—» «It's hard to miss a belly wound,» Wundt said. «And at least three Fares saw the intestines hanging out.» «It's too risky.» «No one would know him in Middle City,» Wundt said. «If there's the faintest chance—» One of the crisp young men. «Luke,» Wundt said, speaking directly at him for a change, «do you think you could feel, the, uh, power if you went into the city and preached?» «I—I don't know,» Luke admitted. It seemed so long ago, the healing. And trying to create the feeling of power artificially had left him numb, left him feeling slightly guilty, as if he'd been asking God to perform on cue. «Would you be willing to try?» «I guess so.» «Then there's only the question of who will go with him,» Wundt said. «I'd like to go,» said the crisp young man who had indicated his willingness to experiment if there were the slightest chance of discovering Luke's power. «How about it, Luke? Is Carter all right with you?» «You mean you want him to go and watch me preach?» Luke asked. «Yes.» «I don't know,» Luke said, thinking about how he'd feel with the young man looking over his shoulder. No faith. Only what they called scientific interest. «I really don't think—» «What?» Wundt asked. «We want you to be perfectly frank.»
«Well, it's just that, well, I don't feel faith,» Luke said. «I mean, I'm sorry but—» «I understand,» Wundt said. «Is there anyone here who would not, uh, inhibit you?» Luke thought. There was one person and one person only in the strange place of the doctors who didn't make him feel as if he were some kind of thing to be examined and tested. And she was a female. And that made it impossible. Go into the city with a female? Impossible. «Luke,» Wundt said, «do you realize how important this is?» Frankly, he didn't. Frankly, he didn't know why they were so interested in his power. They had their medicine. He'd learned a few things in his days in the underground place. For example. Miss Caster had told him that Dr. Wundt was over seventy years old. That was incredible. If a Lay lived to be forty, he was an old, old man. Only Brothers and high officials
lived past thirty-five or forty. And it was the magic of medicine that did it. So, if they had that magic, why should they want his poor power? For,
although he'd healed the Fare of his terrible cut, that Fare would still die before he was forty. He would die of the lung sickness or cancer or his heart would just stop one day. He tried to express it to them. Wundt nodded understanding. «But that's it, Luke, don't you see? That's exactly it. What we do is not magic. It's just sound science, based on a long history of medicine. There is hardly anything, except old age, that we doctors can't cure.» «Lung sickness?» Luke asked. «Yes. And cancer. And heart problems.» «Then why—» «Why don't we cure all the Lays?» Wundt smiled sadly. «Because there are just too damned many of them. Because the great influx and the population explosion drained this country down to nothing. Because people put more value on a new ground car than on medicine. Because the Brothers—» He paused. «Luke, did you read any history when you were at the University?» «Only a little,» Luke said. «Do you know that the life expectancy of everyone in this country used to be almost seventy years?» «No,» Luke said, shaking his head with disbelief. «Do you know that people used to choose their government by ballot?» «We still do,» Luke said. «Sure. You vote for men handpicked by the Christian Party. Have you ever bothered to vote, Luke?» Luke shook his head. «Why?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «Because it just doesn't seem to matter. I mean, my vote among all the millions—» «Have you ever been to a museum, Luke?» «Sure. I went to the Met once.» «And did you see the paintings?» «Yes.» «The huge ones by Rubens and Titian and others'» «Yes,» Luke said, «I saw lots of them.» «Did you see a single nude?» Luke blushed. «Of course not.» «That's because the Brothers had clothing painted on them,» Luke Wundt smiled at him reassuringly. «How is a baby made, Luke?» Luke shifted in his seat, embarrassed, bewildered by the doctor's dirty talk. «What books have you read?» Wundt asked. Relieved by the change of subject, Luke said, «Oh, the Bible. A few books like the life of Jesus and—» «Ever read a novel?» «A what?» «A novel. A story. Something that just tells about life, about love and living and adventure and the relationship of one human being to another.» «No!» Luke said. He didn't like being accused of being a pervert. Wundt sighed. «All right,» he said. «I'll drop that course. What does Freedom mean to you, Luke?» «Gee, I dunno—» «If you were going to change things, what would you like to be able to do?» «Well, I wish there wasn't so much red tape involved in getting a permit to preach on the streets,» Luke said. «Before the revolution you didn't have to have a permit to preach on the streets,» Wundt said. «Once men in this country could meet where and when they pleased to talk about anything, God, politics, anything. They could even talk about not believing in God.» «Not believe in God?» Luke was shocked. «But most importantly,» Wundt said, «there was the freedom to live one's life as one wanted to live it. A man could rise from poverty—-I mean, well, like a Fare could rise to be the President of the United States. And there was freedom to travel. A man could go anywhere he wanted to go. And freedom to be treated by a doctor for sickness. Freedom to practice medicine for the masses.» «Gee,» Luke said. He was sweating uncomfortably He didn't like the way the talk was going. First talking dirty, about babies and all. Then about practicing medicine. He remembered what he'd been given, shakeshock three-quarters full, for healing, and he hadn't even practiced medicine. God didn't want anyone practicing medicine. God didn't like such talk. The Brothers said— «I know this may come as a shock to you, Luke,» Wundt went on, as the young crisp men looked on with interest, «but there are people in this country who are working toward a second revolution.» «Heaven help us!» For he'd been fed stories about revolution since he was old enough to watch a screen. He'd been told, time and time again,
that the Brothers made it the best of all possible worlds, that the Brothers and the Christian Party kept away the horrors of atomic war, of sinful excess, of evil. «There are people who want to throw the Brothers out of power,» Wundt said carefully. Luke was too shocked to speak. «Because all over the Western Hemisphere people are dying when they should be in the prime of their lives. Our natural resources, what's left of them, are being squandered in an endless flow of billions of ground cars, of senseless waste. There are people who want to change the government because once man was moving into space, Luke. Do you remember that?» «I've seen the old films,» Luke said. «We went to the moon. We went to Mars and Venus. We were ready to move out past Mars, and research showed promise of developing the means to go farther, showed promise of opening up the universe to man. Space promised to be the overflow valve for the Earth. Somewhere out there in space there are worlds like this, Luke, worlds which could accept our surplus, fresh worlds unspoiled by nuclear waste, worlds of fresh, running water and grass and trees. But we squander what remains of our wealth in making ground cars, gadgets, dumping our wealth in huge loads to the already littered bottom of the sea.» There was silence for a moment. Then Wundt continued. «I've digressed. Let me ask this, Luke. Would you like to live, in health, to be seventy, eighty years old?» «Anyone would,» Luke said. «Everyone can,» Wundt said. «If we could divert our resources into the proper programs, birth control, medicine, science—» «I don't see what this has to do with me,» Luke said. «Maybe nothing,» Wundt said. «I'll be that frank with you. Maybe we're pushing you into a wild-goose chase. But you're not the first man who has shown unusual powers of the mind, Luke. All over the country in places like this, people like us are looking into the mind. We've got people who can make things move without touching them. People who can read thoughts. Oh, not completely, but they can read them well enough to make us think that something is happening to the race. There just may be a change taking place. People have been thrown into incredible, crowded, miserable conditions for decades now, Luke, and we knew way back in the twentieth century that overcrowding does things. You show signs of it yourself in your oversized heart and adrenals and in your perpetually irritated stomach. We can see physical changes and we suspect, and have some scientific basis to suspect, mental changes, too. To get to the point, as far as you're concerned, we have reason to think that you caused a severe stomach wound to close, that you, without actual scientific knowledge of the proper placement of the intestines, put them back into place. We can't come out into the open and practice medicine. The Brothers, the millions of them, while still only a minority of the population, are numerous enough so that the meager facilities of the profession are scarcely enough to keep them healthy. But what would happen if we could isolate this, uh, power of yours? What if you could control that power, heal anyone anywhere? What if we could teach this power to others?» «I don't know,» Luke said. «There is going to be a revolution, Luke. Sooner or later there will be revolution. A billion people will not stay in subjection forever. We want that revolution to be an orderly one, as orderly as possible under the circumstances. We want to be able to offer a sensible program to the millions when the revolution comes. One of our greatest weapons would be the ability to heal, with medicine or with the mind. If we could show the masses that we could offer them the same health and long life which is now enjoyed by the Brothers, they would follow us.» «I don't know,» Luke said. «I just don't know. I don't understand all this.» «All right, Luke,» Wundt said. «We have time. We'll give you time to think.» CHAPTER EIGHT Luke was walking the brightly lit corridors with the nurse, Irene Caster. She was dressed in white. He wore a comfortable set of coveralls, also white. He had been moved from the room they called a hospital room to a beautiful room with comfortable chairs, a bed which, when not in use, hid away in the wall. There was music to be had at the touch of a button. A viewscreen uncovered itself at the pressing of another button And there was a shelf filled with books. The books worried Luke. For two days after his last conference with Dr. Wundt and all the crisp young men, he'd spent the time alone in his room, listening to the music, watching the viewscreen, thumbing through the disturbing books. Some of them were called histories They
