“You will not. One mistake is too many.”
“But I thought he was one of us. I thought it was part of the set-up.”
“Hummph! Had it been, you would have been told.”
After Monroe-Alpha left to keep his date, Hamilton found himself at loose ends. The night life of the capital offered plenty of opportunity for a man to divest himself of surplus credit, but it was not new to him. He tried, in a desultory fashion, to find professional entertainment, then gave up and let the city itself amuse him. The corridors were thronged as always, the lifts packed; the Great Square under the port surged with people. Where were they all going? What was the hurry? What did they expect to find when they got there?
The presence of some types held obvious explanations. The occasional man with a brassard was almost certainly out at this hour because his business required him to be. The same rule applied without exception to the few armed men who also wore brassards-proclaiming thereby their unique status as police monitors, armed but immune to attack.
But the others, the armed and richly costumed men and their almost as gaudy women-why did they stir about so? Why not remain quietly at home with their wenches? He realized, consciously and sardonically, that he himself was part of the throng, present because it amused him. He knew he had no reason to feel that his own sense of detached amusement was unique. Perhaps they all came to keep from being bored with themselves, to observe their mutual folly and to laugh.
He found himself, later, the last customer in a small bar. The collection of empty cups at his elbow was impressive. “Herbert, ” he said at last, to the owner back of the bar, “why do you run this joint?”
Herbert paused in his tidying up. “To make money.”
“That’s a good answer, Herbert. Money and children — what other objectives are there? I’ve too much of one and none of the other. Set ’em up, Herbert. Let’s drink to your kids.”
Herbert set out two cups, but shook his head. “Make it something else. I’ve no kids.”
“Sorry-none of my business. We’ll drink to the kids I haven’t got instead.” Herbert poured the drinks, from separate bottles.
“What’s that private stock of yours, Herbert? Let me try it.”
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, to tell the truth, it’s flavored water.”
“You’d drink a toast in that? Why, Herbert!”
“You don’t understand. My kidneys…”
Hamilton looked at him in sharp surprise. His host looked pleased. “You wouldn’t guess, would you? Yes, I’m a natural. But it’s my own hair I’m wearing. And my own teeth…mostly. Keep myself fit. Good a man as the next.” He dumped the liquid from his own cup, and refilled it from the bottle he had used for Hamilton’s drink. “Shucks! One won’t hurt me.” He raised his drink. “Long life!”
“And children, ” Hamilton added mechanically.
They tossed them down. Herbert filled them up again. “Take children, ” he began. “Any man wants to see his kids do better than he did. Now I’ve been married for twenty-five years to the same woman. My wife and I are both First Truthers and we don’t hold with these modern arrangements. But children…we settled that a long time ago. ‘Martha, ‘ I said to her, ‘it don’t matter what the brethren think. What’s right is right. Our kids are going to have every advantage that other kids have. ‘ And after a while she came around to my way of thinking. So we went to the Eugenics Board — ”
Hamilton tried to think of a way to stop his confidences.
“I must say that they were very kind and polite. First they told us to think it over. ‘If you practice gene selection, ‘ they said, ‘your children won’t receive the control benefit. ‘ As if we didn’t know that: Money wasn’t the object. We wanted our kids to grow up fine and strong and smarter than we were. So we insisted and they made a chromosome chart on each of us.
“It was two, three weeks before they called us back. ‘Well, Doc, ‘ I said, soon as we were inside, “what’s the answer? What had we better select for?’ ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he says. ‘You’re both good sound types and the state needs controls like you. I’m willing to recommend an increase in benefit, if you’ll drop it. ‘ ‘No, ‘ I said, ‘I know my rights. Any citizen, even a control natural, can practice gene selection if he wants to. ‘ Then he let me have it, full charge.”