World Without Children

IV

THERE was an underworld, of course; no society, however perfect, had completely rehabilitated or absorbed the maladjusted who had either too much power drive or not enough, the bitter rebels and the passively defeated, those who wouldn’t conform and those who couldn’t. In ethical societies, the underworld had consisted of criminal and political malcontents, while harsh tyrannies had suppressed the honest.

George had been vaguely aware of the underworld, but he had never, as far as he knew, encountered any of its denizens. Now, guided by Morey and Levinson, who had maintained cautious contact with it, he found that he had unsuspectingly been quite friendly with a number of people on the Security Police’s gray list.

The strange thing was that he had always previously considered these daring semi-criminals the worst bores he knew.

There was the Thanatopsis Club, for instance. Levinson had arranged to have George address them in secret session, and George switched cabs, doubled back several times, skittered through alleys while looking fearfully over his shoulder—and ended in a dismal suburban house belonging to Elbert Maxwell, the ornithologist.

It was a very tense gathering in the living room. Carlotta Speranza was there, a small unattractive bibliographer with a sharp and peering face, who could talk your ear off about ancient literature; Kurt Lustgarten, the philosopher, whose flabbily intense features had backed George into more corners at parties than he liked to remember; Paavo Atterberg, the musicologist, whom George had been more successful at evading, generally because Atterberg could be easily, maneuvered to a piano; and other similarly intense people, with eager, hungry eyes and nervous hands, who were unfamiliar to George.

Elbert Maxwell saw him look puzzledly at the TV screen, which was writhing with some frantic dance in full color, and the pair of drinks each person was holding grimly, and the flimsy costumes they wore.

“Camouflage,” Maxwell explained, giving a shrill, anxious laugh. “If the police raid us — which has happened a couple of times; we’re all suspected of dangerous cultural activities, you know—why, we’re simply having an innocent vice party.”

“I see,” said George, confused! “When do I speak? I have several more addresses to make tonight.”

Maxwell glanced at a card he was holding. “Well, we’ll try to ; move you up on the agenda, but I’m afraid you picked a bad night — there’s a great deal of business to be done at this meeting.”

George took the two antagonistic drinks that were handed him and sat down to listen patiently until his turn came. He was aware of his own tension. He was pretty sure he’d thrown off any possible shadows, but he couldn’t know whether the others present had been as clever. They certainly didn’t look it. At any moment, the house might be stormed and this pathetic attempt to make a criminal underground meeting seem like a mere orgy wouldn’t fool the police.

Maxwell, pretending to watch the TV screen, told the gathering r that two more species of bird had become extinct in the last decade, s and at least six others were in danger, with the government, as usual, threatening any attempt to save them. The listeners showed every emotion from horror to rage. George tried to feel upset about the situation, but couldn’t. It wasn’t that he disliked birds; he just thought it was their problem, not his. Maxwell’s motion to set up secret bird sanctuaries was carried, and George felt an emotional response for the first time — at the amount of money they agreed to raise for the project.

Carlotta Speranza, talking passionately about the decline of literature, didn’t bother pretending to watch the TV show. She wanted an ambitious program begun immediately — undercover writing classes, printing plants and distribution channels. Lustgarten objected that the population had been educated away from reading. She added a hit-and-run public campaign to her program. Maxwell, clearly feeling that all this might cut down the funds for his secret aviaries, shrewdly tabled the resolution.

“You can’t do this to me!” Carlotta shrieked. “Are your birds more important to civilization than literature?”

“Of course not,” Maxwell said hurriedly. “Everything is important. But we can’t do everything at the same time.”

“Then put your program aside temporarily.”

Maxwell was shocked. “And let these species vanish forever?”

“I think both should be considered by all our colleagues in the underworld,” said Atterberg, “but the main thing is raising money to save music.” And he tried to go into an excited explanation of the musical crisis, but Maxwell made him wait until his speech was scheduled.

Lustgarten spoke next. George tried manfully to listen to his statement on problems of philosophy in an indifferent world, but developed a headache that had to be massaged by a drink. One proved insufficient; he took the other and opposite drink, which acted like an explosive charge to the primer of the first one. He was silently rooting for one team of jet-skaters on TV by the time Lustgarten and Atterberg finished and it was his turn to talk.

George managed somehow to explain the problem. The others listened attentively until it was time to take a vote. Then a split developed. Lustgarten and Atterberg declared that they were personally not involved; they didn’t care much if humanity survived unless, as Atterberg put it, there was music in its soul, or philosophy and not brainless frivolity, in Lustgarten’s words. A very tall woman with almost no hair on her head, quite a bit on her face and military shoulders stated that she would rather die than submit to breeding.

Maxwell was in favor, as long as the project did not interfere with saving birdlife. When Carlotta Speranza unexpectedly dropped her own program to support George’s, and said, “Birds don’t create literature, Elbert; people do, and we must keep the race going to that end,” Maxwell suddenly changed his mind.

“If I have to choose between birds and humanity,” he said bitterly, “I’ll take birds every time. They never exterminated another race of animals! Whereas, what has been humanity’s record? One species after another wiped off the planet! Because of viciousness? Greed? At one time, yes the bison and the egret are two examples. But the motive today is pure lack of interest. We encroached on the habitats of our furred and feathered friends until they could no longer maintain existence, and so went into the limbo of extinct species.”

“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?”