Author: Stephen Marlowe

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it didn't," Ellaby interrupted.

"This is not High Falls. Every community, you must realize, has its own security testing center. And the capitol requires the tightest security of all."

"I know but I was nervous. You're going to tell me my theta was too high, aren't you?"

"That's correct. You needn't feel so bad about it. You're going to be cleared for secret work. You're damn close to modal, Ellaby. You're a good security risk. Incidentally, just why were you nervous?"

"Because I wanted top secret clearance. Because I wanted to work close to the Dictator. You see—" Abruptly, Ellaby stopped talking, clasping a hand over his mouth in sudden confusion. He wasn't supposed to talk about this. Lying, of course, was as far from Ellaby's nature as it was from anyone else's, assuming he were reasonably close to the mode. But Ellaby hadn't been asked for all that information directly. "What kind of job will I get?" he asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

It was too late. The personnel clerk asked, "Just why did you want to work close to the Dictator?"

Ellaby felt a single drop of sweat fall from his armpit under the loose tunic and roll, itching, down the side of his body. He wanted with all his soul to be back in High Falls. Anyplace but here.

"Why, Ellaby?"

"I can't answer that question. A man isn't forced to answer a question unless he wants to."

"Certainly not," said the personnel advisor, staring blandly at Ellaby. "This is a democratic country."

"Then—"

"But you've never known a man to refuse answering a question asked of him officially, have you?"

"I'm not sure I understand, sir."

"You don't have to be so obsequious, Ellaby. I'm less modal than you are, but I make the best of my divergencies. What I meant was this: did you ever hear of a criminal not confessing to his crime?"

"Well, no."

"I'll ask you the question again, Ellaby. Why did you want to work near the Dictator?"

The man leaned close, peered at Ellaby. The room was small, almost a cubicle, the bare walls seeming to close in on all four sides. Ellaby stifled a wild impulse to scream and run out of there, run any place as long as he could leave the room and the personnel advisor behind him. "I'm sorry, but I can't answer that question," he said finally.

"Tell me, Ellaby, did you ever hear your own voice?"

What a strange question. "Why, certainly. All the time, when I speak."

"No, I mean your voice reproduced artificially. Your radio voice?"

"No, I never heard it."

"Well, you're about to."

While the personnel advisor busied himself setting up the radio equipment, Ellaby had a few seconds in which to think. He could still make a clean breast of the whole thing. They had chosen him—Mulden, the Sinclair woman and the others in High Falls—for his modality. Very well, he could use that modality to get out from under. He didn't understand. He didn't know what they were leading him to, slowly, over a period of ten years. He didn't want to assassinate the Dictator. What in the world would he want to do that for? He would gladly name all the names he knew if the personnel advisor would only let him forget the whole mad experience and return to High Falls. He could attend Adjustment Academy if they thought he needed it. Anything. Anything....

"Please slip these earphones over your head, over your ears. There. Is the microphone close enough to your lips? I think so."

metal band running over the top of Ellaby's cranium held the earphones in place. Another metal band curved around the side of his cheek and chin, leading to a small microphone before his lips.

"Place your hands on the arms of your chair, please."

Ellaby did as he was told. Click! Click! A pair of manacles sprang up from the chair arms trapping Ellaby's wrists. Ellaby looked at the personnel tester in unpokered alarm. "What did you do that for?" he asked timidly.

"So you won't remove the earphones. Now, are we ready?" The personnel advisor pressed a button on his desk. Ellaby thought he heard a faint hum of power in the microphone. "I will ask you once more, Ellaby. Why did you want to work near the Dictator?"

Ellaby shrugged. He was going to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't have to answer that question." He said, and heard through the earphones: "I'm sorry (I'm) but I (sorry don't have (but) to ans (I) wer that (don't) question) (have to answer that question)."

"Again, please. I didn't hear you," the personnel tester said.

It was his own voice Ellaby had heard through the earphones. Playback, with a fraction of a second lapse. Oddly, it un-nerved him. The reproduced voice had no right lagging. He shouted, "I'm sorry (I'm) but I (sorry) don't have (but) to ans (I) wer that (don't question!) (have to) Shut up! (answer) SHUT UP! (that) PLEASE.... (question). PLEASE! (please)."

"Once more, if you don't mind."

Ellaby's head was whirling. He blinked sweat from his eyes. "I—please! (I—please!)"

"The law requires that you make some answer, even if answer is a refusal."

Criminals confessed, Ellaby thought wildly. Is this why criminals confessed? Did the sound of their own voices drive them mad? It seemed such a simple device, and yet ... and yet ... but he could fool it. He couldn't rush the words out in a quick torrent and: "I don't have to (I don't answer that ques) (have to) tion (answer that question.)" Ellaby—and Ellaby's echo. "Well, I (well) don't (I don't)!" Ellaby blinked more sweat from his eyes. "Mumble (mumble). Sob. (Sob)."

"Relax, Ellaby. You seem upset. Will you read this, please?" the personnel advisor held a card in front of Ellaby's face.

The words swam, blurred together, fused, were readable and then were not. Ellaby read aloud: "A code (a) of eth (code) ics for (eth) mankind (ethics for mankind)." It was, he realized, the preamble to the constitution. "In the (in) nineteenth (the) centur (nine) y the (nine) common (teenth)"—faster, faster!—"(century the common) c-common man was defended (common man) by enlightened liberalism (man was). In the t-twentieth century (in the t-twen) common man was championed by (tieth century) enlightened liberalism (the common man was). In the twenty-first century (championed by enlightened) the common man assumed his proper place (liberalism) at the top of society but (in the twenty-first cen) will protect the rights of the (tury the common man) enlightened liberals or any other minority, (assumed his proper) encouraging them to become (place at the top of) as common as possible (society but will protect the rights of the enlightened liberals or any other minority, encouraging them to become as common as possible).

"Oh God (Oh)," shouted Ellaby. "Shut (God) it (shut) off (it) make (off) it (make) stop (it) God (stop—God)!"

"Will you agree to answer my question?"

"Anything (anything)! ANYTHING (anything)." Now the playback was a faint whisper. Ellaby found himself hysterically fascinated by it, trying to guess the time-lapse, which varied, trying to guess the volume, which varied. Ellaby's head slumped forward on his chest. The unfamiliar wetness at the corners of his mouth was drool. Ellaby didn't quite know it, of course, but he had given himself a very mild and very temporary nervous breakdown.

Two hours later he was asked one question. He answered: "I want to be near the Dictator so I can kill him."

ater, Dorcas Sinclair asked: "What else happened at testing, Ellaby?"

"Take your time," Mulden cautioned. "He looks nervous."

"I know it. I want to find out why."

"After my EEG," said Ellaby softly, "they told me I had too much theta."

"Damn you!" Dorcas Sinclair swore. "Then you weren't cleared for top secret?"

"No, I wasn't. Not at first. Then a strange thing happened. They said I was cleared only for secret and asked me why I wanted to be cleared for top secret."

"You fool!" the woman cried.

"I told them it was because I wanted to work near the Dictator. I didn't mean to tell them, but—"

The woman shook her head in despair. "Don't bother finishing," she said. "You can clear out of here, Ellaby. You're through. Ten years. Ten years wasted."

"If you wish," Ellaby said mildly. "But you're missing the most interesting part. They asked me why I wanted to be near the Dictator."

Dorcas Sinclair sucked in her breath sharply. Even Mulden seemed anxious. "You didn't tell them?" the woman asked in a frantic whisper.

"I'm afraid I did."

"We'll have to flee the city," the woman told Mulden, ignoring Ellaby now. "If he told them that, he probably named names. I have friends in Hampton Roads—"

"Let him finish," Mulden said. Mulden was looking strangely at Ellaby.

"They didn't ask me to name anyone in the conspiracy," Ellaby said. "Unless they could poker very well, they seemed perfectly calm. They said they would make an exception in my case. They would clear me for top secret work. I start tomorrow."

"What's your job?" Mulden asked eagerly.

"Well, this is the strangest part. I'm to be the Dictator's confidential assistant."

"Of course!" Mulden cried. "It makes sense. Don't you see, Sinclair? We're not the only ones. There are others, inside the government, who think it's time for a coup. With their help, Ellaby won't fail us."

Dorcas Sinclair wasn't convinced. "Doesn't it seem peculiar to you that, purely by co-incidence, Ellaby happened to meet these people?"

But Mulden shrugged. "You know the old saw about the gift horse," he said. "Ellaby will go ahead with the plan. Tomorrow, if all goes well, we'll have a full-scale revolution on our hands. Don't you understand, Sinclair? The Dictator—a figurehead. There are plenty of people around like us, who don't want to do things just because everyone else does them, who don't want to be stamped by the mold of conformity, who don't want ... but I don't have to go on. The Dictator is a figurehead, a symbol of power. Destroy him and the whole conforming system comes tumbling down in chaos. You'll see tomorrow."

It was all beyond Ellaby, who was still weary from the playback ordeals. He took the small, palm-sized blaster from Mulden and slipped it into his tunic. Tomorrow he would assassinate the Dictator and suffer the consequences. He almost had in mind to rebel. The people at testing had been very nice—except for those earphones. But the Sinclair woman and Mulden might be able to do as bad—or worse. He'd go through with it.

Under the circumstances, he slept surprisingly well.

ulden's passionate parting words still ringing in his ears, Ellaby entered the capitol building. "Someday you and your kind will understand, Ellaby," Mulden had said. "Someday you'll know what banal really means, and vulgar. Someday—I promise you, someday—the true social perspective will be re-established. It should not be the role in life of the common man, the mass, the mob, to make the uncommon man as common as possible, but quite the other way around. The other way, Ellaby! Common folk should be given the opportunity to become as uncommon as possible. Otherwise, Ellaby, we've reached a dead end.

"Kill him and I promise you this: the whole warped system will come tumbling. A man shouldn't be forced to conform, Ellaby. Mankind's greatness stems from lack of conformity. For his own purposes, the Dictator bows to the will of the mob. But he's surrounded himself, with mediocrity. Without him, what can they do? Without him they'll go down in weeks, Ellaby. In days!"

The guard, a tall blonde woman who looked like a twenty-over-mode to Ellaby, led him down a long, well-lit corridor. No one had searched him. It would have taken the guard a moment to reach within his tunic, find the blaster and drag him off to the Academy. Other people, nameless people on nameless errands, walked by in the corridor without paying Ellaby any attention.

Was Mulden right? Were there people here, within the building, waiting to help Ellaby?

Ellaby licked his dry lips and kept walking, finding it difficult to keep his legs from trembling. It was as if a nimbus of terror dogged his footsteps, ready to envelope him momentarily. The guard seemed completely unconcerned. She was humming the melody of the latest song-hit, a wonderfully liltingly banal tune which had been on everyone's lips back in High Falls.

The blonde guard paused before a door in the long corridor. "Here we are," she said.

Ellaby opened his mouth to speak, but gulped in air instead. He felt a weak fluttering in his chest. He had never been so afraid in all his life.

The guard, who was a head taller than Ellaby, glanced down at him. "You don't have to be so nervous," she said in a perfectly normal voice. "Everything's going to be all right."

"You see, it's a new job and all—"

"Oh, here! Let's see that blaster."

Ellaby's heart plunged.

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