Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

THE again. Maybe you could get the things you need from him during your regular interrogation.” The Intelligence man _ looked shocked. “You mean—?” The psychometrist nodded. “‘Look that way. We’ve got a red tag on him now. I think itll be black tomor- row.” Otto finished his lunch, stacking the carefully cleaned dishes neatly on the tray and setting the tray on the floor by the door, squared precisely. He lit one of the cigarettes that had been brought with the meal and sat com- fortably on the bunk smoking. Things seemed to be working out quite well. Ordinarily, he would not have liked it at all. Specific attention of any kind, even favorable, violated his deepest instincts as a seasoned Intelligence operative. But in this particular case, the whole success of his mission depended on his not being set to digging ditches with the mass of illiterate refugees. Months of prepa- ration and training had gone to aim him directly for a specific point in the organizational structure of the United Nations war effort. His whole cover background, down to the minutiae of notes and letters published in tech- nical journals ten years old, had been selected to fit him perfectly to the needs of the exact position his superiors wished him to occupy. And the whole painstaking effort would be in vain if he was unable to attract enough attention, in the impersonal ruck of refugees, to insure that the back- ground was checked, that the UN high command realized what a pearl of price they had netted. Otto smiled wryly to himself, think- ing of the various stratagems he had so carefully planned, the hooks he had planted in his interview with the In- telligence officer, his little by-play with the American lieutenant the first TEST 47 day, to hurdle this barrier. So un- necessary. In less than three days the psychological machinery of the gad- get-mad Americans had effortlessly and almost lackadaisically singled him out from hundreds of brainless cattle. One had to admire their system, these Amis, however unimpressive one found them personally. Of course, the danger of such close scrutiny must not be forgotten, the very fact that he was moving so rapidly toward his goal made it doubly wise to remain alert. Undoubtedly, | before he got much further, Intelli- gence would be interested in him again, and this time he would really be put through the wringer. The thought did not frighten him. His cover background was good. It would stand up. That afternoon, the American lieu- tenant returned again with his folder of papers. This time he also had a small briefcase which he placed un- obtrusively by his chair. *“Now,” the lieutenant said, ‘‘I’d like to talk with you about yourself, about your work and your life as a whole. You seem to be a rather un- usual sort of person. If we are going to use your abilities to best advantage we will need to know much more about you.” He fiddled absently with the catch of the brief case. So, Otto thought, a recording ma- chine. How childish. “What, particularly, would you be interested in?” he asked pleasantly. “TY notice,” the lieutenant said, “that your former occupation is shown as a chemical engineer. That must be very interesting work. Did you find it so?” “, . . Typical authoritarian syn- drome,” the captain remarked to the lieutenant, scanning the abstract of the interview. “Well, what do you ga EComichooks.co mm