George kept his mouth shut, even when the guards came back, unstrapped and returned him to his cell.
Probably the man had been bluffing; they were hoping that he could be tricked into talking by making him believe that he already had.
But early the next morning, he was transferred to another, a larger cell. In it were Luther, Art and Morey.
Art said, “You knew where we were all going to be yesterday. If the truth drug didn’t get it out of you, all they had to do was put a lie detector on you and show you a map—point out one area after another until you responded. It wasn’t your fault, George.”
That was the way it had been done, all right, but the knowledge didn’t make him feel any better. He sat down on the empty cot, elbows on his knees.
“I shouldn’t have got caught, he said.
“Could’ve happened to any of us,” Morey assured him.
They were silent a while, and then George said, “Where are we, by the way?” “S. P. headquarters on the Place de Concorde. They’ll move us to Berne for the trials, I suppose.” Art shrugged. “If they decide to have any trials.”
The day dragged by, then another and another. On the fourth day, they were told they were going to be moved in the afternoon, but nothing happened. They had no news of the outside world; they could only speculate how the movement was going without them. All four of them had been up for interrogation several times, and they were afraid that at least one of them had given up names and addresses under the truth serum. There was no way of knowing. If the network they had carefully built up had been uncovered, there was no hope left. The conspiracy was too young to recover from such a blow.
By tacit consent, they did not talk about anything they had done before their arrest. But Art, one afternoon, began speculating about the future. He spoke of it as if it were a foregone conclusion, as if they were as good as dead.
He said, “It would be interesting to see it. After a few more centuries, I expect things will begin to go to pot in a small way. Things like new construction. The population’s steadily declining, and you know there won’t be any new generations, so why build? And after that, why repair? A little later on, I’d guess that suicide would begin to be a factor again. When they begin to realize that if there is any point to the whole bloody business, the human race will never have a chance to find it out… Not much room for altruism any more.
“We’re here, and we’re the last, and that’s all. After that, nothing but the big dark and the big cold. Besides, it isn’t going to be very pleasant later on, and people will begin to see that, too. There’s a bottom limit to the size of population that can support an industrial economy. They’ll pass it; going down. Then what? Back to the land? A mocked-up feudal system?
“But then the process will start to accelerate, I should think. Wars. Plagues. Natural catastrophes. Crop failures. Looters and bandits. Every man for himself. And at the end—”
He smiled bitterly. “None ‘of us would be alive to see that, anyhow. Women’s life-span is still longer than ours. It’ll end up as a world of women — women without men. Lord!” He shook his head. “That goes beyond my imagination. I can’t visualize it, and I don’t want to. The little that I can see scares me silly.”
He looked at them as if he had forgotten they were there. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to turn this into a wake.”
George thought a good deal about Golightly, and the rest of that stubborn, irrational, power-hungry crew. He found that he didn’t hate them, but it made him feel somehow betrayed to realize that these were the best rulers Earth had been able to produce. Good administrators, good practical politicians, as Art had said —but little men, jealous of their position, fearful of new ideas. If that was the best the human race could do, perhaps it deserved what it was getting.
He voiced something of this, and got the disagreement from Luther that he had hoped for.
“We can do better, George. We have done better. In a normal world, no matter how bad things get, at least they change. If we were bringing up a flock of children now, one of them would be a better candidate for World President than Golightly. But as it is, we’re stuck with just about three generations all told, and we have to make the best of it…” His voice trailed off; none of them wanted to pursue that thought.
On the morning of the eighth day, guards came to take them away.
George turned to Luther. “In case they separate us, and we don’t see each other again—”
Luther took his hand warmly. They gripped hands all around. There were tears in Art’s owlish eyes, and in Luther’s, and even a suspicious brightness in Morey’s. George found that his own vision was blurring a trifle.
The guards led them down the corridor to an outer office with a long desk and a bench. They were told to sit down, and then a printed document and a pen was placed in front of each of them.
George stared bewilderedly at his. It seemed to say:
In return for due consideration, I hereby waive all claim for damages resulting from my mistaken arrest and detention by the Security Police, and further agree to waive my right of suit for false arrest against the Security Police and the United Nations of the World. In witness whereof I set my seal.
He looked at the others, then at the guard who was standing on the other side of the table.
“Sign,” said the guard, “and you’ll be released.”
Art bent suddenly and began to scribble on his sheet. The others followed suit. Not daring to speak, they looked at each other as the signed papers were taken away. Then a guard led them off, each to a separate cubicle. In his, George found the clothes he had been wearing when he was arrested, and all the contents of his pockets neatly stacked. He put on the clothing, still dazed. The guard, not touching him now, led him out through another outer office, through a lobby, where the other three joined him, and then to the sunlight of the portico.
The sounds of traffic came up to them; ’copters droned past in the sky over their heads; they heard a strain of music from somewhere down the great ave—
The guard reappeared and touched George’s elbow. “I was asked to give you this, monsieur,” he said, and put a slip of paper into George’s hand. Then he bowed and went back inside.
George unfolded it slowly, read it twice.
It said:
Come and see me as soon as you can.
Hilda
There was an address below the signature.
George passed the note to Morey, and the other two looked ever his shoulders.
“I don’t get it,” said George inadequately.
“No more do I,” said Luther. “But—let’s go!”
They found her on a terrace Overlooking the Champs Elysees. Joe Krueger, grinning like a youngster, got up from the table and stood aside as they converged on Hilda.
She smiled up at them. “I’m so glad,” she said. “Now kiss me nicely, each of you, and then sit down … You there, Luther, in the easy chair, then Morey, Art and George.”
They said hello to Joe. They took the coffee Cups Hilda passed around. And they stared at her.
“Hilda,” said Luther finally, “you consummate witch, what in the world did you do?”
She smiled at them happily. “Well,” she said, “I managed to get to see Golightly. It wasn’t easy to do, even though I know his granddaughter quite well. I had to convince her first, you see … No, you don’t see. You will, in a minute, though. I told him that he couldn’t stop people from having children by throwing you in jail. I told him that women had been breaking the birth prohibition for the last seventy years, to my own knowledge, and probably longer. And I proved it to him—I showed him a doctor’s report that stated I had been a mother myself.”