Lower down was the motto:
"Speak the Truth--
Live Yet a While With Us."
V
On one side of the stairs as they climbed was a statue of a man,
smiling. On the other side was an urn with a bunch of carved flowers
lying beside it.
A big bronze door stood open at the top. They walked through into a
large chamber with massive seats in triple rows along two walls, and a
single row of yet more massive seats raised along the farther wall.
A bored-looking man got up from a low desk as the Milbuns sat down in
three of the massive seats.
The man asked in a dreary voice, "Have you, to the best of your
knowledge, committed any wrong or illegal act or acts since your last
vacation?" He picked up a whiskbroom and pan and waited for their
answers.
"No," said the three Milbuns in earnest quavering voices.
The man looked at each of them, shrugged and said boredly, "Pass
through to your vacations, live law-abiding citizens." He beckoned
impatiently to Dan, turned to scowl at him, saw Dan's cape, stiffened,
looked hastily out to the statue framed by the doorway, relaxed
slightly and inquired respectfully, "Is it time for you to go on
vacation, Devisement?"
"It seems to be," said Dan.
"I think you should, sir. Then you'd be still more helpful if called."
Dan nodded noncommittally and sat down in one of the massive chairs.
His glance fell on an ornamental carving above the big doorway. It was
a set of scales held by a giant hand. In one pan of the scales sat a
smiling man. In the other was a small heap of ashes.
"Have you," asked the bored man, "to the best of your knowledge,
committed any wrong or illegal act or acts since your last vacation?"
He readied the dustpan and whiskbroom.
The Milbuns watched anxiously at a door in the back of the room.
Uneasily, Dan thought back and remembered no wrong or illegal acts he
had committed since his last vacation.
"No," he said.
The functionary stepped back. "Pass through to your vacation, live
law-abiding citizen, sir."
Dan got up and walked toward the Milbuns. Another bored functionary
came in wheeling a cartful of urns. He stopped at a massive chair with
a heap of ashes on the seat, a small pile on either arm, and two small
piles at the foot. The functionary swept the ashes off and dumped them
in the urn.
A cold sensation went through Dan. He followed the Milbuns out into a
small room.
He felt an out-of-focus sensation and realized the room was a mataform
transmitter. An instant later, they were in a spaceship crowded with
thoughtful-looking people.
* * * * *
Life on the spaceship seemed to be given over to silent, morose
meditation, with an occasional groan that sounded very much like, "Oh,
give me just one more chance, God."
When they left the ship, it was again by mataform, this time to a
building where they stood in a line of people. The line wound through
a booth where the color of their capes was marked on their foreheads,
thence past a counter where they received strong khaki-colored capes,
blouses and hose, and new leather shorts and boots to replace those
they were wearing. They changed in tiny private rooms, handed their
own clothing in at another counter, had a number stamped on their left
shoulders and on their boxes of clothing.
Then they walked out onto a strip of brilliant white sand, fronting on
an inlet of sparkling blue water.
Here and there huddled little crowded knots of people, dancing from one
foot to another on the hot sand and yet apparently afraid to go in the
water. Dan looked to the Milbuns for some clue and saw them darting
intense calculating glances at the beach and the water.