* * * * *
Garry exchanged a few words with Junior. "About thirty million, he
says."
"_What!_"
"Well," Garry hastened, "I know it isn't much for twenty million to
grow to after all this time, but there have been expenses! What we
had to spend for protection in the old days, when the mobs wanted to
dynamite the vault!
"The sums that were spent on research to revive you! And then the
Administrator, Junior here, has to live up to the Haworth name and
that's expensive. He draws over a million a year."
"Why, that thieving, white-whiskered pip-squeak, I'll sue him within an
inch of his life! I'll--"
"Now, now, Mr. Haworth, you're still a wealthy man."
H.D. glared. "Wealthy. Yes. And famous. The oldest Sleeper. Can't
understand why the newsmen haven't been after me. In my time--"
"You're not news, sir. Look, Mr. Haworth, I have some rather unpleasant
things to tell you. I've been shirking it but I might as well tell you
now."
H.D. shrugged off a faint twinge of apprehension and leaned back in his
seat. He looked out. The flyer was rocketing through clear air, high
above a sea of crimson cotton, no longer accelerating.
He relaxed and permitted himself a smile. He had life, health, and
millions. The billions would come easily enough. Pah, what "unpleasant
things" could mar this paradise?
"You did have some news value as the oldest and one of the deadest
Sleepers--but you've been thoroughly Probed out this last year."
H.D. frowned impatiently. "What's this 'Probe' business? That woman
mentioned it, and some 'Code'."
"The Farbenstein Probe," Garry said, looking thoughtfully out at the
darkling horizon, "is, in simple terms, a hypno-bio-physical technique
for reaching and interpreting buried memories. Your thoughts and
experiences are on file and the newsworthy ones have been published."
H.D.'s mind refused to accept this horrible thought. He stared stupidly.
"_No!_ It can't be!" he gasped. "It's--it isn't possible! It isn't
_decent_!"
"Oh, not _all_ your thoughts," he explained quickly. "Just--well, I'd
better just tell you as well as I can about the Code." A very uneasy
feeling mounted in H.D.'s breast as Garry continued.
"The Ascension Code made some basic changes in the conditions of
life. What it really did was take most of the irresponsibility out of
people's behavior. Because the freezatoria gave people hope that had no
faith in Heaven--so the Code gave them fear, that didn't fear God. The
Code put justice on a remorseless eye-for-an-eye basis."
H.D.'s blood ran slowly cold. He repressed the thought, denied it,
rejected it, but in his heart he knew. His intuition had made the
connection. Garry noted his heavy breathing, and felt a stir of pity.
He continued, gazing out.
"It's simple enough, in practise. Every fifty years each person
must submit to a Survey--and all Sleepers when they're revived.
By association techniques they're made, under the Probe, to admit
everything they've done that was wrong, either by their own conscience
or by the written law.
"Then--well, you see--one outgrowth of the Probe is that _suffering_
has been classified, qualitatively and quantitatively. Oh, it's
arbitrary on the edges, but not very, and where there's doubt there's
charity, of course.
"After the Survey, if he's passed a certain allowable maximum in
wrongdoing, a person must go to--the penal colony and experience
himself all the suffering he has caused, qualitatively and
quantitatively as closely as possible."
The question was only a whisper. "How long will I have to spend at
this--this place--where did you say?"
"The penal colony? It's on the fourth planet. I guess we used to call
it Mars." He hesitated. "In your case, I'm afraid--well, they say you
hurt a lot of people."
"It's ridiculous!" H.D. cried desperately. "It's barbaric! My word,
even in our time reasonable people knew that _revenge_ isn't
civilized, even against _criminals_. Can't they _rehabilitate_ people?"
Garry grimaced, and spoke flatly, slowly.
"'There is no known deterrent from harmfully selfish action except fear
of punishment. Nor can there be a healthy mind as long as there exists
a debt to conscience.' That's a translation from a schoolbook."
H.D. sprawled in his chair like a poled ox. He recognized that he was
beaten. His eyes stared vacantly, he mumbled over and over, "They
can't, they can't." He did not notice the flyer's swooping deceleration.
* * * * *
Something was shining with a white light. They were hovering. H.D.
looked up absently, little interest in his eyes. A great long
cave-mouth yawned in the mountain that was Washington, bright in the
gathering dusk.
"There's our signal." A green eye was blinking rapidly. Junior settled
the flyer in a curbed rectangle and H.D. had a moment to note the rows
of craft, the conveyors, the rows of brightly lettered doors in the
background. Then the door of the flyer opened and a gray-uniformed man
almost as big as Junior clambered in, carrying a little leather bag.
H.D. watched in silence as the Administrator and the stranger exchanged
a few words and some sheaves of paper, to which each affixed a
signature. Then the man in gray opened his bag and, with the tools he
took out, began to do something to the flyer's instrument panel. He
whistled as he worked, a jazzy dance tune, and the sound grotesquely
accentuated the silence of the watching three.
Jones stirred. "Well, here's where we get off, I guess." He stepped
down out of the flyer, Junior after him, but when H.D. mechanically
followed, the Administrator's bulk blocked the door. He was smiling
with polite embarrassment.
"Move, you oaf!" H.D. snapped.
"Sorry, Mr. Haworth," Garry said. "You're going on to ... the penal
colony."
Red rage gripped H.D.; they were treating him like an animal, sending
him off like a bull to the packing house. He gripped the door-frame
with his hands, and in a quick motion set his foot against Junior's
chest. The giant sprawled backwards, and there was a satisfying thump
as his head struck the pavement.
An iron hand gripped H.D.'s shoulder. The uniformed man's face was
completely indifferent, almost bored. He merely held H.D. until he
relaxed and sank shaking into a seat. Junior was on his feet, rubbing
his head, the oafish smile a little rueful now.
The man in gray resumed his work and his whistling. It was intolerable.
Those two with their sympathetic silence, and this fellow with his
cheerful, loathsome whistling. He had to say something.
"How's a little can like this able to get to another planet?"
"Oh, we're pretty good engineers these days," Garry said eagerly. "Tell
you about it sometime. Well, the J-man's fixing your pilot signal now.
It'll fly on automatic. It ought to be pretty interesting, really, your
first space trip and all."
H.D. scarcely heard him. The "J-man" had put his tools back in their
bag and was descending to the pavement. The door closed with a ringing
sound and the J-man was doing something to it from the outside.
Despairing, frustrated tears welled in H.D.'s eyes. His knuckles
whitened.
A faint vibration stirred in the flyer and H.D. looked around in panic.
Going already? He felt horribly afraid. He had an impulse to claw the
walls. Garry caught his wild look and returned a glance of sympathy.
His lips moved, but no sound came. H.D. stared. Garry's lips moved
again, and he gestured. H.D. remembered then and hit the toggle.
"... easy, Mr. Haworth." Garry's voice was as clear now as though he
spoke beside him.
The flyer lifted gently and eased around in a 180-degree turn. The
last tints of evening glowed in the western sky, the earth was lost in
darkness and the first insolent stars were mocking him.
Garry, on the other side now, called again.
"Take it as it comes, Mr. Haworth. It won't last forever, even if it
seems like it. Son of a gun--said the wrong thing again, didn't I!"