by Larry Niven
Millard Parlette began leafing through his notes. If there were any changes to be made, the time was Now.
I Lead-in.
A Stress genuine emergency.
B Mention ramrobot package.
C "What follows is background."
How real would an emergency seem to these people? The last emergency session Millard Parlette could recall was the Great Plague of 2290, more than a century ago. Most of his audience would not have been born then.
Hence the lead-in, to grab their attention.
II The organ-bank problem — exposition
A Earth calls it a problem; we do not. Therefore Earth knows considerably more about it.
B Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning.
C But the citizen, cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied.
D The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals. (Demonstrate this; show why other methods are inadequate.)
E A criminal's pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good. Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material.
1) Cite Earth's capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license.
The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws.
The organ-bank problem could have started in the year 1900, when Karl Landsteiner separated human blood into four types: A, B, AB, and 0. Or in 1914, when Albert Hustin found that sodium citrate would prevent blood from clotting. Or in 1940, when Landsteiner and Wiener found the Rh factor. Blood banks could so easily have been supplied by condemned criminals, but apparently nobody had realized it.
And there was Hamburger's work in the 1960's and 1970's, in a Parisian hospital where kidney transplants were made from donors who were not identical twins. There were the antirejection serums discovered by Mostel and Granovich in the 2010's ....
Nobody seemed to have noticed the implications — until the middle of the twenty-first century.
There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science. How useful is the body of a man who dies of old age? How fast can you reach a car accident? And in 2043, Arkansas, which had never rescinded the death penalty, made the organ banks the official state method of execution.
The idea had spread like wildfire .... like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it. Millard Parlette had researched it very thoroughly, then cut all of the historical matter out of his speech, afraid it would lose him his audience. People, especially crew, did not like to be lectured.
F Thus the government which controls the organ banks is more powerful than any dictator in history. Many dictators have had the power of death, but organ banks give a government power of life and death.
1) Life. The organ banks can cure nearly anything, and the government can regulate which citizens shall benefit, on grounds that materials are running short. Priorities become vital.
2) Death. No citizen will protest when the government condemns a man to die, not when his death gives the citizen his chance to live.
Untrue and unfair. There were always altruists. But let it stand.
III The organ-bank problem — colonies.
A Alloplasty: the science of putting foreign materials in the human body for medical purposes.
B Examples:
1) Implanted hearing aids
2) Heart pacemakers and artificial hearts
3) Plastic tubing for veins, arteries.
C Alloplasty in use on Earth for half a thousand years.
D No alloplasty for a colony world. Alloplasty needs a high technology.
E Every colony world has organ-bank facilities. The stasis room of a slowboat is designed to freeze organs. The ships themselves thus become the center of an organ bank.
F Thus the organ-bank "problem" is unrelieved even by the alternative of alloplasty, on any colony world.
IV The organ-bank problem — as it relates to the power politics of Mount Lookitthat.
A The Covenant of Planetfall.
Millard Parlette frowned. How would the average crew react to the truth about the Covenant of Planetfall?
What they were taught in school was true, in the main. The Covenant of Planetfall, the agreement which gave the crew authority over the colonists, had existed since the Planck landing. The colonists had agreed to it, all of them.
The rationale held, too. The crew had taken all the risks, done all the work of decades, suffered and slaved through years of training, to reach a target which might be habitable. The colonists had slept peacefully through all those weary years in space. It was right that the crew should rule.
But — how many crew knew that those first colonists had signed the Covenant at gunpoint? That eight had died rather than sign away their freedom?
Was it Millard Parlette's place to tell them?
Yes, it was. They had to understand the nature of power politics. He left the notation unchanged.
B The Hospital:
1) Control of electric power
2) Control of news media
3) Control of justice: of the police, of trials, of executions
4) Control of medicine and the organ banks: the positive side of justice
C Organ replacement for colonists? Yes!
1) Colonists in good standing are obviously entitled to medical care. Obviously even to themselves.
2) Justice must have a positive side.
3) The organ-bank "problem" implies that the colonists who can hope for medical treatment will support the government.
V The ramrobot capsule.
(Show pictures. Give 'em the full tour. Use #1 for visual impact, but concentrate on implications of rotifer.)
There was something he could add to that! Millard Parlette looked down at his right hand. It was coming along nicely. Already the contrast with his untreated left hand was dramatic.
That'd make 'em sit up!
VI The danger of the ramrobot capsule.
A It does not make the organ banks obsolete. The capsule held only four items. To replace the organ banks would require hundreds, or thousands, each a separate project.
B But any colonist report would blow it out of all proportion. Colonists would assume that capital punishment would stop now.
Millard Parlette glanced behind him — and shuddered. You couldn't be rational about Ramrobot Capsule #143. The visual impact was too great.
If his speech got dull at any point, he could get their attention back by simply cutting to a shot of the ramrobot packages.
C Capital punishment cannot stop in any case.
1) Decrease the severity of punishment, and crime increases drastically. (Cite examples from Earth history. Unfortunate that Mount Lookitthat has none.)
2) What punishment to substitute for capital punishment? No prisons on Mount Lookitthat. Warning notes and jottings on one's record hold power only through threat of the organ banks.
VII Conclusion:
Violently or peaceably, the rule of the crew ends when the colonists learn of Ramrobot Capsule #143.
Three minutes to go. No question of changing the speech now.
The question was, and had always been, the speech itself. Should thirty thousand crew be told what had arrived in Ramrobot Capsule #143? Could they be made to understand its importance? And — could such a secret be kept by that many?
Members of the Council had fought bitterly to prevent this event. Only Millard Parlette's sure control, his knowledge of the ways of power and the weaknesses of
his fellow Council members, even his own striking authority-figure appearance, which he used ruthlessly — only Millard Parlette's determination had brought the Council to issue their declaration of emergency.
And now every crew on Alpha Plateau, and elsewhere, was before his teedee set. No cars flew above Alpha Plateau; no skiers glided down the snows of the northern glacier; the lake and the hot springs and the gambling halls of Iota were empty.
One minute to go. Too late to call off the speech.
Could thirty thousand people keep such a secret?
Why, no, of course they couldn't.
"That big house with the flat roof," said Harry Kane.
Matt tilted the car to the right. He continued, "I waited till the guards were out of sight, then went back to the vivarium. The man inside opened the door for me. I knocked him down and took his gun, found that bank of buttons and started pushing them."
"Land in the garden, not on the roof. Did you ever figure out what was wrong with their eyes?"
"No." Matt worked the slats and the steering knob, trying to get above the garden. It was big, and it ran to the void edge: a formal garden in a style a thousand years old, a symmetrical maze of right-angle hedges enclosing rectangles of brilliant color. The house too was all rectangles, an oversized version of the small identical-development-houses of the nineteens. Flat-roofed, flat-sided, nearly undecorated, the size of a motel but so wide it seemed low, the house seemed to have been built from prefabricated parts and then added to over the years. Geoffrey Eustace Parlette had evidently imitated ancient bad taste in hopes of getting something new and different.
Matt didn't see it that way, naturally. To him all the houses of Alpha were equally strange.
He brought the car down on the strip of grass at the void edge. The car landed, bounced, landed again. At what he judged was the proper moment, Matt pushed in all four fan levers. The car dropped jarringly. The levers tried to come out again, and Matt held them in with his hand, looking despairingly at Hood for help.
"Gyroscope," said Hood.
Matt forced his numb right arm to cross his torso and flick the Gyroscope switch.
"You need a little training in how to fly," Harry Kane said with admirable restraint. "You finished your story?" He had insisted that Matt talk without interruption.
"I may have forgotten some things."
"We can save the question-and-answer period until we get established. Matt, Laney, Lydia, get me out of here and move Jay in front of the dashboard. Jay, can you move your arms?"
"Yah. The stunner's pretty well worn off."
They piled out, Matt and the two women. Harry came out on his feet, moving in jerks and twitches but managing to stay upright. He brushed away offers of help and stood watching Hood. Hood had opened a panel in the dash and was doing things inside.
"Matt!" Laney called over her shoulder. She was standing inches from the void.
"Get back from there!"
"No! Come here!"
Matt went. So did Mrs. Hancock. The three of them stood at the edge of the grass, looking down into their shadows.
The sun was at their backs, shining down at forty-five degrees. The water-vapor mist which had covered the southern end of the Plateau that morning now lay just beyond the void edge, almost at their feet. And they looked into their shadows — three shadows reaching down into infinity, three contoured black tunnels growing smaller and narrower as they bored through the lighted mist, until they reached their blurred vanishing points. But for each of the three it seemed that only his own shadow was surrounded by a small, vivid, perfectly circular rainbow.
A fourth shadow joined them, moving slowly and painfully. "Oh, for a camera," mourned Harry Kane.
"I never saw it like that before," said Matt.
"I did, once, a long time ago. It was like I'd had a vision. Myself, the representative of Man, standing at the edge of the world with a rainbow about his head. I joined the Sons of Earth that night."
A muted whirr sounded behind them. Matt turned to see the car slide toward him across the lawn, pause at the edge, go over. It hovered over the mist and then settled into it, fading like a porpoise submerging.
Harry turned and called, "All set?"
Hood knelt on the grass where the car had rested. "Right. It'll come back at midnight, wait fifteen minutes, then go back down. It'll do that for the next three nights. Would someone help me into the house?"
Matt half carried him through the formal garden. Hood was heavy; his legs would move, but they would not carry him. As they walked, he lowered his voice to ask, "Matt, what was that thing you drew on the door?"
"A bleeding heart."
"Oh. Why?"
"I'm not really sure. When I saw what they'd done to the guard, it was like being back in the organ banks. I remembered my Uncle Matt." His grip tightened in reflex on Hood's arm. "They took him away when I was eight. I never found out why. I had to leave something to show I was there — me, Matt Keller, walking in alone and out with an army. One for Uncle Matt! I was a little crazy, Hood; I saw something in the organ banks that would shake anyone's mind. I didn't know your symbol, so I had to make up my own."
"Not a bad one. I'll show you ours later. Was it bad, the organ banks?" ,
"Horrible. But the worst was those, tiny hearts and livers. Children, Jay! I never knew they took children."
Hood looked up questioningly. Then Lydia Hancock pushed the big front door open for them, and they had to concentrate on getting up the steps.
Jesus Pietro was furious.
He'd spent some time in his office, knowing he would be most useful there, but he'd felt cramped. Now he was at the edge of the carport watching the last of the sonic victims being carried away. He wore a beltphone; his secretary could reach him through that.
He'd never hated colonists before.
To Jesus Pietro, human beings came in two varieties: crew and colonist. On other worlds other conditions might apply, but other worlds did not intrude on Mount Lookitthat. The crew were masters, wise and benevolent, at least in the aggregate. The colonists were ordained to serve.
Both groups had exceptions. There were crew who were in no way wise and who did not work at being benevolent, who accepted the benefits of their world and ignored the responsibilities. There were colonists who would overthrow the established order of things and others who preferred to turn criminal rather than serve. When brought into contact with crew he did not admire, Jesus Pietro treated them with the respect due their station. The renegade colonists he hunted down and punished.
But he didn't hate them, any more than Matt Keller really hated mining worms. The renegades were part of his job, part of his working day. They behaved as they did because they were colonists, and Jesus Pietro studied them as biology students studied bacteria. When his working day ended, so did his interest in colonists, unless something unusual was going on.
Now that was over. In running amok through the Hospital, the rebels had spilled over from his working day into his very home. He couldn't have been angrier if they'd been in his house, smashing furniture and killing servants and setting poison for the housecleaners and pouring salt on the rugs.
The intercom buzzed. Jesus Pietro unhooked it from his belt and said, "Castro."
"Jansen, sir. I'm call' from the vivarium."
"Well?"
"There are six rebels missing. Do you want their names?"
Jesus Pietro glanced around him. They'd carried the last unconscious colonist away ten minutes ago. These last stretcher passengers were carport personnel.
"You should have them all. Have you checked with the operating room? I saw at least one dead under a door."
"I'll check, sir."
The carport was back to normal. The rebels hadn't had time to mess it up as they'd messed up the halls' and the electricians' rec room. Jesus Pietro debated whether to return to his office or to trace the rebels' charge back through the rec room. Then he happened to notice two men arguing by the g
arages. He strolled over.
"You had no right to send Bessie out!" one was shouting. He wore a raider's uniform, and he was tall, very dark, enlistment-poster handsome.
"You bloody raiders think you own these cars," the mechanic said contemptuously.
Jesus Pietro smiled, for the mechanics felt exactly the same. "What's the trouble?" he asked.
"This idiot can't find my car! Sorry, sir."
"And which car is yours, Captain?"
"Bessie. I've been using Bessie for three years, and this morning some idiot took it out to spray the woods. Now look! They've lost her, sir!" The man's voice turned plaintive.
Jesus Pietro turned cold blue eyes on the mechanic. "You've lost a car?"
"No sir. I just don't happen to know where they've put it."
"Where are the cars that came back from spraying the woods?"
"That's one of them." The mechanic pointed across the carport. "We were half finished unloading her when those fiends came at us. Matter of fact we were unloading both of them." The mechanic scratched his head. He met Jesus Pietro's eyes with the utmost reluctance. "I haven't seen the other one since."