Badge of Infamy | Page 4

shapely

figure and her red hair glistened in the lights of the street. Her snub
nose and determined mouth weren't the current fashion, but nobody
stopped to think of fashions when they saw her. She didn't have to be
the daughter of the president of Medical Lobby to rule.
It was Chris--Chris Feldman once, and now Chris Ryan again.
Feldman swung toward a cab. For a moment, his attitude was automatic
and assured, and the cab stopped before the driver noticed his clothes.
He picked up the bag Chris dropped and swung it onto the front seat.
She was fumbling in her change purse as he turned back to shut the
door.
"Thank you, my good man," she said. She could be gracious, even to a
pariah, when his homage suited her. She dropped two quarters into his
hand, raising her eyes.
Recognition flowed into them, followed by icy shock. She yanked the
cab door shut and shouted something to the driver. The cab took off
with a rush that left Feldman in a backwash of slush and mud.
He glanced down at the coins in his hand. It was his lucky day, he
thought bitterly.
He moved across the street and away, not bothering about the squeal of
brakes and the honking horns. He looked back only once, toward the
glowing sign that topped the building. Your health is our business!
Then the great symbol of the health business faded behind him, and he
stumbled on, sucking incessantly at the cigarettes he rolled. One hand
clutched the bronze badge belonging to the dead man and his stolen
boots drove onward through the melting snow.
It was Christmas in the year 2100 on the protectorate of Earth.

II
Lobby

Feldman had set his legs the problem of heading for the great spaceport
and escape from Earth, and he let them take him without further
guidance. His mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past--his past and
that of the whole planet. Both pasts had in common the growth and
sudden ruin of idealism.
Idealism! Throughout history, some men had sought the ideal, and most
had called it freedom. Only fools expected absolute freedom, but wise
men dreamed up many systems of relative freedom, including
democracy. They had tried that in America, as the last fling of the
dream. It had been a good attempt, too.
The men who drew the Constitution had been pretty practical dreamers.
They came to their task after a bitter war and a worse period of wild
chaos, and they had learned 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 make America the
number one power of the world. But the men who followed the framers
of the new plan were a different sort, without the knowledge of
practical limits.
The privileges their ancestors had earned in blood and care became
automatic rights. Practical men tried to explain that there were no such
rights--that each generation had to pay for its rights with responsibility.
That kind of talk didn't get far. People wanted to hear about rights, not
about duties.
They took the phrase that all men were created equal and left out the
implied kicker that equality was in the sight of God and before the law.
They wanted an equality with the greatest men without giving up their
drive toward mediocrity, and they meant to have it. In a way, they got
it.
They got the vote extended to everyone. The man on subsidy or public
dole could vote to demand more. The man who read of nothing beyond
sex crimes could vote on the great political issues of the world. No
ability was needed for his vote. In fact, he was 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 he went out and voted for the man who promised him
most, or who looked most like what his limited dreams felt to be a
father image or son image or hero image. He never bothered later to see
how the men he'd elected had handled the jobs he had given them.
Someone had to look, of course, and someone did. Organized special
interests stepped in where the mob had failed. Lobbies grew up. There
had always been pressure groups, but now they developed into a third
arm of the government.
The old Farm Lobby was unbeatable. The big farmers shaped the laws
they wanted. They convinced the little farmers it was for the good of