Arden Forrester sat down, careful of the crease in his uniform pants. Evan handed him the list. He pursed his lips and read it. He took a pencil from his blouse pocket, made four neat checks beside four of the eight names.
He handed the list back. “Those are the ones who have attempted to smuggle forbidden items out of their labs. Those four must go. You men can pick any one you please out of the remaining four.”
Dale Evan sighed. “I wish you had five on your list, Arden. Whom do you nominate, George?”
Sargo inspected the glowing end of his cigarette. “Lewisson or Bendas.”
Evan said, “I had picked Bendas or Lucas.”
“Then that settles it,” Forrester said, getting to his feet. “My four and Bendas.”
Irritation showed on Dale Evan’s face. “Sit down, Forrester. We’ll talk to the monitors. Go out and tell the other four to go. Then send in Lucas’ monitor. I believe her name is Morrit.”
Forrester looked approvingly at Ellen Morrit. It was the first time he had noticed her in street clothes. Her severe working hairdo had been released and the golden hair fell to shoulder length. It softened her face. Her dress, pale aqua, brought out very interesting and very adequate lines. Arden Forrester decided that he would soon exercise his right of substituting personal for automatic search of any employee in the Bureau of Improvement. It would be very interesting.
“Peter Lucas, number four three, is being considered for electro-surgery, Miss Morrit. This is a confidential meeting. Your comments will not be made a matter of record. What is your opinion of this?”
Her voice was crisp. “Lucas has the typical instability of all technical employees.”
“Have you noted any change lately?”
“No sir.”
“Does he attempt to... convert you to his way of thinking?”
“No sir.”
“Does he sneer at the established order?”
“No sir.”
“Would you prefer another assignment?”
She paused. “I had not thought of it.” She shrugged. “A new one might be more difficult, sir.”
“That is all. On your way out send Miss Peckingham in, please.”
Ellen Morrit walked slowly down the hall toward the monitor exit. She showed her stamped search card to the guard at the door and he released the door catch for her.
She was confused. Peter Lucas had so irritated her during the past month that a dozen times she had been on the verge of reporting him to Dale Evan. In fact, she had told some of the other monitors that she was about to turn him in.
And yet when she had been called in to testify, even though the irritation was fresh in her mind, she had — why, she had deliberately lied!
It was unthinkable. All of the monitors had been carefully conditioned so that there was not the slightest chance of an emotional attachment between a worker and his monitor.
And yet she had lied!
She was walking slowly toward the bus stand. She stopped. She knew why she had lied: because she wanted to spend the rest of her time in the Bureau of Improvement in the same room with Peter Lucas.
The obvious thing to do was to report for new conditioning. No! To do that would be to create the suspicion that she had lied to Evan.
Ellen knew that it was atavistic to think of a technical worker with anything except loathing. Mr. Evan and Captain Forrester and Mr. Sargo were sensible men doing a sensible job. It was evident that the burden of administration could be made easier by eliminating the most volatile workers each year. It was equally evident that Peter Lucas should be eliminated.
Yet when she thought of the soulless faces she had seen, the faces of the laborers, and thought of Lucas looking like that — something twisted her heart.
Peter Lucas paused in the cool morning light and looked up at the building which housed Automatic Search. The guard pushed him roughly and said, “Stop dreaming, you.”
In the first locker room he stripped, put his clothes in his locker, glanced at the narrow doorway. The laconic guard, as he stepped up, turned the dial to Lucas’ number. Peter Lucas stepped into the shallow area.
His weight, size, allowable metal in the form of tooth fillings, ring and wristwatch, matched the settings on the machine. A low musical note sounded and he was free to enter the further locker room where he put on Bureau uniform. As he strapped on his sandals he wondered how on earth he would get the necessary battery, through that doorway.
Tonight he would leave the removable filling in the lab, come through Search with a tiny strip of hard copper in his mouth, come back through the next morning with a useless bit of metal he would throw away as soon as he was in his lab. That was simple enough. It was the battery that had been baffling him for eleven months.
It was too large to project it into the fenced passage, as he had done with the tiny tube. No one could be trusted to risk throwing it to him through the narrow doorway in Search, even if he could have caught it without the guard’s noticing.
Captain Forrester gave him a sardonic look as he passed into the main building. He wondered idly how many times he had considered the incredible satisfaction to be gained by striking the Director of Search with a clenched fist.
He knew the schedule of work ahead. Today he would get his hands on a good battery: compact and powerful, an inch and a quarter by an inch by three quarters of an inch. He could conceal it in his hand, get it down to the locker room, snap it onto the spring clip he had fashioned on the underside of the thin metal shelf.
But what then?
The lab door was open. Morrit, as usual, was waiting for him. He noticed absently that she looked as though she’d had a rough night. That didn’t seem in character.
“Have a spirited evening, Morrit?”
“I was unable to sleep,” she said primly. Her eyes were shadowed. She indicated a package on his desk. “Police broadcasting unit. Portable. The statistical section reports that fifteen percent of them get a blurred tone after three months’ use.”
He forced himself to yawn. Here was the battery, and it would be a good one.
Ellen Morrit watched him carefully throughout the day. She had come to a difficult decision just before dawn. She would watch Lucas with great care, and she would report him immediately if he stepped out of line; but not until then.
He had finished the analysis of the small broadcasting unit, finding that the ultra-short waves had magnetized the little screws that held the edge of the speaker diaphram. The recommendation was that the screws in future models be made of non-ferrous alloy.
He swept the dismantled parts into the waste bin, put the two magnetized screws and the revised bill of materials into the familiar envelope, and stood up.
She saw him start toward the door, heard him say, “See you tomorrow, jinx.” Something was wrong but she didn’t know quite what it was.
“Just a minute!” she snapped.
He stopped, turned slowly. There was something strained about his smile.
She walked to him and said, “Something is wrong, Mr. Lucas. You are holding your hand in an odd way.”
She reached out quickly and took his wrist. He let her open his hand. The small battery, emblem of guilt, lay on his broad palm.
The door was still closed. She saw how wrong she had been to lie, to defend him by misdirection. “I am going to—” She could not finish the sentence. His face was frighteningly close to hers, and his hand had closed on her throat.
He forced her roughly back against the wall. His eyes were quite mad. There was a muted drumming in her ears and the room swam with mist while she strained her lungs to drag air past her closed throat.
Even as consciousness faded, she knew that he would be caught in whatever evil plan he was carrying out.