"Don’t worry, Mrs. Bangs," the Child tells her, "I might have died young of some ghastly disease, or grown up to shoot the President and break your heart, and anyhow you two woulda been no prize as parents." Dori can see herself and Lester in this Child, there’s a definite nacreous gleam in its right eye that’s Lester’s, and the sharp quiet left eye is hers; but behind the eyes where there should be a living breathing human being there’s nothing , just a kind of chill galactic twinkling.