Beastly little horrors!
He had viewed, through one-way glass, “human” children whose embryonic gills had been retained and stimulated. They were at home in air or water, but required a humid atmosphere at all times. “Useful on Venus, don’t you think?” McFee had commented.
“We assumed too readily,” he continued, “that the other planets in this system were not useful. Naturally the leaders will live here, most of the time, but with special adaptation, quite useful supporting types could remain permanently on any of the planets. Remind me to show you the anti-radiation and low-gravity types.”
“I’d be interested,” Hamilton stated truthfully but incompletely. “By the way, where do we get our breeding stock?”
“That’s an impertinent and irrelevant question, Hamilton, but I’ll answer you. You are a leader type-you’ll need to know eventually. The male plasm we supply ourselves. The females were captured among the barbarians-usually.”
“Doesn’t that mean rather inferior stock?”
“Yes, surely. These are simple experiments. None of them will be retained. After the Change, it will be another story. We’ll have superior stock to start with-you, for example.”
“Yes, of course.” He did not care to pursue that line. “No one has ever told me just what our plans are for the barbarians.”
“No need for juniors to discuss it. We’ll save some of them for experimentation. In time, the rest will be liquidated.”
A neat but sweeping plan, Hamilton had thought. The scattered tribes of Eurasia and Africa, fighting their way back up to civilization after the disasters of the Second War, consigned without their consent or knowledge to the oblivion of the laboratory or death. He decided to cut off McFee’s ears a bit at a time.
“This is possibly the most stimulating exhibit,” McFee had continued, moving on. Hamilton had looked where he was directed. The exhibit appeared to be a hydrocephalic idiot, but Hamilton had never seen one. His eyes saw an obviously sick child with a head much too big for it. “A tetroid type,” McFee stated. “Ninety-six chromosomes. We once thought that was the secret of the hyperbrain, but we were mistaken. The staff geneticists are now on the right track.”
“Why don’t you kill it?”
“We will, presently. There is still something to be learned from it.”
There were other things-things that Hamilton preferred not to think about. He felt now that, if he managed to get through that test without displaying his true feelings, he had been damned lucky!
The proposed extermination of the barbarians reminded him of another matter. Most curiously, the strange advent of John Darlington Smith had had an indirect effect on the plans of the Survivors Club. The compelling logic of the plans for the New Order called automatically for the deaths of the inefficient and sickly control naturals, as well as the deaths of synthesists, recalcitrant geneticists, counterrevolutionaries in general.
The plans for the latter aroused no opposition to speak of, but many of the club members had a sentimental fondness for control naturals. They regarded them with the kindly paternal contempt that members of a ruling class frequently feel for subject “inferior” races. Just what to do about this psychological problem had delayed the zero hour of the Change.
The Adirondack stasis gave a means. McFee had announced the tactical change the evening of the very day that Smith had called on Hamilton. Control naturals were to be placed in stasis for an indefinite period. It was an entirely humane procedure; the prisoners would be unhurt by their stay and would emerge in the distant future. McFee had asked Hamilton what he thought of the scheme, after the meeting.
“It should be popular,” Hamilton had admitted. “But what happens after they are let out?”
McFee had looked surprised, then laughed. “We are practical men, you and I,” he had said in a low voice.
“You mean…”
“Surely. But keep your mouth shut.” Phyllis decided that it was time to interrupt his morose preoccupation. “What’s eating you, Filthy?” she inquired. “You haven’t said two words since we sat down.”
He returned to his surroundings with a start. “Nothing important,” he lied-wishing that he could unburden himself to her. “You haven’t been chatty yourself. Anything on your mind?”