“Yes, I certainly can,” Chip said. He tipped ashes from his cigarette into the clean white tray.
“I’d just as soon you didn’t say anything to Wei about it,” Dover said. “You’re having lunch with him at one o’clock.”
“Karl too?”
“No, just you. I think he’s got you pegged as High Council material. I’ll come by at ten-of and take you to him. You’ll find a razor inside there—a thing that looks like a flashlight. This afternoon we’ll go to the medicenter and start de-whiskerizing.”
“There’s a medicenter?”
“There’s everything,” Dover said. “A medicenter, a library, a gym, a pool, a theater—there’s even a garden that you’d swear was up on top. I’ll show you around later.”
Chip said, “And this is where we—stay?”
“All except us poor shepherds,” Dover said. “I’ll be going out to another island, but not for at least six months, thank Uni.”
Chip put his cigarette out. He pressed it out thoroughly. “What if I don’t want to stay?” he said.
“Don’t want to?” Dover said.
“I’ve got a wife and a baby, remember?”
“Well so do lots of the others,” Dover said. “You’ve got a bigger obligation here, Chip; an obligation to the whole Family, including the members on the islands.”
“Nice obligation,” Chip said. “Silk coveralls and two girls at once.”
“That was for last night only,” Dover said. “Tonight you’ll be lucky to get one.” He sat up straight. “Look,” he said, “I know there are—surface attractions here that make it all look—questionable. But the Family needs Uni. Think of the way things were on Liberty! And it needs untreated programmers to run Uni and—well, Wei’ll explain things better than I can. And one day a week we wear paplon anyway. And eat cakes.”
“A whole day?” Chip said. “Really?”
“All right, all right,” Dover said, getting up. He went to a chair where Chip’s green coveralls lay and picked them up and felt their pockets. “Is everything here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Chip said. “Including some snapshots I’d like to have.”
“Sorry, nothing you came in with,” Dover said. “More rules.” He took Chip’s shoes from the floor and stood and looked at him. “Everyone’s a little unsure at first,” he said. “You’ll be proud to stay once you’ve got the right slant on things. It’s an obligation.”
“I’ll remember that,” Chip said.
There was a knock at the door, and the girl who had taken the tray came in with blue silk coveralls and white sandals. She put them on the foot of the bed.
Dover, smiling, said, “If you want paplon it can be arranged.”
The girl looked at him.
“Hate, no,” Chip said. “I guess I’m as worthy of silk as anyone else around here.”
“You are,” Dover said. “You are, Chip. I’ll see you at ten of one, right?” He started to the door with the green coveralls over his arm and the shoes in his hand. The girl hurried ahead to open the door for him.
Chip said, “What happened to Buzz?”
Dover stopped and turned, regretful-looking. “He was caught in ’015,” he said.
“And treated?”
Dover nodded.
“More rules,” Chip said.
Dover nodded again and turned and went out.
There were thin steaks cooked in a lightly spiced brown sauce, small browned onions, a sliced yellow vegetable that Chip hadn’t seen on Liberty—“Squash,” Wei said—and a clear red wine that was less enjoyable than the yellow of the night before. They ate with gold knives and forks, from plates with wide gold borders.
Wei, in gray silk, ate quickly, cutting his steak, forking it into his wrinkle-lipped mouth, and chewing only briefly before swallowing and raising his fork again. Now and then he paused, sipped wine, and pressed his yellow napkin to his lips.
“These things existed,” he said. “Would there have been any point in destroying them?”
The room was large and handsomely furnished in pre-U style: white, gold, orange, yellow. At a corner of it, two white-coveralled members waited by a wheeled serving table.
“Of course it seems wrong at first,” Wei said, “but the ultimate decisions have to be made by untreated members, and untreated members can’t and shouldn’t live their lives on cakes and TV and Marx Writing.” He smiled. “Not even on Wei Addressing the Chemotherapists,” he said, and put steak into his mouth.
“Why can’t the Family make its decisions itself?” Chip asked.
Wei chewed and swallowed. “Because it’s incapable of doing so,” he said. “That is, of doing so reasonably. Untreated it’s—well, you had a sample on your island; it’s mean and foolish and aggressive, motivated more often by selfishness than by anything else. Selfishness and fear.” He put onions into his mouth.
“It achieved the Unification,” Chip said.
“Mmm, yes,” Wei said, “but after what a struggle! And what a fragile structure the Unification was until we buttressed it with treatments! No, the Family has to be helped to full humanity—by treatments today, by genetic engineering tomorrow—and decisions have to be made for it. Those who have the means and the intelligence have the duty as well. To shirk it would be treason against the species.” He put steak into his mouth and raised his other hand and beckoned.
“And part of the duty,” Chip said, “is to kill members at sixty-two?”
“Ah, that,” Wei said, and smiled. “Always a principal question, sternly asked.”
The two members came to them, one with a decanter of wine and the other with a gold tray that he held at Wei’s side. “You’re looking at only part of the picture,” Wei said, taking a large fork and spoon and lifting a steak from the tray. He held it with sauce dripping from it. “What you’re neglecting to look at,” he said, “is the immeasurable number of members who would die far earlier than sixty-two if not for the peace and stability and well-being we give them. Think of the mass for a moment, not of individuals within the mass.” He put the steak on his plate. “We add many more years to the Family’s total life than we take away from it,” he said. “Many, many more years.” He spooned sauce onto the steak and took onions and squash. “Chip?” he said.
“No, thanks,” Chip said. He cut a piece from the half steak before him. The member with the decanter refilled his glass.
“Incidentally,” Wei said, cutting steak, “the actual time of dying is closer now to sixty-three than sixty-two. It will grow still higher as the population on Earth is gradually reduced.” He put steak into his mouth.
The members withdrew.
Chip said, “Do you include the members who don’t get born in your balance of years added and taken away?”
“No,” Wei said, smiling. “We’re not that unrealistic. If those members were born, there would be no stability, no well-being, and eventually no Family.” He put squash into his mouth and chewed and swallowed. “I don’t expect your feelings to change in one lunch,” he said. “Look around, talk with everyone, browse in the library—particularly in the history and sociology banks. I hold informal discussions a few evenings a week—once a teacher, always a teacher—sit in on some of them, argue, discuss.”
“I left a wife and a baby on Liberty,” Chip said.
“From which I deduce,” Wei said, smiling, “that they weren’t of overriding importance to you.”
Chip said, “I expected to be coming back.”