ents
will find out?"

The doctor stopped, his face paling slightly. "I took an oath when I
graduated from medical school. Sometimes I want to break that oath, but
I have not so far." He paused. "Try as I may I cannot blame them for
hating you. You know why."

Rush wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. "Don't you realize that
the government that punished the men I worked with for their 'criminal
negligence' is the same government that commissioned them to do that
work--that officials were warned and rewarned of the things that small
increases in radiation might do and that such things might not show up
immediately--and yet they ordered us ahead?" He stopped for a moment and
put his head down, touching his work-roughened hands to his eyes. "They
put us in prison for refusing to do a job or investigated us until no
one could or would trust us in civilian jobs--then when it was done they
put us in prison or worse because the very things we warned them of came
true."

"Perhaps that is true," the doctor said stiffly, "but the choice of
refusing was still possible."

"Some of us did refuse to work," Rush said softly. "I did, for one.
Perhaps you think that we alone will bear the blame. You are wrong.
Sooner or later the stigma will spread to all of the sciences--and to
you, doctor. Too many now that you can't save; in a little while the
hate will surround you also. When we are gone and they must find
something new to hate they will blame you for every malformed baby and
every death. You think that one of you will find a cure for this thing.
Perhaps you would if you had a hundred years or a thousand years, but
you haven't. They killed a man on the street in New York the other day
because he was wearing a white laboratory smock. What do you wear in
your office, doctor? Hate-blind eyes can't tell the difference:
Physicist, chemist, doctor.... We all look the same to a fool. Even if
there were a cancer cure that is only a part of the problem. There are
the babies. Your science cannot cope with the cause--only mine can do
that."

The doctor lowered his head and turned away toward the door.

There was another thing left to say: "If the plumbing went bad in your
home, doctor, you would call a plumber, for he would be the one
competent to fix it." Rush shook his head slowly. "But what happens when
there are no plumbers left?"

* * * * *

The children were by the bed, their hands holding th