Asimov - Profession by Isaac Asimov (1957)

Profession
by
Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov’s Profession is an allegorical description of the manner in which
education currently functions in our primitive western societies —
abelard [1]

Profession,
copyright ©1957 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc., from ISAAC
ASIMOV: THE COMPLETE STORIES OF VOL. 1 by Isaac Asimov.
Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
For on-line information about other Random
House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet Web site at http://www.randomhouse.com.

Another
sci-fi short story at abelard.org:
And Then There
Were None by Eric Frank Russell
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George Platen could not conceal the longing in his voice. It was
too much to suppress. He said, “Tomorrow’s 1 May. Olympics!”
He rolled over on his stomach and peered over the foot of his bed at his
roommate. Didn’t he feel it, too? Didn’t this make some impression
on him?
George’s face was thin and had grown a trifle thinner in the nearly
year and a half that he had been at the House. His figure was slight but the
look in his blue eyes was as intense as it had ever been, and right now there
was a trapped look in the way his fingers curled against the bedspread.
George’s roommate looked up briefly from his book and took the opportunity
to adjust the light-level of the stretch of wall near his chair. His name
was Hali Omani and he was a Nigerian by birth. His dark brown skin and massive
features seemed made for calmness, and mention of the Olympics did not move
him.
“I know, George.”
George owed much to Hali’s patience and kindness when it was needed,
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
rejected the thought violently. No!
He said defiantly, “I think you’ve forgotten what May means.”
The other said,“I remember very well what it means. It means nothing!
You’re the one who’s forgotten that. May means nothing to you,
George Platen, and,' he added softly, “It means nothing to me, Hali
Omani.”
George said, “The ships are coming in for recruits. By June, thousands
and thousands will leave with millions of men and women heading for any world
you can name, and all that means nothing?”
“Less than nothing. What do you want me to do about it, anyway?”
Omani ran his finger along a difficult passage in the book he was reading
and his lips moved soundlessly.

George watched him. Damn it, he thought, yell scream; you can do that
much. Kick at me, do anything.
It was only that he wanted not to be so alone in his anger. He wanted not
to be the only one so filled with resentment, not to be the only one dying
a slow death.
It was better those first weeks when the Universe was a small shell of vague
light and sound pressing down upon him. It was better before Omani had wavered
into view and dragged him back to a life that wasn’t worth living.
Omani! He was old! He was at least thirty. George thought: Will I be like
that at thirty? Will I be like that in twelve years?
And because he was afraid he might be, he yelled at Omani, “Will you
stop reading that fool book?”
Omani turned a page and read on a few words, then lifted his head with its
skullcap of crisply curled hair and said, “What?”
“What good does it do you to read the book?” He stepped forward,
snorted “More electronics,” and slapped it out of Omani’s
hands.
Omani got up slowly and picked up the book. He smoothed a crumpled page without
visible rancor. “Call it the satisfaction of curiosity,” he said.
“I understand a little of it today, perhaps a little more tomorrow.
That’s a victory in a way.”
“A victory. What kind of a victory? Is that what satisfies you in life?
To get to know enough to be a quarter of a Registered Electronician by the
time you’re sixty-five?”
“Perhaps by the time I’m thirty-five.”
“And then who’ll want you? Who’ll use you? Where will you
go?”
“No one. No one. Nowhere. I’ll stay here and read other books.”
“And that satisfies you? Tell me! You’ve dragged me to class.
You’ve got me to reading and memorizing, too. For what? There’s
nothing in it that satisfies me.”
“What good will it do you to deny yourself satisfaction?”
“It means I’ll quit the whole farce. I’ll do as I planned
to do in the beginning before you dovey-lovied me out of it. I’m going
to force them to — to —”
Omani put down his book. He let the other run down and then said, “To
what, George?”
“To correct a miscarriage of justice. A frame-up. I’ll get that
Antonelli and force him to admit he — he —”
Omani shook his head. “Everyone who comes here insists it’s a
mistake. I thought you’d passed that stage.”
“Don’t call it a stage,” said George violently. “In
my case, it’s a fact. I’ve told you —”
“You’ve told me, but in your heart you know no one made any mistake
as far as you were concerned.”
“Because no one will admit it? You think any of them would admit a
mistake unless they were forced to? — Well: I’ll force them.”
It was May that was doing this to George; it was Olympics month. He felt
it bring the old wildness back and he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t
want to stop it. He had been in danger of forgetting.
He said, “I was going to be a Computer Programmer and I can be
one. I could be one today, regardless of what they say analysis shows.”
He pounded his mattress. “They’re wrong. They must be.”
“The analysts are never wrong.”
“They must be. Do you doubt my intelligence?”
“Intelligence hasn’t one thing to do with it. Haven’t you
been told that often enough? Can’t you understand that?”
George rolled away, lay on his back, and stared somberly at the ceiling.
“What did you want to be, Hali?”
“I had no fixed plans. Hydroponicist would have suited me, I suppose.”
“Did you think you could make it?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
George had never asked personal questions of Omani before. It struck him
as queer, almost unnatural, that other people had had ambitions and ended
here. Hydroponicist!
He said, “Did you think you’d make this?”
“No, but here I am just the same.”
“And you’re satisfied. Really, really satisfied. You’re
happy. You love it. You wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Slowly, Omani got to his feet. Carefully, he began to unmake his bed. He
said, “George, you’re a hard case. You’re knocking yourself
out because you won’t accept the facts about yourself. George, you’re
here in what you call the House, but I’ve never heard you give it its
full title. Say it, George, say it. Then go to bed and sleep this off.”
George gritted his teeth and showed them. He choked out, “No!”
“Then I will,” said Omani, and he did. He shaped each syllable
carefully.
George was bitterly ashamed at the sound of it. He turned his head away.
 

For most of the first eighteen years of his life, George Platen
had headed firmly in one direction, that of Registered Computer Programmer.
There were those in his crowd who spoke wisely of Spationautics, Refrigeration
Technology, Transportation Control, and even Administration. But George
held firm.
He argued relative merits as vigorously as any of them, and why not?
Education Day loomed ahead of them and was the great fact of their existence.
It approached steadily, as fixed and certain as the calendar — the
first day of November of the year following one’s eighteenth birthday.
After that day, there were other topics of conversation.
One could discuss with others some detail of the profession, or the virtues
of one’s wife and children, or the fate of one’s space-polo
team, or one’s experiences in the Olympics. Before Education Day,
however, there was only one topic that unfailingly and unwearyingly held
everyone’s interest, and that was Education Day.
“What are you going for? Think you’ll make it? Heck, that’s
no good. Look at the records; quota’s been cut. Logistics now—”
Or Hypermechanics now — Or Communications now — Or Gravitics
now —
Especially Gravitics at the moment. Everyone had been talking about Gravitics
in the few years just before George’s Education Day because of the
development of the Gravitic power engine.
Any world within ten light-years of a dwarf star, everyone said, would
give its eyeteeth for any kind of Registered Gravitics Engineer.
The thought of that never bothered George. Sure it would; all the eyeteeth
it could scare up. But George had also heard what had happened before
in a newly developed technique. Rationalization and simplification followed
in a flood. New models each year; new types of gravitic engines; new principles.
Then all those eyeteeth gentlemen would find themselves out of date and
superseded by later models with later educations. The first group would
then have to settle down to unskilled labor or ship out to some backwoods
world that wasn’t quite caught up yet.
Now Computer Programmers were in steady demand year after year, century
after century. The demand never reached wild peaks; there was never a
howling bull market for Programmers; but the demand climbed steadily as
new worlds opened up and as older worlds grew more complex.
He had argued with Stubby Trevelyan about that constantly. As best friends,
their arguments had to be constant and vitriolic and, of course, neither
ever persuaded or was persuaded.
But then Trevelyan had had a father who was a Registered Metallurgist
and had actually served on one of the Outworlds, and a grandfather who
had also been a Registered Metallurgist. He himself was intent on becoming
a Registered Metallurgist almost as a matter of family right and was firmly
convinced that any other profession was a shade less than respectable.
“There’ll always be metal, he said, “and there’s
an accomplishment in molding alloys to specification and watching structures
grow. Now what’s a Programmer going to be doing? Sitting at a coder
all day long, feeding some fool mile-long machine.”
Even at sixteen, George had learned to be practical. He said simply,
“There’ll be a million Metallurgists put out along with you.”
“Because it’s good. A good profession. The best.”
“But you get crowded out, Stubby. You can be way back in line.
Any world can tape out its own Metallurgists, and the market for advanced
Earth models isn’t so big. And it’s mostly the small worlds
that want them. You know what per cent of the turn-out of Registered Metallurgists
get tabbed for worlds with a Grade A rating. I looked it up. It’s
just 13.3 per cent. That means you’ll have seven chances in eight
of being stuck in some world that just about has running water. You may
even be stuck on Earth; 2.3 per cent are.”
Trevelyan said belligerently, “There’s no disgrace in staying
on Earth. Earth needs technicians, too. Good ones.” His grandfather
had been an Earth-bound Metallurgist, and Trevelyan lifted his finger
to his upper lip and dabbed at an as yet nonexistent mustache.
George knew about Trevelyan’s grandfather and, considering the
Earth-bound position of his own ancestry, was in no mood to sneer. He
said diplomatically, “No intellectual disgrace. Of course not. But
it’s nice to get into a Grade A world, isn’t it?
“Now you take Programmers. Only the Grade A worlds have the kind
of computers that really need first-class Programmers so they’re
the only ones in the market. And Programmer tapes are complicated and
hardly any one fits. They need more Programmers than their own population
can supply. It’s just a matter of statistics. There’s one
first-class Programmer per million, say. A world needs twenty and has
a population of ten million, they have to come to Earth for five to fifteen
Programmers. Right?
“And you know how many Registered Computer Programmers went to Grade A planets
last year? I’ll tell you. Every last one. If you’re a Programmer,
you’re a picked man. Yes, sir.”
Trevelyan frowned. “If only one in a million makes it, what makes
you think you’ll make it?”
George said guardedly, “I’ll make it.”
He never dared tell anyone; not Trevelyan; not his parents; of exactly
what he was doing that made him so confident. But he wasn’t worried.
He was simply confident (that was the worst of the memories he had in
the hopeless days afterward). He was as blandly confident as the average
eight-year-old kid approaching Reading Day — that childhood preview
of Education Day.

Of course, Reading Day had been different. Partly, there was the
simple fact of childhood. A boy of eight takes many extraordinary things
in stride. One day you can’t read and the next day you can. That’s
just the way things are. Like the sun shining.
And then not so much depended upon it. There were no recruiters just
ahead, waiting and jostling for the lists and scores on the coming Olympics.
A boy or girl who goes through the Reading Day is just someone who has
ten more years of undifferentiated living upon Earth’s crawling
surface; just someone who returns to his family with one new ability.
By the time Education Day came, ten years later, George wasn’t
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
a mild rain falling. (September for Reading Day; November for. Education
Day; May for Olympics. They made nursery rhymes out of it.) George had
dressed by the wall lights, with his parents far more excited than he
himself was. His father was a Registered Pipe Fitter and had found his
occupation on Earth. This fact had always been a humiliation to him, although,
of course, as anyone could see plainly, most of each generation must stay
on Earth in the nature of things.
There had to be farmers and miners and even technicians on Earth. It
was only the late-model, high-specialty professions that were in demand
on the Outworlds, and only a few millions a year out of Earth’s
eight billion population could be exported. Every man and woman on Earth
couldn’t be among that group.
But every man and woman could hope that at least one of his children
could be one, and Platen, Senior, was certainly no exception. It was obvious
to him (and, to be sure, to others as well) that George was notably intelligent
and quick-minded. He would be bound to do well and he would have to, as
he was an only child. If George didn’t end on an Outworld, they
would have to wait for grandchildren before a next chance would come along,
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
indication they would have before the big day itself. Every parent on
Earth would be listening to the quality of reading when his child came
home with it; listening for any particularly easy flow of words and building
that into certain omens of the future. There were few families that didn’t
have at least one hopeful who, from Reading Day on, was the great hope
because of the way he handled his trisyllabics.
Dimly, George was aware of the cause of his parents’ tension, and
if there was any anxiety in his young heart that drizzly morning, it was
only the fear that his father’s hopeful expression might fade out
when he returned home with his reading.
The children met in the large assembly room of the town’s Education
Hall. All over Earth, in millions of local halls, throughout that month,
similar groups of children would he meeting. George felt depressed by
the grayness of the room and by the other children, strained and stiff
in unaccustomed finery.
Automatically, George did as all the rest of the children did. He found
the small clique that represented the children on his floor of the apartment
house and joined them.
Trevelyan, who lived immediately next door, still wore his hair childishly
long and was years removed from the sideburns and thin, reddish mustache
that he was to grow as soon as he was physiologically capable of it.
Trevelyan (to whom George was then known as Jawjee) said, “Bet
you’re scared.”
“I am not,’ said George. Then, confidentially, “My
folks got a hunk of printing up on the dresser in my room, and when I
come home, I’m going to read it for them.” (George’s
main suffering at the moment lay in the fact that he didn’t quite
know where to put his hands. He had been warned not to scratch his head
or rub his ears or pick his nose or put his hands into his pockets. This
eliminated almost every possibility.)
Trevelyan put his hands in his pockets and said, “My father
isn’t worried.”
Trevelyan, Senior, had been a Metallurgist on Diporia for nearly seven
years, which gave him a superior social status in his neighborhood even
though he had retired and returned to Earth.
Earth discouraged these re-immigrants because of population problems,
but a small trickle did return. For one thing the cost of living was lower
on Earth, and what was a trifling annuity on Diporia, say, was a comfortable
income on Earth. Besides, there were always men who found more satisfaction
in displaying their success before the friends and scenes of their childhood
than before all the rest of the Universe besides.
Trevelyan, Senior further explained that if he stayed on Diporia, so
would his children, and Diporia was a one-spaceship world. Back on Earth,
his kids could end up anywhere, even Novia.
Stubby Trevelyan had picked up that item early. Even before Reading Day,
his conversation was based on the carelessly assumed fact that his ultimate
home would be in Novia.
George, oppressed by thoughts of the other’s future greatness and
his own small-time contrast, was driven to belligerent defense at once.
“My father isn’t worried either. He just wants to hear me
read because he knows I’ll be good. I suppose your father would
just as soon not hear you because he knows you’ll be all wrong.”
“I will not be all wrong. Reading is nothing. On Novia,
I’ll hire people to read to me.”
“Because you won’t be able to read yourself, on account of
you’re dumb!”
“Then how come I’ll be on Novia?”
And George, driven, made the great denial, “Who says you’ll
be on Novia? Bet you don’t go anywhere.”
Stubby Trevelyan reddened. “I won’t be a Pipe Fitter like
your old man.”
“Take that back, you dumbhead.”
“You take that back.”
They stood nose to nose, not wanting to fight but relieved at having
something familiar to do in this strange place. Furthermore, now that
George had curled his hands into fists and lifted them before his face,
the problem of what to do with his hands was, at least temporarily, solved.
Other children gathered round excitedly.
But then it all ended when a woman’s voice sounded loudly over
the public address system. There was instant silence everywhere. George
dropped his fists and forgot Trevelyan.
“Children,” said the voice, “we are going to call out
your names. As each child is called, he or she is to go to one of the
men waiting along the side walls. Do you see them? They are wearing red
uniforms so they will be easy to find. The girls will go to the right.
The boys will go to the left. Now look about and see which man in red
is nearest to you —”
George found his man at a glance and waited for his name to be called
off. He had not been introduced before this to the sophistications of
the alphabet and the length of time it took to reach his own name grew
disturbing.
The crowd of children thinned; little rivulets made their way to each
of the red-clad guides.
When the name ‘George Platen’ was finally called, his sense
of relief was exceeded only by the feeling of pure gladness at the fact
that Stubby Trevelyan still stood in his place, uncalled.
George shouted back over his shoulder as he left, “Yay, Stubby,
maybe they don’t want you.”
That moment of gaiety quickly left. He was herded into a line and directed
down corridors in the company of strange children. They all looked at
one another, large-eyed and concerned, but beyond a snuffling, “Quitcher
pushing” and “Hey, watch out” there was no conversation.
They were handed little slips of paper which they were told must remain
with them. George stared at his curiously. Little black marks of different
shapes. He knew it to be printing but how could anyone make words out
of it? He couldn’t imagine.
He was told to strip; he and four other boys who were all that now remained
together. All the new clothes came shucking off and four eight-year-olds
stood naked and small, shivering more out of embarrassment than cold.
Medical technicians came past, probing them, testing them with odd instruments,
pricking them for blood. Each took the little cards and made additional
marks on them with little black rods that produced the marks, all neatly
lined up, with great speed. George stared at the new marks, but they were
no more comprehensible than the old. The children were ordered back into
their clothes.
They sat on separate little chairs then and waited again. Names were
called again and ‘George Platen’ came third.
He moved into a large room, filled with frightening instruments with
knobs and glassy panels in front. There was a desk in the very center,
and behind it a man sat, his eyes on the papers piled before him.
He said, “George Platen?”
“Yes, sir,” said George, in a shaky whisper. All
this waiting and all this going here and there was making him nervous.
He wished it were over.
The man behind the desk said, “I am Dr Lloyd, George. How are you?”
The doctor didn’t look up as he spoke. It was as though he had
said those words over and over again and didn’t have to look up
any more.
“I’m all right.”
“Are you afraid, George?”
“N — no, sir,” said George, sounding afraid even in
his own ears.
“That’s good,” said the doctor, “because there’s
nothing to be afraid of you know. Let’s see, George. It says here
on your card that your father is named Peter and that he’s a Registered
Pipe Fitter and your mother is named Amy and is a Registered Home Technician.
Is that right?”
“Y — yes, sir.”
“And your birthday is 13 February,and you had an ear infection
about a year ago. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know how I know all these things?”
“It’s on the card, I think, sir.”
“That’s right.” The doctor looked up at George for
the first time and smiled. He showed even teeth and looked much younger
than George’s father. Some of George’s nervousness vanished.
The doctor passed the card to George. “Do you know what all those
things there mean, George?”
Although George knew he did not he was startled by the sudden request
into looking at the card as though he might understand now through some
sudden stroke of fate. But they were just marks as before and he passed
the card back. “No, sir.”
“Why not?”
George felt a sudden pang of suspicion concerning the sanity of this
doctor. Didn’t he know why not?
George said, “I can’t read, sir.”
“Would you like to read?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why, George?”
George stared, appalled. No one had ever asked him that. He had no answer.
He said falteringly, “I don’t know, sir.”
“Printed information will direct you all through your life. There
is so much you’ll have to know even after Education Day. Cards like
this one will tell you. Books will tell you. Television screens will tell
you. Printing will tell you such useful things and such interesting things
that not being able to read would be as bad as not being able to see.
Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you afraid, George?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Now I’ll tell you exactly what we’ll do first.
I’m going to put these wires on your forehead just over the corners
of your eyes. They’ll stick there but they won’t hurt at all.
Then, I’ll turn on something that will make a buzz. It will sound
funny and it may tickle you, but it won’t hurt. Now if it does hurt,
you tell me, and I’ll turn it off right away, but it won’t
hurt. All right?”
George nodded and swallowed.
“Are you ready?”
George nodded. He closed his eyes while the doctor busied himself. His
parents had explained this to him. They, too, had said it wouldn’t
hurt, but then there were always the older children. There were the ten-
and twelve-year-olds who howled after the eight-year-olds waiting for
Reading Day, “Watch out for the needle.” There were the others
who took you off in confidence and said, “They got to cut your head
open. They use a sharp knife that big with a hook on it,” and so
on into horrifying details.
George had never believed them but he had had nightmares, and now he
closed his eyes and felt pure terror.
He didn’t feel the wires at his temple. The buzz was a distant
thing, and there was the sound of his own blood in his ears, ringing hollowly
as though it and he were in a large cave. Slowly he chanced opening his
eyes.
The doctor had his back to him. From one of the instruments a strip of
paper unwound and was covered with a thin, wavy purple line. The doctor
tore off pieces and put them into a slot in another machine. He did it
over and over again. Each time a little piece of film came out which the
doctor looked at. Finally, he turned toward George with a queer frown
between his eyes.
The buzzing stopped.
George said breathlessly, “Is it over?”
The doctor said, “Yes,” but he was still frowning.
“Can I read now?’ asked George. He felt no different.
The doctor said, “What?” then smiled very suddenly and briefly.
He said, “It works fine, George. You’ll be reading in fifteen
minutes. Now we’re going to use another machine this time and it
will take longer. I’m going to cover your whole head, and when I
turn it on you won’t be able to see or hear anything for a while,
but it won’t hurt. Just to make sure I’m going to give you
a little switch to hold in your hand. If anything hurts, you press the
little button and everything shuts off. All right?”
In later years, George was told that the little switch was strictly a
dummy; that it was introduced solely for confidence. He never did know
for sure, however, since he never pushed the button.
A large smoothly curved helmet with a rubbery inner lining was placed
over his head and left there. Three or four little knobs seemed to grab
at him and bite into his skull, but there was only a little pressure that
faded. No pain.
The doctor’s voice sounded dimly. “Everything all right,
George?”
And then, with no real warning, a layer of thick felt closed down all
about him. He was disembodied, there was no sensation, no universe, only
himself and a distant murmur at the very ends of nothingness telling him
something — telling him — telling him —
He strained to hear and understand but there was all that thick felt
between.
Then the helmet was taken off his head, and the light was so bright that
it hurt his eyes while the doctor’s voice drummed at his ears.
The doctor said, “Here’s your card, George. What does it
say?”
George looked at his card again and gave out a strangled shout. The marks
weren’t just marks at all. They made up words. They were words just
as clearly as though something were whispering them in his ears. He could
hear them being whispered as he looked at them.
“What does it say, George?”
“It says — it says — ‘Platen, George. Born 13
February 6492 of Peter and Amy Platen in...’” He broke off.
“You can read, George,” said the doctor. “It’s
all over.”
“For good? I won’t forget how?”
“Of course not” The doctor leaned over to shake hands gravely.
“You will be taken home now.”
It was days before George got over this new and great talent of his.
He read for his father with such facility that Platen, Senior, wept and
called relatives to tell the good news.
George walked about town, reading every scrap of printing he could find
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
he couldn’t. As far as his feeling about it was concerned, he had
always been able to read. Always.

At eighteen, George was rather
dark, of medium height, but thin enough to look taller. Trevelyan, who
was scarcely an inch shorter, had a stockiness of build that made ‘Stubby’
more than ever appropriate, but in this last year he had grown self-conscious.
The nickname could no longer be used without reprisal. And since Trevelyan
disapproved of his proper first name even more strongly, he was called
Trevelyan or any decent variant of that. As though to prove his manhood
further, he had most persistently grown a pair of sideburns and a bristly
mustache.
He was sweating and nervous now, and George, who had himself grown out
of ‘Jaw-jee’ and into the curt monosyllabic gutturability
of ‘George,’ was rather amused by that.
They were in the same large hall they had been in ten years before (and
not since). It was as if a vague dream of the past had come to sudden
reality. In the first few minutes George had been distinctly surprised
at finding everything seem smaller and more cramped than his memory told
him; then he made allowance for his own growth.
The crowd was smaller than it had been in childhood. It was exclusively
male this time. The girls had another day assigned them.
Trevelyan leaned over to say, “Beats me the way they make you wait.”
“Red tape,” said George. “You can’t avoid it.”
Trevelyan said, “What makes you so damned tolerant about it?”
“I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, brother, you make me sick. I hope you end up Registered Manure
Spreader just so I can see your face when you do.” His somber eyes
swept the crowd anxiously.
George looked about, too. It wasn’t quite the system they used
on the children. Matters went slower, and instructions had been given
out at the start in print (an advantage over the pre-Readers). The names
Platen and Trevelyan were well down the alphabet still, but this time
the two knew it.
Young men came out of the education rooms, frowning and uncomfortable,
picked up their clothes and belongings, then went off to analysis to learn
the results.
Each, as he come out, would be surrounded by a clot of the thinning crowd.
“How was it?” “How ’d it feel?” “Whacha
think ya made?” “Ya feel any different?”
Answers were vague and noncommittal.
George forced himself to remain out of those clots. You only raised your
own blood pressure. Everyone said you stood the best chance if you remained
calm. Even so, you could feel the palms of your hands grow cold. Funny
that new tensions came with the years.
For instance, high-specialty professionals heading out for an Outworld
were accompanied by a wife (or husband). It was important to keep the
sex ratio in good balance on all worlds. And if you were going out to
a Grade A world, what girl would refuse you? George had no specific girl
in mind yet; he wanted none. Not now! Once he made Programmer; once he
could add to his name, Registered Computer Programmer, he could take his
pick, like a sultan in a harem. The thought excited him and he tried to
put it away. Must stay calm.
Trevelyan muttered “What’s it all about anyway? First they
say it works best if you’re relaxed and at ease. Then they put you
through this and make it impossible for you to be relaxed and at ease.”
“Maybe that’s the idea. They’re separating the boys
from the men to begin with. Take it easy, Trev.”
“Shut up.”
George’s turn came. His name was not called. It appeared in glowing
letters on the notice board.
He waved at Trevelyan. “Take it easy. Don’t let it get you.”
He was happy as he entered the testing chamber. Actually happy.

The man behind the desk said,
“George Platen?”
For a fleeting instant there was a razor-sharp picture in George’s
mind of another man, ten years earlier, who had asked the same question,
and it was almost as though this were the same man and he, George, had
turned eight again as he had stepped across the threshold.
But the man looked up and, of course, the face matched that of the
sudden memory not at all. The nose was bulbous, the hair thin and stringy,
and the chin wattled as though its owner had once been grossly overweight
and had reduced.
The man behind the desk looked annoyed. “Well?”
George came to Earth. “I’m George Platen, sir.”
“Say so, then. I’m Dr Zachary Antonelli, and we’re
going to be intimately acquainted in a moment.”
He stared at small strips of film, holding them up to the light owlishly.
George winced inwardly. Very hazily, he remembered that other doctor
(he had forgotten the name) staring at such film. Could these be the
same? The other doctor had frowned and this one was looking at him now
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
and put the films’s carefully to one side. “It says here
you want to be a Computer Programmer.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Still do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s a responsible and exacting position. Do you feel
up to it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Most pre-Educates don’t put down any specific profession.
I believe they are afraid of queering it.”
“I think that’s right sir.”
“Aren’t you afraid of that?”
“I might as well be honest, sir.”
Dr Antonelli nodded, but without any noticeable lightening of his expression.
“Why do you want to be a Programmer?”
“It’s a responsible and exacting position as you said,
sir. It’s an important job and an exciting one. I like it and
I think I can do it.”
Dr Antonelli put the papers away, and looked at George sourly. He said,
“How do you know you like it? Because you think you’ll be
snapped up by some Grade A planet?”
George thought uneasily: He’s trying to rattle you. Stay calm
and stay frank.
He said, “I think a Programmer has a good chance, sir, but even
if I were left on Earth, I know I’d like it.” (That was
true enough. I’m not lying, thought George.)
“All right how do you know?”
He asked it as though he knew there was no decent answer and George
almost smiled. He had one.
He said, “I’ve been reading about Programming, sir.”
“You’ve been what?” Now the doctor looked
genuinely astonished and George took pleasure in that.
“Reading about it, sir. I bought a book on the subject and I’ve
been studying it.”
“A book for Registered Programmers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But you couldn’t understand it.”
“Not at first. I got other books on mathematics and electronics.
I made out all I could. I still don’t know much, but I know enough
to know I like it and to know I can make it.” (Even his parents
never found that secret cache of books or knew why he spent so much
time in his own room or exactly what happened to the sleep he missed.)
The doctor pulled at the loose skin under his chin. “What was
your idea in doing that, son?”
“I wanted to make sure I would be interested, sir.”
“Surely you know that being interested means nothing. You could
be devoured by a subject and if the physical make-up of your brain makes
it more efficient for you to be something else, something else you will
be. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve been told that,” said George cautiously.
“Well, believe it. It’s true.”
George said nothing.
Dr Antonelli said, “Or do you believe that studying some subject
will bend the brain cells in that direction, like that other theory
that a pregnant woman need only listen to great music persistently to
make a composer of her child. Do you believe that?”
George flushed. That had certainly been in his mind. By forcing his
intellect constantly in the desired direction, he had felt sure that
he would be getting a head start. Most of his confidence had rested
on exactly that point.
“I never-” he began, and found no way of finishing.
“Well it isn’t true. Good Lord, youngster, your brain pattern
is fixed at birth. It can be altered by a blow hard enough to damage
the cells or by a burst blood vessel or by a tumor or by a major infection
— each time, of course, for the worse. But it certainly can’t
be affected by your thinking special thoughts.” He stared at George
thoughtfully, then said, “Who told you to do this?”
George, now thoroughly disturbed, swallowed and said, “No one,
doctor. My own idea.”
“Who knew you were doing it after you started?”
“No one. Doctor, I meant to do no wrong.”
“Who said anything about wrong? Useless is what I would say.
Why did you keep it to yourself?”
“I — I thought they’d laugh at me.” (He thought
abruptly of a recent exchange with Trevelyan. George had very cautiously
broached the thought, as of something merely circulating distantly in
the very outermost reaches of his mind, concerning the possibility of
learning something by ladling it into the mind by hand, so to speak,
in bits and pieces. Trevelyan had hooted, “George, you’ll
be tanning your own shoes next and weaving your own shirts.” He
had been thankful then for his policy of secrecy.)
Dr Antonelli shoved the bits of film he had first looked at from position
to position in morose thought. Then he said, “Let’s get
you analyzed. This is getting me nowhere.”
The wires went to George’s temples. There was the buzzing. Again
there came a sharp memory of ten years ago.
George’s hands were clammy; his heart pounded. He should never
have told the doctor about his secret reading. It was his damned vanity,
he told himself. He had wanted to show how enterprising he was, how
full of initiative. Instead, he had showed himself superstitious and
ignorant and aroused the hostility of the doctor. (He could tell the
doctor hated him for a wise guy on the make.)
And now he had brought himself to such a state of nervousness, he was
sure the analyzer would show nothing that made sense.
He wasn’t aware of the moment when the wires were removed from
his temples. The sight of the doctor, staring at him thoughtfully, blinked
into his consciousness and that was that; the wires were gone. George
dragged himself together with a tearing effort. He had quite given up
his ambition to be a Programmer. In the space of ten minutes, it had
all gone.
He said dismally, “I suppose no?”
“No what?”
“No Programmer?”
The doctor rubbed his nose and said, “You get your clothes and
whatever belongs to you and go to room 15-C. Your files will be waiting
for you there. So will my report.”
George said in complete surprise, “Have I been Educated already?
I thought this was just to —”
Dr Antonelli stared down at his desk. “It will all be explained
to you. You do as I say.”
George felt something like panic. What was it they couldn’t tell
him? He wasn’t fit for anything but Registered Laborer. They were
going to prepare him for that; adjust him to it.
He was suddenly certain of it and he had to keep from screaming by
main force.
He stumbled back to his place of waiting. Trevelyan was not there,
a fact for which he would have been thankful if he had had enough self-possession
to be meaningfully aware of his surroundings. Hardly anyone was left,
in fact, and the few who were looked as though they might ask him questions
were it not that they were too worn out by their tail-of-the-alphabet
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?
Laborer! He was certain!

He was led by a red-uniformed
guide along the busy corridors lined with separate rooms each containing
its groups, here two, there five: the Motor Mechanics, the Construction
Engineers, the Agronomists — There were hundreds of specialized
Professions and most of them would be represented in this small town
by one or two anyway.
He hated them all just then: the Statisticians, the Accountants, the
lesser breeds and the higher. He hated them because they owned their
smug knowledge now, knew their fate, while he himself, empty still, had
to face some kind of further red tape.
He reached 15-C, was ushered in and left in an empty room. For one
moment, his spirits bounded. Surely, if this were the labor classification
room, there would be dozens of youngsters present.
A door sucked into its recess on the other side of a waist-high partition
and an elderly, white-haired man stepped out. He smiled and showed even
teeth that were obviously false, but his face was still ruddy and unlined
and his voice had vigor.
He said, “Good evening, George. Our own sector has only one of
you this time, I see.”
“Only one?” said George blankly.
“Thousands over the Earth, of course. Thousands. You’re
not alone.”
George felt exasperated. He said, “I don’t understand,
sir. What’s my classification? What’s happening?”
“Easy, son. You’re all right. It could happen to anyone.
He held out his hand and George took it mechanically. It was warm and
it pressed George’s hand firmly. “Sit down, son. I’m
Sam Ellenford.”
George nodded impatiently. “I want to know what’s going
on, sir.”
“Of course. To begin with, you can’t be a Computer Programmer,
George. You’ve guessed that I think.”
“Yes, I have,’ said George bitterly. “What will I
be, then?”
“That’s the hard part to explain, George.” He paused,
then said with careful distinctness, “Nothing.”
“What!”
“Nothing!”
“But what does that mean? Why can’t you assign me a profession?”
“We have no choice in the matter, George. It’s the structure
of your mind that decides that.”
George went a sallow yellow. His eyes bulged. “There’s
something wrong with my mind?”
“There’s something about it. As far as professional
classification is concerned, I suppose you can call it wrong.”
“But why?”
Ellenford shrugged. “I’m sure you know how Earth runs its
Educational program, George. Practically any human being can absorb
practically any body of knowledge, but each individual brain pattern
is better suited to receiving some types of knowledge than others. We
try to match mind to knowledge as well as we can within the limits of
the quota requirements for each profession.”
George nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“Every once in a while, George, we come up against a young man
whose mind is not suited to receiving a superimposed knowledge of any
sort.”
“You mean I can’t be Educated?”
“That is what I mean.”
“But that’s crazy. I’m intelligent. I can understand
—” He looked helplessly about as though trying to find
some way of proving that he had a functioning brain.
“Don’t misunderstand me, please”, said Ellenford
gravely. “ You’re intelligent. There’s no question
about that. You’re even above average in intelligence. Unfortunately
that has nothing to do with whether the mind ought to be allowed to
accept superimposed knowledge or not. In fact, it is almost always the
intelligent person who comes here.”
“You mean I can’t even be a Registered Laborer?”
babbled George. Suddenly even that was better than the blank that faced
him. “What’s there to know to be a Laborer?”
“Don’t underestimate the Laborer, young man. There are
dozens of subclassifications and each variety has its own corpus of
fairly detailed knowledge. Do you think there’s no skill in knowing
the proper manner of lifting a weight? Besides, for the Laborer, we
must select not only minds suited to it but bodies as well. You’re
not the type, George, to last long as a Laborer.”
George was conscious of his slight build. He said, “But I’ve
never heard of anyone without a profession.”
“There aren’t many,” conceded Ellenford. “And
we protect them.”
“Protect them?” George felt confusion and fright grow higher
inside him.
“You’re a ward of the planet, George. From the time you
walked through that door, we’ve been in charge of you.”
And he smiled.
It was a fond smile. To George it seemed the smile of ownership; the
smile of a grown man for a helpless child.
He said, “You mean, I’m going to be in prison?”
“Of course not. You will simply be with others of your kind.”
Your kind. The words made a kind of thunder in George’s
ear.
Ellenford said, “You need special treatment. We’ll take
care of you.”
To George’s own horror, he burst into tears. Ellenford walked
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
those. He thought of his father and mother, of his friends, of Trevelyan,
of his own shame — He said rebelliously, “I learned to read.”
“Everyone with a whole mind can do that. We’ve never found
exceptions. It is at this stage that we discover — exceptions.
And when you learned to read, George, we were concerned about your mind
pattern. Certain peculiarities were reported even then by the doctor
in charge.”
“Can’t you try Educating me? You haven’t even tried.
I’m willing to take the risk.”
“The law forbids us to do that, George. But look, it will not
be bad. We will explain matters to your family so they will not be hurt.
At the place to which you’ll be taken, you’ll be allowed
privileges. We’ll get you books and you can learn what you will.”
“Dab knowledge in by hand,” said George bitterly. “Shred
by shred. Then, when I die I’ll know enough to be a Registered
Junior Office Boy, Paper-Clip Division.”
“Yet I understand you’ve already been studying books.”
George froze. He was struck devastatingly by sudden understanding.
“That’s it”
“What is?”
“That fellow Antonelli. He’s knifing me.”
“No, George. You’re quite wrong.”
“Don’t tell me that.” George was in an ecstasy of
fury. “That lousy bastard is selling me out because he thought
I was a little too wise for him. I read books and tried to get a head
start toward programming. Well, what do you want to square things? Money?
You won’t get it. I’m getting out of here and when I finish
broadcasting this —”
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
his arms to his sides. One of them used an air-spray hypodermic in the
hollow of his right elbow and the hypnotic entered his vein and had
an almost immediate effect.
His screams cut off and his head fell forward. His knees buckled and
only the men on either side kept him erect as he slept.

They took care of George as
they said they would; they were good to him and unfailingly kind —
about the way, George thought, he himself would be to a sick kitten
he had taken pity on.
They told him that he should sit up and take some interest in life;
and then told him that most people who came there had the same attitude
of despair at the beginning and that he would snap out of it.
He didn’t even hear them.
Dr Ellenford himself visited him to tell him that his parents had been
informed that he was away on special assignment.
George muttered, “Do they know —”
Ellenford assured him at once,“We gave no details.”
At first George had refused to eat. They fed him intravenously. They
hid sharp objects and kept him under guard. Hali Omani came to be his
roommate and his stolidity had a calming effect.
One day, out of sheer desperate boredom, George asked for a book. Omani,
who himself read books constantly, looked up, smiling broadly. George
almost withdrew the request then, rather than give any of them satisfaction,
then thought: What do I care?
He didn’t specify the book and Omani brought one on chemistry.
It was in big print, with small words and many illustrations. It was
for teenagers. He threw the book violently against the wall.
That’s what he would be always. A teenager all his life. A pre-Educate
forever and special books would have to be written for him. He lay smoldering
in bed, staring at the ceiling, and after an hour had passed, he got
up sulkily, picked up the book, and began reading.
It took him a week to finish it and then he asked for another.
“Do you want me to take the first one back?” asked Omani.
George frowned. There were things in the book he had not understood,
yet he was not so lost to shame as to say so.
But Omani said, “Come to think of it, you’d better keep
it. Books are meant to be read and reread.”
It was that same day that he finally yielded to Omani’s invitation
that he tour the place. He dogged at the Nigerian’s feet and took
in his surroundings with quick hostile glances.
The place was no prison certainly. There were no walls, no locked doors,
no guards. But it was a prison in that the inmates had no place to go
outside.
It was somehow good to see others like himself by the dozen. It was
so easy to believe himself to be the only one in the world so —
maimed.
He mumbled, “How many people here anyway?”
“Two hundred and five, George, and this isn’t the only
place of the sort in the world. There are thousands.”
Men looked up as he passed, wherever he went; in the gymnasium, along
the tennis courts; through the library (he had never in his life imagined
books could exist in such numbers; they were stacked, actually stacked,
along long shelves). They stared at him curiously and he returned the
looks savagely. At least they were no better than he; no call for them
to look at him as though he were some son of curiosity.
Most of them were in their twenties. George said suddenly, “What
happens to the older ones?”
Omani said, “This place specializes in the younger ones.”
Then, as though he suddenly recognized an implication in George’s
question that he had missed earlier, he shook his head gravely and said,
“They’re not put out of the way, if that’s what you
mean. There are other Houses for older ones.”
“Who cares?” mumbled George, who felt he was sounding too
interested and in danger of slipping into surrender.
“You might. As you grow older, you will find yourself in a House
with occupants of both sexes.”
That surprised George somehow. “Women, too?”
“Of course. Do you suppose women are immune to this sort of thing?”
George thought of that with more interest and excitement than he had
felt for anything since before that day when —  He forced
his thought away from that.
Omani stopped at the doorway of a room that contained a small closed-circuit
television set and a desk computer.
Five or six men sat about the television. Omani said, “This is
a classroom.”
George said, “What’s that?”
“The young men in there are being educated. Not,” he added,
quickly, “in the usual way.”
“You mean they’re cramming it in bit by bit.”
“That’s right. This is the way everyone did it in ancient
times.”
This was what they kept telling him since he had come to the House
but what of it? Suppose there had been a day when mankind had not known
the diatherm-oven. Did that mean he should be satisfied to eat meat
raw in a world where others ate it cooked?
He said, “Why do they want to go through that bit-by-bit stuff?”
“To pass the time, George, and because they’re curious.”
“What good does it do them?”
“It makes them happier.”
George carried that thought to bed with him.
The next day he said to Omani ungraciously, “Can you get me into
a classroom where I can find out something about programming?”
Omani replied heartily, “Sure.”

 
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It was slow and he resented
it. Why should someone have to explain something and explain it again?
Why should he have to read and reread a passage, then stare at a mathematical
relationship and not understand it at once? That wasn’t how other
people had to be.
Over and over again, he gave up. Once he refused to attend classes
for a week.
But always he returned. The official in charge, who assigned reading,
conducted the television demonstrations, and even explained difficult
passages and concepts, never commented on the matter.
George was finally given a regular task in the gardens and took his
turn in the various kitchen and cleaning details. This was represented
to him as being an advance, but he wasn’t fooled. The place might
have been far more mechanized than it was, but they deliberately made
work for the young men in order to give them the illusion of worth-while
occupation, of usefulness. George wasn’t fooled.
They were even paid small sums of money out of which they could buy
certain specified luxuries or which they could put aside for a problematical
use in a problematical old age. George kept his money in an open jar,
which he kept on a closet shelf. He had no idea how much he had accumulated.
Nor did he care.
He made no real friends though he reached the stage where a civil good
day was in order. He even stopped brooding (or almost stopped) on the
miscarriage of justice that had placed him there. He would go weeks
without dreaming of Antonelli, of his gross nose and wattled neck, of
the leer with which he would push George into a boiling quicksand and
hold him under, till he woke screaming with Omani bending over him in
concern.
Omani said to him on a snowy day in February, “It’s amazing
how you’re adjusting.”
But that was February, the thirteenth to be exact, his nineteenth birthday.
March came, then April, and with the approach of May he realized he
hadn’t adjusted at all.
The previous May had passed unregarded while George was still in his
bed, drooping and ambitionless. This May was different.
All over Earth, George knew, Olympics would be taking place and young
men would be competing, matching their skills against one another in
the fight for a place on a new world. There would be the holiday atmosphere,
the excitement, the news reports, the self-contained recruiting agents
from the worlds beyond space, the glory of victory or the consolations
of defeat.
How much of fiction dealt with these motifs, how much of his own boyhood
excitement lay in following the events of Olympics from year to year;
how many of his own plans —
George Platen could not conceal the longing in his voice.
It was too much to suppress. He said, “Tomorrow’s the first
of May. Olympics!”
And that led to his first quarrel with Omani and to Omani’s bitter
enunciation of the exact name of the institution in which George found
himself.
Omani gazed fixedly at George and said distinctly, “A House for
the Feeble-minded.”

George Platen flushed. Feeble-minded!
He rejected it desperately. He said in a monotone, “I’m
leaving.” He said it on impulse. His conscious mind learned
it first from the statement as he uttered it.
Omani, who had returned to his book, looked up. “What?”
George knew what he was saying now. He said it fiercely, “I’m
leaving.”
“That’s ridiculous. Sit down, George, calm yourself.”
“Oh, no. I’m here on a frame-up, I tell you. This doctor,
Antonelli, took a dislike to me. It’s the sense of power these
petty bureaucrats have. Cross them and they wipe out your life with
a stylus mark on some card file.”
“Are you back to that?”
“And staying there till it’s all straightened out. I’m
going to get to Antonelli somehow, break him, force the truth out
of him.” George was breathing heavily and he felt feverish.
Olympics month was here and he couldn’t let it pass. If he did,
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
nearly six feet tall and the expression on his face gave him the look
of a concerned Saint Bernard. He put his arm about George’s
shoulder, “If I hurt your feelings —”
George shrugged him off. “You just said what you thought was
the truth, and I’m going to prove it isn’t the truth,
that’s all. Why not? The door’s open. There aren’t
any locks. No one ever said I couldn’t leave. I’ll just
walk out.”
“All right, but where will you go?”
“To the nearest air terminal, then to the nearest Olympics
center. I’ve got money.” He seized the open jar that held
the wages he had put away. Some of the coins jangled to the floor.
“That will last you a week maybe. Then what?”
“By then I’ll have things settled.”
“By then you’ll come crawling back here,” said
Omani earnestly, “with all the progress you’ve made to
do over again. You’re mad, George.”
“Feeble-minded is the word you used before.”
“Well, I’m sorry I did. Stay here, will you?”
“Are you going to try to stop me?”
Omani compressed his full lips. “No, I guess I won’t.
This is your business. If the only way you can learn is to buck the
world and come back with blood on your face, go ahead. — Well,
go ahead.”
George was in the doorway now, looking back over his shoulder. “I’m
going” — he came back to pick up his pocket grooming set
slowly — “I hope you don’t object to my taking a
few personal belongings.”
Omani shrugged. He was in bed again reading, indifferent.
George lingered at the door again, but Omani didn’t look up.
George gritted his teeth, turned and walked rapidly down the empty
corridor and out into the night-shrouded grounds.
He had expected to be stopped before leaving the grounds. He wasn’t.
He had stopped at an all-night diner to ask directions to an air terminal
and expected the proprietor to call the police. That didn’t
happen. He summoned a skimmer to take him to the airport and the driver
asked no questions.
Yet he felt no lift at that. He arrived at the airport sick at heart.
He had not realized how the outer world would be. He was surrounded
by professionals. The diner’s proprietor had had his name inscribed
on the plastic shell over the cash register. So and so, Registered
Cook. The man in the skimmer had his license up, Registered Chauffeur.
George felt the bareness of his name and experienced a kind of nakedness
because of it worse, he felt skinned. But no one challenged him. No
one studied him suspiciously and demanded proof of professional rating.
George thought bitterly: Who would imagine any human being without
one?
He bought a ticket to San Francisco on the 3 a.m. plane. No other
plane for a sizable Olympics center was leaving before morning and
he wanted to wait as little as possible. As it was, he sat huddled
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
him like a blow. This was the largest city he had ever seen and he
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
in his sudden awareness that some of the noise, excitement, confusion
was due to that.
The Olympics boards were up at the airport for the benefit of the
incoming travelers, and crowds jostled around each one. Each major
profession had its own board. Each listed directions to the Olympics
Hall where the contest for that day for that profession would be given;
the individuals competing and their city of birth; the Outworld (if
any) sponsoring it.
It was a completely stylized thing. George had read descriptions
often enough in the newsprints and films, watched matches on television,
and even witnessed a small Olympics in the Registered Butcher classification
at the county seat. Even that, which had no conceivable Galactic implication
(there was no Outworlder in attendance, of course) aroused excitement
enough.
Partly, the excitement was caused simply by the fact of competition,
partly by the spur of local pride (oh, when there was a home-town
boy to cheer for, though he might be a complete stranger), and, of
course, partly by betting. There was no way of stopping the last.
George found it difficult to approach the board. He found himself
looking at the scurrying, avid onlookers in a new way.
There must have been a time when they themselves were Olympic material.
What had they done? Nothing!
If they had been winners, they would be far out in the Galaxy somewhere,
not stuck here on Earth. Whatever they were, their professions must
have made them Earth-bait from the beginning; or else they had made
themselves Earth-bait by inefficiency at whatever high-specialized
professions they had had.
Now these failures stood about and speculated on the chances of newer
and younger men. Vultures!
How he wished they were speculating on him.
He moved down the line of boards blankly, clinging to the outskirts
of the groups about them. He had eaten breakfast on the strato and
he wasn’t hungry. He was afraid, though. He was in a big city
during the confusion of the beginning of Olympics competition. That
was protection, sure. The city was full of strangers. No one would
question George. No one would care about George.
No one would care. Not even the House, thought George bitterly. They
cared for him like a sick kitten, but if a sick kitten up and wanders
off, well too bad, what can you do?
And now that he was in San Francisco, what did he do? His thoughts
struck blankly against a wall. See someone? Whom? How? Where would
he even stay? The money he had left seemed pitiful.
The first shamefaced thought of going back came to him. He could
go to the police — He shook his head violently as though arguing
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
list of names, in flowing script, sponsored by Novia.
It induced painful memories: himself arguing with Trevelyan, so certain
that he himself would be a Programmer, so certain that a Programmer
was superior to a Metallurgist, so certain that he was following the
right course, so certain that he was clever —
So clever that he had to boast to that small-minded, vindictive Antonelli.
He had been so sure of himself that moment when he had been called
and had left the nervous Trevelyan standing there, so cocksure.
George cried out in a short, incoherent high-pitched gasp. Someone
turned to look at him, then hurried on. People brushed past impatiently
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
‘Trevelyan’ so hard that it had seemed for a moment that
of course the board would say ‘Trevelyan’ back at him.
But that was Trevelyan, up there. And Armand Trevelyan
(Stubby’s hated first name: up in lights for everyone to see)
and the right home town. What’s more, Trev had wanted Novia,
aimed for Novia, insisted on Novia; and this competition was sponsored
by Novia.
This had to be Trev; good old Trev. Almost without thinking he noted
the directions for getting to the place of competition and took his
place in line for a skimmer.
Then he thought somberly: Trev made it! He wanted to be a Metallurgist,
and he made it!
George felt colder, more alone than ever.

 
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There was a line waiting
to enter the hall. Apparently, Metallurgy Olympics was to be an exciting
and closely fought one. At least, the illuminated sky sign above the
ball said so, and the jostling crowd seemed to think so.
It would have been a rainy day, George thought, from the color of
the sky, but San Francisco had drawn the shield across its breadth
from bay to ocean. It was an expense to do so, of course, but all
expenses were warranted where the comfort of Outworlders was concerned.
They would be in town for the Olympics. They were heavy spenders.
And for each recruit taken, there would be a fee both to Earth, and
to the local government from the planet sponsoring the Olympics. It
paid to keep Outworlders in mind of a particular city as a pleasant
place in which to spend Olympics time. San Francisco knew what it
was doing.
George, lost in thought, was suddenly aware of a gentle pressure
on his shoulder blade and a voice saving, “Are you in line here,
young man?”
The line had moved up without George’s having noticed the widening
gap. He stepped forward hastily and muttered, “Sorry, sir.”
There was the touch of two fingers on the elbow of his jacket and
he looked about furtively.
The man behind him nodded cheerfully. He had iron-gray hair, and
under his jacket he wore an old-fashioned sweater that buttoned down
the front. He said, “I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.”
“No offense.”
“All right, then.” He sounded cozily talkative. “I
wasn’t sure you might not simply be standing there, entangled
with the line, so to speak. only by accident. I thought you might
be a —”
“A what?” said George sharply. “Why, a contestant,
of course. You look young.” George turned away. He felt neither
cozy nor talkative, and bitterly impatient with busybodies.
A thought struck him. Had an alarm been sent out for him? Was his
description known, or his picture? Was Gray-hair behind him trying
to get a good look at his face?
He hadn’t seen any news reports. He craned his neck to see
the moving strip of news headlines parading across one section of
the city shield, somewhat lackluster against the gray of the cloudy
afternoon sky. It was no use. He gave up at once. The headlines would
never concern themselves with him. This was Olympics time and the
only news worth headlining was the comparative scores of the winners
and the trophies won by continents, nations, and cities.
It would go on like that for weeks, with scores calculated on a per
capita basis and every city finding some way of calculating itself
into a position of honor. His own town had once placed third in an
Olympics covering Wiring Technician; third in the whole state. There
was still a plaque saying so in Town Hall.
George hunched his head between his shoulders and shoved his hands
in his pocket and decided that made him more noticeable. He relaxed
and tried to look unconcerned, and felt no safer. He was in the lobby
now, and no authoritative hand had yet been laid on his shoulder.
He filed into the hall itself and moved as far forward as he could.
It was with an unpleasant shock that he noticed Gray-hair next to
him. He looked away quickly and tried reasoning with himself. The
man had been right behind him in line after all.
Gray-hair, beyond a brief and tentative smile, paid no attention
to him and, besides, the Olympics was about to start. George rose
in his seat to see if he could make out the position assigned to Trevelyan
and at the moment that was all his concern.

The hall was moderate in size
and shaped in the classical long oval with the spectators in the two
balconies running completely about the rim and the contestants in the
linear trough down the center. The machines were set up, the progress
boards above each bench were dark, except for the name and contest number
of each man. The contestants themselves were on the scene, reading,
talking together; one was checking his fingernails minutely.(It was,
of course, considered bad form for any contestant to pay any attention
to the problem before him until the instant of the starting signal.)
George studied the program sheet he found in the appropriate slot in
the arm of his chair and found Trevelyan’s name. His number was
twelve and, to George’s chagrin, that was at the wrong end of
the hall. He could make out the figure of Contestant Twelve, standing
with his hands in his pockets, back to his machine, and staring at the
audience as though he were counting the house. George couldn’t
make out the face.
Still that was Trev.
George sank back in his seat. He wondered if Trev would do well. He
hoped, as a matter of conscious duty, that he would, and yet there was
something within him that felt rebelliously resentful. George, professionless,
here, watching. Trevelyan, Registered Metallurgist, Nonferrous, there,
competing.
George wondered if Trevelyan had competed in his first year. Sometimes
men did, if they felt particularly confident — or hurried. It
involved a certain risk. However efficient the Educative process, a
preliminary year on Earth ('oiling the stiff knowledge’, as the
expression went) insured a higher score.
If Trevelyan was repeating, maybe he wasn’t doing so well. George
felt ashamed that the thought pleased him just a bit.
He looked about. The stands were almost full. This would be a well-attended
Olympics, which meant greater strain on the contestants — or greater
drive, perhaps, depending on the individual.
Why Olympics, he thought suddenly? He had never known. Why was bread
called bread?
Once he had asked his father: “Why do they call it Olympics,
Dad?”
And his father had said: “Olympics means competition.”
George had said: “Is when Stubby and I fight an Olympics, Dad?”
Platen, Senior, had said: “No. Olympics is a special kind of
competition and don’t ask silly questions. You’ll know all
you have to know when you get Educated.”
George, back in the present, sighed and crowded down into his seat.
All you have to know!
Funny that the memory should be so clear now. “When you get Educated.”
No one ever said, “If you get Educated.”
He always had asked silly questions, it seemed to him now. It was as
though his mind had some instinctive foreknowledge of its inability
to be Educated and had gone about asking questions in order to pick
up scraps here and there as best it could.
And at the House they encouraged him to do so because They agreed with
his mind’s instinct. It was the only way.
He sat up suddenly. What the devil was he doing? Falling for that lie?
Was it because Trev was there before him, an Educee, competing in the
Olympics that he himself was surrendering?
He wasn’t feeble-minded! No!
And the shout of denial in his mind was echoed by the sudden clamor
in the audience as everyone got to his feet. The box seat in the very
center of one long side of the oval was filling with an entourage wearing
the colors of Novia, and the word ‘Novia’ went up above
them on the main board.

Novia was a Grade A world with a large population
and a thoroughly developed civilization, perhaps the best in the Galaxy.
It was the kind of world that every Earthman wanted to live in someday;
or, failing that to see his children live in. (George remembered Trevelyan’s
insistence on Novia as a goal — and there he was competing for
it.)
The lights went out in that section of the ceiling above the audience
and so did the wall lights. The central trough, in which the contestants
waited, became floodlit.
Again George tried to make out Trevelyan. Too far.
The clear, polished voice of the announcer sounded. “Distinguished
Novian sponsors. Ladies. Gentlemen. The Olympics competition for Metallurgist,
Nonferrous, is about to begin. The contestants are —”
Carefully and conscientiously, he read off the list in the program.
Names. Home towns. Educative years. Each name received its cheers,
the San Franciscans among them receiving the loudest. When Trevelyan’s
name was reached, George surprised himself by shouting and waving
madly. The gray-haired man next to him surprised him even more by
cheering likewise.
George could not help but stare in astonishment and his neighbor
leaned over to say (speaking loudly in order to be heard over the
hubbub), “No one here from my home town; I’ll root for
yours. Someone you know?”
George shrank back. “No.”
“I noticed you looking in that direction. Would you like to
borrow my glasses?”
“No. Thank you.” (Why didn’t the old fool mind
his own business?)
The announcer went on with other formal details concerning the serial
number of the competition, the method of timing and scoring and so
on. Finally, he approached the meat of the matter and the audience
grew silent as it listened.
“Each contestant will be supplied with a bar of nonferrous
alloy of unspecified composition. He will be required to sample and
assay the bar, reporting all results correctly to four decimals in
per cent. All will utilize for this purpose a Beeman Microspectrograph
Model FX-2, each of which is, at the moment, not in working order.”
There was an appreciative shout from the audience.
“Each contestant will be required to analyze the fault of his
machine and correct it. Tools and spare parts are supplied. The spare
part necessary may not be present, in which case it must be asked
for, and time of delivery thereof will be deducted from final time.
Are all contestants ready?”
The board above Contestant Five flashed a frantic red signal. Contestant
Five ran off the floor and returned a moment later. The audience laughed
good-naturedly.
“Are all contestants ready?”
The boards remained blank.
“Any questions”
Still blank.
“You may begin.”

There was, of course, no way
anyone in the audience could tell how any contestant was progressing
except for whatever notations went up on the notice board. But then,
that didn’t matter. Except for what professional Metallurgists
there might be in the audience, none would understand anything about
the contest professionally in any case. What was important was who won,
who was second, who was third. For those who had bets on the standings
(illegal but unpreventable) that was all-important. Everything else
might go hang.
George watched as eagerly as the rest, glancing from one contestant
to the next, observing how this one had removed the cover from his microspectrograph
with deft strokes of a small instrument; how that one was peering into
the face of the thing; how still a third was setting his alloy bar into
its holder; and how a fourth adjusted a vernier with such small touches
that he seemed momentarily frozen.
Trevelyan was as absorbed as the rest. George had no way of telling
how he was doing.
The notice board over Contestant Seventeen flashed:
Focus plate out of adjustment.
The audience cheered wildly.
Contestant Seventeen might be right and he might, of course, be wrong.
If the latter, he would have to correct his diagnosis later and lose
time. Or he might never correct his diagnosis and be unable to complete
his analysis or, worse still, end with a completely wrong analysis.
Never mind. For the moment, the audience cheered.
Other boards lit up. George watched for Board Twelve. That came on
finally: ‘Sample holder off-center. New clamp depresser needed.’
An attendant went running to him with a new pan. If Trevelyan was wrong,
it would mean useless delay. Nor would the time elapsed in waiting for
the pan be deducted. George found himself holding his breath.
Results were beginning to go up on Board Seventeen, in gleaming letters:
aluminum, 41.2649; magnesium, 22.1914; copper, 10.1001.
Here and there, other boards began sprouting figures.
The audience was in bedlam.
George wondered how the contestants could work in such pandemonium,
then wondered if that were not even a good thing. A first-class technician
should work best under pressure.
Seventeen rose from his place as his board went red-rimmed to signify
completion. Four was only two seconds behind him. Another, then another.
Trevelyan was still working, the minor constituents of his alloy bar
still unreported. With nearly all contestants standing, Trevelyan finally
rose, also. Then, tailing off, Five rose, and received an ironic cheer.
It wasn’t over. Official announcements were naturally delayed.
Time elapsed was something, but accuracy was just as important. And
not all diagnoses were of equal difficulty. A dozen factors had to be
weighed.
Finally, the announcer’s voice sounded, “Winner in the
time of four minutes and twelve seconds, diagnosis correct, analysis
correct within an average of zero point seven parts per hundred thousand,
Contestant Number — Seventeen, Henry Anton Schrnidt of
—”
What followed was drowned in the screaming. Number Eight was next and
then Four, whose good time was spoiled by a five part in ten thousand
error in the niobium figure. Twelve was never mentioned. He was an also-ran.
George made his way through the crowd to the Contestant’s Door
and found a large clot of humanity ahead of him. There would be weeping
relatives (joy or sorrow, depending) to greet them, newsmen to interview
the top-scorers, or the home-town boys, autograph hounds, publicity
seekers and the just plain curious. Girls, too, who might hope to catch
the eye of a top-scorer, almost certainly headed for Novia (or perhaps
a low-scorer who needed consolation and had the cash to afford it).
George hung back. He saw no one he knew. With San Francisco so far
from home, it seemed pretty safe to assume that there would be no relatives
to condole with Trev on the spot.
Contestants emerged, smiling weakly, nodding at shouts of approval.
Policemen kept the crowds far enough away to allow a lane for walking.
Each high-scorer drew a portion of the crowd off with him, like a magnet
pushing through a mound of iron filings.
When Trevelyan walked out, scarcely anyone was left. (George felt somehow
that he had delayed coming out until just that had come to pass.) There
was a cigarette in his dour mouth and he turned, eyes downcast, to walk
off. It was the first hint of home George had had in what was almost
a year and a half and seemed almost a decade and a half. He was almost
amazed that Trevelyan hadn’t aged, that he was the same Trev he
had last seen.
George sprang forward. “Trev!”
Trevelyan spun about, astonished. He stared at George and then his
hand shot out. “George Platen, what the devil —
”
And almost as soon as the look of pleasure had crossed his face, It
left. His hand dropped before George had quite the chance of seizing
it.
“Were you in there?’ A curt jerk of Trev’s head indicated
the hall.
“I was.”
“To see me?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t do so well did I?” He dropped his cigarette
and stepped on it, staring off to the street, where the emerging crowd
was slowly eddying and finding its way into skimmers, while new lines
were forming for the next scheduled Olympics.
Trevelyan said heavily, “So what? It’s only the second
time I missed. Novia can go shove after the deal I got today. There
are planets that would jump at me fast enough — But, listen, I
haven’t seen you since Education Day. Where did you go? Your folks
said you were on special assignment but gave no details and you never
wrote. You might have written.”
“I should have,” said George uneasily. “Anyway, I
came to say I was sorry the way things went just now.”
“Don’t be,” said Trevelyan. “I told you. Novia
can go shove — At that I should have known. They've been saying
for weeks that the Beeman machine would be used. All the wise money
was on Beeman machines. The damned Education tapes they ran through
me were for Henslers and who uses Henslers? The worlds in the Goman
Cluster if you want to call them worlds. Wasn’t that a
nice deal they gave me?”
“Can’t you complain to —”
“Don’t be a fool. They’ll tell me my brain was built
for Henslers. Go argue. Everything went wrong. I was the only
one who had to send out for a piece of equipment. Notice that?”
“They deducted the time for that, though.”
“Sure, but I lost time wondering if I could be right in my diagnosis
when I noticed there wasn’t any clamp depresser in the parts they
had supplied. They don’t deduct for that. If it had been a Hensler,
I would have known I was right. How could I match up then?
The top winner was a San Franciscan. So were three of the next four.
And the fifth guy was from Los Angeles. They get big-city Educational
tapes. The best available. Beeman spectrographs and all. How do I compete
with them? I came all the way out here just to get a chance at a Novian-sponsored
Olympics in my classification and I might just as well have stayed home.
I knew it, I tell you, and that settles it. Novia isn’t the only
chunk of rock in space. Of all the damned —”
He wasn’t speaking to George. He wasn’t speaking to anyone.
He was just uncorked and frothing. George realized that.
George said, “If you knew in advance that the Beemans were going
to be used, couldn’t you have studied up on them?”
“They weren’t in my tapes, I tell you.”
“You could have read — books.”
The last word had tailed off under Trevelyan’s suddenly sharp
look.
Trevelyan said, “Are you trying to make a big laugh out of this?
You think this is funny? How do you expect me to read some book and
try to memorize enough to match someone else who knows.”
“I thought —”
“You try it. You try —” Then, suddenly, “What’s
your profession, by the way?” He sounded thoroughly hostile.
“Well —”
“Come on, now. If you’re going to be a wise guy with me,
let’s see what you’ve done. You’re still on Earth,
I notice, so you’re not a Computer Programmer and your special
assignment can’t be much.”
George said, “Listen, Trev, I’m late for an appointment.”
He backed away, trying to smile.
“No, you don’t.” Trevelyan reached out fiercely,
catching hold of George’s jacket. “You answer my question.
Why are you afraid to tell me? What is it with you? Don’t come
here rubbing a bad showing in my face, George, unless you can take it,
too. Do you hear me?”
He was shaking George in frenzy and they were struggling and swaying
across the floor, when the Voice of Doom struck George’s ear in
the form of a policeman’s outraged call.
“All right now. All right. Break it up.”
George’s heart turned to lead and lurched sickeningly. The policeman
would be taking names, asking to see identity cards, and George lacked
one. He would be questioned and his lack of profession would show at
once; and before Trevelyan, too, who ached with the pain of the drubbing
he had taken and would spread the news back home as a salve for his
own hurt feelings.
George couldn’t stand that. He broke away from Trevelyan and
made to run, but the policeman’s heavy hand was on his shoulder.
“Hold on there. Let’s see your identity card.”
“Trevelyan was fumbling for his, saying harshly, “I’m
Amand Trevelyan, Metallurgist, Nonferrous. I was just competing in the
Olympics. You better find out about him, though, officer.”
George faced the two, lips dry and throat thickened past speech.
Another voice sounded, quiet, well-mannered. “Officer. One moment.”
The policeman stepped back. “Yes, sir?”
“This young man is my guest. What is the trouble?”
George looked about in wild surprise. It was the gray-haired man who
had been sitting next to him. Gray-hair nodded benignly at George.
Guest? Was he mad?
The policeman was saying, “These two were creating a disturbance,
sir.”
“Any criminal charges? Any damages?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, then, I’ll be responsible.” He presented a
small card to the policeman’s view and the latter stepped back
at once.
Trevelyan began indignantly, “Hold on, now —” but
the policeman turned on him.
“All right, now. Got any charges?”
“I just —”
“On your way. The rest of you — move on.” A sizable
crowd had gathered, which now, reluctantly, unknotted itself and raveled
away.
George let himself be led to a skimmer but balked at entering.
He said, “Thank you, but I’m not your guest.” (Could
it be a ridiculous case of mistaken identity?)
But Gray-hair smiled and said, “You weren’t but you are
now. Let me introduce myself, I’m Ladislas Ingenescu, Registered
Historian.”
“But —”
“Come, you will come to no harm, I assure you. After all, I only
wanted to spare you some trouble with a policeman.”
“But why?”
“Do you want a reason? Well, then, say that we’re honorary
towns-mates, you and I. We both shouted for the same man, remember,
and we towns-people must stick together, even if the tie is only honorary.
Eh?”
And George, completely unsure of this man, Ingenescu, and of himself
as well, found himself inside the skimmer. Before he could make up his
mind that he ought to get off again, they were off the ground.
He thought confusedly: The man has some status. The policeman deferred
to him.
He was almost forgetting that his real purpose here in San Francisco
was not to find Trevelyan but to find some person with enough influence
to force a reappraisal of his own capacity of Education.
It could be that Ingenescu was such a man. And right in George’s
lap.
Everything could be working out fine — fine. Yet it sounded hollow
in his thought. He was uneasy.

During the short skimmer-hop,
Ingenescu kept up an even flow of small talk, pointing out the landmarks
of the city, reminiscing about past Olympics he had seen. George, who
paid just enough attention to make vague sounds during the pauses, watched
the route of flight anxiously.
Would they head for one of the shield-openings and leave the city altogether?
The skimmer landed at the roof-entry of a hotel and, as he alighted,
Ingenescu said, “I hope you’ll eat dinner with me in my
room?”
George said, “Yes,” and grinned unaffectedly. He was just
beginning to realize the gap left within him by a missing lunch.
Ingenescu let George eat in silence. Night closed in and the wall lights
went on automatically. (George thought: I’ve been on my own almost
twenty-four hours.)
And then over the coffee, Ingenescu finally spoke again. He said, “You’ve
been acting as though you think I intend you harm.”
George reddened, put down his cup and tried to deny it, but the older
man laughed and shook his head.
“It’s so. I’ve been watching you closely since I
first saw you and I think I know a great deal about you now.”
George half rose in horror.
Ingenescu said, “But sit down. I only want to help you.”
George sat down but his thoughts were in a whirl. If the old man knew
who he was, why had he not left him to the policeman? On the other hand,
why should he volunteer help?
Ingenescu said, “You want to know why I should want to help you?
Oh, don’t look alarmed. I can’t read minds. It’s just
that my training enables me to judge the little reactions that give
minds away, you see. Do you understand that?”
George shook his head.
Ingenescu said, “Consider my first sight of you. You were waiting
in line to watch an Olympics, and your micro-reactions didn’t
match what you were doing. The expression of your face was wrong, the
action of your hands was wrong. It meant that something, in general
was wrong, and the interesting thing was that, whatever it was, it was
nothing common, nothing obvious. Perhaps, I thought, it was something
of which your own conscious mind was unaware.
“I couldn’t help but follow you, sit next to you. I followed
you again when you left and eavesdropped on the conversation between
your friend and yourself. After that, well, you were far too interesting
an object of study — I’m sorry if that sounds cold-blooded
— for me to allow you to be taken off by a policeman. —
Now tell me, what is it that troubles you?”
George was in an agony of indecision. If this was a trap, why should
it be such an indirect, roundabout one? And he had to turn
to someone. He had come to the city to find help and here was help being
offered. Perhaps what was wrong was that it was being offered. It came
too easy.
Ingenescu said, “Of course, what you tell me as a Social Scientist
is a privileged communication. Do you know what that means?”
“No, sir.”
“It means, it would be dishonorable for me to repeat what you
say to anyone for any purpose. Moreover no one has the legal right to
compel me to repeat it.”
George said, with sudden suspicion, “I thought you were a Historian.”
“So I am.”
“Just now you said you were a Social Scientist.”
lngenescu broke into loud laughter and apologized for it when he could
talk. “I’m sorry, young man, I shouldn’t laugh, and
I wasn’t really laughing at you. I was laughing at Earth and its
emphasis on physical science, and the practical segments of it at that.
I’ll bet you can rattle off every subdivision of construction
technology or mechanical engineering and yet you’re a blank on
social science.”
“Well, then what is social science?”
“Social science studies groups of human beings and there are
many high-specialized branches to it, just as there are to zoology,
for instance. For instance, there are Culturists, who study the mechanics
of cultures, their growth, development, and decay. Cultures,’
he added, forestalling a question, “are all the aspects of a way
of life. For instance it includes the way we make our living, the things
we enjoy and believe, what we consider good and bad and so on. Do you
understand?”
“I think I do.”
“An Economist — not an Economic Statistician, now, but
an Economist — specializes in the study of the way a culture supplies
the bodily needs of its individual members. A psychologist specializes
in the individual member of a society and how he is affected by the
society. A Futurist specializes in planning the future course of a society,
and a Historian — That’s where I come in, now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A Historian specializes in the past development of our own society
and of societies with other cultures.”
George found himself interested. “Was it different in the past?”
“I should say it was. Until a thousand years ago, there was no
Education; not what we call Education, at least.”
George said, “I know. People learned in bits and pieces out of
books.”
“Why, how do you know this?”
“I’ve heard it said,’ said George cautiously. Then,
“Is there any use in worrying about what’s happened long
ago? I mean, it’s all done with, isn’t it?”
“It’s never done with, my boy. The past explains the present.
For instance, why is our Educational system what it is?”
George stirred restlessly. The man kept bringing the subject back to
that. He said snappishly, “Because it’s best.”
“Ah, but why is it best? Now you listen to me for one moment
and I’ll explain. Then you can tell me if there is any use in
history. Even before interstellar travel was developed —”
He broke off at the look of complete astonishment on George’s
face. “Well, did you think we always had it?”
“I never gave it any thought, sir.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. But there was a time, four
or five thousand years ago, when mankind was confined to the surface
of Earth. Even then, his culture had grown quite technological and his
numbers had increased to the point where any failure in technology would
have meant mass starvation and disease. To maintain the technological
level and advance it in the face of an increasing population, more and
more technicians and scientists had to be trained, and yet, as science
advanced, it took longer and longer to train them.
“As first interplanetary and then interstellar travel was developed,
the problem grew more acute. In fact, actual colonization of extra-Solar
planets was impossible for about fifteen hundred years because of lack
of properly trained men.
“The turning point came when the mechanics of the storage of knowledge
within the brain was worked out. Once that had been done, it became
possible to devise Educational tapes that would modify the mechanics
in such a way as to place within the mind a body of knowledge ready-made
so to speak. But you know about that.
“Once that was done, trained men could be turned out by the
thousands and millions, and we could begin what someone has since called
the ‘Filling of the Universe.’ There are now fifteen hundred
inhabited planets in the Galaxy and there is no end in sight.
“Do you see all that is involved? Earth exports Education tapes
for low-specialized professions and that keeps the Galactic culture
unified. For instance, the Reading tapes insure a single language for
all of us. — Don’t look so surprised, other languages are
possible and in the past were used. Hundreds of them.
“Earth also exports high-specialized professionals and keeps its
own population at an endurable level. Since they are shipped out in
a balanced sex ratio, they act as self-reproductive units and help increase
the populations on the Outworlds where an increase is needed. Furthermore,
tapes and men are paid for in material which we much need and on which
our economy depends. Now do you understand why our Education
is the best way?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does it help you to understand knowing that without it, interstellar
colonization was impossible for fifteen hundred years?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you see the uses of history.” The Historian smiled.
“ And now I wonder if you see why I’m interested in you?”
George snapped out of time and space back to reality. Ingenescu, apparently,
didn’t talk aimlessly. All this lecture had been a device to attack
him from a new angle.
He said, once again withdrawn, hesitating, “Why?”
“Social Scientists work with societies and societies are made
up of people.”
“All right.”
“But people aren’t machines. The professionals in physical
science work with machines. There is only a limited amount to know about
a machine and the professionals know it all. Furthermore, all machines
of given sort are just about alike so that there is nothing to interest
them in any given individual machine. But people, ah — They are
so complex and so different one from another that a Social Scientist
never knows all there is to know or even a good part of what there is
to know. To understand his own specialty, he must always be ready to
study people; particularly unusual specimens.”
“Like me,’ said George tonelessly.
“I shouldn’t call you a specimen, I suppose, but you are
unusual. You’re worth studying, and If you will allow me that
privilege then, in return, I will help you if you are in trouble and
if I can.”
There were pin wheels whirring in George’s mind. — All
this talk about people and colonization made possible by Education.
It was as though caked thought within him were being broken up and strewn
about mercilessly.
He said, “Let me think,” and clamped his hands over his
ears.
He took them away and said to the Historian, “Will you do something
for me, sir?”
“If I can,” said the Historian amiably.
“And everything I say in this room is a privileged communication.
You said so.”
“And I meant it.”
“Then get me an interview with an Outworld official with —
with a Novian.”
Ingenescu looked startled. “Well, now —”
“You can do it,’ said George earnestly. “You’re
an important official. I saw the policeman’s look when you put
that card in front of his eyes. If you refuse, I — I won’t
let you study me.”
It sounded a silly threat in George’s own ears, one without force.
On Ingenescu, however, it seemed to have a strong effect.
He said, “That’s an impossible condition. A Novian in Olympics
month —”
“All right, then, get me a Novian on the phone and I’ll
my own arrangements for an interview.”
“Do you think you can?”
“I know I can. Wait and see.”
Ingenescu stared at George thoughtfully and then reached for the visiphone.
George waited, half drunk with this new outlook on the
whole problem and the sense of power it brought. It couldn’t miss.
It couldn’t miss. He would be a Novian yet. He would
leave Earth in triumph despite Antonelli and the whole crew of fools
at the House for the (he almost laughed aloud) Feeble-minded.

 
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George watched eagerly as
the visiplate lit up. It would open up a window into a room of Novians,
a window into a small patch of Novia transplanted to Earth. In twenty-four
hours, he had accomplished that much.
There was a burst of laughter as the plate unmisted and sharpened,
but for the moment no single head could be seen but rather the fast
passing of the shadows of men and women, this way and that. A voice
was heard, clearworded over a background of babble. “Ingenescu?
He wants me?”
Then there he was, staring out of the plate. A Novian. A genuine Novian.
(George had not an atom of doubt. There was something completely Outworldly
about him. Nothing that could be completely defined, or even momentarily
mistaken.)
He was swarthy in complexion with a dark wave of hair combed rigidly
back from his forehead. He wore a thin black mustache and a pointed
beard, just as dark, that scarcely reached below the lower limit of
his narrow chin, but the rest of his face was so smooth that it looked
a though it had been depilated permanently.
He was smiling. “Ladislas, this goes too far. We fully expect
to be spied on, within reason, during our stay on Earth, but mind reading
is out of bounds.”
“Mind reading, Honorable?”
“Confess! You knew I was going to call you this evening. You
knew I was only waiting to finish this drink.” His moved up into
view and his eye peered through a glass of a faintly violet liqueur.
“I can’t offer you one, afraid.”
George, out of range of Ingenescu’s transmitter, could not be
seen by the Novian. He was relieved at that. He wanted time to compose
himself and he needed it badly. It was as though he were made up exclusively
of restless fingers, drumming, drumming —
But he was right. He hadn’t miscalculated. Ingenescu was important. The Novian called him by his first name.
Good! Things worked well. What George had lost on Antonelli, he would
make up, with advantage, on Ingenescu. And someday, when he was on his
own at last, and could come back to Earth as powerful a Novian as this
one who could negligently joke with Ingenescu’s first name and
be addressed as ‘Honorable’ in turn — when he came
back, he would settle with Antonelli. He had a year and a half to pay
back and he —
He all but lost his balance on the brink of the enticing daydream and
snapped back in sudden anxious realization that he was losing the thread
of what was going on.
The Novian was saying, “— doesn’t hold water. Novia
has a civilization as complicated and advanced as Earth’s. We’re
not Zeston, after all. It’s ridiculous that we have to come here
for individual technicians.”
Ingenescu said soothingly, “Only for new models. There is never
any certainty that new models will be needed. To buy the Educational
tapes would cost you the same price as a thousand technicians and how
do you know you would need that many?”
The Novian tossed off what remained of his drink and laughed. (It displeased
George, somehow, that a Novian should be this frivolous. He wondered
uneasily if perhaps the Novian ought not to have skipped that drink
and even the one or two before that.)
The Novian said, 'That’s typical pious fraud, Ladislas. You know
we can make use of all the late models we can. I collected five Metallurgists
this afternoon —”
“I know,’ said Ingenescu. “I was there.”
“Watching me! Spying!” cried the Novian. “I’ll
tell you What it is. The new-model Metallurgists I got differed from
the previous model only in knowing the use of Beeman Spectrographs.
The tapes couldn’t be modified that much, not that much”
(he held up two fingers close together) “from last year’s
model. You introduce the new models only to make us buy and
spend and come here hat in hand.”
“We don’t make you buy.”
“No, but you sell late-model technicians to Landonum and so we
have to keep pace. It’s a merry-go-round you have us on, you pious
Earthmen, but watch out, there may be an exit somewhere.” There
was a sharp edge to his laugh, and it ended sooner than it should have.
Ingenescu said, “In all honesty, I hope there is. Meanwhile,
as to the purpose of my call-”
“That’s right, you called. Oh, well, I’ve
said my say and I suppose next year there’ll be a new model of
Metallurgist anyway for us to spend goods on, probably with a new gimmick
for niobium assays and nothing else altered and the next year —
But go on, what is it you want?”
“I have a young man here to whom I wish you to speak.”
“Oh?” The Novian looked not completely pleased with that.
“ Concerning what?”
“I can’t say. He hasn’t told me. For that matter
he hasn’t even told me his name and profession.”
The Novian frowned. “Then why take up my time?”
“He seems quite confident that you will be interested in what
he has to say.”
“I dare say.”
“And,” said Ingenescu, “as a favor to me.”
The Novian shrugged. “Put him on and tell him to make it short.”
Ingenescu stepped aside and whispered to George,“Address him
as ‘Honorable’.”
George swallowed with difficulty. This was it.

George felt himself going
moist with perspiration. The thought had come so recently, yet it was
in him now so certainly. The beginnings of it had come when he had spoken
to Trevelyan, then everything had fermented and billowed into shape
while Ingenescu had prattled, and then the Novian’s own remarks
had seemed to nail it all into place.
George said, “Honorable, I’ve come to show you the exit
from the merry-go-round.” Deliberately, he adopted the Novian’s
own metaphor.
The Novian stared at him gravely. “What merry-go-round?”
“You yourself mentioned it, Honorable. The merry-go-round that
Novia is on when you come to Earth to — to get technicians.”
(He couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering; from excitement not
fear.)
The Novian said, “You’re trying to say that you know a
way by which we can avoid patronizing Earth’s mental super-market.
Is that it?”
“Yes, sir. You can control your own Educational system.”
“Umm. Without tapes?”
“Y — yes, Honorable.”
The Novian, without taking his eyes from George, called out, “Ingenescu,
get into view.”
The Historian moved to where he could be seen over George’s shoulder.
The Novian said, “What is this? I don’t seem to penetrate.”
“I assure you solemnly,” said Ingenescu, “that whatever
this is it is being done on the young man’s own initiative, Honorable.
I have not inspired this. I have nothing to do with it.”
“Well, then, what is the young man to you? Why do you call me
on his behalf?”
Ingenescu said, “He is an object of study, Honorable. He has
value to me and I humor him.”
“What kind of value?”
“It’s difficult to explain; a matter of my profession.”
The Novian laughed shortly. “Well, to each his profession.”
He nodded to an invisible person or persons outside plate range. “There’s
a young man here, a protégé of Ingenescu or some such
thing, who will explain to us how to Educate without tapes.” He
snapped his fingers, and another glass of pale liqueur appeared in his
hand. “Well, young man?”
The faces on the plate were multiple now. Men and women, both, crammed
in for a view of George, their faces molded into various shades of amusement
and curiosity.
George tried to look disdainful. They were all, in their own ways,
Novians as well as the Earthman, ‘studying’ him as though
he were a bug on a pin. Ingenescu was sitting in a corner, now, watching
him owl-eyed.
Fools, he thought tensely, one and all. But they would have to understand.
He would make them understand.
He said, “I was at the Metallurgist Olympics this afternoon.”
“You, too?’ said the Novian blandly. “It seems all
Earth was there.”
“No, Honorable, but I was. I had a friend who competed and who
made out very badly because you were using the Beeman machines. His
education had included only the Henslers, apparently an older model.
You said the modification involved was slight.” George held up
two fingers close together in conscious mimicry of the other’s
previous gesture. “And my friend had known some time in advance
that knowledge of the Beeman machines would be required.”
“And what does that signify?”
“It was my friend’s lifelong ambition to qualify for Novia.
He already knew the Henslers. He had to know the Beemans to qualify
and he knew that. To learn about the Beemans would have taken just a
few more facts, a bit more data, a small amount of practice perhaps.
With a life’s ambition riding the scale, he might have managed
this —”
“And where would he have obtained a tape for the additional facts
and data? Or has Education become a private matter for home study here
on Earth?”
There was dutiful laughter from the faces in the background.
George said, “That’s why he didn’t learn, Honorable.
He thought he needed a tape. He wouldn’t even try without one,
no matter what the prize. He refused to try without a tape.”
“Refused, eh? Probably the type of fellow who would refuse to
fly without a skimmer.” More laughter and the Novian thawed into
a smile and said, “The fellow is amusing. Go on. I’ll give
you another few moments.”
George said tensely, “Don’t think this is a joke. Tapes
are actually bad. They teach too much; they’re too painless. A
man who learns that way doesn’t know how to learn any other way.
He’s frozen into whatever position he’s been taped. Now
if a person weren't given tapes but were forced to learn by
hand, so to speak, from the start; why, then he’d get the habit
of learning, and continue to learn. Isn’t that reasonable? Once
he has the habit well developed he can be given just a small amount
of tape-knowledge, perhaps, to fill in gaps or fix details. Then he
can make further progress on his own. You can make Beeman Metallurgists
out of your own Hensler Metallurgists in that way and not have to come
to Earth for new models.”
The Novian nodded and sipped at his drink. “And where does everyone
get knowledge without tapes? From interstellar vacuum?”
“From books. By studying the instruments themselves. By thinking.”
“Books? How does one understand books without Education?”
“Books are in words. Words can be understood for the most part.
Specialized words can be explained by the technicians you already have.”
“What about reading? Will you allow reading tapes?”
“Reading tapes are all right, I suppose but there’s no
reason you can’t learn to read the old way, too. At least in part.”
The Novian said, “So that you can develop good habits from the
start?”
“Yes, yes,” George said gleefully. The man was beginning
to understand.
“And what about mathematics?”
“That’s the easiest of all, sir — Honorable. Mathematics
is different from other technical subjects. It starts with certain simple
principles and proceeds by steps. You Can start with nothing and learn.
It’s practically designed for that. Then, once you know the proper
types of mathematics, other technical books become quite understandable.
Especially if you start with easy ones.”
“Are there easy books?”
“Definitely. Even if there weren’t, the technicians you
now have can try to write easy books. Some of them might be able to
put some of their knowledge into words and symbols.”
“Good Lord,” said the Novian to the men clustered about
him. “ The young devil has an answer for everything.”
“I have. I have,’ shouted George. “Ask me.”
“Have you tried learning from books yourself? Or is this just
theory with you?”
George turned to look quickly at Ingenescu, but the Historian was passive.
There was no sign of anything but gentle interest in his face.
George said,“I have.”
“And do you find it works?”
“Yes, Honorable,” said George eagerly. “Take me with
you to Novia. I can set up a program and direct —”
“Wait I have a few more questions. How long would it take, do
you suppose, for you to become a Metallurgist capable of handling a
Beeman machine, supposing you started from nothing and did not use Educational
tapes?”
George hesitated. “Well — years, perhaps.”
“Two years? Five? Ten?”
“I can’t say, Honorable.”
“Well, there’s a vital question to which you have no answer,
have you? Shall we say five years? Does that sound reasonable to you?”
“I suppose so.”
“All right. We have a technician studying metallurgy according
to this method of yours for five years. He’s no good to us during
that time, you’ll admit but he must be fed and housed and paid
all that time.”
“But —”
“Let me finish. Then when he’s done and can use the Beeman,
five years have passed. Don’t you suppose we’ll have modified
Beemans then which he won’t be able to use?”
“But by then he’ll be expert on learning. He could learn
the new details necessary in a matter of days.”
“So you say. And suppose this friend of yours, for instance,
had studied up on Beemans on his own and managed to learn it; would
he be as expert in its use as a competitor who had learned it off the
tapes?”
“Maybe not —” began George.
“Ah,” said the Novian.
“Wait, let me finish. Even if he doesn’t know
something as well, it’s the ability to learn further that’s
important. He may be able to think up things, new things that no tape-Educated
man would. You’ll have a reservoir of original thinkers —
”
“In your studying,” said the Novian, “have you thought
up any new things?”
“No, but I’m just one man and I haven’t studied long
—”
“Yes. — Well, ladies, gentlemen, have we been sufficiently
amused?”
“Wait,” cried George, in sudden panic.“I want to
arrange a personal interview. There are things I can’t explain
over the visiphone. There are details —”
The Novian looked past George. “Ingenescu! I think I have done
you your favor. Now, really, I have a heavy schedule tomorrow. Be well!”
The screen went blank.

George’s hands shot
out toward the screen, as though in a wild impulse to shake life back
into it. He cried out, “He didn’t believe me. He didn’t
believe me.”
Ingenescu said, “No, George. Did you really think he would?”
George scarcely heard him. “But why not? It’s all true.
It’s all so much to his advantage. No risk. I and a few men to
work with — A dozen men training for years would cost less than
one technician. — He was drunk! Drunk! He didn’t understand.”
George looked about breathlessly. “How do I get to him? I’ve
got to. This was wrong. Shouldn’t have used the visiphone. I need
time. Face to face. How do I-”
Ingenescu said, “He won’t see you, George. And if he did,
he wouldn’t believe you.”
“He will, I tell you. When he isn’t drinking. He-”
George turned squarely toward the Historian and his eyes widened. “Why
do you call me George?”
“Isn’t that your name? George Platen?”
“You know me?”
“All about you.”
George was motionless except for the breath pumping his chest wall
up and down.
Ingenescu said, “I want to help you, George. I told you that.
I’ve been studying you and I want to help you.”
George screamed, “I don’t need help. I’m not feeble-minded.
The whole world is, but I’m not.” He whirled and dashed
madly for the door.
He flung it open and two policemen roused themselves suddenly from
their guard duty and seized him.
For all George’s straining, he could feel the hypo-spray at the
fleshy point just under the corner of his jaw, and that was it. The
last thing he remembered was the face of Ingenescu, watching with gentle
concern.
 

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George opened his eyes to
the whiteness of a ceiling. He remembered what had happened. He remembered
it distantly as though it had happened to somebody else. He stared at
the ceiling till the whiteness filled his eyes and washed his brain
clean, leaving room, it seemed, for new thought and new ways of thinking.
He didn’t know how long he lay there so, listening to the drift
of his own thinking.
There was a voice in his ear. “Are you awake?”
And George heard his own moaning for the first time. Had he been moaning?
He tried to turn his head.
The voice said, “Are you in pain, George?”
George whispered, “Funny. I was so anxious to leave Earth. I
didn’t understand.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Back in the — the House.” George managed to turn.
The voice belonged to Omani.
George said, “It’s funny I didn’t understand.”
Omani smiled gently, “Sleep again —”
George slept.
And woke again. His mind was clear.
Omani sat at the bedside reading, but he put down the book as George’s
eyes opened.
George struggled to a sitting position. He said, “Hello.”
“Are you hungry?”
“You bet.” He stared at Omani curiously. “I was followed
when I left, wasn’t I?”
Omani nodded. “You were under observation at all times. We were
going to maneuver you to Antonelli and let you discharge your aggressions.
We felt that to be the way you could make progress. Your emotions were
clogging your advance.”
George said, with a trace of embarrassment, “I was all wrong
about him.”
“It doesn’t matter now. When you stopped to stare at the
Metallurgy notice board at the airport, one of our agents reported back
the list of names. You and I had talked about your past sufficiently
so that I caught the significance of Trevelyan’s name there. You
asked for directions to the Olympics; there was the possibility that
this might result in the kind of crisis we were hoping for; we sent
Ladislas Ingenescu to the hall to meet you and take over.”
“He’s an important man in the government, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is.”
“And you had him take over. It makes me sound important.”
“You are important, George.”
A thick stew had arrived, steaming, fragrant. George grinned wolfishly
and pushed his sheets back to free his arms. Omani helped arrange the
bed-table. For a while, George ate silently.
Then George said, “I woke up here once before just for a short
time.”
Omani said, “I know. I was here.”
“Yes, I remember. You know, everything was changed. It was as
though I was too tired to feel emotion. I wasn’t angry any more.
I could just think. It was as though I had been drugged to wipe out
emotion.”
“You weren’t,” said Omani. “Just sedation.
You had rested.”
“Well, anyway, it was all clear to me, as though I had known
it all the time but wouldn’t listen to myself. I thought: What
was it I had wanted Novia to let me do? I had wanted to go to Novia
and take a batch of un-Educated youngsters and teach them out of books.
I had wanted to establish a House for the Feeble-rninded — like
here — and Earth already has them — many of them.”
Omani’s white teeth gleamed as he smiled. “The Institute
of Higher Studies is the correct name for places like this.”
“Now I see it,” said George, “so easily I am amazed
at my blindness before. After all, who invents the new instrument models
that require new-model technicians? Who invented the Beeman spectrographs,
for instance? A man called Beeman, I suppose, but he couldn’t
have been tape-Educated or how could he have made the advance?”
“Exactly.”
“Or who makes Educational tapes? Special tape-making technicians?
Then who makes the tapes to train them? More advanced technicians?
Then who makes the tapes — You see what I mean. Somewhere there
has to be an end. Somewhere there must be men and women with capacity
for original thought.”
“Yes, George.”
George leaned back, stared over Omani’s head, and for a moment
there was the return of something like restlessness to his eyes.
“Why wasn’t I told all this at the beginning?”
“Oh, if we could,” said Omani, “the trouble it would
save us. We can analyze a mind, George, and say this one will make an
adequate architect and that one a good woodworker. We know of no way
of detecting the capacity for original, creative thought? It is too
subtle a thing. We have some rule-of-thumb methods that mark out individuals
who may possibly or potentially have such a talent.
“On Reading Day, such individuals are reported. You were, for
instance. Roughly speaking, the number so reported comes to one in ten
thousand. By the time Education Day arrives, these individuals are checked
again, and nine out of ten of them turn out to have been false alarms.
Those who remain are sent to places like this.”
George said, “Well, what’s wrong with telling people that
one out of — of a hundred thousand will end at places like these?
Then it won’t be such a shock to those who do.”
“And those who don’t? The ninety-nine thousand nine hundred
and ninety-nine that don’t? We can’t have all those people
considering themselves failures. They aim at the professions and one
way or another they all make it. Everyone can place after his or her
name: Registered something-or-other. In one fashion or another every
individual has his or her place in society and this is necessary.”
“But we?” said George. “The one in one hundred thousand exception?”
“You can’t be told. That’s exactly it. It’s
the final test. Even after we’ve thinned out the possibilities
on Education Day, nine out of ten of those who come here are not quite
the material of creative genius, and there’s no way we can distinguish
those nine from the tenth that we want by any form of machinery. The
tenth one must tell us himself.”
“How?”
“We bring you here to a House for the Feeble-minded and the man
who won’t accept that is the man we want. It’s a method
that can be cruel but it works. It won’t do to say to a man, ‘You
can create. Do so.’ It is much safer to wait for a man to say,
‘I can create, and I will do so whether you wish it or not.’
There are ten thousand men like you, George, who support the advancing
technology of fifteen hundred worlds. We can’t allow ourselves
to miss one recruit to that number or waste our efforts on one member
who doesn’t measure up.”
George pushed his empty plate out of the way and lifted a cup of coffee
to his lips.
“What about the people here who don’t — measure up?”
“They are taped eventually and become our Social Scientists.
Ingenescu is one. I am a Registered Psychologist. We are second echelon,
so to speak.”
George finished his coffee. He said, “I still wonder about one
thing?”
“What is that?”
George threw aside the sheet and stood up. “Why do they call
them Olympics?”

Other sci-fi short stories at abelard.org:

And Then There Were
None by Eric Frank Russell
Curious Republic
of Gondour by Mark Twain
from Starship
Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Kantsaywhere by Francis Galton
from In
the Wet by Neville Shute

End Notes

Although it may not have been
Asimov's intention, I have included this story as a warning of the weakness
of Western education. For a better understanding of my context you may
wish to examine my documents, why Aristotelian logic does not work and a
citizenship curriculum.

See The
Turing test and Intelligence for a list of robot books by
Isaac Asimov.

Another science-fiction story available on this
site is And then there
were none by Eric Frank Russell. A short selection of socio-psychologically
oriented science-fiction is included in recommended reading.

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org
© abelard, 4 december, 2000

all rights reserved

the address for this document is https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
20,420 words
prints as 46 A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)

Okay, here’s a detailed summary of Isaac Asimov’s “Profession,” aiming for around 1350 words, incorporating the elements you requested.

**Profession**

Isaac Asimov’s “Profession” presents a subtly unsettling exploration of education, control, and the potential for manipulation within a seemingly utopian future. The story, ostensibly a science fiction narrative, serves as a thinly veiled commentary on the dangers of standardized thought and the suppression of individual brilliance.

The narrative centers around George Platen, a young man abruptly removed from his life and deposited in a bafflingly controlled environment – The House, a facility dedicated to producing skilled workers for a vast, interstellar empire. The narrative unfolds from George’s perspective, revealing a sense of disorientation and quiet rebellion.

The House operates according to a rigid system. Individuals are categorized and trained for specific roles. George is deemed “unsuitable” for most of these roles, a categorization that’s attributed to a mysterious absence in his mind. He is, as one character puts it, his “mind full of holes.”

Asimov introduces a cast of characters, each embodying a different aspect of the system. There’s Omani, a calm, methodical figure, who serves as George’s guide. He represents the institutional presence, the control, the attempt to shape George’s mind through pre-determined lessons and routines. There's also Ingenescu, a sharp-eyed, analytical historian, who embodies a more questioning approach – a subtle resistance to the rigid structure.

The core tension of the story revolves around George’s struggle to assert his own intelligence and creativity. George actively resists the prescribed methods, seeking knowledge through unorthodox means—experimentation, independent thought, and a relentless questioning of authority. He feels trapped, not merely by the physical confines of The House, but by the constraints placed upon his intellect.

Throughout the story, the reader is presented with a disconcerting portrait of a society that has abandoned spontaneity and individuality in the name of efficiency. The relentless emphasis on standardized training, the constant monitoring, and the apparent desire to mold every individual into a perfectly functioning cog in the machine, evoke a sense of unease and oppression.

The arrival and influence of the Novian, a figure of almost-mythical status, adds another layer to the narrative. This Novian, seemingly an uncontainable source of intelligence and wisdom, serves as both a model and a threat. The Novian represents the ultimate attainment of the “ideal” intellect – the very thing that makes George feel inadequate.

Asimov subtly criticizes the tendency to equate intelligence with conformity. The system's administrators are so convinced of their “superior” methods that they actively suppress George's attempts to think differently. The fact that he is initially labeled as “unsuitable” for any role is a clear indictment of a system that values conformity over genuine potential.

Ultimately, “Profession,” utilizes its science fiction setting to explore deeper themes about the nature of education, the importance of individual thought, and the dangers of unchecked authority. The story’s ambiguous ending reinforces the sense that George’s struggle is not merely about a specific job. It’s about defining his own existence as a thinking, independent human being within an increasingly controlled environment.

The story provides also a commentary on the nature of information itself. It’s not enough to simply accumulate knowledge; one must be able to interpret that knowledge, to synthesize it, and to apply it creatively. The emphasis on rote learning and standardized procedures in The House illustrates a failure to recognize the importance of critical thinking and innovation.

Asimov skillfully employs suspense in the narrative. The reader is kept guessing about George’s fate, about the true nature of The House, and about the motivations of its administrators. The ambiguity surrounding the Novian’s methods and intentions adds to the story’s sense of unease.

“Profession” serves, in the end, as a cautionary tale—a reminder of the importance of preserving intellectual freedom, encouraging critical thinking, and resisting the temptation to impose uniformity on the human mind. Asimov’s masterful use of suspense, combined with his insightful commentary, ensures that “Profession” remains a compelling and thought-provoking read.

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