The sentinel stars

So he quit work; smuggled himself into the forbidden pleasures of a Freeman Camp; found boredom and nonidentity there, too; committed the ultimate rebellion, using a false numbe...

He alighted at the next off-ramp. On the preceding incline almost a hundred yards away, a steady stream of people flowed out to the street and spilled into the torrent of pedest...

He told her. And the sun went down completely beyond the unseen horizon, leaving behind a gray world. The concrete cylinders loomed larger in the dusk, more forbidding. A wind w...

A door opened into the white room where Hendley sat on the cold bench. A nurse entered. She glanced at him with clinical objectivity. In one hand she carried a small vial and a...

The Investigator rose. His towering figure seemed to fill the room with an overpowering presence of Authority. _This_ was the personification of the Organization--huge, benevole...

A sign, black letters on a white board, pointed the way to ADMINISTRATION, along a narrow footpath which plunged into the belt of trees. As Hendley entered the shadowed grove he...

Participation was a compulsive act. Less than an hour after Hendley left the swimming pool in the central park, once more clad in his visitor's white uniform, he found himself l...

"Well, I've seen some peculiar things," said Hendley. "Even that water polo match where you fished me out--by the way, I didn't have a chance to thank you properly." The young m...

"Crass," someone said. "Vulgar." Another voice retorted, "Color isn't _everything_!" Words and phrases collided and ricocheted and split into fragments. "--isn't supposed to _me...

Nik was talking. His voice seemed muffled, coming through a filter of numbness. "I suppose you're wondering why these women are brought here. You see, they found out long ago th...

"Not everyone. Do you think the really top men want to come here? This is for the rest of the world--for the workers, people like you and me. This is to keep everyone happy, to...

Chagrined, he checked his winnings. Still seven stacks. He could pull out now while he was way ahead. But he'd been close to having ten stacks, and it wouldn't take much to rega...

Hendley stared at him in stunned disbelief. It was incredible that the man would not remember him--even more inconceivable that he would attach no plausibility whatever to Hendl...

The tour began. The visitor's interests turned out to be catholic, his energies inexhaustible, his capacity for food and liquor and sex prodigious. Before long Hendley, beginnin...

And suddenly, frighteningly, Hendley knew why the big table was almost always empty, and why the mention of the hunt had always created such a feverish interest. He saw with ter...

Everything was all right. The computer might reject his identity number, but the gateway was open. It appeared that the computer did not have to control the gate to allow each p...

They were human tracks--feet soled in what seemed to suggest smooth leather. The tracks had crossed their path a day before they reached the foothills. They had eagerly followed...