Badge of Infamy

o

he let them take him without further guidance. His mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past-his

s expected absolute freedom, but wise men dreamed up many systems of relative freedom, including democ

rned where idealism stopped and idiocy began. They set up a republic with all the elements of democracy that they considered safe. It had worked well enough to mak

ried to explain that there were no such rights-that each generation had to pay for its rights with r

ity was in the sight of God and before the law. They wanted an equality with the greatest men w

assured that voting alone was enough to make him a fine and noble citizen. He loved that, if he bothered to vote at all that year. He became a great man by listing his unthought, hungry desire for someone to take care of him without responsibility. So

stepped in where the mob had failed. Lobbies grew up. There had always been

onvinced the little farmers it was for the good of all, and they made the story stick

ernment. It developed during a period of chaos when another country called Russia got the first hunk of metal above the atmosphere and when th

successfully except under the stimulus of war or a threat of war. The failing airplane industry beca

y size in the country wasn't getting a share. Thus a lot of patriotic, noble voters got their pay fr

ever appropriations it wanted, even over Presidential veto. It created the only space experts,

ies learned a

ecting medical autonomy and ethics. It also tried to prevent government control of treatment and payment, fe

cost anything. It lost, and eventually the government paid most medical costs, with doctors working on a fixed fee. Then quantity of treatment paid, rather than quality. Competence no longer mattered so m

start there, with more than a billion people huddled in one area and a few madmen planning t

y safe to take over. An obscure scientist in one of the laboratories run by the Medical Lobby found a cure before the first

chable. Ryan made a deal with Space Lobby, and the two effectively ran the worl

elves as they chose. The real government had become a kind of oligarchy, as it always did after too much false democracy ruin

s the citizens didn't break the rules of their lobbies, they had very little to worry about. For

d be justified; it was the only safe kind of surgery and the only way to make sure there was no unsupervised experimentation,

it. Feldman learned not to question in medical school. H

the Lobby president. He went through internship without a sign of trouble. Chris humored him in his desire to spend three years of practice in a poor section loaded with disease, and her father ap

ighty. The publicity releases had gone out, and the Public Relations Lobby that handle

ome four hundred people and reporters at Ryan'

that Baxter

ing been out of a city before. He hired a guide and went hunting, eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization. Somehow, he got his hand on a gun

ing in a nearby car while Feldman enjoyed the scenery, Chris made further plans, and Harnett gat

him from instant death. The bullet had struck a rib, been deflected and robbed of some of its energy, and had barely r

without thinking. Chris

one in the lodge where the guide lived and no way to summon an ambulance. They'd hav

ead it in every one of our media. I'll have to. It's the only way to retain public confidence. There'd be a leak, with all

er ambitions, denied because women were still only second-rate members of Medi

n and started to bl

llet out and sewed up the wound with a bit of surgical thread he'd been using to tie up a torn good-luck emblem. The photographer and writer recorded the whole thing. Chr

ucified