the line of people continued to move steadily toward the customs booth. hunter stopped at last in front of a counter where a male clerk, wearing on his tunic the identification disc of his u.f.w. union local, typed out the customs forms, took hunter's thumbprint, and carefully checked his medical certificate.
"you had your last boosters in the mars station, is that correct?"
"yes, last january," hunter replied.
"that gives you an eight months' clearance." the clerk smiled. "plenty of time for a spaceman's furlough."
"i'm making a permanent separation," hunter affirmed.
the clerk glanced at him sharply. "then i'd better issue a temporary health card." he ran a red-tinted, celluloid rectangle through a stamping machine and hunter pressed his thumbprint upon the signature square. "can you give me your home address, captain?"
"i'll be staying at the roost for a day or so. after that i'm getting married."
"i'll assign your health file to the los angeles clinic then," the clerk said. "you can apply for an official reassignment later, if necessary."
he made a photo-copy of the health card, pushed it into a pneumatic tube and handed the original to hunter. then he rolled the customs form back into the typewriter.
"since you're quitting the service, captain, i'll have to have additional information for the municipal file. do you have union affiliation?"
"no. spacemen aren't required to join the u.f.w."
"if you want to give me a part payment on the initiation fee, i'll be glad to issue—"
"it'll be a long, hard winter before eric young gets any of my credits," hunter said, his eyes narrowing. considering how hunter felt about the union of free workers and the labor czar, eric young, he thought he had phrased his answer with remarkable restraint.
"anti-labor," the clerk said, and typed the designation on the form.
"no," hunter snapped, "and i won't be labeled that. as far as the individual goes, i believe he has every right to organize. no one can stand up against the cartels in any other way. but this exploitation by young—"
"you either join the u.f.w., or you're against us." the clerk shrugged disinterestedly. "it's all one and the same thing to me, captain. however, if you expect a job in the city, you'll have to get it through the union." he typed again on the customs form. "according to a new regulation, i'm obliged to classify you as unemployed, and that restricts you to limited areas of los angeles as well as—"
"when the hell did they put over a law like that?"
"two weeks ago, sir. it gives the clinics a closer control over the potentially maladjusted, and it should help ease the pressure—"
"there are no exceptions?"
"the executive classifications, naturally—professionals, and spacemen. that would have included you, captain hunter, but you say you've left the service."
hunter gritted his teeth. it had been like this for as long as he could remember. whenever he returned from a long flight there was always a new form of regimentation to adjust to. and always for the same reason—to stop the steadily rising incidence of psychotic maladjustment.
"how does the law define an executive?" hunter asked.
"job bracket with one of the cartels," the clerk replied. "or the total credits held on deposit with a recognized fund."
the captain flung his savings book on the counter. the clerk glanced at the balance and x'ed out the last word he had typed on the customs form.
"you qualify, sir—with a thousand credits to spare. i'll give you a city-wide clearance as an executive. but i can only make it temporary. you'll have to check once each week with the u.f.w. office. if your balance drops below ninety-five thousand, you'll be reclassified."
the clerk ran another celluloid card—this time it was blue—through the stamping machine and passed it across to hunter. captain hunter picked up his bag and entered the customs booth, which by that time was empty. the probe lights glowed from the walls and ceiling, efficiently x-raying his bag and his clothing for any prohibited imports. within seconds the alarm bell clanged and the metal doors banged shut, imprisoning hunter in the booth.
now what? he asked himself. what regulation had he violated this time? in his mind he inventoried the contents of his bag. it contained only a handful of personal belongings, and the tools of trade which he had needed as a captain of a fighting ship. everything was legitimate and above-board. hunter hadn't even brought ann a souvenir from the frontier.
after a time, the booth door swung open. a senior inspector, carrying a blaster, crowded into the cubicle.
"open your bag!" the inspector commanded, motioning with his weapon.
hunter saw that the blaster dial was set to fire the death charge, not the weaker dispersal charge which produced only an hour's paralysis.
hunter thumbed the photocell lock. it responded to the individual pattern of his thumbprint, and the bag fell open. the inspector picked up the worn blaster which lay under hunter's shipboard uniform.
"smuggling firearms, captain, is a violation of the city code. the fine is—"
"smuggling?" hunter exploded. "that blaster was registered to me nine years ago." he snapped open his wallet.
the inspector frowned over the registration form, biting indecisively at his lower lip.
"that was issued before my time," he alibied. "i'll have to check the regulations. it may take a while."
he left the booth. he was gone for a quarter of an hour. when he returned, both metal doors snapped open. "your permit is valid, captain hunter," the inspector admitted. "unrestricted registrations like yours have not been issued for the past five years. that's why the probe was not adjusted to the special conditions which apply in your case. your permit is revocable if you are committed for maladjustment."
hunter grinned. "i wouldn't count on that. my adjustment index is zero-zero."
"a paragon, captain." the voice was dry and biting. "but you may find conditions on the earth a little trying. you haven't had a chance to get really well-acquainted with your own world since you were a kid of sixteen."
hunter's customs clearance had taken more than an hour. before he left the municipal building, he made a quick tour of the lobby, searching again for ann saymer. satisfied that she had not come, he put in a call from a public tele-booth to ann's apartment residence. after a moment, mrs. ames' face came into sharp focus on the screen, the light coalescing about her hair.
a warm, motherly widow of nearly eighty, mrs. ames had been the residence's owner for a decade, and had taken a great deal of vicarious pleasure in ann's romance with the captain. "it's so different," she said once to hunter, "your faith in each other, the way you work together for a goal you both want. if the rest of us could only learn to have some honest affection for each other. but, there, i'm an old woman, living too much in the past."
as soon as hunter saw her face on the screen, he knew that something was wrong. she was tense and nervous, tied in the emotional knots of an anxiety neurosis. and mrs. ames was not the woman to fall easy victim to mental illness. if hunter had been guessing the odds, he would have put her adjustment index on a par with his own.
"i haven't seen ann for a month," she told him.
"where is she? my last micropic from her said something about a commission-job—"
"she's all right, max. did you join the u.f.w.?"
"i'll be damned if i will."
why had she asked him that? her question seemed totally unrelated to her reassurance as to ann—another clear symptom of her emotional unbalance.
"about ann, mrs. ames," he persisted. "do you know what clinic gave her the commission?"
mrs. ames stared at him in surprise. "ann didn't tell you in her micropic?"
"we use a personal code," he explained. "that makes a certain type of communication extremely difficult."
"i didn't see her, max. after she took the commission some men came for her things. they brought me a note from ann, but it didn't tell me where she was. it just authorized the men to move out her belongings."
"is the work outside of los angeles? do you know that much?"
"at first i guessed—" she broke off, biting her lip, and her face twisted in an agony of intense feeling. "no, max, an old woman's guesses won't help. i can't tell you any more about it."
"i'll come out and see you this afternoon, mrs. ames," he promised, "after i check in at the roost. i want to look at that note you had from ann."
