Love Conquers All by Fred Saberhagen

Love Conquers All by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-03-14T04:00:00+00:00


“RADICALS and bluenoses, repressers of all that makes Man at one with a billion years of his animal heritage!” Barnaby’s voice had grown shrill. “Are we to abandon the youth of the world to them?”

Looking down, with Barnaby, from an open window of his office, Director Grill had a good view of the wide statwalk in front of the Family Planning building. Two competing picket lines had just been organized down there, and both of them were on the march, weaving and writhing like antagonistic serpents. The lines had formed with a healthy distance between them but were gradually being forced closer to each other by the pressure of a mass of onlookers, whose expectation of a riot was probably going to fulfill itself. It seemed likely to Grill, who had seen this sort of thing happen elsewhere, that a critical mass of active humanity would soon be reached. To carry the analogy with atomic fission further, a block away a column of helmeted city police was marching in, a damping rod about to be thrust into an overheating pile.

Sporadic shouting drifted up to Grill’s office window, but as yet he had seen no actual violence. He was not too high above the picket lines to tell that one of them was composed mostly of radical-looking young people, the girls wearing their hair long, the men short-haired and clean-shaven, both sexes dressed in opaque garments that covered half their bodies or more. These of course were the Young Virgins, the objects of Barnaby’s wrath. In the opposing picket line, men and women of ordinary appearance were in the majority, though there was a noticeable admixture of men in biknis, and women in codpieced, translucent business suits.

“I see your League has some counter-picketers out today,” Grill commented.

“Naturally we do!” Barnaby ran nervous fingers through his bright red hair. “We don’t intend to succumb without a struggle.”

Grill decided that the time had come for bluntness, whatever the result might be. “Frankly, I wish you hadn’t decided on counterpicketing. Not in front of my building.”

“What? But we must take action. Look, look down there! A sign that says ‘sublimate’, in big bold letters, being waved around in a public place!”

Grill looked down and saw. He also saw another sign, in bigger, bolder letters yet: STOP MORAL FREE FALL. He wondered honestly which side that one was intended to be on.

“Let them go to their monasteries and lamaseries and nunneries to have that kind of freedom,” Barnaby was saying. “Let them go behind walls, away from the innocent, and do what they like.”

Grill drew a deep breath. “You know, if I was coldly logical about my job . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, I might look with official favor upon the bluenoses. After all, the less sex activity there is,. generally speaking, the fewer pregnancies and the less population pressure.”

“Only in the most primitive societies!” snapped Barnaby. But then he fell silent and put on a mask of careful control, which Grill thought was concealing more fear than anger.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.