A Case of Conscience

The WHO had had good reason to be both swift and arbitrary about it. Its last demographic survey showed, under the grim heading of "Actual Insanity," a total of thirty-five million unhospitalized early paranoid schizophrenics who had been clearly diagnosed, every one of whom should have been committed for treatment at once — except that, were the WHO to commit them, the Shelter economy would suffer a manpower loss more devastating than any a war had inflicted on mankind in all of its history. Every one of those thirty-five million persons was a major hazard to his neighbors and to his job, but the Shelter economy was too complicated to do without them, let alone do without the unrecognized, subclinical cases, which probably totaled twice as many. The Shelter economy could not continue operating much longer without a major collapse; it was on the verge of a psychotic break at this instant. With Egtverchi for a therapist?

Preposterous. But who else — ?

"You're very gloomy tonight," the countess was complaining.

"Won't you amuse anyone but children?"

"No one," Egtverchi said promptly. "Except, of course, myself. And of course I am also a child. There now: not only do I have mammals for parents, but I am myself my own uncle, these 3-V amusers of children are always everyone's uncle. You do not appreciate me properly, Countess; I become more interesting every minute, but you do not notice. In the next instant I may turn into your mother, and you will do nothing but yawn."

"You've already turned into my mother," the countess said, with a challenging, slumbrous look. "You even have her jowls, and all those impossibly even teeth. And the talk. My God. Turn into something else — and don't make it Lucien."

"I would turn into the count if I could," Egtverchi said, with what Michelis was almost sure was genuine regret. "But I have no affinity for affines; I don't even understand Haertel yet. Tomorrow, perhaps?"

"My God," the countess said again. "Why in the world did I think I should invite you? You're too dull to be borne. I don't know why I count on anything any more. I should know better by now." Astonishingly, Egtverchi began to sing, in a high, pure, costrato tenor: "Swef, swef, Susa …" For a moment Michelis thought the voice was coming from someone else, but the countess swung on Egtverchi instantly, her face twisted into a Greek mask of pure rage.

"Stop that," she said, her voice as raw as a wound. Her expression, under the gilded gaiety of her party paint, was savagely incongruous.

"Certainly," Egtverchi said soothingly. "You see I am not your mother after all. It pays to be careful with these accusations."

"You lousy snake-scaled demon!"

"Please, Countess; I have scales, you have breasts; this is proper and fitting. You ask me to amuse you; I thought you might enjoy my jongleur's lullaby."

"Where did you hear that song?"

"Nowhere," Egtverchi said. "I reconstructed it. I could see from the cast of your eyes that you were a born Norman ."

"How did you do it?" Michelis said, interested in spite of himself. It was the first sign he had encountered that Egtverchi had any musical ability.

"Why, by the genes, Mike," Egtverchi said; his literal Lithian mind had gone to the substance of Michelis' question rather than to its sense. "This is the way I know my name, and the name of my father. E-G-T-V-E-R-C-H-I is the pattern of genes on one of my chromosomes; the G, V and I alleles are of course from my mother; my cerebral cortex has direct sensual access to my genetic composition. We see ancestry everywhere we look, just as you see colors — it is one of the spectra of the real world. Our ancestors bred that sense into us; you could do worse than imitate them. It is helpful to know what a man is before he even opens his mouth."

Michelis felt a faint but decided chill. He wondered if Chtexa had ever mentioned this to Ruiz. Probably not; a discovery so fascinating to a biologist would have driven the Jesuit to talking about it. In any event, it was too late to ask him, for he was on the way to Rome ; Qeaver was even farther away by now; and Agronski wouldn't know.

"Dull, dull, dull," the countess said. She had got back most of her self-possession.

"To be sure, to the dull," Egtverchi said, with his eternal grin, which somehow managed to disarm almost anything that he said.

"But I offered to amuse you; you did not enjoy my entertainment. It is your doom to amuse me, too, you know; I am the guest here. What do you have in the sub-basement, for instance? Let us go see. Where are my summer soldiers? Somebody wake them; we have a trip to take."

The packed guests had been listening intently, obviously enjoying the countess' floundering upon Egtverchi's long and multiple-barbed gaff. When she bowed her high-piled, gilded head and led the way back toward the trolley tracks, a blurred and almost animal cheer shook the lounge. Liu shrank back against Michelis; he put his arm tightly around her waist.