Gordon R. Dickson (15 page)

There was a slight pause. The screen cleared
and then lit up again.

Check
begun:

The two words were replaced by the first
question.

You
are
a
memnonics
Engineer?

Kil selected a button and pressed it.

"Yes."

Do
you
like
your
work?
"Yes."

Have
you
ever
preferred
any
other
kind
of
work?
"No."

The
questions and answers continued. Kil answered automatically, for these were
the standard questions asked in every check.
Files was
authenticating the data on him that it already had on record. Soon enough, the
questions began to break into new territory and narrow down on his present
situation.

The
Police
have
taken
note
recently
that
you
have
been occupying
yourself
in
an
unusual
manner.
Have
you
any
explanation
for
this?
Please
answer
at
length,
using
alphabet keyboard.

Kil
moved his fingers down from the
yes
and
no
buttons, and typed.

"I've been trying to
find my wife."

How
did
you
become
separated
from
your
wife?

Kil
felt weary. He rubbed a hand slowly across his eyes, and typed.

"Files already
has
that information."

That
is
correct.
Do
you
wish
to
add
to
or
alter
your
previous
account
of
your
wife's
disappearance?
"No."

You
are
concerned
about
your
wife's
disappearance?
"Yes."

Do
you
consider,
flashed
the
screen,
that
your
search
for her
is
more
important
than
the
time
and
funds
you
are
expending
in
pursuit
of
it?

"Yes." Kil jabbed savagely at the
button.

'Have
you
considered
the
ill
effect
on
your
work,
of
this search?
With a sudden sense of shock, Kil remembered the manufactory of coding
equipment at Geneva, where he should have arrived ready for work the day
following Ellen's disappearance. He had never stopped to think of it; and now,
with the time
elapsed,
they would have found another
engineer for their current problem. He set his jaw somewhat grimly.
"Yes." he punched. "Yes."

If
you
were
to
be
informed
by
authorities
that
your
wife could
not
be
found,
would
you
persist
in
searching
yourself?
"Yes."

If
you
were
informed
by
the
World
Police
that
your
continuing
search
was
at
variance
with
the
general
welfare, would
you
persist?

"Yes."

Do
you
consider
finding
your
wife
to
be
more
important than
a
possible
defiance
of
the
authority
of
the
World
Police?
"Yes."

Do
you
consider
finding
your
wife
to
be
of
more
importance than
the
preservation
of
general
peace?"

Kil hesitated. The screen flashed again.

Would
you
persist
in
searching
for
your
wife
if
Files
were to
inform
you
now
that
by
doing
so
you
were
endangering the
continuing
peace
of
the
world?

Kil stiffened in his chair. This was the
question. His hand went out to hover over the
no
button,
then
stopped. There was no point in
putting it off. Files would keep after him with cross questions. Besides, he
was not ashamed of the truth. His finger punched down.

"Yes."

The screen cleared and flashed on another
line.
Check
concluded.

The lights in the cubicle went on. The two
words on the screen were replaced by three lines.

Findings
of
the
emergency
request
Stability
check
show Kil
Bruner,
Key
3,
526,
849,
110
to
show
indications
of
instability
and
liable
to
criminal
defiance
of
authority.
Recommend
reclassification
to
Unstab.
Class
Two.

The screen cleared itself and faded to an
unlit grey. Kil rose to his feet and stumbled out.

"Give me your Key," said the
Policeman, who had been waiting outside the cubicle.

Kil
was too numb to notice that the other no longer said "sir".

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Kil
stood in the terminal to which the Police
aircar had returned him. His Key felt strange on his wrist; and he looked at
it. Twenty-one days, read the calchronometer. The sight of the numbers brought
on something like a feeling of panic. To a man who had been all the days of his
life with his Key fastened to him, to be reclassified downward was like dying
in a small fashion.
A partial death-sentence.
He had a
feeling, none the less powerful for being illusory, that part of his time to
live had been taken from him. He stood, irresolute.

About
him, the hurrying crowds of the terminal swarmed and passed. And, gradually as
he stood there, the sense of his difference—now—began to take hold of him. Now
and then, one of those passing glanced at him curiously; and he shrank,
internally, from that same glance, as he had shrunk earlier when the Policeman
had escorted him across the floor to the aircar. As before when he had imagined
that their looks assumed the fact that he was a hunted criminal, now he felt
irrationally convinced that each one looking at him
knew
that he had been reclassified,
knew
that he was now Unstab.

And—because
he was himself—a harsh and bristling anger rose within him, against them,
against the hurrying multitude, against all Stabs. It came home to him then
with a shock that this was what it must be that drove the Unstabs away from the
Stabs, into the Slum areas, where they would be at least among their own kind.
In the Slums, there would be no need to imagine contempt. You were among
equals. And, hating himself for doing it, but realizing the necessity with the
thought, Kil turned slowly and headed for the moving roadway that would carry
him back to the area from which, with Dekko's help, he had escaped only a few
days earlier.

From the Terminal, it was not far. In fact,
the Terminal all
but
touched the Slums. Kil rode in and registered in the first hotel he came to. It
struck him as he did so, that he was getting low on money again. He tried to
remember, offhand, how much remained in his registered account, but the memory
would not come to him without effort and he did not want to make the effort. He
put the matter aside.