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Show IP Maia thinks for a moment. "I suppose it's nicer for the dogs to let them go to sleep in a place that's familiar, not with a lot of strange people standing around," she muses. "I suppose so," says Boaz, without interest. "Do I have to go with you to the surgery?" He looks at her, and his gaze is suddenly kind. "No, Maia, you don't, not if you don't want to. I'll just need you here in the morning to help with the anaesthetic." She does not respond. "Just hold some paws, that's all. It's just one little shot." "All right," she says finally. You see that they were quite calm about it beforehand, Boaz and the girl. After all, there was nothing unusual about the situation; their procedures were perfectly routine in experimental psychology, and they were executing these procedures as well as they could. But afterward, after they had anaesthetized the dogs and loaded them into the back seat of the car, Boaz saw that his hands were shaking. Maia too may have seen his hands tremble, but she said nothing; she sat beside Boaz, immobile and silent. He knew the roads of the institute grounds well, and he had tried the great curve down the hill at every speed from 30 to 80, but his hands shook too much, he did not really see the road, he missed the turn. The car spun back off the road and slid, tilted, into a ditch; as it stopped Boaz heard |
