"Help me," a frail old woman said, pushing a battered and torn payment book across the counter with a scaly and shaking hand. "It is my pension. They will not pay me my money."
"Money due is always paid," Howards said, closing his eyes for an instant — why? — then reaching for the book. He caught sight of the man pushing up to the counter, a man with a tangle of black beard and a hateful expression.
"I know—" Howards began, then stopped. What did he know? Something pressed hard inside his head and tried to burst out.
"I do not know his number," the old woman screamed. "He is dead and his papers, they were all destroyed, you see."
"Do you know what this is? It is a needle gun."
"Not in Room eight-nine-four-four."
"Just one diaper…"
Howards clutched graspingly at his head and did not know if he was screaming or if he was hearing someone else scream.
Welcome blackness engulfed him.
"Now just sip this and you will find yourself feeling fine in a few moments."
Howards took the cup that the Examiner held out to him and was surprised to discover that he needed both hands to hold it. He noticed that the backs of his hands were beaded with sweat. As he sipped he felt the helmet lifting from his head and when he looked up he had a swift glimpse of it just before it vanished through a recess in the ceiling.
"The examination — aren't you going to proceed?"
The Examiner chuckled and steepled his heavy fingers on the desk before him. "A not uncommon reaction," he said. "The examination is complete."
"I have no memory. It seemed as though the helmet came down, then went up again. Though my hands are covered with sweat." He looked at them, then shivered with realization. "Then the examination is over. And I—"
"You must have patience," the Examiner told him with ponderous dignity. "The results must be analyzed, compared, a report drawn up. Even electronically this takes time. You should not complain."
"Oh, I am not complaining, Examiner," Howards said quickly, lowering his eyes. "I am grateful."
"You should be. Just think of the way all of this used to be. Hours of oral and written examinations, with the best marks going to the crammers. You can't cram for a simulator examination."
"I do know that, Examiner."
"Just a few moments of unconsciousness and the machine mentally puts you through your paces, puts you into situations and judges how you respond to them. Real situations that a postal clerk would face during the normal course of his duties."
"Normal duties, of course," Howards said, frowning at his hands, then.wiping them quickly against his side.
The Examiner stared at the figures that raced across the screen on his desk. "Not as good as I expected, Howards," he said sternly. "You'll not be a postal clerk this year."
"But — I was so sure — the twelfth time."
"There is more to clerking than just knowing the Book. Go away. Study. Apply yourself. Your grade this time is high enough so that your student's status will continue for another year. Work harder. Very few students are carried past their fifteenth year."
Howards stood, helplessly, and turned before he left. "My wife asked me to ask you. . we're not getting younger. . planning permission for a child…"
"Out of the question. There is the population problem for one thing, and your status for another. If you were a clerk the application might be considered."
"But there are so few clerks," Howards said weakly.
"There are so few positions. Be happy you are a registered student with rations and quarters. Do you know what it is like to be an Under-unemployed?"
"Thank you, sir. Goodbye, sir. You have been most kind."
Howards closed the door quickly behind him — why did he keep thinking there was blood on his hands? He shook his head to clear it.
It would be hard to tell Dora. She had hoped so.
But at least he still had his Book. And a whole year to memorize it again. That would be good. And there would be inserts and additions, that was always good.
He walked by the post office in the lobby of the building with,his eyes averted.
"What is space like? How do the naked stars really look? Those are hard questions to answer." Captain Jonathan Bork looked around at the eager, intent faces waiting for his words, then dropped his eyes to his space-tanned hands on the table before him.
"Sometimes it's like falling into a million-mile pit, other times you feel like a fly in the spiderweb of eternity, naked under the stars. And the stars are so different — no flickering, you know, just the tiniest spots of solid light."
Even as he told them he cursed himself a thousand times for the liar he was. Captain Bork, spaceship pilot. The single man privileged to see the stars in the space between worlds. And after five round trips to Mars, he had no idea of what it was really like out there. His body piloted the ship, but Jonathan Bork had never seen the inside of a ship's control room.
