"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."