Chang looked uncomfortable. “We have place for du,” he said. “It have taak unusually long time to analyze psychometric results duurs. Dey are su very different from ordinary.”

  “Well…” Hart waited impatiently. They’d been stalling him long enough.

  Chang explained as well as he could. Psychometry and preventive psychiatry were really the basis of society. The fundamental personality of the individual was determined at an early age and he was “developed” throughout life in accordance with that—conditioned to society, but not in such a rigid fashion as to interfere with really basic urges. Vocations, recreations, social life were all planned in accordance with psychometric data.

  “Planned?” exclaimed Hart. “How on earth can you plan everything?”

  Well, not exactly planned either. Guided. An individual had such and such an I. Q., his main interests were so and so, his personality factors were as follows—it all went into a great electronic “file,” in the powerful psychosymbology of the time. And any citizen had access to that file, with technicians to help him in its use. Thus you could find your likes, your associates, wherever they might happen to live, rather than leave it to chance encounters. It was scientifically predictable whether a friendship, a marriage, a business association, would be really of mutual profit. Naturally, everyone made use of the service, and adjusted his life accordingly.

  “But—ye gods! You mean anyone can find out all about you at any time? What kind of privacy is that?”

  Privacy? Chang was puzzled now. The word still remained in the language, but it had come to mean simply solitude. Why should you care whether or not anyone else knew just what you were? It didn’t make you any better or worse, did it? You could find your kind in the world—those whose company was most pleasing to you. You could know yourself, and set your goals accordingly; you could change most really undesirable characteristics, with the help of psychiatry or even endocrinology and surgery.

  The “groups,” originally simply clans formed for mutual protection, were increasingly becoming endogamous associations of similar people. It was the group which was the real unit of society. Business, social life-all were integrated with the needs of the group, and of the world as a whole.

  For instance, it was desirable that population be limited. Overpopulation was probably the most basic cause of misery in past history. Thus the group council regulated how many children there should be in a given family. It decided how long a marriage—family association was the term now—should last; a person might have children by three or four different people, if that seemed to be for the good of human evolution.

  “But suppose your individual doesn’t want to obey? I noticed nothing in the law compelling him to.”

  “Obedience are customary, and psychoconditioning in childhood delibraatly plants reflexes of conformity wit custom. No sane person wants to do oderwise.”

  “But—but—talk about tyrannies!”

  “Why, nuw.” Chang was taken aback at Hart’s violent reaction. “All societies in past conditioned young. Waar du not telled to obey law and worship flag—dey still had flag-worship in time duurs, did dey not?—and how it are wrong to kill and steal? But such conditioning waar superficial, it did not always affect basic impulses, so dat dere waar tragic conflicts between individual needs and desires and de laws and customs. Frustrating, crime, insanity? No wonder de dark ages came. Today we simply condition so thoroughly—and de inculcated desires do not conflict wit basic instincts—dat no one wants to break rules which fit him su perfectly.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well, dere are exceptions, ewen today. If dey cannot be adjusted, or will not be—since noting is legally compulsory—dey must eider be sent to space colonies or struggle though an unhappy life on Eart, witout friends or marriage, witout ewen a group. But numbers deys gruw less all de time.”

  “Hm-m-m…well…”

  “Ewerybody have his place in society. Ewerybody happy wit life, nobody have conflicts wit felluw man—dat are goal nos. And we are close to it.”

  “It sounds nice,” muttered Hart. He shrugged. “Not much I can do about it, anyway.” His eyes swung back to the doctor’s. “Now what about me?”

  “Well…” Chang was obviously steeling himself. He smiled with a false geniality. “Well, we have seweral possibilities. Dere are a weader station in Greenland, or a small farm in Brazil, or—”

  “Hold on!” Hart reached out and grabbed the doctor’s tunic. His throat choked with a sudden rage and, under that, a gathering horrible dismay. “What do you think you’re doing? Am I going to be stuck somewhere out of the sight of man and forgotten?”

  “I—”

  “Come on, “ snarled Hart. The fist he lifted was shaking. “Spit out the truth, or you’ll be spitting out your teeth”

  Chang disengaged himself and held the smaller man with an effortless strength. His face was twisted. “I—I are sorry, Tov Hart,” he said, very quietly. “It waar raally a cruel kindness to wake du. But I are afraid dat—du are right. “

  Hart sagged, the anger draining from him and leaving only a vast hollow void. Dimly, he heard Chang’s voice: “Du have nuw place in world. Du belong to nuw famly or group. Du have no traits wort perpetuating—indeed, we would not want children wit cancer tendency duurs. Psychotests show du as unstable, egocentric, unable to adjust to cityless world, to close familial relationship, to—anything. No one would want to associate wit completely unintegrated, hopelessly neurotic—foreigner.

  “Best du find a quiet place where du can serve—out of sight.”

  Hart rebelled. Bitterly, desperately, he tried to escape.

  There must be something. He had been the admired leader of his little clique. Broad knowledge, sardonic humor, a way with women, ready money, all had combined to impress and delight. Surely the world had not changed so much!

  No compulsion was put on him. He went where and when he chose; he spent a good three months prowling this new Earth, riding the free public transport and using an unlimited government credit card to buy necessities. And he found that the world had indeed changed.

  The tall, healthy, serene folk were polite to him, and no more. But they had nothing in common with him. He belonged to no group and, for eugenic and other reasons, could not be adopted into one, and all social functions were within such alliances. He did not follow their jokes, his manners were gauche compared to the formality now accepted; his learning and background were from a period too remote to interest any but scholars. There was no underworld, no demimonde. Morality was somewhat changed, but it was never violated.

  For his part, Hart began to be bored. It was not entirely a subjective attitude rising out of resentment at inferiority. These people were slow-speaking, formal, calm; they lacked the tension and the acrid mirth of the twentieth century. They were not weaklings in any sense, but they were—innocent.

  There was no entertainment except what groups provided for themselves—singing, dancing, amateur showmanship, a great deal of hobbycraft. The reason for the absence of professional entertainment was basically the same as that for the lack of large-scale industry. The group society was deliberately throwing the individual and the family on their own resources. Now that there were no external challenges of war, poverty, famine, disease, now that history had slowed almost to a standstill, man must return to a degree of primitive self-sufficiency and independence if he was not to become the glorified termite inhabiting a purposeless machine city.

  Hart saw the reasoning, but it seemed puritanical to him. And he could not sympathize with a people who deliberately submitted to it. A man who plowed his own fields when science had advanced to the point where everyone could eat out of cans was a fool. To be sure, the man was conditioned to like it, and certainly the food was better than the sterilized pap of twentieth century canneries, but even so…

  Hart tried to leave Earth altogether. But he lacked the physique and the technical skill which would justify a spaceship in hauling him. And from what he read of the spatial colonies, he was likely to find a still more alien society out there.

  In the end, desperately, he took the weather-station job.

  For a while that was better. He was alone, away from the subtler and crueler isolation of strangers’ company, and he was not entirely useless. The vast windswept snowfields, the far mysterious glimmer of northern lights wavering over enormous mountains, the snug hut which had access to the books and music of all history, were all somehow comforting. He barely spoke to the pilot of the occasional supply rocket, and refused to be relieved.

  He couldn’t go back to a world which had no use for him. He could stay here and dream of what had been, out here in the wind-whining loneliness, alone in the dark with the ghosts of his own time whispering to him…

  They muttered in the dark corners, they wavered in the auroras and the pale cold sunlight, ghosts of the past, calling to him over a gulf of time. Time began to be meaningless, and space. In this unreal landscape of ice and snow and dark, wind blowing up between the frosty stars, it was hard to say where the solid world left off and the dreams began.

  Hart realized vaguely that he was slipping. But it didn’t matter. Certainly he couldn’t return to the politeness of the world, more cold and remote than the flying haggard moon, he couldn’t leave his old friends here…Why, his relief would sweep the dust out of the cabin, dust which had once been human, dust which had once lain in his arms or laughed at his humor…Now the wind laughed, hooting around the house and rattling the shutters in appreciation of Hart’s jokes.

  * * *

  Waldor Rostom Chang looked, with horror creeping behind his eyes, at the thing which mumbled on the floor of the airjet. Hart was almost· completely catatonic now.

  “If we had knuwed!” said the doctor. “If we had uwnly knuwed!”

  “How skood we?” asked the pilot, a weather-service technician. “De job waar just ‘made’ work, to give de poor felluw someting to do. Reports his waar filed in de wastebasket. And he had bee-an su unsuwciable dat de supply pilots simply left stuff his witout ewen seeing him. It waar uwnly when he had quit reporting for seweral days dat we got alarmed.”

  “I newwer drea-amed he would go crazy, ewen when he had bee-an dere two yaars witout relief,” said Chang. “After all, a modem man could stand it easily. And de twentyet century mind waar too strange to mind nos, completely unintegrated as it waar, for de psychotechnics to spot de instability in him.”

  “And nuw what will we do wit him?”

  “We cannot help de poor jorp. Psychiatry nos are preventive, mental disease su long forgetted dat we have no real curative technique—teories, records of old cure metods, yes, but nuw experenced mental doctors.” Chang shrugged. “All we can do is put Hart back in de Crypt till such day as psychiatry have evolved cure for su extreme a case as his. And dere are su little need for psychocuring today dat I fear it will be a long, long time befuwere Hart can be outtaken again.”

  The pilot grinned mirthlessly. “By den,” he said, “society may be su alien dat Hart, once cured, will relapse into insanity too deep for dem to handle—so dey will have to put him back in de Crypt…” He spied his goal and sent the airjet slanting downward.

  MacCannon

  MacCannon was a Fireball man. That rambling rocketeer

  Could lift off into orbit on a single keg of beer.

  The whisky that he much preferred was made not for the meek

  Unless you were a Scot, it would ground you for a week.

  MacCannon was a macho man, a brawling, balling Celt.

  For EVA he needed just a helmet and his pelt

  His lady friends expressed their love in moans and groans and pants

  And made remarks among themselves concerning elephants.

  Its clouds sulfuric acid, high above the CO2( ½ down)

  So hot and thick down underneath that lead itself would stew,

  The atmosphere of Venus is as poisonously ripe

  As the air became around us when MacCannon lit his pipe.

  His ship once had an argument while passing thru the void,

  Alone, about the right of way, with one big asteroid.

  Adrift, he used the time to make a large discovery,

  The art of shooting craps to win in zero gravity.

  The devil knocked upon the lock and said, “You’re doomed to die.

  Come down with me.” MacCannon spat some whisy in his eye.

  The sizzle and the reaction sent the devil with a yell

  On a hyperbolic orbit that would take him back to hell.

  MacCannon then decided his diabled boat should boost.

  He ate himself a mighty meal of beans and set himself to roost

  Upon a mass ejector tube far sternward in his craft,

  And the ship went leaping forward from the thunders booming aft.

  The Martian Crown Jewels

  The signal was picked up when the ship was still a quarter million miles away, and recorded voices summoned the technicians. There was no haste, for the ZX28749, otherwise called the Jane Brackney, was right on schedule; but landing an unmanned spaceship is always a delicate operation. Men and machines prepared to receive her as she came down, but the control crew had the first order of business.

  Yamagata, Steinmann, and Ramanowitz were in the GCA tower, with Hollyday standing by for an emergency. If the circuits should fail—they never had, but a thousand tons of cargo and nuclear-powered vessel, crashing into the port, could empty Phobos of human life. So Hollyday watched over a set of spare assemblies, ready to plug in whatever might be required.

  Yamagata’s thin fingers danced over the radar dials. His eyes were intent on the screen. “Got her,” he said. Steinmann made a distance reading and Ramanowitz took the velocity off the Dopplerscope. A brief session with a computer showed the figures to be almost as predicted.

  “Might as well relax,” said Yamagata, taking out a cigarette. “She won’t be in control range for a while yet.”

  His eyes roved over the crowded room and out its window. From the tower he had a view of the spaceport: unimpressive, most of its shops and sheds and living quarters being underground. The smooth concrete field was chopped off by the curvature of the tiny satellite. It always faced Mars, and the station was on the far side, but he could remember how the planet hung enormous over the opposite hemisphere, soft ruddy disc blurred with thin air, hazy greenish-brown mottlings of heath and farmland. Though Phobos was clothed in vacuum, you couldn’t see the hard stars of space: the sun and the floodlamps were too bright.

  There was a knock on the door. Hollyday went over, almost drifting in the ghostly gravity, and opened it. “Nobody allowed in here during a landing,” he said. Hollyday was a stocky blond man with a pleasant, open countenance, and his tone was less peremptory than his words.

  “Police.” The newcomer, muscular, round-faced and earnest, was in plain clothes, tunic and pajama pants, which was expected; everyone in the tiny settlement knew Inspector Gregg. But he was packing a gun, which was not usual, and look harried.

  Yamagata peered out again and saw the port’s four constables down on the field in official spacesuits, watching the ground crew. They carried weapons. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Nothing…I hope.” Gregg came in and tried to smile. “But the Jane has a very unusual cargo this trip.”

  “Hm?” Ramanowitz’s eyes lit up in his broad plump visage. “Why weren’t we told?”

  “That was deliberate. Secrecy. The Martian crown jewels are aboard.” Gregg fumbled a cigarette from his tunic.

  Hollyday and Steinmann nodded at each other. Yamagata whistled. “On a robot ship?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh. A robot ship is the one form of transportation from which they could not be stolen. There were three attempts made when they went to Earth on a regular liner, and I hate to think how many while they were at the British Museum. One guard lost his life. Now my boys are going to remove them before anyone else touches that ship and scoot ’em right down to Sabaeus.”

  “How much are they worth?” wondered Ramanowitz.

  “Oh…they could be fenced on Earth for maybe half a billion UN dollars,” said Gregg. “But the thief would do better to make the Martians pay to get them back…no, Earth would have to, I suppose, since it’s our responsibility.” He blew nervous clouds. “The jewels were secretly put on the Jane, last thing before she left on her regular run. I wasn’t even told till a special messenger on this week’s liner gave me the word. Not a chance for any thief to know they’re here, till they’re safely back on Mars. And that’ll be safe!”

  Ramanowitz shuddered. All the planets knew what guarded the vaults at Sabaeus.

  “Some people did know, all along,” said Yamagata thoughtfully. “I mean the loading crew back at Earth.”

  “Uh-huh, there is that.” Gregg smiled. “Several of them have quit since then, the messenger said, but of course, there’s always a big turnover among spacejacks—they’re a restless bunch.” His gaze drifted across Steinmann and Hollyday, both of whom had last worked at Earth Station and come to Mars a few ships back. The liners went on a hyperbolic path and arrived in a couple of weeks; the robot ships followed the more leisurely and economical Hohmann A orbit and needed 258 days. A man who knew what ship was carrying the jewels could leave Earth, get to Mars well ahead of the cargo, and snap up a job here—Phobos was always shorthanded.

  “Don’t look at me!” said Steinmann, laughing. “Chuck and I knew about this—of course—but we were under security restrictions. Haven’t told a soul.”

  “Yeah. I’d have known it if you had,” nodded Gregg. “Gossip travels fast here. Don’t resent this, please, but I’m here to see that none of you boys leaves this tower till the jewels are aboard our own boat.”

  “Oh, well. It’ll mean overtime pay.”

  “If I want to get rich fast, I’ll stick to prospecting,” added Hollyday.