That is kind of like what I do," she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them

Would you like to go back to the good old days, when the population of the Earth was twenty billion—about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one hundred and sixty billion? Do you know what a drupelet is, Mr. Wehling?" said Hitz. "Nope," said Wehling sulkily. "A drupelet, Mr. Wehling, is one of the little knobs, one of the little pulpy grains of a blackberry," said Dr. Hitz. "Without population control, human beings would now be packed on this surface of this old planet like drupelets on a blackberry! Think of it!" Wehling continued to stare at the same spot on the wall. "In the year 2000," said Dr. Hitz, "before scientists stepped in and laid down the law, there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and nothing to eat but sea-weed—and still people insisted on their right to reproduce like jackrabbits. And their right, if possible, to live forever." "I want those kids," said Wehling quietly. "I want all three of them." "Of course you do," said Dr. Hitz. "That's only human." "I don't want my grandfather to die, either," said Wehling. "Nobody's really happy about taking a close relative to the Catbox," said Dr. Hitz gently, sympathetically. "I wish people wouldn't call it that," said Leora Duncan. "What?" said Dr. Hitz. "I wish people wouldn't call it 'the Catbox,' and things like that," she said. "It gives people the wrong impression." "You're absolutely right," said Dr. Hitz. "Forgive me." He corrected himself, gave the municipal gas chambers their official title, a title no one ever used in conversation. "I should have said, 'Ethical Suicide Studios,'" he said. "That sounds so much better," said Leora Duncan. "This child of yours—whichever one you decide to keep, Mr. Wehling," said Dr. Hitz. "He or she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean, rich planet, thanks to population control. In a garden like that mural there." He shook his head. "Two centuries ago, when I was a young man, it was a hell that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now centuries of peace and plenty stretch before us as far as the imagination cares to travel." He smiled luminously. The smile faded as he saw that Wehling had just drawn a revolver. Wehling shot Dr. Hitz dead. "There's room for one—a great big one," he said. And then he shot Leora Duncan. "It's only death," he said to her as she fell. "There! Room for two." And then he shot himself, making room for all three of his children. Nobody came running. Nobody, seemingly, heard the shots. The painter sat on the top of his stepladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene.

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The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and, once born, demanding to be fruitful ... to multiply and to live as long as possible—to do all that on a very small planet that would have to last forever.
All the answers that the painter could think of were grim. Even grimmer, surely, than a Catbox, a Happy Hooligan, an Easy Go. He thought of war. He thought of plague. He thought of starvation.
He knew that he would never paint again. He let his paintbrush fall to the drop-cloths below. And then he decided he had had about enough of life in the Happy Garden of Life, too, and he came slowly down from the ladder.
He took Wehling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself.
But he didn't have the nerve.
And then he saw the telephone booth in the corner of the room. He went to it, dialed the well-remembered number: "2 B R 0 2 B."
"Federal Bureau of Termination," said the very warm voice of a hostess.
"How soon could I get an appointment?" he asked, speaking very carefully.
"We could probably fit you in late this afternoon, sir," she said. "It might even be earlier, if we get a cancellation."
"All right," said the painter, "fit me in, if you please." And he gave her his name, spelling it out.
"Thank you, sir," said the hostess. "Your city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations