Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- SAM to Central Records for any new ma- terial on the Brady case. An automa- ton received it, compared the codes, and saw that fresh information had been added. The message flashed back, together with the dossier on Sam Hall and two others—for the reconstruc- tion could not be absolutely accurate. | The other two men were safe enough, as it turned out. Both had alibis. The squad that stormed into the Triton Hotel and demanded Sam Hall were met with blank stares. No such person was registered. No one of that description was known here. A thorough quizzing corroborated this. So—Sam Hall had managed to fake an address. He could have done that easily enough by punching the buttons on the hotel register when no one was looking. Sam Hall could be anywhere! Andy Nikolsky, having been hyp- noed and found harmless, was re- leased. The fine for possessing sub- versive literature would put him in debt for the next few years, he had no influential friends to get it suspended, but he’d stay out of trouble if he watched his step. Security sent out an alarm for Sam Hall. Thornberg derived a_ sardonic amusement from watching the pro- gress of the hunt as it came to Matilda. No one with that ID card had bought tickets on any public transportation. That proved nothing. Of the hundreds who vanished every year, some at least must have been murdered for their ID cards, the bedies disposed of. Matilda was set to give the alarm when the ID of a disappeared person showed up somewhere. Thornberg, faked a few such reports, just to give the police something to do. He slept more poorly each night, and his work suffered. Once he met Martha Obrenowicz on the street— passed hastily by without greeting HALL 11 her—and couldn’t sleep at all, even with maximum permissible drugging. The new ID system was completed. Machines sent notices to every Citi- zen, With orders to have their num- bers tattooed on the right shoulder blade within six weeks. As each tattoo center reported that such-and-such a person had had the job done, Matilda’s robots changed the record appropri- ately. Sam Hall, AX-428-399-075, did not report for his tattoo. Thorn- berg chuckled at the AX symbol. Then the telecasts flashed a story that made the nation sit up and listen. Bandits had held up the First Na- tional Bank in Americatown, Idaho— formerly Moscow—making off with a good five billion dollars in assorted bills. From their discipline and equip- ment it was assumed that they were rebel agents, possibly landing in a spaceship from their unknown inter- planetary base, and that the raid was intended to help finance their nefarious activities. Security was co-operating with the armed forces to track down the evildoers, and arrests were expected hourly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Thornberg went to Matilda for a complete account. It had been a bold job. The robbers had apparently worn plastic face-masks, and light body armor under ordinary clothes. In the scuffle of the getaway, one man’s mask had slipped aside—only for a moment—but a clerk who happened to see it had, with the aid of hypnosis, given a fairly good description. A brown-haired, heavy-set fellow, Ro- man nose, thin lips, toothbrush mustache. Thornberg hesitated. A joke was a joke; and helping poor Nikolsky was, perhaps, morally defensible, but aid- ing and abetting a felony which was, in all likelihood, an act of treason— He grinned at himself, without much humor. Swiftly he changed the connie oolks. conn