by Sam Merwin
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_It was a strange and bitter Earth over which the Chancellor ruled--a strange and deformed world. There were times when the Chancellor suspected that he really was a humanistic old fool, but this seemed to be his destiny and it was difficult to be anything else. Human, like all other organic life on Earth, was dying. Where it spawned, it spawned monsters. What was to be the answer?_
it's all yours
_by ... Sam Merwin, Jr._
It was a lonely thing to rule over a dying world--a world that had become sick, so terribly sick....
The Chancellor's private washroom, discreetly off the innermost of hisofficial suite of offices, was a dream of gleaming black porcelain andsolid gold. Each spout, each faucet, was a gracefully stylized mermaid,the combination stall shower-steam room a marvel of hydraulic comfortand decor with variable lighting plotted to give the user every sort ofbeneficial ray, from ultraviolet to black heat.
But Bliss was used to it. At the moment, as he washed his hands, he wasfar more concerned with the reflection of his face in the mirror abovethe dolphin-shaped bowl. With a sort of wry resignation, he accepted thered rims of fatigue around his eyes, the batch of white at his lefttemple that was spreading toward the top of his dark, well-groomed head.He noted that the lines rising from the corners of his mouth to thecurves of his nostrils seemed to have deepened noticeably during thepast few days.
As he dried his hands in the air-stream, he told himself that he wasletting his imagination run away with him--imagination had always beenhis weakness, and a grave failing for a head of state. And while he drewon his special, featherweight gloves, he reminded himself that, if hewas aging prematurely, it was nobody's fault but his own. No other manor woman approaching qualification for the job would have taken it--onlya sentimental, humanistic fool like himself.
He took a quick sip from the benzedral fountain, waited for therestorative to do its work. Then, feeling moderately refreshed, hereturned to his office, sank into the plastifoam cushions of the chairbehind his tabletop mountain of a desk and pressed the button thatinformed Myra, his confidential secretary, he was ready.
There were five in the delegation--by their collars or robes, a priest,a rabbi, a lama, a dark-skinned Watusi witchman and a white robed abbessdraped in chaste, flowing white. Automatically, he surveyed them,checking. The priest's right shoe was twice as broad as his left, therabbi's head, beneath the black cap that covered it, was long and thinas a zucchini squash. The witchman, defiantly bare and black as ebonyfrom the waist up, had a tiny duplicate of his own handsome headsprouting from the base of his sternum. The visible deformities of thelama and abbess were concealed beneath their flowing robes. But theywere there--they had to be there.
Bliss rose as they entered and said, waving a gloved hand at the chairson their side of the desk, "Greetings, sirs and madam--please beseated." And, when they were comfortable, "Now, to what do I owe thehonor of this visit?"
He knew, of course--sometimes he thought he knew more than any manshould be allowed or able to know--but courtesy and custom demanded thequestion. It was the witchman who answered. Apparently he was spokesmanfor the group.
He said, speaking beautiful Cantabrigian English, "Honorable sir, wehave come as representatives of the religions of the world, not toprotest but in a spirit of enquiry. Our flocks grow increasinglyrestive, when they are not leaving us altogether, our influence growsless. We wish to know what steps, if any, are being taken towardmodification or abrogation of the sterility program. Without hope ofposterity, mankind is lost."
While the others murmured their agreement, Bliss focused his gaze on thesealed lids of the tiny face sprouting from the Watusi's breastbone. Hewondered if there were eyes behind them, if there were a tongue behindthose tiny clamped lips, and what words such a tongue would utter if itcould speak.
"We are waiting, honorable sir," the spokesman said.
Shaking himself free of the absorption, Bliss glanced at theteleprompter on his desk. Efficient as ever, Myra had their names therebefore him. He said, "Gentle R'hau-chi, I believe a simple expositionof our situation, and of what programs we are seeking to meet andmitigate it with, will give you the answers. Not, perhaps, the answersyou seek, but the answers we must accept ..."
Although the reports from World Laboratories changed from day to day, heknew the speech by heart. For the problem remained. Humanity, likevirtually all other organic life on Earth, was dying. Where it spawned,it spawned monsters. On three-dimensional vidar rolls, he showed themlive shots of what the laboratories were doing, what they were trying todo--in the insemination groups, the incubators, the ray-bombardmentchambers, the parthenogenesis bureau.
Studying them, he could see by their expressions, hear by the prayersthey muttered, how shocking these revelations were. It was one thing toknow what was going on--another for them to see for themselves. It wasneither pretty--nor hopeful.
When it was over, the rabbi spoke. He said, in deep, slightly guttural,vastly impressive intonations, "What about Mars, honorable sir? Have youreached communication with our brothers and sisters on the red planet?"
Bliss shook his head. He glanced at the alma-calendar at his elbow andtold them, "Mars continues to maintain silence--as it has for twohundred and thirty-one years. Ever since the final war."
They knew it, but they had to hear it from him to accept it evenbriefly. There was silence, long wretched silence. Then the abbessspoke. She said, "Couldn't we send out a ship to study conditions firsthand, honorable sir?"
Bliss sighed. He said, "The last four spaceships on Earth were sent toMars at two-year intervals during the last perihelions. Not one of themcame back. That was more than a half century ago. Since I accepted thisoffice, I have had some of our ablest remaining scientific brainsworking on the problem of building a new ship. They have not beensuccessful." He laid his gloved hands, palms upward, on the desk, added,"It appears that we have lost the knack for such projects."
When they were gone, he walked to the broad window and looked out overthe World Capital buildings at the verdant Sahara that stretchedhundreds of miles to the foot of the faintly purple Atlas Mountains onthe northwestern horizon. A blanket of brilliant green, covering whathad once been the greatest of all Earthly deserts--but a poisonousblanket of strange plant mutations, some of them poisonous beyondbelief.
Truly, Bliss thought, he belonged to a remarkable species. Man hadconquered his environment, he had even, within the limits of the SolarSystem, conquered space. He had planted, and successfully, his own kindon a neighboring planet and made it grow. But man had never, at leaston his home planet, conquered himself.
Overpopulation had long since ceased to be a problem--the atomic warshad seen to that. But, thanks to the miracles of science--atomics andautomation--man had quickly rebuilt the world into a Garden of Eden withup-to-date plumbing. He might have won two planets, but he had turnedhis Eden into an arbor of deadly nightshade.
Oddly, it had not been the dreadful detonations of thermo-nuclear bombsthat had poisoned his paradise--though, of course, they had helped. Ithad been the constant spillage of atomic waste into the upper atmospherethat had spelled ruin. Now, where four billion people had once lived inwar and want, forty million lived in poisoned plenty. He was chancellorof a planet whose ruling species could not longer breed withoutdisaster.
His was the last generation. It should have been a peaceful generation.But it was not.
For, as population decreased, so did the habitable areas of Earth. Theformerly overpopulated temperate regions were now ghastly jungles ofself-choking mutant plant growth. Only what had been the wasteareas--Antarctica, the Gobi, Australia, Pa
tagonia and the Sahara-Arabiadistricts--could still support even the strange sorts of human life thatremained.
And the forty millions still alive were restless, frightened, paranoiac.Each believed his own group was being systematically exterminated infavor of some other. None had yet faced the fact that humanity, for allpractical purposes, was already dead on Earth.
He sensed another presence in the room. It was Myra, his secretary,bearing a sheaf of messages in one hand, a sheaf of correspondence forhim to sign in the other. She said, "You look beat, chancellor. Sitdown."
Bliss sat down. Myra, as his faithful and efficient amanuensis for morethan fifteen years, had her rights. One of them was taking care of himduring working hours. She was still rather pretty, he noted withsurprise. An Afro-Asian with skin like dark honey and smooth, pleasant,rather flat features. It was, he thought, a pity she had that third eyein her forehead.
She stood beside him while he ran