[Illustration]
The trouble began in a seemingly trivial way. Connor had wanted to speak
to Rhoda, his wife, wished himself onto a trunk line and then waited.
"Dallas Shipping here, Mars and points Jupiterward, at your service,"
said a business-is-business, unwifely voice in his mind.
"I was not calling you," he thought back into the line, now also getting
a picture, first flat, then properly 3-D and in color. It was a
paraNormally luxurious commercial office.
"I am the receptionist at Dallas Shipping," the woman thought back
firmly. "You rang and I answered."
"I'm sure I rang right," Connor insisted.
"And I'm sure I know my job," Dallas Shipping answered. "I have received
as many as five hundred thought messages a day, some of them highly
detailed and technical and--"
"Forget it," snapped Connor. "Let's say I focussed wrong."
He pulled back and twenty seconds later finally had Rhoda on the line.
"Queerest thing happened," he projected. "I just got a wrong party."
"Nothing queer about it," his wife smiled, springing to warm life on his
inner eye. "You just weren't concentrating, Connor."
"Don't you hand me that too," he grumbled. "I _know_ I thought on the
right line into Central. Haven't I been using the System for sixty
years?"
"Exactly--all habit and no attention."
How smugly soothing she was some days! "I think the trouble's in Central
itself. The Switcher isn't receiving me clearly."
"Lately I've had some peculiar miscalls myself," Rhoda said nervously.
"But you _can't_ blame Central Switching!"
"Oh, I didn't mean that!" By now he was equally nervous and only too
happy to end the conversation. Ordinarily communications were not
monitored but if this one had been there could certainly be a slander
complaint.
* * *
On his way home in the monorail Connor tried to reach his office and had
the frightening experience of having his telepathic call refused by
Central. Then he refused in turn to accept a call being projected at
him, but when an Urgent classification was added he had to take it. "For
your unfounded slander of Central Switching's functioning," announced
the mechanically-synthesized voice, "you are hereby Suspended
indefinitely from the telepathic net. From this point on all paraNormal
privileges are withdrawn and you will be able to communicate with your
fellows only in person or by written message."
Stunned, Connor looked about at his fellow passengers. Most of them had
their eyes closed and their faces showed the mild little smile which was
the outer hallmark of a mind at rest, tuned in to a music channel or
some other of the hundreds of entertainment lines available from
Central. How much he had taken that for granted just a few minutes ago!
Three men, more shabbily dressed, were unsmilingly reading books. They
were fellow pariahs, Suspended for one reason or another from
paraNormal privileges. Only the dullest, lowest-paying jobs were
available to them while anyone inside the System could have Central read
any book and transmit the information directly into his cortex. The
shabbiest one of all looked up and his sympathetic glance showed that he
had instantly grasped Connor's changed situation.
Connor looked hastily away; he didn't want any sympathy from that kind
of 'human' being! Then he shuddered. Wasn't he, himself, now that kind
in every way except his ability to admit it?
When he stepped onto the lushly hydroponic platform at the suburban stop
the paraNormals, ordinarily friendly, showed that they, too, already
realized what had happened. Each pair of suddenly icy eyes went past him
as if he were not there at all.
He walked up the turf-covered lane toward his house, feeling hopelessly
defeated. How would he manage to maintain a home here in the middle of
green and luxuriant beauty? More people than ever were now outside the
System for one reason or another and most of these unfortunates were
crowded in metropolitan centers which were slumhells to anyone who had
known something better.
How could he have been so thoughtless because of a little lapse in
Central's mechanism? Now that it was denied him, probably forever, he
saw more clearly the essential perfection of the system that had brought
order into the chaos following the discovery of universal paraNormal
capacities. At first there had been endless interference between minds
trying to reach each other while fighting off unwanted calls. Men had
even suggested this blessing turned curse be annulled.
The Central Synaptic Computation Receptor and Transmitter System had
ended all such negative thinking. For the past century and a half it had
neatly routed telepathic transmissions with an efficiency that made
ancient telephone exchanges look like Stone Age toys. A mind could
instantly exchange information with any other Subscribing mind and still
shut itself off through the Central machine if and when it needed
privacy. Except, he shuddered once more, if Central put that Urgent
rating on a call. Now only Rhoda could get a job to keep them from the
inner slumlands.
He turned into his garden and watched Max, the robot, spading in the
petunia bed. The chrysanthemums really needed more attention and he was
going to think the order to Max when he realized with a new shock that
all orders would have to be oral now. He gave up the idea of saying
anything and stomped gloomily into the house.
* * *
As he hung his jacket in the hall closet he heard Rhoda coming
downstairs. "Queer thing happened today," he said with forced
cheerfulness, "but we'll manage." He stopped as Rhoda appeared. Her eyes
were red and puffed.
"I tried to reach you," she sobbed.
"Oh, you already know. Well, we can manage, you know, honey. You can
work two days a week and--"
"You don't understand," she screamed at him. "_I'm_ Suspended too! I
tried to tell it I hadn't done anything but it said I was guilty by
being associated with you."
Stunned, he fell back into a chair. "Not you, too, darling!" He had been
getting used to the idea of his own reduced status but this was too
brutal. "Tell Central you'll leave me and the guilt will be gone."
"You fool, I did say that and my defense was refused!"
Tears welled in his eyes. Was there no bottom to this horror? "You
yourself suggested that?"
"Why shouldn't I?" she cried. "It wasn't my fault at all."
He sat there and tried not to listen as waves of hate rolled over him.
Then the front bell rang and Rhoda answered it.
"I haven't been able to reach you," someone was saying through the door.
It was Sheila Williams who lived just down the lane. "Lately lines seem
to get tied up more and more. It's about tonight's game."
Just then Rhoda opened the door and Sheila came to an abrupt halt as she
saw her old friend's face. Her expression turned stony and she said, "I
wanted you to know the game is off." Then she strode away.
Unbelieving, Rhoda watched her go. "After forty years!" she exclaimed.
She slowly came back to her husband and stared down at him. "Forty years
of 'undying' friendship, gone like that!" Her eyes softened a little.
"Maybe I'm wrong, Connor, maybe I said too much through Central myself.
And maybe I'd have acted like Sheila if _they_ had been the ones."
He withdrew his hands from his face. "I've done the same thing to other
wretches myself. We'll just have to get used to it somehow. I've enough
social credits to hang on here a year anyway."
"Get used to it," she repeated dully. This time there was no
denunciation but she had to flee up the stairs to be alone.
He went to the big bay window and, trying to keep his mind blank,
watched Max re-spading the petunia bed. He really should go out and
tell the robot to stop, he decided, otherwise the same work would be
repeated again and again. But he just watched for the next hour as Max
kept returning to the far end of the bed and working his way up to the
window, nodding mindlessly with each neat twist of his spade attachment.
Rhoda came back downstairs and said, "It's six-thirty. The first time
since the boys left that they didn't call us at six." He thought of Ted
on Mars and Phil on Venus and sighed. "By now," she went on, "they know
what's happened. Usually colonial children just refuse to have anything
more to do with parents like us. And they're right--they have their own
futures to consider."
"They'll still write to us," he started reassuring her but she had
already gone outside where he could hear her giving Max vocal
instructions for preparing dinner. Which was just as well--she would
know the truth soon enough. Without a doubt the boys were now also
guilty by association and they'd have nothing left to lose by
maintaining contact.
At dinner, though, he felt less kindly toward her and snapped a few
times. Then it was Rhoda's turn to exercise forebearance and to try to
smooth things over. Once she looked out the picture window at the
perfect synthetic thatch of the Williams' great cottage, peeping over
the hollyhock-topped rise of ground at the end of the garden. "Well?" he
demanded. "Well?"
"Nothing, Connor."
"You sighed and I want to know what the devil--"
"Since you insist--I was thinking how lucky Sheila Williams always is.
Ten years ago the government authorized twins for her while I haven't
had a child in thirty years, and now our disaster forewarns her. She'll
never get caught off guard on a paraNormal line."
* * *
He snapped his fingers and Max brought out the pudding in a softly
shining silver bowl. Above it hovered a bluish halo of flaming brandy.
"Maybe not. I've heard of people even being Suspended without a reason."
He slowly savored the first spoonful as if it might be the last ever.
From now on every privileged pleasure would have that special value.
"One more year of such delights."
"If we can stand the ostracism."
"We can." Suddenly he was all angry determination. "I did the wrong
thing today, admitted, but it really was the truth, what I said. I've
concentrated right and still got wrong numbers!"
"Me too, but I kept thinking it was my own fault."
"The real truth's that while the System assumes more authority each
decade it keeps getting less efficient."
"Well, why doesn't the government do something, get everything back in
working order?"
His grin showed no pleasure. "Do you know anybody who could help repair
a Master Central Computer?"
"Not personally but there must be--"
"Must be nothing! People are slack from having it so good, don't think
as much as they used to. Why bother when you can tap Central for any
information? _Almost_ any information."
"How can it all end?"
"Who knows and who cares?" He was angry all over again. "It will still
be working well enough for a few centuries and we, we're just left out
in the cold! I'm only ninety, I can live another sixty years, and you,
you're going to have a good seventy-five more of this deprivation."
Max was standing at the foot of the table, metal visual lids closed as
he waited for instructions. Rhoda considered him unthinkingly, then
snapped back to attention. "Nothing more, Max, go to the kitchen and
disconnect until you hear from us."
"Yes," he said in that programmed tone which indicated endless gratitude
for the privilege of half-being.
"That ends my sad day," Connor sighed. "I'm taking a blackout pill and
intend to stay that way for the next fourteen hours."
* * * * *
The next morning he rode into the city in the same car as the one that
had brought him back the day before. None of the regulars even deigned
to look in his direction. There was another change today. Only two
fellow Suspendeds were reading their books even though there had been
three for the past few months. Which meant another one had exhausted his
income and was being forced into the inner city.
At the office none of Connor's associates greeted him. They didn't even
have to contrast the new tension in his face with the easy-going,
flannelled contentment of their fellows. Undoubtedly somebody had tried
to reach him or Rhoda and heard the Suspension Notice on their severed
thought-lines.
As was also to be expected, there was a notice on his desk that his
executive services would no longer be needed.
He quickly gathered up his personal things and went downstairs, passing
through the office workers pool. Miss Wilson, his Suspended secretary,
came up to him. She looked saddened yet, curiously, almost triumphant
too. "We all heard the bad news this morning," she said, her blue eyes
never wavering. "We want you to know how sorry we are since you're not
accustomed--"
"I'll never be accustomed to it," he said bitterly.
"No, Mr. Newman, you mustn't think that way. Human beings can get
accustomed to whatever's necessary."
"Necessary? Not in my books!"
"Some day you may feel differently. I was born into a Suspended family
and we've managed. Being on the outside has its compensations."
"Such as?"
"We-l-l--," she faltered, "I really don't know exactly. But you must
have faith it will be so." She pulled out a card from a pocket of her
sheath dress. "Maybe you'll want to use this some day."
He glanced at the card which said, _John Newbridge, Doctor at Mind, 96th
Level, Harker Building, Appointments by Writing Only_. There was no
thought-line coding.
"I have no doubt," he muttered. But she was starting to look hurt so he
carefully slid the card into his wallet.
"He's very helpful," she said. "I mean, helpful for people who have
adjustment problems."
"You're a good girl," he said huskily. "Maybe we'll meet someday again.
I'll have my wife call--write to you so you can visit us before we have
to come into the city."
"That," she smiled happily, "would be so wonderful, Mr. Newman. I've
never been in a home like that." Then, choking with emotion, she turned
and hurried away.
* * *
When he reached home and told Rhoda what had happened, his wife was not
in the least bit moved. "I'll never let that girl in my house," she said
through thin lips. "A classless nothing! I'm going to keep my pride
while I can."
There was some sense to her viewpoint but, he felt uncertainly, not
enough for him to remain silent. "We have to adjust, darling, can't go
on thinking we're what we're not."
"Why can't we?" she exploded. "I couldn't even order food today. Max had
to go to the AutoMart and pick it up!"
"What are you trying to say?"
"That _you_ made this mess!"
For a while he listened, dully unresponsive, but eventually the
vituperation became too bitter and he came back at her with equal vigor.
Until, weeping, she rushed upstairs once more.
That was the first of many arguments. Anything could bring them on,
instructions for Max that she chose to consider erroneous, a biting
statement from him that she was deliberately making herself physically
unattractive. More and more Rhoda took to going into the city while he
killed time making crude, tentative adjustments on Max. What the devil,
he occasionally wondered, could she be doing there?
But most of the time he did not bother about it; he had found a
consolation of his own. At first it had been impossible to make the
slightest changes in Max, even those that permitted the robot to remain
conscious and give advice. Again and again his mind strained toward
Central until the icy-edged truth cut into his brain--there was no line.
Out of boredom, though, he plugged away, walked past the
disdainfully-staring eyes of neighbors to the village library, and
withdrew dusty microfiles on robotry. Eventually he had acquired a
little skill at contemplating what, essentially, remained a mystery to
his easily-tired mind. It was not completely satisfactory but it would
be enough to get him a better-than-average menial job when he had
finally accepted his new condition.
At long last a letter came from Ted on Mars. It said:
Guilty by association, that's what I am! When it first happened I
was furious with the two of you but resignation has its own
consolations and I've given up the ranting. Of course, I've lost my
job and my new one will keep me from Earth a longer time but the
real loss is not being able to think on Earth Central once a day. As
you know, it's a funny civilization here anyway. As yet, there's no
local telepathic Central but all Active Communicators are permitted
to think in on Earth Central once a day--except for the big shots
who can even telepath social engagements to each other by way of
Earth! Privileged but a pretty dull crowd anyway.
Oh yes, another exception to the general ration, Suspendeds like me.
Funny thing about that, seems to me there are more Suspended from
the Earth System all the time. Maybe I'm imagining it.