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Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. For on-line information about other Random \n House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet Web site at (http://www.randomhouse.com) http://www.randomhouse.com . Another \n sci-fi short story at abelard.org: (e-f-russell.php) And Then There \n Were None by Eric Frank Russell (asimov/asimov_php.pdf) pdf version to download [657 kB, opens in new tab/window.] If you wish to customise your browser, to change the \n text size or see this page in black on white, (/choose/choose.htm#ger) click \n here for instructions on what to do. G eorge Platen could not conceal the longing in his voice. It was \n too much to suppress. He said, \u201cTomorrow\u2019s 1 May. Olympics!\u201d He rolled over on his stomach and peered over the foot of his bed at his \n roommate. Didn\u2019t he feel it, too? Didn\u2019t this make some impression \n on him? George\u2019s face was thin and had grown a trifle thinner in the nearly \n year and a half that he had been at the House. His figure was slight but the \n look in his blue eyes was as intense as it had ever been, and right now there \n was a trapped look in the way his fingers curled against the bedspread. George\u2019s roommate looked up briefly from his book and took the opportunity \n to adjust the light-level of the stretch of wall near his chair. His name \n was Hali Omani and he was a Nigerian by birth. His dark brown skin and massive \n features seemed made for calmness, and mention of the Olympics did not move \n him. \u201cI know, George.\u201d George owed much to Hali\u2019s patience and kindness when it was needed, \n but even patience and kindness could be overdone. Was this a time to sit there like a statue built of some dark, warm wood? George wondered if he himself would grow like that after ten years here and \n rejected the thought violently. No! He said defiantly, \u201cI think you\u2019ve forgotten what May means.\u201d The other said,\u201cI remember very well what it means. It means nothing! \n You\u2019re the one who\u2019s forgotten that. May means nothing to you, \n George Platen, and,' he added softly, \u201cIt means nothing to me, Hali \n Omani.\u201d George said, \u201cThe ships are coming in for recruits. By June, thousands \n and thousands will leave with millions of men and women heading for any world \n you can name, and all that means nothing?\u201d \u201cLess than nothing. What do you want me to do about it, anyway?\u201d \n Omani ran his finger along a difficult passage in the book he was reading \n and his lips moved soundlessly. George watched him. Damn it, he thought, yell scream; you can do that \n much. Kick at me, do anything. It was only that he wanted not to be so alone in his anger. He wanted not \n to be the only one so filled with resentment, not to be the only one dying \n a slow death. It was better those first weeks when the Universe was a small shell of vague \n light and sound pressing down upon him. It was better before Omani had wavered \n into view and dragged him back to a life that wasn\u2019t worth living. Omani! He was old! He was at least thirty. George thought: Will I be like \n that at thirty? Will I be like that in twelve years? And because he was afraid he might be, he yelled at Omani, \u201cWill you \n stop reading that fool book?\u201d Omani turned a page and read on a few words, then lifted his head with its \n skullcap of crisply curled hair and said, \u201cWhat?\u201d \u201cWhat good does it do you to read the book?\u201d He stepped forward, \n snorted \u201cMore electronics,\u201d and slapped it out of Omani\u2019s \n hands. Omani got up slowly and picked up the book. He smoothed a crumpled page without \n visible rancor. \u201cCall it the satisfaction of curiosity,\u201d he said. \n \u201cI understand a little of it today, perhaps a little more tomorrow. \n That\u2019s a victory in a way.\u201d \u201cA victory. What kind of a victory? Is that what satisfies you in life? \n To get to know enough to be a quarter of a Registered Electronician by the \n time you\u2019re sixty-five?\u201d \u201cPerhaps by the time I\u2019m thirty-five.\u201d \u201cAnd then who\u2019ll want you? Who\u2019ll use you? Where will you \n go?\u201d \u201cNo one. No one. Nowhere. I\u2019ll stay here and read other books.\u201d \u201cAnd that satisfies you? Tell me! You\u2019ve dragged me to class. \n You\u2019ve got me to reading and memorizing, too. For what? There\u2019s \n nothing in it that satisfies me.\u201d \u201cWhat good will it do you to deny yourself satisfaction?\u201d \u201cIt means I\u2019ll quit the whole farce. I\u2019ll do as I planned \n to do in the beginning before you dovey-lovied me out of it. I\u2019m going \n to force them to \u2014 to \u2014\u201d Omani put down his book. He let the other run down and then said, \u201cTo \n what, George?\u201d \u201cTo correct a miscarriage of justice. A frame-up. I\u2019ll get that \n Antonelli and force him to admit he \u2014 he \u2014\u201d Omani shook his head. \u201cEveryone who comes here insists it\u2019s a \n mistake. I thought you\u2019d passed that stage.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t call it a stage,\u201d said George violently. \u201cIn \n my case, it\u2019s a fact. I\u2019ve told you \u2014\ufffd\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve told me, but in your heart you know no one made any mistake \n as far as you were concerned.\u201d \u201cBecause no one will admit it? You think any of them would admit a \n mistake unless they were forced to? \u2014 Well: I\u2019ll force them.\u201d It was May that was doing this to George; it was Olympics month. He felt \n it bring the old wildness back and he couldn\u2019t stop it. He didn\u2019t \n want to stop it. He had been in danger of forgetting. He said, \u201cI was going to be a Computer Programmer and I can be \n one. I could be one today, regardless of what they say analysis shows.\u201d \n He pounded his mattress. \u201cThey\u2019re wrong. They must be.\u201d \u201cThe analysts are never wrong.\u201d \u201cThey must be. Do you doubt my intelligence?\u201d \u201cIntelligence hasn\u2019t one thing to do with it. Haven\u2019t you \n been told that often enough? Can\u2019t you understand that?\u201d George rolled away, lay on his back, and stared somberly at the ceiling. \u201cWhat did you want to be, Hali?\u201d \u201cI had no fixed plans. Hydroponicist would have suited me, I suppose.\u201d \u201cDid you think you could make it?\u201d \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure.\u201d George had never asked personal questions of Omani before. It struck him \n as queer, almost unnatural, that other people had had ambitions and ended \n here. Hydroponicist! He said, \u201cDid you think you\u2019d make this?\u201d \u201cNo, but here I am just the same.\u201d \u201cAnd you\u2019re satisfied. Really, really satisfied. You\u2019re \n happy. You love it. You wouldn\u2019t be anywhere else.\u201d Slowly, Omani got to his feet. Carefully, he began to unmake his bed. He \n said, \u201cGeorge, you\u2019re a hard case. You\u2019re knocking yourself \n out because you won\u2019t accept the facts about yourself. George, you\u2019re \n here in what you call the House, but I\u2019ve never heard you give it its \n full title. Say it, George, say it. Then go to bed and sleep this off.\u201d George gritted his teeth and showed them. He choked out, \u201cNo!\u201d \u201cThen I will,\u201d said Omani, and he did. He shaped each syllable \n carefully. George was bitterly ashamed at the sound of it. He turned his head away. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) F or most of the first eighteen years of his life, George Platen \n had headed firmly in one direction, that of Registered Computer Programmer. \n There were those in his crowd who spoke wisely of Spationautics, Refrigeration \n Technology, Transportation Control, and even Administration. But George \n held firm. He argued relative merits as vigorously as any of them, and why not? \n Education Day loomed ahead of them and was the great fact of their existence. \n It approached steadily, as fixed and certain as the calendar \u2014 the \n first day of November of the year following one\u2019s eighteenth birthday. \n After that day, there were other topics of conversation. One could discuss with others some detail of the profession, or the virtues \n of one\u2019s wife and children, or the fate of one\u2019s space-polo \n team, or one\u2019s experiences in the Olympics. Before Education Day, \n however, there was only one topic that unfailingly and unwearyingly held \n everyone\u2019s interest, and that was Education Day. \u201cWhat are you going for? Think you\u2019ll make it? Heck, that\u2019s \n no good. Look at the records; quota\u2019s been cut. Logistics now\u2014\u201d Or Hypermechanics now \u2014 Or Communications now \u2014 Or Gravitics \n now \u2014 Especially Gravitics at the moment. Everyone had been talking about Gravitics \n in the few years just before George\u2019s Education Day because of the \n development of the Gravitic power engine. Any world within ten light-years of a dwarf star, everyone said, would \n give its eyeteeth for any kind of Registered Gravitics Engineer. The thought of that never bothered George. Sure it would; all the eyeteeth \n it could scare up. But George had also heard what had happened before \n in a newly developed technique. Rationalization and simplification followed \n in a flood. New models each year; new types of gravitic engines; new principles. \n Then all those eyeteeth gentlemen would find themselves out of date and \n superseded by later models with later educations. The first group would \n then have to settle down to unskilled labor or ship out to some backwoods \n world that wasn\u2019t quite caught up yet. Now Computer Programmers were in steady demand year after year, century \n after century. The demand never reached wild peaks; there was never a \n howling bull market for Programmers; but the demand climbed steadily as \n new worlds opened up and as older worlds grew more complex. He had argued with Stubby Trevelyan about that constantly. As best friends, \n their arguments had to be constant and vitriolic and, of course, neither \n ever persuaded or was persuaded. But then Trevelyan had had a father who was a Registered Metallurgist \n and had actually served on one of the Outworlds, and a grandfather who \n had also been a Registered Metallurgist. He himself was intent on becoming \n a Registered Metallurgist almost as a matter of family right and was firmly \n convinced that any other profession was a shade less than respectable. \u201cThere\u2019ll always be metal, he said, \u201cand there\u2019s \n an accomplishment in molding alloys to specification and watching structures \n grow. Now what\u2019s a Programmer going to be doing? Sitting at a coder \n all day long, feeding some fool mile-long machine.\u201d Even at sixteen, George had learned to be practical. He said simply, \n \u201cThere\u2019ll be a million Metallurgists put out along with you.\u201d \u201cBecause it\u2019s good. A good profession. The best.\u201d \u201cBut you get crowded out, Stubby. You can be way back in line. \n Any world can tape out its own Metallurgists, and the market for advanced \n Earth models isn\u2019t so big. And it\u2019s mostly the small worlds \n that want them. You know what per cent of the turn-out of Registered Metallurgists \n get tabbed for worlds with a Grade A rating. I looked it up. It\u2019s \n just 13.3 per cent. That means you\u2019ll have seven chances in eight \n of being stuck in some world that just about has running water. You may \n even be stuck on Earth; 2.3 per cent are.\u201d Trevelyan said belligerently, \u201cThere\u2019s no disgrace in staying \n on Earth. Earth needs technicians, too. Good ones.\u201d His grandfather \n had been an Earth-bound Metallurgist, and Trevelyan lifted his finger \n to his upper lip and dabbed at an as yet nonexistent mustache. George knew about Trevelyan\u2019s grandfather and, considering the \n Earth-bound position of his own ancestry, was in no mood to sneer. He \n said diplomatically, \u201cNo intellectual disgrace. Of course not. But \n it\u2019s nice to get into a Grade A world, isn\u2019t it?(Profession by Asimov) \u201cNow you take Programmers. Only the Grade A worlds have the kind \n of computers that really need first-class Programmers so they\u2019re \n the only ones in the market. And Programmer tapes are complicated and \n hardly any one fits. They need more Programmers than their own population \n can supply. It\u2019s just a matter of statistics. There\u2019s one \n first-class Programmer per million, say. A world needs twenty and has \n a population of ten million, they have to come to Earth for five to fifteen \n Programmers. Right?(Profession by Asimov) \u201cAnd you know how many Registered Computer Programmers went to Grade A planets \n last year? I\u2019ll tell you. Every last one. If you\u2019re a Programmer, \n you\u2019re a picked man. Yes, sir.\u201d Trevelyan frowned. \u201cIf only one in a million makes it, what makes \n you think you\u2019ll make it?\u201d George said guardedly, \u201cI\u2019ll make it.\u201d He never dared tell anyone; not Trevelyan; not his parents; of exactly \n what he was doing that made him so confident. But he wasn\u2019t worried. \n He was simply confident (that was the worst of the memories he had in \n the hopeless days afterward). He was as blandly confident as the average \n eight-year-old kid approaching Reading Day \u2014 that childhood preview \n of Education Day. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) O f course, Reading Day had been different. Partly, there was the \n simple fact of childhood. A boy of eight takes many extraordinary things \n in stride. One day you can\u2019t read and the next day you can. That\u2019s \n just the way things are. Like the sun shining. And then not so much depended upon it. There were no recruiters just \n ahead, waiting and jostling for the lists and scores on the coming Olympics. \n A boy or girl who goes through the Reading Day is just someone who has \n ten more years of undifferentiated living upon Earth\u2019s crawling \n surface; just someone who returns to his family with one new ability. By the time Education Day came, ten years later, George wasn\u2019t \n even sure of most of the details of his own Reading Day. Most clearly of all, he remembered it to be a dismal September day with \n a mild rain falling. (September for Reading Day; November for. Education \n Day; May for Olympics. They made nursery rhymes out of it.) George had \n dressed by the wall lights, with his parents far more excited than he \n himself was. His father was a Registered Pipe Fitter and had found his \n occupation on Earth. This fact had always been a humiliation to him, although, \n of course, as anyone could see plainly, most of each generation must stay \n on Earth in the nature of things. There had to be farmers and miners and even technicians on Earth. It \n was only the late-model, high-specialty professions that were in demand \n on the Outworlds, and only a few millions a year out of Earth\u2019s \n eight billion population could be exported. Every man and woman on Earth \n couldn\u2019t be among that group. But every man and woman could hope that at least one of his children \n could be one, and Platen, Senior, was certainly no exception. It was obvious \n to him (and, to be sure, to others as well) that George was notably intelligent \n and quick-minded. He would be bound to do well and he would have to, as \n he was an only child. If George didn\u2019t end on an Outworld, they \n would have to wait for grandchildren before a next chance would come along, \n and that was too far in the future to be much consolation. Reading Day would not prove much, of course, but it would be the only \n indication they would have before the big day itself. Every parent on \n Earth would be listening to the quality of reading when his child came \n home with it; listening for any particularly easy flow of words and building \n that into certain omens of the future. There were few families that didn\u2019t \n have at least one hopeful who, from Reading Day on, was the great hope \n because of the way he handled his trisyllabics. Dimly, George was aware of the cause of his parents\u2019 tension, and \n if there was any anxiety in his young heart that drizzly morning, it was \n only the fear that his father\u2019s hopeful expression might fade out \n when he returned home with his reading. The children met in the large assembly room of the town\u2019s Education \n Hall. All over Earth, in millions of local halls, throughout that month, \n similar groups of children would he meeting. George felt depressed by \n the grayness of the room and by the other children, strained and stiff \n in unaccustomed finery. Automatically, George did as all the rest of the children did. He found \n the small clique that represented the children on his floor of the apartment \n house and joined them. Trevelyan, who lived immediately next door, still wore his hair childishly \n long and was years removed from the sideburns and thin, reddish mustache \n that he was to grow as soon as he was physiologically capable of it. Trevelyan (to whom George was then known as Jawjee) said, \u201cBet \n you\u2019re scared.\u201d \u201cI am not,\u2019 said George. Then, confidentially, \u201cMy \n folks got a hunk of printing up on the dresser in my room, and when I \n come home, I\u2019m going to read it for them.\u201d (George\u2019s \n main suffering at the moment lay in the fact that he didn\u2019t quite \n know where to put his hands. He had been warned not to scratch his head \n or rub his ears or pick his nose or put his hands into his pockets. This \n eliminated almost every possibility.) Trevelyan put his hands in his pockets and said, \u201cMy father \n isn\u2019t worried.\u201d Trevelyan, Senior, had been a Metallurgist on Diporia for nearly seven \n years, which gave him a superior social status in his neighborhood even \n though he had retired and returned to Earth. Earth discouraged these re-immigrants because of population problems, \n but a small trickle did return. For one thing the cost of living was lower \n on Earth, and what was a trifling annuity on Diporia, say, was a comfortable \n income on Earth. Besides, there were always men who found more satisfaction \n in displaying their success before the friends and scenes of their childhood \n than before all the rest of the Universe besides. Trevelyan, Senior further explained that if he stayed on Diporia, so \n would his children, and Diporia was a one-spaceship world. Back on Earth, \n his kids could end up anywhere, even Novia. Stubby Trevelyan had picked up that item early. Even before Reading Day, \n his conversation was based on the carelessly assumed fact that his ultimate \n home would be in Novia. George, oppressed by thoughts of the other\u2019s future greatness and \n his own small-time contrast, was driven to belligerent defense at once. \u201cMy father isn\u2019t worried either. He just wants to hear me \n read because he knows I\u2019ll be good. I suppose your father would \n just as soon not hear you because he knows you\u2019ll be all wrong.\u201d \u201cI will not be all wrong. Reading is nothing. On Novia, \n I\u2019ll hire people to read to me.\u201d \u201cBecause you won\u2019t be able to read yourself, on account of \n you\u2019re dumb!\u201d \u201cThen how come I\u2019ll be on Novia?\u201d And George, driven, made the great denial, \u201cWho says you\u2019ll \n be on Novia? Bet you don\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d Stubby Trevelyan reddened. \u201cI won\u2019t be a Pipe Fitter like \n your old man.\u201d \u201cTake that back, you dumbhead.\u201d \u201cYou take that back.\u201d They stood nose to nose, not wanting to fight but relieved at having \n something familiar to do in this strange place. Furthermore, now that \n George had curled his hands into fists and lifted them before his face, \n the problem of what to do with his hands was, at least temporarily, solved. \n Other children gathered round excitedly. But then it all ended when a woman\u2019s voice sounded loudly over \n the public address system. There was instant silence everywhere. George \n dropped his fists and forgot Trevelyan. \u201cChildren,\u201d said the voice, \u201cwe are going to call out \n your names. As each child is called, he or she is to go to one of the \n men waiting along the side walls. Do you see them? They are wearing red \n uniforms so they will be easy to find. The girls will go to the right. \n The boys will go to the left. Now look about and see which man in red \n is nearest to you \u2014\u201d George found his man at a glance and waited for his name to be called \n off. He had not been introduced before this to the sophistications of \n the alphabet and the length of time it took to reach his own name grew \n disturbing. The crowd of children thinned; little rivulets made their way to each \n of the red-clad guides. When the name \u2018George Platen\u2019 was finally called, his sense \n of relief was exceeded only by the feeling of pure gladness at the fact \n that Stubby Trevelyan still stood in his place, uncalled. George shouted back over his shoulder as he left, \u201cYay, Stubby, \n maybe they don\u2019t want you.\u201d That moment of gaiety quickly left. He was herded into a line and directed \n down corridors in the company of strange children. They all looked at \n one another, large-eyed and concerned, but beyond a snuffling, \u201cQuitcher \n pushing\u201d and \u201cHey, watch out\u201d there was no conversation. They were handed little slips of paper which they were told must remain \n with them. George stared at his curiously. Little black marks of different \n shapes. He knew it to be printing but how could anyone make words out \n of it? He couldn\u2019t imagine. He was told to strip; he and four other boys who were all that now remained \n together. All the new clothes came shucking off and four eight-year-olds \n stood naked and small, shivering more out of embarrassment than cold. \n Medical technicians came past, probing them, testing them with odd instruments, \n pricking them for blood. Each took the little cards and made additional \n marks on them with little black rods that produced the marks, all neatly \n lined up, with great speed. George stared at the new marks, but they were \n no more comprehensible than the old. The children were ordered back into \n their clothes. They sat on separate little chairs then and waited again. Names were \n called again and \u2018George Platen\u2019 came third. He moved into a large room, filled with frightening instruments with \n knobs and glassy panels in front. There was a desk in the very center, \n and behind it a man sat, his eyes on the papers piled before him. He said, \u201cGeorge Platen?\u201d \u201cYes, sir,\u201d said George, in a shaky whisper. All \n this waiting and all this going here and there was making him nervous. \n He wished it were over. The man behind the desk said, \u201cI am Dr Lloyd, George. How are you?\u201d The doctor didn\u2019t look up as he spoke. It was as though he had \n said those words over and over again and didn\u2019t have to look up \n any more. \u201cI\u2019m all right.\u201d \u201cAre you afraid, George?\u201d \u201cN \u2014 no, sir,\u201d said George, sounding afraid even in \n his own ears. \u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cbecause there\u2019s \n nothing to be afraid of you know. Let\u2019s see, George. It says here \n on your card that your father is named Peter and that he\u2019s a Registered \n Pipe Fitter and your mother is named Amy and is a Registered Home Technician. \n Is that right?\u201d \u201cY \u2014 yes, sir.\u201d \u201cAnd your birthday is 13 February,and you had an ear infection \n about a year ago. Right?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cDo you know how I know all these things?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s on the card, I think, sir.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d The doctor looked up at George for \n the first time and smiled. He showed even teeth and looked much younger \n than George\u2019s father. Some of George\u2019s nervousness vanished. The doctor passed the card to George. \u201cDo you know what all those \n things there mean, George?\u201d Although George knew he did not he was startled by the sudden request \n into looking at the card as though he might understand now through some \n sudden stroke of fate. But they were just marks as before and he passed \n the card back. \u201cNo, sir.\u201d \u201cWhy not?\u201d George felt a sudden pang of suspicion concerning the sanity of this \n doctor. Didn\u2019t he know why not? George said, \u201cI can\u2019t read, sir.\u201d \u201cWould you like to read?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cWhy, George?\u201d George stared, appalled. No one had ever asked him that. He had no answer. \n He said falteringly, \u201cI don\u2019t know, sir.\u201d \u201cPrinted information will direct you all through your life. There \n is so much you\u2019ll have to know even after Education Day. Cards like \n this one will tell you. Books will tell you. Television screens will tell \n you. Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things \n that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see. \n Do you understand?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cAre you afraid, George?\u201d \u201cNo, sir.\u201d \u201cGood. Now I\u2019ll tell you exactly what we\u2019ll do first. \n I\u2019m going to put these wires on your forehead just over the corners \n of your eyes. They\u2019ll stick there but they won\u2019t hurt at all. \n Then, I\u2019ll turn on something that will make a buzz. It will sound \n funny and it may tickle you, but it won\u2019t hurt. Now if it does hurt, \n you tell me, and I\u2019ll turn it off right away, but it won\u2019t \n hurt. All right?\u201d George nodded and swallowed. \u201cAre you ready?\u201d George nodded. He closed his eyes while the doctor busied himself. His \n parents had explained this to him. They, too, had said it wouldn\u2019t \n hurt, but then there were always the older children. There were the ten- \n and twelve-year-olds who howled after the eight-year-olds waiting for \n Reading Day, \u201cWatch out for the needle.\u201d There were the others \n who took you off in confidence and said, \u201cThey got to cut your head \n open. They use a sharp knife that big with a hook on it,\u201d and so \n on into horrifying details. George had never believed them but he had had nightmares, and now he \n closed his eyes and felt pure terror. He didn\u2019t feel the wires at his temple. The buzz was a distant \n thing, and there was the sound of his own blood in his ears, ringing hollowly \n as though it and he were in a large cave. Slowly he chanced opening his \n eyes. The doctor had his back to him. From one of the instruments a strip of \n paper unwound and was covered with a thin, wavy purple line. The doctor \n tore off pieces and put them into a slot in another machine. He did it \n over and over again. Each time a little piece of film came out which the \n doctor looked at. Finally, he turned toward George with a queer frown \n between his eyes. The buzzing stopped. George said breathlessly, \u201cIs it over?\u201d The doctor said, \u201cYes,\u201d but he was still frowning. \u201cCan I read now?\u2019 asked George. He felt no different. The doctor said, \u201cWhat?\u201d then smiled very suddenly and briefly. \n He said, \u201cIt works fine, George. You\u2019ll be reading in fifteen \n minutes. Now we\u2019re going to use another machine this time and it \n will take longer. I\u2019m going to cover your whole head, and when I \n turn it on you won\u2019t be able to see or hear anything for a while, \n but it won\u2019t hurt. Just to make sure I\u2019m going to give you \n a little switch to hold in your hand. If anything hurts, you press the \n little button and everything shuts off. All right?\u201d In later years, George was told that the little switch was strictly a \n dummy; that it was introduced solely for confidence. He never did know \n for sure, however, since he never pushed the button. A large smoothly curved helmet with a rubbery inner lining was placed \n over his head and left there. Three or four little knobs seemed to grab \n at him and bite into his skull, but there was only a little pressure that \n faded. No pain. The doctor\u2019s voice sounded dimly. \u201cEverything all right, \n George?\u201d And then, with no real warning, a layer of thick felt closed down all \n about him. He was disembodied, there was no sensation, no universe, only \n himself and a distant murmur at the very ends of nothingness telling him \n something \u2014 telling him \u2014 telling him \u2014 He strained to hear and understand but there was all that thick felt \n between. Then the helmet was taken off his head, and the light was so bright that \n it hurt his eyes while the doctor\u2019s voice drummed at his ears. The doctor said, \u201cHere\u2019s your card, George. What does it \n say?\u201d George looked at his card again and gave out a strangled shout. The marks \n weren\u2019t just marks at all. They made up words. They were words just \n as clearly as though something were whispering them in his ears. He could \n hear them being whispered as he looked at them. \u201cWhat does it say, George?\u201d \u201cIt says \u2014 it says \u2014 \u2018Platen, George. Born 13 \n February 6492 of Peter and Amy Platen in...\u2019\u201d He broke off. \u201cYou can read, George,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cIt\u2019s \n all over.\u201d \u201cFor good? I won\u2019t forget how?\u201d \u201cOf course not\u201d The doctor leaned over to shake hands gravely. \n \u201cYou will be taken home now.\u201d It was days before George got over this new and great talent of his. \n He read for his father with such facility that Platen, Senior, wept and \n called relatives to tell the good news. George walked about town, reading every scrap of printing he could find \n and wondering how it was that none of it had ever made sense to him before. He tried to remember how it was not to be able to read and \n he couldn\u2019t. As far as his feeling about it was concerned, he had \n always been able to read. Always. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) A t eighteen, George was rather \n dark, of medium height, but thin enough to look taller. Trevelyan, who \n was scarcely an inch shorter, had a stockiness of build that made \u2018Stubby\u2019 \n more than ever appropriate, but in this last year he had grown self-conscious. \n The nickname could no longer be used without reprisal. And since Trevelyan \n disapproved of his proper first name even more strongly, he was called \n Trevelyan or any decent variant of that. As though to prove his manhood \n further, he had most persistently grown a pair of sideburns and a bristly \n mustache. He was sweating and nervous now, and George, who had himself grown out \n of \u2018Jaw-jee\u2019 and into the curt monosyllabic gutturability \n of \u2018George,\u2019 was rather amused by that. They were in the same large hall they had been in ten years before (and \n not since). It was as if a vague dream of the past had come to sudden \n reality. In the first few minutes George had been distinctly surprised \n at finding everything seem smaller and more cramped than his memory told \n him; then he made allowance for his own growth. The crowd was smaller than it had been in childhood. It was exclusively \n male this time. The girls had another day assigned them. Trevelyan leaned over to say, \u201cBeats me the way they make you wait.\u201d \u201cRed tape,\u201d said George. \u201cYou can\u2019t avoid it.\u201d Trevelyan said, \u201cWhat makes you so damned tolerant about it?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to worry about.\u201d \u201cOh, brother, you make me sick. I hope you end up Registered Manure \n Spreader just so I can see your face when you do.\u201d His somber eyes \n swept the crowd anxiously. George looked about, too. It wasn\u2019t quite the system they used \n on the children. Matters went slower, and instructions had been given \n out at the start in print (an advantage over the pre-Readers). The names \n Platen and Trevelyan were well down the alphabet still, but this time \n the two knew it. Young men came out of the education rooms, frowning and uncomfortable, \n picked up their clothes and belongings, then went off to analysis to learn \n the results. Each, as he come out, would be surrounded by a clot of the thinning crowd. \n \u201cHow was it?\u201d \u201cHow \u2019d it feel?\u201d \u201cWhacha \n think ya made?\u201d \u201cYa feel any different?\u201d Answers were vague and noncommittal. George forced himself to remain out of those clots. You only raised your \n own blood pressure. Everyone said you stood the best chance if you remained \n calm. Even so, you could feel the palms of your hands grow cold. Funny \n that new tensions came with the years. For instance, high-specialty professionals heading out for an Outworld \n were accompanied by a wife (or husband). It was important to keep the \n sex ratio in good balance on all worlds. And if you were going out to \n a Grade A world, what girl would refuse you? George had no specific girl \n in mind yet; he wanted none. Not now! Once he made Programmer; once he \n could add to his name, Registered Computer Programmer, he could take his \n pick, like a sultan in a harem. The thought excited him and he tried to \n put it away. Must stay calm. Trevelyan muttered \u201cWhat\u2019s it all about anyway? First they \n say it works best if you\u2019re relaxed and at ease. Then they put you \n through this and make it impossible for you to be relaxed and at ease.\u201d \u201cMaybe that\u2019s the idea. They\u2019re separating the boys \n from the men to begin with. Take it easy, Trev.\u201d \u201cShut up.\u201d George\u2019s turn came. His name was not called. It appeared in glowing \n letters on the notice board. He waved at Trevelyan. \u201cTake it easy. Don\u2019t let it get you.\u201d He was happy as he entered the testing chamber. Actually happy. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) T he man behind the desk said, \n \u201cGeorge Platen?\u201d For a fleeting instant there was a razor-sharp picture in George\u2019s \n mind of another man, ten years earlier, who had asked the same question, \n and it was almost as though this were the same man and he, George, had \n turned eight again as he had stepped across the threshold. But the man looked up and, of course, the face matched that of the \n sudden memory not at all. The nose was bulbous, the hair thin and stringy, \n and the chin wattled as though its owner had once been grossly overweight \n and had reduced. The man behind the desk looked annoyed. \u201cWell?\u201d George came to Earth. \u201cI\u2019m George Platen, sir.\u201d \u201cSay so, then. I\u2019m Dr Zachary Antonelli, and we\u2019re \n going to be intimately acquainted in a moment.\u201d He stared at small strips of film, holding them up to the light owlishly. George winced inwardly. Very hazily, he remembered that other doctor \n (he had forgotten the name) staring at such film. Could these be the \n same? The other doctor had frowned and this one was looking at him now \n as though he were angry. His happiness was already just about gone. Dr Antonelli spread the pages of a thickish file out before him now \n and put the films\u2019s carefully to one side. \u201cIt says here \n you want to be a Computer Programmer.\u201d \u201cYes, doctor.\u201d \u201cStill do?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a responsible and exacting position. Do you feel \n up to it?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cMost pre-Educates don\u2019t put down any specific profession. \n I believe they are afraid of queering it.\u201d \u201cI think that\u2019s right sir.\u201d \u201cAren\u2019t you afraid of that?\u201d \u201cI might as well be honest, sir.\u201d Dr Antonelli nodded, but without any noticeable lightening of his expression. \n \u201cWhy do you want to be a Programmer?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a responsible and exacting position as you said, \n sir. It\u2019s an important job and an exciting one. I like it and \n I think I can do it.\u201d Dr Antonelli put the papers away, and looked at George sourly. He said, \n \u201cHow do you know you like it? Because you think you\u2019ll be \n snapped up by some Grade A planet?\u201d George thought uneasily: He\u2019s trying to rattle you. Stay calm \n and stay frank. He said, \u201cI think a Programmer has a good chance, sir, but even \n if I were left on Earth, I know I\u2019d like it.\u201d (That was \n true enough. I\u2019m not lying, thought George.) \u201cAll right how do you know?\u201d He asked it as though he knew there was no decent answer and George \n almost smiled. He had one. He said, \u201cI\u2019ve been reading about Programming, sir.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ve been what ?\u201d Now the doctor looked \n genuinely astonished and George took pleasure in that. \u201cReading about it, sir. I bought a book on the subject and I\u2019ve \n been studying it.\u201d \u201cA book for Registered Programmers?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cBut you couldn\u2019t understand it.\u201d \u201cNot at first. I got other books on mathematics and electronics. \n I made out all I could. I still don\u2019t know much, but I know enough \n to know I like it and to know I can make it.\u201d (Even his parents \n never found that secret cache of books or knew why he spent so much \n time in his own room or exactly what happened to the sleep he missed.) The doctor pulled at the loose skin under his chin. \u201cWhat was \n your idea in doing that, son?\u201d \u201cI wanted to make sure I would be interested, sir.\u201d \u201cSurely you know that being interested means nothing. You could \n be devoured by a subject and if the physical make-up of your brain makes \n it more efficient for you to be something else, something else you will \n be. You know that, don\u2019t you?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been told that,\u201d said George cautiously. \u201cWell, believe it. It\u2019s true.\u201d George said nothing. Dr Antonelli said, \u201cOr do you believe that studying some subject \n will bend the brain cells in that direction, like that other theory \n that a pregnant woman need only listen to great music persistently to \n make a composer of her child. Do you believe that?\u201d George flushed. That had certainly been in his mind. By forcing his \n intellect constantly in the desired direction, he had felt sure that \n he would be getting a head start. Most of his confidence had rested \n on exactly that point. \u201cI never-\u201d he began, and found no way of finishing. \u201cWell it isn\u2019t true. Good Lord, youngster, your brain pattern \n is fixed at birth. It can be altered by a blow hard enough to damage \n the cells or by a burst blood vessel or by a tumor or by a major infection \n \u2014 each time, of course, for the worse. But it certainly can\u2019t \n be affected by your thinking special thoughts.\u201d He stared at George \n thoughtfully, then said, \u201cWho told you to do this?\u201d George, now thoroughly disturbed, swallowed and said, \u201cNo one, \n doctor. My own idea.\u201d \u201cWho knew you were doing it after you started?\u201d \u201cNo one. Doctor, I meant to do no wrong.\u201d \u201cWho said anything about wrong? Useless is what I would say. \n Why did you keep it to yourself?\u201d \u201cI \u2014 I thought they\u2019d laugh at me.\u201d (He thought \n abruptly of a recent exchange with Trevelyan. George had very cautiously \n broached the thought, as of something merely circulating distantly in \n the very outermost reaches of his mind, concerning the possibility of \n learning something by ladling it into the mind by hand, so to speak, \n in bits and pieces. Trevelyan had hooted, \u201cGeorge, you\u2019ll \n be tanning your own shoes next and weaving your own shirts.\u201d He \n had been thankful then for his policy of secrecy.) Dr Antonelli shoved the bits of film he had first looked at from position \n to position in morose thought. Then he said, \u201cLet\u2019s get \n you analyzed. This is getting me nowhere.\u201d The wires went to George\u2019s temples. There was the buzzing. Again \n there came a sharp memory of ten years ago. George\u2019s hands were clammy; his heart pounded. He should never \n have told the doctor about his secret reading. It was his damned vanity, \n he told himself. He had wanted to show how enterprising he was, how \n full of initiative. Instead, he had showed himself superstitious and \n ignorant and aroused the hostility of the doctor. (He could tell the \n doctor hated him for a wise guy on the make.) And now he had brought himself to such a state of nervousness, he was \n sure the analyzer would show nothing that made sense. He wasn\u2019t aware of the moment when the wires were removed from \n his temples. The sight of the doctor, staring at him thoughtfully, blinked \n into his consciousness and that was that; the wires were gone. George \n dragged himself together with a tearing effort. He had quite given up \n his ambition to be a Programmer. In the space of ten minutes, it had \n all gone. He said dismally, \u201cI suppose no?\u201d \u201cNo what?\u201d \u201cNo Programmer?\u201d The doctor rubbed his nose and said, \u201cYou get your clothes and \n whatever belongs to you and go to room 15-C. Your files will be waiting \n for you there. So will my report.\u201d George said in complete surprise, \u201cHave I been Educated already? \n I thought this was just to \u2014\u201d Dr Antonelli stared down at his desk. \u201cIt will all be explained \n to you. You do as I say.\u201d George felt something like panic. What was it they couldn\u2019t tell \n him? He wasn\u2019t fit for anything but Registered Laborer. They were \n going to prepare him for that; adjust him to it. He was suddenly certain of it and he had to keep from screaming by \n main force. He stumbled back to his place of waiting. Trevelyan was not there, \n a fact for which he would have been thankful if he had had enough self-possession \n to be meaningfully aware of his surroundings. Hardly anyone was left, \n in fact, and the few who were looked as though they might ask him questions \n were it not that they were too worn out by their tail-of-the-alphabet \n waiting to buck the fierce, hot look of anger and hate he cast at them. What right had they to be technicians and he, himself, a Laborer? \n Laborer! He was certain ! (Profession by Asimov) H e was led by a red-uniformed \n guide along the busy corridors lined with separate rooms each containing \n its groups, here two, there five: the Motor Mechanics, the Construction \n Engineers, the Agronomists \u2014 There were hundreds of specialized \n Professions and most of them would be represented in this small town \n by one or two anyway. He hated them all just then: the Statisticians, the Accountants, the \n lesser breeds and the higher. He hated them because they owned their \n smug knowledge now, knew their fate, while he himself, empty still, had \n to face some kind of further red tape. He reached 15-C, was ushered in and left in an empty room. For one \n moment, his spirits bounded. Surely, if this were the labor classification \n room, there would be dozens of youngsters present. A door sucked into its recess on the other side of a waist-high partition \n and an elderly, white-haired man stepped out. He smiled and showed even \n teeth that were obviously false, but his face was still ruddy and unlined \n and his voice had vigor. He said, \u201cGood evening, George. Our own sector has only one of \n you this time, I see.\u201d \u201cOnly one?\u201d said George blankly. \u201cThousands over the Earth, of course. Thousands. You\u2019re \n not alone.\u201d George felt exasperated. He said, \u201cI don\u2019t understand, \n sir. What\u2019s my classification? What\u2019s happening?\u201d \u201cEasy, son. You\u2019re all right. It could happen to anyone. \n He held out his hand and George took it mechanically. It was warm and \n it pressed George\u2019s hand firmly. \u201cSit down, son. I\u2019m \n Sam Ellenford.\u201d George nodded impatiently. \u201cI want to know what\u2019s going \n on, sir.\u201d \u201cOf course. To begin with, you can\u2019t be a Computer Programmer, \n George. You\u2019ve guessed that I think.\u201d \u201cYes, I have,\u2019 said George bitterly. \u201cWhat will I \n be, then?\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s the hard part to explain, George.\u201d He paused, \n then said with careful distinctness, \u201cNothing.\u201d \u201cWhat!\u201d \u201cNothing!\u201d \u201cBut what does that mean? Why can\u2019t you assign me a profession?\u201d \u201cWe have no choice in the matter, George. It\u2019s the structure \n of your mind that decides that.\u201d George went a sallow yellow. His eyes bulged. \u201cThere\u2019s \n something wrong with my mind?\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s something about it. As far as professional \n classification is concerned, I suppose you can call it wrong.\u201d \u201cBut why?\u201d Ellenford shrugged. \u201cI\u2019m sure you know how Earth runs its \n Educational program, George. Practically any human being can absorb \n practically any body of knowledge, but each individual brain pattern \n is better suited to receiving some types of knowledge than others. We \n try to match mind to knowledge as well as we can within the limits of \n the quota requirements for each profession.\u201d George nodded. \u201cYes, I know.\u201d \u201cEvery once in a while, George, we come up against a young man \n whose mind is not suited to receiving a superimposed knowledge of any \n sort.\u201d \u201cYou mean I can\u2019t be Educated?\u201d \u201cThat is what I mean.\u201d \u201cBut that\u2019s crazy. I\u2019m intelligent. I can understand \n \u2014\u201d He looked helplessly about as though trying to find \n some way of proving that he had a functioning brain. \u201cDon\u2019t misunderstand me, please\u201d, said Ellenford \n gravely. \u201c You\u2019re intelligent. There\u2019s no question \n about that. You\u2019re even above average in intelligence. Unfortunately \n that has nothing to do with whether the mind ought to be allowed to \n accept superimposed knowledge or not. In fact, it is almost always the \n intelligent person who comes here.\u201d \u201cYou mean I can\u2019t even be a Registered Laborer?\u201d \n babbled George. Suddenly even that was better than the blank that faced \n him. \u201cWhat\u2019s there to know to be a Laborer?\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t underestimate the Laborer, young man. There are \n dozens of subclassifications and each variety has its own corpus of \n fairly detailed knowledge. Do you think there\u2019s no skill in knowing \n the proper manner of lifting a weight? Besides, for the Laborer, we \n must select not only minds suited to it but bodies as well. You\u2019re \n not the type, George, to last long as a Laborer.\u201d George was conscious of his slight build. He said, \u201cBut I\u2019ve \n never heard of anyone without a profession.\u201d \u201cThere aren\u2019t many,\u201d conceded Ellenford. \u201cAnd \n we protect them.\u201d \u201cProtect them?\u201d George felt confusion and fright grow higher \n inside him. \u201cYou\u2019re a ward of the planet, George. From the time you \n walked through that door, we\u2019ve been in charge of you.\u201d \n And he smiled. It was a fond smile. To George it seemed the smile of ownership; the \n smile of a grown man for a helpless child. He said, \u201cYou mean, I\u2019m going to be in prison?\u201d \u201cOf course not. You will simply be with others of your kind.\u201d Your kind. The words made a kind of thunder in George\u2019s \n ear. Ellenford said, \u201cYou need special treatment. We\u2019ll take \n care of you.\u201d To George\u2019s own horror, he burst into tears. Ellenford walked \n to the other end of the room and faced away as though in thought. George fought to reduce the agonized weeping to sobs and then to strangle \n those. He thought of his father and mother, of his friends, of Trevelyan, \n of his own shame \u2014 He said rebelliously, \u201cI learned to read.\u201d \u201cEveryone with a whole mind can do that. We\u2019ve never found \n exceptions. It is at this stage that we discover \u2014 exceptions. \n And when you learned to read, George, we were concerned about your mind \n pattern. Certain peculiarities were reported even then by the doctor \n in charge.\u201d \u201cCan\u2019t you try Educating me? You haven\u2019t even tried. \n I\u2019m willing to take the risk.\u201d \u201cThe law forbids us to do that, George. But look, it will not \n be bad. We will explain matters to your family so they will not be hurt. \n At the place to which you\u2019ll be taken, you\u2019ll be allowed \n privileges. We\u2019ll get you books and you can learn what you will.\u201d \u201cDab knowledge in by hand,\u201d said George bitterly. \u201cShred \n by shred. Then, when I die I\u2019ll know enough to be a Registered \n Junior Office Boy, Paper-Clip Division.\u201d \u201cYet I understand you\u2019ve already been studying books.\u201d George froze. He was struck devastatingly by sudden understanding. \n \u201cThat\u2019s it\u201d \u201cWhat is?\u201d \u201cThat fellow Antonelli. He\u2019s knifing me.\u201d \u201cNo, George. You\u2019re quite wrong.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t tell me that.\u201d George was in an ecstasy of \n fury. \u201cThat lousy bastard is selling me out because he thought \n I was a little too wise for him. I read books and tried to get a head \n start toward programming. Well, what do you want to square things? Money? \n You won\u2019t get it. I\u2019m getting out of here and when I finish \n broadcasting this \u2014\u201d He was screaming. Ellenford shook his head and touched a contact. Two men entered on catfeet and got on either side of George. They pinned \n his arms to his sides. One of them used an air-spray hypodermic in the \n hollow of his right elbow and the hypnotic entered his vein and had \n an almost immediate effect. His screams cut off and his head fell forward. His knees buckled and \n only the men on either side kept him erect as he slept. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) T hey took care of George as \n they said they would; they were good to him and unfailingly kind \u2014 \n about the way, George thought, he himself would be to a sick kitten \n he had taken pity on. They told him that he should sit up and take some interest in life; \n and then told him that most people who came there had the same attitude \n of despair at the beginning and that he would snap out of it. He didn\u2019t even hear them. Dr Ellenford himself visited him to tell him that his parents had been \n informed that he was away on special assignment. George muttered, \u201cDo they know \u2014\u201d Ellenford assured him at once,\u201cWe gave no details.\u201d At first George had refused to eat. They fed him intravenously. They \n hid sharp objects and kept him under guard. Hali Omani came to be his \n roommate and his stolidity had a calming effect. One day, out of sheer desperate boredom, George asked for a book. Omani, \n who himself read books constantly, looked up, smiling broadly. George \n almost withdrew the request then, rather than give any of them satisfaction, \n then thought: What do I care? He didn\u2019t specify the book and Omani brought one on chemistry. \n It was in big print, with small words and many illustrations. It was \n for teenagers. He threw the book violently against the wall. That\u2019s what he would be always. A teenager all his life. A pre-Educate \n forever and special books would have to be written for him. He lay smoldering \n in bed, staring at the ceiling, and after an hour had passed, he got \n up sulkily, picked up the book, and began reading. It took him a week to finish it and then he asked for another. \u201cDo you want me to take the first one back?\u201d asked Omani. George frowned. There were things in the book he had not understood, \n yet he was not so lost to shame as to say so. But Omani said, \u201cCome to think of it, you\u2019d better keep \n it. Books are meant to be read and reread.\u201d It was that same day that he finally yielded to Omani\u2019s invitation \n that he tour the place. He dogged at the Nigerian\u2019s feet and took \n in his surroundings with quick hostile glances. The place was no prison certainly. There were no walls, no locked doors, \n no guards. But it was a prison in that the inmates had no place to go \n outside. It was somehow good to see others like himself by the dozen. It was \n so easy to believe himself to be the only one in the world so \u2014 \n maimed. He mumbled, \u201cHow many people here anyway?\u201d \u201cTwo hundred and five, George, and this isn\u2019t the only \n place of the sort in the world. There are thousands.\u201d Men looked up as he passed, wherever he went; in the gymnasium, along \n the tennis courts; through the library (he had never in his life imagined \n books could exist in such numbers; they were stacked, actually stacked, \n along long shelves). They stared at him curiously and he returned the \n looks savagely. At least they were no better than he; no call for them \n to look at him as though he were some son of curiosity. Most of them were in their twenties. George said suddenly, \u201cWhat \n happens to the older ones?\u201d Omani said, \u201cThis place specializes in the younger ones.\u201d \n Then, as though he suddenly recognized an implication in George\u2019s \n question that he had missed earlier, he shook his head gravely and said, \n \u201cThey\u2019re not put out of the way, if that\u2019s what you \n mean. There are other Houses for older ones.\u201d \u201cWho cares?\u201d mumbled George, who felt he was sounding too \n interested and in danger of slipping into surrender. \u201cYou might. As you grow older, you will find yourself in a House \n with occupants of both sexes.\u201d That surprised George somehow. \u201cWomen, too?\u201d \u201cOf course. Do you suppose women are immune to this sort of thing?\u201d George thought of that with more interest and excitement than he had \n felt for anything since before that day when \u2014 \u00a0He forced \n his thought away from that. Omani stopped at the doorway of a room that contained a small closed-circuit \n television set and a desk computer. Five or six men sat about the television. Omani said, \u201cThis is \n a classroom.\u201d George said, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d \u201cThe young men in there are being educated. Not,\u201d he added, \n quickly, \u201cin the usual way.\u201d \u201cYou mean they\u2019re cramming it in bit by bit.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right. This is the way everyone did it in ancient \n times.\u201d This was what they kept telling him since he had come to the House \n but what of it? Suppose there had been a day when mankind had not known \n the diatherm-oven. Did that mean he should be satisfied to eat meat \n raw in a world where others ate it cooked? He said, \u201cWhy do they want to go through that bit-by-bit stuff?\u201d \u201cTo pass the time, George, and because they\u2019re curious.\u201d \u201cWhat good does it do them?\u201d \u201cIt makes them happier.\u201d George carried that thought to bed with him. The next day he said to Omani ungraciously, \u201cCan you get me into \n a classroom where I can find out something about programming?\u201d Omani replied heartily, \u201cSure.\u201d advertisement (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) I t was slow and he resented \n it. Why should someone have to explain something and explain it again? \n Why should he have to read and reread a passage, then stare at a mathematical \n relationship and not understand it at once? That wasn\u2019t how other \n people had to be. Over and over again, he gave up. Once he refused to attend classes \n for a week. But always he returned. The official in charge, who assigned reading, \n conducted the television demonstrations, and even explained difficult \n passages and concepts, never commented on the matter. George was finally given a regular task in the gardens and took his \n turn in the various kitchen and cleaning details. This was represented \n to him as being an advance, but he wasn\u2019t fooled. The place might \n have been far more mechanized than it was, but they deliberately made \n work for the young men in order to give them the illusion of worth-while \n occupation, of usefulness. George wasn\u2019t fooled. They were even paid small sums of money out of which they could buy \n certain specified luxuries or which they could put aside for a problematical \n use in a problematical old age. George kept his money in an open jar, \n which he kept on a closet shelf. He had no idea how much he had accumulated. \n Nor did he care. He made no real friends though he reached the stage where a civil good \n day was in order. He even stopped brooding (or almost stopped) on the \n miscarriage of justice that had placed him there. He would go weeks \n without dreaming of Antonelli, of his gross nose and wattled neck, of \n the leer with which he would push George into a boiling quicksand and \n hold him under, till he woke screaming with Omani bending over him in \n concern. Omani said to him on a snowy day in February, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing \n how you\u2019re adjusting.\u201d But that was February, the thirteenth to be exact, his nineteenth birthday. \n March came, then April, and with the approach of May he realized he \n hadn\u2019t adjusted at all. The previous May had passed unregarded while George was still in his \n bed, drooping and ambitionless. This May was different. All over Earth, George knew, Olympics would be taking place and young \n men would be competing, matching their skills against one another in \n the fight for a place on a new world. There would be the holiday atmosphere, \n the excitement, the news reports, the self-contained recruiting agents \n from the worlds beyond space, the glory of victory or the consolations \n of defeat. How much of fiction dealt with these motifs, how much of his own boyhood \n excitement lay in following the events of Olympics from year to year; \n how many of his own plans \u2014 George Platen could not conceal the longing in his voice. It was too much to suppress. He said, \u201cTomorrow\u2019s the first \n of May. Olympics!\u201d And that led to his first quarrel with Omani and to Omani\u2019s bitter \n enunciation of the exact name of the institution in which George found \n himself. Omani gazed fixedly at George and said distinctly, \u201cA House for \n the Feeble-minded.\u201d (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) G eorge Platen flushed. Feeble-minded! He rejected it desperately. He said in a monotone, \u201cI\u2019m \n leaving.\u201d He said it on impulse. His conscious mind learned \n it first from the statement as he uttered it. Omani, who had returned to his book, looked up. \u201cWhat?\u201d George knew what he was saying now. He said it fiercely, \u201cI\u2019m \n leaving.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous. Sit down, George, calm yourself.\u201d \u201cOh, no. I\u2019m here on a frame-up, I tell you. This doctor, \n Antonelli, took a dislike to me. It\u2019s the sense of power these \n petty bureaucrats have. Cross them and they wipe out your life with \n a stylus mark on some card file.\u201d \u201cAre you back to that?\u201d \u201cAnd staying there till it\u2019s all straightened out. I\u2019m \n going to get to Antonelli somehow, break him, force the truth out \n of him.\u201d George was breathing heavily and he felt feverish. \n Olympics month was here and he couldn\u2019t let it pass. If he did, \n it would be the final surrender and he would be lost for all time. Omani threw his legs over the side of his bed and stood up. He was \n nearly six feet tall and the expression on his face gave him the look \n of a concerned Saint Bernard. He put his arm about George\u2019s \n shoulder, \u201cIf I hurt your feelings \u2014\u201d George shrugged him off. \u201cYou just said what you thought was \n the truth, and I\u2019m going to prove it isn\u2019t the truth, \n that\u2019s all. Why not? The door\u2019s open. There aren\u2019t \n any locks. No one ever said I couldn\u2019t leave. I\u2019ll just \n walk out.\u201d \u201cAll right, but where will you go?\u201d \u201cTo the nearest air terminal, then to the nearest Olympics \n center. I\u2019ve got money.\u201d He seized the open jar that held \n the wages he had put away. Some of the coins jangled to the floor. \u201cThat will last you a week maybe. Then what?\u201d \u201cBy then I\u2019ll have things settled.\u201d \u201cBy then you\u2019ll come crawling back here,\u201d said \n Omani earnestly, \u201cwith all the progress you\u2019ve made to \n do over again. You\u2019re mad, George.\u201d \u201cFeeble-minded is the word you used before.\u201d \u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry I did. Stay here, will you?\u201d \u201cAre you going to try to stop me?\u201d Omani compressed his full lips. \u201cNo, I guess I won\u2019t. \n This is your business. If the only way you can learn is to buck the \n world and come back with blood on your face, go ahead. \u2014 Well, \n go ahead.\u201d George was in the doorway now, looking back over his shoulder. \u201cI\u2019m \n going\u201d \u2014 he came back to pick up his pocket grooming set \n slowly \u2014 \u201cI hope you don\u2019t object to my taking a \n few personal belongings.\u201d Omani shrugged. He was in bed again reading, indifferent. George lingered at the door again, but Omani didn\u2019t look up. \n George gritted his teeth, turned and walked rapidly down the empty \n corridor and out into the night-shrouded grounds. He had expected to be stopped before leaving the grounds. He wasn\u2019t. \n He had stopped at an all-night diner to ask directions to an air terminal \n and expected the proprietor to call the police. That didn\u2019t \n happen. He summoned a skimmer to take him to the airport and the driver \n asked no questions. Yet he felt no lift at that. He arrived at the airport sick at heart. \n He had not realized how the outer world would be. He was surrounded \n by professionals. The diner\u2019s proprietor had had his name inscribed \n on the plastic shell over the cash register. So and so, Registered \n Cook. The man in the skimmer had his license up, Registered Chauffeur. \n George felt the bareness of his name and experienced a kind of nakedness \n because of it worse, he felt skinned. But no one challenged him. No \n one studied him suspiciously and demanded proof of professional rating. George thought bitterly: Who would imagine any human being without \n one? He bought a ticket to San Francisco on the 3 a.m. plane. No other \n plane for a sizable Olympics center was leaving before morning and \n he wanted to wait as little as possible. As it was, he sat huddled \n in the waiting room, watching for the police. They did not come. He was in San Francisco before noon and the noise of the city struck \n him like a blow. This was the largest city he had ever seen and he \n had been used to silence and calm for a year and a half now. Worse, it was Olympics month. He almost forgot his own predicament \n in his sudden awareness that some of the noise, excitement, confusion \n was due to that. The Olympics boards were up at the airport for the benefit of the \n incoming travelers, and crowds jostled around each one. Each major \n profession had its own board. Each listed directions to the Olympics \n Hall where the contest for that day for that profession would be given; \n the individuals competing and their city of birth; the Outworld (if \n any) sponsoring it. It was a completely stylized thing. George had read descriptions \n often enough in the newsprints and films, watched matches on television, \n and even witnessed a small Olympics in the Registered Butcher classification \n at the county seat. Even that, which had no conceivable Galactic implication \n (there was no Outworlder in attendance, of course) aroused excitement \n enough. Partly, the excitement was caused simply by the fact of competition, \n partly by the spur of local pride (oh, when there was a home-town \n boy to cheer for, though he might be a complete stranger), and, of \n course, partly by betting. There was no way of stopping the last. George found it difficult to approach the board. He found himself \n looking at the scurrying, avid onlookers in a new way. There must have been a time when they themselves were Olympic material. \n What had they done? Nothing! If they had been winners, they would be far out in the Galaxy somewhere, \n not stuck here on Earth. Whatever they were, their professions must \n have made them Earth-bait from the beginning; or else they had made \n themselves Earth-bait by inefficiency at whatever high-specialized \n professions they had had. Now these failures stood about and speculated on the chances of newer \n and younger men. Vultures! How he wished they were speculating on him. He moved down the line of boards blankly, clinging to the outskirts \n of the groups about them. He had eaten breakfast on the strato and \n he wasn\u2019t hungry. He was afraid, though. He was in a big city \n during the confusion of the beginning of Olympics competition. That \n was protection, sure. The city was full of strangers. No one would \n question George. No one would care about George. No one would care. Not even the House, thought George bitterly. They \n cared for him like a sick kitten, but if a sick kitten up and wanders \n off, well too bad, what can you do? And now that he was in San Francisco, what did he do? His thoughts \n struck blankly against a wall. See someone? Whom? How? Where would \n he even stay? The money he had left seemed pitiful. The first shamefaced thought of going back came to him. He could \n go to the police \u2014 He shook his head violently as though arguing \n with a material adversary. A word caught his eye on one of the boards, gleaming there: Metallurgist. In smaller letters, nonferrous. At the bottom of a long \n list of names, in flowing script, sponsored by Novia. It induced painful memories: himself arguing with Trevelyan, so certain \n that he himself would be a Programmer, so certain that a Programmer \n was superior to a Metallurgist, so certain that he was following the \n right course, so certain that he was clever \u2014 So clever that he had to boast to that small-minded, vindictive Antonelli. \n He had been so sure of himself that moment when he had been called \n and had left the nervous Trevelyan standing there, so cocksure. George cried out in a short, incoherent high-pitched gasp. Someone \n turned to look at him, then hurried on. People brushed past impatiently \n pushing him this way and that. He remained staring at the board, openmouthed. It was as though the board had answered his thought. He was thinking \n \u2018Trevelyan\u2019 so hard that it had seemed for a moment that \n of course the board would say \u2018Trevelyan\u2019 back at him. But that was Trevelyan, up there. And Armand Trevelyan \n (Stubby\u2019s hated first name: up in lights for everyone to see) \n and the right home town. What\u2019s more, Trev had wanted Novia, \n aimed for Novia, insisted on Novia; and this competition was sponsored \n by Novia. This had to be Trev; good old Trev. Almost without thinking he noted \n the directions for getting to the place of competition and took his \n place in line for a skimmer. Then he thought somberly: Trev made it! He wanted to be a Metallurgist, \n and he made it! George felt colder, more alone than ever. advertisement (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) T here was a line waiting \n to enter the hall. Apparently, Metallurgy Olympics was to be an exciting \n and closely fought one. At least, the illuminated sky sign above the \n ball said so, and the jostling crowd seemed to think so. It would have been a rainy day, George thought, from the color of \n the sky, but San Francisco had drawn the shield across its breadth \n from bay to ocean. It was an expense to do so, of course, but all \n expenses were warranted where the comfort of Outworlders was concerned. \n They would be in town for the Olympics. They were heavy spenders. \n And for each recruit taken, there would be a fee both to Earth, and \n to the local government from the planet sponsoring the Olympics. It \n paid to keep Outworlders in mind of a particular city as a pleasant \n place in which to spend Olympics time. San Francisco knew what it \n was doing. George, lost in thought, was suddenly aware of a gentle pressure \n on his shoulder blade and a voice saving, \u201cAre you in line here, \n young man?\u201d The line had moved up without George\u2019s having noticed the widening \n gap. He stepped forward hastily and muttered, \u201cSorry, sir.\u201d There was the touch of two fingers on the elbow of his jacket and \n he looked about furtively. The man behind him nodded cheerfully. He had iron-gray hair, and \n under his jacket he wore an old-fashioned sweater that buttoned down \n the front. He said, \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to sound sarcastic.\u201d \u201cNo offense.\u201d \u201cAll right, then.\u201d He sounded cozily talkative. \u201cI \n wasn\u2019t sure you might not simply be standing there, entangled \n with the line, so to speak. only by accident. I thought you might \n be a \u2014\u201d \u201cA what?\u201d said George sharply. \u201cWhy, a contestant, \n of course. You look young.\u201d George turned away. He felt neither \n cozy nor talkative, and bitterly impatient with busybodies. A thought struck him. Had an alarm been sent out for him? Was his \n description known, or his picture? Was Gray-hair behind him trying \n to get a good look at his face? He hadn\u2019t seen any news reports. He craned his neck to see \n the moving strip of news headlines parading across one section of \n the city shield, somewhat lackluster against the gray of the cloudy \n afternoon sky. It was no use. He gave up at once. The headlines would \n never concern themselves with him. This was Olympics time and the \n only news worth headlining was the comparative scores of the winners \n and the trophies won by continents, nations, and cities. It would go on like that for weeks, with scores calculated on a per \n capita basis and every city finding some way of calculating itself \n into a position of honor. His own town had once placed third in an \n Olympics covering Wiring Technician; third in the whole state. There \n was still a plaque saying so in Town Hall. George hunched his head between his shoulders and shoved his hands \n in his pocket and decided that made him more noticeable. He relaxed \n and tried to look unconcerned, and felt no safer. He was in the lobby \n now, and no authoritative hand had yet been laid on his shoulder. \n 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 \n him. He looked away quickly and tried reasoning with himself. The \n man had been right behind him in line after all. Gray-hair, beyond a brief and tentative smile, paid no attention \n to him and, besides, the Olympics was about to start. George rose \n in his seat to see if he could make out the position assigned to Trevelyan \n and at the moment that was all his concern. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) T he hall was moderate in size \n and shaped in the classical long oval with the spectators in the two \n balconies running completely about the rim and the contestants in the \n linear trough down the center. The machines were set up, the progress \n boards above each bench were dark, except for the name and contest number \n of each man. The contestants themselves were on the scene, reading, \n talking together; one was checking his fingernails minutely.(It was, \n of course, considered bad form for any contestant to pay any attention \n to the problem before him until the instant of the starting signal.) George studied the program sheet he found in the appropriate slot in \n the arm of his chair and found Trevelyan\u2019s name. His number was \n twelve and, to George\u2019s chagrin, that was at the wrong end of \n the hall. He could make out the figure of Contestant Twelve, standing \n with his hands in his pockets, back to his machine, and staring at the \n audience as though he were counting the house. George couldn\u2019t \n make out the face. Still that was Trev. George sank back in his seat. He wondered if Trev would do well. He \n hoped, as a matter of conscious duty, that he would, and yet there was \n something within him that felt rebelliously resentful. George, professionless, \n here, watching. Trevelyan, Registered Metallurgist, Nonferrous, there, \n competing. George wondered if Trevelyan had competed in his first year. Sometimes \n men did, if they felt particularly confident \u2014 or hurried. It \n involved a certain risk. However efficient the Educative process, a \n preliminary year on Earth ('oiling the stiff knowledge\u2019, as the \n expression went) insured a higher score. If Trevelyan was repeating, maybe he wasn\u2019t doing so well. George \n felt ashamed that the thought pleased him just a bit. He looked about. The stands were almost full. This would be a well-attended \n Olympics, which meant greater strain on the contestants \u2014 or greater \n drive, perhaps, depending on the individual. Why Olympics, he thought suddenly? He had never known. Why was bread \n called bread? Once he had asked his father: \u201cWhy do they call it Olympics, \n Dad?\u201d And his father had said: \u201cOlympics means competition.\u201d George had said: \u201cIs when Stubby and I fight an Olympics, Dad?\u201d Platen, Senior, had said: \u201cNo. Olympics is a special kind of \n competition and don\u2019t ask silly questions. You\u2019ll know all \n you have to know when you get Educated.\u201d 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. \u201cWhen you get Educated.\u201d \n No one ever said, \u201cIf you get Educated.\u201d He always had asked silly questions, it seemed to him now. It was as \n though his mind had some instinctive foreknowledge of its inability \n to be Educated and had gone about asking questions in order to pick \n up scraps here and there as best it could. And at the House they encouraged him to do so because They agreed with \n his mind\u2019s instinct. It was the only way. He sat up suddenly. What the devil was he doing? Falling for that lie? \n Was it because Trev was there before him, an Educee, competing in the \n Olympics that he himself was surrendering? He wasn\u2019t feeble-minded! No! And the shout of denial in his mind was echoed by the sudden clamor \n in the audience as everyone got to his feet. The box seat in the very \n center of one long side of the oval was filling with an entourage wearing \n the colors of Novia, and the word \u2018Novia\u2019 went up above \n them on the main board. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) N ovia was a Grade A world with a large population \n and a thoroughly developed civilization, perhaps the best in the Galaxy. \n It was the kind of world that every Earthman wanted to live in someday; \n or, failing that to see his children live in. (George remembered Trevelyan\u2019s \n insistence on Novia as a goal \u2014 and there he was competing for \n it.) The lights went out in that section of the ceiling above the audience \n and so did the wall lights. The central trough, in which the contestants \n waited, became floodlit. Again George tried to make out Trevelyan. Too far. The clear, polished voice of the announcer sounded. \u201cDistinguished \n Novian sponsors. Ladies. Gentlemen. The Olympics competition for Metallurgist, \n Nonferrous, is about to begin. The contestants are \u2014\u201d Carefully and conscientiously, he read off the list in the program. \n Names. Home towns. Educative years. Each name received its cheers, \n the San Franciscans among them receiving the loudest. When Trevelyan\u2019s \n name was reached, George surprised himself by shouting and waving \n madly. The gray-haired man next to him surprised him even more by \n cheering likewise. George could not help but stare in astonishment and his neighbor \n leaned over to say (speaking loudly in order to be heard over the \n hubbub), \u201cNo one here from my home town; I\u2019ll root for \n yours. Someone you know?\u201d George shrank back. \u201cNo.\u201d \u201cI noticed you looking in that direction. Would you like to \n borrow my glasses?\u201d \u201cNo. Thank you.\u201d (Why didn\u2019t the old fool mind \n his own business?) The announcer went on with other formal details concerning the serial \n number of the competition, the method of timing and scoring and so \n on. Finally, he approached the meat of the matter and the audience \n grew silent as it listened. \u201cEach contestant will be supplied with a bar of nonferrous \n alloy of unspecified composition. He will be required to sample and \n assay the bar, reporting all results correctly to four decimals in \n per cent. All will utilize for this purpose a Beeman Microspectrograph \n Model FX-2, each of which is, at the moment, not in working order.\u201d There was an appreciative shout from the audience. \u201cEach contestant will be required to analyze the fault of his \n machine and correct it. Tools and spare parts are supplied. The spare \n part necessary may not be present, in which case it must be asked \n for, and time of delivery thereof will be deducted from final time. \n Are all contestants ready?\u201d The board above Contestant Five flashed a frantic red signal. Contestant \n Five ran off the floor and returned a moment later. The audience laughed \n good-naturedly. \u201cAre all contestants ready?\u201d The boards remained blank. \u201cAny questions\u201d Still blank. \u201cYou may begin.\u201d (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) T here was, of course, no way \n anyone in the audience could tell how any contestant was progressing \n except for whatever notations went up on the notice board. But then, \n that didn\u2019t matter. Except for what professional Metallurgists \n there might be in the audience, none would understand anything about \n the contest professionally in any case. What was important was who won, \n who was second, who was third. For those who had bets on the standings \n (illegal but unpreventable) that was all-important. Everything else \n might go hang. George watched as eagerly as the rest, glancing from one contestant \n to the next, observing how this one had removed the cover from his microspectrograph \n with deft strokes of a small instrument; how that one was peering into \n the face of the thing; how still a third was setting his alloy bar into \n its holder; and how a fourth adjusted a vernier with such small touches \n that he seemed momentarily frozen. Trevelyan was as absorbed as the rest. George had no way of telling \n 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. \n If the latter, he would have to correct his diagnosis later and lose \n time. Or he might never correct his diagnosis and be unable to complete \n 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 \n finally: \u2018Sample holder off-center. New clamp depresser needed.\u2019 An attendant went running to him with a new pan. If Trevelyan was wrong, \n it would mean useless delay. Nor would the time elapsed in waiting for \n the pan be deducted. George found himself holding his breath. Results were beginning to go up on Board Seventeen, in gleaming letters: \n 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, \n then wondered if that were not even a good thing. A first-class technician \n should work best under pressure. Seventeen rose from his place as his board went red-rimmed to signify \n completion. Four was only two seconds behind him. Another, then another. Trevelyan was still working, the minor constituents of his alloy bar \n still unreported. With nearly all contestants standing, Trevelyan finally \n rose, also. Then, tailing off, Five rose, and received an ironic cheer. It wasn\u2019t over. Official announcements were naturally delayed. \n Time elapsed was something, but accuracy was just as important. And \n not all diagnoses were of equal difficulty. A dozen factors had to be \n weighed. Finally, the announcer\u2019s voice sounded, \u201cWinner in the \n time of four minutes and twelve seconds, diagnosis correct, analysis \n correct within an average of zero point seven parts per hundred thousand, \n Contestant Number \u2014 Seventeen , Henry Anton Schrnidt of \n \u2014\u201d What followed was drowned in the screaming. Number Eight was next and \n then Four, whose good time was spoiled by a five part in ten thousand \n error in the niobium figure. Twelve was never mentioned. He was an also-ran. \n George made his way through the crowd to the Contestant\u2019s Door \n and found a large clot of humanity ahead of him. There would be weeping \n relatives (joy or sorrow, depending) to greet them, newsmen to interview \n the top-scorers, or the home-town boys, autograph hounds, publicity \n seekers and the just plain curious. Girls, too, who might hope to catch \n the eye of a top-scorer, almost certainly headed for Novia (or perhaps \n 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 \n from home, it seemed pretty safe to assume that there would be no relatives \n to condole with Trev on the spot. Contestants emerged, smiling weakly, nodding at shouts of approval. \n Policemen kept the crowds far enough away to allow a lane for walking. \n Each high-scorer drew a portion of the crowd off with him, like a magnet \n pushing through a mound of iron filings. When Trevelyan walked out, scarcely anyone was left. (George felt somehow \n that he had delayed coming out until just that had come to pass.) There \n was a cigarette in his dour mouth and he turned, eyes downcast, to walk \n off. It was the first hint of home George had had in what was almost \n a year and a half and seemed almost a decade and a half. He was almost \n amazed that Trevelyan hadn\u2019t aged, that he was the same Trev he \n had last seen. George sprang forward. \u201cTrev!\u201d Trevelyan spun about, astonished. He stared at George and then his \n hand shot out. \u201cGeorge Platen, what the devil \u2014 \n \u201d And almost as soon as the look of pleasure had crossed his face, It \n left. His hand dropped before George had quite the chance of seizing \n it. \u201cWere you in there?\u2019 A curt jerk of Trev\u2019s head indicated \n the hall. \u201cI was.\u201d \u201cTo see me?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cDidn\u2019t do so well did I?\u201d He dropped his cigarette \n and stepped on it, staring off to the street, where the emerging crowd \n was slowly eddying and finding its way into skimmers, while new lines \n were forming for the next scheduled Olympics. Trevelyan said heavily, \u201cSo what? It\u2019s only the second \n time I missed. Novia can go shove after the deal I got today. There \n are planets that would jump at me fast enough \u2014 But, listen, I \n haven\u2019t seen you since Education Day. Where did you go? Your folks \n said you were on special assignment but gave no details and you never \n wrote. You might have written.\u201d \u201cI should have,\u201d said George uneasily. \u201cAnyway, I \n came to say I was sorry the way things went just now.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t be,\u201d said Trevelyan. \u201cI told you. Novia \n can go shove \u2014 At that I should have known. They've been saying \n for weeks that the Beeman machine would be used. All the wise money \n was on Beeman machines. The damned Education tapes they ran through \n me were for Henslers and who uses Henslers? The worlds in the Goman \n Cluster if you want to call them worlds. Wasn\u2019t that a \n nice deal they gave me?\u201d \u201cCan\u2019t you complain to \u2014\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t be a fool. They\u2019ll tell me my brain was built \n for Henslers. Go argue. Everything went wrong. I was the only \n one who had to send out for a piece of equipment. Notice that?\u201d \u201cThey deducted the time for that, though.\u201d \u201cSure, but I lost time wondering if I could be right in my diagnosis \n when I noticed there wasn\u2019t any clamp depresser in the parts they \n had supplied. They don\u2019t deduct for that. If it had been a Hensler, \n I would have known I was right. How could I match up then? \n The top winner was a San Franciscan. So were three of the next four. \n And the fifth guy was from Los Angeles. They get big-city Educational \n tapes. The best available. Beeman spectrographs and all. How do I compete \n with them? I came all the way out here just to get a chance at a Novian-sponsored \n Olympics in my classification and I might just as well have stayed home. \n I knew it, I tell you, and that settles it. Novia isn\u2019t the only \n chunk of rock in space. Of all the damned \u2014\u201d He wasn\u2019t speaking to George. He wasn\u2019t speaking to anyone. \n He was just uncorked and frothing. George realized that. George said, \u201cIf you knew in advance that the Beemans were going \n to be used, couldn\u2019t you have studied up on them?\u201d \u201cThey weren\u2019t in my tapes, I tell you.\u201d \u201cYou could have read \u2014 books.\u201d The last word had tailed off under Trevelyan\u2019s suddenly sharp \n look. Trevelyan said, \u201cAre you trying to make a big laugh out of this? \n You think this is funny? How do you expect me to read some book and \n try to memorize enough to match someone else who knows .\u201d \u201cI thought \u2014\u201d \u201cYou try it. You try \u2014\u201d Then, suddenly, \u201cWhat\u2019s \n your profession, by the way?\u201d He sounded thoroughly hostile. \u201cWell \u2014\u201d \u201cCome on, now. If you\u2019re going to be a wise guy with me, \n let\u2019s see what you\u2019ve done. You\u2019re still on Earth, \n I notice, so you\u2019re not a Computer Programmer and your special \n assignment can\u2019t be much.\u201d George said, \u201cListen, Trev, I\u2019m late for an appointment.\u201d \n He backed away, trying to smile. \u201cNo, you don\u2019t.\u201d Trevelyan reached out fiercely, \n catching hold of George\u2019s jacket. \u201cYou answer my question. \n Why are you afraid to tell me? What is it with you? Don\u2019t come \n here rubbing a bad showing in my face, George, unless you can take it, \n too. Do you hear me?\u201d He was shaking George in frenzy and they were struggling and swaying \n across the floor, when the Voice of Doom struck George\u2019s ear in \n the form of a policeman\u2019s outraged call. \u201cAll right now. All right. Break it up.\u201d George\u2019s heart turned to lead and lurched sickeningly. The policeman \n would be taking names, asking to see identity cards, and George lacked \n one. He would be questioned and his lack of profession would show at \n once; and before Trevelyan, too, who ached with the pain of the drubbing \n he had taken and would spread the news back home as a salve for his \n own hurt feelings. George couldn\u2019t stand that. He broke away from Trevelyan and \n made to run, but the policeman\u2019s heavy hand was on his shoulder. \n \u201cHold on there. Let\u2019s see your identity card.\u201d \u201cTrevelyan was fumbling for his, saying harshly, \u201cI\u2019m \n Amand Trevelyan, Metallurgist, Nonferrous. I was just competing in the \n Olympics. You better find out about him, though, officer.\u201d George faced the two, lips dry and throat thickened past speech. Another voice sounded, quiet, well-mannered. \u201cOfficer. One moment.\u201d The policeman stepped back. \u201cYes, sir?\u201d \u201cThis young man is my guest. What is the trouble?\u201d George looked about in wild surprise. It was the gray-haired man who \n had been sitting next to him. Gray-hair nodded benignly at George. Guest? Was he mad? The policeman was saying, \u201cThese two were creating a disturbance, \n sir.\u201d \u201cAny criminal charges? Any damages?\u201d \u201cNo, sir.\u201d \u201cWell, then, I\u2019ll be responsible.\u201d He presented a \n small card to the policeman\u2019s view and the latter stepped back \n at once. Trevelyan began indignantly, \u201cHold on, now \u2014\u201d but \n the policeman turned on him. \u201cAll right, now. Got any charges?\u201d \u201cI just \u2014\u201d \u201cOn your way. The rest of you \u2014 move on.\u201d A sizable \n crowd had gathered, which now, reluctantly, unknotted itself and raveled \n away. George let himself be led to a skimmer but balked at entering. He said, \u201cThank you, but I\u2019m not your guest.\u201d (Could \n it be a ridiculous case of mistaken identity?) But Gray-hair smiled and said, \u201cYou weren\u2019t but you are \n now. Let me introduce myself, I\u2019m Ladislas Ingenescu, Registered \n Historian.\u201d \u201cBut \u2014\u201d \u201cCome, you will come to no harm, I assure you. After all, I only \n wanted to spare you some trouble with a policeman.\u201d \u201cBut why?\u201d \u201cDo you want a reason? Well, then, say that we\u2019re honorary \n towns-mates, you and I. We both shouted for the same man, remember, \n and we towns-people must stick together, even if the tie is only honorary. \n Eh?\u201d And George, completely unsure of this man, Ingenescu, and of himself \n as well, found himself inside the skimmer. Before he could make up his \n mind that he ought to get off again, they were off the ground. He thought confusedly: The man has some status. The policeman deferred \n to him. He was almost forgetting that his real purpose here in San Francisco \n was not to find Trevelyan but to find some person with enough influence \n to force a reappraisal of his own capacity of Education. It could be that Ingenescu was such a man. And right in George\u2019s \n lap. Everything could be working out fine \u2014 fine. Yet it sounded hollow \n in his thought. He was uneasy. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) D uring the short skimmer-hop, \n Ingenescu kept up an even flow of small talk, pointing out the landmarks \n of the city, reminiscing about past Olympics he had seen. George, who \n paid just enough attention to make vague sounds during the pauses, watched \n 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, \n Ingenescu said, \u201cI hope you\u2019ll eat dinner with me in my \n room?\u201d George said, \u201cYes,\u201d and grinned unaffectedly. He was just \n 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 \n went on automatically. (George thought: I\u2019ve been on my own almost \n twenty-four hours.) And then over the coffee, Ingenescu finally spoke again. He said, \u201cYou\u2019ve \n been acting as though you think I intend you harm.\u201d George reddened, put down his cup and tried to deny it, but the older \n man laughed and shook his head. \u201cIt\u2019s so. I\u2019ve been watching you closely since I \n first saw you and I think I know a great deal about you now.\u201d George half rose in horror. Ingenescu said, \u201cBut sit down. I only want to help you.\u201d George sat down but his thoughts were in a whirl. If the old man knew \n who he was, why had he not left him to the policeman? On the other hand, \n why should he volunteer help? Ingenescu said, \u201cYou want to know why I should want to help you? \n Oh, don\u2019t look alarmed. I can\u2019t read minds. It\u2019s just \n that my training enables me to judge the little reactions that give \n minds away, you see. Do you understand that?\u201d George shook his head. Ingenescu said, \u201cConsider my first sight of you. You were waiting \n in line to watch an Olympics, and your micro-reactions didn\u2019t \n match what you were doing. The expression of your face was wrong, the \n action of your hands was wrong. It meant that something, in general \n was wrong, and the interesting thing was that, whatever it was, it was \n nothing common, nothing obvious. Perhaps, I thought, it was something \n of which your own conscious mind was unaware.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cI couldn\u2019t help but follow you, sit next to you. I followed \n you again when you left and eavesdropped on the conversation between \n your friend and yourself. After that, well, you were far too interesting \n an object of study \u2014 I\u2019m sorry if that sounds cold-blooded \n \u2014 for me to allow you to be taken off by a policeman. \u2014 \n Now tell me, what is it that troubles you?\u201d George was in an agony of indecision. If this was a trap, why should \n it be such an indirect, roundabout one? And he had to turn \n to someone. He had come to the city to find help and here was help being \n offered. Perhaps what was wrong was that it was being offered. It came \n too easy. Ingenescu said, \u201cOf course, what you tell me as a Social Scientist \n is a privileged communication. Do you know what that means?\u201d \u201cNo, sir.\u201d \u201cIt means, it would be dishonorable for me to repeat what you \n say to anyone for any purpose. Moreover no one has the legal right to \n compel me to repeat it.\u201d George said, with sudden suspicion, \u201cI thought you were a Historian.\u201d \u201cSo I am.\u201d \u201cJust now you said you were a Social Scientist.\u201d lngenescu broke into loud laughter and apologized for it when he could \n talk. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, young man, I shouldn\u2019t laugh, and \n I wasn\u2019t really laughing at you. I was laughing at Earth and its \n emphasis on physical science, and the practical segments of it at that. \n I\u2019ll bet you can rattle off every subdivision of construction \n technology or mechanical engineering and yet you\u2019re a blank on \n social science.\u201d \u201cWell, then what is social science?\u201d \u201cSocial science studies groups of human beings and there are \n many high-specialized branches to it, just as there are to zoology, \n for instance. For instance, there are Culturists, who study the mechanics \n of cultures, their growth, development, and decay. Cultures,\u2019 \n he added, forestalling a question, \u201care all the aspects of a way \n of life. For instance it includes the way we make our living, the things \n we enjoy and believe, what we consider good and bad and so on. Do you \n understand?\u201d \u201cI think I do.\u201d \u201cAn Economist \u2014 not an Economic Statistician, now, but \n an Economist \u2014 specializes in the study of the way a culture supplies \n the bodily needs of its individual members. A psychologist specializes \n in the individual member of a society and how he is affected by the \n society. A Futurist specializes in planning the future course of a society, \n and a Historian \u2014 That\u2019s where I come in, now.\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cA Historian specializes in the past development of our own society \n and of societies with other cultures.\u201d George found himself interested. \u201cWas it different in the past?\u201d \u201cI should say it was. Until a thousand years ago, there was no \n Education; not what we call Education, at least.\u201d George said, \u201cI know. People learned in bits and pieces out of \n books.\u201d \u201cWhy, how do you know this?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve heard it said,\u2019 said George cautiously. Then, \n \u201cIs there any use in worrying about what\u2019s happened long \n ago? I mean, it\u2019s all done with, isn\u2019t it?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s never done with, my boy. The past explains the present. \n For instance, why is our Educational system what it is?\u201d George stirred restlessly. The man kept bringing the subject back to \n that. He said snappishly, \u201cBecause it\u2019s best.\u201d \u201cAh, but why is it best? Now you listen to me for one moment \n and I\u2019ll explain. Then you can tell me if there is any use in \n history. Even before interstellar travel was developed \u2014\u201d \n He broke off at the look of complete astonishment on George\u2019s \n face. \u201cWell, did you think we always had it?\u201d \u201cI never gave it any thought, sir.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sure you didn\u2019t. But there was a time, four \n or five thousand years ago, when mankind was confined to the surface \n of Earth. Even then, his culture had grown quite technological and his \n numbers had increased to the point where any failure in technology would \n have meant mass starvation and disease. To maintain the technological \n level and advance it in the face of an increasing population, more and \n more technicians and scientists had to be trained, and yet, as science \n advanced, it took longer and longer to train them.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cAs first interplanetary and then interstellar travel was developed, \n the problem grew more acute. In fact, actual colonization of extra-Solar \n planets was impossible for about fifteen hundred years because of lack \n of properly trained men.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cThe turning point came when the mechanics of the storage of knowledge \n within the brain was worked out. Once that had been done, it became \n possible to devise Educational tapes that would modify the mechanics \n in such a way as to place within the mind a body of knowledge ready-made \n so to speak. But you know about that.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cOnce that was done, trained men could be turned out by the \n thousands and millions, and we could begin what someone has since called \n the \u2018Filling of the Universe.\u2019 There are now fifteen hundred \n inhabited planets in the Galaxy and there is no end in sight.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cDo you see all that is involved? Earth exports Education tapes \n for low-specialized professions and that keeps the Galactic culture \n unified. For instance, the Reading tapes insure a single language for \n all of us. \u2014 Don\u2019t look so surprised, other languages are \n possible and in the past were used. Hundreds of them.(Profession by Asimov) \u201cEarth also exports high-specialized professionals and keeps its \n own population at an endurable level. Since they are shipped out in \n a balanced sex ratio, they act as self-reproductive units and help increase \n the populations on the Outworlds where an increase is needed. Furthermore, \n tapes and men are paid for in material which we much need and on which \n our economy depends. Now do you understand why our Education \n is the best way?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cDoes it help you to understand knowing that without it, interstellar \n colonization was impossible for fifteen hundred years?\u201d \u201cYes, sir.\u201d \u201cThen you see the uses of history.\u201d The Historian smiled. \n \u201c And now I wonder if you see why I\u2019m interested in you?\u201d George snapped out of time and space back to reality. Ingenescu, apparently, \n didn\u2019t talk aimlessly. All this lecture had been a device to attack \n him from a new angle. He said, once again withdrawn, hesitating, \u201cWhy?\u201d \u201cSocial Scientists work with societies and societies are made \n up of people.\u201d \u201cAll right.\u201d \u201cBut people aren\u2019t machines. The professionals in physical \n science work with machines. There is only a limited amount to know about \n a machine and the professionals know it all. Furthermore, all machines \n of given sort are just about alike so that there is nothing to interest \n them in any given individual machine. But people, ah \u2014 They are \n so complex and so different one from another that a Social Scientist \n never knows all there is to know or even a good part of what there is \n to know. To understand his own specialty, he must always be ready to \n study people; particularly unusual specimens.\u201d \u201cLike me,\u2019 said George tonelessly. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t call you a specimen, I suppose, but you are \n unusual. You\u2019re worth studying, and If you will allow me that \n privilege then, in return, I will help you if you are in trouble and \n if I can.\u201d There were pin wheels whirring in George\u2019s mind. \u2014 All \n this talk about people and colonization made possible by Education. \n It was as though caked thought within him were being broken up and strewn \n about mercilessly. He said, \u201cLet me think,\u201d and clamped his hands over his \n ears. He took them away and said to the Historian, \u201cWill you do something \n for me, sir?\u201d \u201cIf I can,\u201d said the Historian amiably. \u201cAnd everything I say in this room is a privileged communication. \n You said so.\u201d \u201cAnd I meant it.\u201d \u201cThen get me an interview with an Outworld official with \u2014 \n with a Novian.\u201d Ingenescu looked startled. \u201cWell, now \u2014\u201d \u201cYou can do it,\u2019 said George earnestly. \u201cYou\u2019re \n an important official. I saw the policeman\u2019s look when you put \n that card in front of his eyes. If you refuse, I \u2014 I won\u2019t \n let you study me.\u201d It sounded a silly threat in George\u2019s own ears, one without force. \n On Ingenescu, however, it seemed to have a strong effect. He said, \u201cThat\u2019s an impossible condition. A Novian in Olympics \n month \u2014\u201d \u201cAll right, then, get me a Novian on the phone and I\u2019ll \n my own arrangements for an interview.\u201d \u201cDo you think you can?\u201d \u201cI know I can. Wait and see.\u201d Ingenescu stared at George thoughtfully and then reached for the visiphone. George waited, half drunk with this new outlook on the \n whole problem and the sense of power it brought. It couldn\u2019t miss. \n It couldn\u2019t miss. He would be a Novian yet. He would \n leave Earth in triumph despite Antonelli and the whole crew of fools \n at the House for the (he almost laughed aloud) Feeble-minded. advertisement (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) G eorge watched eagerly as \n the visiplate lit up. It would open up a window into a room of Novians, \n a window into a small patch of Novia transplanted to Earth. In twenty-four \n hours, he had accomplished that much. There was a burst of laughter as the plate unmisted and sharpened, \n but for the moment no single head could be seen but rather the fast \n passing of the shadows of men and women, this way and that. A voice \n was heard, clearworded over a background of babble. \u201cIngenescu? \n He wants me?\u201d Then there he was, staring out of the plate. A Novian. A genuine Novian. \n (George had not an atom of doubt. There was something completely Outworldly \n about him. Nothing that could be completely defined, or even momentarily \n mistaken.) He was swarthy in complexion with a dark wave of hair combed rigidly \n back from his forehead. He wore a thin black mustache and a pointed \n beard, just as dark, that scarcely reached below the lower limit of \n his narrow chin, but the rest of his face was so smooth that it looked \n a though it had been depilated permanently. He was smiling. \u201cLadislas, this goes too far. We fully expect \n to be spied on, within reason, during our stay on Earth, but mind reading \n is out of bounds.\u201d \u201cMind reading, Honorable?\u201d \u201cConfess! You knew I was going to call you this evening. You \n knew I was only waiting to finish this drink.\u201d His moved up into \n view and his eye peered through a glass of a faintly violet liqueur. \n \u201cI can\u2019t offer you one, afraid.\u201d George, out of range of Ingenescu\u2019s transmitter, could not be \n seen by the Novian. He was relieved at that. He wanted time to compose \n himself and he needed it badly. It was as though he were made up exclusively \n of restless fingers, drumming, drumming \u2014 But he was right. He hadn\u2019t miscalculated. Ingenescu was important. The Novian called him by his first name. Good! Things worked well. What George had lost on Antonelli, he would \n make up, with advantage, on Ingenescu. And someday, when he was on his \n own at last, and could come back to Earth as powerful a Novian as this \n one who could negligently joke with Ingenescu\u2019s first name and \n be addressed as \u2018Honorable\u2019 in turn \u2014 when he came \n back, he would settle with Antonelli. He had a year and a half to pay \n back and he \u2014 He all but lost his balance on the brink of the enticing daydream and \n snapped back in sudden anxious realization that he was losing the thread \n of what was going on. The Novian was saying, \u201c\u2014 doesn\u2019t hold water. Novia \n has a civilization as complicated and advanced as Earth\u2019s. We\u2019re \n not Zeston, after all. It\u2019s ridiculous that we have to come here \n for individual technicians.\u201d Ingenescu said soothingly, \u201cOnly for new models. There is never \n any certainty that new models will be needed. To buy the Educational \n tapes would cost you the same price as a thousand technicians and how \n do you know you would need that many?\u201d The Novian tossed off what remained of his drink and laughed. (It displeased \n George, somehow, that a Novian should be this frivolous. He wondered \n uneasily if perhaps the Novian ought not to have skipped that drink \n and even the one or two before that.) The Novian said, 'That\u2019s typical pious fraud, Ladislas. You know \n we can make use of all the late models we can. I collected five Metallurgists \n this afternoon \u2014\u201d \u201cI know,\u2019 said Ingenescu. \u201cI was there.\u201d \u201cWatching me! Spying!\u201d cried the Novian. \u201cI\u2019ll \n tell you What it is. The new-model Metallurgists I got differed from \n the previous model only in knowing the use of Beeman Spectrographs. \n The tapes couldn\u2019t be modified that much, not that much\u201d \n (he held up two fingers close together) \u201cfrom last year\u2019s \n model. You introduce the new models only to make us buy and \n spend and come here hat in hand.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t make you buy.\u201d \u201cNo, but you sell late-model technicians to Landonum and so we \n have to keep pace. It\u2019s a merry-go-round you have us on, you pious \n Earthmen, but watch out, there may be an exit somewhere.\u201d There \n was a sharp edge to his laugh, and it ended sooner than it should have. Ingenescu said, \u201cIn all honesty, I hope there is. Meanwhile, \n as to the purpose of my call-\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s right, you called. Oh, well, I\u2019ve \n said my say and I suppose next year there\u2019ll be a new model of \n Metallurgist anyway for us to spend goods on, probably with a new gimmick \n for niobium assays and nothing else altered and the next year \u2014 \n But go on, what is it you want?\u201d \u201cI have a young man here to whom I wish you to speak.\u201d \u201cOh?\u201d The Novian looked not completely pleased with that. \n \u201c Concerning what?\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t say. He hasn\u2019t told me. For that matter \n he hasn\u2019t even told me his name and profession.\u201d The Novian frowned. \u201cThen why take up my time?\u201d \u201cHe seems quite confident that you will be interested in what \n he has to say.\u201d \u201cI dare say.\u201d \u201cAnd,\u201d said Ingenescu, \u201cas a favor to me.\u201d The Novian shrugged. \u201cPut him on and tell him to make it short.\u201d Ingenescu stepped aside and whispered to George,\u201cAddress him \n as \u2018Honorable\u2019.\u201d George swallowed with difficulty. This was it. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) G eorge felt himself going \n moist with perspiration. The thought had come so recently, yet it was \n in him now so certainly. The beginnings of it had come when he had spoken \n to Trevelyan, then everything had fermented and billowed into shape \n while Ingenescu had prattled, and then the Novian\u2019s own remarks \n had seemed to nail it all into place. George said, \u201cHonorable, I\u2019ve come to show you the exit \n from the merry-go-round.\u201d Deliberately, he adopted the Novian\u2019s \n own metaphor. The Novian stared at him gravely. \u201cWhat merry-go-round?\u201d \u201cYou yourself mentioned it, Honorable. The merry-go-round that \n Novia is on when you come to Earth to \u2014 to get technicians.\u201d \n (He couldn\u2019t keep his teeth from chattering; from excitement not \n fear.) The Novian said, \u201cYou\u2019re trying to say that you know a \n way by which we can avoid patronizing Earth\u2019s mental super-market. \n Is that it?\u201d \u201cYes, sir. You can control your own Educational system.\u201d \u201cUmm. Without tapes?\u201d \u201cY \u2014 yes, Honorable.\u201d The Novian, without taking his eyes from George, called out, \u201cIngenescu, \n get into view.\u201d The Historian moved to where he could be seen over George\u2019s shoulder. The Novian said, \u201cWhat is this? I don\u2019t seem to penetrate.\u201d \u201cI assure you solemnly,\u201d said Ingenescu, \u201cthat whatever \n this is it is being done on the young man\u2019s own initiative, Honorable. \n I have not inspired this. I have nothing to do with it.\u201d \u201cWell, then, what is the young man to you? Why do you call me \n on his behalf?\u201d Ingenescu said, \u201cHe is an object of study, Honorable. He has \n value to me and I humor him.\u201d \u201cWhat kind of value?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to explain; a matter of my profession.\u201d \n The Novian laughed shortly. \u201cWell, to each his profession.\u201d \n He nodded to an invisible person or persons outside plate range. \u201cThere\u2019s \n a young man here, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Ingenescu or some such \n thing, who will explain to us how to Educate without tapes.\u201d He \n snapped his fingers, and another glass of pale liqueur appeared in his \n hand. \u201cWell, young man?\u201d The faces on the plate were multiple now. Men and women, both, crammed \n in for a view of George, their faces molded into various shades of amusement \n and curiosity. George tried to look disdainful. They were all, in their own ways, \n Novians as well as the Earthman, \u2018studying\u2019 him as though \n he were a bug on a pin. Ingenescu was sitting in a corner, now, watching \n him owl-eyed. Fools, he thought tensely, one and all. But they would have to understand. \n He would make them understand. He said, \u201cI was at the Metallurgist Olympics this afternoon.\u201d \u201cYou, too?\u2019 said the Novian blandly. \u201cIt seems all \n Earth was there.\u201d \u201cNo, Honorable, but I was. I had a friend who competed and who \n made out very badly because you were using the Beeman machines. His \n education had included only the Henslers, apparently an older model. \n You said the modification involved was slight.\u201d George held up \n two fingers close together in conscious mimicry of the other\u2019s \n previous gesture. \u201cAnd my friend had known some time in advance \n that knowledge of the Beeman machines would be required.\u201d \u201cAnd what does that signify?\u201d \u201cIt was my friend\u2019s lifelong ambition to qualify for Novia. \n He already knew the Henslers. He had to know the Beemans to qualify \n and he knew that. To learn about the Beemans would have taken just a \n few more facts, a bit more data, a small amount of practice perhaps. \n With a life\u2019s ambition riding the scale, he might have managed \n this \u2014\u201d \u201cAnd where would he have obtained a tape for the additional facts \n and data? Or has Education become a private matter for home study here \n on Earth?\u201d There was dutiful laughter from the faces in the background. George said, \u201cThat\u2019s why he didn\u2019t learn, Honorable. \n He thought he needed a tape. He wouldn\u2019t even try without one, \n no matter what the prize. He refused to try without a tape.\u201d \u201cRefused, eh? Probably the type of fellow who would refuse to \n fly without a skimmer.\u201d More laughter and the Novian thawed into \n a smile and said, \u201cThe fellow is amusing. Go on. I\u2019ll give \n you another few moments.\u201d George said tensely, \u201cDon\u2019t think this is a joke. Tapes \n are actually bad. They teach too much; they\u2019re too painless. A \n man who learns that way doesn\u2019t know how to learn any other way. \n He\u2019s frozen into whatever position he\u2019s been taped. Now \n if a person weren't given tapes but were forced to learn by \n hand, so to speak, from the start; why, then he\u2019d get the habit \n of learning, and continue to learn. Isn\u2019t that reasonable? Once \n he has the habit well developed he can be given just a small amount \n of tape-knowledge, perhaps, to fill in gaps or fix details. Then he \n can make further progress on his own. You can make Beeman Metallurgists \n out of your own Hensler Metallurgists in that way and not have to come \n to Earth for new models.\u201d The Novian nodded and sipped at his drink. \u201cAnd where does everyone \n get knowledge without tapes? From interstellar vacuum?\u201d \u201cFrom books. By studying the instruments themselves. By thinking .\u201d \u201cBooks? How does one understand books without Education?\u201d \u201cBooks are in words. Words can be understood for the most part. \n Specialized words can be explained by the technicians you already have.\u201d \u201cWhat about reading? Will you allow reading tapes?\u201d \u201cReading tapes are all right, I suppose but there\u2019s no \n reason you can\u2019t learn to read the old way, too. At least in part.\u201d The Novian said, \u201cSo that you can develop good habits from the \n start?\u201d \u201cYes, yes,\u201d George said gleefully. The man was beginning \n to understand. \u201cAnd what about mathematics?\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s the easiest of all, sir \u2014 Honorable. Mathematics \n is different from other technical subjects. It starts with certain simple \n principles and proceeds by steps. You Can start with nothing and learn. \n It\u2019s practically designed for that. Then, once you know the proper \n types of mathematics, other technical books become quite understandable. \n Especially if you start with easy ones.\u201d \u201cAre there easy books?\u201d \u201cDefinitely. Even if there weren\u2019t, the technicians you \n now have can try to write easy books. Some of them might be able to \n put some of their knowledge into words and symbols.\u201d \u201cGood Lord,\u201d said the Novian to the men clustered about \n him. \u201c The young devil has an answer for everything.\u201d \u201cI have. I have,\u2019 shouted George. \u201cAsk me.\u201d \u201cHave you tried learning from books yourself? Or is this just \n theory with you?\u201d George turned to look quickly at Ingenescu, but the Historian was passive. \n There was no sign of anything but gentle interest in his face. George said,\u201cI have.\u201d \u201cAnd do you find it works?\u201d \u201cYes, Honorable,\u201d said George eagerly. \u201cTake me with \n you to Novia. I can set up a program and direct \u2014\u201d \u201cWait I have a few more questions. How long would it take, do \n you suppose, for you to become a Metallurgist capable of handling a \n Beeman machine, supposing you started from nothing and did not use Educational \n tapes?\u201d George hesitated. \u201cWell \u2014 years, perhaps.\u201d \u201cTwo years? Five? Ten?\u201d \u201cI can\u2019t say, Honorable.\u201d \u201cWell, there\u2019s a vital question to which you have no answer, \n have you? Shall we say five years? Does that sound reasonable to you?\u201d \u201cI suppose so.\u201d \u201cAll right. We have a technician studying metallurgy according \n to this method of yours for five years. He\u2019s no good to us during \n that time, you\u2019ll admit but he must be fed and housed and paid \n all that time.\u201d \u201cBut \u2014\u201d \u201cLet me finish. Then when he\u2019s done and can use the Beeman, \n five years have passed. Don\u2019t you suppose we\u2019ll have modified \n Beemans then which he won\u2019t be able to use?\u201d \u201cBut by then he\u2019ll be expert on learning. He could learn \n the new details necessary in a matter of days.\u201d \u201cSo you say. And suppose this friend of yours, for instance, \n had studied up on Beemans on his own and managed to learn it; would \n he be as expert in its use as a competitor who had learned it off the \n tapes?\u201d \u201cMaybe not \u2014\u201d began George. \u201cAh,\u201d said the Novian. \u201cWait, let me finish. Even if he doesn\u2019t know \n something as well, it\u2019s the ability to learn further that\u2019s \n important. He may be able to think up things, new things that no tape-Educated \n man would. You\u2019ll have a reservoir of original thinkers \u2014 \n \u201d \u201cIn your studying,\u201d said the Novian, \u201chave you thought \n up any new things?\u201d \u201cNo, but I\u2019m just one man and I haven\u2019t studied long \n \u2014\u201d \u201cYes. \u2014 Well, ladies, gentlemen, have we been sufficiently \n amused?\u201d \u201cWait,\u201d cried George, in sudden panic.\u201cI want to \n arrange a personal interview. There are things I can\u2019t explain \n over the visiphone. There are details \u2014\u201d The Novian looked past George. \u201cIngenescu! I think I have done \n you your favor. Now, really, I have a heavy schedule tomorrow. Be well!\u201d The screen went blank. (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) G eorge\u2019s hands shot \n out toward the screen, as though in a wild impulse to shake life back \n into it. He cried out, \u201cHe didn\u2019t believe me. He didn\u2019t \n believe me.\u201d Ingenescu said, \u201cNo, George. Did you really think he would?\u201d George scarcely heard him. \u201cBut why not? It\u2019s all true. \n It\u2019s all so much to his advantage. No risk. I and a few men to \n work with \u2014 A dozen men training for years would cost less than \n one technician. \u2014 He was drunk! Drunk! He didn\u2019t understand.\u201d George looked about breathlessly. \u201cHow do I get to him? I\u2019ve \n got to. This was wrong. Shouldn\u2019t have used the visiphone. I need \n time. Face to face. How do I-\u201d Ingenescu said, \u201cHe won\u2019t see you, George. And if he did, \n he wouldn\u2019t believe you.\u201d \u201cHe will, I tell you. When he isn\u2019t drinking. He-\u201d \n George turned squarely toward the Historian and his eyes widened. \u201cWhy \n do you call me George?\u201d \u201cIsn\u2019t that your name? George Platen?\u201d \u201cYou know me?\u201d \u201cAll about you.\u201d George was motionless except for the breath pumping his chest wall \n up and down. Ingenescu said, \u201cI want to help you, George. I told you that. \n I\u2019ve been studying you and I want to help you.\u201d George screamed, \u201cI don\u2019t need help. I\u2019m not feeble-minded. \n The whole world is, but I\u2019m not.\u201d He whirled and dashed \n madly for the door. He flung it open and two policemen roused themselves suddenly from \n their guard duty and seized him. For all George\u2019s straining, he could feel the hypo-spray at the \n fleshy point just under the corner of his jaw, and that was it. The \n last thing he remembered was the face of Ingenescu, watching with gentle \n concern. advertisement (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov' document) G eorge opened his eyes to \n the whiteness of a ceiling. He remembered what had happened. He remembered \n it distantly as though it had happened to somebody else. He stared at \n the ceiling till the whiteness filled his eyes and washed his brain \n clean, leaving room, it seemed, for new thought and new ways of thinking. He didn\u2019t know how long he lay there so, listening to the drift \n of his own thinking. There was a voice in his ear. \u201cAre you awake?\u201d And George heard his own moaning for the first time. Had he been moaning? \n He tried to turn his head. The voice said, \u201cAre you in pain, George?\u201d George whispered, \u201cFunny. I was so anxious to leave Earth. I \n didn\u2019t understand.\u201d \u201cDo you know where you are?\u201d \u201cBack in the \u2014 the House.\u201d George managed to turn. \n The voice belonged to Omani. George said, \u201cIt\u2019s funny I didn\u2019t understand.\u201d Omani smiled gently, \u201cSleep again \u2014\u201d George slept. And woke again. His mind was clear. Omani sat at the bedside reading, but he put down the book as George\u2019s \n eyes opened. George struggled to a sitting position. He said, \u201cHello.\u201d \u201cAre you hungry?\u201d \u201cYou bet.\u201d He stared at Omani curiously. \u201cI was followed \n when I left, wasn\u2019t I?\u201d Omani nodded. \u201cYou were under observation at all times. We were \n going to maneuver you to Antonelli and let you discharge your aggressions. \n We felt that to be the way you could make progress. Your emotions were \n clogging your advance.\u201d George said, with a trace of embarrassment, \u201cI was all wrong \n about him.\u201d \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter now. When you stopped to stare at the \n Metallurgy notice board at the airport, one of our agents reported back \n the list of names. You and I had talked about your past sufficiently \n so that I caught the significance of Trevelyan\u2019s name there. You \n asked for directions to the Olympics; there was the possibility that \n this might result in the kind of crisis we were hoping for; we sent \n Ladislas Ingenescu to the hall to meet you and take over.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s an important man in the government, isn\u2019t he?\u201d \u201cYes, he is.\u201d \u201cAnd you had him take over. It makes me sound important.\u201d \u201cYou are important, George.\u201d A thick stew had arrived, steaming, fragrant. George grinned wolfishly \n and pushed his sheets back to free his arms. Omani helped arrange the \n bed-table. For a while, George ate silently. Then George said, \u201cI woke up here once before just for a short \n time.\u201d Omani said, \u201cI know. I was here.\u201d \u201cYes, I remember. You know, everything was changed. It was as \n though I was too tired to feel emotion. I wasn\u2019t angry any more. \n I could just think. It was as though I had been drugged to wipe out \n emotion.\u201d \u201cYou weren\u2019t,\u201d said Omani. \u201cJust sedation. \n You had rested.\u201d \u201cWell, anyway, it was all clear to me, as though I had known \n it all the time but wouldn\u2019t listen to myself. I thought: What \n was it I had wanted Novia to let me do? I had wanted to go to Novia \n and take a batch of un-Educated youngsters and teach them out of books. \n I had wanted to establish a House for the Feeble-rninded \u2014 like \n here \u2014 and Earth already has them \u2014 many of them.\u201d Omani\u2019s white teeth gleamed as he smiled. \u201cThe Institute \n of Higher Studies is the correct name for places like this.\u201d \u201cNow I see it,\u201d said George, \u201cso easily I am amazed \n at my blindness before. After all, who invents the new instrument models \n that require new-model technicians? Who invented the Beeman spectrographs, \n for instance? A man called Beeman, I suppose, but he couldn\u2019t \n have been tape-Educated or how could he have made the advance?\u201d \u201cExactly.\u201d \u201cOr who makes Educational tapes? Special tape-making technicians? \n Then who makes the tapes to train them? More advanced technicians? \n Then who makes the tapes \u2014 You see what I mean. Somewhere there \n has to be an end. Somewhere there must be men and women with capacity \n for original thought.\u201d \u201cYes, George.\u201d George leaned back, stared over Omani\u2019s head, and for a moment \n there was the return of something like restlessness to his eyes. \u201cWhy wasn\u2019t I told all this at the beginning?\u201d \u201cOh, if we could,\u201d said Omani, \u201cthe trouble it would \n save us. We can analyze a mind, George, and say this one will make an \n adequate architect and that one a good woodworker. We know of no way \n of detecting the capacity for original, creative thought? It is too \n subtle a thing. We have some rule-of-thumb methods that mark out individuals \n who may possibly or potentially have such a talent. \u201cOn Reading Day, such individuals are reported. You were, for \n instance. Roughly speaking, the number so reported comes to one in ten \n thousand. By the time Education Day arrives, these individuals are checked \n again, and nine out of ten of them turn out to have been false alarms. \n Those who remain are sent to places like this.\u201d George said, \u201cWell, what\u2019s wrong with telling people that \n one out of \u2014 of a hundred thousand will end at places like these? \n Then it won\u2019t be such a shock to those who do.\u201d \u201cAnd those who don\u2019t? The ninety-nine thousand nine hundred \n and ninety-nine that don\u2019t? We can\u2019t have all those people \n considering themselves failures. They aim at the professions and one \n way or another they all make it. Everyone can place after his or her \n name: Registered something-or-other. In one fashion or another every \n individual has his or her place in society and this is necessary.\u201d \u201cBut we?\u201d said George. \u201cThe one in one hundred thousand exception?\u201d \u201cYou can\u2019t be told. That\u2019s exactly it. It\u2019s \n the final test. Even after we\u2019ve thinned out the possibilities \n on Education Day, nine out of ten of those who come here are not quite \n the material of creative genius, and there\u2019s no way we can distinguish \n those nine from the tenth that we want by any form of machinery. The \n tenth one must tell us himself.\u201d \u201cHow?\u201d \u201cWe bring you here to a House for the Feeble-minded and the man \n who won\u2019t accept that is the man we want. It\u2019s a method \n that can be cruel but it works. It won\u2019t do to say to a man, \u2018You \n can create. Do so.\u2019 It is much safer to wait for a man to say, \n \u2018I can create, and I will do so whether you wish it or not.\u2019 \n There are ten thousand men like you, George, who support the advancing \n technology of fifteen hundred worlds. We can\u2019t allow ourselves \n to miss one recruit to that number or waste our efforts on one member \n who doesn\u2019t measure up.\u201d George pushed his empty plate out of the way and lifted a cup of coffee \n to his lips. \u201cWhat about the people here who don\u2019t \u2014 measure up?\u201d \u201cThey are taped eventually and become our Social Scientists. \n Ingenescu is one. I am a Registered Psychologist. We are second echelon, \n so to speak.\u201d George finished his coffee. He said, \u201cI still wonder about one \n thing?\u201d \u201cWhat is that?\u201d George threw aside the sheet and stood up. \u201cWhy do they call \n them Olympics?\u201d (image of solar system, for 'Profession' by Isaac Asimov document) Other sci-fi short stories at abelard.org: (/e-f-russell.php) And Then There Were \n None by Eric Frank Russell (iqedfran/gondour.php) Curious Republic \n of Gondour by Mark Twain (iqedfran/starship.php) from Starship \n Troopers by Robert Heinlein (iqedfran/kantsaywhere.php) Kantsaywhere by Francis Galton (iqedfran/in_the_wet.php) fromIn \n the Wet by Neville Shute (/index.htm) (return to abelard.org main site) (return to abelard.org main site) (/news.php) (news and comment at abelard.org) (news and comment at abelard.org) (/briefings/replacing_fossil_fuels.php) (documents on alternative energies) (documents on alternative energies) (/economics_zone.php) (documents on alternative energies) (documents on alternative energies) (/japan-zone.php) (Japan zone) (Japan zone) (/maths_zone.php) (sum will set you free) (sum will set you free) (/index.php) (art gallery) (art gallery) (/technology-zone.php) (the web pilot - mastering the Internet) (the web pilot - mastering the Internet) (/briefings/brief-abstracts.htm) (short briefings documents on energy and society) (short briefings documents on energy and society) (Link to abelard.org's RSS newsfeed) (https://www.abelard.org/news.rss) (https://www.abelard.org/sitemap.htm) End Notes Although it may not have been \n Asimov's intention, I have included this story as a warning of the weakness \n of Western education. For a better understanding of my context you may \n wish to examine my documents, (category/category.php) why Aristotelian logic does not work and (civil/civil.htm) a \n citizenship curriculum . See (turing/tur-hi.php#6) The \n Turing test and Intelligence for a list of robot books by \n Isaac Asimov. Another science-fiction story available on this \n site is (e-f-russell.php) And then there \n were none by Eric Frank Russell. A short selection of socio-psychologically \n oriented science-fiction is included in (reading/rec-hi.htm#sci-fi) recommended reading . (/nuemayl.htm) (email abelard) email (/nuemayl.htm) email_abelard [at] abelard.org \u00a9 abelard, 4 december, 2000 all rights reserved Last updated 22.12.2025 the address for this document is (https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php) https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php 20,420 words prints as 46 A4 pages (on my printer and set-up) (navigation bar ( eight equal segments) on 'Profession by Isaac Asimov' page) Welcome This site asks for consent to use your data Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development Store and/or access information on a device Learn more How can I change my choice? What if I don't consent? How does legitimate interest work? Do I have to consent to everything? Your personal data will be processed and information from your device (cookies, unique identifiers, and other device data) may be stored by, accessed by and shared with 141 TCF vendor(s) and 69 ad partner(s) , or used specifically by this site. 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Partly, there was the \n simple fact of childhood. A boy of eight takes many extraordinary things \n in stride. One day you can\u2019t read and the next day you can. That\u2019s \n just the way things are. Like the sun shining.\n And then not so much depended upon it. There were no recruiters just \n ahead, waiting and jostling for the lists and scores on the coming Olympics. \n A boy or girl who goes through the Reading Day is just someone who has \n ten more years of undifferentiated living upon Earth\u2019s crawling \n surface; just someone who returns to his family with one new ability.\n By the time Education Day came, ten years later, George wasn\u2019t \n even sure of most of the details of his own Reading Day.\n Most clearly of all, he remembered it to be a dismal September day with \n a mild rain falling. (September for Reading Day; November for. Education \n Day; May for Olympics. They made nursery rhymes out of it.) George had \n dressed by the wall lights, with his parents far more excited than he \n himself was. His father was a Registered Pipe Fitter and had found his \n occupation on Earth. This fact had always been a humiliation to him, although, \n of course, as anyone could see plainly, most of each generation must stay \n on Earth in the nature of things.\n There had to be farmers and miners and even technicians on Earth. It \n was only the late-model, high-specialty professions that were in demand \n on the Outworlds, and only a few millions a year out of Earth\u2019s \n eight billion population could be exported. Every man and woman on Earth \n couldn\u2019t be among that group.\n But every man and woman could hope that at least one of his children \n could be one, and Platen, Senior, was certainly no exception. It was obvious \n to him (and, to be sure, to others as well) that George was notably intelligent \n and quick-minded. He would be bound to do well and he would have to, as \n he was an only child. If George didn\u2019t end on an Outworld, they \n would have to wait for grandchildren before a next chance would come along, \n and that was too far in the future to be much consolation.\n Reading Day would not prove much, of course, but it would be the only \n indication they would have before the big day itself. Every parent on \n Earth would be listening to the quality of reading when his child came \n home with it; listening for any particularly easy flow of words and building \n that into certain omens of the future. There were few families that didn\u2019t \n have at least one hopeful who, from Reading Day on, was the great hope \n because of the way he handled his trisyllabics.\n Dimly, George was aware of the cause of his parents\u2019 tension, and \n if there was any anxiety in his young heart that drizzly morning, it was \n only the fear that his father\u2019s hopeful expression might fade out \n when he returned home with his reading.\n The children met in the large assembly room of the town\u2019s Education \n Hall. All over Earth, in millions of local halls, throughout that month, \n similar groups of children would he meeting. George felt depressed by \n the grayness of the room and by the other children, strained and stiff \n in unaccustomed finery.\n Automatically, George did as all the rest of the children did. He found \n the small clique that represented the children on his floor of the apartment \n house and joined them.\n Trevelyan, who lived immediately next door, still wore his hair childishly \n long and was years removed from the sideburns and thin, reddish mustache \n that he was to grow as soon as he was physiologically capable of it.\n Trevelyan (to whom George was then known as Jawjee) said, \u201cBet \n you\u2019re scared.\u201d\n \u201cI am not,\u2019 said George. Then, confidentially, \u201cMy \n folks got a hunk of printing up on the dresser in my room, and when I \n come home, I\u2019m going to read it for them.\u201d (George\u2019s \n main suffering at the moment lay in the fact that he didn\u2019t quite \n know where to put his hands. He had been warned not to scratch his head \n or rub his ears or pick his nose or put his hands into his pockets. This \n eliminated almost every possibility.)\n Trevelyan put his hands in his pockets and said, \u201cMy father \n isn\u2019t worried.\u201d\n Trevelyan, Senior, had been a Metallurgist on Diporia for nearly seven \n years, which gave him a superior social status in his neighborhood even \n though he had retired and returned to Earth.\n Earth discouraged these re-immigrants because of population problems, \n but a small trickle did return. For one thing the cost of living was lower \n on Earth, and what was a trifling annuity on Diporia, say, was a comfortable \n income on Earth. Besides, there were always men who found more satisfaction \n in displaying their success before the friends and scenes of their childhood \n than before all the rest of the Universe besides.\n Trevelyan, Senior further explained that if he stayed on Diporia, so \n would his children, and Diporia was a one-spaceship world. Back on Earth, \n his kids could end up anywhere, even Novia.\n Stubby Trevelyan had picked up that item early. Even before Reading Day, \n his conversation was based on the carelessly assumed fact that his ultimate \n home would be in Novia.\n George, oppressed by thoughts of the other\u2019s future greatness and \n his own small-time contrast, was driven to belligerent defense at once.\n \u201cMy father isn\u2019t worried either. He just wants to hear me \n read because he knows I\u2019ll be good. I suppose your father would \n just as soon not hear you because he knows you\u2019ll be all wrong.\u201d\n \u201cI will not be all wrong. Reading is nothing. On Novia, \n I\u2019ll hire people to read to me.\u201d\n \u201cBecause you won\u2019t be able to read yourself, on account of \n you\u2019re dumb!\u201d\n \u201cThen how come I\u2019ll be on Novia?\u201d\n And George, driven, made the great denial, \u201cWho says you\u2019ll \n be on Novia? Bet you don\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d\n Stubby Trevelyan reddened. \u201cI won\u2019t be a Pipe Fitter like \n your old man.\u201d\n \u201cTake that back, you dumbhead.\u201d\n \u201cYou take that back.\u201d\n They stood nose to nose, not wanting to fight but relieved at having \n something familiar to do in this strange place. Furthermore, now that \n George had curled his hands into fists and lifted them before his face, \n the problem of what to do with his hands was, at least temporarily, solved. \n Other children gathered round excitedly.\n But then it all ended when a woman\u2019s voice sounded loudly over \n the public address system. There was instant silence everywhere. George \n dropped his fists and forgot Trevelyan.\n \u201cChildren,\u201d said the voice, \u201cwe are going to call out \n your names. As each child is called, he or she is to go to one of the \n men waiting along the side walls. Do you see them? They are wearing red \n uniforms so they will be easy to find. The girls will go to the right. \n The boys will go to the left. Now look about and see which man in red \n is nearest to you \u2014\u201d\n George found his man at a glance and waited for his name to be called \n off. He had not been introduced before this to the sophistications of \n the alphabet and the length of time it took to reach his own name grew \n disturbing.\n The crowd of children thinned; little rivulets made their way to each \n of the red-clad guides.\n When the name \u2018George Platen\u2019 was finally called, his sense \n of relief was exceeded only by the feeling of pure gladness at the fact \n that Stubby Trevelyan still stood in his place, uncalled.\n George shouted back over his shoulder as he left, \u201cYay, Stubby, \n maybe they don\u2019t want you.\u201d\n That moment of gaiety quickly left. He was herded into a line and directed \n down corridors in the company of strange children. They all looked at \n one another, large-eyed and concerned, but beyond a snuffling, \u201cQuitcher \n pushing\u201d and \u201cHey, watch out\u201d there was no conversation.\n They were handed little slips of paper which they were told must remain \n with them. George stared at his curiously. Little black marks of different \n shapes. He knew it to be printing but how could anyone make words out \n of it? He couldn\u2019t imagine.\n He was told to strip; he and four other boys who were all that now remained \n together. All the new clothes came shucking off and four eight-year-olds \n stood naked and small, shivering more out of embarrassment than cold. \n Medical technicians came past, probing them, testing them with odd instruments, \n pricking them for blood. Each took the little cards and made additional \n marks on them with little black rods that produced the marks, all neatly \n lined up, with great speed. George stared at the new marks, but they were \n no more comprehensible than the old. The children were ordered back into \n their clothes.\n They sat on separate little chairs then and waited again. Names were \n called again and \u2018George Platen\u2019 came third.\n He moved into a large room, filled with frightening instruments with \n knobs and glassy panels in front. There was a desk in the very center, \n and behind it a man sat, his eyes on the papers piled before him.\n He said, \u201cGeorge Platen?\u201d\n \u201cYes, sir,\u201d said George, in a shaky whisper. All \n this waiting and all this going here and there was making him nervous. \n He wished it were over.\n The man behind the desk said, \u201cI am Dr Lloyd, George. How are you?\u201d\n The doctor didn\u2019t look up as he spoke. It was as though he had \n said those words over and over again and didn\u2019t have to look up \n any more.\n \u201cI\u2019m all right.\u201d\n \u201cAre you afraid, George?\u201d\n \u201cN \u2014 no, sir,\u201d said George, sounding afraid even in \n his own ears.\n \u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d said the doctor, \u201cbecause there\u2019s \n nothing to be afraid of you know. Let\u2019s see, George. It says here \n on your card that your father is named Peter and that he\u2019s a Registered \n Pipe Fitter and your mother is named Amy and is a Registered Home Technician. \n Is that right?\u201d\n \u201cY \u2014 yes, sir.\u201d\n \u201cAnd your birthday is 13 February,and you had an ear infection \n about a year ago. Right?\u201d\n \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n \u201cDo you know how I know all these things?\u201d\n \u201cIt\u2019s on the card, I think, sir.\u201d\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d The doctor looked up at George for \n the first time and smiled. He showed even teeth and looked much younger \n than George\u2019s father. Some of George\u2019s nervousness vanished.\n The doctor passed the card to George. \u201cDo you know what all those \n things there mean, George?\u201d\n Although George knew he did not he was startled by the sudden request \n into looking at the card as though he might understand now through some \n sudden stroke of fate. But they were just marks as before and he passed \n the card back. \u201cNo, sir.\u201d\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d\n George felt a sudden pang of suspicion concerning the sanity of this \n doctor. Didn\u2019t he know why not?\n George said, \u201cI can\u2019t read, sir.\u201d\n \u201cWould you like to read?\u201d\n \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n \u201cWhy, George?\u201d\n George stared, appalled. No one had ever asked him that. He had no answer. \n He said falteringly, \u201cI don\u2019t know, sir.\u201d\n \u201cPrinted information will direct you all through your life. There \n is so much you\u2019ll have to know even after Education Day. Cards like \n this one will tell you. Books will tell you. Television screens will tell \n you. Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things \n that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see. \n Do you understand?\u201d\n \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n \u201cAre you afraid, George?\u201d\n \u201cNo, sir.\u201d\n \u201cGood. Now I\u2019ll tell you exactly what we\u2019ll do first. \n I\u2019m going to put these wires on your forehead just over the corners \n of your eyes. They\u2019ll stick there but they won\u2019t hurt at all. \n Then, I\u2019ll turn on something that will make a buzz. It will sound \n funny and it may tickle you, but it won\u2019t hurt. Now if it does hurt, \n you tell me, and I\u2019ll turn it off right away, but it won\u2019t \n hurt. All right?\u201d\n George nodded and swallowed.\n \u201cAre you ready?\u201d\n George nodded. He closed his eyes while the doctor busied himself. His \n parents had explained this to him. They, too, had said it wouldn\u2019t \n hurt, but then there were always the older children. There were the ten- \n and twelve-year-olds who howled after the eight-year-olds waiting for \n Reading Day, \u201cWatch out for the needle.\u201d There were the others \n who took you off in confidence and said, \u201cThey got to cut your head \n open. They use a sharp knife that big with a hook on it,\u201d and so \n on into horrifying details.\n George had never believed them but he had had nightmares, and now he \n closed his eyes and felt pure terror.\n He didn\u2019t feel the wires at his temple. The buzz was a distant \n thing, and there was the sound of his own blood in his ears, ringing hollowly \n as though it and he were in a large cave. Slowly he chanced opening his \n eyes.\n The doctor had his back to him. From one of the instruments a strip of \n paper unwound and was covered with a thin, wavy purple line. The doctor \n tore off pieces and put them into a slot in another machine. He did it \n over and over again. Each time a little piece of film came out which the \n doctor looked at. Finally, he turned toward George with a queer frown \n between his eyes.\n The buzzing stopped.\n George said breathlessly, \u201cIs it over?\u201d\n The doctor said, \u201cYes,\u201d but he was still frowning.\n \u201cCan I read now?\u2019 asked George. He felt no different.\n The doctor said, \u201cWhat?\u201d then smiled very suddenly and briefly. \n He said, \u201cIt works fine, George. You\u2019ll be reading in fifteen \n minutes. Now we\u2019re going to use another machine this time and it \n will take longer. I\u2019m going to cover your whole head, and when I \n turn it on you won\u2019t be able to see or hear anything for a while, \n but it won\u2019t hurt. Just to make sure I\u2019m going to give you \n a little switch to hold in your hand. If anything hurts, you press the \n little button and everything shuts off. All right?\u201d\n In later years, George was told that the little switch was strictly a \n dummy; that it was introduced solely for confidence. He never did know \n for sure, however, since he never pushed the button.\n A large smoothly curved helmet with a rubbery inner lining was placed \n over his head and left there. Three or four little knobs seemed to grab \n at him and bite into his skull, but there was only a little pressure that \n faded. No pain.\n The doctor\u2019s voice sounded dimly. \u201cEverything all right, \n George?\u201d\n And then, with no real warning, a layer of thick felt closed down all \n about him. He was disembodied, there was no sensation, no universe, only \n himself and a distant murmur at the very ends of nothingness telling him \n something \u2014 telling him \u2014 telling him \u2014\n He strained to hear and understand but there was all that thick felt \n between.\n Then the helmet was taken off his head, and the light was so bright that \n it hurt his eyes while the doctor\u2019s voice drummed at his ears.\n The doctor said, \u201cHere\u2019s your card, George. What does it \n say?\u201d\n George looked at his card again and gave out a strangled shout. The marks \n weren\u2019t just marks at all. They made up words. They were words just \n as clearly as though something were whispering them in his ears. He could \n hear them being whispered as he looked at them.\n \u201cWhat does it say, George?\u201d\n \u201cIt says \u2014 it says \u2014 \u2018Platen, George. Born 13 \n February 6492 of Peter and Amy Platen in...\u2019\u201d He broke off.\n \u201cYou can read, George,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cIt\u2019s \n all over.\u201d\n \u201cFor good? I won\u2019t forget how?\u201d\n \u201cOf course not\u201d The doctor leaned over to shake hands gravely. \n \u201cYou will be taken home now.\u201d\n It was days before George got over this new and great talent of his. \n He read for his father with such facility that Platen, Senior, wept and \n called relatives to tell the good news.\n George walked about town, reading every scrap of printing he could find \n and wondering how it was that none of it had ever made sense to him before.\n He tried to remember how it was not to be able to read and \n he couldn\u2019t. As far as his feeling about it was concerned, he had \n always been able to read. 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