Nine by Laumer by Keith Laumer

Author:Keith Laumer [Laumer, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2020-12-30T06:00:00+00:00

The clerk frowned, pulling down the corners of his mouth into well-worn grooves.

“I don’t mean on your part, of course,” Mart said hastily. “But I imagine that the data processing equipment occasionally drops a decimal, eh?” He smiled understandingly.

“Well, we do get maybe one or two a year—but there’s no harm done. On the next run-through, the card’s automatically kicked out.”

“So you don’t … ah … make corrections?”

“Well, only when a Change Entry comes through.”

The clerk twirled knobs; the card moved aside, up; a single dot swelled on the screen, resolved into a pattern of dots.

“Say it was on this item; I’d just wipe that code, and overprint the change. Only takes a second, and—”

“Suppose, for example, you wanted this record corrected to show graduation from a Tech Institute?”

“Well, that would be this symbol here; eighth row, fourth entry. The code for technical specialty would be in the 900 series. You punch it in here.” He indicated rows of colored buttons. “Then the file’s automatically transferred to the V bank.”

“Well, this has been a fascinating tour,” Mart said. “I’ll make it a point to enter an appropriate commendation in the files.”

The sad-faced man smiled wanly. “Well, I try to do my job . . ”

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll just stroll around and watch for a few minutes before I rush along to my conference.”

“Well, nobody’s supposed to be back here in the stacks except—”

“That’s quite all right. I’d prefer to look it over alone.” He turned his back on the clerk and strolled off. A glance back at the end of the stack showed the clerk settling into his chair, shaking his head.

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