The Sopaths by Piers Anthony Page A

less dangerous ones and missing the smart ones. We need a better way.” All of them had become hardened to the necessity of killing children, or arranging for them to kill each other. It was an ugly business, but the alternative was uglier.
    “We need to bring down the population so that sopaths aren’t born anymore,” Abner said.
    She grimaced. “Lots of luck with that.”
    “There’s the problem,” he agreed. “Despite the increasing evidence, powerful political and religious groups still oppose any birth control, which is the only painless and effective way to do it. Families insist on their right to reproduce in any quantity they choose, and the least responsible ones increase their numbers disproportionately. So the global population continues to increase, and the ratio of sopaths increases.” It was foolhardy but seemed to be an insoluble problem.
    “We’re limited to what we can do locally,” Sylvia said. “Speaking of which, we have reports that a criminal has moved into the neighborhood, giving out guns and drugs to sopaths, making them twice as dangerous. We have to stop that.”
    “We do,” he agreed. “Most sopaths have been armed only with knives. If they all get guns, we’ll be in trouble.”
    “Serious trouble,” she agreed. “That’s why I’m going to make a formal complaint to the police.”
    “I’m not sure that’s wise. Scuttlebutt is that some of them have connections with sopath girls.”
    “I’ve heard. Six-year-old prostitutes. In fact the criminal is a pedophile, trading his wares for sex. All the more reason to take him out.”
    “I’m not easy about this,” Abner said.
    “Because one of them told you not to trust the police? What other recourse do we have?”
    “We could take him out ourselves.”
    She shook her head. “He’s a normal. Criminal, but he has a soul. We kill sopaths, not normals, no matter how corrupt the normals may be.”
    “Maybe we should make an exception.”
    But she wouldn’t have it. “I’m not crossing that line. I’ll try the police, and hope for the best. If they don’t act, then we can consider other ways to drive him out.”
    “I hope they act,” Abner said. Maybe she was right.
    Sylvia went to the police to make her case that day.
    That evening when she stepped out of her house, a sopath shot her at point blank range, killing her, and fled before any neighbor could react.
    It seemed they had the criminal’s response. It was an open assassination, eliminating the one who wanted the criminal out of the neighborhood. A warning to others.
    “The criminal must be paying off the police,” Abner muttered to Bunty.
    “I don’t think so. They could have notified the man of the complaint and asked him to move out. Instead he killed the opposition.”
    That did seem more likely. The police might not be very effective, but they had tacitly cooperated with Pariah to deal with the sopaths. “But it was Sylvia’s complaint that did her in.”
    “She tried to follow protocol,” Bunty said. “Nefer’s warning was on target: don’t trust the police. Not because they’re corrupt, but because there are times when standard practice, such as forwarding a complaint, doesn’t work.”
    They held an emergency Pariah meeting. “We can’t allow Sylvia’s work to be destroyed,” Abner said. “To do so would be to let the sopaths and their corrupt enablers win.”
    They were grief-stricken and angry about the assassination, but confused. “What can we do, if the police can’t help us?” a man asked.
    “We can take out the criminal directly,” Abner said. “That would eliminate the present problem and serve as a warning to those who try to arm the sopaths.”
    “How?”
    “I believe I have a connection. The less said about it the better.”
    They agreed to let him try it his way. They did not inquire about the details.
    Abner discussed it with his family. “I have two serious reservations. First, do we really want to get into the