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 gutterality 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 came 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, Trev. 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 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 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 tight, 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?"