Robert Silverberg: Master Of Life And Death

“That a bureaucrat should admire poetry? Is that what you’re groping for?”

Prior reddened. “Yes,” he admitted.

Grinning, Walton said, “I have to do something when I go home at night. I don’t really read Popeek reports twenty-four hours a day. No more than twenty; that’s my rule. I thought your last book was quite remarkable.”

“The critics didn’t,” Prior said diffidently.

“Critics! What do they know?” Walton demanded. “They swing in cycles. Ten years ago it was form and technique, and you got the Melling Prize. Now it’s message, political content that counts. That’s not poetry, Mr. Prior—and there are still a few of us who recognize what poetry is. Take Yeats, for instance—”

Walton was ready to launch into a discussion of every poet from Prior back toSurrey and Wyatt; anything to keep from the job at hand, anything to keep his mind from Popeek. But Prior interrupted him.

“Mr. Walton…”

“Yes?”

“My son Philip… he’s two weeks old now…”

Walton understood. “No, Prior. Please don’t ask.” Walton’s skin felt cold; his hands, tightly clenched, were clammy.

“He was committed to Happysleep this morning—potentially tubercular. The boy’s perfectly sound, Mr. Walton. Couldn’t you—”

Walton rose. “No,” he said, half-commanding, half-pleading. “Don’t ask me to do it. I can’t make any exceptions, not even for you. You’re an intelligent man; you understand our program.”

“I voted for Popeek. I know all about Weeding the Garden and the Euthanasia Plan. But I hadn’t expected—”

“You thought euthanasia was a fine thing for other people. So did everyone else,” Walton said. “That’s how the act was passed.” Tenderly he said, “I can’t do it. I can’t spare your son. Our doctors give a baby every chance to live.”

“ I was tubercular. They cured me. What if they had practiced euthanasia a generation ago? Where would my poems be now?”

It was an unanswerable question: Walton tried to ignore it. “Tuberculosis is an extremely rare disease, Mr. Prior. We can wipe it out completely if we strike at those with TB-susceptible genetic traits.”

“Meaning you’ll kill any children I have?” Prior asked.

“Those who inherit your condition,” Walton said gently. “Go home, Mr. Prior. Burn me in effigy. Write a poem about me. But don’t ask me to do the impossible. I can’t catch any falling stars for you.”

Prior rose. He was immense, a hulking tragic figure staring broodingly at Walton. For the first time since the poet’s abrupt entry, Walton feared violence. His fingers groped for the needle gun he kept in his upper left desk drawer.

But Prior had no violence in him. “I’ll leave you,” he said somberly. “I’m sorry, sir. Deeply sorry. For both of us.”

Walton pressed the doorlock to let him out, then locked it again and slipped heavily into his chair. Three more reports slid out of the chute and landed on his desk. He stared at them as if they were three basilisks.

In the six weeks of Popeek’s existence, three thousand babies had been ticketed for Happysleep, and three thousand sets of degenerate genes had been wiped from the race. Ten thousand subnormal males had been sterilized. Eight thousand dying oldsters had reached their graves ahead of time.

It was a tough-minded program. But why transmit palsy to unborn generations? Why let an adult idiot litter the world with subnormal progeny? Why force a man hopelessly cancerous to linger on in pain, consuming precious food?

Unpleasant? Sure. But the world had voted for it. Until Lang and his team succeeded in terraforming Venus, or until the faster-than-light outfit opened the stars to mankind, something had to be done about Earth’s overpopulation. There were seven billion now and the figure was still growing.

Prior’s words haunted him. I was tubercular… where would my poems be now?

The big humble man was one of the great poets. Keats had been tubercular too.

What good are poets?he asked himself savagely.

The reply came swiftly: What good is anything, then? Keats, Shakespeare, Eliot, Yeats, Donne, Pound, Matthews… and Prior. How much duller life would be without them, Walton thought, picturing his bookshelf—his one bookshelf, in his crowded little cubicle of a one-room home.

Sweat poured down his back as he groped toward his decision.

The step he was considering would disqualify him from his job if he admitted it, though he wouldn’t do that. Under the Equalization Law, it would be a criminal act.

But just one baby wouldn’t matter. Just one.

Prior’s baby.

With nervous fingers he switched on the annunciator and said, “If there are any calls for me, take the message. I’ll be out of my office for the next half-hour.”

HE stepped out of the office, glancing around furtively. The outer office was busy: half a dozen girls were answering calls, opening letters, coordinating activities. Walton slipped quickly past them into the hallway.

There was a knot of fear in his stomach as he turned toward the lift tube. Six weeks of pressure, six weeks of tension since Popeek was organized and old man FitzMaugham had tapped him for the second-in-command post… and now, a rebellion. The sparing of a single child was a small rebellion, true, but he knew he was striking as effectively at the base of Popeek this way as if he had brought about repeal of the entire Equalization Law.

Well, just one lapse, he promised himself. I’ll spare Prior’s child, and after that I’ll keep within the law.

He jabbed the lift tube indicator and the tube rose in its shaft. The clinic was on the twentieth floor.

“Roy.”

At the sound of the quiet voice behind him, Walton jumped in surprise. He steadied himself, forcing himself to turn slowly. The director stood there.

“Good morning, Mr. FitzMaugham.”

The old man was smiling serenely, his unlined face warm and friendly, his mop of white hair bright and full. “You look preoccupied, boy. Something the matter?”

Walton shook his head quickly. “Just a little tired, sir. There’s been a lot of work lately.”

As he said it, he knew how foolish it sounded. If anyone in Popeek worked harder than he did, it was the elderly director. FitzMaugham had striven for equalization legislature for fifty years, and now, at the age of eighty, he put in a sixteen-hour day at the task of saving mankind from itself.

The director smiled. “You never did learn how to budget your strength, Roy. You’ll be a worn-out wreck before you’re half my age. I’m glad you’re adopting my habit of taking a coffee break in the morning, though. Mind if I join you?”

“I’m—not taking a break, sir. I have some work to do downstairs.”

“Oh? Can’t you take care of it by phone?”

“No, Mr. FitzMaugham.” Walton felt as though he’d already been tried, drawn, and quartered. “It requires personal attention.”

“I see.” The deep, warm eyes bored into his. “You ought to slow down a little, I think.”

“Yes, sir. As soon as the work eases up a little.”

FitzMaugham chuckled. “In another century or two, you mean. I’m afraid you’ll never learn how to relax, my boy.”

The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped to one side, allowed the director to enter, and got in himself. FitzMaugham pushed Fourteen; there was a coffee shop down there. Hesitantly, Walton pushed twenty, covering the panel with his arm so the old man would be unable to see his destination.

As the tube began to descend, FitzMaugham said, “Did Mr. Prior come to see you this morning?”

“Yes,” Walton said.