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have ever worked in your life.”
    “And you’re not going to feed them?” asked Woolf.
    Kessler seethed. “Of course we’re going to feed them.”
    Woolf creased his brow in mock confusion. “Then you’re not going to allow them any
     fresh air or sunshine?”
    “Where else are they going to work at a prison farm but outside in a field?”
    “Then I’m confused,” said Woolf. “So far this doesn’t sound like much of a punishment.
     Senator Weist ordered the coldhearted killing of one of his own soldiers, a teenage
     boy under his own command, and his punishment is a soft bed, three square meals, fresher
     food than we get here in East Meadow, and all the girls he could ever ask for—”
    “You keep saying ‘girls,’” said Tovar. “What exactly are you envisioning here?”
    Woolf paused, staring at Tovar, then picked up a piece of paper and scanned it with
     his eyes as he talked. “Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of our ban on capital punishment.
     We can’t kill anyone because, in your words, ‘there are only thirty-five thousand
     people left on the planet, and we can’t afford to lose any more.’” He looked up. “Is
     that correct?”
    “We have a cure for RM now,” said Kessler. “That means we have a future. We can’t
     afford to lose a single person.”
    “Because we need to carry on the species,” said Woolf with a nod. “Multiply and replenish
     the Earth. Of course. Would you like me to tell you where babies come from, or should
     we get a chalkboard so I can draw you a diagram?”
    “This is not about sex,” said Tovar.
    “You’re damn right it’s not.”
    Kessler threw up her hands. “What if we just don’t let them procreate?” she asked.
     “Will that make you happy?”
    “If they can’t procreate, we have no reason to keep them alive,” Woolf shot back.
     “By your own logic, we should kill them and be done with it.”
    “They can work,” said Kessler, “they can plow fields, they can grind wheat for the
     whole island, they can—”
    “We’re not keeping them alive for reproduction,” said Tovar softly, “and we’re not
     keeping them alive as slaves. We’re keeping them alive because killing them would
     be wrong.”
    Woolf shook his head. “Punishing criminals is—”
    “Senator Tovar is correct,” said Hobb, rising to his feet. “This is not about sex
     or reproduction or manual labor or any of these other issues we’ve been arguing. It’s
     not even about survival. The human race has a future, like we’ve said, and food and
     children and so on are all important to that future, but they are not the most important.
     They are the means of our existence, but they cannot become the reason for it. We
     can never be reduced—and we can never reduce ourselves—to a level of pure physical
     subsistence.” He walked toward Senator Woolf. “Our children will inherit more than
     our genes; more than our infrastructure. They will inherit our morals. The future
     we’ve gained by curing RM is a precious gift that we must earn, day by day and hour
     by hour, by being the kind of people who deserve to have a future. Do we want our
     children to kill one another? Of course not. Then we teach them, through our own example,
     that every life is precious. Killing a killer might send a mixed message.”
    “Caring for a killer is just as confusing,” said Woolf.
    “We’re not going to care for a killer,” said Hobb, “we’re going to care for everybody:
     old and young, bond and free, male and female. And if one of them happens to be a
     killer—if two or three or a hundred happen to be killers—we still care for them.”
     He smiled mirthlessly. “We don’t let them kill anybody else, obviously; we’re not
     stupid. But we don’t kill them, either, because we’re trying to be better. We’re trying
     to find a higher ground. We have a future now, so let’s not start it by killing.”
    There was a scattering of applause in the room,