Shifting in his chair self-consciously, Kobryn said, “I see I have-been elected the hatchet man.” His voice was deep and strong, with barely a trace of a Slavic accent. “All right… it was my idea, originally. We looked at all the possibilities and ran each case on the computers. The only safe way is to put them in exile. Permanently.”

“Siberia,” one of the women muttered.

“No, not Siberia.” Kobryn took her literally. “It’s too heavily populated. Too many cities and dome farms for an effective exile. No, the only place is the new space station. It’s large enough and it can be kept completely isolated.”

Rolf Bernard, the Minister of Finance, shook his head. “I still disagree. Two thousand of the world’s leading scientists…”

“Plus their wives and families,” the Chairman added.

“What would you prefer?” Kobryn snapped. “A bullet in each of their heads? Or would you leave them alone and let them smash everything that we have worked for?”

“Perhaps if we talked with them…”

“That won’t work,” said Eric Mottern, the taciturn Minister of Technology. “Even if they tried to cooperate with us, you can’t stop ideas from leaking out. And once this genetic engineering idea gets loose…”

“The world is turned upside down,” the Chairman said. He spoke softly, but everyone heard him. With a sigh, he confessed, “I have also been thinking about the problem. I have also tried to find alternatives. There are none. Exile is the only permissible answer.”

“Then it is agreed. Good!” said Kobryn.

“No, not good,” the General Chairman said. “Very far from good. When we do this thing, we admit failure. We admit fear—yes, terror. We are terrified of a new idea, a new scientific discovery. The government of the world, the protectors of peace and stability, must stoop to exiling some of the world’s finest minds. This is a horrible state of affairs. Truly horrible.”