Each year every inhabitant took a difficult, week-long examination to test whether or not he was backsliding. All youths were given fifteen years of intensive education. Those who could not keep up with the others simply disappeared. Inventions were inspected by Control Offices to make certain that they could not upset Stability. If it seemed that they might—
“And that is why we cannot allow your invention to be put into use,” the Controller explained to Benton. “I am sorry.”
He watched Benton, saw him start, the blood drain from his face, his hands tremble.
“Come now,” he said kindly, “don’t take it so hard; there are other things to do. After all, you are not in danger of the Cart!”
But Benton only stared. At last he said,
“But you don’t understand: I have no invention. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No invention!” the Controller exclaimed. “But I was here the day you entered it yourself! I saw you sign the statement of ownership! You handed me the model!”
He stared at Benton. Then he pressed a stud on his desk and said into a small circle of light, “Send me up the information on number 34500-D, please.”
A moment passed, and then a tube appeared in the circle of light. The Controller lifted the cylindrical object out and passed it to Benton.
“You’ll find your signed statement there,” he said, “and it has your fingerprints in the print squares. Only you could have made them.”
Numbly, Benton opened the tube and took out the papers inside. He studied them a few moments, and then slowly put them back and handed the tube to the Controller.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s my writing, and those are certainly my prints. But I don’t understand, I never invented a thing in my life, and I’ve never been here before! What is this invention?”
“What is it!” the Controller echoed, amazed. “Don’t you know?”
Benton shook his head. “No, I do not,” he said slowly.
“Well, if you want to find out about it, you’ll have to go down to the Offices. All I can tell you is that the plans you sent us have been denied rights by the Control Board. I’m only a spokesman. You’ll have to take it up with them.”
Benton got up and walked to the door. As with the other, this one sprang open to his touch and he went on through into the Control Offices. As the door closed behind him the Controller called angrily, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you know the penalty for upsetting Stability!”
“I’m afraid Stability is already upset,” Benton answered and went on.
The Offices were gigantic. He stared down from the catwalk on which he stood, for below him a thousand men and women worked at whizzing, efficient machines. Into the machines they were feeding reams of cards. Many of the people worked at desks, typing out sheets of information, filling charts, putting cards away, decoding messages. On the walls stupendous graphs were constantly being changed. The very air was alive with the vitalness of the work being conducted, the hum of the machines, the tap-tap of the typewriters, and the mumble of voices all merged together in a quiet, contented sound. And this vast machine, which cost countless dollars a day to keep running so smoothly, had a word: Stability!
Here, the thing that kept their world together lived. This room, these hard working people, the ruthless man who sorted cards into the pile marked “for extermination” were all functioning together like a great symphony orchestra. One person off key, one person out of time, and the entire structure would tremble. But no one faltered. No one stopped and failed at his task. Benton walked down a flight of steps to the desk of the information clerk.
“Give me the entire information on an invention entered by Robert Benton, 34500-D,” he said. The clerk nodded and left the desk. In a few minutes he returned with a metal box.
“This contains the plans and a small working model of the invention,” he stated. He put the box on the desk and opened it. Benton stared at the contents. A small piece of intricate machinery sat squatly in the center. Underneath was a thick pile of metal sheets with diagrams on them. “Can I take this?” Benton asked.
“If you are the owner,” the clerk replied. Benton showed his identification card, the clerk studied it and compared it with the data on the invention. At last he nodded his approval, and Benton closed the box, picked it up and quickly left the building via a side exit.
The side exit let him out on one of the larger underground streets, which was a riot of lights and passing vehicles. He located his direction, and began to search for a communications car to take him home. One came along and he boarded it. After he had been traveling for a few minutes he began to carefully lift the lid of the box and peer inside at the strange model. “What have you got there, sir?” the robot driver asked.
“I wish I knew,” Benton said ruefully. Two winged flyers swooped by and waved at him, danced in the air for a second and then vanished. “Oh, fowl,” Benton murmured, “I forgot my wings.” Well, it was too late to go back and get them, the car was just then beginning to slow down in front of his house. After paying the driver he went inside and locked the door, something seldom done. The best place to observe the contents was in his “consideration” room, where he spent his leisure time while not flying. There, among his books and magazines he could observe the invention at ease.
The set of diagrams was a complete puzzle to him, and the model itself even more so. He stared at it from all angles, from underneath, from above. He tried to interpret the technical symbols of the diagrams, but all to no avail.
There was but one road now open to him. He sought out the “on” switch and clicked it.
For almost a minute nothing happened. Then the room about him began to waver and give way. For a moment it shook like a quantity of jelly. It hung steady for an instant, and then vanished.
He was falling through space like an endless tunnel, and he found himself twisting about frantically, grasping into the blackness for something to take hold of. He fell for an interminable time, helplessly, frightened. Then he had landed, completely unhurt. Although it had seemed so, the fall could not have been very long. His metallic clothes were not even ruffled. He picked himself up and looked about.
The place where he had arrived was strange to him. It was a field… such as he had supposed no longer to exist. Waving acres of grain waved in abundance everywhere. Yet, he was certain that in no place on earth did natural grain still grow. Yes, he was positive. He shielded his eyes and gazed at the sun, but it looked the same as it always had. He began to walk.
After an hour the wheat fields ended, but with their end came a wide forest. He knew from his studies that there were no forests left on earth. They had perished years before. Where was he, then?
He began to walk again, this time more quickly. Then he started to run. Before him a small hill rose and he raced to the top of it. Looking down the other side he stared in bewilderment. There was nothing there but a great emptiness. The ground was completely level and barren, there were no trees or any sign of life as far as his eyes could see, only the extensive bleached out land of death.
He started down the other side of the hill toward the plain. It was hot and dry under his feet, but he went forward anyway. He walked on, the ground began to hurt his feet—unaccustomed to long walking—and he grew tired. But he was determined to continue. Some small whisper within his mind compelled him to maintain his pace without slowing down.
“Don’t pick it up,” a voice said.
“I will,” he grated, half to himself, and stooped down.
Voice! From where! He turned quickly, but there was nothing to be seen. Yet the voice had come to him and it had seemed—for a moment—as if it were perfectly natural for voices to come from the air. He examined the thing he was about to pick up. It was a glass globe about as big around as his fist.