"It's plain in your face.... What are you going to tell him?"
"Tell him? Why, what he's come to hear."
* * * * *
The Dictator was as usual splendid in uniform. His was not a garish
or offensive splendor, but beautifully tailored, pointed up with
harmonizing gleams of bright metal, like the tasteful chromium
ornaments of the luxurious modern cars and aircraft. The uniform made
his somewhat stocky figure the epitome of the new age, ruled by the
stars of technical perfection, beauty, and above all harmony. The
Diktatura was the first government which had dared to assume total
power over and total responsibility for the lives and happiness of
its people. Under the sway of its master plan, guided by its ultimate
ideology, all men and things harmonized, cooperated and coordinated;
dissonances were forbidden. And the vast harmony of a nation found its
summit and symbol in this one man, the almighty father of his people.
Without his knowledge no sparrow fell to the ground in his borders, and
in his files all the hairs of his subjects' heads were numbered.
The great Dr. Euge was only one among hundreds of millions whose work
and rewards and recreations and very thoughts were arranged for their
own benefit; but at the same time he was something more. As long as the
Diktatura was not world-wide, there would be groups and nations in the
clashing chaos beyond the frontier which plotted with envious hatred to
destroy it. The earthly paradise must be defended; Euge's position as
a top scientist in a field vital to defense elevated him almost to the
level of the politico-economic planners.
* * * * *
The Dictator greeted Euge with a man-to-man warmth he did not use
toward those to whom he was something much like a god. "Well, doctor,
how is the health of your virus? And of those who have sampled it?"
The scientist said quietly, "Of the sixteen specimens you sent me, all
but one died within ten days after inoculation."
"Ah? And the one?"
"That is the strange thing. It would seem that--the virus has some
preference in victims."