The Guiding Specialist paused, as if to stress the importance of what
he was about to say. "Love," he went on, his voice rising slightly,
"must be stripped of all artificial romantic glamour and exposed for
what it is: a necessary biological technique for the propagation of the
race. Its exercise must be confined to a rigorously selected few men
and women whose sole function in our society is to further that aim."
A murmuring arose in the hall and ran back and forth between the tiers.
The speaker paused again and his features took on a harsher aspect, so
that his image on the lighted screen no longer seemed beneficent but
resembled more that of a man passing inexorable judgment.
There was a murmuring in the seven-tiered speaker-guidance hall, a
heightening of tension, a drawing together of many thoughtful minds.
The hall had a seating capacity of eight thousand, and every seat was
taken. Every seat was occupied by Ruling-Caste Monitors, the guardians
of the most powerful and complex World State that Earth had ever known.
It was a society of gigantic industrial plants and research
laboratories, of vast agricultural projects, of inland waterway and
harbor-spanning bridges, of atomic generators and throbbing power
turbines, of parks and playgrounds and athletic arenas where recreation
was carefully supervised.
It was the first experiment in survival on a planetary scale to
sanction taboos which previous ages would have rejected with horror,
and to punish the violation of those taboos with the sternest kind of
repressive measures and personality-transforming techniques.
"Far back in the twentieth century," the speaker went on, "the kind
of social control which we have succeeded in exercising would have
seemed a folly and a madness. It would not even have been achievable
on a purely scientific basis, for our remote ancestors did not have
sufficient scientific knowledge to subdue and regulate the love impulse
and keep it from becoming a danger to the entire social fabric.
"We have been much too lenient," he said. "When the love-impulse
manifests itself outside of the mating centers we must punish the
offenders immediately. No mercy can be tolerated. We must not attempt
to deceive ourselves as to the extent of the evil. We must wear no
blindfolds. We must not condone or overlook the wickedness of a few
individuals simply because they possess unusual qualities of body and
mind. All who offend must be brought to judgment."
The whispering began again and this time it seemed to annoy the
speaker. The frown on his face increased in severity and a tiny muscle
in his jaw began to twitch.
Before he could completely regain his composure an hysterical scream
rang out at the rear of the hall.
"It is you who are cruelly distorted and blind. You call the refusal
to deny all men and women the right to love a madness and a folly.
But it is you, it is all of us, who are mad! We have cut ourselves
off from joy, from beauty, from everything that is truly creative and
life-transforming. And I, for one, will not submit. I will no longer
endure such a tyranny."
The words followed closely upon the scream, and there could be no doubt
that the voice was that of a woman. She had risen in her seat on the
elevated, next-to-last tier, and she was trembling violently, her face
drained of all color.
There was a shocked silence for an instant and then one of the male
Monitors cried out: "This is a shame and a scandal. She is herself a
Monitor! That she should dare--"
"Yes, I will dare!" the woman proclaimed defiantly. She was standing
very straight now, and her voice was no longer hysterical, but firm
and unyielding. She was a woman of striking beauty, with lustrous dark
hair and flashing dark eyes, and her pale brow was encircled by a tiara
which glittered in the light from the screen and gave her an almost
regal aspect.
"I am in love with love and I am not ashamed. I am proud."
As she spoke the woman unfastened her outer garment and quickly removed
it, tossing it from her with a gesture of prideful disdain.
"You who appear merely as an image on a screen, but can see and hear me
clearly enough through the audio-visual recorders which protect you so
well from anger and rebellion, and a violence which you fear! And you
who are seated here in the security of your high office, pretending to
be all-powerful and untroubled, but knowing full well that whirlwinds
of rebellion are undermining your power, day by day, hour by hour. All
of you! Monitors, Guiding Specialist, cravens to the bone, look upon me
as I am.
"I am not ashamed of my body. Look well upon my beauty, which was given
to me for a purpose which you are too tragically crippled in body and
mind to understand. Look well--and for the first time--on a beauty
which was made for light and love and laughter. For grief, too, and a
mutual sharing in a fulfillment which was once the heritage of every
man and woman on Earth. To love and be loved is also a right, and if it
is grasped firmly and with courage no power on Earth can destroy the
glory of it."
The woman continued to remove her garments, tossing them aside one by
one until she stood naked and unadorned in the downstreaming light.
Her full breasts were high and proud and rose-tipped. Her narrow waist
flared into generous hips, the hips of a fully mature woman. Her long
thighs were the texture of velvet. She was the essence of sex, and she
displayed it like a badge of honor.
For a moment there was complete stillness in the speaker-guidance hall.
Then, in the midst of the gathering, someone began to sob....
The guidance specialist droned on. "Our society could not endure for a
single day without the skills of men and women who have been trained to
perform just one task well." His great golden head on the illuminated
tele-screen stood out with a startling clarity, holding his audience
spellbound.
"Specialization in every human activity has kept disaster from
overtaking us, as it has overtaken so many of the powerful world
civilizations of the past," he went on eloquently. "We have created a
social structure that should endure for five thousand years. It has
already stood firm for four centuries. But now that structure is being
undermined by a very great evil.
"It is being undermined by the strongest and most rebellious of human
impulses: the blind, uncontrollable urge of men and women everywhere
to make love, to mate and reproduce themselves. If that primitive
aberration is not stamped out, if stern measures are not taken at once,
our society will collapse."