The line of people continued to move steadily toward the customs
booth. Hunter stopped at last in front of a counter where a male
clerk, wearing on his tunic the identification disc of his U.F.W.
union local, typed out the customs forms, took Hunter's thumbprint,
and carefully checked his medical certificate.
"You had your last boosters in the Mars station, is that correct?"
"Yes, last January," Hunter replied.
"That gives you an eight months' clearance." The clerk smiled. "Plenty
of time for a spaceman's furlough."
"I'm making a permanent separation," Hunter affirmed.
The clerk glanced at him sharply. "Then I'd better issue a temporary
health card." He ran a red-tinted, celluloid rectangle through a
stamping machine and Hunter pressed his thumbprint upon the signature
square. "Can you give me your home address, Captain?"
"I'll be staying at the Roost for a day or so. After that I'm getting
married."
"I'll assign your health file to the Los Angeles Clinic then," the
clerk said. "You can apply for an official reassignment later, if
necessary."
He made a photo-copy of the health card, pushed it into a pneumatic
tube and handed the original to Hunter. Then he rolled the customs
form back into the typewriter.
"Since you're quitting the service, Captain, I'll have to have
additional information for the municipal file. Do you have union
affiliation?"
"No. Spacemen aren't required to join the U.F.W."
"If you want to give me a part payment on the initiation fee, I'll be
glad to issue--"
"It'll be a long, hard winter before Eric Young gets any of my
credits," Hunter said, his eyes narrowing. Considering how Hunter felt
about the Union of Free Workers and the labor czar, Eric Young, he
thought he had phrased his answer with remarkable restraint.
"Anti-labor," the clerk said, and typed the designation on the form.
"No," Hunter snapped, "and I won't be labeled that. As far as the
individual goes, I believe he has every right to organize. No one can
stand up against the cartels in any other way. But this exploitation
by Young--"
"You either join the U.F.W., or you're against us." The clerk shrugged
disinterestedly. "It's all one and the same thing to me, Captain.
However, if you expect a job in the city, you'll have to get it
through the union." He typed again on the customs form. "According to
a new regulation, I'm obliged to classify you as unemployed, and that
restricts you to limited areas of Los Angeles as well as--"
"When the hell did they put over a law like that?"
"Two weeks ago, sir. It gives the clinics a closer control over the
potentially maladjusted, and it should help ease the pressure--"
"There are no exceptions?"
"The executive classifications, naturally--professionals, and
spacemen. That would have included you, Captain Hunter, but you say
you've left the service."
Hunter gritted his teeth. It had been like this for as long as he
could remember. Whenever he returned from a long flight there was
always a new form of regimentation to adjust to. And always for the
same reason--to stop the steadily rising incidence of psychotic
maladjustment.
"How does the law define an executive?" Hunter asked.
"Job bracket with one of the cartels," the clerk replied. "Or the
total credits held on deposit with a recognized fund."
The captain flung his savings book on the counter. The clerk glanced
at the balance and X'ed out the last word he had typed on the customs
form.
"You qualify, sir--with a thousand credits to spare. I'll give you a
city-wide clearance as an executive. But I can only make it
temporary. You'll have to check once each week with the U.F.W. office.
If your balance drops below ninety-five thousand, you'll be
reclassified."
The clerk ran another celluloid card--this time it was blue--through
the stamping machine and passed it across to Hunter. Captain Hunter
picked up his bag and entered the customs booth, which by that time
was empty. The probe lights glowed from the walls and ceiling,
efficiently X-raying his bag and his clothing for any prohibited
imports. Within seconds the alarm bell clanged and the metal doors
banged shut, imprisoning Hunter in the booth.
Now what? he asked himself. What regulation had he violated this time?
In his mind he inventoried the contents of his bag. It contained only
a handful of personal belongings, and the tools of trade which he had
needed as a captain of a fighting ship. Everything was legitimate and
above-board. Hunter hadn't even brought Ann a souvenir from the
frontier.
* * * * *
After a time, the booth door swung open. A senior inspector, carrying
a blaster, crowded into the cubicle.
"Open your bag!" The inspector commanded, motioning with his weapon.
Hunter saw that the blaster dial was set to fire the death charge, not
the weaker dispersal charge which produced only an hour's paralysis.
Hunter thumbed the photocell lock. It responded to the individual
pattern of his thumbprint, and the bag fell open. The inspector picked
up the worn blaster which lay under Hunter's shipboard uniform.
"Smuggling firearms, Captain, is a violation of the city code. The
fine is--"
"Smuggling?" Hunter exploded. "That blaster was registered to me nine
years ago." He snapped open his wallet.
The inspector frowned over the registration form, biting indecisively
at his lower lip.
"That was issued before my time," he alibied. "I'll have to check the
regulations. It may take a while."
He left the booth. He was gone for a quarter of an hour. When he
returned, both metal doors snapped open. "Your permit is valid,
Captain Hunter," the inspector admitted. "Unrestricted registrations
like yours have not been issued for the past five years. That's why
the probe was not adjusted to the special conditions which apply in
your case. Your permit is revocable if you are committed for
maladjustment."
Hunter grinned. "I wouldn't count on that. My adjustment index is
zero-zero."
"A paragon, Captain." The voice was dry and biting. "But you may find
conditions on the Earth a little trying. You haven't had a chance to
get really well-acquainted with your own world since you were a kid of
sixteen."
Hunter's customs clearance had taken more than an hour. Before he left
the municipal building, he made a quick tour of the lobby, searching
again for Ann Saymer. Satisfied that she had not come, he put in a
call from a public tele-booth to Ann's apartment residence. After a
moment, Mrs. Ames' face came into sharp focus on the screen, the light
coalescing about her hair.
A warm, motherly widow of nearly eighty, Mrs. Ames had been the
residence's owner for a decade, and had taken a great deal of
vicarious pleasure in Ann's romance with the captain. "It's so
different," she said once to Hunter, "your faith in each other, the
way you work together for a goal you both want. If the rest of us
could only learn to have some honest affection for each other. But,
there, I'm an old woman, living too much in the past."
As soon as Hunter saw her face on the screen, he knew that something
was wrong. She was tense and nervous, tied in the emotional knots of
an anxiety neurosis. And Mrs. Ames was not the woman to fall easy
victim to mental illness. If Hunter had been guessing the odds, he
would have put her adjustment index on a par with his own.
"I haven't seen Ann for a month," she told him.
"Where is she? My last micropic from her said something about a
commission-job--"
"She's all right, Max. Did you join the U.F.W.?"
"I'll be damned if I will."
Why had she asked him that? Her question seemed totally unrelated to
her reassurance as to Ann--another clear symptom of her emotional
unbalance.
"About Ann, Mrs. Ames," he persisted. "Do you know what clinic gave
her the commission?"
Mrs. Ames stared at him in surprise. "Ann didn't tell you in her
micropic?"
"We use a personal code," he explained. "That makes a certain type of
communication extremely difficult."
"I didn't see her, Max. After she took the commission some men came
for her things. They brought me a note from Ann, but it didn't tell me
where she was. It just authorized the men to move out her belongings."
"Is the work outside of Los Angeles? Do you know that much?"
"At first I guessed--" She broke off, biting her lip, and her face
twisted in an agony of intense feeling. "No, Max, an old woman's
guesses won't help. I can't tell you any more about it."
"I'll come out and see you this afternoon, Mrs. Ames," he promised,
"after I check in at the Roost. I want to look at that note you had
from Ann."