"I never heard of this," said Norman.
"No, I'm sure you didn't. Most of the details of Multivac's workings are top secret. For instance, when you leave, you will be asked to sign a paper swearing that you will never reveal the nature of the questions you were asked, the nature of your responses, what was done, or how it was done. The less is known about the Multivac, the less chance of attempted outside pressures upon the men who service it." He smiled grimly. "Our lives are hard enough as it is."
Norman nodded. "I understand."
"And now would you like anything to eat or drink?"
"No. Nothing right now."
"Do you have any questions?"
Norman shook his head.
"Then you tell us when you're ready."
"I'm ready right now."
"You're certain?"
"Quite."
Paulson nodded, and raised his hand in a gesture to the others. They advanced with their frightening equipment, and Norman Muller felt his breath come a little quicker as he watched.
The ordeal lasted nearly three hours, with one short break for coffee and an embarrassing session with a chamber pot. During all this time, Norman Muller remained encased in machinery. He was bone-weary at the close.
He thought sardonically that his promise to reveal nothing of what had passed would be an easy one to keep. Already the questions were a hazy mishmash in his mind.
Somehow he had thought Multivac would speak in a sepulchral, superhuman voice, resonant and echoing, but that, after all, was just an idea he had from seeing too many television shows, he now decided. The truth was distressingly undramatic. The questions were slips of a kind of metallic foil patterned with numerous punctures. A second machine converted the pattern into words and Paulson read the words to Norman, then gave him the question and let him read it for himself.
Norman's answers were taken down by a recording machine, played back to Norman for confirmation, with emendations and added remarks also taken down. All that was fed into a pattern-making instrument and that, in turn, was radiated to Murtivac.
The one question Norman could remember at the moment was an incongruously gossipy: "What do you think of the price of eggs?"
Now it was over, and gently they removed the electrodes from various portions of his body, unwrapped the pulsating band from his upper arm, moved the machinery away.
He stood up, drew a deep, shuddering breath and said, "Is that all? Am I through?"
"Not quite." Paulson hurried to him, smiling in reassuring fashion. "We'll have to ask you to stay another hour."
"Why?" asked Norman sharply.
"It will take that long for Multivac to weave its new data into the trillions of items it has. Thousands of elections are concerned, you know. It's very complicated. And it may be that an odd contest here or there, a comptroller-ship in Phoenix, Arizona, or some council seat in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, may be in doubt. In that case, Multivac may be compelled to ask you a deciding question or two."
"No," said Norman. "I won't go through this again."
"It probably won't happen," Paulson said soothingly. "It rarely does. But, just in case, you'll have to stay." A touch of steel, just a touch, entered his voice. "You have no choice, you know. You must."
Norman sat down wearily. He shrugged.
Paulson said, "We can't let you read a newspaper, but if you'd care for a murder mystery, or if you'd like to play chess, or if there's anything we can do for you to help pass the time, I wish you'd mention it."
"It's all right. I'll just wait."
They ushered him into a small room just next to the one in which he had been questioned. He let himself sink into a plastic-covered armchair and closed his eyes.
As well as he could, he must wait out this final hour.
He sat perfectly still and slowly the tension left him. His breathing grew less ragged and he could clasp his hands without being quite so conscious of the trembling of his fingers.
Maybe there would be no questions. Maybe it was all over.
If it were over, then the next thing would be torchlight processions and invitations to speak at all sorts of functions. The Voter of the Year!
He, Norman Muller, ordinary clerk of a small department store in Bloomington, Indiana, who had neither been born great nor achieved greatness would be in the extraordinary position of having had greatness thrust upon him.
The historians would speak soberly of the Muller Election of 2008. That would be its name, the Muller Election.
The publicity, the better job, the flash flood of money that interested Sarah so much, occupied only a comer of his mind. It would all be welcome, of course. He couldn't refuse it. But at the moment something else was beginning to concern him.
A latent patriotism was stirring. After all, he was representing the entire electorate. He was the focal point for them. He was, in his own person, for this one day, all of America!
The door opened, snapping him to open-eyed attention. For a moment, his stomach constricted. Not more questions!
But Paulson was smiling. "That will be all, Mr. Muller."
"No more questions, sir?"
"None needed. Everything was quite clear-cut. You will be escorted back to your home and then you will be a private citizen once more. Or as much so as the public will allow."
"Thank you. Thank you." Norman flushed and said, "I wonder-who was elected?"
Paulson shook his head. "That will have to wait for the official announcement. The rules are quite strict. We can't even tell you. You understand."
"Of course. Yes." Norman felt embarrassed.
"Secret service will have the necessary papers for you to sign."
"Yes." Suddenly, Norman Muller felt proud. It was on him now in full strength. He was proud.
In this imperfect world, the sovereign citizens of the first and greatest Electronic Democracy had, through Norman Muller (through him!) exercised once again its free, untrammeled franchise.
Gimmicks Three
"Come, come," said Shapur quite politely, considering that he was a demon. "You are wasting my time. And your own, too, I might add, since you have only half an hour left." And his tail twitched.
"It's not dematerialization?" asked Isidore Wellby thoughtfully.
"I have already said it is not," said Shapur.
For the hundredth time, Wellby looked at the unbroken bronze that surrounded him on all sides. The demon had taken unholy pleasure (what other kind indeed?) in pointing out that the floor, ceiling and four walls were featureless, two-foot-thick slabs of bronze, welded seamlessly together.
It was the ultimate locked room and Wellby had but another half hour to get out, while the demon watched with an expression of gathering anticipation.
It has been ten years previously (to the day, naturally) that Isidore Wellby had signed up.
"We pay you in advance," said Shapur persuasively. "Ten years of anything you want, within reason, and then you're a demon. You're one of us, with a new name of demonic potency, and many privileges beside. You'll hardly know you're damned. And if you don't sign, you may end up in the fire, anyway, just in the ordinary course of things. You never know… Here, look at me. I'm not doing too badly. I signed up, had my ten years and here I am. Not bad."
"Why so anxious for me to sign then, if I might be damned anyway?" asked Wellby.
"It's not so easy to recruit hell's cadre," said the demon, with a frank shrug that made the faint odor of sulfur dioxide in the air a trifle stronger. "Everyone wishes to gamble on ending in Heaven. It's a poor gamble, but there it is. I think you 're too sensible for that. But meanwhile we have more damned souls than we know what to do with and a growing shortage at the administrative end."
Wellby, having just left the army and finding himself with nothing much to show for it but a limp and a farewell letter from a girl he somehow still loved, pricked his finger, and signed.