Donald’s teeth ached with frustration at his inability to achieve the same answer twice. His first try yielded discharges of 7,540 head of surplus, the second 8,150.
On obtaining a third answer of 8,525 head of surplus for discharge, Donald gave up and went for a walk in the Tube. He was sick of bruising his fingertips rapping a calculating engine made for Public Era drudges of 150 years ago. On the fourth cycle of calculation, his efforts returned 8,563 head of surplus for discharge. This was close enough to the third cycle. TK had said he would accept agreement within a few percentage points. Donald signed the sheets off and advised the duty marine that the calculations were ready for checking by His Decency. Then he flopped down in his apartment.
*
He awoke to the cheery face of one of TK’s officials bringing him a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich. Donald knew the man’s name was Wingfield. At dinner parties in Wilson House, Wingfield kept very much to himself, in a corner or propping up a pillar, eyes roving about, focusing to inspect for a few seconds, then roving on. He was not especially tall, perhaps five foot ten. His build was all towards the top like a boxer, with an added heaviness of middle age. He habitually wore waistcoats rather than suits, probably because he could not get a suit to fit his powerful shoulders and arms. Yet, his face was as calm as a holy man’s. Donald was not alone in never having spoken to him. Few guests ever did.
“There you go, Donny Boy,” he said. “Sweet dreams?”
“Thank you… Should I address you as Your Decency?”
“‘Hey you’ will do just nicely.” He pulled a mirthless smirk that left an uneasy impression. Donald sat up, looked at his watch and frowned. There were no windows, so he had no idea whether it was quarter to nine in the morning or evening. He thanked Wingfield for the refreshments and lifted them across to the writing table.
“Is His Decency here?”
“He’s checking your work—so far so good. Apparently your working notes are much clearer than Pezzini’s.”
“Speaking of Pezzini, what did happen to him?”
“’It’ not ‘him’. The poor devil was a eunuch—some parents just can’t show enough love. As for what happened to him, well, I will say this; I would not like it to happen to me. Let us leave it at that.”
The gentle discretion with which this was said unnerved Donald. The bacon sandwich lost its appeal. He only finished it after a great amount of chewing and with the aid of the mug of tea. They sat in silence, which apparently bothered Wingfield not in the least. It was like being guarded by a Rottweiler. Wingfield had something of a Rottweiler’s composure; the same cold certainty in his violence. It was a relief when TK stood in the half-open door and gave a little knock, eyeing Donald over his reading glasses. He waved the executive summary of the demographic calculation.
“This is really excellent, Donald. All clearly laid out and explained. Pezzini used to drive me up the wall with his scattered logic and bloody awful handwriting. It was like something an angry cat would leave.
“I expect you’d be angry too if you’d had your balls chopped as a boy,” Wingfield said.
“Yes, poor chap.” TK perched on the edge of the sofa, still eyeing Donald over his reading glasses. An atmosphere of hostility was falling over the room. It stirred a formless alarm in Donald, the unease of an animal beginning to be frustrated at its failure to locate an exit. This alarm melded with confusion—he had done nothing wrong. He had not peeked behind the sky-blue curtains, for instance, tempting though it had occasionally been. He waited, his heart thudding harder and sweat trickling down his spine.
“You conclude necessary discharges of around eight and a half thousand head of surplus.” TK laid the summary sheet aside and took off his reading glasses, whilst his stare hardened. Donald in turn stared back, directly eye-to-eye, his emotions funnelling into anger. He waited, the words cycling around and around his mind: I have done nothing wrong. He had thought plenty of things that would have got him flushed to the drains a hundred times over—but who had not?
“What do you think of eight and a half thousand head of surplus discharged to the public drains?” TK said.
“It…” Donald cleared his throat. “It troubles me.”
“Yes. That’s a good way of putting it. I can tell you that it troubles me and it troubles Wingfield. There are many in the clan who don’t care tuppence about discharges. They don’t give a damn about anything beyond fripperies and fucking. Cecil Tarran-Krossington was such an individual. He was the sovereign equivalent of the Fatted Masses of the Public Era, a selfish, thoughtless, stupid individual—the dead centre of the average. Whereas, the three of us carry the burden of being thinkers. Although we are rare, we matter, because we run things and so we can change things.”
Donald followed this mostly with his eyes down, just glancing up now and again to nod in acknowledgement. This was obviously a preamble. The question was: preamble to what?
“Donald, tell me what you have learned during your days incarcerated here with columns and columns of facts, using a calculating machine to determine how many human beings are going to die for the system. Anything good, bad, indifferent?” TK asked.
Donald knew his fate turned on the answer. It would not be enough to bleat platitudes about necessity. He would have to convince them he really meant it, yet tell no lies.
“The obvious reform would be to replace natives with machines. The problem is that machines are expensive, so gold must be exported to buy them. Machines burn oil, so that means exporting more gold. What do you do
