He died for discovering the secret of immortality.
I
The offices of the Bureau of Population Equalization, vulgarly known
as Popeek, were located on the twentieth through twenty-ninth floors
of the Cullen Building, a hundred-story monstrosity typical of
twenty-second-century neo-Victorian at its overdecorated worst. Roy
Walton, Popeek's assistant administrator, had to apologize to himself
each morning as he entered the hideous place.
Since taking the job, he had managed to redecorate his own office--on
the twenty-eighth floor, immediately below Director FitzMaugham's--but
that had created only one minor oasis in the esthetically repugnant
building. It couldn't be helped, though; Popeek was unpopular, though
necessary; and, like the public hangman of some centuries earlier, the
Bureau did not rate attractive quarters.
So Walton had removed some of the iridescent chrome scalloping that
trimmed the walls, replaced the sash windows with opaquers, and changed
the massive ceiling fixture to more subtle electroluminescents. But the
mark of the last century was stamped irrevocably on both building and
office.
Which was as it should be, Walton had finally realized. It was the last
century's foolishness that had made Popeek necessary, after all.
His desk was piled high with reports, and more kept arriving via
pneumochute every minute. The job of assistant administrator was
a thankless one, he thought; as much responsibility as Director
FitzMaugham, and half the pay.
He lifted a report from one eyebrow-high stack, smoothed the crinkly
paper carefully, and read it.
It was a despatch from Horrocks, the Popeek agent currently on duty in
Patagonia. It was dated _4 June 2232_, six days before, and after a
long and rambling prologue in the usual Horrocks manner it went on to
say, _Population density remains low here: 17.3 per square mile, far
below optimum. Looks like a prime candidate for equalization._
Walton agreed. He reached for his voicewrite and said sharply, "Memo
from Assistant Administrator Walton, re equalization of ..." He paused,
picking a trouble-spot at random, "... central Belgium. Will the
section chief in charge of this area please consider the advisability
of transferring population excess to fertile areas in Patagonia?
Recommendation: establishment of industries in latter region, to ease
transition."
He shut his eyes, dug his thumbs into them until bright flares of light
shot across his eyeballs, and refused to let himself be bothered by
the multiple problems involved in dumping several hundred thousand
Belgians into Patagonia. He forced himself to cling to one of Director
FitzMaugham's oft-repeated maxims, _If you want to stay sane, think of
these people as pawns in a chess game--not as human beings._
Walton sighed. This was the biggest chess problem in the history of
humanity, and the way it looked now, all the solutions led to checkmate
in a century or less. They could keep equalizing population only so
long, shifting like loggers riding logs in a rushing river, before
trouble came.
There was another matter to be attended to now. He picked up the
voicewrite again. "Memo from the assistant administrator, re
establishment of new policy on reports from local agents: hire a staff
of three clever girls to make a précis of each report, eliminating
irrelevant data."
It was a basic step, one that should have been taken long ago. Now,
with three feet of reports stacked on his desk, it was mandatory. One
of the troubles with Popeek was its newness; it had been established so
suddenly that most of its procedures were still in the formative stage.
He took another report from the heap. This one was the data sheet of
the Zurich Euthanasia Center, and he gave it a cursory scanning. During
the past week, eleven substandard children and twenty-three substandard
adults had been sent on to Happysleep.
That was the grimmest form of population equalization. Walton initialed
the report, earmarked it for files, and dumped it in the pneumochute.
The annunciator chimed.
"I'm busy," Walton said immediately.
"There's a Mr. Prior to see you," the annunciator's calm voice said.
"He insists it's an emergency."
"Tell Mr. Prior I can't see anyone for at least three hours." Walton
stared gloomily at the growing pile of paper on his desk. "Tell him he
can have ten minutes with me at--oh, say, 1300."
Walton heard an angry male voice muttering something in the outer
office, and then the annunciator said, "He insists he must see you
immediately in reference to a Happysleep commitment."
"Commitments are irrevocable," Walton said heavily. The last thing in
the world he wanted was to see a man whose child or parent had just
been committed. "Tell Mr. Prior I can't see him at all."
Walton found his fingers trembling; he clamped them tight to the edge
of his desk to steady himself. It was all right sitting up here in this
ugly building and initialing commitment papers, but actually to _see_
one of those people and try to convince him of the need--
The door burst open.
A tall, dark-haired man in an open jacket came rushing through and
paused dramatically just over the threshold. Immediately behind him
came three unsmiling men in the gray silk-sheen uniforms of security.
They carried drawn needlers.
"Are you Administrator Walton?" the big man asked, in an astonishingly
deep, rich voice. "I have to see you. I'm Lyle Prior."
The three security men caught up and swarmed all over Prior. One of
them turned apologetically to Walton. "We're terribly sorry about this,
sir. He just broke away and ran. We can't understand how he got in
here, but he did."
"Ah--yes. So I noticed," Walton remarked drily. "See if he's planning
to assassinate anybody, will you?"
"Administrator Walton!" Prior protested. "I'm a man of peace! How can
you accuse me of--"
One of the security men hit him. Walton stiffened and resisted the urge
to reprimand the man. He was only doing his job, after all.
"Search him," Walton said.
They gave Prior an efficient going-over. "He's clean, Mr. Walton.
Should we take him to security, or downstairs to health?"
"Neither. Leave him here with me."
"Are you sure you--"
"Get out of here," Walton snapped. As the three security men slinked
away, he added, "And figure out some more efficient system for
protecting me. Some day an assassin is going to sneak through here
and get me. Not that I give a damn about myself, you understand; it's
simply that I'm indispensable. There isn't another lunatic in the world
who'd take this job. Now _get out_!"
They wasted no time in leaving. Walton waited until the door closed
and jammed down hard on the lockstud. His tirade, he knew, was wholly
unjustified; if he had remembered to lock his door as regulations
prescribed, Prior would never have broken in. But he couldn't admit
that to the guards.
"Take a seat, Mr. Prior."
"I have to thank you for granting me this audience," Prior said,
without a hint of sarcasm in his booming voice. "I realize you're a
terribly busy man."
"I am." Another three inches of paper had deposited itself on Walton's
desk since Prior had entered. "You're very lucky to have hit the
psychological moment for your entrance. At any other time I'd have
had you brigged for a month, but just now I'm in need of a little
diversion. Besides, I very much admire your work, Mr. Prior."
"Thank you." Again that humility, startling in so big and commanding a
man. "I hadn't expected to find--I mean that you--"
"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 to Surrey 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."