"It's an old-fashioned food," said Conley. "Rather tasty too."
"Please sit down," Penelope begged, "and tell us more."
Conley looked at his watch. "Believe I will. My feet get a little tired
all day from pounding the pavement. But there isn't much more to tell.
You'll find out everything tomorrow. And I'm sure you'll like it. We try
to give each person work to challenge him."
"What if a person wouldn't want to go to Central?"
"Very few ever object. Once in a while they are afraid and run away, but
we just register their number with all the machines, and whenever that
number is presented for food or clothes, the machines reject the card."
He paused. "A very neat arrangement. Of course, inside of Central the
point system as you know it now will be of no value whatever. We use
money in Central."
Penelope had a can of synthetic meat in her hands. "Beef!" she said
suddenly, and hurled the can into the disintichute. "I'm going to starve
all night so I can enjoy eating tomorrow."
"So nobody ever gets away?" asked Mark.
"Very seldom, though there's one fellow playing a game with Central. He
must have gotten wind of us, and he keeps careful check on his points.
About once every three months he starts going strong. He'll be putting
in eight or ten thousand points a day. Then his balance will shoot up
over a hundred thousand and I'll go after him, but he's always just
signed away a lot of points. Would you believe it, the last time he had
given away fifty thousand points to a fellow who claimed a broken back.
He said he knew it was a phony, but he had me there and he laughed at
me, for he had signed away the points. The slip showed up next day."
Mark looked at Penelope and grinned. "We should have known that nobody
in his right mind would give away fifty thousand points."
Conley raised his hand in a salute. "See you tomorrow at Central. If
they don't keep you busy, look me up."
Mark watched him leave. Then he looked beamingly at Penelope. "Work!
Every day! Eight o'clock! We'll have to get up before breakfast! Isn't
it wonderful?"
But Penelope's bird-like eyes were bright. "He said there would be
promotions and bonuses for those who show promise," she recalled. "I
wish we had known that. We could have made a cleanup and gone into
Central with a record that would make their eyes pop out. Anyhow"--she
dug her pad of release blanks out of her pocket and began to figure on
the back. "Let's see, fifty thousand from the little man who's playing a
game with Central, twenty-five from the owner of the sidewalk, two
thousand for the raspberry, five hundred each from two who made noises
of disrespect, and a thousand from the man who doubted that your back
was really broken. You could have collected two thousand from that last
one," she said absently, "if you hadn't got cold feet. Anyway, that's
seventy-nine thousand points. Now, then, twenty per cent of that is
fifteen thousand, eight hundred points."