"The whole thing," Len said. "If the population had been polled according to democratic procedure, the paraplegia and other maimings could have been distributed to each according to his psychological need. See the point? Marx corrected by Freud, as Steve Lundy would say. Distribute the injuries to each according to his need--not his economic need, but his masochistic need. Those with a special taste for self-damage obviously should be allowed a lion's share of it. That way nobody could claim he'd been victimized by the steamroller or got anything he didn't ask for. It's all on a voluntary basis, you see. Democratic." "Whole new concept of war," Kujack agreed. "Voluntary amputeeism, voluntary paraplegia, voluntary everything else that usually happens to people in a war. Just to get some human dignity back into the thing." "Here's how it works," Len went on. "Country A and Country B reach the breaking point. It's all over but the shooting. All right. So they pool their best brains, mathematicians, actuaries, strategists, logistics geniuses, and all. What am I saying? They pool their best _robot_ brains, their Emsiacs. In a matter of seconds they figure out, down to the last decimal point, just how many casualties each side can be expected to suffer in dead and wounded, and then they break down the figures. Of the wounded, they determine just how many will lose eyes, how many arms, how many legs, and so on down the line. Now--here's where it gets really neat--each country, having established its quotas in dead and wounded of all categories, can send out a call for volunteers." "Less messy that way," Kujack said. "An efficiency expert's war. War on an actuarial basis." "You get exactly the same results as in a shooting war," Len insisted. "Just as many dead, wounded and psychologically messed up. But you avoid the whole steamroller effect. A tidy war, war with dispatch, conceived in terms of ends rather than means. The end never did justify the means, you see; Steve Lundy says that was always the great dilemma of politics. So with one fool sweep--fell swoop--we get rid of means entirely." "As things stand with me," Kujack said, "if _anything_ stands with me, I might get to feeling sore about what happened to me. But nothing happens _to_ the volunteer amputee. He steps up to the operating table and says, 'Just chop off one arm, Doc, the left one, please, up to the elbow if you don't mind, and in return put me down for one-and-two-thirds free meals daily at Longchamps and a plump blonde every Saturday.'" "Or whatever the exchange value for one slightly used left arm would be," Len amended. "That would have to be worked out by the robot actuaries." By this time I had the pros fitted and the push-button controls installed in the side pocket of Kujack's jacket. "Maybe you'd better go now, Len," I said. I was very careful to show no reaction to his baiting. "Kujack and I have some work to do."