It was as though he read a special report on himself. This Worker, 7921, had like himself resisted the impulse for a voluntary return to Psychofix.
On impulse, Robert opened the communication switch to Trouble Squad Headquarters. “Robert speaking. Send 7921 to me immediately.” He closed the switch, seeking to avoid the awkwardness of hearing surprise expressed at his order.
He waited, feeling an odd excitement. He was about to look on the face of one who felt as he did.
At last he heard the sound of the lift and the door slid back. A tall young man in the neat silver-gray uniform of a Worker stepped into Robert’s office and stood at rigid attention. His hair was black, his face clean, his jaw strong. His eyes glowed, somehow reckless in spite of his respectful stance.
“Close the door,” Robert ordered. “Take that chair from against the wall, bring it over to the other side of this desk and sit down.”
The young man did as he was told. He sat very erect, but his eyes were still insolent, unyielding.
Robert said slowly, “You are 7921. Since the beginning of the Sleep, sixty other men have worn that number honorably.”
“What does honorably mean?” the young man asked. His voice was thin and tight.
Robert gave a start of surprise at the unexpected defiance. Psychofix instilled unthinking obedience and courtesy. Stupidly he found himself saying, “Why, honorably means... with honor, of course.”
The young man laughed, without humor. “The machines at Statistical Analysis are honorable; they do what they were built to do. A Worker does what he is directed to do. Nothing more.”
“Your Psychofix, 7921, is—”
“Call it outgrown, Robert.”
“You address me familiarly!”
The young man slumped in the seat. “Why not? I know what will happen. I’m going back for another Psychofix and then I’ll be a machine again, like the others. I’ve got just a few hours left in which to be myself. By the way, I’ve taken a name. I found it in one of the old books. Lazarus.”
The obvious thing to do was to call a squad and have this young man who called himself Lazarus taken away to Psychofix, by force if necessary. “Lazarus,” Robert said, “why are you not like the others?”
Lazarus frowned. “I do not know. Maybe the tubes were weak during my Psychofix. Maybe I have more resistance to posthypnotic influence. At any rate, I have known for a year that I am different from... the others.”
Robert stood up and walked to the windows. The sun was high. The light against the flat roofs was blinding. He said softly, “I am often filled with questions.”
He heard the young man’s gasp of surprise. “But you—”
“I know. I am the Director. I am in charge. I should believe in this.” He made a sweeping gesture that included the entire Area.
He heard a step. Lazarus stood beside him, squinting against the light. He said, “The others. They don’t know how it is. Inside you are filled with unrest. You yearn for things you don’t understand. Those who Sleep become horrible. You shrink from touching them. They are the living dead. And yet all the others believe that Sleep is beautiful.”
“It is beautiful!” Robert said.
“What makes you believe that? I can see that the Psychofix still has more influence with you than with me. I can remember Sleep.”
Robert turned in sudden excitement, grasped Lazarus’ arm. “You can remember! Tell me! Quickly!”
There was a bitter look around Lazarus’ mouth. “Maybe it was beautiful for those who first came here. They had been born of women. They had lived in the world. When they became Sleepers they had their past lives to draw on. Maybe it was beautiful for them. Their dreams had substance. But for hundreds of years, the Sleepers have come directly from the Birth Stations. Look at them all down there. Million upon million. Do you know what they dream of? Eternal blackness, because they have never seen. Soundlessness, because they have never heard. No color. No scent. No texture. No light. They dream of blackness, without form or substance. I know, because I can remember.”
“But that... that isn’t—” Robert faltered.
“I know. It isn’t what you have been taught. But you have seen those who are awakened. The world hits them with a blast of color, sound, texture and form that rocks their senses. They are under Psychofix for a year before they are worth anything. The knowledge they need is jammed into them by the tubes, like bodies jammed into a furnace.”
“You are wrong!” Robert whispered. “It is too horrible to contemplate. They all have beautiful dreams. They sleep in eternal happiness.”
“I am wrong?” Lazarus said. He laughed again. “I remember, I tell you. I fought my way up out of the lies of the Psychofix and now I remember. The only ones down there whose dreams are beautiful are the Workers who have become Sleepers. They have something on which to build their dreams. You will have a dream life of possibly incredible beauty, as the first ones did.”
Robert frowned at Lazarus. “Then why don’t you request Sleep?”
“I have thought of that. I have that right, I know. In an hour, I could be in a niche with nothing ahead but dreams and the furnace at the end.”
“Do you want it?”
Lazarus straightened his shoulders. “No! I want to go out there.” He pointed off toward the horizon.
It was Robert’s turn to gasp. “There is nothing out there! Nothing!”
“No?” Larzarus smiled. “I have read the old books. There are only a few left. No one reads them any more. I had to blow the dust of hundreds of years from them. I know about fire and fuel and axes.”
They were silent for a time. At last Robert asked, “How was this attitude of yours discovered?”
For the first time Lazarus acted ill at ease. He avoided Robert’s glance. “In the old books it talks of men and women. There was a relationship which — which is eliminated from the minds of the Workers by the tubes of Psychofix. That conditioning is also gone from my mind. Several months ago I — found a strange pleasure in looking on the- face and body of a woman, a young woman with yellow hair, who sleeps in 1128-14-51. I gave her a name. Eve. It is also out of the books. Many times when I have worked near 1128, instead of doing the work indicated on the dial, I have gone in to look at her. I was seen.”
Robert frowned. He knew that he should consider Lazarus’ preoccupation with the woman as unnatural and unclean — and yet, deep inside, he felt an odd stirring, a heightening of interest that he had not known before.
To cover his momentary confusion, he said, “It is most odd.”
“But I find from the old books that it is we who are odd. You must remember, Robert, that almost every reaction you have has been artificially induced by Psychofix. Otherwise the Plan would be unworkable.”
Robert nodded. “I imagine that is true. It is odd to — mistrust every thought.” He sat heavily on the big chair behind his desk. “No one has doubted for twelve hundred years.”
“I do not think you are right. I believe many have doubted. But nothing has ever been done.”
Robert shrugged. “What could be done?”
Unconsciously Lazarus lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I could do nothing. With your help, much could be done. How much more time have you before you return to Sleep?”
“Two months.”
Lazarus frowned. “That is very little time. Will people obey your orders?”
“Of course! They are all taught to obey the Director.”
“Buildings 1127 and 1128 were death areas twenty years and more ago. There was a concentration of old ones there. Thus they have been filled from the Birth Stations and the males and females in Sleep there are young. They are potentially the strongest. While we have talked, this plan has come to me...” Lazarus lowered his voice even further and began to speak quickly. Robert listened tensely.