Текст книги "Profession"

Автор книги: Isaac Asimov

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But that was Trevelyan, up there. And Armand Trevelyan (Stubby’s hated first name; up in lights for everyone to see) and the right hometown. What’s more, Trev had wanted Novia, aimed for Novia, insisted on Novia; and this competition was sponsored by Novia.

This had to be Trev; good old Trev. Almost without thinking, he noted the directions for getting to the place of competition and took his place in line for a skimmer.

Then he thought somberly: Trev made it! He wanted to be a Metallurgist, and he made it!

George felt colder, more alone than ever.

There was a line waiting to enter the hall. Apparently, Metallurgy Olympics was to be an exciting and closely fought one. At least, the illuminated sky sign above the hall said so, and the jostling crowd seemed to think so.

It would have been a rainy day, George thought, from the color of the sky, but San Francisco had drawn the shield across its breadth from bay to ocean. It was an expense to do so, of course, but all expenses were warranted where the comfort of Outworlders was concerned. They would be in town for the Olympics. They were heavy spenders. And for each recruit taken, there would be a fee both to Earth, and to the local government from the planet sponsoring the Olympics. It paid to keep Outworlders in mind of a particular city as a pleasant place in which to spend Olympics time. San Francisco knew what it was doing.

George, lost in thought, was suddenly aware of a gentle pressure on his shoulder blade and a voice saying, “Are you in line here, young man?”

The line had moved up without George’s having noticed the widening gap. He stepped forward hastily and muttered, “Sorry, sir.”

There was the touch of two fingers on the elbow of his jacket and he looked about furtively.

The man behind him nodded cheerfully. He had iron-gray hair, and under his jacket he wore an old-fashioned sweater that buttoned down the front. He said, “I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.”

“No offense.”

“All right, then.” He sounded cozily talkative. “I wasn’t sure you might not simply be standing there, entangled with the line, so to speak, only by accident. I thought you might be a—”

“A what?” said George sharply.

“Why, a contestant, of course. You look young.”

George turned away. He felt neither cozy nor talkative, and bitterly impatient with busybodies.

A thought struck him. Had an alarm been sent out for him? Was his description known, or his picture? Was Gray-hair behind him trying to get a good look at his face?

He hadn’t seen any news reports. He craned his neck to see the moving strip of news headlines parading across one section of the city shield, somewhat lackluster against the gray of the cloudy afternoon sky. It was no use. He gave up at once. The headlines would never concern themselves with him. This was Olympics time and the only news worth headlining was the comparative scores of the winners and the trophies won by continents, nations, and cities.

It would go on like that for weeks, with scores calculated on a per capita basis and every city finding some way of calculating itself into a position of honor. His own town had once placed third in an Olympics covering Wiring Technician; third in the whole state. There was still a plaque saying so in Town Hall.

George hunched his head between his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pocket and decided that made him more noticeable. He relaxed and tried to look unconcerned, and felt no safer. He was in the lobby now, and no authoritative hand had yet been laid on his shoulder. He filed into the hall itself and moved as far forward as he could.

It was with an unpleasant shock that he noticed Gray-hair next to him. He looked away quickly and tried reasoning with himself. The man had been right behind him in line after all.

Gray-hair, beyond a brief and tentative smile, paid no attention to him and, besides, the Olympics was about to start. George rose in his seat to see if he could make out the position assigned to Trevelyan and at the moment that was all his concern.

The hall was moderate in size and shaped in the classical long oval, with the spectators in the two balconies running completely about the rim and the contestants in the linear trough down the center. The machines were set up, the progress boards above each bench were dark, except for the name and contest number of each man. The contestants themselves were on the scene, reading, talking together; one was checking his fingernails minutely. (It was, of course, considered bad form for any contestant to pay any attention to the problem before him until the instant of the starting signal.)

George studied the program sheet he found in the appropriate slot in the arm of his chair and found Trevelyan’s name. His number was twelve and, to George’s chagrin, that was at the wrong end of the hall. He could make out the figure of Contestant Twelve, standing with his hands in his pockets, back to his machine, and staring at the audience as though he were counting the house. George couldn’t make out the face.

Still, that was Trev.

George sank back in his seat. He wondered if Trev would do well. He hoped, as a matter of conscious duty, that he would, and yet there was something within him that felt rebelliously resentful. George, professionless, here, watching. Trevelyan, Registered Metallurgist, Nonferrous, there, competing.

George wondered if Trevelyan had competed in his first year. Sometimes men did, if they felt particularly confident—or hurried. It involved a certain risk. However efficient the Educative process, a preliminary year on Earth (“oiling the stiff knowledge,” as the expression went) insured a higher score.

If Trevelyan was repeating, maybe he wasn’t doing so well. George felt ashamed that the thought pleased him just a bit.

He looked about. The stands were almost full. This would be a well-attended Olympics, which meant greater strain on the contestants—or greater drive, perhaps, depending on the individual.

Why Olympics, he thought suddenly? He had never known. Why was bread called bread?

Once he had asked his father: “Why do they call it Olympics, Dad?”

And his father had said: “Olympics means competition.”

George had said: “Is when Stubby and I fight an Olympics, Dad?”

Platen, Senior, had said: “No. Olympics is a special kind of competition and don’t ask silly questions, You’ll know all you have to know when you get Educated.”

George, back in the present, sighed and crowded down into his seat.

All you have to know!

Funny that the memory should be so clear now. “When you get Educated.” No one ever said, ” If you get Educated.”

He always had asked silly questions, it seemed to him now. It was as though his mind had some instinctive foreknowledge of its inability to be Educated and had gone about asking questions in order to pick up scraps here and there as best it could.

And at the House they encouraged him to do so because they agreed with his mind’s instinct. It was the only way.

He sat up suddenly. What the devil was he doing? Falling for that lie? Was it because Trev was there before him, an Educee, competing in the Olympics that he himself was surrendering?

He wasn’t feeble-minded! No!

And the shout of denial in his mind was echoed by the sudden clamor in the audience as everyone got to his feet. The box seat in the very center of one long side of the oval was filling with an entourage wearing the colors of Novia, and the word “Novia” went up above them on the main board.

Novia was a Grade A world with a large population and a thoroughly developed civilization, perhaps the best in the Galaxy. It was the kind of world that every Earth-man wanted to live in someday; or, failing that, to see his children live in. (George remembered Trevelyan’s insistence on Novia as a goal—and there he was competing for it.)

The lights went out in that section of the ceiling above the audience and so did the wall lights. The central trough, in which the contestants waited, became floodlit.

Again George tried to make out Trevelyan. Too far.

The clear, polished voice of the announcer sounded. “Distinguished Novian sponsors. Ladies. Gentlemen. The Olympics competition for Metallurgist, Nonferrous, is about to begin. The contestants are—”

Carefully and conscientiously, he read off the list in the program. Names. Home towns. Educative years. Each name received its cheers, the San Franciscans among them receiving the loudest. When Trevelyan’s name was reached, George surprised himself by shouting and waving madly. The gray-haired man next to him surprised him even more by cheering likewise.

George could not help but stare in astonishment and his neighbor leaned over to say (speaking loudly in order to be heard over the hubbub), “No one here from my home town; I’ll root for yours. Someone you know?”

George shrank back. “No.”

“I noticed you looking in that direction. Would you like to borrow my glasses?”

“No. Thank you.” (Why didn’t the old fool mind his own business?)

The announcer went on with other formal details concerning the serial number of the competition, the method of timing and scoring and so on. Finally, he approached the meat of the matter and the audience grew silent as it listened.

“Each contestant will be supplied with a bar of nonferrous alloy of unspecified composition. He will be required to sample and assay the bar, reporting all results correctly to four decimals in per cent. All will utilize for this purpose a Beeman Microspectrograph, Model FX-2, each of which is, at the moment, not in working order.”

There was an appreciative shout from the audience.

“Each contestant will be required to analyze the fault of his machine and correct it. Tools and spare parts are supplied. The spare part necessary may not be present, in which case it must be asked for, and time of delivery thereof will be deducted from final time. Are all contestants ready?”

The board above Contestant Five flashed a frantic red signal. Contestant Five ran off the floor and returned a moment later. The audience laughed good-naturedly.

“Are all contestants ready?”

The boards remained blank.

“Any questions?”

Still blank.

“You may begin.”

There was, of course, no way anyone in the audience could tell how any contestant was progressing except for whatever notations went up on the notice board. But then, that didn’t matter. Except for what professional Metallurgists there might be in the audience, none would understand anything about the contest professionally in any case. What was important was who won, who was second, who was third. For those who had bets on the standings (illegal, but unpreventable) that was all-important. Everything else might go hang.

George watched as eagerly as the rest, glancing from one contestant to the next, observing how this one had removed the cover from his microspectrograph with deft strokes of a small instrument; how that one was peering into the face of the thing; how still a third was setting his alloy bar into its holder; and how a fourth adjusted a vernier with such small touches that he seemed momentarily frozen.

Trevelyan was as absorbed as the rest. George had no wav of telling how he was doing.

The notice board over Contestant Seventeen flashed: Focus plate out of adjustment.

The audience cheered wildly.

Contestant Seventeen might be right and he might, of course, be wrong. If the latter, he would have to correct his diagnosis later and lose time. Or he might never correct his diagnosis and be unable to complete his analysis or, worse still, end with a completely wrong analysis.

Never mind. For the moment, the audience cheered.

Other boards lit up. George watched for Board Twelve. That came on finally: “Sample holder off-center. New clamp depresser needed.”

An attendant went running to him with a new part. If Trevelyan was wrong, it would mean useless delay. Nor would the time elapsed in waiting for the part be deducted. George found himself holding his breath.

Results were beginning to go up on Board Seventeen, in gleaming letters: aluminum, 41.2649; magnesium, 22.1914; copper, 10.1001.

Here and there, other boards began sprouting figures.

The audience was in bedlam.

George wondered how the contestants could work in such pandemonium, then wondered if that were not even a good thing. A first-class technician should work best under pressure.

Seventeen rose from his place as his board went red-rimmed to signify completion. Four was only two seconds behind him. Another, then another.

Trevelyan was still working, the minor constituents of his alloy bar still unreported. With nearly all contestants standing, Trevelyan finally rose, also. Then, tailing off, Five rose, and received an ironic cheer.

It wasn’t over. Official announcements were naturally delayed. Time elapsed was something, but accuracy was just as important. And not all diagnoses were of equal difficulty. A dozen factors had to be weighed.

Finally, the announcer’s voice sounded, “Winner in the time of four minutes and twelve seconds, diagnosis correct, analysis correct within an average of zero point seven parts per hundred thousand, Contestant Number—Seventeen, Henry Anton Schmidt of—”

What followed was drowned in the screaming. Number Eight was next and then Four, whose good time was spoiled by a five part in ten thousand error in the niobium figure. Twelve was never mentioned. He was an also-ran.

George made his way through the crowd to the Contestant’s Door and found a large clot of humanity ahead of him. There would be weeping relatives (joy or sorrow, depending) to greet them, newsmen to interview the top-scorers, or the home-town boys, autograph hounds, publicity seekers and the just plain curious. Girls, too, who might hope to catch the eye of a top-scorer, almost certainly headed for Novia (or perhaps a low-scorer who needed consolation and had the cash to afford it).

George hung back. He saw no one he knew. With San Francisco so far from home, it seemed pretty safe to assume that there would be no relatives to condole with Trev on the spot.

Contestants emerged, smiling weakly, nodding at shouts of approval. Policemen kept the crowds far enough away to allow a lane for walking. Each high-scorer drew a portion of the crowd off with him, like a magnet pushing through a mound of iron filings.

When Trevelyan walked out, scarcely anyone was left, (George felt somehow that he had delayed coming out until just that had come to pass.) There was a cigarette in his dour mouth and he turned, eyes downcast, to walk off.

It was the first hint of home George had had in what was almost a year and a half and seemed almost a decade and a half. He was almost amazed that Trevelyan hadn’t aged, that he was the same Trev he had last seen.

George sprang forward. “Trev!”

Trevelyan spun about, astonished. He stared at George and then his hand shot out “George Platen, what the devil—”

And almost as soon as the look of pleasure had crossed his face, it left. His hand dropped before George had quite the chance of seizing it.

“Were you in there?” A curt jerk of Trev’s head indicated the hall.

“I was.”

’To see me?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t do so well, did I?” He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, staring off to the street, where the emerging crowd was slowly eddying and finding its way into skimmers, while new lines were forming for the next scheduled Olympics.

Trevelyan said heavily, “So what? It’s only the second time I missed. Novia can go shove after the deal I got today. There are planets that would jump at me fast enough—But, listen, I haven’t seen you since Education Day. Where did you go? Your folks said you were on special assignment but gave no details and you never wrote. You might have written.”

“I should have,” said George uneasily. “Anyway, I came to say I was sorry the way things went just now.”

“Don’t be,” said Trevelyan. “I told you. Novia can go shove—At that I should have known. They’ve been saying for weeks that the Beeman machine would be used. All the wise money was on Beeman machines. The damned Education tapes they ran through me were for Henslers and who uses Henslers? The worlds in the Go-man Cluster if you want to call them worlds. Wasn’t that a nice deal they gave me?”

“Can’t you complain to—”

“Don’t be a fool. They’ll tell me my brain was built for Henslers. Go argue. Everything went wrong. I was the only one who had to send out for a piece of equipment. Notice that?”

“They deducted the time for that, though.”

“Sure, but I lost time wondering if I could be right in my diagnosis when I noticed there wasn’t any clamp depresser in the parts they had supplied. They don’t deduct for that. If it had been a Hensler, I would have known I was right. How could I match up then? The top winner was a San Franciscan. So were three of the next four. And the fifth guy was from Los Angeles. They get big-city Educational tapes. The best available. Beeman spectrographs and all. How do I compete with them? I came all the way out here just to get a chance at a Novian-sponsored Olympics in my classification and I might just as well have stayed home. I knew it, I tell you, and that settles it. Novia isn’t the only chunk of rock in space. Of all the damned—”

He wasn’t speaking to George. He wasn’t speaking to anyone. He was just uncorked and frothing. George realized that.

George said, “If you knew in advance that the Beemans were going to be used, couldn’t you have studied up on them?”

“They weren’t in my tapes, I tell you,”

“You could have read—books.”

The last word had tailed off under Trevelyan’s suddenly sharp look.

Trevelyan said, “Are you trying to make a big laugh out of this? You think this is funny? How do you expect me to read some book and try to memorize enough to match someone else who knows.”

“I thought—”

“You try it. You try—” Then, suddenly, “What’s your profession, by the way?” He sounded thoroughly hostile.

“Well—”

“Come on, now. If you’re going to be a wise guy with me, let’s see what you’ve done. You’re still on Earth, I notice, so you’re not a Computer Programmer and your special assignment can’t be much.”

George said, “Listen, Trev, I’m late for an appointment.” He backed away, trying to smile.

“No, you don’t.” Trevelyan reached out fiercely, catching hold of George’s jacket. “You answer my question. Why are you afraid to tell me? What is it with you? Don’t come here rubbing a bad showing in my face, George, unless you can take it, too. Do you hear me?”

He was shaking George in frenzy and they were struggling and swaying across the floor, when the Voice of Doom struck George’s ear in the form of a policeman’s outraged call.

“All right now. All right. Break it up.”

George’s heart turned to lead and lurched sickeningly. The policeman would be taking names, asking to see identity cards, and George lacked one. He would be questioned and his lack of profession would show at once; and before Trevelyan, too, who ached with the pain of the drubbing he had taken and would spread the news back home as a salve for his own hurt feelings.

George couldn’t stand that. He broke away from Trevelyan and made to run, but the policeman’s heavy hand was on his shoulder. “Hold on, there. Let’s see your identity card.”

Trevelyan was fumbling for his, saying harshly, “I’m Armand Trevelyan, Metallurgist, Nonferrous. I was just competing in the Olympics. You better find out about him, though, officer.”

George faced the two, lips dry and throat thickened past speech.

Another voice sounded, quiet, well-mannered. “Officer. One moment.”

The policeman stepped back. “Yes, sir?”

“This young man is my guest. What is the trouble?”

George looked about in wild surprise. It was the gray-haired man who had been sitting next to him. Gray-hair nodded benignly at George.

Guest? Was he mad?

The policeman was saying, “These two were creating a disturbance, sir.”

“Any criminal charges? Any damages?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then, I’ll be responsible.” He presented a small card to the policeman’s view and the latter stepped back at once.

Trevelyan began indignantly, “Hold on, now—” but the policeman turned on him.

“All right, now. Got any charges?”

“I just—”

“On your way. The rest of you—move on.” A sizable crowd had gathered, which now, reluctantly, unknotted itself and raveled away.

George let himself be led to a skimmer but balked at entering.

He said, “Thank you, but I’m not your guest.” (Could it be a ridiculous case of mistaken identity?)

But Gray-hair smiled and said, “You weren’t but you are now. Let me introduce myself, I’m Ladislas Ingenescu, Registered Historian.”

“But—”

“Come, you will come to no harm, I assure you. After all, I only wanted to spare you some trouble with a policeman.”

“But why?”

“Do you want a reason? Well, then, say that we’re honorary towns-mates, you and I. We both shouted for the same man, remember, and we townspeople must stick together, even if the tie is only honorary. Eh?”

And George, completely unsure of this man, Ingenescu, and of himself as well, found himself inside the skimmer. Before he could make up his mind that he ought to get off again, they were off the ground.

He thought confusedly: The man has some status. The policeman deferred to him.

He was almost forgetting that his real purpose here in San Francisco was not to find Trevelyan but to find some person with enough influence to force a reappraisal of his own capacity of Education.

It could be that Ingenescu was such a man. And right in George’s lap.

Everything could be working out fine—fine. Yet it sounded hollow in his thought. He was uneasy.

During the short skimmer-hop, Ingenescu kept up an even flow of small-talk, pointing out the landmarks of the city, reminiscing about past Olympics he had seen. George, who paid just enough attention to make vague sounds during the pauses, watched the route of flight anxiously.

Would they head for one of the shield-openings and leave the city altogether?

The skimmer landed at the roof-entry of a hotel and, as he alighted, Ingenescu said, “I hope you’ll eat dinner with me in my room?”

George said, “Yes,” and grinned unaffectedly. He was just beginning to realize the gap left within him by a missing lunch.

Ingenescu let George eat in silence. Night closed in and the wall lights went on automatically. (George thought: I’ve been on my own almost twenty-four hours.)

And then over the coffee, Ingenescu finally spoke again. He said, “You’ve been acting as though you think I intend you harm.”

George reddened, put down his cup and tried to deny it, but the older man laughed and shook his head.

“It’s so. I’ve been watching you closely since I first saw you and I think I know a great deal about you now.”

George half rose in horror.

Ingenescu said, “But sit down. I only want to help you.”

George sat down but his thoughts were in a whirl. If the old man knew who he was, why had he not left him to the policeman? On the other hand, why should he volunteer help?

Ingenescu said, “You want to know why I should want to help you? Oh, don’t look alarmed. I can’t read minds. It’s just that my training enables me to judge the little reactions that give minds away, you see. Do you understand that?”

George shook his head.

Ingenescu said, “Consider my first sight of you. You were waiting in line to watch an Olympics, and your micro-reactions didn’t match what you were doing. The expression of your face was wrong, the action of your hands was wrong. It meant that something, in general, was wrong, and the interesting thing was that, whatever it was, it was nothing common, nothing obvious. Perhaps, I thought, it was something of which your own conscious mind was unaware.

“I couldn’t help but follow you, sit next to you. I followed you again when you left and eavesdropped on the conversation between your friend and yourself. After that, well, you were far too interesting an object of study—I’m sorry if that sounds cold-blooded—for me to allow you to be taken off by a policeman.—Now tell me, what is it that troubles you?”

George was in an agony of indecision. If this was a trap, why should it be such an indirect, roundabout one? And he had to turn to someone. He had come to the city to find help and here was help being offered. Perhaps what was wrong was that it was being offered. It came too easy.

Ingenescu said, “Of course, what you tell me as a Social Scientist is a privileged communication. Do you know what that means?”

“No, sir.”

“It means, it would be dishonorable for me to repeat what you say to anyone for any purpose. Moreover no one has the legal right to compel me to repeat it.”

George said, with sudden suspicion, “I thought you were a Historian.”

“So I am.”

“Just now you said you were a Social Scientist.”

Ingenescu broke into loud laughter and apologized for it when he could talk. “I’m sorry, young man, I shouldn’t laugh, and I wasn’t really laughing at you. I was laughing at Earth and its emphasis on physical science, and the practical segments of it at that. I’ll bet you can rattle off every subdivision of construction technology or mechanical engineering and yet you’re a blank on social science.”

“Well, then what is social science?”

“Social science studies groups of human beings and there are many high-specialized branches to it, just as there are to zoology, for instance. For instance, there are Culturists, who study the mechanics of cultures, their growth, development, and decay. Cultures,” he added, forestalling a question, “are all the aspects of a way of life. For instance it includes the way we make our living, the things we enjoy and believe, what we consider good and bad and so on. Do you understand?”

“I think I do.”

“An Economist—not an Economic Statistician, now, but an Economist—specializes in the study of the way a culture supplies the bodily needs of its individual members. A psychologist specializes in the individual member of a society and how he is affected by the society. A Futurist specializes in planning the future course of a society, and a Historian—That’s where I come in, now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A Historian specializes in the past development of our own society and of societies with other cultures.”

George found himself interested. “Was it different in the past?”

“I should say it was. Until a thousand years ago, there was no Education; not what we call Education, at least.”

George said, “I know. People learned in bits and pieces out of books.”

“Why, how do you know this?”

“I’ve heard it said,” said George cautiously. Then, “Is there any use in worrying about what’s happened long ago? I mean, it’s all done with, isn’t it?”

“It’s never done with, my boy. The past explains the present. For instance, why is our Educational system what it is?”

George stirred restlessly. The man kept bringing the subject back to that. He said snappishly, “Because it’s best.”

“Ah, but why is it best? Now you listen to me for one moment and I’ll explain. Then you can tell me if there is any use in history. Even before interstellar travel was developed—” He broke off at the look of complete astonishment on George’s face. “Well, did you think we always had it?”

“I never gave it any thought, sir.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. But there was a time, four or five thousand years ago when mankind was confined to the surface of Earth. Even then, his culture had grown quite technological and his numbers had increased to the point where any failure in technology would have meant mass starvation and disease. To maintain the technological level and advance it in the face of an increasing population, more and more technicians and scientists had to be trained, and yet, as science advanced, it took longer and longer to train them.

“As first interplanetary and then interstellar travel was developed, the problem grew more acute. In fact, actual colonization of extra-Solar planets was impossible for about fifteen hundred years because of lack of properly trained men.

“The turning point came when the mechanics of the storage of knowledge within the brain was worked out. Once that had been done, it became possible to devise Educational tapes that would modify the mechanics in such a way as to place within the mind a body of knowledge ready-made so to speak. But you know about that.

“Once that was done, trained men could be turned out by the thousands and millions, and we could begin what someone has since called the ‘Filling of the Universe.’ There are now fifteen hundred inhabited planets in the Galaxy and there is no end in sight.

“Do you see all that is involved? Earth exports Education tapes for low-specialized professions and that keeps the Galactic culture unified. For instance, the Reading tapes insure a single language for all of us.—Don’t look so surprised, other languages are possible, and in the past were used. Hundreds of them.

“Earth also exports high-specialized professionals and keeps its own population at an endurable level. Since they are shipped out in a balanced sex ratio, they act as self-reproductive units and help increase the populations on the Outworlds where an increase is needed. Furthermore, tapes and men are paid for in material which we much need and on which our economy depends. Now do you understand why our Education is the best way?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does it help you to understand, knowing that without it, interstellar colonization was impossible for fifteen hundred years?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you see the uses of history.” The Historian smiled. “And now I wonder if you see why I’m interested in you?”

George snapped out of time and space back to reality. Ingenescu, apparently, didn’t talk aimlessly. All this lecture had been a device to attack him from a new angle.

He said, once again withdrawn, hesitating, “Why?”

“Social Scientists work with societies and societies are made up of people.”

“All right.”

“But people aren’t machines. The professionals in physical science work with machines. There is only a limited amount to know about a machine and the professionals know it all. Furthermore, all machines of a given sort are just about alike so that there is nothing to interest them in any given individual machine. But people, ah—They are so complex and so different one from another that a Social Scientist never knows all there is to know or even a good part of what there is to know. To understand his own specialty, he must always be ready to study people; particularly unusual specimens.”