“Wouldn’t happen again,” George argued fuzzily, realizing that he was neither articulate nor sober enough to overcome Maxwell’s notorious literary style. “Everybody dies. New generation takes place. Not enough people to cover Earth. Birds multiply. Animals multiply. Educate new generation to take care of ’em. Teach ’em music and philosophy and literature—everything. Solves all problems same time.”
“In how many centuries will the present population die off?” Maxwell demanded. “What happens to animal life in that time? Wiped out, sir—wiped out completely! No, I’ll let humanity die out before I’ll allow another species ever to become extinct!”
“But voting against the birth program won’t hasten the end of mankind,” Carlotta Speranza pointed out heatedly. “It will still take the same number of centuries before we all die.”
“Abs’lutely right,” George agreed.
It didn’t change the vote, however. George acquired Carlotta and two other women and one man who looked singularly unfertile as members of the conspiracy.
He was told how to get to his next appointment, given a few more drinks for the road, and, though he remembered only a blurrily earnest face or two in indistinctly different living rooms, he had nearly two dozen signed applications to turn over to Levinson in the morning.
“You’ve done fine, George,” Levinson said enthusiastically, while George shakily placed a hangover capsule on his fuzz-covered tongue. “The organization is under way!”
“It’s awfully hard on the eardrums and the bladder,” George complained. “Right now, I don’t feel that saving humanity is worth the trouble.”
“You’ll learn not to listen,” said Morey encouragingly. “Even to yourself, as a matter of fact. I know—I can make any number of union speeches without even hearing myself. Habit.”
“And all the drinking I have to do?” George asked, pulling down his lower eyelids to see the engorged veins more clearly.
“It’s free, isn’t it? And you can carry alcohol-neutralizing tablets with you.”
George turned around in horror. “Then where’s the fun?”
V
GEORGE’S beard itched. He had had it for almost a month now, but it didn’t appear that he was ever going to get used to it. Or to the wax Art Levinson had injected under the skin at the bridge of his nose, to give him a new profile. He kept compulsively scratching the area and it seemed to have set up some kind of local irritation. He had a plastiskin bandage over it now, which increased the hump and made the disguise better, though still more annoying, but at least it kept his fingernails away. After this weekend, when he’d meet the other three in Seville to compare notes, he’d have it attended to; meanwhile, there was nothing to do but bear it. There were doctors in Paris to whom it would be safe to go, but George didn’t know them; that was Levinson’s department. They had decided to work apart as much as possible, so that the capture of one might hinder their activities, but wouldn’t stop them altogether.
At the moment, ironically enough, both the itches, as well as the skin dye and new hairline, were entirely unnecessary. George, mingling as usual with the largest crowd he could find anywhere, was attending the annual Beaux Arts Ball as one of approximately three hundred robed, tinted and masked pseudo-African witch doctors—this costume being, for no discoverable reason, the season’s favorite.
Aside from the itches, he was enjoying himself thoroughly. He danced with all the prettiest women, who, according to immemorial custom, concealed about as much of themselves as the male guests left uncovered. He flirted with them, kissed them if they seemed amenable, and, whenever a fold of bustle or headdress gave him the opportunity, concealed leaflets on their persons.
It was a safe method: most of the pamphlets probably would not be found until the costumes were removed. And although he observed that more of the ladies than he had counted on were dispensing with concealment at the ball itself, he was further protected by his costume and his excellent French. In case of extreme emergency, he had thoughtfully provided himself with a skin-tight Lucifer suit under the witch-doctor’s robes.
Temporarily without a partner, George made his way through the press of bodies to a pillar, where he steadied himself long enough to look at his watch. It was getting on toward the unmasking hour. He looked around, over the heads of the crowd, to make sure he knew where the nearest side exit was. He was expecting something of a rumpus when it came time to unmask; there might be arrests.
A masked man in S. P. uniform went by, closely clasped by a sumptuous dark girl at least a foot taller than himself. There were a good many S. P. costumes in the hall, and George suspected that the greater part of them were genuine.
He turned, and his elbow sank into something soft and warm. He heard a stifled “Ah!” and saw that he had knocked the wind out of a young woman with astonishingly large eyes and an even more surprising bosom. He apologized, profusely.
“Large pig,” she shouted in his ear. “I forgive you. Embrace me.”
He did so, and felt her hands passing inquisitively over his flanks and chest, under the robe. She murmured, “Mmm,” and kissed him a little harder.
He broke away gently, feeling that reconciliation had gone as far as it respectably could. She gave him an impish smile and disappeared into the crowd.
George put two fingers cautiously under his robe and discovered a tiny oblong of folded paper. He opened it and saw the familiar headline: naissance ou MORT! It was a copy of his own leaflet, printed on the same sort of home copier he used himself.
He put it away with the rest of his supply. The movement he had started was growing wonderfully well.
He went around the periphery of the crowd in the opposite direction to the one the girl had taken. Just ahead of him, near the bar, he saw a slender woman jostled by a passing man in a frog suit. Her glass slipped out of her fingers, and the liquor spread a dark stain over her flowing taffeta skirt.
George whipped out his handkerchief and moved forward to help. Then he paused. The woman’s hair was coppery and abundant, and the mouth below her half-mask was of a particular perfection he had seen only once in his life. Hilda.
Caution told him to avoid her, but he had to be sure. He moved forward again, knelt beside her and dabbed at the stained skirt.
“Thank you so much,” she said In French, “but I’m afraid it’s a hopeless mess now.”
It was her voice: George felt the customary tingling down his backbone. He had not seen Hilda since the night Art arrived in Venice, and had not hoped to see her for a long time to come. But it wasn’t safe to let her recognize him. He stood up, bowed, and turned away without speaking.
She caught suddenly at his arm, turned him around again. “George!” she said. “It is you. Where have you been hiding? I’ve looked everywhere. And Luther and Morey … What is all this nonsense?”
George felt a little relieved, in spite of himself. Of course, she would know him from his youth alone, just as he knew her by her mouth. He said, “Hello, Hilda. I’ve missed you.”
“George.” She put her lips close to his ear. “You won’t hide from me any more, will you? We’ve got such a lot to tell each other—”
A shattering blare of trumpets from the center of the room interrupted her. A much-amplified voice cried, “Mesdames et messieurs, the hour of unmasking is at hand. Choose your partners!”
The babel of voices, which had subsided for a moment, rose, again. George glanced at his. watch, then at the rafters high above. He could just make out a tiny gray-blue dot there, hanging among the clustered lanterns. It was time, this minute, this second—