by Isaac Asimov
"Yes, sir."
"Are you afraid, George?"
No,sir.''
Good. Now I ll tell you exactly what we ll do first. I m gomg to put
these wires on your forehead just over the corners of your eyes. They'll stick there but they won't hurt at all. Then, I'll ~ on something that wifi make a buzz. It will sound funny and it may tickle you, but it won't hurt. Now if it does hurt, you tell me, and I'll turn it off right away, but it won't hurt. All right?"
George nodded and swallowed.
"Are you ready?"
George nodded. He closed his eyes while the doctor busied himself. His parents had explained this to him. They, too, had said it wouldn't hurt, but then there were always the older children. There were the ten- and twelveyear-olds who howled after the eight-year-olds waiting for Reading Day, "Watch out for the needle." There were the others who took you off in confidence and said, "They got to cut your head open. They use a sharp knife that big with a hook on it," and so on into horrifying details.
George had never believed them but he had had nightmares, and now closed his eyes and felt pure terror.
He didn't feel the wires at his temple. The buzz was a distant thing, and there was the sound of his own blood in his ears, ringing hollowly as though it and he were in a large cave. Slowly he chanced opening his eyes.
The doctor had his back to him. From one of the instruments a strip of paper unwound and was covered with a thin, wavy purple line. The doctor tore off pieces and put them into a slot in another machine. He did it over and over again. Each time a little piece of film came out, which the doctor looked at. Finally, he turned toward George with a queer frown between his eyes.
The buzzing stopped.
George said breathlessly, "Is it over?"
The doctor said, "Yes," but he was still frowning.
"Can I read now?" asked George. He felt no different.
The doctor said, "What?" then smiled very suddenly and briefly. He said, "It works fine, Geoge. You'll be reading in fifteen minutes. Now we're going to use another machine this time and it wifi take longer. I'm going to cover your whole head, and when I turn it on you won't be able to see or hear anything for a while, but it won't hurt. Just to make sure I'm going to give you a little switch to hold in your hand. If anything hurts, you press the little button and everything shuts off. All right?"
In later years, George was told that the little switch was strictly a dummy; that it was introduced solely for confidence. He never did know for sure, however, since he never pushed the button.
A large smoothly curved helmet with a rubbery inner lining was placed over his head and left there. Three or four little knobs seemed to grab at him and bite into his skull, but there was only a little pressure that faded. No pain.
The doctor's voice sounded dimly. "Everything all right, George?"
And then, with no real warning, a layer of thick felt closed down all about him. He was disembodied, there was no sensation, no universe, only himself and a distant murmur at the very ends of nothingness telling him something-telling him-telling him- He strained to hear and understand but there was all that thick felt between.
Then the helmet was taken off his head, and the light was so bright that it hurt his eyes while the doctor's voice drummed at his ears.
The doctor said, "Here's your card, George. What does it say?"
George looked at his card again and gave out a strangled shout. The marks weren't just marks at all. They made up words. They were words just as clearly as though something were whispering them in his ears. He could hear them being whispered as he looked at them.
"What does it say, George?"
"It says-it says-'Platen, George. Born 13 February 6492 of Peter and Amy Platen in. . .' "He broke off.
"You can read, George," said the doctor. "It's all over."
"For good? I won't forget how?"
"Of course not." The doctor leaned over to shake hands gravely. "You will be taken home now."
It was days before George got over this new and great talent of his. He read for his father with such facility that Platen, Senior, wept and called relatives to tell the good news.
George walked about town, reading every scrap of printing he could find and wondering how it was that none of it had ever made sense to him before.
He tried to remember how it was not to be able to read and he couldn't. As far as his feeling about it was concerned, he had always been able to read. Always.
At eighteen, George was rather dark, of medium height, but thin enough to look taller. Trevelyan, who was scarcely an inch shorter, had a stockiness of build that made "Stubby" more than ever appropriate, but in this last year he had grown self-conscious. The nickname could no longer be used without reprisal. And since Trevelyan disapproved of his proper first name even more strongly, he was called Trevelyan or any decent variant of that. As though to prove his manhood further, he had most persistently grown a pair of sideburns and a bristly mustache.
He was sweating and nervous now, and George, who had himself grown out of "Jaw-jee" and into the curt monosyllabic gutterality of "George," was rather amused by that.
They were in the same large hall they had been in ten years before (and not since). It was as if a vague dream of the past had come to sudden reality. In the first few minutes George had been distinctly surprised at finding everything seem smaller and more cramped than his memory told him; then he made allowance for his own growth.
The crowd was smaller than it had been in childhood. It was exclusively male this time. The girls had another day assigned them.
Trevelyan leaned over to say, "Beats me the way they make you wait."
"Red tape," said George. "You can't avoid it."
Trevelyan said, "What makes you so damned tolerant about it?"
"I've got nothing to worry about."
"Oh, brother, you make me sick. I hope you end up Registered Manure Spreader just so I can see your face when you do." His somber eyes swept the crowd anxiously.
George looked about, too. It wasn't quite the system they used on the
children. Matters went slower, and instructions had been given out at the start in print (an advantage over the pre-Readers). The names Platen and Trevelyan were well down the alphabet still, but this time the two knew it.
Young men came out of the education rooms, frowning and uncomfortable, picked up their clothes and belongings, then went off to analysis to learn the results.
Each, as he came out, would be surrounded by a clot of the thinning crowd. "How was it?" "How'd it feel?" "Whacha think ya made?" "Ya feel any different?"
Answers were vague and noncommittal.
George forced himself to remain out of those clots. You only raised your own blood pressure. Everyone said you stood the best chance if you remained calm. Even so, you could feel the palms of your hands grow cold. Funny that new tensions came with the years.
For instance, high-specialty professionals heading out for an Outworld were accompanied by a wife (or husband). It was important to keep the sex ratio in good balance on all worlds. And if you were going out to a Grade A world, what girl would refuse you? George had no specific girl in mind yet; he wanted none. Not now! Once he made Programmer; once he could add to his name, Registered Computer Programmer, he could take his pick, like a sultan in a harem. The thought excited him and he tried to put it away. Must stay calm.
Trevelyan muttered, "What's it all about anyway? First they say it works best if you're relaxed and at ease. Then they put you through this and make it impossible for you to be relaxed and at ease."
"Maybe that's the idea. They're separating the boys from the men to begin with. Take it easy, Trev."
"Shut up."
George's turn came. His name was not called. It appeared in glowing letters on the notice board.
He waved at Trevelyan. "Take it easy, Trev. Don't let it get you."
He was happy as he entered the testing chamber. Actually happy.
&
nbsp; The man behind the desk said, "George Platen?"
For a fleeting instant there was a razor-sharp picture in George's mind of another man, ten years earlier, who had asked the same question, and it was almost as though this were the same man and he, George, had turned eight again as he stepped across the threshold.
But the man looked up and, of course, the face matched that of the sudden memory not at all. The nose was bulbous, the hair thin and stringy, and the chin wattled as though its owner had once been grossly overweight and had reduced.
The man behind the desk looked annoyed. "Well?"
George came to Earth. "I'm George Platen, sir."
"Say so, then. I'm Dr. Zachary Antonelli, and we're going to be intimately acquainted in a moment."
He stared at small strips of film, holding them up to the light owlishly. George winced inwardly. Very hazily, he remembered that other doctor (he had forgotten the name) staring at such film. Could these be the same? The other doctor had frowned and this one was looking at him now as though he were angry.
His happiness was already just about gone.
Dr. Antonelli spread the pages of a thickish file out before him now and put the films carefully to one side. "It says here you want to be a Computer Programmer."
"Yes, doctor."
''Still do?''
''Yes, sir.''
"It's a responsible and exacting position. Do you feel up to it?"
''Yes, sir."
"Most pre-Educates don't put down any specific profession. I believe they are afraid of queering it."
''I think that's tight, sir."
"Aren't you afraid of that?"
"I might as well be honest, sir."
Dr. Antonelli nodded, but without any noticeable lightening of his expression. "Why do you want to be a Programmer?"
"It's a responsible and exacting position as you said, sir. It's an important job and an exciting one. I like it and! think I can do it."
Dr. Antonelli put the papers away, and looked at George sourly. He said, "How do you know you like it? Because you think you'll be snapped up by some Grade A planet?"
George thought uneasily: He's trying to rattle you. Stay calm and stay frank.
He said, "I think a Programmer has a good chance, sir, but even if I were left on Earth, I know I'd like it." (That was true enough. I'm not lying, thought George.)
"All right, how do you know?"
He asked it as though he knew there was no decent answer and George almost smiled. He had one.
He said, "I've been reading about Programming, sir."
"You've been what?" Now the doctor looked genuinely astonished and George took pleasure in that.
"Reading about it, sir. I bought a book on the subject and I've been studying it."
"A book for Registered Programmers?"
''Yes, sir."
"But you couldn't understand it."
"Not at first. I got other books on mathematics and electronics. I made out all I could. I still don't know much, but I know enough to know I like it and to know I can make it." (Even his parents never found that secret cache of books or knew why he spent so much time in his own room or exactly what happened to the sleep he missed.)
The doctor pulled at the loose skin under his chin. "What was your idea in doing that, son?"
"I wanted to make sure I would be interested, sir."
"Surely you know that being interested means nothing. You could be devoured by a subject and if the physical makeup of your brain makes it more efficient for you to be something else, something else you will be. You know that, don't you?"
"I've been told that," said George cautiously.
"Well, believe it. It's true."
George said nothing.
Dr. Antonelli said, "Or do you believe that studying some subject will bend the brain cells in that direction, like that other theory that a pregnant woman need only listen to great music persistently to make a composer of her child. Do you believe that?"
George flushed. That had certainly been in his mind. By forcing his intellect constantly in the desired direction, he had felt sure that he would be getting a head start. Most of his confidence had rested on exactly that point.
"I never-" he began, and found no way of finishing.
"Well, it isn't true. Good Lord, youngster, your brain pattern is fixed at birth. It can be altered by a blow hard enough to damage the cells or by a burst blood vessel or by a tumor or by a major infection-each time, of course, for the worse. But it certainly can't be affected by your thinking special thoughts." He stared at George thoughtfully, then said, "Who told you to do this?"
George, now thoroughly disturbed, swallowed and said, "No one, doctor. My own idea."
"Who knew you were doing it after you started?"
"No one. Doctor, I meant to do no wrong."
"Who said anything about wrong? Useless is what I would say. Why did you keep it to yourself?"
"I-I thought they'd laugh at me." (He thought abruptly of a recent exchange with Trevelyan. George had very cautiously broached the thought, as of something merely circulating distantly in the very outermost reaches of his mind, concerning the possibility of learning something by ladling it into the mind by hand, so to speak, in bits and pieces. Trevelyan had hooted, "George, you'll be tanning your own shoes next and weaving your own shirts." He had been thankful for his policy of secrecy.)
Dr. Antonelli shoved the bits of film he had first looked at from position to position in morose thought. Then he said, "Let's get you analyzed. This is getting me nowhere."
The wires went to George's temples. There was the buzzing. Again there came a sharp memory of ten years ago.
George's hands were clammy; his heart pounded. He should never have told the doctor about his secret reading.
It was his damned vanity, he told himself. He had wanted to show how enterprising he was, how full of initiative. Instead, he had showed himself superstitious and ignorant and aroused the hostility of the doctor. (He could tell the doctor hated him for a wise guy on the make.)
And now he had brought himself to such a state of nervousness, he was sure the analyzer would show nothing that made sense.
He wasn't aware of the moment when the wires were removed from his temples. The sight of the doctor, staring at him thoughtfully, blinked into his consciousness and that was that; the wires were gone. George dragged himself together with a tearing effort. He had quite given up his ambition to be a Programmer. In the space of ten minutes, it had all gone.
He said dismally, "I suppose no?"
"No what?"
"No Programmer?"
The doctor rubbed his nose and said, "You get your clothes and whatever belongs to you and go to room 15-C. Your files will be waiting for you there. So will my report."
George said in complete surprise, "Have I been Educated already? I thought this was just to-"
Dr. Antonelli stared down at his desk. "It will all be explained to you. You do as I say."
George felt something like panic. What was it they couldn't tell him? He wasn't fit for anything but Registered Laborer. They were going to prepare him for that; adjust him to it.
He was suddenly certain of it and he had to keep from screaming by main force.
He stumbled back to his place of waiting. Trevelyan was not there, a fact for which he would have been thankful if he had had enough self-possession to be meaningfully aware of his surroundings. Hardly anyone was left, in fact, and the few who were looked as though they might ask him questions were it not that they were too worn out by their tail-of-the-alphabet waiting to buck the fierce, hot look of anger and hate he cast at them.
What right had they to be technicians and he, himself, a Laborer? Laborer! He was certain!
He was led by a red-uniformed guide along the busy corridors lined with separate rooms each containing its groups, here two, there five: the Motor Mechanics the Construction Engineers, the Agronomists- There were hundreds of specialized Professions and m
ost of them would be represented in this small town by one or two anyway.
He hated them all just then: the Statisticians, the Accountants, the lesser
breeds and the higher. He hated them because they owned their smug knowledge now, knew their fate, while he himself, empty still, had to face some kind of further red tape.
He reached 15-C, was ushered in and left in an empty room. For one moment, his spirits bounded. Surely, if this were the Labor classification room, there would be dozens of youngsters present.
A door sucked into its recess on the other side of a waist-high partition and an elderly, white-haired man stepped out. He smiled and showed even teeth that were obviously false, but his face was still ruddy and unlined and his voice had vigor.
He said, "Good evening, George. Our own sector has only one of you this time, I see."
"Only one?" said George blanidy.
"Thousands over the Earth, of course. Thousands. You're not alone."
George felt exasperated. He said, "I don't understand, sir. What's my classification? What's happening?"
"Easy, son. You're all right. It could happen to anyone." He held out his hand and George took it mechanically. It was warm and it pressed George's hand firmly. "Sit down, son. I'm Sam Ellenford."
George nodded impatiently. "I want to know what's going on, sir."
"Of course. To begin with, you can't be a Computer Programmer, George. You've guessed that, I think."
"Yes, I have," said George bitterly. "What will I be, then?"
"That's the hard part to explain, George." He paused, then said with careful distinctness, "Nothing."
"What!"
"Nothing!"
"But what does that mean? Why can't you assign me a profession?"
"We have no choice in the matter, George. It's the structure of your mind that decides that."
George went a sallow yellow. His eyes bulged. "There's something wrong with my mind?"
