The John Brunner Collection Volume Two by Brunner John

Author:Brunner, John [Brunner, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Not a jail, Clary thought dully. That was a joke, if you liked. It was all very well not to have to worry any more about where the next meal was coming from, where you were going to sleep tonight, but with that much taken out of her pattern of existence, what could she put in its place? She felt empty, and bored, and frustrated.

And as for Kazan, who seemed not to be worried, she was disgusted with him.

Her work was of no particular interest to her. It was simple clerking and maintenance of records. She could already read and write fairly well; she was taught to use a keyboard computer input, to select the appropriate program from the limited range required to administer the small settlement, and to interpret results. Mostly she had to handle dietary and leisure-time programming. The department was also responsible for accommodation, but that was a subject she would rather not think about now.

True enough, she wasn’t deliberately kept away from Kazan. Although the mining area sprawled over large distances, the accommodations were concentrated for convenience together with the canteens, the leisure facilities and such ancillary establishments as the hospital and library. There was not even a need for internal transport in the dwelling area—everywhere was in easy walking distance, and helibuses were only necessary to transport workers to their jobs.

But she was separated from Kazan in another way, and a far more effective one.

They had allotted him to a room in the block where repair and maintenance staff lived, her to a room in the administrative staff’s block. Remembering what the supervisor had said when they arrived, she inquired and found it was permissible to apply for shared accommodation; a lot of the staff formed more or less permanent arrangements together, because they were mostly here on two- or five-year contracts. Provided you showed up in time for the transport to work, she was told, no one would mind.

But her carefully worded application came back vetoed by Snutch.

In charge of records and programming, and therefore of her department, was a middle-aged woman called Lecia. She was well liked by her subordinates, though she was merciless with their shortcomings. Clary demanded of her why the application had been turned down. There was vacant accommodation available, she knew from the department’s charts.

But Lecia merely said that she could not override a decision by Manager Snutch, and gave no further explanation.

According to the results of her examination on Berak, and the brief training course she had been through, Clary should have been a good and reliable worker. Her attention seemed to move somewhere away from her work after that. Lecia tried half a dozen times to shake her out of her apathy, but after a month she decided something was going to have to be done about the root problem.

This was not the separation which divided Clary from Kazan, though. It was worse than physical. It was as though since coming to Vashti Kazan had become another

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