Galactic Dreams

“Take that filthy thing down,” Benedict said, choking over the words.

“Benedict Vernall,” the bailiff said, adjusting his glasses on his nose as he read from the proclamation he had just posted. “This is to inform you that pursuant to the Criminal Birth Act of 1998 you are guilty of the crime of criminal birth and are hereby proscribed and no longer protected from bodily injury by the forces of this sovereign state ….”

“You’re going to let some madman kill me! What kind of a dirty law is that?”

The bailiff removed his glasses and gazed coldly along his nose at Benedict. “Mr. Vernall,” he said, “have the decency to accept the results of our own actions. Did you or did you not have an illegal baby?”

“Illegal, never! A harmless infant ….”

“Do you or do you not already have the legal maximum of two children?”

“We have two, but ….”

“You refused advice or aid from your local birth-control clinic. You expelled, with force, the birth guidance officer who called upon you. You rejected the offer of the abortion clinic ….”

“Murderers!”

“… and the advice of the Family Planning Board. The statutory six months have elasped without any action on your part. You have had the three advance warnings and have ignored them. Your family still contains one consumer more than is prescribed by law, therefore the proclamation has been posted. You alone are responsible, Mr. Vernall, you can blame no one else.”

“I can blame this foul law.”

“It is the law of the land,” the bailiff said, drawing himself up sternly. “It is not for you or me to question.”

He took a whistle from his pocket and raised it to his mouth. “It is my legal duty to remind you that you still have one course open, even at this last moment, and may still avail yourself of the services of the Euthanasia Clinic.”

“Go straight to hell.”

“Indeed. I’ve been told that before.”

The bailiff snapped the whistle to his lips and blew a shrill blast. He almost smiled as Benedict slammed shut the apartment door.

There was an animal-throated roar from the stairwell as the policemen who were blocking it stepped aside. A knot of fiercely tangled men burst out, running and fighting at the same time. One of them surged ahead of the pack but fell as a fist caught him on the side of the head; the others trampled him underfoot. Shouting and cursing the mob came on and it looked as though it would be a draw, but a few yards short of the door one of the leaders tripped and brought two others down. A short fat man in the second rank leaped their bodies and crashed headlong into Vernall’s door with such force that the ballpoint pen he extended pierced the paper of the notice and sank into the wood beneath.

“A volunteer has been selected,” the bailiff shouted and the waiting police and guards closed in on the wailing men and began to force them back toward the stairs. One of the men remained behind on the floor, saliva running down his cheeks as he chewed hysterically at a strip of the threadbare carpet. Two white-garbed hospital attendants were looking out for this sort of thing and one of them jabbed the man expertly in the neck with a hypodermic needle while the other unrolled the stretcher.

Under the bailiff’s watchful eye the volunteer painstakingly wrote his name in the correct space on the proclamation, then carefully put the pen back in his vest pocket.

“Very glad to accept you as a volunteer for this important public duty, Mr …”

The bailiff leaned forward to peer at the paper. “Mr. Mortimer,” he said.

“Mortimer is my first name,” the man said in a crisply dry voice as he dabbed lightly at his forehead with his breast-pocket handkerchief.

“Understandable, sir, your anonymity will be respected as is the right of all volunteers. Might I presume that you are acquainted with the rest of the regulations?”

“You may. Paragraph forty-six of the Criminal Birth Act of 1998, subsection fourteen, governing the selection of volunteers. Firstly, I have volunteered for the maximum period of twenty-four hours. Secondly, I will neither attempt nor commit violence of any form upon any other members of the public during this time, and if I do so I will be held responsible by law for all of my acts.”

“Very good. But isn’t there more?”

Mortimer folded the handkerchief precisely and tucked it back into his pocket. “Thirdly,” he said, and patted it smooth, “I shall not be liable to prosecution by law if I take the life of the proscribed individual, one Benedict Vernall.”

“Perfectly correct.”

The bailiff nodded and pointed to a large suitcase that a policeman had set down on the floor and was now opening. The hall had been cleared. “If you would step over here and take your choice.”

They both gazed down into the suitcase that was filled to overflowing with instruments of death. “I hope you also understand that your own life will be in jeopardy during this period and if you are injured or killed you will not be protected by law?”