Give Me Liberty Part 24

He felt a brief thrill of utter interest; the mystery of the weapon shops suddenly loomed as vast and important as his own black destiny. But the old man was speaking again:

"And now, if you will remove your coat, we can put on the holster-"

Quite automatically, Fara complied. It was vaguely startling to realize that, in a few seconds, he would be walking out of here, equipped for self-murder, and that there was now not a single obstacle to his death.

Curiously, he was disappointed. He couldn't explain it, but somehow there had been in the back of his mind a hope that these shops might, just might-what?

What indeed? Fara sighed wearily-and grew aware again of the old man's voice, saying:

"Perhaps you would prefer to step out of our side door. It is less conspicuous than the front."

There was no resistance in Fara. He was dimly conscious of the man's fingers on his arm, half guiding him; and then the old man pressed one of several b.u.t.tons on the wall-so that's how it was done-and there was the door.

He could see flowers beyond the opening; without a word he walked toward them. He was outside before he realized it.

* * * Fara stood for a moment in the neat little pathway, striving to grasp the finality of his situation. But nothing would come except a curious awareness of many men around him; for a long second, his brain was like a log drifting along a stream at night.

Through that darkness grew a consciousness of something wrong; the wrongness was there in the back

of his mind, as he turned leftward to go to the front of the weapon store.Vagueness transformed to a shocked, startled sound. For-he was not in Glay, and the weapon shop wasn't where it had been. In its place- A dozen men brushed past Fara to join a long line of men farther along. But Fara was immune to their presence, their strangeness. His whole mind, his whole vision, his very being was concentrating on the section of machine that stood where the weapon shop had been.

A machine, oh, a machine-

His brain lifted up, up in his effort to grasp the tremendousness of the dull-metaled immensity of what was spread here under a summer sun beneath a sky as blue as a remote southern sea.

The machine towered into the heavens, five great tiers of metal, each a hundred feet high; and the

superbly streamlined five hundred feet ended in a peak of light, a gorgeous spire that tilted straight up a

sheer two hundred feet farther, and matched the very sun for brightness.And it was a machine, not a building, because the whole lower tier was alive with s.h.i.+mmering lights, mostly green, but sprinkled colorfully with red and occasionally a blue and yellow. Twice, as Fara watched, green lights directly in front of him flashed unscintillatingly into red.

The second tier was alive with white and red lights, although there were only a fraction as many lights as on the lowest tier. The third section had on its dull-metal surface only blue and yellow lights; they twinkled softly here and there over the vast area.

The fourth tier was a series of signs that brought the beginning of comprehension. The whole sign was: WHITE - BIRTHS.

RED - DEATHS.

GREEN - LIVING.

BLUE - IMMIGRATION TO EARTH.

YELLOW - EMIGRATION.

The fifth tier was also all sign, finally explaining: POPULATIONS.

SOLAR SYSTEM 19,174,463,747.

EARTH 11,193,247,361.

MARS 1,097,298,604.

VENUS 5,141,053,811.

MOONS 1,742,863,971.

The numbers changed, even as he looked at them, leaping up and down, s.h.i.+fting below and above what they had first been. People were dying, being born, moving to Mars, to Venus, to the moons of Jupiter, to Earth's moon, and others coming back again, landing minute by minute in the thousands of s.p.a.ceports. Life went on in its gigantic fas.h.i.+on-and here was the stupendous record. Here was-

"Better get in line," said a friendly voice beside Fara. "It takes quite a while to put through an individual

case, I understand."

Fara stared at the man. He had the distinct impression of having had senseless words flung at him. "In line?" he started-and stopped himself with a jerk that hurt his throat.

He was moving forward, blindly, ahead of the younger man, thinking a curious jumble that this must have been how Constable Jor was transported to Mars-when another of the man's words penetrated.

"Case?" said Fara violently. "Individual case!"

The man, a heavy-faced, blue-eyed young chap of around thirty-five, looked at him curiously: "You must know why you're here," he said. "Surely, you wouldn't have been sent through here unless you had a problem of some kind that the weapon shop courts will solve for you; there's no other reason for coming to Information Center."

Fara walked on because he was in the line now, a fast-moving line that curved him inexorably around the machine; and seemed to be heading him toward a door that led into the interior of the great metal

structure.

So it was a building as well as a machine.

A problem, he was thinking, why, of course, he had a problem, a hopeless, insoluble, completely tangled

problem so deeply rooted in the basic structure of Imperial civilization that the whole world would have

to be overturned to make it right.

With a start, he saw that he was at the entrance. And the awed thought came: In seconds he would be committed irrevocably to-what?

* * * Inside was a long, s.h.i.+ning corridor, with scores of completely transparent hallways leading off the main corridor. Behind Fara, the young man's voice said, "There's one, practically empty. Let's go."

Fara walked ahead; and suddenly he was trembling. He had already noticed that at the end of each side hallway were some dozen young women sitting at desks, interviewing men and . . . and, good heavens, was it possible that all this meant-

He grew aware that he had stopped in front of one of the girls.

She was older than she had looked from a distance, over thirty, but good-looking, alert. She smiled pleasantly, but impersonally, and said, "Your name, please?"

He gave it before he thought and added a mumble about being from the village of Glay. The woman

said, "Thank you. It will take a few minutes to get your file. Won't you sit down?"

He hadn't noticed the chair. He sank into it; and his heart was beating so wildly that he felt choked. The

strange thing was that there was scarcely a thought in his head, nor a real hope; only an intense, almost mind-wrecking excitement.

With a jerk, he realized that the girl was speaking again, but only s.n.a.t.c.hes of her voice came through

that screen of tension in his mind: "-Information Center is . . . in effect . . . a bureau of statistics. Every person born . . . registered here . . . their education, change of address . . . occupation . . . and the highlights of their life. The

whole is maintained by . . . combination of . . . unauthorized and unsuspected liaison with . . . Imperial Chamber of Statistics and . . . through medium of agents . . . in every community-"

It seemed to Fara that he was missing vital information, and that if he could only force his attention and

hear more- He strained, but it was no use; his nerves were jumping madly and- Before he could speak, there was a click, and a thin, dark plate slid onto the woman's desk. She took it

up and examined it. After a moment, she said something into a mouthpiece, and in a short time two more plates precipitated out of the empty air onto her desk. She studied them pa.s.sively, looked up finally.

"You will be interested to know," she said, "that your son, Cayle, bribed himself into a commission in

the Imperial army with five thousand credits."

"Eh?" said Fara. He half rose from his chair, but before he could say anything, the young woman was speaking again, firmly, "I must inform you that the weapon shops take no action against individuals.

Your son can have his job, the money he stole; we are not concerned with moral correction. That must

come naturally from the individual, and from the people as a whole-and now if you will give me a brief account of your problem for the record and the court."

Sweating, Fara sank back into his seat; his mind was heaving; most desperately, he wanted more

information about Cayle. He began: "But . . . but what . . . how-" He caught himself; and in a low

voice described what had happened. When he finished, the girl said, "You will proceed now to the Name Room; watch for your name, and when it appears go straight to Room 474. Remember, 474-and now, the line is waiting, if you please-"

She smiled politely, and Fara was moving off almost before he realized it. He half turned to ask another question, but an old man was sinking into his chair. Fara hurried on, along a great corridor, conscious of curious blasts of sound coming from ahead.

* * * Eagerly, he opened the door; and the sound crashed at him with all the impact of a sledgehammer blow. It was such a colossal, incredible sound that he stopped short, just inside the door, shrinking back. He stood then trying to blink sense into a visual confusion that rivaled in magnitude that incredible tornado of noise.