"You died again, Sherrington," said the other elder. "Third tune this week—good thing there was a responsible person around. Now get over to the medical center this minute and have a complete checkup. Hear me?"
"Yes, Dad," Sherrington said weakly. He rolled off in low gear.
His father turned to the youngster who stood vacantly rubbing the tire marks on his face. "Since it's Holiday," he grated, "I'll let this pass. On any other day I would have seen to it that you were set back fifteen years for your disgraceful negligence."
Ross knew by then what that meant, and shuddered with the rest. It amounted to a death sentence, did fifteen additional years of the grinding toil and marginal diet of a junior.
Somewhat dampened they proceeded to the Hall of Democracy, a glittering place replete with slogans, statues, and heroic portraits of the heroic aged. Twenty-Three huddled together as it joined with a stream of juniors from the area's other factory units. Most of them were larger than the cable works; many of them, apparently, involved more wearing and hazardous occupations. Some groups (Soughed incessantly and were red-eyed from the irritation of some chemical. Others must have been heavy-manual-labor specialists. They were divided into the hale, whose muscles bulged amazingly, and the dying—men and women who obviously could not take the work but who were doing it anyway.
They seated themselves at long benches, with push buttons at each station. Helena, next to him, explained the system to Ross. Voting was universal and simultaneous, in all the Halls of Democracy around the planet and from all the homes of the Senior Citizens who did not choose to vote from a Hall. Simultaneously the votes were counted at a central station and the results were flashed to screens hi the Centers and homes. She said a number of enthusiastic things about Democracy while Ross studied a sheet on which the candidates and propositions were listed.
The names meant nothing to him. He noted only that each of three candidates for Chief of State was one hundred thirty years old, that each of three candidates for First Assistant Chief was one hundred and twenty-seven years old, and so on. Obviously the nominating conventions by agreement named candidates of the same age for each office to keep it a contest.
Proposition One read: "To dismantle seven pediatric centers and apply the salvage value to the construction of, and the funds no longer required for their maintenance to the maintenance of, a new wing of the Gerontological Center, said wing to be devoted to basic research hi the extension of human life."
Proposition Two was worse. Ross didn't bother to read the rest of them. He whispered hoarsely to Helena, "What next?"
"Ssh!" She pointed to a screen at the front of the Hall. "It's starting."
A Senior Citizen of a very high rank (his face was entirely hidden by an oxygen mask) was speaking from the screen. There was what seemed to be a ritual speech of invocation, then he got down to business. "Citizens," he said through his throat mike, "behold Democracy in Action! I give you three candidates for Chief of State—look them over, and make up your minds. First, Citizen Raphael Flexner, age one century, three decades, seven months, ten days." Senior Citizen Flexner rolled on screen, spoke briefly through his throat mike and rolled off. The first speaker said again,
"Behold Democracy in Action! See now Citizen Sheridan Farnsworth, age one century, three decades, ten months, forty-two days." Applause boomed louder; some of the younger juniors yelled hysterically and drummed their heels on the floor.
Helena was panting with excitement, eyes bright on the screen. "Isn't it wonderful?" she gasped ecstatically. "Oh, look at him\"
"Him" was the third candidate, and the first oldster Ross had seen whose gocart was a wheeled stretcher. Prone and almost invisible through the clusters of tubing and chromed equipment, Senior Citizen Immanuel Appleby acknowledged his introduction—"Age one century, three decades, eleven months and five days!" The crowd went mad; Helena broke from Ross's side and joined a long yelling snake dance through the corridors.
Ross yelled experimentally as protective coloration, then found himself yelling because everybody was yelling, because he couldn't help it. By the time the speaker on the screen began to call for order, Ross was standing on top of the voting bench and screaming his head off.
Helena, weeping with excitement, tugged at his leg. "Vote now, Ross," she begged, and all over the hall the cry was "Vote! Vote!"
Ross reached out for the voting buttons. "What do we do now?" he asked Helena.
"Push the button marked 'Appleby,' of course. Hurry!"
"But why Appleby?" Ross objected. "That fellow Flexner, for instance——"
"Hush, Ross! Somebody might be listening." There was sickening fright on Helena's face. "Didn't you hear? We have to vote for the best man. 'Oldest Is Bestest,' you know. That's what Democracy means, the freedom of choice. They read us the ages, and we choose which is oldest. Now please, Ross, hurry before somebody starts asking questions!"
The voting was over, and the best man had won in every case. It was a triumph for informed public opinion. The mob poured out of the hall in happy-go-lucky order, all precedences and formalities suspended for Holiday.
Helena grasped Ross firmly by the arm. The crowd was spreading over the quiet acres surrounding the Center, each little cluster heedlessly intent on a long-planned project of its own. Under the pressure of Helena's arm, Ross found himself swerving toward a clump of shrubbery.
He said violently, "No! That is, I mean I'm sorry, Helena, but I've got something to do."
She stared at him with shock hi her eyes. "On Holiday?"
"On Holiday. Truly, Helena, I'm sorry. Look, what you said last night—from now till tomorrow morning, I can do what I want, right?"
Sullenly, "Yes. I thought, Ross, that I knew what——"
"Okay." He jerked his arm away, feeling like all of the hundred possible kinds of a skunk. "See you around," he said over his shoulder. He did not look back.
Three kilos back, he told himself firmly, then the right-hand fork in the road. And not more than a dozen kilos, at the most, to the spaceport. He could do it hi a couple of hours.
One thing had been established for certain: If ever there had been a "Franklin Foundation" on this planet, it was gone for good now. Dismantled, no doubt, to provide building materials for an eartrumpet plant. No doubt the little F-T-L ship that the Franklin Foundation was supposed to cover for was still swinging in an orbit within easy range of the spaceport; but the chance that anybody would ever find it, or use it if found, was pretty close to zero. If they bothered to maintain a radar watch at all—any other watch than the fully automatic one set to respond only to high velocity interstellar ships—and if anyone ever took time to look at the radar plot, no doubt the F-T-L ship was charted. As an asteroid, satellite, derelict or "body of unknown origin."
Certainly no one of these smug oldsters would take the trouble to investigate.
The only problem to solve on this planet was how to get off it—fast.
On the road ahead of him was what appeared to be a combination sex orgy and free-for-all. It rolled in a yelling, milling mob of half a hundred excited juniors across the road toward him, then swerved into the fields as a cluster of screaming women broke free and ran, and the rest of the crowd roared after them.
Ross quickened his step. If he ever did get off this planet, it would have to be today; he was not fool enough to think that any ordinary day would give him the freedom to poke around the spaceport's defenses. And it would be just his luck, he thought bitterly, to get involved in a gang fight on the way to the port.
There was a squeal of tires behind him, and a little vehicle screeched to a halt. Ross threw up a defensive arm in automatic reflex.