Yvonne did the packing while Geller got Geoffrey up and dressed him. “All ready?” said the spokesman. “Are those all your bags?”
“We had to leave some stuff behind.”
“It will be packed and sent after you. Come on now, and please be very quiet.”
“Can you explain why we’re being hustled out in the middle of the night?”
“Orders.”
“Oh. Why didn’t I think of that?”
They passed through the perm checkpoint and walked all the way up G corridor to the forward lobby. The security people did not offer to help them with the luggage. Another security person checked them out. At the bottom of the gangway a limousine with closed curtains was waiting. “The driver will take you to the airport,” said the spokesman. “Tickets to San Francisco will be waiting at the Pan Am desk.” Then two security people held them while a third took Geoffrey out of Yvonne’s arms. Both parents struggled, and Barlow got in One good kick, but the Wacks wrestled them both to the ground and sprayed them with something. Then the Wacks loaded them into the limousine. They were already feeling drowsy when it pulled away toward the darkness.
“And now—the President of the United States!”
The jowly face of President Draffy appeared in the holos. “My fellow citizens,” he said, “as you know, for the past eighteen months we have been implementing a program for the monitoring of career criminals, utilizing a transponder device enclosed in an unbreakable bracelet or anklet, such that the location of each monitoree can be determined at all times. This procedure has resulted in a dramatic drop in crime rates on the streets of our cities, and there has been a corresponding decline in our prison populations.
“If a burglar enters your home, for instance, we know where he is and we know he has no right to be there. If somebody snatches your purse and runs, we know who he is and we can follow him wherever he goes.
“This system has been so successful that we have been urged to extend it to all citizens. I am glad to be able to tell you tonight that with bipartisan support, the joint Congressional committee has worked out a compromise version of the Citizen Monitoring and Identification Act, and it is likely to become law during this session.
“This will mean enormous benefits in security and safety for all of us! If you are lost in the wilderness during a camping trip, or if you have an accident, you can be located swiftly and surely. If your child wanders away and is lost, or if she is lured into a vehicle by a sex offender, or into his house, we can find her.
“It has been charged by a few dissidents that this system will be used for excessive governmental control, but I point out tonight to those so-called dissidents that the law protects everyone equally, and that a person who doesn’t break the law has nothing to fear. Law-abiding citizens will be safer than they ever have been; criminals will be swiftly apprehended and punished. When this law is implemented, we will all sleep sounder in our beds. Thank you and good night.”
“Well, you’re definitely pregnant,” the doctor said. How do you feel about that?”
The patient blushed. “I think it’s wonderful.”
“Okay, then there’s one more procedure we need to do.” He tapped a key, handed her the pink sheet that came out. “Take this down to Radiology Labs on the first floor.”
“What is it?”
“Just a routine procedure.”
She found Radiology and handed the slip to the receptionist, who gave her a form to fill out. After a long wait, a nurse led her into a room with some kind of machine in it: two wooden uprights with a black metal disk that moved on tracks between them. The nurse said, “Stand up on the platform.” She pressed a control; the disk moved down an inch or two. “Put your tummy right up against it.”
The disk was cold through her summer dress. The nurse pressed another button; a red light blinked. “Okay, that’s all.” She waited until the patient stepped off the platform, then pressed the controls again. The disk whined up its tracks and disappeared behind the shield at the top. Then there was a crackling sound and a funny smell. “What was that for?” the patient asked.
“Just to make sure your baby wasn’t carrying a McNulty’s parasite. If there was one in there, it’s gone now.”
10
For the love of money is the root of all eviclass="underline" which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
I Timothy, 6:10
On days when it was possible to breathe without a mask, Stevens walked the streets Of Rome, looking at people with a new curiosity. Here among the crowds of African and Asian mendicants were petty shopkeepers, a few artisans plying their trades, office workers going to their anonymous jobs: all of them, presumably, making some contribution in return for which they were fed and housed. But there were others who contributed nothing, and Stevens himself was one of these. What if he had grown up in a world where the use of violence had become impossible—the world which he saw taking shape around him at this moment? It could have happened, if he had been born only thirty years later. What would that man have been like? He could not answer the question, and he could not leave it alone. He had done what he had to do, yes, he still believed that, but if he had not had to do it, what would he have done instead? Suppose someone had said to him, you will be fed and housed in comfort, you don’t need to worry about that; now what will you do with your life?
What if Palladino’s insane dream came true? The farmers would give away their crops, the manufacturers their machines, the workers their labor. And he himself, would he be merely a social parasite, taking everything and giving nothing? Impossible.
He remembered his infatuation with poetry at seventeen. Years ago he had tried to translate Villon into English, God knows why. The lines came back to him now:
He had been attracted to Villon, no doubt, because of that settled resentment, the feeling of being an outcast, his hand against every man: but Villon had been nothing if not an unsuccessful thief.
This Thibault d’Aussigny of whom Villon complained was the Bishop of Orleans who had put him in prison, perhaps for stealing a votive lamp from a church, a crime of small account except that it might have been treated as sacrilege.
Say, then, was Villon’s misery his own fault or that of the world around him? In a better world, would he have had enough to eat without stealing—and would he then have written better or worse poetry?