He slept more poorly each night, and his work suffered. Once he met Martha Obrenowicz on the street—passed by hastily without greeting her—and couldn’t sleep at all, even after maximum permissible drugging.

  The new ID system was completed. Machines sent notices to every citizen, with orders to have their numbers tattooed on the right shoulder blade within six weeks. As each center reported that such-and-such a person had had the job done, Matilda changed the record appropriately. Sam Hall, AX-428-399-075, did not report for his tattoo. Thornberg chuckled at the AX symbol.

  Then the telecasts flashed a story that made the nation exclaim. Bandits had held up the First National Bank in Americatown, Idaho (formerly Moscow), collecting a good five million dollars in assorted bills. From their discipline and equipment it was assumed that they were rebel agents, possibly having come in a spaceship from their unknown interplanetary base, and that the raid was intended to help finance their nefarious activities. Security was cooperating with the armed forces to track down the evildoers, and arrests were expected hourly, etc., etc.

  Thornberg went to Matilda for a complete account. It had been a bold job. The robbers had apparently worn plastic face masks and light body armor under ordinary clothes. In the scuffle of the getaway one man’s mask had slipped aside—only for a moment, but a clerk who saw had, under hypnosis, given a fairly good description. A brown-haired, heavyset fellow, Roman nose, thin lips, toothbrush mustache.

  Thornberg hesitated. A joke was a joke; and helping poor Nikolsky was perhaps morally defensible; but aiding and abetting a felony which was in all likelihood an act of treason—

  He grinned to himself, with scant humor. It was too much fun playing God. Swiftly he changed the record. The crook had been of medium height, dark, scarfaced, broken-nosed…He sat for a while wondering how sane he was. How sane anybody was.

  Security Central requisitioned complete data on the incident and any correlations the logic units could make. The description they got could have fitted many men, but geography left just a single possibility. Sam Hall.

  The hounds bayed forth. That night Thornberg slept well.

  Dear Dad,

  Sorry I haven’t written before. We’ve been too busy here. I myself was on patrol duty in the Austin Highlands. The idea was, if we can take advantage of reduced atmospheric pressure at that altitude to construct a military spaceport, a foreign country might sneak in and do the same, probably for the benefit of our domestic insurrectionists. I’m glad to say we found nothing. But it was grim going for us. Frankly, everything here is. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever see the sun again. And lakes and forests—life; who wrote that line about the green hills of Earth? My mind feels rusty as well. We don’t get much to read, and I don’t care for the taped shows. Not that I’m complaining, of course. This is a necessary job.

  We’d hardly gotten back when we were bundled into bathyplanes and ferried to the lowlands. I’d never been there before—thought Venus was awful, but you have to get down in that red-black ocean of hell-hot air, way down, before you know what “awful” means. Then we transferred straight to mobile sealtanks and went into action. The convicts in the new thorium mine were refusing to work on account of conditions and casualties. We needed guns to bring them to reason. Dad, I hated that. I actually felt sorry for the poor devils, I don’t mind admitting it. Rocks and hammers and sluice hoses against machine guns! And conditions are rugged. They DELETED BY CENSOR someone has to do that job too, and if no one will volunteer, for any kind of pay, they have to assign convicts. It’s for the state.

  Otherwise nothing new. Life is pretty monotonous. Don’t believe the adventure stories. Adventure is weeks of boredom punctuated by moments of being scared gutless. Sorry to be so brief, but I want to get this on the outbound rocket. Won’t be another for a couple of months. Everything well, really. I hope the same for you and live for the day we’ll meet again. Thanks a million for the cookies—you know you can’t afford to pay the freight, you old spendthrift! Martha baked them, didn’t she? I recognized the Obrenowicz touch. Say hello to her and Jim for me. And most of all, my kindest thoughts go to you.

  As ever,

  Jack

  The telecasts carried “Wanted” messages for Sam Hall. No photographs of him were available, but an artist could draw an accurate likeness from Matilda’s description, and his truculent face began to adorn public places. Not long thereafter, the Security offices in Denver were wrecked by a grenade tossed from a speeding car that vanished into traffic. A witness said he had glimpsed the thrower, and the fragmentary picture given under hypnosis was not unlike Sam Hall’s. Thornberg doctored the record a bit to make it still more similar. The tampering was risky; if Security ever became suspicious, they could easily check back with their witnesses. But the chance was not too big to take, for a scientifically quizzed man told everything germane to the subject which his memory, conscious, subconscious, and cellular, held. There was never any reason to repeat such an interrogation.

  Thornberg often tried to analyze his motives. Plainly, he disliked the government. He must have contained that hate all his life, carefully suppressed from awareness, and recently it had been forced into his conscious mind. Not even his subconscious could have formulated it earlier, or he would have been caught by the loyalty probes. The hate derived from a lifetime of doubts (Had there been any real reason to fight Brazil, other than to obtain those bases and mineral concessions? Had the Chinese attack perhaps been provoked—or even faked, for their government denied it?) and the million petty frustrations of the garrison state. Still—the strength of his feelings! The violence!

  By creating Sam Hall he had struck back. But that was an ineffectual blow, a timid gesture. Most likely his basic motive was simply to find a halfway safe release. In Sam Hall he lived vicariously the things that the beast within him wanted to do. Several times he had intended to discontinue his sabotage, but it was like a drug: Sam Hall was becoming necessary to his own stability.

  The thought was alarming. He ought to see a psychiatrist—but no, the doctor would be bound to report his tale, he would go to camp, and Jack, if not exactly ruined, would be under a cloud for the rest of his life. Thornberg had no desire to go to camp, anyway. His existence had compensations, interesting work, a few good friends, art and music and literature, decent wine, sunsets and mountains, memories. He had started this game on impulse, and now he was simply too late to stop it.

  For Sam Hall had been promoted to Public Enemy Number One.

  Winter came, and the slopes of the Rockies under which Matilda lay were white beneath a cold greenish sky. Air traffic around the nearby town was lost in that hugeness: brief hurtling meteors against infinity, ground traffic that could not be seen from the Records entrance. Thornberg took the special tubeway to work every morning, but he often walked the ten kilometers back, and his Sundays were usually spent in long hikes over slippery trails. That was a foolish thing to do alone in winter, except that he felt reckless.

  He was in his office shortly before Christmas when the intercom said: “Major Sorensen to see you, sir. From Investigation.”

  Thornberg felt his stomach tie itself into a cold knot. “All right,” he answered in a voice whose levelness surprised him. “Cancel any other appointments.” Security Investigation took AAA priority.

  Sorensen strode in with a clack of bootheels. He was a big blond man, heavy-shouldered, face expressionless, eyes pale and remote as the winter sky. His black uniform fitted him like a skin; against it, the lightning badge of his service glittered frosty. He halted before the desk. Thornberg rose to give him an awkward salute.

  “Please sit down, Major Sorensen. What can I do for you?”

  “Thanks.” The agent’s tone crackled. He lowered his bulk into a chair and let his gaze drill Thornberg. “I’ve come about the Sam Hall case.”

  “Oh, the rebel?” Thornberg’s flesh prickled. He could barely meet those eyes.

  “How do you know he’s a rebel?” Sorensen demanded. “That’s never been stated officially.”

  “Why—I assumed—bank raid—attacks on personnel in your service—”

  Sorensen slightly inclined his cropped head. When he spoke again, he sounded relaxed, almost casual. “Tell me, Major Thornberg, have you followed the Hall developments in detail?”

  Thornberg hesitated. He was not supposed to do so unless ordered; he only kept the machine running. He remembered a principle from reading and, yes, furtively cynical conversation. “When suspected of a major sin, admit minor ones frankly. That may satisfy them.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” he said. “I know it’s against regs, but I was interested and—well, I couldn’t see any harm in it. I’ve not discussed it with anybody, of course.”

  “No matter.” Sorensen waved a muscular hand. “If you hadn’t, I’d have ordered you to. I want your opinion on this.”

  “Why—I’m not a detective—”

  “You know more about Records, though, than any other person. I’ll be frank with you—under the rose, naturally.” Sorensen seemed almost friendly now. Was it a trick to put his prey off guard? “You see, there are some puzzling features about this case.”

  Thornberg kept silent. He wondered if Sorensen could hear the thudding of his heart.

  “Sam Hall is a shadow,” said the agent. “The most careful checkups eliminate any chance of his being identical with anyone else of that name. In fact we’ve learned that the name occurs in a violent old drinking song. Is this coincidence, or did the song suggest crime to Sam Hall, or did he by some incredible process get that alias into his record instead of his real name? Whatever the answer there, we know that he’s ostensibly without military training, yet he’s pulled off some beautiful pieces of precision attack. His IQ is only 110, but he evades our traps. He has no politics, yet he turns on Security without warning. We have not been able to find a single individual who remembers him—not one, and believe me, we have been thorough. Oh, there are a few subconscious memories which might be of him, but probably aren’t; and so aggressive a personality should be remembered consciously. No undergrounder or foreign operative we’ve caught had any knowledge of him, which defies probability. The whole business seems impossible.”

  Thornberg licked his lips. Sorensen, the hunter of men, must know he was frightened; but would he assume that to be the normal nervousness of a man in the presence of a Security officer?

  Sorensen’s face broke into a hard smile. “As Sherlock Holmes remarked,” he said, “when you have eliminated every other hypothesis, then the one which remains, however improbable, must be right.”

  Despite himself, Thornberg was jolted. Sorensen hadn’t struck him as a reader.

  “Well,” he asked slowly, “what is your remaining hypothesis?”

  His visitor watched him for a long time, it seemed forever, before replying. “The underground is more powerful and widespread than people realize. They’ve had seventy years to prepare, and many good brains in their ranks. They carry on scientific research of their own. It’s top secret, but we know they have perfected a type of weapon we cannot duplicate yet. It seems to be a hand gun throwing bolts of energy—a blaster, you might call it—of immense power. Sooner or later they’re going to wage open war against the government.

  “Now, could they have done something comparable in psychology? Could they have found a way to erase or cover up memories selectively, even on the cellular level? Could they know how to fool a personality tester, how to disguise the mind itself? If so, we may have any number of Sam Halls in our midst, undetectable until the moment comes for them to strike.”

  Thornberg felt almost boneless. He couldn’t help gasping his relief, and hoped Sorensen would take it for a sign of alarm.

  “The possibility is frightening, no?” The blond man laughed metallically. “You can imagine what is being felt in high official circles. We’ve put all the psychological researchers we could get to work on the problem—bah! Fools! They go by the book; they’re afraid to be original even when the state tells them to.

  “This may just be a wild fancy, of course. I hope it is. But we have to know. That’s why I approached you personally, instead of sending the usual requisition. I want you to make a search of the records—everything pertaining to the subject, every man, every discovery, every hypothesis. You have a broad technical background and, from your psychorecord, an unusual amount of creative imagination. I want you to do what you can to correlate your data. Co-opt whoever you need. Submit to my office a report on the possibility—or should I say probability—of this notion; and if you find any likelihood of its being true, sketch out a research program which will enable us to duplicate the results and counteract them.”

  Thornberg fumbled for words. “I’ll try,” he said lamely. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. It’s for the state.”

  Sorensen had finished his official business, but he didn’t go at once. “Rebel propaganda is subtle stuff,” he said quietly, after a pause. “It’s dangerous because it uses our own slogans, with a twisted meaning. Liberty, equality, justice, peace. Too many people can’t appreciate that times have changed and the meanings of words have necessarily changed likewise.”

  “I suppose not,” said Thornberg. He added the lie: “I never thought much about that kind of question.”

  “You should,” said Sorensen. “Study your history. When we lost World War III we had to militarize to win World War IV, and after that mount guard on the whole human race. The people demanded it at the time.”

  The people, thought Thornberg, never appreciated freedom till they’d lost it. They were always willing to sell their birthright. Or was it merely that, being untrained in thinking, they couldn’t see through demagoguery, couldn’t visualize the ultimate consequences of their wishes? He was vaguely shocked at the thought; wasn’t he able to control his mind any longer?

  “The rebels,” said Sorensen, “claim that conditions have changed, that militarization is no longer necessary—if it ever was—and that America would be safe in a union of free countries. Devilishly clever propaganda, Major Thornberg. Watch out for it.”

  He got up and took his leave. Thornberg sat for a long time staring at the door. Sorensen’s last words had been odd, to say the least. Were they a hint—or a bait?

  The next day Matilda received a news item which was carefully edited for the public channels. An insurrectionist force had landed aircraft in the stockade of Camp Forbes, in Utah, gunned down the guards, and taken away the prisoners. The institution’s doctor had been spared, and related that the leader of the raid, a stocky man in a mask, had said to him: “Tell your friends I’ll call again. My name is Sam Hall.”

  Space Guard ship blown up on Mesa Verde Field. On a fragment of metal someone has scrawled: “Compliments of Sam Hall!”

  Squad of Security Police, raiding a suspected underground hideout in Philadelphia, cut down by tommy-gun fire. Voice from a hidden bullhorn cries: “My name, it is Sam Hall!”

  Matthew Williamson, chemist in Seattle, suspected of subversive connections, is gone when the arresting officers break into his home. A note left on his desk says: “Off to visit Sam Hall. Back for liberation. M.W.”

  Defense plant producing important robomb components near Miami is sabotaged by a planted bomb, after a phone warning gives the workers time to evacuate. The caller, who leaves the visio circuit off, styles himself Sam Hall. Various similar places get similar warnings. These are fakes, but each costs a day’s valuable work in the alarm and the search.

  Scribbled on walls from New York to San Diego, from Duluth to El Paso: Sam Hall, Sam Hall, Sam Hall.

  Obviously, thought Thornberg, the underground had seized on the invisible and invincible man of legend and turned him to their own purposes. Reports of him poured in from all over the country, hundreds every day—Sam Hall seen here, Sam Hall seen there. Ninety-nine percent could be dismissed as hoaxes, hallucinations, mistakes; it was another national craze, fruit of a jittery time, like the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century witch-hunts or the twentieth-century flying saucers. But Security and civilian police had to check on everyone.

  Thornberg planted a number of them himself.

  Mostly, though, he was busy on his assignment. He could understand what it meant to the government. Life in the garrison state was inevitably founded on fear and mistrust, every man’s eye on his neighbor; but at least psychotyping and hypnoquizzing had given a degree of surety. Now, that staff knocked out from under them—

  His preliminary studies indicated that an invention such as Sorensen had hypothesized, while not impossible, was too far beyond the scope of contemporary science for the rebels to have perfected. Such research carried on nowadays would, from the standpoint of practicality if not of knowledge, be a waste of time and trained men.

  He spent a good many sleepless hours and a month’s cigarette ration before he could decide what to do. All right, he’d aided insurrection in a small way, and he shouldn’t boggle at the next step. Still—nevertheless—did he want to?

  Jack—his son had a career lined out for himself. He loved the big deeps beyond the sky as he would love a woman. If things changed, what then of Jack’s career?

  Well, what was it now? Stuck on a dreary planet as guardsman and executioner of homesick starvelings poisoned by radioactivity; never even seeing the sun. Come the day, Jack could surely wrangle a berth on a real spacer. They’d need bold men to explore beyond Saturn. Jack was too honest to make a good rebel, but Thornberg felt that after the initial shock he would welcome a new government.

  But treason! Oaths!

  When in the course of human events…

  It was a small thing that decided Thornberg. He passed a shop downtown and noticed a group of the Youth Guard smashing the windows and spattering yellow paint over the goods, O Moses, Jesus, Mendelssohn, Hertz, and Einstein! Once he had chosen his path, a curious serenity possessed him. He stole a vial of prussic acid from a chemist friend and carried it in his pocket; and as for Jack, the boy would have to take his chances too.