The personnel office was little more than a closetsized compartment in the station’s executive area. It was only a few doors from the director’s more spacious and imposing office.
To his surprise, when he slid open the door marked personnel, Egon Karlstad was sitting behind the tiny metal desk.
“You’re the personnel officer?” Grant blurted.
“This week,” Karlstad replied smoothly. “I told you that Wo likes to rotate us through the administrative jobs.”
“No, you said—”
“It lets him keep the beancounters down to a minimum, so he can bring more scooters out here,” Karlstad continued. “Of course, that means we scooters have to pull double duty all the time, but that doesn’t bother our peerless leader. Not at all.”
Karlstad seemed too large for the desk. His knees poked up and it looked as if he could touch the opposite walls of the compartment merely by stretching out his arms. The desk itself was scuffed and battered from long use; someone had even kicked a dent into its side.
“Have a seat,” Karlstad said.
Grant took the only other chair: It was molded plastic, solid yet comfortably yielding.
“Okay,” Karlstad said, turning to the screen built into the desktop. “Archer, Grant A.”
Grant could see the glow from the screen reflected on Karlstad’s pale features. It made him look even more ethereal than usual.
Without looking up from the screen, Karlstad said, “Grant Armstrong Archer the Third, eh? Illustrious family, I imagine.”
“Hardly,” Grant replied, feeling a bit annoyed.
“First in your class at Harvard?” Karlstad whistled. “No wonder Wo wanted you here.”
“I don’t think he picked me personally,” Grant said.
“Don’t be so sure, Grant A. the Third. Zeb might be right; our wily Dr. Wo can stretch out his tentacles and —Hey! You’re married?”
He’s got my complete file there, Grant realized. My whole life is on that screen.
Karlstad turned his pallid, watery eyes to Grant. “Did you think being married would get you out of Public Service?”
“Of course not!” Grant snapped. “I love my wife!”
“Really?”
“Besides, Public Service isn’t something to be avoided. It’s a responsibility. A privilege that goes with adulthood and citizenship, like voting.”
“Really?” Karlstad repeated, dripping acid.
“Aren’t you doing your Public Service?” Grant demanded.
Karlstad made a derisive snort. “I’m serving out a prison sentence,” he said.
“I mean really—”
“It’s the truth,” Karlstad insisted. “Ask anybody. I’m serving my time here instead of languishing in jail. The Powers That Be decided they’d spent too much money on my education to have me rot in prison for five years.”
“Five years!” Grant was shocked. “What did you do?”
“I helped a young married couple to obtain fertility treatments. They had been denied treatment by the government. Population restrictions, you know. I was in the biology department at the University of Copenhagen and I knew a lot of the physicians at the research hospital. So they came to me and begged me to help them.”
“But it was illegal?”
“According to the laws of the European Union, which take precedence over the laws of Denmark.”
“And the authorities found out about it?”
Karlstad’s face twitched into a bitter scowl. “The two little bastards worked for the Holy Disciples—our version of your New Morality.”
“It was a sting,” Grant realized.
“I was stung, all right. Sentenced to five years. When they offered me a post here, doing research instead of jail, I leaped at it.”
“I guess so.”
Karlstad huffed. “One should always look before one leaps.”
Grant nodded sympathetically. “Even so … this is better than jail, isn’t it?”
“Marginally,” Karlstad conceded.
“I never realized …” Grant let the idea go unexpressed.
“Realized what?”
“Oh … that the New Morality, or whatever you call it in Europe, I never realized they would entrap people and sentence them to jail.”
“They don’t like scientists,” Karlstad said, his voice going sharp as steel. “They’re afraid of new ideas, new discoveries.”
“They’re trying to maintain social balance,” Grant argued. “There’s more than ten billion people on Earth now. We’ve got to have stability! We’ve got to control population growth. Otherwise we won’t be able to feed all those people, or educate them.”
“Educate them?” Karlstad’s thin eyebrows rose. “They’re not being educated. They’re being trained to obey.”
“I—” Grant saw the pain in the man’s pale eyes and clamped his mouth shut. No sense arguing with him about this. One of the first lessons his father had taught him was never to argue over religion. Or politics. And this was both.
Karlstad apparently felt the same way. He forced a smile and said, “So now you know my life story and I know yours.”
Grant conceded the point with a nod.
“Let’s get on with it.”
“Okay.”
Turning back to the desktop screen, Karlstad called out, “Computer, display work assignment for Archer, Grant A.”
Immediately the synthesized voice responded, “Grant A. Archer is assigned as assistant laboratory technician for the biology department.”
Grant jumped out of his chair. “Biology department? That can’t be right! I’m not a biologist!”
Karlstad waved him gently back into his seat “The details are on my screen, Grant. The assignment is correct.”
“But I’m not a biologist,” Grant repeated.
“I’m afraid that’s got nothing to do with it. The operative term is ‘assistant laboratory technician.’ It doesn’t matter which lab you’re assigned to; they just “Okay.”
Turning back to the desktop screen, Karlstad called out, “Computer, display work assignment for Archer, Grant A.”
Immediately the synthesized voice responded, “Grant A. Archer is assigned as assistant laboratory technician for the biology department.”
Grant jumped out of his chair. “Biology department? That can’t be right! I’m not a biologist!”
Karlstad waved him gently back into his seat “The details are on my screen, Grant. The assignment is correct.”
“But I’m not a biologist,” Grant repeated.
“I’m afraid that’s got nothing to do with it. The operative term is ‘assistant laboratory technician.’ It doesn’t matter which lab you’re assigned to; they just need a warm body to do the scutwork.”
“But—”
“You’re a grad student, brightboy. Slave labor. Cheaper than a robot and a lot easier to train.”
“But I don’t know anything about biology.”
“You don’t have to. You can push a broom and clean a fish tank; that’s what you’re needed for.”
