President Winthrop 1999

: The Crowded Earth

The Secretary of State closed the door.



"Well?" he asked.



President Winthrop looked up from the desk and blinked. "Hello, Art,"

he said. "Sit down."



"Sorry I'm late," the Secretary told him. "I came as soon as I got the

call."



"It doesn't matter." The President lit a cigarette and pursed his lips

around it until it stopped wobbling. "I've been checkin
the reports

all night."



"You look tired."



"I am. I could sleep for a week. That is, I wish I could."



"Any luck?"



The President pushed the papers aside and drummed the desk for a

moment. Then he offered the Secretary a gray ghost of a smile.



"The answer's still the same."



"But this was our last chance--"



"I know." The President leaned back. "When I think of the time and

effort, the money that's been poured into these projects! To say

nothing of the hopes we had. And now, it's all for nothing."



"You can't say that," the Secretary answered. "After all, we did reach

the moon. We got to Mars." He paused. "No one can take that away from

you. You sponsored the Martian flights. You fought for the

appropriations, pushed the project, carried it through. You helped

mankind realize its greatest dream--"



"Save that for the newscasts," the President said. "The fact remains,

we've succeeded. And our success was a failure. Mankind's greatest

dream, eh? Read these reports and you'll find out this is mankind's

greatest nightmare."



"Is it that bad?"



"Yes." The President slumped in his chair. "It's that bad. We can

reach the moon at will. Now we can send a manned flight to Mars. But

it means nothing. We can't support life in either place. There's

absolutely no possibility of establishing or maintaining an outpost,

let alone a large colony or a permanent human residence. That's what

all the reports conclusively demonstrate.



"Every bit of oxygen, every bit of food and clothing and material,

would have to be supplied. And investigations prove there's no chance

of ever realizing any return. The cost of such an operation is

staggeringly prohibitive. Even if there was evidence to show it might

be possible to undertake some mining projects, it wouldn't begin to

defray expenses, once you consider the transportation factor."



"But if they improve the rockets, manage to make room for a bigger

payload, wouldn't it be cheaper?"



"It would still cost roughly a billion dollars to equip a flight and

maintain a personnel of twenty men for a year," the President told

him. "I've checked into that, and even this estimate is based on the

most optimistic projection. So you can see there's no use in

continuing now. We'll never solve our problems by attempting to

colonize the moon or Mars."



"But it's the only possible solution left to us."



"No it isn't," the President said. "There's always our friend

Leffingwell."



* * * * *



The Secretary of State turned away. "You can't officially sponsor a

thing like that," he muttered. "It's political suicide."



The gray smile returned to the gray lips. "Suicide? What do you know

about suicide, Art? I've been reading a few statistics on that, too.

How many actual suicides do you think we had in this country last

year?"



"A hundred thousand? Two hundred, maybe?"



"Two million." The President leaned forward. "Add to that, over a

million murders and six million crimes of violence."



"I never knew--"



"Damned right you didn't! We used to have a Federal Bureau of

Investigation to help prevent such things. Now the big job is merely

to hush them up. We're doing everything in our power just to keep

these matters quiet, or else there'd be utter panic. Then there's the

accident total and the psycho rate. We can't build institutions fast

enough to hold the mental cases, nor train doctors enough to care for

them. Shifting them into other jobs in other areas doesn't cure, and

it no longer even disguises what is happening. At this rate, another

ten years will see half the nation going insane. And it's like this

all over the world.



"This is race-suicide, Art. Race-suicide through sheer fecundity.

Leffingwell is right. The reproductive instinct, unchecked, will

overbalance group survival in the end. How long has it been since you

were out on the streets?"



The Secretary of State shrugged. "You know I never go out on the

streets," he said. "It isn't very safe."



"Of course not. But it's no safer for the hundreds of millions who

have to go out every day. Accident, crime, the sheer maddening

proximity of the crowds--these phenomena are increasing through

mathematical progression. And they must be stopped. Leffingwell has

the only answer."



"They won't buy it," warned the Secretary. "Congress won't, and the

voters won't, any more than they bought birth-control. And this is

worse."



"I know that, too." The President rose and walked over to the window,

looking out at the sky-scraper apartments which loomed across what had

once been the Mall. He was trying to find the dwarfed spire of

Washington's Monument in the tangled maze of stone.



"If I go before the people and sponsor Leffingwell, I'm through.

Through as President, through with the Party. They'll crucify me. But

somebody in authority must push this project. That's the beginning.

Once it's known, people will have to think about the possibilities.

There'll be opposition, then controversy, then debate. And gradually

Leffingwell will gain adherents. It may take five years, it may take

ten. Finally, the change will come. First through volunteers. Then by

law. I only pray that it happens soon."



"They'll curse your name," the Secretary said. "They'll try to kill

you. It's going to be hell."



"Hell for me if I do, yes. Worse hell for the whole world if I don't."



"But are you quite sure it will work? His method, I mean?"



"You saw the reports on his tests, didn't you? It works, all right.

We've got more than just abstract data, now. We've got films for the

telescreenings all set up."



"Films? You mean you'll actually show what the results are? Why,

just telling the people will be bad enough. And admitting the

government sponsored the project under wraps. But when they see,

nothing on earth can save you from assassination."



"Perhaps. It doesn't really matter." The President crushed his

cigarette in the ashtray. "One less mouth to feed. And I'm getting

pretty sick of synthetic meals, anyway."



President Winthrop turned to the Secretary, his eyes brightening

momentarily. "Tell you what, Art. I'm not planning on breaking the

proposal to the public until next Monday. What say we have a little

private dinner party on Saturday evening, just the Cabinet members and

their wives? Sort of a farewell celebration, in a way, but we won't

call it that, of course? Chef tells me there's still twenty pounds of

hamburger in the freezers."



"Twenty pounds of hamburger? You mean it?" The Secretary of State was

smiling, too.



"That's right." The President of the United States grinned in

anticipation. "Been a long time since I've tasted a real,

honest-to-goodness hamburger."



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