The Missing Man (v4.1) Read Free Page B

hundred dollars for my woman to have a kid. They’re trying to wipe
us all out. Nobody has that kind of money but techs. In the next generation
we’ll all be gone. We’re just getting back at them, wiping them out.”
    “But faster,” chuckled a small kid.
“Like boon!”
    “The objectivists got that law through
legally. Why don’t your people pull enough votes to get it wiped?” Carl
Hodges demanded.
    “They ship us out to the boondocks. We
can’t vote. You’re talking like an objectivist. Maybe you believe everyone
without money should be wiped?”
    “I believe anyone without brains should be
wiped!” Carl Hodges snarled suddenly. “Your mothers wouldn’t have
paid ten cents to have you. Too bad the law wasn’t passed sooner.”
    “Genocide.” The tall one reached over
and hit him across the mouth. “We were nice to you. To you!” He
turned and spat in revulsion.
    Others surged forward.
    “Steady.” The leader spread arms and
leaned back against the pressure. He addressed Carl. “We don’t want to
hurt you. You tell us things, you’re a good teacher. We’ll let you have what
you want. Money for rights. Lie there until you have enough money to buy your
way out. It will cost you five dollars to get out. That’s cheaper than five
hundred dollars to be born. That’s a bargain.”
    The kids crowding behind him laughed, and
laughed again, understanding the idea slowly. After a time of clumsy humor they
untied him and went off, leaving him locked in a narrow windowless bedroom.
    Carl Hodges went around the room, inspecting it
and thinking coldly of escaping. He had to get out and straighten up the mess
the city was in after the collapse of Brooklyn Dome. He had to get out and have
the kids arrested before they sabotaged anything else. According to his best
logic, there was no way to get out. He was stuck, and deserved it. He pushed
his mind, thinking harder, fighting back a return of weakness and tears. He
reached for a happy pill, then took the bottle of white pills and poured its
contents down a hole in the floor.
     
    The two Rescue Squad men shifted their chairs
through acceleration bands to the inner fast slots and passed the other chairs,
each leaning forward on the safety rail of his chair as if urging it on. The
people they passed were holding portable TV screens like magazines, watching in
the same way that people used to read.
    The voice of the announcer murmured from a
screen, grew louder as they passed, and then again fell to a murmur. “Brooklyn
Dome. Fifteen pounds atmosphere pressure to sixty-five pounds per square inch.
Exploded upward. Implosion first, then explosion.” The voice grew louder
again as they approached another sliding chair in the slower lane. Another
person listened, propping the screen up on the safety rail to stare into it,
with the sound shouting. “Debris is floating for two square miles around
the center from which the explosion came. Coast Guard rescue ships, submarines
and scuba divers are converged into the area, searching for survivors.”
    They neared and passed a TV screen which showed
a distant picture of an explosion like an umbrella rising and opening on the
horizon. “This is the way the explosion looked from the deck of a
freighter, the Mary Lou, five miles south at the moment it occurred.”
    George settled himself in his seat and shut his
eyes to concentrate. He had to stop that explosion from happening again to the
other undersea dome. Whoever had done it would be laughing as he watched on TV
the explosion unfold and settle. Whoever had done it would be eager for
destruction, delighting in the death and blood of a small city.
    The peculiarly wide range of perceptions that
was George Sanford groped out across the city.
    “The police department is still
investigating the cause of the explosion,” said the murmur, growing louder
as they passed another TV watcher in the slow lane. Someone handed the
announcer another note. “Ah, here we have some new