“I see,” said Robinson after a long time. He nodded, like a man struck a stunning blow and not yet fully aware of it. “I see. The reason—”

“Is obvious.”

“Yes. People going through radioactive areas—”

“Why, no. That would only account for a few. But—”

“No matter. The fact’s there, and that’s enough. We have to decide what to do about it.”

“And soon,” Drummond’s jaw set. “It’s wrecking our culture. We at least preserved our historical continuity, but even that’s going now. People are going crazy as birth after birth is monstrous. Fear of the unknown, striking at minds still stunned by the war and its immediate aftermath. Frustration of parenthood, perhaps the most basic instinct there is. It’s leading to infanticide, desertion, despair, a cancer at the root of society. We’ve got to act.”

“How? How?” Robinson stared numbly at his hands.

“I don’t know. You’re the leader. Maybe an educational campaign, though that hardly seems practicable. Maybe an acceleration of your program for reintegrating the country. Maybe—I don’t know.”

Drummond stuffed tobacco into his pipe. He was near the end of what he had, but would rather take a few good smokes than a lot of niggling puffs. “Of course,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s probably not the end of things. We won’t know for a generation or more, but I rather imagine the mutants can grow into society. They’d better, for they’ll outnumber the humans. The thing is, if we just let matters drift there’s no telling where they’ll go. The situation is unprecedented. We may end up in a culture of specialized variations, which would be very bad from an evolutionary standpoint. There may be fighting between mutant types, or with humans. Interbreeding may produce worse freaks, particularly when accumulated recessives start showing up. Robinson, if we want any say at all in what’s going to happen in the next few centuries, we have to act quickly. Otherwise it’ll snowball out of all control.”

“Yes. Yes, we’ll have to act fast. And hard.” Robinson straightened in his chair. Decision firmed his countenance, but his eyes were staring. “We’re mobilized,” he said. “We have the men and the weapons and the organization. They won’t be able to resist.”

The ashy cold of Drummond’s emotions stirred, but it was with a horrible wrenching of fear. “What are you getting at?” he snapped.

“Racial death. All mutants and their parents to be sterilized whenever and wherever detected.”

“You’re crazy!” Drummond sprang from his chair, grabbed Robinson’s shoulders across the desk, and shook him. “You…why, it’s impossible! You’ll bring revolt, civil war, final collapse!”

“Not if we go about it right.” There were little beads of sweat studding the general’s forehead. “I don’t like it any better than you, but it’s got to be done or the human race is finished. Normal births a minority—” He surged to his feet, gasping. “I’ve thought a long time about this. Your facts only confirmed my suspicions. This tears it. Can’t you see? Evolution has to proceed slowly. Life wasn’t meant for such a storm of change. Unless we can save the true human stock, it’ll be absorbed and differentiation will continue till humanity is a collection of freaks, probably intersterile. Or…there must be a lot of lethal recessives. In a large population, they can accumulate unnoticed till nearly everybody has them, and then start emerging all at once. That’d wipe us out. It’s happened before, in rats and other species. If we eliminate mutant stock now, we can still save the race. It won’t be cruel. We have sterilization techniques which are quick and painless, not upsetting the endocrine balance. But it’s got to be done!” His voice rose to a raw scream, broke. “It’s got to be done!”