Free Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham

such an organization, however, were less easy to determine.
    ‘An extensive study of social forms and orders was undertaken but for several years every plan put forward was rejected as in some way unsuitable. The architecture of that finally chosen was said, though I do not know with how much truth, to have been inspired by the Bible – a book at that time still unprohibited, and the source of much unrest – I am told that it ran something like: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways.”
    ‘The Council appears to have felt that this advice, suitably modified, could be expected to lead to a state of affairs which would provide most of the requisite characteristics.
    ‘A four-class system was chosen as the basis, and strong differentiations were gradually introduced. These, now that they have become well established, greatly help to ensure stability – there is scope for ambition within one’s class, but none for passing from one class to another. Thus, we have the Doctorate – the educated ruling-class, fifty per cent of whom are actually of the medical profession. The Mothers, whose title is self-explanatory. The
Servitors who are numerous and, for psychological reasons, small. The Workers, who are physically and muscularly strong, to do the heavier work. All the three lower classes respect the authority of the Doctorate. Both the employed classes revere the Mothers. The Servitors consider themselves more favoured in their tasks than the Workers; and the Workers tend to regard the puniness of the Servitors with a semi-affectionate contempt.
    ‘So you see a balance has been struck, and though it works somewhat crudely as yet, no doubt it will improve. It seems likely, for instance, that it would be advantageous to introduce sub-divisions into the Servitor class before long, and the police are thought by some to be put at a disadvantage by having no more than a little education to distinguish them from the ordinary Worker …’
    She went on explaining with increasing detail while the enormity of the whole process gradually grew upon me.
    ‘Ants!’ I broke in, suddenly. ‘The ant-nest! You’ve taken
that
for your model?’
    She looked surprised, either at my tone, or the fact that what she was saying had taken so long to register.
    ‘And why not?’ she asked. ‘Surely it is one of the most enduring social patterns that nature has evolved – though of course some adaptation –’
    ‘You’re – are you telling me that only the Mothers have children?’ I demanded.
    ‘Oh, members of the Doctorate do, too, when they wish,’ she assured me.
    ‘But – but –’
    ‘The Council decides the ratios,’ she went on to explain. ‘The doctors at the clinic examine the babies and allocate them suitably to the different classes. After that, of course, it is just a matter of seeing to their specialized feeding, glandular control, and proper training.’
    ‘But,’ I objected wildly, ‘what’s it
for
? Where’s the sense in it? What’s the good of being alive, like that?’
    ‘Well,
what
is
the sense in being alive? You tell me,’ she suggested.
    ‘But we’re
meant
to love and be loved, to have babies we love by people we love.’
    ‘There’s your conditioning again; glorifying and romanticizing primitive animalism. Surely you consider that we are superior to the animals?’
    ‘Of course I do, but –’
    ‘Love, you say, but what can you know of the love there can be between mother and daughter when there are no men to introduce jealousy? Do you know of any purer sentiment than the love of a girl for her little sisters?’
    ‘But you don’t understand,’ I protested again. ‘How should you understand a love that colours the whole world? How it centres in your heart and reaches out from there to pervade your whole being, how it can affect everything you are, everything you touch, everything you hear … It can hurt dreadfully, I know, oh, I know, but it can run like sunlight in your veins