50 in 50

The emergency meeting of the Genetic Guidance Council was called for 2300 hours. As always, Livermore was late. An extra chair had been placed at the foot of the big marble table, and Blalock was sitting there, the computer printouts arranged neatly before him. Catherine Ruffin switched on the recorder and called the meeting to order at once while Sturtevant coughed, then grubbed out his vegetable cigarette and immediately lit another one.

"Those burning compost heaps will kill you yet," Livermore said. Catherine Ruffin interrupted the traditional disagreement before it could get under way.

"This meeting has been called at the request of Mr. Blalock, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who is here investigating the bottle failures and apparent sabotage. He is now ready to make a report."

"About time," Livermore said. "Find out yet who is the saboteur?"

"Yes," Blalock said tonelessly. "You are, Dr. Livermore."

"Well, well, big talk from a little man. But you'll have to come up with some evidence before you wring a confession out of me."

"I think I can do that. Since the sabotage began, and even before it was recognized as sabotage, one out of every ten bottles was a failure. Tfiis percentage is known as a tithe, which is indicative of a certain attitude or state of mind. It is also ten times the average failure ratio to other laboratories, which is normally about one percent. As further evidence the bottles sabotaged all had Irish or English-surnamed donors."

Livermore sniffed loudly. "Pretty flimsy evidence. And what does it have to do with me?"

"I have here a number of transcripts of meetings of this council where you have gone on record against what you call discrimination in selection. You seem to have set yourself up as a protector of minorities, claiming at different times that Negroes, Jews, Italians, Indians, and other groups have been discriminated against. The records reveal that no bottles bearing names of donors belonging to any of these groups have ever been lost by apparent accident or deliberate sabotage. The connection with you seems obvious, as well as the fact that you are one of the few people with access to the bottles as well as the specific knowledge that would enable you to commit the sabotage."

"Sounds more like circumstantial evidence, not facts, to me. Are you planning to bring these figures out in a public hearing or trial or whatever you call it?"

"I am."

"Then your figures will also show the unconscious and conscious discrimination that is being practiced by the genetic-selection techniques now being used, because it will reveal just how many of these minority groups are not being represented in the selection."

"I know nothing about that."

"Well, I do. With these facts in mind I then admit to all the acts you have accused me of. I did it all."

A shocked silence followed his words. Catherine Ruffin shook her head, trying to understand.

"Why? I don't understand why you did it," she said.

"Still, Catherine? I thought you were more intelligent than that. I did everything within my power to change the errant policies of this board and all the other boards throughout the country. I got exactly nowhere. With natural childbirth almost completely a thing of the past, the future citizens of this country will all come from the gene pool represented by the stored sperm and ova. With the selection techniques existing now, minority after minority will be eliminated, and with their elimination countless genes that we simply cannot lose will be lost forever. Perhaps a world of fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blond, and muscular Anglo-Saxon Protestants is your idea of an ideal society. It is not mine — nor is it very attractive to the tinted-skin people with the funny foreign ways, odd names, and strangely shaped noses. They deserve to survive just as much as we do and to survive right here in their country, which is the United States of America. So don't tell me about Italian and Israeli gene pools in their native lands. The only real Americans here with an original claim to that name are the American Indians, and they are being dropped out of the gene pool as well. A crime is being committed. I was aware of it and could convince no one else of its existence. Until I chose this highly dramatic way of pointing out the situation. During my coming trial these facts will be publicized, and after that the policy will have to be reexamined and changed."

"You foolish old man," Catherine Ruffin said, but the warmth in her voice belied the harshness of her words. "You've ruined yourself. You will be fined, you may go to jail, at the least you will be relieved of your position, forced into retirement. You will never work again."