Abbud reached into his coat. He brought out a tape spool and tossed it down on the desk in front of Ross. "Here you are."
"What's this?"
"The total probe on Franklin. All levels -- completely searched and recorded."
Ross stared up at the youth. "You --"
"We went ahead with it." Abbud moved toward the door. "It's a good job. Cummings did it. We found considerable disloyalty. Mostly ideological rather than overt. You'll probably want to pick him up. When he was twenty-four he found some old books and musical records. He was strongly influenced. The latter part of the tape discusses fully our evaluation of his deviation."
The door melted and Abbud left.
Ross and Peters stared after him. Finally Ross took the tape spool and put it with the bent metal hood.
"I'll be damned," Peters said. "They went ahead with the probe."
Ross nodded, deep in thought. "Yeah. And I'm not sure I like it."
The two men glanced at each other -- and knew, as they did so, that outside the office Ernest Abbud was scanning their thoughts.
"Damn it!" Ross said futilely. "Damn it!"
Walter Franklin breathed rapidly, peering around him. He wiped nervous sweat from his lined face with a trembling hand.
face with a trembling hand.
He had got away from the mob -- spared for a while. That was four hours ago. Now the sun had set and evening was settling over greater New York. He had managed to make his way half across the city, almost to the outskirts -- and now a public alarm was out for his arrest.
Why? He had worked for the Free Union Government all his life. He had done nothing disloyal. Nothing, except open the morning mail, find the hood, deliberate about it, and finally put it on. He remembered the small instruction tag:
GREETINGS!
This probe screen is sent to you with the compliments of the maker and the earnest hope that it will be of some value to you. Thank you.
Nothing else. No other information. For a long time he had pondered. Should he wear it? He had never done anything. He had nothing to hide -- nothing disloyal to the Union. But the thought fascinated him. If he wore the hood his mind would be his own. Nobody could look into it. His mind would belong to him again, private, secret, to think as he wished, endless thoughts for no one else's consumption but his own.
Finally he had made up his mind and put on the hood, fitting his old Homburg over it. He had gone outside -- and within ten minutes a mob was screaming and yelling around him. And now a general alarm was out for his arrest.
Franklin wracked his brain desperately. What could he do? They could bring him up before a Clearance Board. No accusation would be brought: it would be up to him to clear himself, to prove he was loyal. Had he ever done anything wrong? Was there something he had done he was forgetting? He had put on the hood. Maybe that was it. There was some sort of an Anti-Immunity bill up in Congress to make wearing of a probe screen a felony, but it hadn't been passed yet -
The Clearance agents were near, almost on him. He retreated down the corridor of the hotel, glancing desperately around him. A red sign glowed: EXIT. He hurried toward it and down a flight of basement stairs, out onto a dark street. It was bad to be outside, where the mobs were. He had tried to remain indoors as much as possible. But now there was no choice.
Behind him a voice shrilled loudly. Something cut past him, smoking away a section of the pavement. A Slem-ray. Franklin ran, gasping for breath, around a corner and down a side street. People glanced at him curiously as he rushed past.
He crossed a busy street and moved with a surging group of theater goers. Had the agents seen him? He peered nervously around. None in sight.
At the corner he crossed with the lights. He reached the safety zone in the center, watching a sleek Clearance car cruising toward him. Had it seen him go out to the safety zone? He left the zone, heading toward the curb on the far side. The Clearance car shot suddenly forward, gaining speed. Another appeared, coming the other way.
Franklin reached the curb.
The first car ground to a halt. Clearance agents piled out, swarming up onto the sidewalk.
He was trapped. There was no place to hide. Around him tired shoppers and office workers gazed curiously, their faces devoid of sympathy. A few grinned at him in vacant amusement. Franklin peered frantically around. No place, no door, no person -
A car pulled up in front of him, its doors sliding open. "Get in." A young girl leaned toward him, her pretty face urgent. "Get in, damn it!"
He got in. The girl slammed the doors and the car picked up speed. A Clearance car swung in ahead of them, its sleek bulk blocking the street. A second Clearance car moved in behind them.
The girl leaned forward, gripping the controls. Abruptly the car lifted. It left the street, clearing the cars ahead, gaining altitude rapidly. A flash of violet lit up the sky behind them.
cars ahead, gaining altitude rapidly. A flash of violet lit up the sky behind them.
Franklin settled back, mopping his forehead shakily. "Thanks," he muttered.
"Don't mention it." The girl increased the car's speed. They were leaving the business section of the city, moving above the residential outskirts. She steered silently, intent on the sky ahead.
"Who are you?" Franklin asked.
The girl tossed something back to him. "Put that on."
A hood. Franklin unfastened it and slipped it awkwardly over his head. "It's in place."
"Otherwise they'll get us with a teep scan. We have to be careful all the time."
"Where are we going?"
The girl turned to him, studying him with calm gray eyes, one hand resting on the wheel. "We're going to the Hood Maker," she said. "The public alarm for you is top priority. If I let you off you won't last an hour."
"But I don't understand." Franklin shook his head, dazed. "Why do they want me? What have I done?"
"You're being framed." The girl brought the car around in a wide arc, wind whistling shrilly through its struts and fenders. "Framed by the teeps. Things are happening fast. There's no time to lose."
The little bald-headed man removed his glasses and held out his hand to Franklin, peering near-sightedly. "I'm glad to meet you, Doctor. I've followed your work at the Board with great interest."
"Who are you?" Franklin demanded.
The little man grinned self-consciously. "I'm James Cutter. The Hood Maker, as the teeps call me. This is our factory." He waved around the room. "Take a look at it."
Franklin gazed around him. He was in a warehouse, an ancient wooden building of the last century. Giant worm-scored beams rose up, dry and cracking. The floor was concrete. Old-fashioned fluorescent lights glinted and flickered from the roof. The walls were streaked with water stains and bulging pipes.
Franklin moved across the room, Cutter beside him. He was bewildered. Everything had happened fast. He seemed to be outside New York, in some dilapidated industrial suburb. Men were working on all sides of him, bent over stampers and molds. The air was hot. An archaic fan whirred. The warehouse echoed and vibrated with a constant din.
"This --" Franklin murmured. "This is --"
"This is where we make the hoods. Not very impressive, is it? Later on we hope to move to new quarters. Come along and I'll show you the rest."
Cutter pushed a side door open and they entered a small laboratory, bottles and retorts everywhere in cluttered confusion. "We do our research in here. Pure and applied. We've learned a few things. Some we may use, some we hope won't be needed. And it keeps our refugees busy."
"Refugees?"
Cutter pushed some equipment back and seated himself on a lab table. "Most of the others are here for the same reason as you. Framed by the teeps. Accused of deviation. But we got to them first."
"But why --"
"Why were you framed? Because of your position. Director of a Government Department. All these men were prominent -- and all were framed by teep probes." Cutter lit a cigarette, leaning back against the water-stained wall. "We exist because of a discovery made ten years ago in a Government lab." He tapped his hood. "This alloy -- opaque to probes. Discovered by accident, by one of these men. Teeps came after him instantly, but he escaped. He made a number of hoods and passed them to other workers in his field. That's how we got started."