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I WILL FEAR NO EVIL
Robert A. Heinlein

Note: The National Rare Blood Club (mentioned herein) is a nonprofit organization having its national headquarters at 164 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010, telephone (212) Chelsea 3-8037. R.A.H.

This Berkley book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.
It has been completely reset in a type face designed for easy reading, and was printed from new film.

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL

A Berkley Book, published by arrangement with
G. P. Putnam's Sons
PRINTING HISTORY

G. P. Putnam's Sons edition published 1970
Berkley edition / November 1971
Thirty-third printing I December 1981


All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1970 by Robert A. Heinlein.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: G. P. Putnam's Sons,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.


ISBN: 0-425-05613-9

A BERKLEY BOOK (r) TM 757,375
Berkley Books are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


To Rex and Kathleen



1


The room was old-fashioned, 1980 baroque, but it was wide, long, high, and luxurious. Near simulated view windows stood an automated hospital bed. It looked out of place but was largely concealed by a magnificent Chinese screen. Forty feet from it a boardroom table also failed to match the decor. At the head of this table was a life-support wheelchair; wires and tubings ran from it to the bed.
Near the wheelchair, at a mobile stenodesk crowded with directional mikes, voice typewriter, clock-calendar, controls, and the usual ancillaries, a young woman sat. She was beautiful.
Her manner was that of the perfect unobtrusive secretary but she was dressed in a current exotic mode. "Half & Half"-right shoulder and breast and arm concealed in jet-black knit, left leg sheathed in a scarlet tight, panty-ruffle in both colors joining them, black sandal on the scarlet side, red sandal on her bare right foot. Her skin paint was patterned in the same scarlet and black.
On the other side of the wheelchair was an older woman garbed in a nurse's conventional white pantyhose and smock. She ignored everything but her dials and a patient in the chair. Seated around the table were a dozen-odd men, most of them in spectator-sports style affected by older executives.
Cradled in the life-support chair was a very old man. Except for restless eyes, he looked like a poor job of embalming. No cosmetic help had been used to soften the brutal fact of his decrepitude.
"Ghoul," he was saying softly to a man halfway down the table. "You're a slavering ghoul, Parky me boy. Didn't your father teach you that it is polite to wait for a man to stop kicking before you bury him? Or did you have a father? Erase that last, Eunice. Gentlemen, Mr. Parkinson has moved that I be invited to resign as chairman of the board. Do I hear a second?"
He waited, looking from face to face, then said, "Oh, come now! Who is letting you down, Parky? You,
George?"
"I had nothing to do with it."