So it was a building as well as a machine.
A problem, he was thinking, why, of course, he had a problem, a hopeless, insoluble, completely tangled problem so deeply rooted in the basic structure of Imperial civilization that the whole world would have to be overturned to make it right.
With a start, he saw that he was at the entrance. And the awed thought came: In seconds he would be committed irrevocably to—what?
Inside was a long, shining corridor, with scores of completely transparent hallways leading off the main corridor. Behind Fara, the young man's voice said:
'There's one, practically empty. Let's go.'
Fara walked ahead; and suddenly he was trembling. He had already noticed that at the end of each side hallway were some dozen young women sitting at desks, interviewing men and... and, good heavens, was it possible that all this meant—
He grew aware that he had stopped in front of one of the girls.
She was older than she had looked from a distance, over thirty, but good-looking, alert. She smiled pleasantly, but impersonally, and said:
'Your name, please?'
He gave it before he thought and added a mumble about being from the village of Glay. The woman said:
'Thank you. It will take a few minutes to get your file. Won't you sit down?'
He hadn't noticed the chair. He sank into it; and his heart was beating so wildly that he felt choked. The strange thing was that there was scarcely a thought in his head, nor a real hope; only an intense, almost mind- wrecking excitement.
With a jerk, he realized that the girl was speaking again, but only snatches of her voice came through that screen of tension in his mind:
'—Information Center is ... in effect... a bureau of statistics. Every person born ...
registered here ... their education, change of address ... occupation ... and the highlights of their life. The whole is maintained by ... combination of... unauthorized and unsuspected liaison with ... Imperial Chamber of Statistics and ... through medium of agents ... in every community—'
It seemed to Para that he was missing vital information, and that if he could only force his attention and hear more—He strained, but it was no use; his nerves were jumping madly and—
Before he could speak, there was a click, and a thin, dark plate slid onto the woman's desk. She took it up, and examined it. After a moment, she said something into a mouthpiece, and in a short time two more plates precipitated out of the empty air onto her desk. She studied them impassively, looked up finally.
'You will be interested to know,' she said, 'that your son, Cayle, bribed himself into a commission in the Imperial army with five thousand credits.'
'Eh?' said Fara. He half rose from his chair, but before he could say anything, the young woman was speaking again, firmly:
'I must inform you that the weapon shops take no action against individuals. Your son can have his job, the money he stole; we are not concerned with moral correction.
That must come naturally from the individual, and from the people as a whole—and now if you will give me a brief account of your problem for the record and the court.'
Sweating, Fara sank back into his seat; his mind was heaving; most desperately, he wanted more information about Cayle. He began:
'But... but what... how—' He caught himself; and in a low voice described what had happened. When he finished, the girl said:
'You will proceed now to the Name Room; watch for your name, and when it appears go straight to Room 474. Remember, 474—and now, the line is waiting, if you please—'
She smiled politely, and Fara was moving off almost before he realized it. He half turned to ask another question, but an old man was sinking into his chair. Fara hurried on, along a great corridor, conscious of curious blasts of sound coming from ahead.
Eagerly, he opened the door; and the sound crashed at him with all the impact of a sledge-hammer blow.
It was such a colossal, incredible sound that he stopped short, just inside the door, shrinking back. He stood then trying to blink sense into a visual confusion that rivaled in magnitude that incredible tornado of noise.
Men, men, men everywhere; men by the thousands in a long, broad auditorium, packed into rows of seats, pacing with an abandon of restlessness up and down aisles, and all of them staring with a frantic interest at a long board marked off into squares, each square lettered from the alphabet, from A, B, C and so on to Z. The tremendous board with its lists of names ran the full length of the immense room.
The Name Room, Fara was thinking shakily, as he sank into a seat— and his name would come up in the C's, and then—
It was like sitting in at a no-limit poker game, watching the jewel- precious cards turn up. It was like playing the exchange with all the world at stake during a stock crash. It was nerve-racking, dazzling, exhausting, fascinating, terrible, mind-destroying, stupendous. It was—
It was like nothing else on the face of the earth.
New names kept flashing on to the twenty-six squares; and men would shout like insane beings and some fainted, and the uproar was absolutely shattering; the pandemonium raged on, one continuous, unbelievable sound.
And every few minutes a great sign would flash along the board, telling everyone:
'WATCH YOUR OWN INITIALS.'
Fara watched, trembling in every limb. Each second it seemed to him that he couldn't stand it an instant longer. He wanted to scream at the room to be silent; he wanted to jump up to pace the floor, but others who did that were yelled at hysterically, threatened wildly, hated with a mad, murderous ferocity.
Abruptly, the blind savagery of it scared Fara. He thought unsteadily: 'I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I—'
'Clark, Fara—' winked the board. 'Clark, Fara—'
With a shout that nearly tore off the top of his head, Fara leaped to his feet.
'That's me!' he shrieked. 'Me!'
No one turned; no one paid the slightest attention. Shamed, he slunk across the room where an endless line of men kept crowding into a corridor beyond.
The silence in the long corridor was almost as shattering as the mind- destroying noise it replaced. It was hard to concentrate on the idea of a number—474.
It was completely impossible to imagine what could lie beyond—474.
The room was small. It was furnished with a small, business-type table and two chairs. On the table were seven neat piles of folders, each pile of different color. The piles were arranged in a row in front of a large, milky- white globe, that began to glow with a soft light. Out of its depths, a man's baritone voice said:
'Fara Clark?'
'Yes,' said Fara.
'Before the verdict is rendered in your case,' the voice went on quietly, 'I want you to take a folder from the blue pile. The list will show the Fifth Interplanetary Bank in its proper relation to yourself and the world, and it will be explained to you in due course.'
The list, Fara saw, was simply that, a list of the names of companies. The names ran from A to Z, and there were about five hundred of them. The folder carried no explanation; and Fara slipped it automatically into his side pocket, as the voice came again from the shining globe:
'It has been established,' the words came precisely, 'that the Fifth Interplanetary Bank perpetrated upon you a gross swindle, and that it is further guilty of practicing scavengery, deception, blackmail and was accessory in a criminal conspiracy.
'The bank made contact with your son, Cayle, through what is quite properly known as a scavenger, that is, an employee who exists by finding young men and women who are normally capable of drawing drafts on their parents or other victims.
