Robert Silverberg - Caught in the Organ Draft

My last chance to escape across the border. I’ve been up all night, weighing the options. There’s no hope of appeal. Running away leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Father, friends, even Kate, all say stay, stay, stay, face the music. The hour of decision. Do I really have a choice? I have no choice. When the time comes, I’ll surrender peacefully.

I report to Transplant House for conscriptive donative surgery in three hours.

After all, he said coolly, what’s a kidney? I’ll still have another one, you know. And if that one malfunctions, I can always get a replacement. I’ll have Preferred Recipient status, 6-A, for what that’s worth. But I won’t settle for my automatic 6-A. I know what’s going to happen to the priority system; I’d better protect myself. I’ll go into politics. I’ll climb. I’ll attain upward mobility out of enlightened self-interest, right? Right. I’ll become so important that society will owe me a thousand transplants. And one of these years I’ll get that kidney back. Three or four kidneys, fifty kidneys, as many as I need. A heart or two. A few lungs. A pancreas, a spleen, a liver. They won’t be able to refuse me anything. I’ll show them. I’ll show them. I’ll out-senior the seniors. There’s your Bodily Sanctity activist for you, eh? I suppose I’ll have to resign from the League. Goodbye, idealism. Goodbye, moral superiority. Goodbye, kidney. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

It’s done. I’ve paid my debt to society. I’ve given up unto the powers that be my humble pound of flesh. When I leave the hospital in a couple of days, I’ll carry a card testifying to my new 6-A status.

Top priority for the rest of my life.

Why, I might live for a thousand years.