Part 3

He explained his values to them. They listened. He told them that as far as he was concerned the social setup was now deadly, a kind of self-garrisoned mental concentration camp in which free thought was impossible. A stagnate, in fact a regressive state of affairs. Proficiency in skills would go, science would die. A herd state. Individuality lost. Depersonalized. Tyranny of the Majority. Integration mania. Collective thinking. Mass media. Lilliput against Leviathan....

But Kane wasn't happy, that was the important thing wasn't it?

Could a knowledge of how rapidly the Universe was expanding contribute to the happiness of a human being living on Madison Avenue in Manhattan?

Obviously the answer to that was no.

Kane was going to be happy. He wouldn't concern himself with the stars any more. He wouldn't practice a self-imposed barren isolation of himself any more. Kane was going to be happy. He was going to be one of the Group.

Time went by. He was given sedatives. He slept at last. He awoke and was tested and went to sleep again, many times. He was fed too, given injections with needles of energy and vitamins and proteins and glucose and carbohydrates, because he refused to eat any other way.

Vaguely he remembered episodes of babbling under the influence of hypnotic drugs.

He kept remembering the briefcase. In a dream the Group had it, throwing it around among them like a basketball. The clasp broke. The papers, thousands of papers spilled out and drifted away over New York and Kane was running through a maze looking up at them and then he was lost.

Now he knew what had happened to the other Moon ships, and to the rest of the Captain's crew, where they had gone to and never come back from.

Space was lonely and dark. Space was empty. Space was frightening.

They had gone back to the closeness and warmth and security of their Group.

How many were there left such as the Captain, and Kane--Kane for a while yet perhaps? How many were there?

Could he escape?

At some unrelated point on the Testing chart, the Staff closed up their briefcases, politely said good-bye, and left.

The data would be run through more machines.

Kane would be happy.

All he had to do was wait.

* * * * *

Kane awoke with a galvanic start and stared at the prison of his room.

The walls began coming alive. Phil, Laura, Lucille, Herby, Clarence, Jenny, Ben, the happy happy Group, always there, always waiting, always reliable, sharing everything, pleasure and pain.

"How we feeling now, Prof," Phil yelled. He was stark naked.

"You look so cuddly," Laura giggled, and for an instant there, Kane could almost feel her snuggling in beside him.

Kane lay there in a dim superimposed puzzle of furniture, moving forms, corners of rooms jutting out of the wrong walls, bodies walking through beds and one another, and then a naked figure curving into the air, falling toward him in a graceful arc, down, getting larger and larger, plunging right for Kane's face.

Kane rolled frantically. And then somewhere under him he heard a splash and there was the vague ripple of unreal water as Phil swam away across his cool blue pool.

There--that was Laura, only in a boudoir, standing before a mirror wearing only a pair of very brief panties, and nothing else. Her reflection in the mirror smiled at Kane as she brushed her hair.

"Morning, Prof honey. How we feeling this morning?"

It was morning. Some morning on some day during some year.

There was Lucille on this morning lying in a sunchair, her black hair shining in the sunlight somewhere. Probably in the Group house at Sunny Hill. In a while now, Kane knew, the Group would all go away together to their office, and they would do their work, concentrating on getting along together until they could return to Sunny Hill together.

Lucille was reading a newspaper, and she glanced up at Kane. There was a pale line around her mouth and she pulled her eyes quickly away as though she didn't want to look at him. She wasn't like the others. She was different. Of course. It had to be a matter of degree. Nothing was black and white. There had to be differences of opinion, some degree of individuality--somehow. Somewhere. Perhaps Lucille--

"Good morning, good morning to all of us!" Kane shouted suddenly.

"Did we have a good rest, Prof?"

Phil was yelling from his pool. He seemed greatly pleased with Kane's enthusiastic social response. Not that Kane was really trying to fool anybody. He was pretty sure the Staff wouldn't be fooled. Somewhere the machines were scanning the data. Soon, the Staff would have a full analysis of Kane, what was wrong, and what would make it right. What he should have done, and what he should be.

Jenny and Ben were making love on a couch. Kane tried to keep on watching them as though he suffered no embarrassment, but it was impossible.

"I've a full schedule planned for today," Phil yelled up. "Soon we'll all be going to the Office. You'll be going with us soon too, Prof!"

He would belong to the happy Group. Sharing everything. But maybe it wouldn't be this happy Group. Maybe the machines would decide that he belonged in some other Group. Whatever Group it was it would be happy. That was a fact.

_Could he escape? Could he, perhaps, get back to the La Guardia Pits, and the Captain of the Moonship?_

The windows still barred, paneled in metal. The door locked. If he managed to get out of this Single, say, and out of the Midtown Hotel, and into the street, then what?

That didn't matter. If he could only get that far--

Laura was standing there naked, close to Kane. "We're having our wedding at five," she whispered.

"Who?" Kane said, startled.

"Ben and Jenny. They're right for all of us together."

From a number of rooms, people were watching Ben and Jenny being right for all of us together, but Kane couldn't look.

"See us all," Laura shouted and dived through the floor. A spray of water spilled up and fell unfelt through Kane's flinching torso. Ben and Jenny ran away.

Kane was practically alone with Lucille. It was the first time in he had no idea now how long that he had been this much alone with any one other person.

She glanced rather sadly at Kane above the paper she was reading.

"You know how I feel, Lucie?"

She nodded, almost imperceptibly.

"How can you stand it, all the time this way?" he asked.

"Some of us learn to be in it, with a part of us out of it. A kind of self-hypnosis, a retreat of some kind. Into fantasy, that's what it really is. But--but I don't think any of us can keep on doing it forever. We will all give way completely--sooner or later."

"I've got to get out," Kane said. "Do you want to get out?"

"It's impossible to get out."

"I've got to try."

"What's the use of trying if you know you can't get away? Where can anyone go?"

"There must be people who break away," Kane said. "There have to be."

"There's supposed to be an underground, some secret group of some kind that helps people get out."

"Get out--where? Out of the country?"

"It's pretty much like this everywhere. But there are supposed to be areas where it isn't. Islands somewhere. Hidden places right here in the country. Supposed to be places in the Kentucky Mountains, and in New Mexico, places like that."

"The Moon," Kane said. "That's a place I know of. I've been there."

Her eyes were bright for a moment. "I know. It must have been wonderful. Why on Earth did you ever leave?"

"I didn't know what it was like here. And--my wife died. I wanted and needed another wife. More than a wife really. Someone who could share that kind of a life with me, someone who would be interested in the work too."

She turned quickly back to the paper.

"You might be able to get out of the hotel," she said. "But you would be too conspicuous."

"Because I would be traveling alone?"

"Yes."

"If you came with me, there would be two of us. We wouldn't be conspicuous that way."

He saw the flush move up through her face. "Is that the only reason?"

"You know it isn't."

She knew it. They both knew it and had probably known it for a long time. They had a lot in common, a minority of two.

And then he remembered. She wasn't really there in the Midtown with him. She was in Sunny Hill, wherever that was. They couldn't leave inconspicuously together because they weren't together now, and they couldn't get together without the Gang being together too.

The rooms, furniture, sounds, everything began to fade.

"Goodbye," Lucille said.

"Get sick or something," Kane said quickly. "Don't go with the Group to work. Stay there, wherever you are! _Stay there_--"

Faintly, her voice came to him out of a kind of melting mask of a face. "I'll try--"

Kane was alone in the single room and the door opened. The smiling Staff came in and shut the door.

The three of them stood there happily holding their briefcases.

"We're happy to report that we have completed your personality breakdown."

The word was a bit premature, Kane thought. "What is it?" he asked.

"Excellent," the Staff beamed. "You should never have been an astronomer. You took up that profession as a way of escaping from people. Actually, of course, you love people and hate your profession.

"Have you determined what I should be if not an astronomer?"

"Naturally, it's all in the breakdown."

"What is it?"

"Generally, you prefer physical work, not mental work. Mental work is a constant strain on your psychological balance. You have done it neurotically to reinforce your need to avoid people."

"Physical work? What kind?"

"Specifically, it seems that you are best suited for the profession of plumbing."

"Plumbing?" Kane said. "Plumbing what?"

"Plumbing, the art of pipe-fitting, the study of water mains, sewage lines, and so forth."

"Plumbing." Kane said.

"Of course, you react antagonistically to it now. But that will be changed."

Kane had nothing against plumbers or plumbing. Once, as a kid, he remembered having a long interesting talk with a plumber who was unstopping the kitchen sink. He had fascinating tools, and at that time, Kane had said he would be a plumber when he grew up. But he had also wanted to be any number of other things when he grew up, including an astronomer.

Now he had no desire whatsoever to be a plumber.

Kane drew the metal bedside table up hard and the edge of it caught number one of the Staff under the chin. Kane attacked, violently. He did it knowing that something more was at stake than his life--his identity.

* * * * *

Number one fell down on his knees and whimpered. He wasn't hit hard. But he squatted there blubbering as though he had suffered some horrible shock. Numbers two and three gaped as though equally shocked without ever having been hit at all.

That was Kane's initial advantage. The Staff seemed incapable of understanding that anyone would do what Kane was doing. Kane hit number two four times before number two covered up his face with his hands and started to cry. Kane ran him into the closet and locked the door.

Number three swung his briefcase at Kane's head, fluttering his other hand wildly. Kane was heavier than he should have been because he was accustomed to the Moon. But he was desperate and that was some compensation. He had some experience, a very little, as a boxer in college, but that had been years ago. But as little experience as he had at this sort of thing, he was way ahead of number three. Number three kept swinging his briefcase, and Kane hit him on the chin and then in the stomach and then on the back of the neck. Number three lay unconscious on the floor.

Kane stared at his bleeding knuckles a moment, then dragged Number one up onto his feet.

"You're going to help me," Kane said. "We're getting a saucer and then we're going to Sunny Hill. You know where Sunny Hill is?"

Number one ran his hand nervously through his dark brushcut. He had a boyish face that seemed deeply insulted by what Kane had done. Insulted and shocked as though he had been a good boy all his life and then someone had slapped his hand--for no reason at all.

Kane doubled his fists. Number one winced and looked shocked again, and very frightened. A great deal more frightened than anyone would be who was afraid only of physical injury.

"Yes, that's part of a big Group Housing Project downtown."

"Where can we get a saucer?"

"The roof."

"Unlock the door," Kane said. "And just pretend everything is happy and that we're relating beautifully to one another. Now listen--I'll kill you if you try anything else. I hope you believe it because I really will. What you fellows intend doing with me, as far as I'm concerned, is worse than murder."

They stepped onto one of several saucers decorating the roof of the Midtown Hotel. The rotary blades in the ten foot platform whirred under them, and Kane felt the saucer rise up to a thousand feet, then dip downtown. The air was full of them and only some kind of sixth-sense seemed to keep them from jamming into one another.

There was never less than two on a saucer. And Kane noticed that most of the saucers were flying in Groups like aimless geese.

Kane jumped from the saucer and ran across the roof landing of the Sunny Hill project building. There were a number of them like huge blocks arranged in some incomprehensible plan.

Kane glanced back to see number one leaping from the saucer and running in the opposite direction. Kane ran on toward the elevator. He knew he didn't have much time, but what bothered him was the authority he was running against. Public opinion was a general attitude, not a cop car, or a squad of officers with guns. Getting out of line, Kane figured, was usually its own punishment--isolation, loneliness, social ostracism.

But what about the exception? The guy who fought conformity and the majority opinion.

Who would they put on Kane? Or what? It would help to know what he was running from. What concrete force or power would try to stop him.

Then he saw her running toward him.

Her face was flushed and the wind blew her dress tightly against her slim body as she stopped and looked at him.

He took hold of her arm.

"We've got to hurry," she said. "The Group knows I've run away. The Staff will be after me."

Kane glanced at the elevator, then they ran back toward the saucer.

"You'll have to pilot this thing," Kane said. "It's a little crowded up there for me."

She started the motor and the saucer lifted abruptly. "The terminal at La Guardia?" she said.

"No. The ship's at least two miles from the Terminal. We'll go directly to the ship." He hesitated. "The only thing is--it isn't due to blast out of here until the 25th."

"That doesn't matter," she said.

"Why doesn't it? We're flaunting the law. They're after us. They won't let us just hide away on that ship until the 25th."

"They?"

He stared at her. "You said yourself we had to hurry, because the Staff--"

"But don't you see, there's no one to stop us now. The Staff at Sunny Hills could have, but here there isn't any Staff. There's none at the ship either, is there?"

"No."

"Well then, we'll just wait on the ship until--we go to the Moon."

"But you were afraid, Lucie. You talked about undergrounds, and how it was impossible--"

She touched his arm and then took hold of his hand. "You don't understand I guess. Maybe you never will."

"Understand what?"

"What it is to try to get away, be alone, be by yourself, when you can't. When no matter what you do you're with the Group, night and day, even in your dreams. You knew it for a while, but imagine it for years, not days. There's no place to hide. Wherever you go the Group goes with you. That's why I said you couldn't get away--"

"Then there isn't any law to prevent us from going to the Moon?"

"Only the law of the majority, of Public Opinion," she said. "But you can't stay here and fight it, not for very long. Finally you have to give in to it. You become what they are or go mad. And there are Groups even for them."

The saucer dropped down to the fog draped earth and they were walking toward the pits where the Moonship waited.

It looked like such a wonderful world, he thought. Everyone happy, everyone smiling all the time. No wars. No externalized authority.

The Manufacturers of consent. A quasi-totalitarian society in which means of communication had largely replaced force as the apparatus of compulsion. Communication, fear, insecurity. In his isolation and insecurity, man clung to his Group, to the majority, the accepted opinions.

The majority did not need to force a man now. No need for police, or armies.

They _convinced_ him.

The only way you could keep from being convinced was to get out.

The hatch slid open.

"Welcome aboard," the Captain said.