s though
he found trouble in choosing his words.

"You realize, of course, that it is your duty to acquaint Leader Marley
with all the details of your discovery?"

"Is it? Can you imagine what this will do to our society? What about the
generations of children coming into a world where no places have been
vacated for them by death? What about the struggles for power? Who will
decide, and on what basis, whether to confer or to withhold this gift?
There'll be riots, civil wars. I know that I'm only a scientist; all I
ever wanted from life was to be left alone, in a peaceful laboratory,
and let other people worry about the world and its troubles. But
now--don't you see that by the mere fact that I made this discovery,
I've lost the right to sit by quietly and let other people make the
decisions?"

"But, David, you and I aren't able to handle such a problem! We're only
Research!"

"I know. We're inadequate, yet we have the responsibility. The men who
created atomic power probably felt inadequate, too, but could they have
made as bad a mess of handling it as others did? Suppose I did turn this
over to Marley--he'd use it to become the most absolute tyrant in the
history of the race."

Karl ran his fingers through his hair and smiled crookedly. "Well, you
could always start a revolution, I suppose, and start by assassinating
the Leader."

"With what kind of weapon? Men like you and me are not allowed to own so
much as an old-fashioned pistol. Except for the Military, Marley's the
only man allowed to wear a Needler. And, besides, I'm a Research, not a
Military. I hate violence and I'm naturally conditioned against
killing."

"Then you shouldn't have got into this mess. It would have been far
better never to have discovered this SDE. I presume your notes are
safely locked up, by the way?"

David grinned. "Don't worry about my notes; they're written in Coptic.
You remember when I was still in Medschool and made my first important
discovery, how to prevent the development of hereditary baldness by the
injection of certain parahormones? Leader Marley rewarded me with a Free
Choice, and I chose to learn a dead language. Not half a dozen men in
the world could read my notes."

"If your notes are safe, why don't you just destroy your mice and get
rid of your proof that way?"

"And the Hachovnik twins?"

"You could at least keep Tanya out of sight."

"Don't be a fool. That would only be a temporary measure and has not