“Then don’t you ever forget it, hear?” snapped Furth, leaning quickly across to the younger man. “Don’t you ever let it slip out of your mind. If anything happens while you’re awake and on the scene, and you miss it, no matter how insignificant, you’ll wind up in the Mines.” As if to illustrate his point, he clicked the dictobox to “on” and spoke briefly into it, keeping his eyes on a girl neatly pouring the contents of a row of glasses on the bar’s floor and eating the glasses, all but the stems, which she left lying in an orderly pile.
He concluded, and leaned back toward Themus, pointing a stubby finger. “You’ve got a soft job here, boy. Ten years as a Watcher and you can retire. Back to a nice cozy apartment in a Project at Kyben-Central or any other planet you choose, with anyone you choose, doing anything you choose—within the bounds of the Covenant, of course. You’re lucky you made it into the Corps. Many a mother’s son would give his mother to be where you are.”
He lifted the helix-glass to his lips and drained it.
Themus sat, scratched his nose, and watched the purple liquid disappear.
It was his first day on Kyba, his Superior had straightened him out, he knew his place, he knew his job. Everything was clean and top-notch. Somehow he was miserable.
Themus looked at himself. At himself as he knew he was, not as he thought he was. This was a time for realities, not for wishful thinking. He was twenty-three, average height, blue hair, blue eyes, light complexion—just a bit lighter than the average gold-color of his people— superior intelligence, and with the rigid, logical mind of his kind. He was an accepted Underclass member of the Watcher Corps with a year of intern work at Penares-Base and an immediate promotion to Kyba, which was acknowledged the soft spot before retirement. For a man as new to the Corps as Themus’s five years made him, this was a remarkable thing, and explainable only by his quick and brilliant dictographic background.
He was a free man, a quick man with a dictobox, a good-looking man, and, unfortunately, an unhappy man.
He was confused by it all.
His summation of himself was suddenly shattered by the rest of his squad’s entrance into the common-room, voices pitched on a dozen different levels.
They came through the sliding doors, jostling and joking with one another, all tall and straight, all handsome and intelligent.
“You should have seen the one I got yesterday,” said one man, zipping up his chest-armor. “He was sitting in the Dog’s-Skull—you know, that little place on the corner of Bremen and Gabrett—with a bowl of noodle soup in front of him, tying the things together.” The rest of the speaker’s small group laughed uproariously. “When I asked him what he was doing, he said, ‘I’m a noodle-knitter, stupid.’ He called me stupid! A noodle-knitter!” He elbowed the Underclassman next to him in the ribs and they both roared with laughter.
Across the room, strapping his dictobox to his chest, one of the elder Underclassmen was studiously holding court.
“The worst ones are the psychos, gentlemen. I assure you, from six years’ service here, that they take every prize ever invented. They are destructive, confusing, and elaborate to record. I recall one who was stacking juba-fruits in a huge pyramid in front of the library on Hemmorth Court. I watched him for seven hours, then suddenly he leaped up, bellowing, kicking the whole thing over, threw himself through a shop-front, attacked a woman shopping in the store, and finally came to rest exhausted in the gutter. It was a twenty-eight minute record, and I assure you it stretched my ability to quick-dictate. If he had…”
Themus lost the train of the fellow’s description. The talks were going on all over the common-room as the squad prepared to go out. His was one of three hundred such squads, all over the city, shifted every four hours of the thirty-two-hour day so there was no section of the city left untended. Few, if any, things escaped the notice of the Watcher Corps.
He pulled on his soft-soled jump-boots, buckled his dictobox about him, and moved into the briefing room for instructions.
The rows of seats were fast filling up, and Themus hurried down the aisle.
Furth, dressed in an off-duty suit of plastic body armor with elaborate scrollwork embossed on it, and the traditional black great-cape, was seated with legs neatly crossed at the front of the room, on a slightly raised podium.
Themus took a seat next to the Watcher named Elix, one who had been chortling over an escapade with a pretty female Crackpot. Themus found himself looking at the other as though he were a mirror image. Odd how so many of us look alike, he thought. Then he caught himself. It was a ridiculous thought, and an incorrect one, of course. It was not that they looked alike, it was merely that the Kyben had found for themselves a central line, a median, to which they conformed. It was so much more logical and rewarding that way. If your brother looks and acts as you do, you can predict him. If you can predict him, efficiency will follow.
Only these Crackpots defied prediction. Madmen!
“There are two current items on our order of business today, gentlemen,” Furth announced, rising.
Note pads and styli appeared as though by magic, but Furth shook his head and indicated they were not needed.
“No, these aren’t memoranda, gentlemen. The first is a problem of discipline. The second is an alert.” There was a restless murmur in the room, and Themus glanced around to see uneasiness on many faces. What could it be?
“The problem of discipline is simply—” he pointed at Elix seated beside Themus, “—such of your Underclassmen as Watcher Elix.”
Elix rose to attention.
“Pack your gear, Watcher Elix, you leave for Kyben-Central this afternoon.”
Themus noted with fascination that the Watcher’s face turned a shade paler.
“M-may I ask why, Superior Furth?” Elix gasped out, maintaining Corps protocol even through his panic.
“Yes, yes, of course,” replied Furth in a casual, matter-of-fact manner. “You were on the scene of an orgy in the Hagars Building yesterday during second-shift, were you not?”
Elix swallowed with difficulty and nodded yes, then catching himself he said, “Yes, Superior Furth.”
“How much of that orgy did you record?”
“As much as I could before it broke up, sir.”
“What you mean is, as much as you could before you found that fondling a young woman named Guzbee was more interesting than your on-duty job. Correct?”
“She—she just talked to me for a short time, Superior; I recorded the entire affair. It was—”
“Out!” Furth pointed toward the door to the common-room. Elix slumped visibly, turned out of the row, walked up the aisle, and out of the briefing-room.
“And let that be an indication, gentlemen, that we will tolerate no activities with these people, be they Kyben or not. We are here to watch, and there are enough female Watchers and Central personnel so that any desires that may be aroused in you may be quenched without recourse to our wards. Is that quite clear, gentlemen?”
He did not wait for an answer. They knew it was clear, and he knew it was clear. The message had been transmitted in the most readily understood manner.
“Now to the other business at hand,” continued Furth. “We are currently looking for a man named Boolbak who, we are told, pinches steel. I have no explanation of this description, gentlemen, merely that he ‘pinches steel.’
“I can tell you that he has a big, bushy white beard, what they call twinkling eyes, a puffy-cheeked face and a scar across his forehead from temple to temple. He weighs something between 190 and 200 pounds, fat and short, and always dresses in a red jacket and knickers with white fur on them.