Part 3

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 whined across the unprotected land.

"It's been wonderful out here," she said. "I'll never forget it. At first it scared me, but--not now."

"You'll come out again."

She smiled, staring off into the distance. "Yes, of course."

He felt her shiver. "You're getting cold. We'll have to go in."

"I'm not really cold." She gazed at him seriously. "I'm glad we were both free this afternoon."

He weighed his answer, wondering how she would react. "I wasn't," he said. "Today was a work day for me. I didn't report."

She frowned, staring at him without comprehension.

"It's true," he said. "This wasn't a free day. But I'm glad I didn't work. I'd never have met you."

She was instantly concerned. "You'll be penalized!"

"I suppose so." He smiled at her shocked expression. "What do you think would happen if we were caught together out here? Or if you were found wearing blue?"

"That's different! They'd have to catch us--but they'll _know_ you didn't work!" The full implications of his action had reached her, and her eyes were round with dismay--and wonder. "Why? What made you do it?"

"I can't really explain it. Maybe it has something to do with--" For a moment he was withdrawn, searching his own mind. Then he asked, "What do you think about the Merger?"

"I don't think about it much," she said slowly.

"It doesn't mean anything to you?"

She shook her head. "Why should it?"

"It's what started me off. But that was just the"--he thought of the firearms in the Historical Museum exhibit--"the trigger. I was trying to be ... _me_."

She regarded him apprehensively. "What will they do to you?"

He shrugged. "I suppose there's a whole team of computers and technicians somewhere in the Organization that handles these things. I don't imagine I'm the first one."

"Don't do anything like that again," she said urgently. "Promise me you won't."

He said it to please her, not knowing what he meant to do. The world beneath the surface and inside the cylinders was still unreal. "I promise," he said.

Darkness was closing in when they once again circled the wall, looking for the steel door he had wedged open. When they came to it he felt the first real tug of fear. The door seemed tight. He knelt quickly. The heavy weight of the steel had crushed the fabric belt flat--but there was still a narrow opening. The inside latch had not caught.

Hiding his relief, he rose and once more took Ann into his arms. "Don't give back that blue outfit," he said.

"No," she whispered. "No, Hendley."

He kissed her. When he opened the door and took her hand to help her step down, she said, "We should go separately."

Surprised, he pondered the suggestion a moment. "I don't think we were noticed. And the museum is open all night. We can just go back--"

"It would be safer," she insisted. "I--I'll meet you in front of the museum in five minutes. I can find my way out."

He caught the appeal in her voice. And she might be right after all. If they were to use this meeting place again, it was just being sensible to come and go separately.

"All right," he said. "You go first."

Her hand gave his a convulsive squeeze. She dropped down into the tunnel, her steps ringing faintly on the metal staircase. He waited until the sounds had faded off. The sky was a deep blue now, and a single bright star was visible above the horizon. What must it be like to see the whole span of the sky lit up with stars? Now that he knew the way, he could come out and see. There was nothing to prevent him. There had never been anything but the habit of obedience.

When five minutes had passed he stepped onto the stairway, pulling the steel door shut behind him and locking it. He had taken only a couple of steps down the winding stairs when he heard a distinct, flat sound. He went rigid. Motionless, his muscles taut, he waited, listening intently. The narrow aisle along the floor of the tunnel was dimly lighted. High on the stairway he was almost lost in shadows. The sound had been that of a door closing gently under its own power--or slowly eased shut. No more than the click of a latch, magnified along the tunnel. Now there was only silence.

He didn't want to be caught here. No explanation would be accepted without an investigation--and there would be signs on the surface revealing that two people had been out together, a man and a woman.

Slowly, setting each foot cautiously onto the metal steps, he began to descend. When he was low enough he leaned down and away from the staircase to peer along the tunnel. The service tunnel fed into a larger passage. There was a door at this opening, and another between the passage and the air conditioning-heating room. The door at the end of the tunnel was open.

Perhaps Ann had left the farther door slightly ajar, and a slight current of air had caused it to click shut. Still....

Hendley reached the bottom of the stairs. Keeping close to the maze of pipes along one side, he edged forward. A shadow moved across the face of the tunnel. Hendley squeezed close to the pipes. One of them carried hot water, and he had to suppress a gasp as his hand touched the hot metal.

After a long moment he moved his head out a few inches--just far enough to catch a glimpse of the opening at the end of the tunnel. A shoulder came into view, bearing the emblem of a security guard on a green sleeve. Hendley eased back against the pipes, setting his teeth against the heat from the one pipe that seared a bar of pain across his back. If the guard took one or two steps into the tunnel--or even leaned through the door to get a better angle of view--Hendley would be visible to him.

Hendley breathed very slowly and silently. His legs were beginning to quiver from the strain. Either the guard didn't suspect his presence, or he was unwilling to enter the tunnel alone, making himself a vulnerable target. What had drawn the man there? Had Ann been seen leaving? Surely not--the guard's investigation would be more thorough. Had he heard a suspicious noise then, the noise Hendley had made closing and locking the outside door? Or was this simply a routine inspection?

The tunnel darkened suddenly. The steel door clanked shut, sealing the tunnel off from the adjoining passage. In the dim light remaining from the tunnel's own illumination panel, Hendley stepped away from the pipes into the center of the aisle. He let out a deep breath.

He was safe enough for the moment. But obviously he couldn't risk leaving the building the way he had entered. The guard might be going on his rounds--or the closing of the door might be a ruse. Frowning, Hendley tried to sort out in his memory the various functions of this utility tunnel. If he remembered correctly, it led to a large water pump station, and there were branches along the way feeding into smaller underground facilities. It should be no trick to find another way out.

He could hear the water pump when he was still a good distance away from the station. It would probably be routinely guarded. He chose at random one of the branching tunnels. A few minutes later he stepped into the heating room of what he guessed was an arcade. The heating and air-conditioning unit was of a size and type designed to serve a series of small shops and offices.

No one saw him when he emerged from the room into a walkway behind a row of shops. He strode casually along the walk and stepped out into a crowded street.

Orienting himself, Hendley found that he was only a quarter of a mile from the museum. He began hurrying through the noisy evening crowd. Theater and sports arena marquees were winking. Throngs filled the busy arcades, the sidewalk venders, the discussion halls, the public gyms. A news announcer's voice blared from a street corner viewscreen. Still talking about the Merger.

Hendley saw the steps of the museum ahead. He didn't know exactly how long his roundabout escape had taken. He had given Ann a five-minute start. Add about fifteen minutes to that, he guessed. She would be anxious now, worrying.

A few people were entering the museum. A guard stood by the entry, watching the crowd on the street below with apparently casual interest. A young woman emerged from the museum. She wore a yellow coverall and her hair was dark.

Baffled, Hendley walked slowly past the museum steps. ABC-331 was not there.

* * * * *

The guard at the Historical Museum's entry was watching him now. Hendley merged with the flow of pedestrians, allowing himself to be carried along. He had been wandering back and forth in front of the building for twenty minutes. Long enough to draw attention to himself. Longer than necessary to know that Ann was gone.

He couldn't understand her actions. The chilling fear kept recurring that somehow she had been detected leaving the tunnel. But reason argued that in that event the museum guards would have made a careful search for her male companion.

Then why had she vanished? Looking back, trying to recall everything that had happened between them, every word that had been spoken, Hendley recognized evasiveness in some of her replies, duplicity in some of her actions. She had been trying to avoid him when she left the Research Center early that day. Moreover, she had suggested that they leave separately. She had planned to disappear.

Yet she had come to meet him--she had given herself to him joyously.

Tired and discouraged, Hendley stopped at a sidewalk vending unit. He hadn't eaten since breakfast. He selected a hot meal, pressed the appropriate buttons, and presented his identity disc. A red panel of light flashed on.

Startled, Hendley stared at the machine. He tried again. Once more his charge was rejected.

Someone was watching him curiously. Hendley quickly left the vender. Safely in the crowded street again, he found that he was trembling. Now it begins, he thought.

He tried to enter a theater. The ticket machine rejected his identity disc. He went down the escalator to a subway station. There was a line of people before the gate. By the time Hendley reached it, a number of other people had lined up behind him. His hand shook as he held his identity disc out to the ticket machine. Again a red light flashed.

The people behind him grew restless. "Come on, hurry up!" a man said. "What's the trouble?" another asked. "Look!" a woman cried. "Something's wrong! That red light is on!"

Hendley slipped out of the line, his face hot and his heart bumping wildly against his ribs. He heard a shout behind him as he reached the escalators. He plunged up the moving steps.

Back on the street, he was afraid to enter another crowded place to use his disc again. He waited until he found a small, old-fashioned coffee machine tucked away in a quiet corner of an arcade. No one was watching him.

The antique vending machine whirred, vibrated, and began to buzz loudly. Hendley ran.

As long as he kept to the crowded streets, he was safe from detection--providing he didn't attempt to use his identity disc. That way they could track him. But if his disc was useless, he couldn't eat, he couldn't enter a recreation hall, he couldn't take the subway, or sleep in a rented room. He couldn't find rest or refuge in a theater. He could only keep moving.

In the middle of this well-fed city, he could be starved. Free to move about at will, he was trapped.

The day of rebellion had come full circle. He could wait it out until the need of food or sleep dragged him down. He could make them find him. If Ann had been with him, if the machines had rejected her too, he might have kept going as long as possible.

Alone, he knew that he didn't want to. He had known all along this would happen. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of making him run until he was exhausted, until he was forced to crawl to them, hungry and frightened.

Hendley went up the nearest ramp to the moving sidewalks, grateful that these at least were a free service. He would not have relished walking all the way back to the Architectural Center.

When he reached the Center he stood outside the entry for several minutes. It was almost midnight, but you couldn't determine that from street level. At surface level, from the courtyard between the office core and the sleeping unit, you would be able to see the night sky overhead. Elsewhere the day was all one. Activity was the same at any hour, involving different work shifts, different people, but essentially the same.

Hendley felt an inner chill as he entered the residential wing and made his way up to his room. No one stopped him. His room had no lock on the door. The room was undisturbed, silent, empty.

On the small plastic desk to the left of the entrance was a slip of white paper. The note, which had been delivered through the mail chute opening in the wall just above the desk, directed him to report to the infirmary. It was stamped with the time of delivery: _9:35 A.M._

In sudden anger Hendley tore the note into shreds and threw the white strips of paper into the waste chute. As they disappeared, fluttering madly in the suction, he had the odd impression that they were like the tiny figures of the Freemen he had seen in the film, vanishing into the trees.

There was a knock on the door.

The tall, silver-haired man in the beige coverall had a genial face, dominated by sympathetic gray eyes. He was big-boned and heavy, but he carried himself easily. His voice had an impressive rumble.

"Good evening, TRH-247," he said. "You've had quite a day, haven't you?"

The emblem on his sleeve, brown with a white background, showed a design of staff-and-serpent. Lettered in brown stitching were the words MORALE INVESTIGATOR.

"You will come with me," the Investigator said. With a faintly indulgent smile he added, "I trust you are not going to give us any trouble?"

Hendley shook his head. He had stopped running. As he stepped from his room into the bright corridor, he felt an odd tug of regret for the close security he was leaving. The room was too small, blind-walled, impersonal, uninviting. But it was a place familiar and known. It held no surprises.

4

Naked, TRH-247 sat on a cool white plastic bench and repressed a shiver. The room was not cold, but gooseflesh stood out on his arms. Though he was now alone in one of a series of examination rooms to which he had been taken, he felt ill at ease in his nakedness--an effect no doubt carefully calculated, he reflected, to increase the insecurity anyone must feel in the Morale Investigation Center.

Everything in the Center was designed to create the impression that here nothing was--nothing could be--concealed. The walls, the ceilings, the floors, the spare furnishings, the instruments--all were a gleaming, immaculate white plastic, bathed in clear white light. Even the attendants and nurses, as well as the gray-haired Investigators, donned white robes over their uniforms when they entered the Center.

Hendley had not seen the first Investigator since they parted at the beginning of his processing. But in the course of his tests--psychological, intelligence and reaction tests, a humiliatingly thorough physical examination, along with other tests unfamiliar to him--he had met two other men identified as Investigators. Each might have been cast from a single mold. In the small interrogation rooms they seemed to grow, looming larger to the eye like figures on a viewscreen expanding as the camera moved in for a closeup. They were all big men, all distinguished, all gray-haired, all easy of manner--big, handsome, confident men, like idealized father-images.

Suddenly, sitting on the cold white bench, hugging his body with his arms against the unreasonable chill that shook him, Hendley remembered an incident long forgotten, a fragment from that strangely blank period of pre-work--he thought of it that way; not as childhood, but as pre-work. It had been a negative time, like a period of non-existence in preparation for existence. If it had seemed then a time of freedom, that illusion prevailed only because the concept of freedom was not understood. In fact those days had been strictly regimented, filled with classes, recreation hours, group games, prescribed activities from waking to sleeping.

But on one occasion, at least, there had been a kind of escape into life. Hendley hadn't been alone in the daring escapade, although he could not recall the numbers of the other two boys, or even their faces. One had been fat and very blond, with an intense dislike of exercise not of his own choosing. The other had been a small, slender, lively, black-haired boy whose memorable characteristic in Hendley's mind was a flashing smile and a high-pitched, squealing laugh.

The idea had been the blond boy's in the beginning, Hendley was sure, but there had been no sense of being led. For all three boys the action had been spontaneous, unpremeditated, without malice or special meaning. One moment they were walking toward their classroom along an underground street--it was morning, but there was no awareness of time then, in a pre-work day beneath the surface--and the next moment they were opposite a pedestrian ramp leading to the sidewalk strips and the fat blond boy was yelling, "Let's go for a ride!" And in the instant they were racing exuberantly up the ramp, dodging among the uniformed men and women, excitedly jumping onto the moving walk, pausing only when they were safely together on the walk to stare at each other in flushed, panting triumph. A glitter of challenge had danced in the fat boy's eyes--Why could he remember that exact expression, Hendley wondered, but not the face which shaped it?--and he had made a reckless, clumsy leap to the fast strip. Hendley and the slender boy had hurtled after him, the latter's shrill peal of laughter trailing behind them. In that moment when he was airborne between the strips, his heart bumping with fear, Hendley experienced a surge of happy exhilaration such as he'd never felt before. Suddenly the thoughtless flight acquired a sharp spirit of adventure. Soon it was he who took the lead, challenging his companions to new and more intricate maneuvers on the walks, bolder excursions into the bustling center of the city.

They stayed out all day, wandering through the crowded, noisy arcades, exploring the colorful stores, filing in wonder through the great stone plaza in the middle of the business district past the giant statues and sculptured stone trees and strange marble animals. When the sightseeing began to pall, they boarded the walks again, riding them to remote parts of the city. It was only at the end of the day when, tired and hungry, they tried to retrace their way and found themselves lost, that the realization came to them slowly that they had done something unheard of, something very wrong, for which they were sure to be punished.

They had strayed far from the sidewalk strips, and in their search for the walks they came upon a clearing which ended in a high, blank wall. Curiosity gaining the better of their increasing nervousness about the day's adventure, they followed the line of the wall, speculating about it.

"I know what it is," the fat boy said confidently.

"I'll bet you don't!" the smallest of the trio said.

"What is it?" Hendley demanded.

"He doesn't know," the slender boy jeered.

"I do too! It's where people go when they're old!"

"No, it isn't," the slim one said quite seriously. "That isn't where they go. They die."

"I didn't say dead people!" the fat boy retorted. "It's where you go when you don't have to work any more, when you're free!"

And then Hendley remembered. His father had talked about the Freeman Camps, during those early years which Hendley remembered only as a brief and pleasant interlude before he was taken from his parents and enrolled in the Organization's training schools.

The three boys walked in silence alongside the high wall for a while. The fat boy said, "I bet we could get over if we really wanted to."

"How?" Hendley wanted to know.

"We could climb it."

"No, we couldn't. What would you get hold of?"

"We could use a rope."

They reached a break in the wall, which turned out to be a high, metal-barred gate coated with an opaque plastic between the bars so that you could not see through it. There was no one around.

"Look!" the slim, black-haired boy said, pointing.

Near the bottom of the gate there was a tear in the plastic film between two of the metal bars. Even when the film was pushed aside, the opening was only a few inches wide--but it was an opening. (How strange it was now to recall the easy accessibility of the camp to three curious boys! But in those days the surface was not yet considered safe for human life, and even the camps had to be underground, located on the outskirts of the great cities.)

"I bet I could get through there," the slim boy said.

"What would you want to do that for?" the fat, blond boy scoffed, covering his chagrin, for it was evident that he could never squeeze through the opening.

"Well, you wanted to climb over."

"No one's supposed to go in there," the fat boy insisted.

The declaration was like a dare, and the black-haired boy reacted to it instantly. "I'm going to!" he asserted with his quick, flashing smile. "I bet you're scared," he said to Hendley.

"No, I'm not!"

"I'll go first," the other boy said. And with a darting glance along the wall in both directions to make sure no one was watching them, he crouched before the narrow opening and began to worm his way through. The damaged section of plastic film tore easily, but the bars were so close together that the boy winced as he struggled to wriggle between them.

"You'd better not!" the fat boy warned apprehensively.

But the small, slim body gave another twist and suddenly the boy was gone, disappearing through the opening into the mysterious place beyond the wall.

"Come on!" they heard him call excitedly. "Hurry up! Wait'll you see it!"

Hendley tried to follow him. Halfway through the opening he could go no farther, no matter how much he shoved and twisted. His chest was skinned and bruised by the effort, and he had trouble breathing. "I--I'm stuck!" he cried.

Beyond the wall the slender, black-haired boy's shrill laughter rang briefly. It broke off. There was a moment's silence. Hendley and the fat boy listened. Anxiously they began to shout. There was no answer from within the camp. And then it seemed to Hendley that he heard a muffled, whimpering cry.

At that instant a huge, heavy hand fell on the fat boy's shoulder. The two boys by the wall had been so intently absorbed that they had failed to see or hear anyone approaching. Hendley stared up in fright at a broad, towering figure in a beige uniform with a small emblem on one shoulder. A big hand seized him by the arm and effortlessly pulled him free of the bars....

* * * * *

They were taken to a white building, where they were separately questioned. Hendley had vowed to himself that he would say nothing about the day's events, but he found himself at first frightened and then awed by the huge, gray-haired man who talked to him. The man spoke gently, reassuringly, and after a while Hendley was blurting out the whole story, trembling and stammering, moved at last to tears by the mystery of his small friend's fate.

The following day he and the fat, blond boy were taken back to their school. Oddly enough, Hendley could not now remember what their punishment had been. A week deprived of recreation hours, he supposed. It couldn't have been very bad or he would remember.

Stranger still, the black-haired boy who had vanished behind the wall did not return to school. Hendley never saw or heard of him again.

* * * * *