Chicago."
"Nothing would please me more," said the painter, "than to put you nextto him for all time. Sawing off a limb--that strikes you asappropriate?"
"That is kind of like what I do," she said. She was demure about whatshe did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.
* * * * *
And, while Leora Duncan was posing for her portrait, into thewaitingroom bounded Dr. Hitz himself. He was seven feet tall, and heboomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living.
"Well, Miss Duncan! Miss Duncan!" he said, and he made a joke. "Whatare you doing here?" he said. "This isn't where the people leave. Thisis where they come in!"
"We're going to be in the same picture together," she said shyly.
"Good!" said Dr. Hitz heartily. "And, say, isn't that some picture?"
"I sure am honored to be in it with you," she said.
"Let me tell you," he said, "I'm honored to be in it with you. Withoutwomen like you, this wonderful world we've got wouldn't be possible."
He saluted her and moved toward the door that led to the delivery rooms."Guess what was just born," he said.
"I can't," she said.
"Triplets!" he said.
"Triplets!" she said. She was exclaiming over the legal implications oftriplets.
The law said that no newborn child could survive unless the parents ofthe child could find someone who would volunteer to die. Triplets, ifthey were all to live, called for three volunteers.
"Do the parents have three volunteers?" said Leora Duncan.
"Last I heard," said Dr. Hitz, "they had one, and were trying to scrapeanother two up."
"I don't think they made it," she said. "Nobody made three appointmentswith us. Nothing but singles going through today, unless somebodycalled in after I left. What's the name?"
"Wehling," said the waiting father, sitting up, red-eyed and frowzy."Edward K. Wehling, Jr., is the name of the happy father-to-be."
He raised his right hand, looked at a spot on the wall, gave a hoarselywretched chuckle. "Present," he said.
"Oh, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. Hitz, "I didn't see you."
"The invisible man," said Wehling.
"They just phoned me that your triplets have been born," said Dr. Hitz."They're all fine, and so is the mother. I'm on my way in to see themnow."
"Hooray," said Wehling emptily.
"You don't sound very happy," said Dr. Hitz.
"What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy?" said Wehling. He gestured withhis hands to symbolize care-free simplicity. "All I have to do is pickout which one of the triplets is going to live, then deliver my maternalgrandfather to the Happy Hooligan, and come back here with a receipt."
* * * * *
Dr. Hitz became rather severe with Wehling, towered over him. "You don'tbelieve in population control, Mr. Wehling?" he said.
"I think it's perfectly keen," said Wehling tautly.
"Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population ofthe Earth was twenty billion--about to become forty billion, then eightybillion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupeletis, Mr. Wehling?" said Hitz.
"Nope," said Wehling sulkily.
"A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the littlepulpy grains of a blackberry," said Dr. Hitz. "Without populationcontrol, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this oldplanet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!"
Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall.
"In the year 2000," said Dr. Hitz, "before scientists stepped in andlaid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around,and nothing to eat but sea-weed--and still people insisted on theirright to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, tolive forever."
"I want those kids," said Wehling quietly. "I want all three of them."
"Of course you do," said Dr. Hitz. "That's only human."
"I don't want my grandfather to die, either," said Wehling.
"Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox,"said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically.
"I wish people wouldn't call it that," said Leora Duncan.
"What?" said Dr. Hitz.
"I wish people wouldn't call it 'the Catbox,' and things like that," shesaid. "It gives people the wrong impression."
"You're absolutely right," said Dr. Hitz. "Forgive me." He correctedhimself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a titleno one ever used in conversation. "I should have said, 'Ethical SuicideStudios,'" he said.
"That sounds so much better," said Leora Duncan.
"This child of yours--whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling,"said Dr. Hitz. "He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean,rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that muralthere." He shook his head. "Two centuries ago, when I was a young man,it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Nowcenturies of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as theimagination cares to travel."
He smiled luminously.
The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver.
Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. "There's room for one--a great big one," hesaid.
And then he shot Leora Duncan. "It's only death," he said to her as shefell. "There! Room for two."
And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children.
Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots.
The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectivelyon the sorry scene.
* * * * *
The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be bornand, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live aslong as possible--to do all that on a very small planet that would haveto last forever.
All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer,surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war.He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.
He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall tothe dropcloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough oflife in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from theladder.
He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself.
But he didn't have the nerve.
And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He wentto it, dialed the well-remembered number: "2 B R 0 2 B."
"Federal Bureau of Termination," said the very warm voice of a hostess.
"How soon could I get an appointment?" he asked, speaking verycarefully.
"We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir," she said. "Itmight even be earlier, if we get a cancellation."
"All right," said the painter, "fit me in, if you please." And he gaveher his name, spelling it out.
"Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your countrythanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all isfrom future generations."
END
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