My name. The dream and _her_ voice. And her suggestion.
_Would I dare? Would I start out this very morning and take the risk,
the terrible risk?_
* * * * *
You remember renumbering. Two years ago. You remember how it was then;
how everybody looked forward to his new designation, and how everybody
made jokes about the way the letters came out, and how all the records
were for a while fouled up beyond recognition.
The telecomics kidded renumbering. One went a little too far and
they psycho-scanned him and then sent him to Marscol as a dangerous
nonconform.
If you were disappointed with your new designation, you didn't
complain. You didn't want a sudden visit from the Deacons during the
night.
There had to be renumbering. We all understood that. With the
population of Northem already past two billion, the old designations
were too clumsy. Renumbering was efficient. It contributed to the good
of Northem. It helped advance the warless struggle with Southem.
The equator is the boundary. I understand that once there was
a political difference and that the two superstates sprawled
longitudinally, not latitudinally, over the globe. Now they are pretty
much the same. There is the truce, and they are both geared for war.
They are both efficient states, as tightly controlled as an experiment
with enzymes, as microsurgery, as the temper of a diplomat.
We were renumbered, then, in Northem. You know the system: everybody
now has six digits and an additional prefix or suffix of four letters.
Stateleader, for instance, has the designation AAAA-111/111. Now, to
address somebody by calling off four letters is a little clumsy. We try
to pronounce them when they are pronounceable. That is, no one says to
Stateleader, "Good morning, A-A-A-A." They say, "Good morning, Aaaa."
Reading the last quote, I notice a curious effect. It says what I feel.
Of course I didn't feel that way on that particular morning. I was
still conformal; the last thing in my mind was that I would infract and
be psycho-scanned.
Four letters then, and in many cases a pronounceable four letter word.
A four letter word.
Yes, you suspect already. You know what a four letter word can be.
Mine was.
It was unspeakable.
The slight weight on my forehead reminded me that I still wore my
sleep-learner. I'd been studying administrative cybernetics, hoping to
qualify in that field, although it was a poor substitute for a space
drive expert. I removed the band and stepped across the room and
turned off the oscillator. I went back to my egg and my bitter memories.
I will never forget the first day I received my new four letter
combination and reported it to my chief, as required. I was unthinkably
embarrassed. He didn't say anything. He just swallowed and choked
and became crimson when he saw it. He didn't dare pass it to his
secretarial engineer; he went to the administrative circuits and
registered it himself.
I can't blame him for easing me out. He was trying to run an efficient
organization, after all, and no doubt I upset its efficiency. My work
was important--magnetic mechanics was the only way to handle quanta
reaction, or the so-called non-energy drive, and was therefore the
answer to feasible space travel beyond our present limit of Mars--and
there were frequent inspection tours by Big Wheels and Very Important
Persons.
Whenever anyone, especially a woman, asked my name, the embarrassment
would become a crackling electric field all about us. The best tactic
was just not to answer.
* * * * *
The chief called me in one day. He looked haggard.
"Er--old man," he said, not quite able to bring himself to utter my
name, "I'm going to have to switch you to another department. How would
you like to work on nutrition kits? Very interesting work."
"Nutrition kits? _Me?_ On nutrition kits?"
"Well, I--er--know it sounds unusual, but it justifies. I just had
the cybs work it over in the light of present regulations, and it
justifies."
Everything had to justify, of course. Every act in the monthly report
had to be covered by regulations and cross-regulations. Of course there
were so many regulations that if you just took the time to work it out,
you could justify damn near anything. I knew what the chief was up to.
Just to remove me from my post would have taken a year of applications
and hearings and innumerable visits to the capital in Center One. But
if I should infract--deliberately infract--it would enable the chief to
let me go. The equivalent of resigning.
"I'll infract," I said. "Rather than go on nutrition kits, I'll
infract."
He looked vastly relieved. "Uh--fine," he said. "I rather hoped you
would."
It took a week or so. Then I was on Non-Productive status and issued an
N/P book for my necessities. Very few luxury coupons in the N/P book.
I didn't really mind at first. My new living machine was smaller, but
basically comfortable, and since I was still a loyal member of the
state and a verified conformist, I wouldn't starve.
But I didn't know what I was in for.
I went from bureau to bureau, office to office, department to
department--any place where they might use a space drive expert. A
pattern began to emerge; the same story everywhere. When I mentioned my
specialty they would look delighted. When I handed them my tag and they
saw my name, they would go into immediate polite confusion. As soon as
they recovered they would say they'd call me if anything turned up....
* * * * *
A few weeks of this and I became a bit dazed.
And then there was the problem of everyday existence. You might say
it's lucky to be an N/P for a while. I've heard people say that. Basic
needs provided, worlds of leisure time; on the surface it sounds
attractive.
But let me give you an example. Say it is monthly realfood day. You go
to the store, your mouth already watering in anticipation. You take
your place in line and wait for your package. The distributor takes
your coupon book and is all ready to reach for your package--and then
he sees the fatal letters N/P. Non-Producer. A drone, a drain upon the
State. You can see his stare curdle. He scowls at the book again.
"Not sure this is in order. Better go to the end of the line. We'll
check it later."
You know what happens before the end of the line reaches the counter.
No more packages.
Well, I couldn't get myself off N/P status until I got a post, and
with my name I _couldn't_ get a post.
Nor could I change my name. You know what happens when you try to
change something already on the records. The very idea of wanting
change implies criticism of the State. Unthinkable behavior.
That was why this curious dream voice shocked me so. The thing that it
suggested was quite as embarrassing as its non-standard, emotional,
provocative tone.
Bear with me; I'm getting to the voice--to _her_--in a moment.
I want to tell you first about the loneliness, the terrible loneliness.
I could hardly join group games at any of the rec centers. I could join
no special interest clubs or even State Loyalty chapters. Although I
dabbled with theoretical research in my own quarters, I could scarcely
submit any findings for publication--not with my name attached. A
pseudonym would have been non-regulation and illegal.
But there was the worst thing of all. I could not mate.
* * * * *
Funny, I hadn't thought about mating until it became impossible. I
remember the first time, out of sheer idleness, I wandered into a
Eugenic Center. I filled out my form very carefully and submitted it
for analysis and assignment. The clerk saw my name, and did the usual
double-take. He coughed and swallowed and fidgeted.
He said, "Of course you understand that we must submit your
application to the woman authorized to spend time in the mating booths
with you, and that she has the right to refuse."
"Yes, I understand that."
"M'm," he said, and dismissed me with a nod.
I waited for a call in the next few weeks, still hoping, but I knew
no woman would consent to meet a man with my name, let alone enter a
mating booth with him.
The urge to reproduce myself became unbearable. I concocted all sorts
of wild schemes.
I might infract socially and be classified a nonconform and sent to
Marscol. I'd heard rumors that in that desolate land, on that desolate
planet, both mingling and mating were rather disgustingly unrestricted.
Casual mating would be terribly dangerous, of course, with all the wild
irradiated genes from the atomic decade still around, but I felt I'd be
willing to risk that. Well, almost....
About then I began to have these dreams. As I've told you, in the dream
there was only this woman's seductive voice. The first time I heard it
I awoke in a warm sweat and swore something had gone wrong with the
sleep-learner. You never hear the actual words with this machine, of
course; you simply absorb the concepts unconsciously. Still, it seemed
an explanation. I checked thoroughly. Nothing wrong.
The next night I heard the woman's voice again.
"_Try it_," she said. "_Do it. Start tomorrow to get your name changed.
There will be a way. There must be a way. The rules are so mixed up
that a clever man can do almost anything. Do it, please--for me._"
* * * * *
She was not only trying to get me to commit nonconformity, but making
heretical remarks besides. I awoke that time and half-expected a Deacon
to pop out of the tube and turn his electric club upon me.
And I heard the voice nearly every night.
It hammered away.
"_What if you do fail? Almost anything would be better than the
miserable existence you're leading now!_"
One morning I even caught myself wondering just how I'd go about this
idea of hers. Wondering what the first step might be.
She seemed to read my thoughts. That night she said, "_Consult the cybs
in the Govpub office. If you look hard enough and long enough, you'll
find a way._"
Now, on this morning of the seventeenth day in the ninth month,
I ate my boiled egg slowly and actually toyed with the idea. I
thought of being on productive status again. I had almost lost my
fanatical craving to be useful to the State, but I did want to be
busy--desperately. I didn't want to be despised any more. I didn't
want to be lonely. I wanted to reproduce myself.
I made my decision suddenly. Waves of emotion carried me along. I got
up, crossed the room to the directory, and pushbuttoned to find the
location of the nearest Govpub office.