Chapter VI: Part 6

Hendley kept his chips arranged in neat, equal stacks. His luck had been good. The original handful of chips had grown to a tall stack, then two, three. The fingers of his right hand tapped anxiously on the edge of the table. As if in answer, the hard fist of the frozen-faced robot struck the warning board. All bets down. Quickly Hendley slid a small pile of chips onto the black square bearing the number five. On a hunch he hedged the bet with smaller groups of chips on the four and six squares. The robot-dealer pressed a button. A bar of light whirled through its circular spin, holding the eyes of the players hypnotically, giving the illusion, like light on water, of bobbing up and down. It slowed, hopped, stuck. Black five! Hendley had made his side bets, and the five paid two to one. His stack of chips had grown to four!

Grinning, Hendley raked in his winnings. "I can't lose!" he exclaimed to no one in particular, unmindful of the malevolent glare he received from the player at his side who had been losing heavily. Hendley's thoughts darted around the board, measuring possibilities, calculating risks. His eyes gleamed. Though the room was comfortably cooled, he was perspiring faintly....

An hour later Hendley suffered his first major setback. By then he counted nine full stacks of chips before him, and even a reckless bet resulting in the loss of one full stack did not disturb him. Luck rode on his shoulder. She might look the other way for a moment, but she wouldn't leave him. Boldly he pushed out another full stack, bent on recouping his loss. There was a confident smile on his face as the light-wheel went into its hypnotic dance. "Nine," he whispered eagerly. "Big red nine!" The bar of light revolved slowly, skittered over a section of numbers, hesitated exactly over a red nine--and jumped three more spaces. Even Hendley's cover bets had been passed over.

Chagrined, he checked his winnings. Still seven stacks. He could pull out now while he was way ahead. But he'd been close to having ten stacks, and it wouldn't take much to regain that position. He would have to be a little more conservative, however. He couldn't afford to risk full stacks every time. Just a few more spins to see if luck really was deserting him. He couldn't believe that it was. Besides, he didn't want to quit now....

The run was on. With a swiftness that left him no time to pause, no time to reflect, that generated a kind of unrealizing madness in which he fed chips automatically to the hungry wheel as if he had no choice, Hendley lost everything. Stunned, he watched the impersonal fingers of the plastic rake extending from the indifferent arm of the robot-dealer scoop his last few chips across the green table.

In desperation Hendley turned to the player on his right, grasping his arm. "Let me borrow a few chips!" he urged. "I'm due now! Overdue! I'll pay them back--I'll pay you double!"

Stonily the Freeman shrugged off Hendley's grasp and pushed in front of him. "Go to the desert," he said curtly. "I've heard that tale before."

"Just a couple of chips," Hendley begged.

The player did not bother to answer. Hendley felt anger boil through him. His jaw muscles knotted tightly. His lips pulled back over clenched teeth. Only his deep conditioning against violence kept him from spinning the surly player around and smashing his fist against the contemptuous mouth. A thin, weak current of warning trickled through the haze of anger. There were too many people watching. The Freeman had done nothing to him. He was angry because he had lost. To create a scene might get him into trouble, perhaps jeopardize his chance to play in the casino when he did obtain more chips.

Hendley stalked away from the table, pushing quickly and rudely across the crowded floor of the casino. He didn't want to watch the action. He had to be able to play, to feel the keen whisper of excitement as the light-wheel danced, to ride with it, his whole being attached to the streaking bar of light, coaxing it, urging it, soothed and excited by it as if he were its lover. Unless he could be part of that, he could not bear to see the fever of hope and fear in other faces.

Outside the main Rec Hall the air was cool, actually chilly against his sweat-dampened body and his flushed face. He shivered. Oddly, even after the first involuntary spasm had passed, he continued to feel a faint quivering in his arms and thighs. With it came a tug of discomfiture, the first pull of a nagging guilt. Defensively he brushed it aside. The casino was only one of the Freeman Camp's many pleasures. As long as he was here, he might as well enjoy them all. That's what freedom was.

He stopped abruptly. Less than ten steps away, broad-leafed foliage at the edge of the grounds surrounding the Rec Hall stirred in the night breeze. The area was dark, ominously dark. Hendley turned away and strode quickly toward the bright ring of light thrown by the floodlights in the garden. Six days of freedom had taught him better than to stray alone into shadowed places. At night the pleasure-packs roamed freely in the parks and side streets, sometimes even striking boldly and quickly in well-lighted, crowded streets. The motive often seemed to include robbery, but the packs appeared to take an equal pleasure in beating their victims, even those who carried nothing valuable. If he hadn't been disturbed, preoccupied, Hendley would never have wandered into the remote, empty corner of the thickly planted grounds. The realization that he'd done so left him uneasy, his imagination conjuring up visions of sudden brutality. He tried to shake them off.

Ahead of him a drunken Freeman was having trouble boarding the slow-moving walk that ran downhill. Twice he fell off. On the third try he managed to stay on the strip. Hendley rode down behind him, idly watching his precarious leanings. The drunk was singing to himself in a quavering but enthusiastic voice. Hendley thought: With the announcement you're making of your condition, old man, you'd do well to mingle with crowds. Don't wander off by yourself.

He did not pursue the thought further. Yet, at the bottom of the hill, when the drunken Freeman headed across the central park for the noisy entertainment section, Hendley followed suit. Near the edge of the park the drunk stumbled off the walk. Hendley prepared to disembark behind him. Without conscious purpose he slowed his own natural pace as he followed the man into the crowded main street, lagging well behind. At one point the drunk swiveled his head. Hendley jerked his gaze away, pretending to peer at the sky. The night was particularly dark. There was no moon, and clouds hid the stars. What are you doing? he asked himself. Stalking him?

He felt a cold pressure at the base of his skull. When he glanced again at the drunken Freeman it was with harder eyes and a sharpened interest. The man was moving on again, ignoring Hendley. Good.

The drunk paused before an entertainment arcade, apparently debating with himself. After a moment he walked on, weaving unsteadily. He hesitated only briefly before a restaurant. At the third stop, a newsview theater, he went inside. The theater was less than half-filled. Hendley was able to take a seat a few rows behind the Freeman's now-familiar nodding head with its thinning strands of gray hair.

A large, circular viewscreen formed most of the wall surface of the theater, surrounding the viewer. Hendley paid little heed to the turbulent crowd scenes on the screen. The news was all about the Organization outside, which explained the nearly empty theater. Few in the camp followed the events of the working world with any interest, Hendley had already caught the prevailing attitude. The camp seemed completely isolated. Even the word "Merger!" repeated several times in a newscaster's rich drone did not distract Hendley's attention from the man he had followed. Finally, just when Hendley had begun to fear that the drunk had fallen asleep, his stoop-shouldered figure rose in silhouette against the viewscreen. He was leaving!

The Freeman stopped at a nearby bar for a superfluous drink. Hendley walked on by without even a sidelong glance. He had to be careful now, do nothing to arouse suspicion. Outside a peekie-house he mixed with a small crowd, as if considering the blatant suggestions on the announcement board: YOUR INNERMOST THOUGHTS REVEALED! one said, and another leered: FREE YOUR HIDDEN DESIRES! And what are your hidden desires? Hendley asked himself. Care to look at them? Angrily he brushed the questions aside. The constraints of the outside world had no place here. Pleasure was all!

The drunk left the bar. Coldly determined now, Hendley waited until the man was a hundred feet ahead of him, half-screened by late night traffic, before he set off in pursuit. Sooner or later his prey would become careless, wander into the park or off into a quiet side street. The only worry was that he might have a room in one of the buildings immediately bordering the main street. Then there would be no chance to catch him alone.

The drunken Freeman took another brief ride on a moving walk. When he alighted he stumbled to his knees. He was an older man with thinning hair, but he was stocky and well muscled, Hendley noticed, even though drink had slowed his reflexes. He scrambled up readily. Hendley let the distance between them narrow, in spite of the fact that the crowd was thinning out away from the main entertainment complex. He didn't want to lose the man now, and he was convinced that the Freeman was too drunk to notice him. Dusting himself off, the stocky man looked around in a bemused way as if he were lost. Then, purposefully, he headed for a side street leading into the residential section.

Hendley ran to the intersection. The drunk was trudging slowly up the inclined road between rows of two-storied dwelling units. The street was partially lighted, patches of darkness deepening between the occasional light panels. There were no other pedestrians. Hendley kept close to the wall of the apartment building on his left, taking advantage of every concealing shadow. Quickly he began to close the gap between him and his victim. He was no longer disturbed by thinking of the man ahead as a victim. He thought only of the need for silence, speed, caution. There were only fifty feet separating the two men now. The drunk had not turned. He was muttering to himself, his voice clearly audible in the quiet street. Hendley's foot scraped the pavement and he flattened himself into a doorway opening. The drunk did not look back. Hendley eased away from the doorway, berating his clumsiness. He could take no more chances. He would have to cover the last steps in a rush....

The drunk staggered close to the wall of the building across the way and suddenly vanished as if a trapdoor had opened. For an instant Hendley stared in bewilderment, his heart pounding. Then he saw the black gash of an opening between buildings, the entrance to a narrow walk. He raced forward. No time for caution now. The dark passageway was the perfect spot to attack. Chances were he wouldn't get another. The drunk must be close to his room....

Blundering recklessly around the corner into the tunnel-like blackness of the passage, which was no more than an armspread wide, Hendley was saved only by a last-second instinctive hesitation. A blow grazed his cheek, striking his shoulder with glancing impact. The force was enough to slam him into a cement wall.

The Freeman he had followed faced him squarely, grinning with drunken malice. "Caught you!" he said gleefully. "Thought I didn't know you was after me, huh?"

He struck again before Hendley could recover. Hendley's chest seemed to explode. Reeling, he thought fleetingly that no fist could hit with such weight or force. The drunk must have found a rock or club. If he landed another blow, the fight would be over. Hendley crouched and dodged, sick with the knowledge of his foolish blunder.

"Think you're so smart!" the drunken voice rasped in the darkness. "I carry this just for smart ones like you!"

But the man's drunken aim was erratic. Something heavy and metallic clanged against the cement wall of the passage. The solid, heavy sound quickened fear in Hendley for the first time. The blow had been close enough to fan the air against his neck. In desperation he came out of his crouch in a sudden, furious rush. One of his fists landed with a meaty thump. The drunk's breath wheezed. He swung wildly, missing Hendley's head by a foot. For a moment he was off-balance, staggering as his momentum carried him forward. Hendley saw the squat, black shadow stumbling past him. He lashed out at the exposed head and neck. The drunk went down with a soft gasp. He did not move.

Legs trembling, Hendley stood over the fallen man, drawing breath in great gulps. His chest ached and his shoulder felt strangely numb. His first impulse was to run. Instead he dropped to his knees. When the Freeman had hit the ground, there had been a faint, familiar clink. Hendley slapped at the man's pockets squeamishly, choking back a threatening sickness. He had to roll the inert figure over onto his back to reach the breast pocket. The same clinking sound answered his tentative probing. Feverishly now his fingers dug into the pocket and closed around a small nest of chips. He drew them out. Their white gleam was visible in the darkness of the passageway.

A hasty search of the drunken man's remaining pockets turned up no other casino chips. Hendley stumbled to his feet. The man was alive, he assured himself defensively. He hadn't been seriously hurt. He'd collapsed as much from drunkenness as from Hendley's blows. And the white chips were fair payment for Hendley's own bruised chest and shoulder. A small length of heavy metal pipe lay on the pavement near the fallen man's hand, mute evidence of how close Hendley had come to having his skull crushed.

He peered nervously along the side street from which he'd entered the passageway. The street was empty. No curious spectators had been attracted by the fight. But now, conscious of the white chips he carried, Hendley felt apprehensive. No telling what he might run into on a dimly lighted side road. The bright channel of the main street was a full hundred yards away. He started toward it. Before he'd taken a half-dozen steps he was running, panic riding his heels.

Not until he was safely in the brightness of the main thoroughfare did Hendley slow his headlong pace. Even then he quickly boarded the moving walk that would carry him to the more crowded pleasure center. It took a long while for the labored heaving of his chest and the furious hammering of his heart to subside. By the time he had calmed enough to think rationally about what he had done, he was in sight of the main Rec Hall on the hill. Its rounding yellow shoulders pushing against the night sky were like a woman's invitation, promising warmth, closeness, pleasure. He stared up at it, hearing in his mind the seductive whisper of the casino's action. The weight of the small cluster of chips lay heavy against his thigh. For this he had done violence. For this, like some pre-Organization animal, he had stalked another man in the darkness....

Revulsion seized him like a giant fist. Half-falling, he stumbled off the moving walk. The grip of anguished self-contempt tightened painfully, crushing every defensive protest, destroying the barriers he'd erected so easily to contain an image of himself he could not face--the picture of a greedy pleasure-seeker scrabbling on the ground, pawing through the pockets of a helpless drunk. His eyes squeezed shut, as if their closing curtains could form a merciful new shield against the harsh vision of what his freedom had come to mean. He opened them to stare bitterly at the great wheel of sky which had meant so much to him in the beginning.

A last, dry-eyed, cold, and empty, he turned back along the route he'd taken in fear and panic. There was a different urgency in him now, prompted by the feeling that he had somehow forged an unbreakable link between his life and the fate of the drunken Freeman. As if he were--responsible. The concept was quite new to him, foreign to anything he had known in the automated world of the Organization, but he could not deny it.

Weary, aching, disturbed by the strangeness of his emotions, Hendley searched for the quiet street where he had followed the Freeman. He rode past it once, retraced his steps, and at length found an inclined road which seemed familiar. The narrow, dark passage appeared where he remembered it. Cautiously he stepped through the opening.

The way was empty.

Frantically Hendley searched the area. Had he found the wrong street--the wrong passage? The dwelling units were so completely identical that it would be easy to mistake them, but he was sure that he'd identified the street correctly. There must be some mark of his presence in the passageway, some trace of the fight. His right hand probed the wall. There--could that gash have been made by the Freeman's metal weapon? The man had fallen here--yes!

Relief washed away Hendley's consternation. A single white chip had fallen into a drift of dust at the edge of the wall. Such a find, even though it lay half-buried, would not have remained through a half hour of daylight. The fresh imprint of a hand had been made in the dust. And at Hendley's eye level as he knelt, a raw gouge was visible in one wall, recently made by a sharp, heavy blow. This was the right place. It was doubtful that anyone finding the drunken Freeman there would have bothered to carry him away. The length of metal pipe was gone. The drunken man must have recovered enough to leave under his own power.

Hendley emerged from the darkness of the passageway. The street was still quiet and empty. A thinning trickle of traffic rode the moving walk at the bottom of the long incline. Beyond, bright concentrations of light identified the pleasure centers. And in the farther distance, a deeper black against the sky, the camp's fringe of trees was visible. How moved he had been by his first glimpse of those trees as he came through the gate in the wall!

Now he wanted only one thing: to be outside that wall.

Slowly he dug the cluster of chips from his pocket. He stared at them wonderingly. In a sudden spasm of disgust he drew back his arm and hurled the white chips far down the street, where they bounced and skittered and rolled, making a thin clatter in the silence. As Hendley started down the inclined street, one of the chips, still rolling on its edge, crossed his path, wheeled, lost momentum and tipped over. Deliberately he ground it under his heel.

10

The early morning mist which blanketed the park was already burning off when Hendley made his way toward the concrete beige shells of the administration buildings at the east end of the Freeman Camp. Detouring across a stretch of lawn, he quickly found his shoes soaked through from the heavy dew. The wet grass was a vivid green. Leaves and bushes glistened in the hazy sunshine. Singing birds made a cheerful din high among the trees.

He would miss these things. But the atmosphere of the camp was so corrupting that its beauty was soon forgotten or ignored, blurred out of focus by the astigmatism of the free....

What Hendley felt as he neared the beige buildings was not regret but a kind of relief. Perhaps if ABC-331 had been with him, if they could have shared the sunlight and the carefree hours of leisure, life as a Freeman might have been different. And again it might not. Was this kind of freedom, as Ann had seemed to suggest, a monstrous deception? He was not sure what he believed. All he knew for certain was that he had to get out of the camp.

And he had to find her.

He felt no misgivings as he reached the administration building through which he had passed on the day of his arrival. There would be questions about his failure to report Nik's assumption of his identity. The prospect of stiff debits against his tax debt no longer had the power to frighten. Even the possibility of more severe penalties, whatever they might be, did not matter.

There was a reassuring familiarity in the whir and drone of office machinery inside the beige building. One of the uniformed personnel behind a counter looked up brightly. He had an air of eagerness accentuated by prominently bulging blue eyes that reminded Hendley of a frog's. "_Good_ morning, sir!" the clerk piped. "What can we do for you? Not that there's much we _can_ do for the free, eh?"

Hendley decided there was no point in avoiding the issue. "I'm not a Freeman," he said bluntly.

A startled look crossed the face of the clerk, whose pop-eyes blinked. The surprise gave way to amusement. "Ha! Ha!" He was pleased to share Hendley's joke. "That's _quite_ good, sir."

"It's not a joke. I'm here by mistake. I mean, I don't belong here. I'm only a visitor."

"Oh!" The clerk managed a nervous smile. "For a moment I thought--but you're not wearing a visitor's _uniform_!" he exclaimed. "I don't understand."

"My name is TRH-247," Hendley explained patiently. "You'll find me in your records. They'll show me leaving a week ago--but I didn't leave. Someone else left in my place--a Freeman."

The clerk was bewildered, his protruding eyes growing larger than ever. "I--I think you'd better talk to the Office Manager," he said quickly. "If you'll wait just a moment...." Breathless, he almost ran for the glass door of an adjoining office. In a few seconds he reappeared, flushed with excitement, pointing Hendley out to a beige-uniformed official. Hendley was relieved to recognize the brisk, efficient man who had given him his final briefing when he entered the camp.

"Now then," the Office Manager said with a genial smile which failed to cover an acute inspection. "What is this about a confusion in status? I'm afraid my assistant was a bit, ah, excited."

"It's simple enough," Hendley said. "I'm a visitor. I shouldn't be here. A week ago I--"

"I think we'd better be concerned only with the, er, the present," the official said with a touch of impatience. "I see you're not wearing a visitor's uniform. Can you explain that?"

"Another man switched uniforms with me," Hendley said. "And more than just uniforms!"

The Manager frowned. "I see. It's irregular, of course, but no great harm done, I suppose. You were scheduled to leave today? What is your number?"

"TRH-247," Hendley said. "And I was scheduled to leave a week ago!"

The assistant, still hovering nearby, gasped. His superior eyed Hendley coldly, turned to the shocked clerk, and snapped, "Check that!" To Hendley he said, his manner now less carefully polite, "I think you'd better explain."

"I've been trying to," Hendley said evenly. "I was a visitor. A week ago I was attacked by a Freeman. He took my uniform and switched identity discs with me. He left camp in my place. That's all there is to it. I know I should have reported this sooner, but--"

"Here it is, sir!" the clerk said, rushing up with a section of tape from a computer. "But he left!"

The Manager glanced at the tape. When he looked up at Hendley his expression was disapproving, his eyes cold. "Now then," he said, "I think you'd better tell us your real name. If you'll let me see your identity disc--"

"I just told you my name!" Hendley said angrily. "TRH-247!"

"TRH-247 was a visitor to the camp. I gather you knew that. He left as scheduled at noon six days ago."

"This is ridiculous!" Hendley cried. "You're not listening to me! The man who left was an impostor! Look at this hand--they broke the bones to get my identity disc off! I'm wearing his. NIK-700 is his name. He's the Freeman! I'm only a 3-Dayman sent here for therapy."

The clerk did not need his superior's curt nod. He was already hurrying off to question a computer.

"This, ah, ruse has been tried before," the Manager said to Hendley, his voice deceptively soft.

"I suppose it has. I'm just surprised you didn't catch him when he left," Hendley said. "After all, you were the one who processed me in yourself. You must remember. You suggested that I take in the show at the main Rec Hall."

"I tell that to everyone who enters the camp," the official said. "And I don't remember you. I was not referring to any illegal departure from the camp as a ruse--I meant your obvious attempt to claim another identity. Our records, I can assure you, do not show mistakes. The machines cannot make errors. You must be aware of that. The visitor, TRH-247, left on schedule--that much we can be sure of. As to your identity, sir--"

The assistant reappeared. This time the Manager barely glanced at the section of tape from the computer. He waved the pop-eyed clerk away. When he faced Hendley his manner was distant, his voice clipped. "I trust you will not try this again, NIK-700," he said. "Freemen are not permitted to re-enter the Organization. You are familiar with the rule."

"You're a fool!" Hendley burst out. He waved his broken hand in front of the official's face. "Doesn't this hand mean anything to you? Haven't you heard a word I've said?"

"Bandages are easy to make," the official said remotely. "Even broken bones are simple enough to manage, I suppose, if you're, ah, desperate enough. I'll recommend that you receive morale therapy, of course. We are quite familiar with the, er, aberration which occasionally makes a Freeman lose his, ah, perspective and wish to leave the camp. But I can assure you it's quite impossible."

"But I'm not a Freeman!" Hendley raged, gripped by a kind of terror.

"I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave the Administration area," the Office Manager said coldly. "Except for necessary business, it is out of bounds for Freemen."

Hendley stared at him in stunned disbelief. It was incredible that the man would not remember him--even more inconceivable that he would attach no plausibility whatever to Hendley's story. Numbers were all that mattered--the set of symbols setting forth a man's identity, establishing his status, certifying his existence, a combination filed away in an electronic brain which could, on demand, reveal who and what a man was.

"You've got to listen to me," Hendley said with an effort for control. "I'm Thomas Robert Hendley. TRH-247. I'm not a Freeman. There's been a switch--"

"I'm sorry, sir," the beige-clad official said in brisk tones that contained no sorrow, only a curt dismissal. "Our computers do not make mistakes."

Hendley backed away. The unknown, unnameable terror shook him. It was the demoralizing fear which might have been felt by some very clever, almost human machine which had been taught every emotion a man could feel except this one, and which, confronted with the unknown, began to clash and grind to a halt, stripping its intricate gears, shattering its neatly made cogs and bolts, flying into a thousand pieces, until it was no longer an almost human machine, but merely a collection of unidentifiable pieces of something that did not exist any more.

Terrorized by a glimpse of non-existence, Hendley burst from the administration building and ran across the cool, wet, and slippery grass toward the beckoning shadows of a grove of trees.

* * * * *

Hendley crouched at the edge of the woods where a low growth of bushes crowding against tree trunks was dense enough to hide even a white uniform. All day he had loitered in the woods, at first in dumb panic, later in despair, and at last with a growing determination. He had spent the afternoon measuring the depth of the grove, verifying the fact that it followed the exterior wall of the camp along its entire length, following each footpath to see where it led--and watching the wall. He had learned several facts he had not known before. The wall was patrolled by robots. Its surface was somehow sensitized, the slightest touch setting off an unheard alarm which in less than a minute brought mobile robots trundling along the wide, flat top of the wall. The interior surface of the wall, unlike the outside, was well maintained. There were no cracks, no soft crumbling places to provide holds for hand or foot. A group of men might have made a human pyramid, from which the topmost man could have reached the top of the wall. But before this feat could have been accomplished, a robot would have appeared with silent efficiency. Hendley did not know what action the robot-guards would take, but it was certain that they would have been trained to act firmly and decisively. Resistance would be futile.

On two occasions, once during the early afternoon, again near dusk, he had deliberately scraped the wall with a broken-off branch. Each time he had scurried back to the cover of the woods to watch the robots. Each time he had barely reached the first line of trees before the guards appeared. They made no attempt to leave the wall and gave no sign of having seen him.

Watching their impersonal inspection bitterly, he thought about the wall. It did more than keep out unauthorized persons and screen from the curious the activities in the camp. Walls worked two ways. While Freemen blissfully pursued their endless pleasure, the wall made their camp a prison.

Waiting for total darkness, Hendley let his reflections range beyond the wall to the bleak prospect of the endless desert. Would he find food and water in that wasteland? Would he lose himself in its vastness without ever finding his way to the nearest city? Angrily he brushed aside his doubts. Frightening as the desert might be, it could be no more terrible than a meaningless freedom.

In the last light Hendley made his preparations, stripping leaves and thin useless branches from the long slender trunk of a fallen sapling he had found earlier in the day. He doubted that this rude pole-ladder would reach all the way to the top of the wall, but it would bring him close enough. He would have to clamber up in frantic seconds. And if he failed, there might be no second chance.

At last he was ready. The darkness was deep. He crept to the edge of the woods, dragging his improvised ladder. For several minutes he crouched motionless, searching the wall. Something had disturbed his eye. Not movement, but a sense of something foreign in the darkness, a shape....

He went cold. Directly opposite his position, immobile on top of the wall, sat a robot-guard. Against the night sky its gray shape was almost invisible. How long had it been there? It must have come while he was busy cleaning off the tree trunk. But surely its station opposite him was a coincidence.

Stealthily Hendley retreated into the woods, taking great pains to pull his pole-ladder silently through the undergrowth. Not until he had covered an estimated fifty yards to the left of his original position did he angle again toward the edge of the woods facing the wall. This was still too close, but it would give him a check against the tactics of the robot wall patrol. He had to know how many of them were on guard, and how they functioned.

Reaching the cleared strip, he peered toward the wall. A robot--silent, impassive, tirelessly observant--sat exactly across the way.

Hendley plunged back among the trees. Running blindly, indifferent to the branches which stung and scratched his face and arms, he covered another thirty yards, this time without his makeshift ladder. He slowed his pace, stole forward another ten paces, then approached the clearing. The robot-guard was ahead of him. Its silent posture on top of the wall seemed to mock the labored heaving of Hendley's chest, the clamorous protest in his mind.

He sank to his knees. "They can't be everywhere," he whispered aloud. But he knew in his heart that, wherever he approached the wall, the guard would be waiting. Whatever move he made would have been anticipated. The pattern of his actions during the day in testing the wall had been recorded. A computer would have analyzed the sequence. The robots would have been briefed accordingly.

There was no escape.

* * * * *

The warning voice seemed to be coming over a loudspeaker, magnified and distorted. The voice was some distance away when Hendley, lying on the damp ground in the woods, first heard it. As it approached, its droning message was repeated at regular intervals. "Clear the woods!" the voice urged with metallic emphasis. "This is a warning. All persons not engaged in the hunt must vacate the woods. Repeat: Clear the woods...."

Slowly the urgency of the warning penetrated Hendley's despair. Several times he had heard of the hunt, but he'd never learned exactly what it was. Obviously there was danger of some kind involved. He supposed that a prey--he'd heard the word "target" used once--was let loose in the woods. What kind of target? An animal of some sort? Was the danger real, or was it all simply a game with a formidable imitation of reality?

Hendley rose and made his way out of the woods. As he emerged into the open lawn of the park contained by the belt of trees, a group of Freemen--as many women, it seemed in the darkness, as men--were crowding toward the dark labyrinth he had left. "Hey! What were you doing in there?" one of the men called. And another said, with laughter that had an almost hysterical edge, "Lucky you got out when you did! The hunt's starting any minute!"

Hendley stopped to stare at the group. He was tempted to join them in their hunt. Curiosity pulled at him. They seemed an eager, exhilarated group. In the excitement of the chase he might even be able to forget the day's events. He might lose himself.

In anguish he turned away. He was already lost. No artificial pleasure could alter that shattering truth. Nothing could change it.

He walked without aim or purpose. Careless of the menace lurking in deeply shadowed places, he was protected by his very indifference--or perhaps by the distant activity of the hunt. No yelling band of attackers burst upon him. He wandered through the camp, pausing here and there at a bar to gulp down whiskey he neither tasted nor felt. His whole body grew numb, and his thoughts became mercifully fuzzy, with only a small projection of reality poking up through the haze to bring him pain.

At last he came reeling along the street leading to the dwelling unit he had inherited from Nik. Hazily he thought: it is mine now. It is really mine. And mine is his, as if I had never occupied it. With painful perception he realized that the room in which he had lived for so many years in the outer ring of the Architectural Center bore no mark of his personality, no stamp that made it his. Everything in it belonged to the Organization. Everything had been issued--not to a man, but to a number. To a faceless tool which had been taught a limited pattern of activity.

A tall figure loomed in Hendley's way. He stopped, trying to focus his gaze. A strange face, youthful in outline but lined and reddened as if the skin did not react well to the sun's direct rays, smiled at him. "I say there," the man cried cheerfully. "Out having your jolts, eh?"

Hendley tried to stumble past him, made vaguely uneasy by the stranger's hearty manner and forced good humor. But the tall Freeman caught his arm. "What's your hurry?" he asked, his tone cajoling rather than resentful. "The night's young!"

"I've had enough," Hendley mumbled.

The grip tightened on his arm. The man's fingers were not still. Hendley became aware of a gentle kneading of his bicep. "I can teach you some real pleasure-pure," the tall man suggested, suddenly coy. "A new experience! I'll bet you haven't--"

"No, I haven't!" Angrily Hendley jerked away from the overfriendly grasp.

"But you don't know what you've missed!" The young-old face was eager. The "s" sound hissed through his teeth in coquettish invitation. "You'll never know unless you try. I can show you!"

Hendley struck furiously at the simpering smile. Something of the long day's frustration went into the brutal blow. The Freeman staggered back. Through bleeding lips came an outraged protest. "Beast! You have no sensitivity, no imagination! I should have known it!"

Hendley spun away. He wanted only to reach the privacy of his room, to find the oblivion of drugged sleep. But before he had traveled a hundred feet his legs gave way and he crumpled to the pavement. He lay where he had fallen, head whirling, the ground revolving slowly. He had a sense of flying, and then of the surface on which he was borne beginning to tip at an angle until he felt sure that he would slide off into empty space.

"You poor thing! Let me help you." Gentle, insistent hands plucked at Hendley's sleeve. Yielding helplessly to the pressure, he rolled over onto his back. A woman's face rocked slowly across the sky of his vision, like a pendulum with painted features. Pale face, capped with wavy hair defined by a row of bangs across a wide forehead. A red mouth smiled. The lips moved. "Dear boy! You need to rest. Do you live near here?"

Hendley nodded. The woman's tone was sympathetic, soothing. Her fingers were not demanding. He tried to sit up, and with the woman's help he managed it. Soon he was standing, leaning against her. She was quite short, her head no higher than his shoulder, her body a neat, well-rounded package, compact and strong. A full breast pressed warmly against his arm, but the woman seemed to be oblivious of the contact.

"I'll help you," she said. "Is it this way?"

Hendley mumbled directions. He felt better now that he was back on his feet and moving. When he reached his room he was prepared to thank the plump-bosomed stranger, but she gave him no chance to speak. "I'm not going to leave you alone until you're safe in bed!" she admonished him firmly, as if talking to a child.

He made no protest. Though he wanted only to be left alone, he was grateful for her help. He wasn't sure that he could have made it to his room on his own.

The woman led him to his bed. "What a pleasant room!" she murmured. "Just lie down now. No, don't fight me, relax."

Deftly, efficiently, it seemed impersonally, she stripped him of his uniform. Hendley was too absorbed in the problem of remaining in place to feel more than mild surprise at her attentions. Then, without his realizing how it had happened, the woman was beside him on the bed, her uniform gone, her warm body an unexpected abundance of sweetly scented, swelling hills and dipping valleys.

"He tried to pick you up, didn't he?" she whispered huskily. "I saw him."

"What? Oh." Hendley realized obscurely that she was referring to the tall blond Freeman with the red face.

"You didn't like him, did you?"

"No. Listen, I didn't mean for you to...." His feeble protest trailed off. There was no resistance left in him.

"He's always following me," the woman said resentfully. "Trying to take men away from me. But you like me better, don't you?"

"You--you know him?"

"Oh, yes. We're Contracted." The woman's hands stroked Hendley's weary body. They floated together on the slowly drifting bed. Hendley had a sense of unreality, of existing in the distorted world of a dream. The woman's voice purred in his ear, her breath warm. "I'm glad you like me better. Wait'll I tell him. Won't he be jealous!" She chuckled. "What's your name?"

Hendley groped for an answer. He couldn't think. His flesh was betraying him, betraying his weariness, denying his hopeless despair.

"You do have a name, don't you?" the woman asked with a low giggle. "You must have a name."

"Yes, it's...." At last the answer came to him. With a cry that might have been a gasp of pain, he said, "NIK-700!"

11

"Are you going to the show tonight?" the doctor asked cheerfully.

"I don't know."

For two weeks Hendley had waited anxiously for the show to return. The first time Ann had not appeared with the troupe. The following week she had been there. He had recognized her the moment she appeared in the red spotlight. That night had been worse than the other. He could only watch at a distance. There was no way to communicate with her. When the audience reaction began to clarify itself on the giant thought-screen, Hendley could not watch it. Then the lottery began....

"I think we can leave the bandages off now," the doctor said. One by one he flexed the fingers of Hendley's left hand. "How does that feel?"

"It hurts."

"But not too bad, eh? You'll find it stiff for a while, and you'll have to be a little careful of it, but it's coming along fine. You're lucky. You mend quickly."

Only the body mended, Hendley thought. The other, the deeper wound, did not heal. "Tell me something, Doctor," he said abruptly. "What's wrong with me?"

"Eh? I just told you. You're coming along much better than we had any right to expect."

"I don't mean the hand. I mean--why am I different? Why do I feel things that others don't seem to feel? Not just here in the camp--I know there are some who don't adjust to freedom--but outside, too. Why didn't I fit in? Why did I feel that something was wrong?"

The doctor sat gingerly on the edge of the bed in Hendley's room, as if the question made him move with caution. "What makes you think you're different?"

"I _know_ I am! Nik was different, too, but not in the same way."

"Freedom sickness," the doctor said absently.

"But you can't call mine freedom sickness," Hendley argued. "I haven't been here long enough. And I didn't belong in the outside Organization either. I don't belong anywhere! To me the whole system seems wrong, but why am I the only one who feels that way?"

"You're not the only one."

"Maybe not, but there aren't very many like me. I told you how that Morale Investigator reacted. I was a prize specimen to him. I was something new! That's why I was sent here."

The doctor sighed. "This is a little out of my field," he said thoughtfully. "But I think I can make an educated guess about your trouble."

"Then guess, for Organization's sake!"

"I suspect that your genes failed to respond to the pre-birth treatment in the Genetic Center."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you know that the chemistry of the human cell is organized in a very specific pattern. Research proved long ago that artificial mutations could be produced in the genetic material of the cell. What is not so widely known is that the series of tests in the clinics of the Genetic Center, which every expectant mother undergoes in the second month of pregnancy, are actually a course of treatment."

"What kind of treatment? And what does this have to do with me? Are you saying that my genes are mixed up?"

"In a way. But not exactly."

"You're not making sense!"

"Be patient." The doctor began to pace the room. His habitual good humor had given way to an absorbed frown. He stopped suddenly before Hendley. "Why do you suppose that Organization society has remained so stable for so many years? Because the system works best for the most people? That doesn't explain it. Human hereditary factors, left to themselves, are too complex. But once it was proved that the basic molecular pattern which determines the direction life will take--determines form, shape, inherited characteristics, temperament, in short makes _you_ what you are--could be altered, the way was clear. Through early treatment unwanted characteristics, psychological as well as physical, could be eliminated. That's why there is virtually no physical deformity or mental illness within the Organization. A tremendous achievement, my friend, but the treatment goes beyond such genetic errors. It is also designed to eliminate unstable personality traits. That's why the Organization has so few anarchists, so few rebels, so few questioning enough to perceive that they might be unhappy or their lives useless." The doctor paused, then added, "The treatment is not infallible, of course."

Hendley stared at him. "It failed with me? I'm one of the--the imperfect ones?"

"I wouldn't use that word. I'd use the term--normal. For some reason or other your genetic material remained unaffected by the treatment. You're a natural man."

For several minutes there was silence in the room while Hendley pondered the doctor's words. At last he said, "It's too late now, isn't it?"

"Yes. I understand late treatment has been tried--even experiments with adults--but without success."

Hendley rose and went to the window. It was late afternoon and the sun was low above the horizon. He regarded its fiery beauty with bitterness. "What about you?" he asked the doctor. "You know all this, but you're happy."

The doctor smiled. "I couldn't be anything else. I'm ... made that way."

"And I'm a misfit!"

"There are different ways of looking at that." The doctor crossed the room to stand beside Hendley at the window. The smile was back on his lips, but it remained pensive. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"What?"

"I envy you."

The phrase seemed disturbingly familiar. Hendley tried to remember who else had spoken it to him. The answer popped unexpectedly into his mind. The Morale Investigator had voiced a similar envy on the morning Hendley departed for the Freeman Camp.

He did not smile at the irony.

* * * * *

It was an hour after sunset when Hendley saw the visitor. He was on his way to the main Rec Hall, being unable to stay away on the night of the show in spite of the torment he knew he would endure if Ann was on stage. The glimpse of a red sleeve emblem out of the corner of his eye was enough to make him jump hastily and precariously off the moving walk. Regaining his balance, he looked around eagerly. The familiar identification symbol stood out clearly among the mass of otherwise identical white uniforms. This was the first visitor Hendley had seen since his arrival in the Freeman Camp, and he knew that it was more than curiosity, more than the memory of an experience shared by the stranger, which made his heart pound as he began to follow the red beacon on the visitor's arm.

The man seemed awed by the excitement and activity swirling around him. Hendley wondered if he, too, had gazed about so eagerly on his first night, if his eyes had been alight with the same glitter, if his lips had been parted in a continuous expression of wonder. The visitor was a solidly hewn block of a man with coarse black hair, the outline of a heavy dark beard, and thighs and biceps so thick they stretched the unusually loose-fitting coverall taut. But in spite of his muscular bulk, the stranger moved with surprisingly light, quick steps. Standing still, he looked heavy and ponderous; in motion he conveyed an impression of dynamic strength held in check by an instinctive caution.

His alert, inquiring gaze missed nothing. Hendley had been following him for no more than a few minutes before he realized that his own curiosity had been too obvious. The visitor, pausing before the entrance to a dance hall, turned suddenly to stare directly at Hendley. The glance was bright and hard, but the man's mouth was smiling in a friendly way.

Approaching him casually, Hendley returned the smile. "Your first night?" he called out heartily.

"Was I that obvious?" the visitor asked. "It's no wonder. This is the biggest night of my life!"

"I guess everyone feels that way," Hendley said. He tried to remember how Nik had first cultivated him, but he quickly realized that the circumstances had been different. Nik had been prepared. He'd been waiting for a visitor to come. His every move had been carefully planned. Was it madness to try to repeat his tactics without any preparation, without help, without even a plan of attack?

"I'll bet there's a lot I'll miss on my own," the visitor said. The comment was almost too fortuitous, as if he were offering himself as a victim. "You must know everything there is to see."

Hendley could not resist the temptation. "I'll be glad to show you around," he said.

"Great!" The muscular visitor punched Hendley enthusiastically on the arm. "I didn't really want to ask, but I've only got one night, and I certainly don't want to pass up anything special just because I didn't know it was there!"

Hendley nodded. For a moment he couldn't speak, his jaws locked by the pain in his arm. The visitor had hit him lightly, almost playfully, but the blow had carried a numbing force. It was absurd to consider trying to over-power such a man. If he had any suspicion at all, any warning, he could break Hendley's spine with a casual pressure of those thick arms.

But he wouldn't be expecting anything, Hendley thought. He was too excited by the camp's promised pleasures. He would have no reason to suspect anything. And even a powerful man was vulnerable to a blow on the skull by a heavy enough weapon--a rock, for instance, or a makeshift club. All that was necessary was to lure him into a dark, deserted place where a weapon was handy. It needed daring, quickness, determination, but the reward would be worth the risk. Anyway, Hendley had nothing to lose. If the opportunity failed to present itself, he would simply not act. He would be no worse off than he was now.

"Let's start with this place," the visitor suggested, pointing to a nearby building. "What is it?"

"A bowling alley."

The stranger dismissed this sport. "We have those outside. Do you have PIB's here?"

"Of course."

"Better than ours, I'll bet. Can anyone go anytime he wants?"

"Yes."

"Show me."

The tour began. The visitor's interests turned out to be catholic, his energies inexhaustible, his capacity for food and liquor and sex prodigious. Before long Hendley, beginning to feel somewhat heady, gave up the possibility of getting the stranger drunk. Halfway through the evening, the visitor inquired about the yellow mushroom building on the hill. Hendley told him about the Rec Hall's casino and the weekly show, climaxing in the lottery. The visitor's eyes flashed. "That's how I like to spell pleasure!" he exclaimed, knocking Hendley breathless with a clap on the back. "Let's go!"

"It's early yet," Hendley said. After a moment's hesitation he suggested, "A lot of things go on in the parks that you haven't seen."

"I saw plenty there in the daytime. It's the big show for me!"

Hendley forced a laugh. "Don't judge our night sports by daylight. Come on, we'll take a shortcut through the park and then up the hill."

"You're the Freeman!" the visitor said. "Lead on!"

Hendley tried to think clearly and calmly. Surprise was the important thing. Surprise--and an effective weapon. It would not do to miss. He had already decided on the place, a small clearing not far from the main road through the central park. The spot was well screened by bushes and trees. Here he could hide the visitor's body until he had time to fetch the doctor to remove the man's identity disc--or found some other way of cutting it loose.

They started along a path leading into the park. As they approached the clearing Hendley had mentally selected, his eyes searched the path for the weapon he needed. Soon he saw it--a bed of smooth stones defining a flower bed, some of them as big as a fist, a short distance ahead. He let the visitor take the lead along the path. "Be careful through here," he said. "Sometimes there are prowlers at night."

"Prowlers?"

"We have crime here. Freedom doesn't breed constraint. It's best to be on guard. You might keep an eye on the bushes as you go. You watch the left, I'll watch the right."