"Me?"
"No. Oh, yes, Tom, if it comes to that, you, too. But I was thinking
just now of Zorchi. Is it true, what you told me of his growing legs
and arms so freely?"
"I thought everyone in Naples knew that. I thought he was a national
hero."
"Of course, but I have never really known that the stories were _true_.
How does it happen, Tom?"
I shrugged. "Heaven knows, I don't. I doubt if even Zorchi knows. His
parents might have been involved in some sort of atomic business and
got radiated, and so they produced a mutation. It's perfectly possible,
you know."
"I have heard so, Tom."
"Or else it just happened. Something in his diet, in the way his glands
responded to a sickness, some sort of medicine. No one knows."
"Cannot scientists hope to tell?"
"Well--" it was beginning to sound like the seeds of one of our old
arguments--"well, I suppose so. Pure research isn't much encouraged,
these days."
"But it should be, you think?"
"Of course it should. The only hope of the world--" I trailed off.
Through the trees was a bright, distant glare, and I had just
remembered what it was.
"Is what, Tom?"
"There isn't any," I said, but only to myself. She didn't press me;
she merely burrowed into my arm.
Perhaps the wind shifted, and the smell of the hemp fields grew
stronger; perhaps it was only the foul thought that the glaring sky had
triggered that contaminated my mood. But where I had been happy and
relaxed--the C-bomb completely out of my mind for the moment--now I was
too fully aware of what was ahead for all of us.
"Let's go back, Rena," I said. She didn't ask why. Perhaps she, too,
was feeling the weight of our death sentence.
* * * * *
We caught the evening newscast; its story varied little from the early
ones.
Benedetto still slept, but Zorchi joined us as we watched it.
The announcer, face stamped with the careful blend of gravity and
confidence that marks tele-casters all over the world, was saying:
"Late word on the bomb exploded over the North Atlantic indicates that
there is some danger that radioactive ash may be carried to this area.
The danger zones are now being mapped and surveyed, and residents of
all such sections will be evacuated or placed in deep sleep until the
danger is over.
"Blue Bolt policies give you complete protection against all hazards
from this explosion. I repeat, Blue Bolt policies give you complete
protection against all hazards from this explosion. Check your policies
and be sure of your status. There is absolutely no risk for any person
carrying the basic Blue Bolt minimum coverage or better."
I clicked off the set. "I wonder what the people in Shanghai are
hearing tonight," I said.
Zorchi had only listened without comment, when I told him about the
bomb that afternoon; he listened without comment now.
Rena said: "Tom, I've been wondering. You know, I--I don't have any
insurance. Neither has my father, since we were canceled. And we're not
the only ones without it, either."
I patted her hand. "We'll straighten this out," I promised. "You'll get
your coverage back."
She gave me a skeptical look, but shook her head. "I don't mean just
about father and me. What about all of the uninsurables, all over the
world? The bomb goes off, and everybody with a policy files down into
the vaults, but what about the others?"
I explained, "There are provisions for them. Some of them can be cared
for under the dependency-clauses in the policies of their next of
kin. Others have various charitable arrangements--some localities,
for instance, carry blanket floater policies for their paupers and
prisoners and so on. And--well, I don't suppose it would ever come to
that, but if someone turned up who had no coverage at all, he could
be cared for out of the loss-pool that the Company carries for such
contingencies. It wouldn't be luxurious, but he'd live.
* * * * *
"You see," I went on, warming to my subject, "the Company is set up
so the actual premiums paid are meaningless. The whole objective of
the Company is service; the premiums are only a way to that goal. The
Company has no interest other than the good of the world, and--"