclntyre, and thank you very much. I'll see you again soon."
The paleontologist went out. The moment he was gone, Timmie's wailing tapered off into a querulous uncertain sobbing, and then, swiftly, to silence.
Miss Fellowes scooped him into her arms. He clung tightly to her, shivering.
"Yes," she said soothingly. "Yes, yes, yes, it's been a busy day. Much too busy. And you an? just a little boy. A little lost boy."
Far from home, far from anything you ever knew.
"Did you have brothers and sisters?" she asked him, speaking more to herself than to him. Not expecting an answer; simply offering the comfort of a soft voice close to his ear. "What was your mother like? Your father? And your friends, your playmates. All gone. All gone. They must already seem like something out of a dream to you. How long will you remember anything about them at all, I wonder?"
Little lost boy. My little lost boy.
"How about some nice warm milk?" she suggested. "And then, I think, a nap."