The Ladder in the Sky by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Brunner
him.
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“Literacy, sir,” the sergeant answered. “He passed the physical—here’s the assessment: slight traces of deficiency diseases, but nothing serious, and a patch on the lung which can be cured with a day’s chemotherapy. Passed the nonverbal section of the intelligence test and checked out at just under the limit. Passed the manual skills tests, the reflex tests and the speed-of-learning tests all within the permitted margins. The tester says he’d show up even better if he’d been fed first. But he can’t even write his own name.”
“Give me the speed-of-learning results,” the lieutenant said. Waiting for them to be handed up, he took another look at the subject. Dirty, of course; his hair probably wasn’t that tarnished color when it was clean, if it ever had been clean. But well set up. On the other hand, he must be past his teens. It was hard to judge his age, because of the prematurely ancient dullness in his eyes. Provided he wasn’t word-blind, though, he sounded like a good prospect for training.
He riffled through the pages of the speed-of-learning test. There was one test used for illiterates which involved the recognition of quasi-letter shapes. If he’d checked out well on that one—yes, here it was, and he had—then he was acceptable.
“Yes, check him through,” he told the sergeant. “Thumbprint his contract on the signature block, and that’ll do.”
Kazan, not caring in the least what happened to him because he ought by rights to be dead and could not find in himself the desire to live, mechanically obeyed the orders given to him. He had come here in the first place because that was where most of the people from the Dyasthala happened to be going; they had heard of a chance to leave the planet, and because the Dyasthala was a heap of smoking ruins and they had to sleep on the streets they were assembling at the spaceport. He had gone through the tests because they were put to him and he was given orders. His existence was not up to Kazan any longer. Kazan was dead.
This was a body operated in his name. Nothing else could account for the fact that he was still—apparently—alive.
The machinelike efficiency with which the applicants were processed suited his frame of mind, moreover. It was good to be organized, directed, measured, weighed, tested, moved from here to there by someone else’s decision. He had not had to wonder what to do for several hours, since he joined the line waiting to be examined.
Half a dozen other acceptees were sent out with him to the ship. The processing continued: bathing and delousing; medication; physical measurements; a meal, taken standing in a large cargo hold where every footstep or word spoken above a whisper brought booming metallic echoes; the issue of a kit in exchange for the rags he was wearing, which had once been splendid but which were crusted with mud and blood.
Finally he was being led by a uniformed sergeant down a long corridor into the bowels of the ship. The sergeant had a list in his hand; one by one he allotted members of the group which included Kazan to certain doors off the corridor. Each time a door was opened Kazan had a glimpse of racked bunks beyond, separated head from foot by lockers and side from side by narrow walkways. Each room seemed to have about a dozen bunks.
He was the last to be ordered through a door. The sergeant opened it for him and closed it behind him when he had sidled through with his new kit. Suddenly at a loss because he had no longer any guidance, Kazan looked around him dully. There were four or five others already here—women as well as men—and one of the men was rising slowly to his feet from the bunk on which he had been sitting.
It seemed to Kazan that he remembered this man out of a distant past. Out of a previous life, perhaps. He did not remember the look of sick terror which was now distorting the man’s features.
“Kazan!” the man
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“Literacy, sir,” the sergeant answered. “He passed the physical—here’s the assessment: slight traces of deficiency diseases, but nothing serious, and a patch on the lung which can be cured with a day’s chemotherapy. Passed the nonverbal section of the intelligence test and checked out at just under the limit. Passed the manual skills tests, the reflex tests and the speed-of-learning tests all within the permitted margins. The tester says he’d show up even better if he’d been fed first. But he can’t even write his own name.”
“Give me the speed-of-learning results,” the lieutenant said. Waiting for them to be handed up, he took another look at the subject. Dirty, of course; his hair probably wasn’t that tarnished color when it was clean, if it ever had been clean. But well set up. On the other hand, he must be past his teens. It was hard to judge his age, because of the prematurely ancient dullness in his eyes. Provided he wasn’t word-blind, though, he sounded like a good prospect for training.
He riffled through the pages of the speed-of-learning test. There was one test used for illiterates which involved the recognition of quasi-letter shapes. If he’d checked out well on that one—yes, here it was, and he had—then he was acceptable.
“Yes, check him through,” he told the sergeant. “Thumbprint his contract on the signature block, and that’ll do.”
Kazan, not caring in the least what happened to him because he ought by rights to be dead and could not find in himself the desire to live, mechanically obeyed the orders given to him. He had come here in the first place because that was where most of the people from the Dyasthala happened to be going; they had heard of a chance to leave the planet, and because the Dyasthala was a heap of smoking ruins and they had to sleep on the streets they were assembling at the spaceport. He had gone through the tests because they were put to him and he was given orders. His existence was not up to Kazan any longer. Kazan was dead.
This was a body operated in his name. Nothing else could account for the fact that he was still—apparently—alive.
The machinelike efficiency with which the applicants were processed suited his frame of mind, moreover. It was good to be organized, directed, measured, weighed, tested, moved from here to there by someone else’s decision. He had not had to wonder what to do for several hours, since he joined the line waiting to be examined.
Half a dozen other acceptees were sent out with him to the ship. The processing continued: bathing and delousing; medication; physical measurements; a meal, taken standing in a large cargo hold where every footstep or word spoken above a whisper brought booming metallic echoes; the issue of a kit in exchange for the rags he was wearing, which had once been splendid but which were crusted with mud and blood.
Finally he was being led by a uniformed sergeant down a long corridor into the bowels of the ship. The sergeant had a list in his hand; one by one he allotted members of the group which included Kazan to certain doors off the corridor. Each time a door was opened Kazan had a glimpse of racked bunks beyond, separated head from foot by lockers and side from side by narrow walkways. Each room seemed to have about a dozen bunks.
He was the last to be ordered through a door. The sergeant opened it for him and closed it behind him when he had sidled through with his new kit. Suddenly at a loss because he had no longer any guidance, Kazan looked around him dully. There were four or five others already here—women as well as men—and one of the men was rising slowly to his feet from the bunk on which he had been sitting.
It seemed to Kazan that he remembered this man out of a distant past. Out of a previous life, perhaps. He did not remember the look of sick terror which was now distorting the man’s features.
“Kazan!” the man