“Virtually all the full-scale genetic studies of negroid stock have been done either in the New World, or in the most advanced countries of this continent, like South Africa. This country is too sheeting poor to enjoy the benefits, such as they are, of eugenic legislation. Nobody before now has mapped the genotype of any substantial number of Shinka, and certainly no one else but our group has been looking for what we were looking for.”
There was a pause. Half-inaudibly, Norman broke it, staring at the floor. He said, “That’s a shame. I’d begun to hope my ancestors might have come from here. I like this place.”
“Why shouldn’t you? Is there anywhere else on Earth where you escape the feeling that the human components of your environment are rivals, out to do you down? There used to be, but as far as I can tell this is the last to survive.” Chad upended his glass over his mouth. “Another, if I may!”
“I feel a bit stunned,” Gideon said. “You seem to be claiming that war could be cured, like a disease, with a dose of the proper medicine.”
“It’s early days yet, but that certainly doesn’t appear impossible,” Chad agreed. “Beyond that, though—there’s a target for a genetic optimisation programme! Building into every child born on the planet the in-stink-you-all attitudes of a Shinka. Sorry. Hey! Come to think of it, whatever happened to that project they had in Yatakang? I haven’t seen Sugaiguntung’s name in the news for—for ages.”
The others exchanged glances. Out of the corner of his eye Norman saw Donald tense and make as though to speak, but he didn’t.
Elihu said eventually, “Sugaiguntung’s dead, Chad. Did you not hear about it?”
“Christ, no!” Chad jolted forward on his chair. “Since I got here, I literally haven’t paid attention to anything except my work. You know how it is up-country where there’s one TV set for a village and you can’t get to see the screen because there are five hundred other people in the way.”
“The whole Yatakangi optimisation programme turned out to be a propaganda stunt,” Gideon said. “Sugaiguntung admitted he couldn’t do what the government had claimed and—”
“Yes, he could,” Donald said.
“What?”
“He could. He told me so just before I killed him.”
Norman tried to make his voice soothing; this, by the sound of it, was the renewed fit of irrationality he’d been afraid of. He said, “Come now, Donald! They killed Sugaiguntung themselves while he was trying to get away. He decided to defect because of the lies that had been put about.”
“Don’t you know you’re talking to the man who was there when he died?” Donald said.
After an incredulous pause, Norman gave a dumb head-shake.
“Oh, I heard the official version,” Donald said sourly. “What they said was like all good lies half-true. He did want to get away because he didn’t believe he could optimise human beings. But he realised that he could, after all. And far from the Yatakangi patrols homing on the beacon in his suit and shooting him out of the water while I escaped—that’s what they said, that’s the lie—I killed him. With a knife. While he was telling me all the ways he couldn’t do what he had promised.
“They’d trained me to kill people, you see. They took me away to a place on the water and there they showed me every way they’d ever thought of for one man to kill another. Do you want me to show you some of them?” He rose unsteadily to his feet. “I don’t want to kill any of you, but there’ll have to be a volunteer because otherwise I haven’t anything to work with, you see. You do see? It’s the highest expression of human ability to improve other humans, and it’s called eptification, and because it’s one of our finest and most monumental achievements—”
From behind, Tony, who had approached without a sound on soft-soled shoes, raised and fired a diadermic syringe at the nape of Donald’s neck. As though he had often practised the movement, he dropped it into one of his side-pockets and had his hands back in position to catch Donald as he slumped towards the floor.
“I’m sorry about that, sir,” he said to no one in particular. “It does happen with eptification for military purposes occasionally, that you get this exaggerated reaction. Of course you shouldn’t take any notice of what he said about wanting to demonstrate his skill on people—it’s part of the mental disorder he’s suffering as a result of his very difficult time over there in Yatakang. Perhaps you’ll excuse me; I’d better call an ambulance and get him back to the hotel before he wakes up. I only gave him a very light shot, just enough to relax him and…”
While he was speaking, the others remaining transfixed, he was carrying Donald towards the door. The sound of it closing behind him seemed to awaken the rest of the company from trance.
But none of them seemed anxious to say anything until Chad jumped up and began to pace the floor, occasionally shooting a venomous glance after Tony and his limp burden.
“Highest achievement! Faugh! I’ve heard about this dirty business of military eptification and it strikes me as the foulest thing one man can do to another, worse by far than killing him clean!”
“He talked about ‘the other’ Donald, and about having the right to use his name because he was dead,” Norman said. He tried to repress a shudder, and failed. “Allah be merciful! I wouldn’t have thought it possible … And I was saying I’d offer him a job with the project if he wanted one.”
He glanced at Elihu, and was shocked to see the ambassador’s face suddenly as old as Obomi’s.
“So Sugaiguntung is dead,” Chad said. “And Donald killed him. Well, it’s only to be expected, isn’t it? And according to Donald he did know, after all, how to carry out the improvements he’d promised.” He hesitated. “I’m inclined to think that was probably true, aren’t you? Everyone I know who’s grounded in the subject agreed that if anyone alive could do it Sugaiguntung was the man. Christ, doesn’t it make you sick?” He whirled suddenly, facing the others, and pounded his fist into his palm.
“Isn’t it typical? We train one man—one ordinary, inoffensive, retiring little man—to be an efficient killing machine and he kills the one person who stood a chance of saving us from ourselves!”
“Well, I guess if we put it to Shalmaneser—” Norman began, but Chad cut him short, stamping his foot.
“Norman, what in God’s name is it worth to be human, if we have to be saved from ourselves by a machine?”
* * *
There was no comment from anyone else. After a while, Chad walked dejectedly towards the door, head down. Norman nodded to Gideon and Elihu and followed him. He caught Chad up in the foyer and put his arm around his stooped shoulders.
Staring straight ahead of him, Chad said, “Sorry about that. I guess it’s better to be saved by a machine than not to be saved at all. And I guess, too, if they can tinker with bacteria they could synthesise whatever this stuff is that makes the Shinka peaceable. Christ, what does it matter if we have to take brotherly love out of an aerosol can? It’s contagious stuff no matter where you get it from.”
Norman nodded. His mouth was very dry.
“But it’s not right!” Chad whispered. “It’s not something to be made in a factory, packaged and wrapped and sold! It’s not something meant to be—to be dropped in bombs from UN aircraft! That’s what they’ll do with it, you know. And it isn’t right. It isn’t a product, a medicine, a drug. It’s thought and feeling and your own heart’s blood. It isn’t right!”