"We go indoors," the Permanent said.
"Look! I think it's starting to rain now!" Larry pointed at the bright,
cloudless sky. "There'll be a terrible thunderstorm any minute!"
"The robonurses should be here, then."
"Yes!" Larry said. "Where are they? Why aren't they here?"
"They'll be here," the Permanent said blandly.
"I don't think so. I don't think they're coming. They're going to let
you get wet."
The Permanent shrugged. "They wouldn't do that," he said.
"Of course not," a new voice said.
Larry glanced up, startled. The copper-alloy face of a robonurse looked
down at him. He goggled confusedly.
The robonurse's grips seized his shoulders gently. "You'll have to
leave here, boy. We can't have you disturbing these people."
Larry stood up. "All right," he said. "I'll go." He had seen all he
needed to see.
* * * * *
The stranger in the City had been right, Larry thought, as he made his
way back to his home. The place to look had been in the Playground. He
_had_ seen something even more frightening than the City.
His father was waiting for him as he entered.
"Well?"
Larry sat down heavily in a pneumochair and knit his hands together.
"I've seen the Playground," he said. "Yesterday the City, today the
Playground. What's left to see?"
"You've seen it all, son."
Larry studied his father's pale, harried face for a moment. "I thought
the City was pretty horrible. I decided yesterday I'd become a
Permanent."
"I know. Your Watcher told me."
"Watcher?"
"You know--the man who took you in for drinks. You don't think I'd let
you go into the City alone, do you?"
Larry smiled. "I _thought_ it was too neat, the way he met me and sent
me back. But--but--"
He looked up helplessly at his father. "Today I saw the Playground,
Dad. And I don't know what to do." His voice trailed off indistinctly.
"What's the trouble, son?"
"Tomorrow I have to make my choice. Well, the Playground seems to be
out--they turn into vegetables there--but am I ready for the City?"
"I don't understand, Larry."
"I was sickened by the place." He leaned forward and said, "Dad, why
are children raised on the unworry drug?"
"We try to spare you," his father said. "Seventeen years of
tranquility--it's good, isn't it?"
"Not when it ends. It's the worst possible preparation for a life
in your world, Dad. I'm not ready for it--and I never will be! My
childhood hasn't taught me how to worry!"
Suddenly, his father began to chuckle, first deep in his stomach, then
high up in his throat, a ratchety, rasping laugh.
"What's the matter?" Larry asked angrily. "What's so funny?"
"You say you don't know how to worry? Why, you're practically an
expert at it!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Suppose you tell me what you've been thinking of, the past two days.
Everything."
Larry stood up, walked to the door. The robonurse was waiting in the
next room, patient, unmoving. After a moment, he turned to his father.
"Well--I've been thinking that I don't like the City. That I'm afraid I
wasn't properly prepared for it. That I think raising me on the unworry
drug robbed me of any chance I'd have to learn to stand the strains of
City life. That even so I don't like the Playground either, and I'm
caught between." He checked each item off on his fingers. "That--"
"That's enough, Larry. You've analyzed it nicely."
Slowly, the truth opened out before him and an embarrassed grin widened
on his face. Resistance to strain could be acquired overnight--by nine
out of ten. Nine out of ten didn't need a long, grueling childhood to
prepare them for adulthood; the tenth would never grow up anyway.
"I've _been_ worrying," he said. "I'm the worrying kind. I've been
worrying since yesterday, and I didn't even know it!"
His father nodded. Larry took the capsule-box from its shelf, opened
it, stared at the three different kinds of capsule inside. "There never
really was any choice after all, was there?"
"No. Your choice was made yesterday morning. If you didn't have the
stuff for City life, you'd have grabbed for the unworry capsule the
second you saw it. But you didn't. You stopped to make a decision--and
won your citizenship right then and there. You proved it to us--and by
fighting with yourself over the decision you thought you still had to
make, you proved it to yourself."
Larry's smile spread. "Sure. The ability to worry is the measure of
successful City life," he said. "And I'm a regular worry wart already."
The excitement of the past two days still thumped in his stomach--and
it was only the beginning. "I belong _here_. Why--it won't be long
before I'll get my first ulcer!"
His father was radiant with paternal pride. "Welcome to your heritage,
son--the heritage of the civilized man. You've got the makings of a
first-rate citizen!"