Master of Life and Death. Robert Silverberg

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      CHAPTER 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 СКАЧАТЬ