Part 2

Falbrough didn't look like the sort of man who would enjoy his work. He was short and plump, with a high-domed bald head and glittering contact lenses in his weak blue eyes. "Morning, Mr. Walton."

"Good morning, Doctor Falbrough. You'll be operating soon, won't you?"

"Eleven hundred, as usual."

"Good. There's a new regulation in effect from now on," Walton said. "To keep public opinion on our side."

"Sir?"

"Henceforth, until further notice, you're to check each baby that comes to you against the main file, just to make sure there's been no mistake. Got that?"

"_Mistake?_ But how--"

"Never mind that, Falbrough. There was quite a tragic slip-up at one of the European centers yesterday. We may all hang for it if news gets out." _How glibly I reel this stuff off_, Walton thought in amazement.

Falbrough looked grave. "I see, sir. Of course. We'll double-check everything from now on."

"Good. Begin with the 1100 batch."

Walton couldn't bear to remain down in the clinic any longer. He left via a side exit, and signaled for a lift tube.

Minutes later he was back in his office, behind the security of a towering stack of work. His pulse was racing; his throat was dry. He remembered what FitzMaugham had said: _Once we make even one exception, the whole framework crumbles._

Well, the framework had begun crumbling, then. And there was little doubt in Walton's mind that FitzMaugham knew or would soon know what he had done. He would have to cover his traces, somehow.

The annunciator chimed and said, "Dr. Falbrough of Happysleep calling you, sir."

"Put him on."

The screen lit and Falbrough's face appeared; its normal blandness had given way to wild-eyed tenseness.

"What is it, Doctor?"

"It's a good thing you issued that order when you did, sir! You'll never guess what just happened--"

"No guessing games, Falbrough. Speak up."

"I--well, sir, I ran checks on the seven babies they sent me this morning. And guess--I mean--well, one of them shouldn't have been sent to me!"

"No!"

"It's the truth, sir. A cute little baby indeed. I've got his card right here. The boy's name is Philip Prior, and his gene-pattern is fine."

"Any recommendation for euthanasia on the card?" Walton asked.

"No, sir."

Walton chewed at a ragged cuticle for a moment, counterfeiting great anxiety. "Falbrough, we're going to have to keep this very quiet. Someone slipped up in the examining room, and if word gets out that there's been as much as one mistake, we'll have a mob swarming over us in half an hour."

"Yes, sir." Falbrough looked terribly grave. "What should I do, sir?"

"Don't say a word about this to _anyone_, not even the men in the examining room. Fill out a certificate for the boy, find his parents, apologize and return him to them. And make sure you keep checking for any future cases of this sort."

"Certainly, sir. Is that all?"

"It is," Walton said crisply, and broke the contact. He took a deep breath and stared bleakly at the far wall.

The Prior boy was safe. And in the eyes of the law--the Equalization Law--Roy Walton was now a criminal. He was every bit as much a criminal as the man who tried to hide his dying father from the investigators, or the anxious parents who attempted to bribe an examining doctor.

He felt curiously dirty. And, now that he had betrayed FitzMaugham and the Cause, now that it was done, he had little idea why he had done it, why he had jeopardized the Popeek program, his position--his life, even--for the sake of one potentially tubercular baby.

Well, the thing was done.

No. Not quite. Later, when things had quieted down, he would have to finish the job by transferring all the men in the clinic to distant places and by obliterating the computer's memories of this morning's activities.

The annunciator chimed again. "Your brother is on the wire, sir."

Walton trembled imperceptibly as he said, "Put him on." Somehow, Fred never called unless he could say or do something unpleasant. And Walton was very much afraid that his brother meant no good by this call. No good at all.

III

Roy Walton watched his brother's head and shoulders take form out of the swirl of colors on the screen. Fred Walton was more compact, built closer to the ground than his rangy brother; he was a squat five-seven, next to Roy's lean six-two. Fred had always threatened to "get even" with his older brother as soon as they were the same size, but to Fred's great dismay he had never managed to catch up with Roy in height.

Even on the screen, Fred's neck and shoulders gave an impression of tremendous solidity and force. Walton waited for his brother's image to take shape, and when the time lag was over he said, "Well, Fred? What goes?"

His brother's eyes flickered sleepily. "They tell me you were down here a little while ago, Roy. How come I didn't rate a visit?"

"I wasn't in your section. It was official business, anyway. I didn't have time."

Walton fixed his eyes sharply on the caduceus emblem gleaming on Fred's lapel, and refused to look anywhere else.

Fred said slowly, "You had time to tinker with our computer, though."

"Official business!"

"Really, Roy?" His brother's tone was venomous. "I happened to be using the computer shortly after you this morning. I was curious--unpardonably so, dear brother. I requested a transcript of your conversation with the machine."

Sparks seemed to flow from the screen. Walton sat back, feeling numb. He managed to pull his sagging mouth back into a stiff hard line and say, "That's a criminal offense, Fred. Any use I make of a Popeek computer outlet is confidential."

"Criminal offence? Maybe so ... but that makes two of us, then. Eh, Roy?"

"How much do you know?"

"You wouldn't want me to recite it over a public communications system, would you? Your friend FitzMaugham might be listening to every word of this, and I have too much fraternal feeling for that. Ole Doc Walton doesn't want to get his bigwig big brother in trouble--oh, no!"

"Thanks for small blessings," Roy said acidly.

"You got me this job. You can take it away. Let's call it even for now, shall we?"

"Anything you like," Walton said. He was drenched in sweat, though the ingenious executive filter in the sending apparatus of the screen cloaked that fact and presented him as neat and fresh. "I have some work to do now." His voice was barely audible.

"I won't keep you any longer, then," Fred said.

The screen went dead.

Walton killed the contact at his end, got up, walked to the window. He nudged the opaquer control and the frosty white haze over the glass cleared away, revealing the fantastic beehive of the city outside.

_Idiot!_ he thought. _Fool!_

He had risked everything to save one baby, one child probably doomed to an early death anyway. And FitzMaugham knew--the old man could see through Walton with ease--and Fred knew, too. His brother, and his father-substitute.

FitzMaugham might well choose to conceal Roy's defection this time, but would surely place less trust in him in the future. And as for Fred....

There was no telling what Fred might do. They had never been particularly close as brothers; they had lived with their parents (now almost totally forgotten) until Roy was nine and Fred seven. Their parents had gone down off Maracaibo in a jet crash; Roy and Fred had been sent to the public crèche.

After that it had been separate paths for the brothers. For Roy, an education in the law, a short spell as Senator FitzMaugham's private secretary, followed last month by his sudden elevation to assistant administrator of the newly-created Popeek Bureau. For Fred, medicine, unsuccessful private practice, finally a job in the Happysleep section of Popeek, thanks to Roy.

_And now he has the upper hand for the first time_, Walton thought. _I hope he's not thirsting for my scalp._

He was being ground in a vise; he saw now the gulf between the toughness needed for a Popeek man and the very real streak of softness that was part of his character. Walton suddenly realized that he had never merited his office. His only honorable move would be to offer his resignation to FitzMaugham at once.

He thought back, thought of the Senator saying, _This is a job for a man with no heart. Popeek is the cruelest organization ever legislated by man. You think you can handle it, Roy?_

_I think so, sir. I hope so._

He remembered going on to declare some fuzzy phrases about the need for equalization, the immediate necessity for dealing with Earth's population problem.

_Temporary cruelty is the price of eternal happiness_, FitzMaugham had said.

Walton remembered the day when the United Nations had finally agreed, had turned the Population Equalization Bureau loose on a stunned world. There had been the sharp flare of flash guns, the clatter of reporters feeding the story to the world, the momentary high-mindedness, the sense of the nobility of Popeek....

And then the six weeks of gathering hatred. No one liked Popeek. No one liked to put antiseptic on wounds, either, but it had to be done.

Walton shook his head sorrowfully. He had made a serious mistake by saving Philip Prior. But resigning his post was no way to atone for it.

He opaqued the window again and returned to his desk. It was time to go through the mail.

The first letter on the stack was addressed to him by hand; he slit it open and scanned it.

_Dear Mr Walton_,

_Yesterday your men came and took away my mother to be kild. She didn't do nothing and lived a good life for seventy years and I want you to know I think you people are the biggest vermin since Hitler and Stalin and when youre old and sick I hope your own men come for you and stick you in the furnace where you belong. You stink and all of you stink._

Signed, _Disgusted_

Walton shrugged and opened the next letter, typed in a crisp voicewrite script on crinkly watermarked paper.

_Sir_:

_I see by the papers that the latest euthanasia figures are the highest yet, and that you have successfully rid the world of many of its weak sisters, those who are unable to stand the gaff, those who, in the words of the immortal Darwin "are not fit to survive." My heartiest congratulations, sir, upon the scope and ambition of your bold and courageous program. Your Bureau offers mankind its first real chance to enter that promised land, that Utopia, that has been our hope and prayer for so long._

_I do sincerely hope, though, that your Bureau is devoting careful thought to the type of citizen that should be spared. It seems obvious that the myriad spawning Asiatics should be reduced tremendously, since their unchecked proliferation has caused such great hardship to humanity. The same might be said of the Europeans who refuse to obey the demands of sanity; and, coming closer to home, I pray you reduce the numbers of Jews, Catholics, Communists, anti-Herschelites, and other freethinking rabble, in order to make the new reborn world purer and cleaner and ..._

With a sickly cough Walton put the letter down. Most of them were just this sort: intelligent, rational, bigoted letters. There had been the educated Alabamian, disturbed that Popeek did not plan to eliminate all forms of second-class citizens; there had been the Michigan minister, anxious that no left-wing relativistic atheists escape the gas chamber.

And, of course, there were the other kind--the barely literate letters from bereaved parents or relatives, accusing Popeek of nameless crimes against humanity.

Well, it was only to be expected, Walton thought. He scribbled his initials on both the letters and dropped them into the chute that led to files, where they would be put on microfilm and scrupulously stored away. FitzMaugham insisted that every letter received be read and so filed.

Some day soon, Walton thought, population equalization would be unnecessary. Oh, sure, euthanasia would stick; it was a sane and, in the long run, merciful process. But this business of uprooting a few thousand Belgians and shipping them to the open spaces in Patagonia would cease.

Lang and his experimenters were struggling to transform Venus into a livable world. If it worked, the terraforming engineers could go on to convert Mars, the bigger moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and perhaps even distant Pluto, if some form of heating could be developed.

There would be another transition then. Earth's multitudes would be shipped wholesale to the new worlds. Perhaps there would be riots; none but a few adventurers would go willingly. But some would go, and that would be a partial solution.

And then, the stars. The faster-than-light project was top secret, so top secret that in Popeek only FitzMaugham knew what was being done on it. But if it came through....

Walton shrugged and turned back to his work. Reports had to be read, filed, expedited.

The thought of Fred and what Fred knew bothered him. If only there were some way to relive this morning, to let the Prior baby go to the chamber as it deserved....

Tension pounded in him. He slipped a hand into his desk, fumbled, found the green, diamond-shaped pellet he was searching for, and swallowed the benzolurethrin almost unthinkingly. The tranquilizer was only partly successful in relaxing him, but he was able to work steadily, without a break, until noon.

He was about to dial for lunch when the private screen he and FitzMaugham used between their offices glowed into life.

"Roy?"

The director's face looked impossibly tranquil.

"Sir?"

"I'm going to have a visitor at 1300. Ludwig. He wants to know how things are going."

Walton nodded. Ludwig was the head American delegate to the United Nations, a stubborn, dedicated man who had fought Popeek for years; then he had seen the light and had fought just as strenuously for its adoption. "Do you want me to prepare a report for him?" Walton asked.

"No, Roy. I want you to be here. I don't want to face him alone."

"Sir?"

"Some of the UN people feel I'm running Popeek as a one-man show," FitzMaugham explained. "Of course, that's not so, as that mountain of work on your desk testifies. But I want you there as evidence of the truth. I want him to see how much I have to rely on my assistants."

"I get it. Very good, Mr. FitzMaugham."

"And another thing," the Director went on. "It'll help appearances if I show myself surrounded with loyal young lieutenants of impeccable character. Like you, Roy."

"Thank you, sir," Walton said weakly.

"Thank _you_. See you at 1300 sharp, then?"

"Of course, sir."

The screen went dead. Walton stared at it blankly. He wondered if this were some elaborate charade of the old man's; FitzMaugham was devious enough. That last remark, about loyal young lieutenants of impeccable character ... it had seemed to be in good faith, but was it? Was FitzMaugham staging an intricate pretense before deposing his faithless protégé?

Maybe Fred had something to do with it, Walton thought. He decided to have another session with the computer after his conference with FitzMaugham and Ludwig. Perhaps it still wasn't too late to erase the damning data and cover his mistake.

Then it would be just his word against Fred's. He might yet be able to brazen through, he thought dully.

He ordered lunch with quivering fingers, and munched drearily on the tasteless synthetics for awhile before dumping them down the disposal chute.

IV

At precisely 1255 Walton tidied his desk, rose and for the second time that day, left his office. He was apprehensive, but not unduly so; behind his immediate surface fears and tensions lay a calm certainty that FitzMaugham ultimately would stick by him.

And there was little to fear from Fred, he realized now. It was next to impossible for a mere lower-level medic to gain the ear of the director himself; in the normal course of events, if Fred attempted to contact FitzMaugham, he would automatically be referred to Roy.

No; the danger in Fred's knowledge was potential, not actual, and there might still be time to come to terms with him. It was almost with a jaunty step that Walton left his office, made his way through the busy outer office, and emerged in the outside corridor.

Fred was waiting there.

He was wearing his white medic's smock, stained yellow and red by reagents and coagulants. He was lounging against the curving plastine corridor wall, hands jammed deep into his pockets. His thick-featured, broad face wore an expression of elaborate casualness.

"Hello, Roy. Fancy finding _you_ here!"

"How did you know I'd be coming this way?"

"I called your office. They told me you were on your way to the lift tubes. Why so jumpy, brother? Have a tough morning?"

"I've had worse," Walton said. He was tense, guarded. He pushed the stud beckoning the lift tube.

"Where you off to?" Fred asked.

"Confidential. Top-level powwow with Fitz, if you have to know."

Fred's eyes narrowed. "Strictly upper-echelon, aren't you? Do you have a minute to talk to a mere mortal?"

"Fred, don't make unnecessary trouble. You know--"

"_Can it._ I've only got a minute or two left of my lunch hour. I want to make myself perfectly plain with you. Are there any spy pickups in this corridor?"

Walton considered that. There were none that he knew of, and he knew of most. Still, FitzMaugham might have found it advisable to plant a few without advertising the fact. "I'm not sure," he said. "What's on your mind?"

Fred took a pad from his pocket and began to scrawl a note. Aloud he said, "I'll take my chances and tell you about it anyway. One of the men in the lab said another man told him you and FitzMaugham are both secretly Herschelites." His brow furrowed with the effort of saying one thing and writing another simultaneously. "Naturally, I won't give you any names yet, but I want you to know I'm investigating his background very carefully. He may just have been shooting his mouth off."

"Is that why you didn't want this to go into a spy pickup?" Walton asked.

"Exactly. I prefer to investigate unofficially for the time being." Fred finished the note, ripped the sheet from the pad and handed it to his brother.

Walton read it wordlessly. The handwriting was jagged and untidy, for it was no easy feat to carry on a conversation for the benefit of any concealed pickups while writing a message.

It said, _I know all about the Prior baby. I'll keep my mouth shut for now, so don't worry. But don't try anything foolish, because I've deposited an account of the whole thing where you can't find it._

Walton crumpled the note and tucked it into his pocket. He said, "Thanks for the information, Fred. I'll keep it in mind."

"Okay, pal."

The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped inside and pressed _twenty-nine_.

In the moment it took for the tube to rise the one floor, he thought, _So Fred's playing a waiting game.... He'll hold the information over my head until he can make good use of it._

That was some relief, anyway. No matter what evidence Fred had already salted away, Walton still had a chance to blot out some of the computer's memory track and obscure the trail to that extent.

* * * * *

The lift tube opened; a gleaming sign listed the various activities of the twenty-ninth floor, and at the bottom of the list it said _D. F. FitzMaugham, Director_.

FitzMaugham's office was at the back of a maze of small cubicles housing Popeek functionaries of one sort or another. Walton had made some attempt to familiarize himself with the organizational stratification of Popeek, but his success thus far had been minimal. FitzMaugham had conceived the plan half a century ago, and had lovingly created and worked over the organization's structure through all the long years it took before the law was finally passed.

There were plenty of bugs in the system, but in general FitzMaugham's blueprint had been sound--sound enough for Popeek to begin functioning almost immediately after its UN approval. The manifold departments, the tight network of inter-reporting agencies, the fantastically detailed budget with its niggling appropriations for office supplies and its massive expenditures for, say, the terraforming project--most of these were fully understood only by FitzMaugham himself.

Walton glanced at his watch. He was three minutes late; the conversation with his brother had delayed him. But Ludwig of the UN was not known to be a scrupulously punctual man, and there was a high probability he hadn't arrived.

The secretary in the office guarding FitzMaugham's looked up as Walton approached. "The director is in urgent conference, sir, and--oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Walton. Go right in; Mr. FitzMaugham is expecting you."

"Is Mr. Ludwig here yet?"

"Yes, sir. He arrived about ten minutes ago."

Curious, Walton thought. From what he knew of Ludwig he wasn't the man to arrive early for an appointment. Walton and FitzMaugham had had plenty of dealings with him in the days before Popeek was approved, and never once had Ludwig been on time.

Walton shrugged. If Ludwig could switch his stand so decisively from an emphatic anti-Popeek to an even more emphatic pro-Popeek, perhaps he could change in other respects as well.

Walton stepped within the field of the screener. His image, he knew, was being relayed inside where FitzMaugham could scrutinize him carefully before admitting him. The director was very touchy about admitting people to his office.

Five seconds passed; it usually took no more than that for FitzMaugham to admit him. But there was no sign from within, and Walton coughed discreetly.

Still no answer. He turned away and walked over to the desk where the secretary sat dictating into a voicewrite. He waited for her to finish her sentence, then touched her arm lightly.

"Yes, Mr. Walton?"

"The screen transmission seems to be out of order. Would you mind calling Mr. FitzMaugham on the annunciator and telling him I'm here?"

"Of course, sir."

Her fingers deftly flipped the switches. He waited for her to announce him, but she paused and looked back at Walton. "He doesn't acknowledge, Mr. Walton. He must be awfully busy."

"He _has_ to acknowledge. Ring him again."

"I'm sorry, sir, but--"

"_Ring him again._"

She rang, reluctantly, without any response. FitzMaugham preferred the sort of annunciator that had to be acknowledged; Walton allowed the girl to break in on his privacy without the formality of a return buzz.

"Still no answer, sir."

Walton was growing impatient. "Okay, devil take the acknowledgment. Break in on him and tell him I'm waiting out here. My presence is important inside."

"Sir, Mr. FitzMaugham absolutely forbids anyone to use the annunciator without his acknowledgment," the girl protested.

He felt his neck going red. "I'll take the responsibility."

"I'm sorry, sir--"

"All right. Get away from that machine and let _me_ talk to him. If there are repercussions, tell him I forced you at gunpoint."

She backed away, horrified, and he slid in behind the desk. He made contact; there was no acknowledgment. He said, "Mr. FitzMaugham, this is Roy. I'm outside your office now. Should I come in, or not?"

Silence. He stared thoughtfully at the apparatus.

"I'm going in there," he said.

* * * * *

The door was of solid-paneled imitation wood, a couple of inches thick and probably filled with a good sturdy sheet of beryllium steel. FitzMaugham liked protection.

Walton contemplated the door for a moment. Stepping into the screener field, he said, "Mr. FitzMaugham? Can you hear me?" In the ensuing silence he went on, "This is Walton. I'm outside with a blaster, and unless I get any orders to the contrary, I'm going to break into your office."

Silence. This was very extraordinary indeed. He wondered if it were part of some trap of FitzMaugham's. Well, he'd find out soon enough. He adjusted the blaster aperture to short-range wide-beam, and turned it on. A soft even flow of heat bathed the door.