'Sure, Dad. Tell Mom not to worry. So long.'
He hung up the phone. After a moment, he walked to the window. The rain had stopped; it was nearly nine and the slackers were hustling to get to classes on time.
Out there on campus, life was going on as usual. The football coach was sweating out tactics for Saturday's game. Shepperd was clearing his throat and stepping forward to deliver his Zoology lecture, Klaus was belaboring hapless freshmen over irregular German verbs.
Life went on. The world revolved serenely around the sun. But, a week from now, Mike Dawes would be no longer part of this world.
He felt a quiet, seething anger at the injustice of it.
He hadn't asked to be part of Mankind's Destiny. He had no itch to conquer other worlds. He wanted to stay on Earth, marry some reasonably pretty Ohio girl, raise some reasonably normal Ohio children.
Well, that dream was over. There was nothing left for him to do now but to walk down to the registry center and hand himself in, like a wanted criminal.
He locked his room, wondering if he would ever come back here to collect his few belongings, and trotted downstairs and into the street. It seemed to him that everyone on the street turned to look at him, as if they could see the words written in scarlet on his forehead:
MIKE DAWES HAS BEEN SELECTED.
The registry center was in a loft over the movie theater. Only four days ago he had taken a girl to a movie there. They had cuddled in the balcony, ignoring the film on the tridim screen, and he had necked with her and wondered about those aspects of life that were still mysteries to him.
When you were selected, he thought, you also get a wife. They send out fifty men, fifty women. If you happen to be married already but have no children, you can accompany your spouse as a volunteer. If you're married and do have children, and your mate is selected, you stay behind to take care of the children. Unless you and your wife go to space together, you are given one of the other colonists as a mate, and any earthside relationship you may have had is considered terminated. So he would be married soon - to someone.
He took the stairs leading to the registry center two at a time. A few boys were waiting on a bench along the wall; they peered curiously at him as he came in. They had just turned nineteen, and were waiting to register.
Dawes had registered here just a year ago. Everyone had to register at the age of nineteen; if you failed to register, you were automatically selected. So he had come in and filled out the forms, and they had put him through the diagnosing machines and then given him the quick and efficient fertility test. And, a few weeks later, he had received a card telling him that he had passed. He had shrugged and put the card in his wallet, thinking that selection was something that happened to other people.
But it had happened to him. Now.
He put his blue slip down on the reception desk and the clerk looked at it, nodding. Behind him, Dawes heard the waiting boys muttering. As a selectee, he had a certain new notoriety.
'Come this way, please,' she said solemnly to him, giving him a you-are-doing-your-share-for-mankind's-destiny look. She led him into an inner office, where a tall, balding man in his late forties sat initialing some papers.
'Mr. Brewer, this is Michael Dawes, who was selected by the New York board today.'
Brewer rose and extended a hand. 'Congratulations, Dawes. Maybe you can't see it right now, but you're about to take part in mankind's greatest adventure. Thank you, Miss Donaldson.'
Miss Donaldson left. Brewer sat down again, gesturing Dawes toward a comfortable pneumochair.
'Well?' Brewer asked. 'You're sore as hell, aren't you?'
'Am I supposed to be happy?'
Brewer shrugged. 'If you wanted to go to the stars, you'd have volunteered. It's a rough break, youngster.
How old are you?'
'Twenty.'
'You're still young enough to adjust. Some mornings I have men in their thirties come in, men with families.
You'd be surprised how many of them want to blow me up. You aren't married, are you?'
'No, sir.'
'Parents?'
'They live in Cincinnati. I've phoned them already.'
'You don't figure you have any grounds for disqualification, then.'
Dawes shook his head. In a quiet voice he said, 'I can't get out of it. I'm resigned to going. But that isn't going to make me like it.'
'We assume that,' Brewer said. 'But we also assume that you won't spend all your time sulking when you ought to be colonizing. You don't sulk for long on an alien world and stay alive.' He shook his head. 'If you think you've got troubles, think about the last man selected in this district. Father of three children. Age thirty-nine years, eleven months, three weeks. One week to go and he'd be ineligible, but the computer picked him. He said it was a frame-up. But he went, he did.'
'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' Dawes asked.
'I don't know,' said Brewer, sighing. 'They tell me misery loves company. You probably feel awfully sorry for yourself, and I don't blame you.'
'Will I be allowed to see my parents again?'
'You can fly to Cincy this afternoon, if you like. For the next week you'll be accompanied by a bureau guard. As a precaution, you understand. Naturally, he'll give you as much privacy as you want - in case there may be a young lady you would like to pay a farewell visit to, or—'
'Just my parents,' Dawes said.
'All right. Whatever. You have seven days. Make the most of them. You'll get a full physical next door right now. Maybe you're no longer eligible.'
'Small chance of that!'
'We can always hope, eh, Mike?'
'Why do that? What do you care whether I go or not?
Do you know what it's like to be ripped up and tossed out into space? You're over age; you're safe.'
Brewer smiled sadly. 'I don't have a good heart; I never was eligible. But that doesn't mean I don't know what you're going through now. My wife was selected ten years ago. Come with me, Mike. The doctor will have a look at you.'
CHAPTER THREE
Cherry Thomas came awake all at once, but reluctantly, and looked around. The apartment was a mess. Two empty bottles sat on the floor near the bed, cigarette ashes were sprinkled everywhere. It had been a pleasant evening and it was good to know that somebody enjoyed your company, Cherry thought.
She lugged the cleanall out of the closet, plugged it in, and set it to work gobbling up the scattered ashes while she herself showered. The gentle cleansing spray felt good. After ten minutes under the water she stepped out, stretched, yawned, did her calisthenics. Mustn't let the middle start to sag, dearie. You're only as good as your figure is.
Morning dunes over, Cherry flipped the switch on the radio; music streamed into the apartment. She jabbed down on the window-opaquer and the polarity of the glass shifted, letting in the morning sunlight. It looked as if New York would have another perfect day. The wall clock said 1123 hours, 10 October 2116.
She knew there wasn't much time. At 1300 she was due downtown for an audition; one of the big sensie-theaters needed usherettes. It was cheap work for a girl who had once danced and sung in the best establishments of three continents, but time moved along; she was twenty-five, no longer in the first golden bloom of youth, and these days the night club managers seemed to have a cradle fetish - the younger the better. Next year, Cherry thought sourly, somebody would come up with the ultimate in that line - the ten-year-old singer.
She punched out breakfast on the autocook. Cherry's apartment was automatic in almost every respect. She had always dreamed of living surrounded by the latest gadgets, and, one year when she'd really been taking in the cash, she had bought herself all the gadgets there were. An automatic backscratcher that came out of the bed's headboard when she wanted it, an autocook, automatically opaquing windows, light-dimmers, a cleanall.