"What did they do?"
He chuckled lasciviously. "Kept meeting each other in the rec centers.
Didn't know they were being watched. We nabbed 'em topside after they'd
gone out in the desert together."
"What happens to them now--Marscol?"
"They'd be lucky, brother, if that was only it. Oh, we'll ship 'em to
Mars sooner or later, but first they got to be interviewed."
"You mean for reclassification?"
"No. Just interviewed. We do it routine with everybody we pick up now.
Specially morals cases. That's how we crack down on other nonconforms.
They got a regular organization, you know."
"They _have_?"
"Sure. They're all Southem spies. Trying to weaken us for an attack,
that's all. I can spot 'em a mile away."
I frowned and cleared my throat a little. "Wouldn't you think that any
spies would try to act as normal as possible and not call attention to
themselves by infracting morally?"
He put a big finger on my chest. "Listen, you got no idea. I see these
buzzards in operation all the time. I know what goes on."
"Of course. I'm sure you do." I kept the sarcasm out of my voice, but
it was a struggle.
The finger tapped my chest, once to every word, it seemed. "We
interview 'em all. Some of 'em, they really got nothing to tell us and
the interview kind of breaks 'em. Know what I mean? But we got to do
it. If we only get dope on other nonconforms from one out of ten, we
figure we didn't waste our time."
"You mean these--interviews of yours are a form of _torture_?"
He gave me a hard eye and said, "We don't call it that, brother. We
don't call it that."
"Of course," I said again, and went back to washing my hands.
I watched the prisoners for the rest of the flight. I couldn't stop
watching them. And all this time I kept thinking of Lara, visualizing
her, seeing her young figure and her light hair and her mouse-colored
eyes, and not really knowing why.
I had the overpowering desire to spring forward and throttle the two
Deacons and help the prisoners to escape. _Almost_ overpowering. I
didn't, naturally.
The jetcopter lowered toward the great green parks that cover the
topside area of Center One. It was really refreshing to see them. I
understood that the lucky residents of Center One were allowed to
wander in these parks, and look at the growing things and the sky.
Then, presently, the parks were out of sight again and we were settling
on the concrete landing stage and I was back to reality.
* * * * *
The first contact at the Office of Psychological Adjustment was, as
usual, an information desk. There were people instead of cybs to greet
you and I suppose that was because of the special complications of
problems brought here. The cybs have their limits, after all.
A gray man with a gray eye and a face like a mimeographed bulletin
looked at me and said, in approved voice and standard phraseology,
"what information is desired?"