"You know it isn't."
She knew it. They both knew it and had probably known it for a long
time. They had a lot in common, a minority of two.
And then he remembered. She wasn't really there in the Midtown with
him. She was in Sunny Hill, wherever that was. They couldn't leave
inconspicuously together because they weren't together now, and they
couldn't get together without the Gang being together too.
The rooms, furniture, sounds, everything began to fade.
"Goodbye," Lucille said.
"Get sick or something," Kane said quickly. "Don't go with the Group to
work. Stay there, wherever you are! _Stay there_--"
Faintly, her voice came to him out of a kind of melting mask of a face.
"I'll try--"
Kane was alone in the single room and the door opened. The smiling
Staff came in and shut the door.
The three of them stood there happily holding their briefcases.
"We're happy to report that we have completed your personality
breakdown."
The word was a bit premature, Kane thought. "What is it?" he asked.
"Excellent," the Staff beamed. "You should never have been an
astronomer. You took up that profession as a way of escaping from
people. Actually, of course, you love people and hate your profession.
"Have you determined what I should be if not an astronomer?"
"Naturally, it's all in the breakdown."
"What is it?"
"Generally, you prefer physical work, not mental work. Mental work
is a constant strain on your psychological balance. You have done it
neurotically to reinforce your need to avoid people."
"Physical work? What kind?"
"Specifically, it seems that you are best suited for the profession of
plumbing."
"Plumbing?" Kane said. "Plumbing what?"
"Plumbing, the art of pipe-fitting, the study of water mains, sewage
lines, and so forth."
"Plumbing." Kane said.
"Of course, you react antagonistically to it now. But that will be
changed."
Kane had nothing against plumbers or plumbing. Once, as a kid, he
remembered having a long interesting talk with a plumber who was
unstopping the kitchen sink. He had fascinating tools, and at that
time, Kane had said he would be a plumber when he grew up. But he had
also wanted to be any number of other things when he grew up, including
an astronomer.
Now he had no desire whatsoever to be a plumber.
Kane drew the metal bedside table up hard and the edge of it caught
number one of the Staff under the chin. Kane attacked, violently. He
did it knowing that something more was at stake than his life--his
identity.
* * * * *
Number one fell down on his knees and whimpered. He wasn't hit hard.
But he squatted there blubbering as though he had suffered some
horrible shock. Numbers two and three gaped as though equally shocked
without ever having been hit at all.
That was Kane's initial advantage. The Staff seemed incapable of
understanding that anyone would do what Kane was doing. Kane hit number
two four times before number two covered up his face with his hands and
started to cry. Kane ran him into the closet and locked the door.
Number three swung his briefcase at Kane's head, fluttering his other
hand wildly. Kane was heavier than he should have been because he
was accustomed to the Moon. But he was desperate and that was some
compensation. He had some experience, a very little, as a boxer in
college, but that had been years ago. But as little experience as he
had at this sort of thing, he was way ahead of number three. Number
three kept swinging his briefcase, and Kane hit him on the chin and
then in the stomach and then on the back of the neck. Number three lay
unconscious on the floor.
Kane stared at his bleeding knuckles a moment, then dragged Number one
up onto his feet.
"You're going to help me," Kane said. "We're getting a saucer and then
we're going to Sunny Hill. You know where Sunny Hill is?"
Number one ran his hand nervously through his dark brushcut. He had a
boyish face that seemed deeply insulted by what Kane had done. Insulted
and shocked as though he had been a good boy all his life and then
someone had slapped his hand--for no reason at all.
Kane doubled his fists. Number one winced and looked shocked again, and
very frightened. A great deal more frightened than anyone would be who
was afraid only of physical injury.
"Yes, that's part of a big Group Housing Project downtown."
"Where can we get a saucer?"
"The roof."
"Unlock the door," Kane said. "And just pretend everything is happy and
that we're relating beautifully to one another. Now listen--I'll kill
you if you try anything else. I hope you believe it because I really
will. What you fellows intend doing with me, as far as I'm concerned,
is worse than murder."
They stepped onto one of several saucers decorating the roof of the
Midtown Hotel. The rotary blades in the ten foot platform whirred under
them, and Kane felt the saucer rise up to a thousand feet, then dip
downtown. The air was full of them and only some kind of sixth-sense
seemed to keep them from jamming into one another.
There was never less than two on a saucer. And Kane noticed that most
of the saucers were flying in Groups like aimless geese.
Kane jumped from the saucer and ran across the roof landing of the
Sunny Hill project building. There were a number of them like huge
blocks arranged in some incomprehensible plan.
Kane glanced back to see number one leaping from the saucer and running
in the opposite direction. Kane ran on toward the elevator. He knew he
didn't have much time, but what bothered him was the authority he was
running against. Public opinion was a general attitude, not a cop car,
or a squad of officers with guns. Getting out of line, Kane figured,
was usually its own punishment--isolation, loneliness, social ostracism.
But what about the exception? The guy who fought conformity and the
majority opinion.
Who would they put on Kane? Or what? It would help to know what he was
running from. What concrete force or power would try to stop him.
Then he saw her running toward him.
Her face was flushed and the wind blew her dress tightly against her
slim body as she stopped and looked at him.
He took hold of her arm.
"We've got to hurry," she said. "The Group knows I've run away. The
Staff will be after me."
Kane glanced at the elevator, then they ran back toward the saucer.
"You'll have to pilot this thing," Kane said. "It's a little crowded up
there for me."
She started the motor and the saucer lifted abruptly. "The terminal at
La Guardia?" she said.
"No. The ship's at least two miles from the Terminal. We'll go directly
to the ship." He hesitated. "The only thing is--it isn't due to blast
out of here until the 25th."
"That doesn't matter," she said.
"Why doesn't it? We're flaunting the law. They're after us. They won't
let us just hide away on that ship until the 25th."
"They?"
He stared at her. "You said yourself we had to hurry, because the
Staff--"
"But don't you see, there's no one to stop us now. The Staff at Sunny
Hills could have, but here there isn't any Staff. There's none at the
ship either, is there?"
"No."
"Well then, we'll just wait on the ship until--we go to the Moon."
"But you were afraid, Lucie. You talked about undergrounds, and how it
was impossible--"
She touched his arm and then took hold of his hand. "You don't
understand I guess. Maybe you never will."
"Understand what?"
"What it is to try to get away, be alone, be by yourself, when you
can't. When no matter what you do you're with the Group, night and day,
even in your dreams. You knew it for a while, but imagine it for years,
not days. There's no place to hide. Wherever you go the Group goes with
you. That's why I said you couldn't get away--"
"Then there isn't any law to prevent us from going to the Moon?"
"Only the law of the majority, of Public Opinion," she said. "But you
can't stay here and fight it, not for very long. Finally you have to
give in to it. You become what they are or go mad. And there are Groups
even for them."
The saucer dropped down to the fog draped earth and they were walking
toward the pits where the Moonship waited.
It looked like such a wonderful world, he thought. Everyone happy,
everyone smiling all the time. No wars. No externalized authority.
The Manufacturers of consent. A quasi-totalitarian society in which
means of communication had largely replaced force as the apparatus
of compulsion. Communication, fear, insecurity. In his isolation and
insecurity, man clung to his Group, to the majority, the accepted
opinions.
The majority did not need to force a man now. No need for police, or
armies.
They _convinced_ him.
The only way you could keep from being convinced was to get out.
The hatch slid open.
"Welcome aboard," the Captain said.